Washington arbitrarily delays visas to Cuban journalists at the UN

Havana, May 4 (RHC)-- The United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) considered inexplicable the delay by the United States in the delivery of visas to Prensa Latina journalists accredited to the UN.

The president of the UNCA, Valeria Robecco, expressed via email that she is surprised by the "inexplicable delay" in granting visas to the current correspondents, who have been waiting for more than two years without receiving a response.

That Cuban news agency has had an office in the UN for many years, where several correspondents have alternated, and I really hope that the situation will be resolved as soon as possible, said the Italian journalist.

For the past two years, the UNCA has contacted the United States mission to the United Nations (USUN) to inquire about the status of the visas for Ibis Frade and Ernesto Redonet.

The USUN initially stated that both were in "administrative processing" but then stopped responding to emails sent by the UNCA president.

Since December 2019, Prensa Latina correspondents accredited to the UN have been in Havana waiting for their visas. They have already applied twice, since at the end of one year after the application is submitted, the process automatically expires.

The United Nations Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit (MALU) renewed the accreditation of the two Prensa Latina correspondents, despite not having their category I visa for Foreign Media Representatives, one of the requirements requested in this process.

Likewise, both MALU and UNCA expressed their intention to preserve the Prensa Latina office in the UN building.

The UN Secretary General's spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, indicated in September last year, just a few days before the beginning of the high-level segment of the General Assembly, that the Secretariat was aware of the case of the Prensa Latina correspondents.

"I have been in contact with them, and that is an issue, I believe, that is being raised through the Host Country Committee," he said.

In addition, the spokesman said, ¨I think it is important that all journalists covered by the Host Country Agreement be able to be here physically if they can."

On repeated occasions, several UN member states, including Cuba, have denounced that the United States often fails to comply with its obligations as the host country of the multilateral organization.

In this regard, they point out that the North American nation cannot continue to use with impunity this condition to selectively and arbitrarily apply the Headquarters Agreement according to its political agenda.

Only eight days after the transmission of its first dispatch on June 16, 1959, Prensa Latina opened an office in New York, which had such an illustrious pen as that of the Colombian writer and journalist García Márquez, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.

Due to the persecution to which its journalists were subjected, the New York office closed and the Latin American news agency had to remain only at the United Nations headquarters in New York from 1969, limited to providing coverage of the multilateral organization's activities.

Since 2019, Prensa Latina correspondents accredited to the United Nations have been unable to return to their office in New York due to obstacles in delivering their visas.

In a similar situation are the Prensa Latina correspondents in Washington, who when traveling to Cuba on vacation in 2019, did not receive a visa to return.