The Cuban relay team during the 2023 Pan American Games at the National Stadium in Santiago on November 3rd. Ailen Diaz (EFE)
Gabriel Boric’s government announced on Tuesday that the number of Cuban athletes who left their delegation to the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, has increased to eight. Only one of them asked for refuge. The other seven – six ice hockey players and one athlete – who left their team last Saturday and are spread across different parts of the country will determine in the next few hours the path to changing their previously regular immigration status, according to a study by local lawyers . When entering the South American country, the Cuban delegation accompanying the athletes kept their passports. Residence permits for Chile expire next week.
Of the 412 Cuban athletes who traveled to Chile to take part in the Games that ended last Sunday, 21 members remained in the country. “The Cuban delegation entered with a so-called official passport. It’s an extraordinary situation. All other delegations entered with a tourist visa valid for 90 days,” said Manuel Monsalve, Undersecretary of the Interior in Gabriel Boric’s government. The type of passport with which they traveled is granted to Cubans traveling abroad for reasons of interest of certain social, political or governmental organizations.
Of the seven deserted athletes who did not formally request refuge, five’s official passports expire on November 12 and two on November 11. “They could certainly apply for an extension of their stay in Chile through a tourist visa,” Monsalve clarified. Last Sunday, the athletes contacted Mijail Bonito, partner of the company Hurtado y Bonito Abogados, who said this Tuesday on Radio Universo that the participants “are part of an official delegation of a state who come with passports issued by that state, which is also the case “You will be arrested when you enter Chile and will only be returned when you leave.”
Bonito, a former immigration policy adviser to Sebastián Piñera’s conservative government, was contacted by the group precisely because he had provided legal advice to three other Cuban athletes who defected a few months ago and remained in Chile. The lawyer pointed out that the athletes who escaped this weekend had to hide from their guards to begin their escape and that this Tuesday they will determine which route they will take so as not to fall into the irregularity their immigration status. Chile’s refugee law initially provides for a temporary visa for eight months while awaiting the definition of the refugee application.
When the athletes fled the Pan American Village, where the participants were staying during the Games, they decided to split into small groups and travel to three different regions of the country where they had acquaintances (Tarapacá in the north; O’Higgins and Biobío, to the south). Today they returned to Santiago to meet with Bonito on Tuesday and decide whether they will seek refuge on humanitarian grounds or political asylum.
The athletes’ escape became known on Saturday evening Cuban sports journalist Francys Romero He published on his networks that six hockey players from the Cuban delegation had “left,” forcing the highest authorities to address the case. The reporter reported that the athletes in question are Yunia Milanes – the team captain – Jennifer Martínez, Yakira Guillén, Lismary González, Helec Carta and Geidy Morales. The seventh is Yoao Illas, a Cuban athlete, bronze medalist in the 400-meter hurdles in athletics, who also visited the Hurtado y Bonito study for legal advice.
Romero said about 61 Cuban athletes have broken contracts or left their delegations so far this year. One of the most emblematic cases of these Pan American Games was that of Santiago Ford, of Cuban origin, who became a Chilean citizen at the end of last year. The athlete left the island for sporting reasons when he returned to the island after finishing fourth at the 2016 Youth World Championships in Poland and felt that no one appreciated him. In 2018, he boarded a plane to Guyana and from there made a long overland journey to Chile, a country he entered on foot through the desert. At these Games he thanked the South American country with the gold medal in the decathlon.
Lautaro Carmona, president of the Chilean Communist Party, which is part of the Boric government, celebrated the fifth place of the “great power” Cuba in the medal table of the Pan American Games (30 gold, 22 silver and 17 bronze medals). and assured on the case that “there are a number of athletes that I know are less than ten who are not returning and who will have to see their situation in our country and then they will see it in their country. “ “Situations like this have been experienced before and they mean nothing more than a decision made by these athletes (…) What meaning could I give to the arguments that appear in some versions? The conditions under which they live in Cuba. And who creates these conditions if not the economic blockade?” Carmona added on Monday, alluding to the US sanctions.