Returning Exile Asks to Stay in Cuba
Fri Jan 30, 5:06 PM ET
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer

HAVANA - A Cuban dissident who recently returned to the communist island after years in exile asked immigration authorities on Friday to grant him permission to stay.

Eloy Gutierrez-Menoyo fought alongside Fidel Castro in the revolution. He later broke with the regime and served 22 years in prison. Since the 1980s, he has lived in exile, most recently in Miami.

Cuban opposition leader of 'Cambio Cubano' (Cuban Change) Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo speaks to reporters in front of the immigration bureau of Havana, Cuba, Friday Jan. 30, 2004. Gutierrez, a Cuban exile who returned to the island six months ago with the aim of staying permanently, will ask immigration authorities to grant him the legal right to live on the island. (AP Photo/Jose Goitia)

Now 68 and nearly blind, Gutierrez-Menoyo returned to Cuba in August for a family vacation with his wife and three school-age sons. They returned to Miami, but he decided to stay, saying he wanted to open an office for his opposition group, Cambio Cubano.
Six months later though, he still hasn't received permission to live in Cuba permanently, although he says he has met several times with foreign ministry officials.

"Today I stand respectfully before these government offices with the intention of claiming my fundamental right as a Cuban, and that my legal status in the country be recognized once and for all," Gutierrez-Menoyo said in a statement.

"I must make clear that I have come to Cuba to stay," he continued. "There is no doubt about that. I am here to work toward a peaceful solution to open the roads to democracy to all Cubans."

The government, which has not commented on his return, had no immediate response. However, Gutierrez-Menoyo said a lieutenant colonel visited him late Thursday and asked him to be patient.
The Castro government in recent years has had a respectful, but cautious relationship with Gutierrez-Menoyo, who has traveled here occasionally to visit family. He met with Castro himself in 1995.

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