US dubious of Cuba's intention to repeal travel restrictions

By Julian Pecquet - 10/16/12 05:04 PM ET

Cuba announced Tuesday that it is repealing its widely reviled exit visa in January. The U.S. State Department, however, remains unconvinced that Cubans will finally have the right to leave their country, and ruled out any immediate concessions to encourage further human rights improvements.

“This is certainly a step, but I would advise that even with regard to this step, we await further information,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said during her daily briefing.

“We need to see how it is implemented. For example, we understand that current Cuban passport holders who don’t already have an exit permit are going to be required to revalidate their passports before they’re allowed to travel.”

The new policy was promised by President Raúl Castro last year, The New York Times reports, and published in the Communist Party newspaper Granma on Tuesday. It carves out exemptions for “defense and national security” and to “preserve the human capital created by the Revolution,” however, suggesting dissidents and in-demand professionals such as doctors won't be allowed to leave — in violation of Article 13 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Cuba has signed.

“We would note that the Cuban Government has not lifted the measures it has in place to preserve what it calls the human capital created by the revolution,” Nuland said. “So the question is going to be whether those other requirements are going to continue to restrict the ability of the Cuban people to take advantage of this change.

“The Cuban Government has kept for itself a couple of other checks on the ability of people to leave freely, including this issue of revalidating passports, this issue of claiming that they can preserve the human capital of the revolution in the country. So we just need to all see how it’s implemented.”