Nota: Esta entrada quedará fija, seguiré actualizando el blog debajo, gracias.

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Versión en español publicada en mi columna en Libertad Digital.

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Versión en inglés a continuación:
Paris, May 23, 2012

Mrs. Hillary Clinton
United States Secretary of State
Dear Madam Secretary:

In the mid 1990s, during the Clinton presidency, under the first Castro dictatorship in my homeland, Cuba, the International Book Fair in Miami invited me to be a participant. Although at that time I already lived in exile in Paris, the United States denied me a visa on three different occasions. The organizers of the Book Fair sent a letter to the President, and I personally contacted his office thanks to the assistance of a Cuban American journalist. Finally, my visa was approved, as was my husband’s, the filmmaker Ricardo Vega, and my young daughter’s, a baby. Nonetheless, at the airport, before boarding the airplane, we were searched from top to bottom, in a private room. The police used gloves to touch us and even checked inside my daughter’s diaper. Finally, we were accompanied to the airplane and then, during the entire trip, by a security guard. In Boston, where we had a stopover, we were not allowed to enter the airport, and we had to show President Clinton’s letter to be allowed access. Finally, after many phone calls and consultations, and having missed several flights, we were allowed to travel and arrived at the Book Fair in Miami, where I participated and read my works in a theater before a thousand people, among them citizens from all over the world, Americans, Cuban Americans and Cubans. After the conclusion of my trip, I returned to Paris, where I still reside. I have returned to the United States and to the International Book Fair in Miami numerous times.

I write this extensive preamble although I do not ignore that you already know the visa situation of freedom-loving Cubans and human rights activists who wish to enter the United States from other countries, be it for temporary travel, or to reunite with family members. As has been the case recently with a group of Cuban political prisoners who find themselves exiled in Spain due to the complicity of the former Spanish government and the Castro-Cuban Church, under the governance of Castro II and under your government and that of Barack Obama. I find this an injustice, their exile, and also the situation of many other Cuban pro-democracy activists.

But injustice becomes an affront to Cubans – to those who have done so much for the United States, and who have worked hard to make Florida and every other region where they have lived in the United States, prosperous and peaceful – when your government grants a professional visa to Mariela Castro, the daughter of Castro II, along with 60 accomplices who accompany her, as well as to other officials who have recently traveled to the United States to propose to the Cuban exile community the repurchase of properties confiscated from them throughout the more than 53 years of dictatorship. But of course, the proposal for participation, for repurchase, is offered without any offer to return anything to them, as is to be expected. ¡A great business proposition for the Castro regime, no doubt!

It is embarrassing for the Democrats and for your government that those visas are granted within the context of the joke of the so-called Cultural Exchanges, where some can come, but no artist in exile has yet been allowed to travel to his own homeland. I can in no way support cultural exchanges between a democratically elected government and a dictatorship. Nobody would have considered toppling Hitler, Pinochet, and Videla with cultural exchanges and with the relaxing of embargoes. Embargoes which were very effective against South Africa’s Apartheid and in Burma, without mentioning more current situations, as is the case in Syria.

I write to you, Madam Secretary, because besides being an author, I am a human rights activist for my homeland and throughout the world; and I think you should be on the side of the just. And in no way should you be on the side of the daughter of Castro II, Mariela Castro, nor of her lackeys, who do not represent Cuba or the Cuban people. Just as she will never be able to represent Cuban homosexuals, because that woman only defends pro-Castro homosexuals, those the regime manipulates by blackmailing them due to their sexual orientation. And even that, now, as a masquerade for the outside world, because during five decades and even today, homosexuals are persecuted and continue to be repressed in Cuba, just like the rest of the Cuban people. I imagine you may have read “Before Nightfall” by Reinaldo Arenas, among other works of great Cuban authors, who give testimony to the horrors perpetrated by the Castro regime.

I hope that the above-mentioned visas to those violators of freedom will be withdrawn, in the name of justice, of freedom, and of democracy, and in name of the dignity of the Cuban people, and the American people that you and President Obama represent.
Best regards,

Zoé Valdés,

Cuban author exiled in Paris
Chévalier des Arts et des Lettres
Grande Médaille de Vermeil de la Ville de Paris for her work and defense of human rights throughout the world.

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Nota: Esta carta fue enviada ayer a la Secretaria de Estado, señora Hillary Clinton, a través de varias personas amigas, a las que les agradezco la traducción y el envío. Los cubanos esperamos respuesta.