2023-11-09 19:10:00
“As soon as I stepped foot in Chile, I already knew what I was going to do.“, begins Yunia Milanés, one of the 8 Cuban athletes who decided to leave their country’s delegation one day before the closing ceremony of the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games, in Chile.
“We had a scare. While we were standing outside the Villa, a teacher came out of us, and we had to hide,” she says. Yunia Milanes about his escape to the Chilean news program Teletrece. The escape was carried out in a period of 20 minutes and if it failed they were going to try it at the Santiago Airport.
Yunia Milanés is 28 years old. He has played 15 official games for the Cuban field hockey team. She is one of the team captains. She was part of the delegations for the 2019 Lima Pan American Games, the 2018 and 2023 Central American and Caribbean Games.
Last Saturday she decided with her teammates to leave their suitcases in the room, put some clothes in a backpack, and escape from the Panamericana village to request refuge from the Chilean State. They had mixed feelings, on the one hand anxiety for the new life they were going to face and nostalgia for all the friendships and memories they left behind in Cuba.
Yunia Milanés, in an interview in October.
Last year, more than 187 high-performance athletes who have left the island in recent years. Also joining the 2023 list is hockey player Lázaro Tolón, Milanés’ partner, who coincidentally left the Cuban team after training prior to a match in Chile last May.
The incredible thing was that, when they escaped, Morales, Martínez and Milanés found out that four other companions had led a plan similar to theirs.
This Wednesday five of the seven athletes reached the Department of Refuge and Resettlement of the Department of Service National Immigration Office to request asylum in Chile.
They arrived accompanied by its representative lawyers, José María Hurtado and Mijail Bonito, former immigration advisor to the conservative government of Sebastián Piñera and well-known anti-Castro activist. The athletes contacted the lawyer on Sunday, November 5, advised by the right-wing deputy, Diego Scharlper.
According to the National Migration Service, Between 2018 and 2021, 4,557 Cubans requested refuge and only one was recognized with this condition. During the presidency of Gabriel Boric, 345 people from the Caribbean country requested refuge, none of them were granted. But the situation exceeds Boric: since 2010, only five people of Cuban nationality have been granted refugee status.
Sources: Three Cuban hockey players left the delegation that was in Chile during a preparation period.
Lazaro Tolon (Sancti Spiritus, goalkeeper), Yuri Brown (Havana, defender) and Yordanqui Mendez (Las Tunas).
There are already 15 withdrawals of Cuban athletes in 2023. pic.twitter.com/sZydg5xJNA
— Francys Romero (@francysromeroFR) May 23, 2023
Unlike the athletes from other delegations, the Cubans did not have the VIP card to move around Santiago by subway, they did so in a bus. Therefore, the chances of carrying out the plan they had since they arrived became more complicated. And the only light appeared on Saturday, just before the ceremony.
“I left everything,” Milanés continues her story, sitting next to Geidi Morales and Jennifer Martínez, two other escaped athletes. “We agreed, we finished the game (against Uruguay) and we were thinking of leaving from the field but it was not possible. We ran the bus, we went to the Villa and arriving at the villa, the girls entered through a door and we left through the other”.
According to what they say, the precarious conditions on a personal and sporting level motivated these seven athletes to leave. “We were training without shoes, without implements, without protectors. We had to wait for a donation, and hope that the country would approve it,” Milanés said in an interview with Chilean TV.
Along with Milanés, Jennifer Martínez, one of the great promises of Cuban field hockey, escaped. She was one of the protagonists in winning the Central American field hockey championship in Barranquilla 2018.
At 30 years old he had more than 25 official matches for his country and Helec Carta also left the concentration.
“We were terrified,” the athletes say: “When we were leaving we ran into people from the delegation and one of the teachers, we had to hide.”
The Cuban bronze medalist in the 400 meter hurdles, Yoao Illas, who competed on November 3, in a participation that was widely followed in his country and was just five hundredths behind the Pan American champion, the Jamaican Jaheel Hyde, who scored 49.19, He also seeks to stay in Chile.
The list is closed by athletes Yakira Guillén, 26, Lismary González, 23, and Geidy Morales, 23, who have less notoriety in the Caribbean country.
What the Refugee Protection Law says in Chile
From left to right: Geidi Morales, Jennifer Martínez and Yunia Milanés
Refugee protection is regulated by Law 20,430, in force since 2010, which guarantees the confidentiality of applications and the principle of non-refoulement. It is given to people who are persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a certain social group or political opinions, and who fear for their lives, security or freedom in their countries of origin, as well as those who flee due to armed conflicts or wars.
These applications will be processed individually and will undergo an investigation to demonstrate whether the applicant’s life is in danger. After completing this stage, the Chilean immigration service must analyze the request and provide a response. Here political criteria weigh more than legal aspects.
Political debate
The leftist government of Gabriel Boric has avoided speaking out for or against of the escape of Cuban athletes and have focused on informing the steps that athletes have to take to regularize themselves in the country.
The escape of the athletes especially complicates the Communist Party, the anchor party of the government coalition. The Chilean PC has been a historic defender of the Cuban regime that has been in power for more than 60 years. Two faces of this community were forced to answer questions from the press.
“Yes, it is a concern of the government, but it is not up to us to go beyond (the usual processing),” responded the government spokesperson. emerged from the communist youth, Camila Vallejos.
Camila Vallejos, in a march for the 50 years of the Coup against Salvador Allende. Photo: EFE
The general secretary of the PC, Lautaro Carmona, blamed this situation on the living conditions that exist on the island as a result of the United States economic blockade against Cuba.
The Chilean right intends to push the idea that the government accept the request of refuge by the athletes. They consider that this case may strain relations within President Boric’s coalition.
The Independent Democratic Unionthe main opposition party to Boric, presented in the congress of deputies a “request for background information” to grant international protection and political asylum to athletes of Cuban nationality who decided to leave their delegation and remain in Chile after the end of the Pan American Games. initiative obtained 61 positive votes, five against and seven abstentions.
“If President Boric wants to reaffirm his true democratic credentials, here he has a tremendous opportunity to do so,” said the right-wing parliamentarians who presented the initiative, which obliges the president to respond within 30 days.
Even the mayor of the wealthy commune of Las Condes and right-wing militant, Daniela Peñaloza, offered them work through her X account “a place from where they can freely practice, work and promote sports.”
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