Obama faces snub by Cuban dissident over ‘ill-timed’ visit
Protest leader may refuse meeting with US president unless he calls for amnesty for political prisoners
A LEADING Cuban dissident invited to meet President Barack Obama on his historic visit to the island this week has told The Sunday Telegraph that the US president should not be visiting while human rights violations continue.
Berta Soler, leader of the “Ladies in White” protest group, said she wanted Mr Obama to call for an amnesty for Cuba’s political prisoners. She said she would wait to hear his speech before deciding if she would accept his invitation to meet him at the US embassy in Havana on Tuesday.
Her non-attendance would be an embarrassment for Mr Obama, whose landmark trip to Cuba begins today. Mr Obama sees the detente with the Castro regime as one of his foreign policy achievements, but has been criticisd by Republicans for aiding and abetting dictatorship.
The trip, which marks the end of more than half a century of cold war between the US and Cuba, is the first by a US president since Calvin Coolidge’s visit in 1928. It will include Mr Obama watching a baseball match alongside the Cuban president, Raúl Castro – an event unthinkable even two years ago.
Ms Soler, who also refused to meet John Kerry when the embassy in Havana was reopened in August, said Mr Obama’s trip was misguided.
“It’s not the moment,” she said. “He would be welcome if things were getting better. But nothing has changed.”
The Obama administration disagrees, pointing out that last week four Cuban dissidents were released from prison – the latest to be freed from a group of 53 who were promised to be allowed out in December 2014. The men boarded planes for the US.
Dissidents insist it is not enough. Wilberto Parada, who was among those released last year, said permitting the four to leave was beneficial mainly for the Cuban government. “Change in Cuba has to come from within,” he said.
International observers have, generally, welcomed Mr Obama’s new strategy of détente, but say that he faces a delicate balancing act while in Cuba. “Obama is doing the right thing in terms of moving away from the old policies, which didn’t work and gave the Cuban government a pretext for clamping down, painting itself as a victim,” said Daniel Wilkinson, Cuba analyst for Human Rights Watch.
“He is also making it easier to rally international pressure on Cuba. But the idea of Obama sitting through a baseball game with Raúl Castro – that undermines any message on human rights,” he said. “Is engagement right? Yes. Is the trip a good idea? We’ll see.”
Mr Obama’s staff have stressed that the three-day visit will cement the progress made in bringing Cuba in from the cold, and give momentum to his drive to advance human rights, trade and the economy on the island.
Even if Ms Soler tries to attend the meeting with Mr Obama, she fears she may be arrested to stop her going, in a repeat of treatment when Pope Francis invited her to a gathering in September.
She accused the government of a policy of taking money from dissidents’ bank accounts, justifying it by saying the money had been sent from the US to encourage revolt.
Ms Soler, 52, insisted the human rights situation was getting worse. She said there were 80 political prisoners being held, and that Mr Obama should use his visit to call for an amnesty. Cuba’s Communist government has said it has no political prisoners.
Yesterday Elizardo Sanchez, Cuba’s most famous human rights activist, was arrested at Havana airport on arriving from Miami.
He too had been due to meet Mr Obama on Tuesday. Last week he warned HRW that dissidents were being visited by the police and told to stay indoors until after Mr Obama had left the country.
‘The idea of Obama sitting through a baseball game with Castro undermines any notion of human rights’