Cuban defectors: why do they call it “political asylum” when they actually mean “more money”?

Published by J.Parra – August 27, 2009A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

Three Cuban basketball players – Georvis Elías Sayus, Grismay Paumier, Taylor García and Geofry Silvestre– decided to defect from the national team while in Grand Canary Island, claiming that “they could not make any progress in Cuba”.“We had made up our mind since we took the plane in our country”, said Sayus, one of the team’s most experienced players.
“We planned everything together with Geofry. We wished to keep doing what we like to do. And we don’t want to have a dispute about political issues, but we could not stand it any longer; in Cuba we were not able to develop our basketball skills”. So to develop their basketball skills they asked for “political asylum”. Surreal, especially as they don’t want to have a “dispute about political issues”.

What’s funny is that some spiteful journalists and anti-Cuban propagandists encourage them, cover their case in their newspapers and don’t even have the decency to disclose the real motives behind their alleged “political asylum”. Small wonder, when the ultimate goal has always been to destroy the Revolution.These individuals ask for “political asylum” just because they want to make more money, and I assume they will get it.
Wishing to be better at what you do is no doubt an absolutely legitimate aspiration; what’s immoral and despicable is to request a “political asylum” never granted to others who are really persecuted in their countries, as in the case of Colombia.Well, I propose that all engineers, architects, athletes, writers, artists, etc. from all over the Third World to show up at the embassies of the rich countries to ask for “political asylum” in order to make progress in their professions.
I also propose to the thousands of men and women who arrive in Spain from the Third World that they should do the same. Do not authenticate your papers. There’s a simpler solution: ask for political asylum so you can make progress.The anti-Cuban propaganda, the blatant counterrevolutionary misinformation, and the journalistic trash written by the most evil-minded reporters of this country will continue to call those who leave Cuba “political refugees”.
I wonder whether they also refer to the Spaniards who live in Cuba as “political refugees” who escaped from capitalism and the Bourbon regime and took refuge in a socialist country.Allow me to state my disrespect, even at the risk of being “politically incorrect”, for those who pretend to be considered as “political refugees” when all they want is more money.http://www.larepublica.es/javierparra/?p=228