According to United States officials, Obama’s historic visit is not about making demands but to encourage reforms.
But just hours before he touched down in Havana Sunday evening to small but cheering crowds, as the first incumbent American president to visit Cuba in 88 years, Cuban police forcibly broke up a pro-democracy demonstration and arrested several dozen activists in the capital.
The Guardian reports that the protesters, drawn from the Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White) and other opposition groups, were bundled into buses and police vans after a shouting match with pro-Castro supporters during their usual Sunday demonstration near the Santa Rita church.
“My son and his wife are in jail now. They all are. The police were very violent,” Glavys Fernández, the mother of leading opposition figure Antonio Rodiles, told the Guardian. “It’s the same every week. The oppression is very high.”
Women demanding free speech and democracy in Cuba are dragged away during protest march https://t.co/sZoITP3iNT pic.twitter.com/YiUDaiH8Zf
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) March 21, 2016
The situation for civil rights activists, according to Human Rights Watch, has not improved since the rapprochement began between presidents Obama and Raúl Castro in December 2014. They noted that during Pope Francis’s visit to Cuba last September, police detained between 100 and 150 dissidents.
The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation reported more than 8,500 cases of arbitrary detention last year, and more than 2,500 in the first two months of 2016.
Yesterday, Rodiles, who helped form the Todos Marchamos (“We all march”) campaign, predicted what was to come as he addressed journalists before the protest.
“I have been arrested more than 50 times in the past year,” he said. “The police have broken my nose and my eardrum. There are many of them surrounding us again today. But we want to send a clear message to Obama. We need to show the reality we are living in.”
The activist argued that Obama should stress political freedom and insist that the government in Havana ratify the United Nations Covenant on Human Rights.
“Raúl Castro has said he will move aside in 2018 and this has created the expectation of elections. But the real transfer is taking place right now so by the time Castro steps down, power will have already switched,” he said.
“How can there be a proper referendum without freedom of expression, without access to a free TV and a free press? They will never allow me to go on television and debate the issues.”
Rodiles’ fellow protesters carried banners, proclaiming: “Obama’s trip to Cuba isn’t for fun. No to violations of human rights.” Others chanted, “Obama, we have a dream: a Cuba without Castros.”
Democracy activists in Cuba are pushing for a range of reforms, including free elections, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and an end to repression of activists. They want President Obama to lobby on their behalf.
US officials said Obama, who will meet civil rights activists and give a speech tomorrow, is in Cuba to encourage reforms that have already begun, particularly in the area of economic liberalisation. But they say he will talk candidly about human rights and the need for participation in decision making.
“The main message of his speech will be that Cuba’s future is for the Cuban people to decide. The goal is not to foster regime change,” said a state department official. “President Obama wants to show that the challenges Cubans face are not the result of US policy.”
In a related development, straight-shooting US presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump, said on CNN that he was disappointed that former Cuban leader Fidel Castro wasn’t there to receive the American president upon landing in the country. Trump said he felt US was slighted when Fidel was there to receive Pope Francis but refused to meet with Obama upon landing in Cuba.
