MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Cuban dissident neurosurgeon arrives in Argentina

Hilda Molina and her family at Ezeiza airport

The Cuban neurosurgeon Hilda Molina arrived in Argentina on Sunday to visit relatives, 15 years after she broke ranks with former leader Fidel Castro over the healthcare system on the island.

Hilda Molina, 66, was given permission to leave Cuba last week after complaining publicly for years about being denied the right to travel to visit her aging mother, son and grandchildren in Argentina.

“Thanks to everyone who helped,” Molina said after arriving at the international airport in Ezeiza, Buenos Aires, where her son and two grandsons were waiting to greet her.

“I have inside a wound that will never heal,“ Molina told reporters after meeting with her son for the first time in 15 years. ”I say to Mr. Fidel Castro, who has been the scourge of my family, may he have all the peace in the world. May he choose the path that the country needs. I don't need to forgive him for anything”.

Molina said on Friday she believed Cuban authorities had finally agreed to give her a travel permit only because of her 90-year-old mother's deteriorating health.

Molina said she had been given permission to leave Cuba for three months. She said she wanted to live in Cuba and planned to return after looking after her mother in Argentina.

Molina, who founded Havana's prestigious International Centre for Neurological Rehabilitation (Ciren), was elected to the Cuban parliament in 1993.

But she fell out with Fidel Castro and quit the party in 1994 after asserting that Cuba was eroding its principle of free, quality healthcare for all by selling medical services to foreigners to meet its pressing needs for foreign currency.

Fidel Castro has said Molina was forced out of the government for seeking to take over the state-run neurology centre that she once headed.

In the prologue to a book last year, he said Molina's case provided “excellent material for imperialist blackmail against Cuba.”

The surprise travel authorization, issued Friday, was seen as a gesture of openness in the era after Fidel Castro ceded power to his brother Raul in 2006 for health reasons. It was also seen as a nod to Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, a Cuba ally who along with her husband and predecessor, Nestor Kirchner, had asked the Castros since 2003 to allow Molina to leave.

But Molina said her approval to travel in itself did not indicate broader changes by the Cuban government.

“That will be resolved when we Cubans do not have to ask permission to enter and leave the country,” she said. “There are 11 million Cubans whose rights are being violated.”

Molina's travel documents are good for several months. She said she intends to return to Cuba, but not while her mother is in precarious health.

“I put it in the letter to Raul Castro ... that when I close the eyes of my mother I will return,” Molina said. “I want her to recover and to return together. But as long as she is in danger I am not going to abandon her.”