Collaboration between United States and Cuban scientists has dramatically declined since the imposition of the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba more than thirty years ago. Although the embargo does not prohibit many forms of scientific collaboration, the resulting political environment, including the termination of full diplomatic relations, halted a tradition of scientific collaboration that began with the founding of the Cuban Academy of Science in the middle of the nineteenth century. While Cuba is the most scientifically advanced nation in the Caribbean region, basic information about the quality of science, current research, and natural resources is not available to American scientists. Scientific institutions have expressed an interest in increasing scientific collaboration with Cuba; however, they have faced barriers in the form of restrictive governmental policies resulting from pervasive political hostilities between the U.S. and Cuba.

Scientific progress depends on the free and open exchange of ideas. One of the most serious of the restrictions on this exchange, and the one addressed by this report, is the restriction on the freedom to travel. The right to freedom of movement across national borders is grounded in the rights to free expression and free association, which are recognized in international human rights treaties, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and a variety of regional agreements. Freedom of movement is particularly important to scientists.1

The free exchange of ideas is one of the most basic values of the scientific enterprise, and the freedom of scientists to travel is one of the most important ways of furthering that objective. The importance to scientists of the freedom to travel and exchange information is widely recognized. It is endorsed in the Helsinki Accords of 1975, which call for "improvement of opportunities for the exchange and dissemination of scientific and technical information" and "programmes of international visits of scientists and specialists in connection with exchanges, conferences and co-operation."2

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), with its affiliated scientific organizations, has been at the forefront of the struggle to assure the free passage of scientists between countries as a freedom fundamental for scientific enterprise. AAAS has been striving to ease travel restrictions on scientists since 1951.3

In 1994, Dr. Audrey R. Chapman, Director of the AAAS Science and Human Rights Program (the Program), and Dr. Mary Gray, co-chair of the AAAS Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, submitted testimony to a congressional hearing on the Constitutional Right to International Travel focusing on United States restrictions on travel to Cuba. They testified that U.S. travel policy negatively affects United States scientists and scientific progress in general and cited numerous examples of instances where U.S. travel policy has impeded the free exchange of scientists between the U.S. and Cuba. In her testimony, Dr. Chapman stated that:

The impact of U.S. travel restrictions on United States scientists, although not precisely known in terms of the numbers of license requests denied or delayed, has been documented by a number of scientific societies. This report cites specific cases in which travel restrictions imposed by the U.S. have impeded mathematicians, psychologists, science historians, and librarians from traveling to Cuba for professional purposes. The AAAS Science and Human Rights Program is awaiting the results of a Freedom of Information Act request to gain a better understanding of the number of United States scientists negatively affected by U.S. travel policy. The effect of United States travel restrictions on Cuban scientists is less well known. This was the focus of the Program’s mission to Cuba from 11 to 18 May 1997, described below, and is the central topic of this report.

The AAAS Science and Human Rights Program undertook a mission to Cuba to investigate the consequences of U.S. travel policy on Cuban scientists and to expand on the Program’s 1996 report entitled The Right to Travel: An Essential Freedom for Scientists and Academics, which among its findings showed that U.S. travel policy towards Cuba impedes scientific research.5 A staff member of the Science and Human Rights Program and a member of the Program’s Advisory Committee traveled to Cuba to interview Cuban scientists to determine how travel policies in the U.S. and Cuba have restricted their ability to collaborate with scientists from the United States. The mission delegates were Elisa Muñoz, Program Associate, AAAS Science and Human Rights Program, and author of this report, and Dr. Edward Kaufman. Dr. Kaufman is the former Director and currently a Senior Research Associate of the Center for International Development and Conflict Management at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a former member of the AAAS Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility. Dr. Kaufman also provided valuable input to this report. Mission delegates met government officials, representatives of professional organizations, and prominent individual scientists and academics.

The mission would not have been possible without the assistance of the Cuban Academy of Science, which hosted the delegation. In response to the Program’s request to meet with scientists whose right to travel to the U.S. had been denied, Dr. Sergio Pastrana, Foreign Secretary, Cuban Academy of Science, arranged most of the meetings with the scientists who were interviewed. During the mission, we met with more than 25 Cuban scientists in Havana. While it is clear that the group of scientists interviewed does not represent a random sample of the Cuban scientific community, their negative experiences with regard to obtaining entry visas to the United States to conduct legitimate scientific work reveals a pattern of problems in U.S. travel policy. Among the scientists interviewed were chemists, economists, ornithologists, paleontologists, physicians, physicists, political scientists, and science historians. Their cases are presented in detail in Section IV of this report.

It is also important to note that Dr. Pastrana was present during most of the interviews conducted by the mission delegates. Mission delegates recognize that his presence may have contributed to a reluctance to criticize Cuban travel policies. However, because Cuban travel policies were not the mission’s primary focus and the information gathered regarding United States restrictions was not likely affected by his presence, mission delegates consider the information on the latter topic gathered by means of the interviews to be valid.

Cuban officials were accessible upon request, with the exception of representatives from the Ministry of Higher Education who denied our request for a meeting. Ministry representatives claimed that meetings with University of Havana representatives were sufficient. The mission team met with personnel from foreign embassies, academics, physicians, and scientists, including individuals who were fired from their institutions for what appear to be politically motivated reasons.

The first section of this report provides an overview of the right to travel, its grounding in international law, and its importance to the scientific community. The second section summarizes U.S. travel policy towards Cuba and its historical formation. The third section addresses the policy’s negative impact on United States scientists.

The focus of the AAAS mission to Cuba is addressed in the fourth section of this report. As the central objective of the mission, this section is given greater attention than the sections on violations of the right to travel by the United States government of its own citizens, and violations of the right to travel by the Cuban government of its own citizens. Neither the mission nor this report addresses Cuban violations of U.S. citizens’ right to travel. This emphasis should not be perceived as a measure of the importance given to each of these issues by the Program, which finds violations of the right to travel by all parties equally reprehensible. The AAAS Science and Human Rights Program has addressed violations by many countries throughout the years. Problems with U.S. travel policy are summarized in the fifth section.

The mission’s findings on Cuban travel policy, the subject of the sixth section of this report, have been augmented by a series of interviews conducted in the United States with Cuban scientists, United States experts on Cuba, and U.S. scientists who have worked in Cuba or who have worked with Cuban scientists in the U.S. Regrettably, the mission was not able to give equal attention to violations of the right to travel by the Cuban government. Although the itinerary left little room for unofficial meetings, mission delegates were able to conduct lengthy interviews with three scientists who were denied permission to travel by Cuban authorities. These cases, documented in the seventh section of this report, vary greatly in their details. Problems with Cuban travel policy are summarized in the eighth section.

The report’s conclusions and recommendations to United States and Cuban policy makers appear in the ninth section. AAAS will continue to work on this issue (see the tenth section) in the hope that travel policy in both countries will not remain victim to existing political hostilities.