A Cuban Holiday From Hell

The Globe & Mail (Canada) ^ | 6-27-05 | Marina Jimenez

[ConservativeStLouisGuy]

A Cuban Holiday From Hell

Jailed For Not Having Proper Papers, Woman Finds Herself Without Any Rights

By MARINA JIMÉNEZ

Monday, June 27, 2005

Onelia Ross, a Cuban-Canadian, looked forward to sipping mojitos and swimming in the warm turquoise waters of the Caribbean during a trip back to Cuba with two friends in February.

Instead, she spent five days sitting in a Havana prison cell, choking down watery soup and brown rice, wondering how her beach adventure had turned into every tourist's worst nightmare.

"They held me for five days while they investigated the case and they didn't let me call a lawyer," Ms. Ross said from her Ottawa home. "It was an undignified way to be treated over essentially a bureaucratic mix-up. When you're in Cuba you have no rights whatsoever."

She also said she was manhandled by her jailors and suffered bruising and scrapes. But worst of all was the psychological trauma. "This is what a police state is like."

The Globe and Mail's calls and e-mails to the Cuban embassy in Ottawa were not returned.

But Reynald Doiron, a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs, confirmed that Ms. Ross was held in prison for five days. "We sent a diplomatic note to Cuban authorities requesting they check into the allegation of Ms. Ross being beaten or roughed up and no reply has been received so far," he said.

Ms. Ross's dual citizenship "may be a complicating factor" in receiving a timely response, he said. "However the treatment of a Canadian citizen as reported by her is of concern to Foreign Affairs and deserves a full explanation. We hope they will provide one."

Ms. Ross, a 47-year-old accountant, has never been involved in politics or been critical of Cuba, and left the country 28 years ago when she met and married a Canadian diplomat who was posted in Havana. All Cubans, even those with dual nationality, must enter the country using their Cuban passports, and Ms. Ross had returned twice without incident.

This time, Ms. Ross went to the Cuban embassy in Ottawa and paid $160 to have her passport renewed.

On Feb. 6, 2005, she flew into Holguin in Oriente province with two friends, and was surprised when an immigration official said her Cuban passport didn't have the right entry permit. He said she would have to return immediately to Ottawa.

"He accused me of trying to enter the country illegally. I said no, that there must be a mistake," recalled Ms. Ross. As she argued with the official, the situation devolved into a shouting match at the small airport in Holguin, in the west of Cuba.

That's when two Interior Ministry officials detained her in a room. Her friends had already passed through immigration and were unaware of her predicament.

"The security agents tried to make me agree that I would leave the country. I refused and asked them to fax the Cuban embassy in Ottawa and clear up the problem with the entry permit. Finally, two women came in and started grabbing me."

They detained her for four hours, and then told her they were transporting her to Havana where she would be placed in an immigration detention centre.

On board the plane, Ms. Ross says she bribed a security guard into allowing her to call her family in Havana when she landed.

At the detention centre, she was searched, and her money and belongings locked up. "They didn't let me take a change of clothing or a bar of soap, nothing," she said.

She shared a cell with a Cuban-American who also lacked the proper entry documents, and a Mexican woman engaged to a Cuban. The Mexican woman had been denied entry because officials didn't believe her relationship with her fiancé was genuine.

"The jail was dirty and there was no water. I slept on a metal bed. Written on the walls were the telephone numbers of all the foreign embassies and notes about how much the prisoners had suffered," Ms. Ross said.

After several interviews, Cuban officials finally allowed her to contact the Canadian embassy for consular assistance. Canadian officials visited her in prison and made inquiries on her behalf. After five days she was released and put on a plane to Ottawa. Cuban authorities kept the $500 (U.S.) in cash that Ms. Ross was carrying, saying it covered the cost of feeding her for five days, and flying her from Holguin to Havana.

Mr. Doiron noted that while Cuba has the indisputable right to refuse entry to visitors, Canada is entitled to check up on its citizens who are taken into detention and allegedly mistreated.

Once safely back in Ottawa, Ms. Ross said she asked consular officials at the Cuban embassy what happened, and they told her they didn't give her an entry permit because they assumed she had a special permit that allowed her to reside outside the country. Ms. Ross also said she did not check her passport because she was unaware she needed a special visa.

"It was an honest bureaucratic mix-up that could have been resolved," she said.

Ms. Ross says the experience saddened her as she realized how terrorized Cubans are. "They are so scared of the government and are scared to talk to you. One of the guards apologized for treating us harshly, saying he would lose his job if he didn't." She said she is speaking out now because she wants the half million Canadian tourists who visit the Caribbean island every year to be aware of the country's dark underbelly. "Canadian tourists don't see what is going on in Cuba because they're only taken to the resorts. They don't see the reality," she said.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Well...they do make some pretty good cigars.

[TFine80]

Sounds like a typical liberal...

Loves communism until they see the horror first hand.

[ConservativeStLouisGuy]

Methinks the lady in this article MIGHT want to get a copy of this timely book....

[Brilliant]

Personally I suspect that it's not so much tweaking the US as it is simply that they want to make a profit by doing business in a country where they don't have to compete with American businesses. Same with Europe.

Though they are perfectly willing to let us THINK that money has nothing to do with it, and that they are simply more enlightened than the US.

[ConservativeStLouisGuy]

Aren't you being a little bit picky? I understand that he recently gave every Cuban housewife a free rice cooker for mother's day.

You're right...


Oh Fidel we are not worthy....(gag) ;-)

[ConservativeStLouisGuy]

Though they are perfectly willing to let us THINK that money has nothing to do with it, and that they are simply more enlightened than the US.

"Enlightened" is the key word....there are so many Canadian citizens and politicians walking around up here with their inflated egos that I often wonder how in the world they get their big heads through doorways!

[gridlock]

The level of unintentional humor in this piece are just astounding...

"They held me for five days while they investigated the case and they didn't let me call a lawyer," Ms. Ross said from her Ottawa home. "It was an undignified way to be treated over essentially a bureaucratic mix-up. When you're in Cuba you have no rights whatsoever."

Well, duh! lady! It's FReekin' CUBA!

She also said she was manhandled by her jailors and suffered bruising and scrapes. But worst of all was the psychological trauma. "This is what a police state is like."

Yes. Very, very much like a police state. Almost indistinguishable from a police state, even...

[gridlock]

Sometimes it is not enough to be "Not the United States". What does Canada stand for, except for not being the United States?

[PureTrouble]

For all those vacation people that like to travel to other countries. This article is representative of what not to do.

When you get to the other countries immigration area, do not, I repeat do not get into a shouting match with an official. If they still offer you a way to get back to your country after you finish that nice conversation, take it. Because you will not want to spend your week in a jail.

No sympathy here. She yelled at an official and she had her vacation resort changed to the prison.

[BenLurkin]

"When you're in Cuba you have no rights whatsoever"

Well . . . duh!

[jonascord]

Let me guess:

Chapter 1

You are SO screwed!

The End

[TNCMAXQ]

Sen Durbin is outraged at this situation and will issue a scathing criticism of the Cuban commies....

....In our fantasies.

[Aquinasfan]

I say any "El Presidente" who has to routinely give 4-5 hour speeches to prove how "important" they are is a knife and a spoon short of a full place setting....

It's hard to imagine.

[Americanexpat]

She should have made reservations at Gitmo, its on the same island. She would have gotten better food, rooms are cleaner and room service is great. She can play volleyball with the boys wearing the orange suits.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Except that she would be gang-raped and beheaded.

[MRMEAN]

She shared a cell with a Cuban-American who also lacked the proper entry documents, and a Mexican woman engaged to a Cuban. The Mexican woman had been denied entry because officials didn't believe her relationship with her fiancé was genuine.

Another Mexican trying to sneak into Cuba.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

It's funny how people who are members of the Liberal Party are so eager to placate the most seemingly illiberal creatures, hunh?

[KneelBeforeZod]

"I'm a canadian. your mickey mouse laws do not apply to me"

[Blood of Tyrants]

"They held me for five days while they investigated the case and they didn't let me call a lawyer," Ms. Ross said from her Ottawa home. "It was an undignified way to be treated over essentially a bureaucratic mix-up. When you're in Cuba you have no rights whatsoever."

What is she whining about? Is she now going to claim that she didn't know that Cuba was run by a totalitarian regime?

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

When you're in Cuba you have no rights whatsoever...This is what a police state is like.

In other seemingly counterintuitive recommendations, Ms. Ross warned off prospective tourists hoping to vacation in the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, which she described as being "very disorderly," or the Comoros, which-according to Ms. Ross-has a "very volatile, unstable political situation."

In a future issue of "Inside Asia" she will advise readers of the perils of vacationing in Chechnya and Dagestan, where the hidden dangers of being blown up by an improvised explosive or being beheaded by jihadis is "higher than you would customarily expect in that part of the world."