Cuba slams US for issuing too few emigre visas

HAVANA, July 17 (Reuters) Cuba accused the United States today of issuing too few visas for Cuban emigres, saying the delay was part of Washington's efforts to overthrow the Cuban government.

Under migration accords aimed at discouraging Cubans from taking to the sea illegally in makeshift crafts after the 1994 rafter exodus, the US government agreed to issue 20,000 visas a year to Cubans seeking to emigrate to the United States.

But in the first nine months of fiscal 2007, US immigration authorities have only granted 10,724 visas to Cubans and may not meet the annual target in the three months left, Cuba's Foreign Ministry complained.

''This failure to comply (with the quota) will encourage further illegal emigration,'' the ministry said in a statement published by the ruling Communist Party newspaper Granma.

It said Washington was deliberately dragging its feet on the visas to undermine the migration accords, which are meant to ensure legal, orderly and safe migration between the two countries that have been ideological foes since the Cold War.

The migration agreements are opposed by anti-Castro exiles concentrated in Miami because they include the repatriation of emigres who are intercepted at sea by the US Coast Guard.

After 35,000 Cubans took to the sea in boats, rafts and inflated inner tubes in 1994, the United States changed its policy of automatically welcoming any Cuban emigre. Under the current ''dry-foot, wet-foot'' policy, those stopped at sea are returned to Cuba, those that make it ashore get to stay.

Havana insists US policy still encourages Cubans to leave illegally, often risking their lives in precarious vessels.

''This irresponsible policy ... is a permanent cause of unjustified and unnecessary deaths, and the victims are often women and children,'' the ministry statement said.

Critics of the Cuban government say the flow of emigration to the United States, legal or illegal, acts as a escape valve for simmering discontent over economic hardship in Cuba.

With calmer waters in the Florida Straits during the summer, more Cubans are leaving by sea, in makeshift boats or aboard powerful ''cigarette'' speed boats that whisk emigres across to Florida for about 8,000 dollars a trip.

The US Coast Guard reported a rise in the number of Cuban migrants it has picked up in the last few weeks, though interceptions are below last year's levels. Last week it repatriated 94 Cubans, the week before 100.

Reuters LPB DB2204