TO ALL IT MAY CONCERN

Tunis, March 1, 1966

Mr. Francisco URRUTIA
UNHCR Regional Representative
UNITED NATIONS
New York City, U.S.A.

Dear Sir,

I learn from Mrs. Elsie Sanders, my friend in California, that a letter from you was addressed to me. Unfortunately, it has not yet reached me. It must be following me around the Mediterranean and Africa, where I have to travel because I have NO LEGAL RESIDENCE, NO HOME, no permanent visa to stay long enough in any country.

If you read my files, or that of the ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMISSION, also at the UN, you will be duly informed as to my plight. How can I say in advance where, in which country I shall be two months or even two weeks in advance? I think I write quite clearly the English language, but at the UN no one seems to understand what I write. Isn’t there a real REFUGEE around, who may understand my ordeal?

I have been telling the UN for the past FOUR years that I need a safety haven, a RESIDENCE, I don’t care where.  Two years earlier, that is over six years ago I was imprisoned in communist Cuba, the Number One so called Pro-American and Anti-Communist enemy of Cuba, and the different UN Bureaus were flooded with letters from all over the world requesting some valid action to save my life, as well as that of my family. I was liberated 30 months after, all scared through martyrdom and with a heart infarctus, yet we were all thrown into a plane and sent to Amsterdam. Ever since, I have been demanding that the UN finds me a place where to live as a human being, a peaceful, decent and free bit of land. But to no avail. Must I surmise and conclude that there isn’t such a place on this planet?

Of course, I love America above all other countries. But if I can’t be granted residence there, why not lodge me in some UN territory, or anywhere, even in a U.S. Colony. For goodness sake, get me a place even in a Sputnik, Gemini or anything, but let me be able to think nicely of the UN and of humanity.  Isn’t there really a single country CHRISTIAN, DEMOCRATIC, HUMAN or CIVILIZED ENOUGH to grant me a permanent or residence Visa? Or am I an abominable pest for having always refused to be communist? Or is it my fault that there is such a hell in Cuba now? I was well in Cuba until some creeps created political and social problems there. Now, if Cuba can’t solve my problems, those who created the situation in Cuba should. Or at least the UN. Isn’t it really tragical that a human being so harassed and ignored by nations which claim to be exponents of culture and humanism?

Sometimes I am feeling as though I were writing a fantastic drama of which I am the main victim. The villains still remain undefined, but I feel like telling the whole world of my plight. You folks seem to lose your patience with me, in New York and Geneva. Boy, Goodness Gracious, the UN should be run only by people who know what it means to be a war refugee, a victim of inhuman humanity, and unwanted guest of every nation, a reject of the UN.

You folks continue to promise your valuable assistance, but all I can account for thus far is just stalling and fancy talks. I think it is about time we get down to business. If you people at the UN cannot, I shall find a solution of my own. Maybe if I hang a tag at my neck saying “IAM A COMMUNIST”, I would be better treated. God only knows if I need a helping hand, and after all what I have been going through I wouldn’t be particular as to whether it is the devil´s, my worse enemy´s, or the lords´ of hell in person.

As I am now, I must say that I am making a bundle of all my correspondence with the UN, and I am bequesting the whole business to a Foundation that can publish it. Four years of intense struggle is really much time, under my predicament, and I am wondering if any human being resist much more.

I would have appreciated, indeed, if you had told me long ago that the United Nations cannot do anything in my case. Or can you?

Much obliged for your kindness,

Pr. OM Lind

You have many addresses through which I can be reached

Post Data:  I was just wondering if it would not be possible for the UN to permit me to place an Ad. on its Billboard. Maybe through this procedure some Official Delegates of nations may learn about my desperate conditions. All I would like to state is that I am a privileged human being since no nation on this planet can or will grant me a refuge or residence and because I have amply proven that I am a patient person, a genuine philosopher if there ever was one, and in spite of all I earn my own living, and y have a private Library and a Museum of my own which weigh around six tons. But still I have no place to call my home, or a legal residence anywhere. Should this Ad. be possible, I earnestly request the UNHCR Bureau to draft a writ to that effect, and pin it there for me. Much obliged.

Food for thought Reprint, March 1, 1976

“History casts no doubt at all on the ability of human beings to deal rationally with their problems, but the greatest doubt on their will to do so. The signals of the past are thus clouded and ambiguous, suggesting hope but not confidence in the triumph of reason. With nothing to lose in any event, it seems well worth a try”.

“It is one of the perversities of human nature that people have a far greater capacity for enduring disasters than for preventing them, even when the danger is plain and imminent” Sen. Fullbright. Fulton, Mo., Nov. 4, 1974

“It would be so wonderful to learn that you took the slightest interest in such a case as mine. It would reveal to you some of the dimensions of the inhumanity of some human beings. Anyway it makes a wonderful lesson in practical modern life” Pr. OM Lind to Sen. Robert Kennedy, June 1rst, 1966 (NAPS)