TO ALL TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

Copy of an
Important document

Barcelona the 11st of August, 1966

UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES
Branch Office at UN Headquarters
UNHCR Deputy Regional Representative
Miss Anne S. Petluck
New York City, N.Y. – U.S.A.

Dear Miss Petluck,

It was a real pleasure hearing from you. Yours of July 19 is at hand and most welcome.

Another month has passed by since my last letter to you. And just as futile in efforts on my part and null or void in results on the part of the UN Bureau for refugees and the Church World Service.

You ask me to concentrate on seeking my entry into the U.S.A. as I have already done. Well, to say the least, I feel like having concentrated so much on this matter that I am more or less saturated, condensated and so compact that I am about to explode in a grand way. I am realizing that trying hard and with the extremes of patience during four long years is rather more than can be humanly expected. Having lost faith in such endeavors, I don´t think I am going to exhaust myself in further futile self-delusionment. That is why have asked you to seek me a better solution if my wishes cannot be complied in the U.S.A. There surely is a country that can admit just one refugee as myself. There may not be a country christian enough, big hearted enough, democratic enough, or human enough on this side of the world to grant me exile, refuge or residence, but what about the other side? I think I have already given you the impression that I am about impervious as to where I may go to reside finally. Why not try Zululand, Fiji, Papus, Korea or Equator? I would not mention Central America because volcanos shake too much around there, and I am pretty well all shaken up myself already.

It is good of you to refer to my having time to catalogue my belonging, which still suffer the consequences of the Cuba tragedy. But you seem to ignore that they are in four different countries, and I am myself in a fifth country where I cannot speak or think too openly, or do much as I please being a refugee on temporary permit. The day I get a visa I can go free to all these countries, gather my things, the go where I am destined to. But good God, will I ever have the satisfaction o having a home which I can call mine again? Stupid warring nations have deprived me of my home and personal wellbeing, without consulting me; so I am now a victim of these not too well civilized and Christianized nations. Is it not their responsibility to mend some of their wrongs, and help refugees to regain their balance and their dignity and peace of mind? Are they not morally concerned? Or are they simply too perfect to worry over their own wrongs?

As for the World Church Service, I do dislike to appear overly critical, but it is now two months well rounded since I contacted Mr. Molina. He told me that my case could be solved in a few days. Well, maybe he meant months, or years. I would not be surprised because I have already waited to no avail over four years, since my miraculous liberation from the Cuban hell. Mr. Molina together with another gentleman submitted me to a sort of third degree which appears to me a far cry from the least religious implication. It was rather critical, and overly so, while at times it was simply humiliating, inquisitional. I felt at times as though I were subject to an undefined trial. I almost wondered if criminals, tramps and rogues do not get a better treatment. Anyway I fail to understand how such techniques can assist a refugee, a victim of civilized inhumanity. Surprising as all this may appear, Mr. Molina offered to send me immediately a Health Assistance Card, to which Refugees are entitled to in Spain, so he told us repeatedly. Well, about a month ago, precisely, I got run over by a rushing car, and I am badly hurt and in need of adequate medical treatment. This, my conditions do not permit me to buy in any clinic. I would have to go to Public Official Hospitals, but as a refugee foreigner I am NOT entitled to favorable attention, because I have no backing from any Embassy. Fancy me being assisted by a communist government, and a Cuban at that. It is simply preposterous to expect such a thing. Yet, not even after writing two letters, express and registered to Mr. Molina did we get the least civil answer. I loath to consider that I do not rate a christian act on the part of the World Church Service, or that a representative of the Refugee Bureau should be so unconcerned with the humane treatment due to a refugee (A HUMAN BEING IN NEED OF MEDICAL CARE) I cannot say how such things ring in the mind of high placed officials of the UN and elsewhere, but to me it is awful and I prefer to withdraw for the time being my best judgment. We do have to be so patient.

For God´s sake, Miss Petluck, do help me in being treated like a genuine human being. I mean any God, and if it is not the christian one, well let it be the jewish, the theosophist, the spiritualist, or the hindu ones. I already feel like the christian one is rather unconcerned toward me. Or could it be that I have been for so long discarded, ignored and maltreated by christian, democratic and civilized nations and organisms that I have lost all resemblance to what a human being is and ought to be? I am seemingly reaching for a last straw of possible salvation from the maelstrom. This, Miss Petluck, is an S.O.S.

Being as I am a refugee, I´d to be treated as such, as the rest of 40 million of the like on this much too civilized planet, if this is really what it is. It scares anyone to have to go through inquisitional details to enter a country, and to be humiliated then to be treated like a dangerous and most suspicious ghost.

Is not the most realistic thing to do to try another country? Or I am singled (?) out to be an extremely obnoxious and unwanted human being for whom there is no placed on this confounded planet? Well, for the time being I am the one who is overly confounded.

I really need more than promises and hope. And while I no longer believe in miracles, I wish I could impress you with my earnestness about emigrating definitely to the Galapagos Islands, or to any such place where there are more wild animals to be seen than civilized humans. President Johnson said recently that all Cuban citizens had a home in America. I think it is my obligation to say that he can be wrong in his promises and appreciations, as I am a Cuban citizen, and boy do I need a homeland and a decent human treatment. Maybe he should learn about this letter, too.

If the Church World Service cannot assist me in its promised thing right here, what else can I expect? Prof. Einstein once said that “ideas are rare”. I´d say, paraphrasing him, that “charity and kindness in this christian world are so rare that they rate to be classified scientifically as miraculous happenings”. I wish I could have said this with the verve of a Voltaire and with the wording of a Wordsworth, or a Victor Hugo. Even then, as usual, I´d say that if I am wrong I´d like to be proven so, because love to improve my humaneness.

What is next? God only knows

Very sincerely,

Pr. OM Lind

Dr. Omar Lind
Apartado Postal 126
Barcelona, Spain