ARGENTINA: CFK ANNOUNCES CUBA HAS AUTHORIZED

C O N F I D E N T I A L BUENOS AIRES 000693

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/12/29
TAGS: PREL PHUM CU AR
SUBJECT: ARGENTINA: CFK ANNOUNCES CUBA HAS AUTHORIZED
DISSIDENT HILDA MOLINA TO LEAVE THE ISLAND

REF: A. BUENOS AIRES 0657

B. BUENOS AIRES 0075

C. BUENOS AIRES 0025

D. 08 BUENOS AIRES 0701 AND PREVIOUS

Classified By: Classified by CDA Tom Kelly for reasons 1.4 (b) & (d).


1. (SBU) Argentine media are reporting that President
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (CFK) announced June 12 that
Cuban authorities issued a passport to dissident neurosurgeon
Hilda Molina and are allowing her to leave the island. For
15 years, Molina had been seeking permission to travel to
Argentina to visit her son, Roberto Quinones, who lives in
Argentina with his Argentine wife and children. CFK, who
visited Cuba January 18-21, said the government of Raul
Castro deserved a vote of thanks for the gesture.


2. (SBU) According to some media reports, CFK said Molina was
already at the Argentine EMBASSY in Havana with her Cuban
passport to obtain a visa and make travel arrangements.
Other media reports claimed the Argentine EMBASSY was issuing
Molina an Argentine passport. There is no information yet on
when Molina might travel. In May 2008, Cuban authorities
authorized Molina's 89-year-old mother to travel to Argentina
on short notice.


3. (SBU) Cable news channel C5N interviewed Molina's
daughter-in-law, Veronica Scarpati, who said she had spoken
the previous evening, June 11, with Molina, who had made no
mention of any breakthrough in obtaining permission to
travel. The daughter-in-law said she was informed of this
development by journalists calling for her reaction. She
said her husband, Molina's son, was travelling in southern
Argentina and did not yet know the news.

Comment
--------------


4. (C) If true, the lifting of Cuba's travel ban on Hilda
Molina will remove a long-standing irritant from Argentina's
bilateral agenda with Cuba. The Cuban government's refusal
to allow Hilda Molina to travel to visit her only child and
grandchildren had made her a cause celebre, and opposition
figures routinely criticized the GOA for failing to "free
Hilda." At the end of 2004, then-president Nestor Kirchner
forced out several Argentine diplomats after the Argentine
Embassy in Havana took in Hilda Molina for 24 hours and then,
in an embarrassing reversal, asked her to leave. In 2006,
Kirchner was reportedly nonplussed by Castro's refusal to
acknowledge or answer Kirchner's letter to him requesting an
exit visa for Molina. In January of this year, when CFK
visited Cuba, she was criticized for not meeting with Molina
or publicly making an issue of her virtual imprisonment on
the island. Although it has been a long 15-year wait for
Molina to travel, CFK and FM Jorge Taiana will likely seek to
take credit for the success of their "quiet diplomacy."
KELLY