(EFE).- Cuban dissident Omara Ruiz Urquiola, who for the third time since arriving in the US with a tourist visa in January 2021 was unable to board a plane to Cuba, called on the US government to be “transparent” about her policy towards the Island in a statement to EFE in Miami.
“Not only do we Cubans know nothing, but neither do the American people,” Ruiz Urquiola said by telephone.
The art historian and former university professor said she had informed an official of the US State Department in advance of her travel plans and said that he told her that her superiors were going to “intercede” for her with the Cuban authorities.
The US Embassy in Havana wrote a tweet about her case, but the activist lamented that her management with the official did not help and this time she was not able to get on the plane either.
The US Embassy in Havana wrote a tweet about her case, but the activist lamented that her dealings with the official did not help and she was not able to get on the plane this time either.
“Today, the regime once again prevented Omara Ruiz Urquiola from returning to Cuba to help her mother, whose house was seriously damaged by Hurricane Ian. We urge the regime to allow all Cuban citizens to freely return to their homeland,” claimed the diplomatic headquarters.
The activist accuses the US government of being an accomplice of the Cuban government and Southwest airlines of following the orders of the regime. However, neither the airlines nor the countries of origin can transport a person who is rejected by the country of destination.
Ruiz Urquiola assured that he urgently needs to travel to Cuba because the family farm in Pinar del Río was “devastated” by Hurricane Ian at the end of September and his 75-year-old mother, who lives there, is alone to take care of everything.
Omara, who is a cancer patient and has received treatment in the US, is the sister of Ariel Ruiz Urquiola, a human rights activist who is in Europe and who has made several protests before the UN office in Geneva and other organizations to denounce the Cuban government.
According to the dissident, in January 2021 she traveled from Cuba to Miami to visit her oncologist and receive an award from the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, based in this city.
It was his fourth trip to the US and, like the previous ones, he did so with a tourism visa that was renewed while in Miami, due to the impossibility of returning to Cuba, and which expires in December.
Ruiz Urquiola was very critical both of the Government of Cuba, for denying him the right to enter his own country, and of the United States, which he accuses of allowing it
Ruiz Urquiola was very critical both of the Cuban government, for denying him the right to enter his own country, and of the United States, which he accuses of allowing it.
“It is very painful to know that the great democracy in the world makes fun of us, leaves us helpless,” he said this Saturday in videos recorded in front of the Southwest counter at Fort Lauderdale International Airport, about 40 kilometers north of Miami, after being turned away as a passenger.
“I don’t have a migration plan, I don’t have the nationality of another country, nor am I an asylum seeker,” the activist told EFE this Sunday to emphasize that her home and family are in Cuba.
Even so, she was “hopeful” that her situation can be resolved, since the United States is “a free country” and she has not violated the laws. “This is arbitrary,” she stressed, after demanding that it be made known if the United States and Cuba are negotiating and what.
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