Cuba eases clamp on domestic migration

Cuba eases clamp on domestic migration
AFP
Wednesday, Nov 23, 2011

HAVANA - Communist Cuba has eased but not ended wildly unpopular
14-year-old restrictions on people moving from the provinces to Havana,
according to a decree published Tuesday.

The only single party regime in the Americas has argued that the rules
were necessary, in the country of 11 million, to limit migration to the
crowded capital of 2.1 million, plagued by severe shortages of water,
housing, transport and jobs.

Former president Fidel Castro signed the domestic migration decree in
1997, setting a list of onerous requirements for people living outside
the capital to meet if they wanted to relocate to Havana.

The restrictions, which amounted effectively to a ban, has been defied
by thousands seeking a better life in Cuba's largest city.

Tuesday's decree, signed by his younger brother President Raul Castro,
says the reasons behind the original decree had not changed.

But it amended the existing rules to include exceptions for spouses,
children, parents, grandparents and grandchildren of those who own
property in Havana, as well as a homeowner's spouse's minor children,
and the handicapped.

Under the 1997 decree, authorities in Havana returned thousands of
people back to their home provinces every year.

Since 2006 Raul Castro's government has ended several unpopular
restrictions. Among other things Cubans are now allowed to rent rooms in
hotels geared to international tourism, sign cell phone contracts, and
buy appliances (a government energy saving measure).

In September, the government authorised Cubans to buy and sell cars, and
this month homes.

Cubans are extremely keen for the government to eliminate its onerous
restrictions on travel abroad.

If Havana makes that move, it could be a stunning wake-up call to the
United States, which as part of held-over Cold War policy, still grants
any Cuban who reaches US soil legal US residency on request. The United
States does not have this policy for nationals of any other country.

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