Roberto Veiga Denounces Pressure to Leave Cuba
The opposition figure was “interviewed” by immigration agents
One month after returning to Cuba, the Cuban intellectual was questioned by two “immigration officers” and reaffirmed his decision to remain on the Island.
HAVANA TIMES – Cuban opposition figure Roberto Veiga Gonzalez denounced on Saturday that he had been pressured by immigration officials to leave the Island after being taken to an “interview” during which, according to his account, they repeatedly urged him to buy a return ticket to Europe and leave the country “as quickly as possible.”
The political analyst, who returned to Cuba in June after years in exile, said he rejected those pressures and reaffirmed his intention to remain in the country permanently.
In a post on his Facebook profile, Veiga said that on the afternoon of July 3, after returning home from participating by videoconference in an event organized in Paris by Casa de America and the French Association for Democracy in Cuba, he was intercepted by two “immigration officers” and taken to an “interview.”
According to his account, during the interrogation the officials repeatedly asked when he planned to buy his return ticket to Europe and advising him to leave the Island as soon as possible. Veiga rejected those pressures and reaffirmed his intention to remain permanently in Cuba: “There will be no return ticket to Europe. I reaffirm that I have returned to Cuba to settle permanently in my country,” he wrote.
Roberto Veiga returned to the Island after nearly seven years in exile. His organization, the Cuba Proxima think tank, reported at the time that Veiga had been detained upon his arrival at Jose Martí International Airport and subjected to questioning by State Security. According to his team, that surveillance has continued ever since.
Veiga, who was one of the central figures behind the magazine Espacio Laical and later the Cuba Posible project, returned to Cuba with the goal of promoting from within a political transition proposal titled The Agreed Opening: A Roadmap for National Reconstruction.
The plan, presented in April by Cuba Próxima, proposes a negotiated transition based on a “multi-actor sovereign dialogue,” with far-reaching institutional reforms, the release of political prisoners, changes to the electoral system, and the restructuring of the military conglomerate GAESA. It also includes proposals directed at the United States, such as lifting economic restrictions and removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The organization maintains that Veiga’s return is part of a commitment to “political action from within” at a time of national crisis. In recent statements to 14ymedio, Veiga defended his decision to return despite the risks: “No matter how much you work from abroad, you’re still a spectator. The work has to be done here inside, because this is where things are going to happen.”
First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.