On
March 7th I returned to Cuba from Miami and they seized seventy pounds
of food from me. I doesn’t matter that I bought the ticket at the travel
agency, sent the money and packages to my Country through “Go Cuba,”
which is rumored to belong to the Cuban government and that currently
offers 100 pounds free of charge. It was a traumatic flight on a
Gulfstream Air Charter, for which we checked in to the terminal in Miami
at 9:00 AM and left for Havana twelve and a half hours later.
Even before the new travel and immigration law went into force in
January last year, for an ordinary Cuba to face the predators at
customs, is not a setback when it comes time leave for abroad. The
problems arise when you come home with the “junk” and other material
needs to relieve some personal and family shortages with some of the
“enemy’s money” in your purse.
The foreigners and Cubans living abroad run into the same luck when
they travel to Cuba. It’s the government of my country that has
converted the capital’s Jose Marti Airport into a stress chamber,
psychological torture and extortion border for many travelers coming to
this country.
I imagine the same happens with the other air terminals around the
country. You have to face the arbitrariness, helplessness and caprice of
a raw crude tyranny, where the law is an exhibitionist who walks naked
through the streets and the airfields, nothing more. A return with the
excitement of a reunion and here they seize our things with enthusiasm.
I returned melancholy about the family I was leaving behind, but
compensation by the reunion with the family I founded almost 32 years
ago: my two sons and my husband anxiously awaiting my return, who had
announced they would be picking me up. I was among the first to get off
the plane and also to collect my bags when they were spit out from the
belly of the plane.
As I was going through the last control they announced the seizure.
The food that my mother and sister, people with low resources living in
Miami, had collected for months, was stolen by the Cuban border
officials with their complex cheating Chinese-style thievery. Is it true
that the authorities make laws so convoluted in order to facilitate the
corruption of their officials, or were they “sent to kill” by the
political police? And if so, why?
What did I do or say that upset them so much that they took reprisals
on my arrival in Cuba? I told them everything humanly possible based on
what I’d been told by General Customs of the Republic in New Vedado,
whom I consulted repeatedly prior to leaving and whose telephone number
is 881-9723.
I replied, but I couldn’t insist too much to avoid their taking
reprisals and making it worse. It seems that the customs laws are one
thing and those at the airport are something else. Even so, they tried
to coerce me into saying I’d brought a router, which is simply
prohibited to Cuban citizens to import.
Before my argument–which showed evidence of computer skills– that it
was a wireless car, they chose to remain silent without consulting a
specialist to confirm my explanation. Or is it, that thought I was meek
and were pressuring me to upset me and get even more advantages? The
other lady they also took things from that night broke into tears at the
announcement of the confiscation. As she was an elderly lady, the
attended to her quickly and gave her special treatment to avoid a
medical emergency. She is living in Miami, and like me, was not allowed
to pay for excess baggage.
However, behind us the people on the same plane went through the door
laughing with their carts piled higher than ours, leaving behind
officials who had attended them with smiling faces.
The sent me off to a corner of the terminal and punished me by making
me stand there for three hours. They ignored that I’d been traveling
since 9:00 AM in the Miami airport. When the airport emptied of
passengers, the chief came with a gentleman with a green sack into which
they threw all my mother’s and sister’s food. Looking at the color of
the bag I could only think that it was a messages. I left there about
one o’clock in the morning.
It wouldn’t surprise me if in a short time they make widespread the
pillaging of the suitcases which weigh a certain amount when the
tourists leave home and weigh “a few kilos more” per capita when they
land at Cuban airports.
In addition to the confiscation, they fined me 1,450 pesos and to
told me that I had a month to claim it. I decided that despite my
indignation, I’m not going to challenge the customs authorities, because
in Cuba there is not a State of Law. Nor will I put myself in the orbit
of the bureaucracy and complicity with the entities in the industry,
because all that happens when you engage with such machinery is that you
wear yourself out. Also because the situation can occur that “winning”
the case sends the wrong message about my commitments and loyalities.
This new setback only reaffirms for me that I’m on the right track
when it comes time to fight and denounce the arbitrariness of a
dictatorship that’s teetering. My appetites are freedom, democracy and
social justice for Cuba, which contrasts with the petty and unjust greed
of those who, like the customs workers, symbolize the “boogeyman,”
stealing the pants off the trapped travelers through questionable and
abusive legal figures. Bon appetit!
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