Does her brain belong to
Castro, too?
Cuba claims state 'patrimony'
to keep physician on island
By Gary Marx, Chicago Tribune
foreign correspondent. Sun-Sentinel,
April 10, 2006.
HAVANA -- Hilda Molina says her brain belongs
to her. Cuban authorities apparently think
otherwise.
Molina, 62, claims a top immigration official
gave her the word in 1997 and again in 2000:
"You can't leave Cuba because your
brain is the patrimony of the state."
Whether Molina's brain is hers may seem
like a personal matter. So does the issue
of whether she can travel to Argentina to
visit her only child, whom she has not seen
in 12 years, and meet, for the first time,
her two grandchildren.
But Molina is no ordinary Cuban grandmother.
Once a leading physician, Communist Party
member and national legislator, the physically
slight but intense woman was a shining star
in Cuban President Fidel Castro's effort
to transform Cuba into a scientific power.
Castro personally backed Molina's effort
to start a neurological rehabilitation institute,
which under her guidance pioneered fetal
tissue transplants and other treatments
for patients with Parkinson's and other
neurological disorders. But she broke with
Castro more than a decade ago and became
a harsh critic of Cuba's tightly controlled
socialist system.
Since then, Cuban officials have refused
to allow her to travel overseas, even to
visit her son, Roberto Quinones, a 42-year-old
neurologist who fled Cuba in 1994 to study
abroad, and grandsons, Roberto Carlos and
Juan Pablo, who are 10 and 4.
"The pain I feel is more than you
can imagine," said Molina, sitting
in the dimly lit apartment she shares with
her infirm 87-year-old mother.
Cuban officials declined to comment for
this story. But Foreign Minister Felipe
Perez Roque told an Argentine newspaper
in 2004 that Molina would not be allowed
to leave Cuba because her dissident activities
are financed by the U.S. government, an
accusation Molina denies.
Spain, Argentina join cause
Molina's high-profile campaign to visit
her loved ones overseas has sparked years
of controversy, criticism from human-rights
groups and tension between Cuba and Argentina
and other nations. As Molina spoke to a
reporter last month, a Spanish Embassy employee
knocked on her front door and handed her
a letter from Spanish Prime Minister Jose
Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
In the letter, which Molina read aloud,
Zapatero said Spain has taken up her case
with Cuban authorities and would continue
insisting that Cuba "authorize a trip
to Argentina to visit your family."
"Ah! That's great," Molina exclaimed.
Yet beyond the personal story, Molina's
case lays bare the collective nature of
Cuba's socialist system, where individual
rights are subsumed.
Castro has often said that while his country
may be cash poor, it is rich in human capital.
Everyone from doctors to engineers to artists
receives free education, along with health
care, subsidized rent and other benefits.
In return, Cubans are expected to repay
society through a lifetime of work for salaries
that rarely top $20 a month. They lose control
over many aspects of their lives, including
the right to travel overseas or relocate
from one part of the country to another
without permission.
Castro supporters argue that limiting overseas
travel also is a way to slow the brain drain
that has hurt many developing countries.
As a compromise, the Cuban leader proposed
that Molina's son and his two children visit
Havana. Castro guaranteed their safety even
though Molina fears her son would be detained
if he came back to the island.
But diplomatic sources say Castro's offer
is unacceptable to Argentina as well as
to experts such as Daniel Wilkinson, a lawyer
for Human Rights Watch, who argues that
Cuba's refusal to allow Molina to visit
Argentina violates international law.
"The idea of people who are educated
by the state having an obligation to contribute
to society is perfectly sensible,"
said Wilkinson, who wrote a report last
fall critical of Cuba's travel restrictions
and President Bush's tightened sanctions
against the island. "But this is an
extreme measure that undermines the right
of people to leave any country including
their own. It is one of the most effective
tools Cuban authorities have for intimidating
people critical of the government."
For her part, Molina said she doesn't have
any government secrets and, besides, her
scientific knowledge belongs to "the
international community, not to the Cuban
government."
She fears Castro is pursuing a vendetta
against her for breaking from Cuban officialdom.
"He has not forgiven me," Molina
said.
Raised in an upper middle-class family
in central Cuba, Molina said she shared
her father's enthusiasm for the revolution
and earned her medical degree in 1975 before
specializing in brain surgery.
In 1989, Molina founded what is now known
as the International Center of Neurological
Restoration in Havana, a prestigious 136-bed
facility designed to provide advanced treatment
to even the poorest Cubans.
Her falling out
Castro spoke at the institute's packed
inauguration, which garnered a front-page
headline in Granma, the Cuban Communist
Party daily, that read, "An Institute
of Enormous Human Importance."
Molina recalls an emotional Castro visiting
the center and meeting with patients. And
Molina frequently traveled overseas to conferences,
where she shared her research with other
top neuroscientists.
But, in 1994, Molina said she clashed with
Cuban officials after they insisted the
institute begin treating paying customers
from overseas.
While authorities saw medical tourism as
a way to make money after the Soviet Union's
collapse devastated the Cuban economy, Molina
believed the practice betrayed the revolution's
precept of treating everyone equally.
"The biggest disgrace is that someone
sick from another country is worth more
here than a sick Cuban," she said.
Molina resigned as the center's director,
abandoned her medical career, gave up her
parliamentary seat and returned a box filled
with medals she said Cuban authorities had
awarded her over the years.
In the ensuing months, Molina said her
telephone line was cut, her mail arrived
opened and government agents followed her.
Animal blood, trash and feces were left
at her doorstep, she said.
"I became psychologically ill,"
she recalled. "I knew that it would
be a long time before I would see my son
and knew that I had lost my profession.
My life had been mutilated."
Yet Molina says she is determined to continue
her campaign to reunite with her family
in Argentina.
"I'm not willing to surrender."
-- gmarx@tribune.com
Copyright © 2006, South
Florida Sun-Sentinel
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