CARACAS, Venezuela, 10 (AP) -- Two Cuban doctors who sought political asylum in Venezuela said Thursday they want their families to join them in the South American nation.
A day earlier Venezuela rejected the doctors' request for political asylum, saying the physicians wanted to emigrate for economic reasons and not because of political persecution. But Venezuela also said it would allow them to remain in Venezuela for a year for unspecified "humanitarian
reasons."
The decision resolved a dilemma for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is close friends with Cuban leader Fidel Castro and often praises Castro's four-decade-old communist revolution.
The doctors, Reinaldo Colebrook, 35, and Heberto Navarro, 38, went to the foreign citizens office on Thursday to pick up the permits that will allow them to stay in the country.
"The biggest dream of my life is to be able to bring my wife and my daughter," Navarro told reporters.
Venezuelan officials had no immediate comment on whether the families also would be allowed to emigrate.
The two doctors arrived in Venezuela in December as part of a team of Cuban doctors who treated victims of landslides that left thousands of people dead along Venezuela's northern Caribbean coast and in Caracas. Most of the doctors have remained -- with the Cuban government's OK -- in order to
provide medical assistance.
If the Chavez administration had granted the doctors political asylum, it would in effect be confirming that there is political repression on the island. But if it had rejected the request and returned the doctors to Cuba, they might have faced harassment or prison since they publicly criticized
the Cuban government overseas.
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press |