Release of Cuban dissidents: Gesture to Europe, US?

By Silvia Ayuso Jul 9, 2010, 2:52 GMT

Washington - The announced release of 52 dissidents jailed in Cuba in 2003 appears to be a gesture to foreign powers by the authorities in Havana.

The releases come in the wake of strong pressure on the communist island after the death of a hunger-striking political prisoner in February, but all eyes are on Washington and Brussels as Cuba makes its moves.

The Cuban Roman Catholic Church has been so far the discreet broker of the deal that may or may not lead to even more substantial changes on the island.

For now, however, the United States and Europe will have to determine whether they think the latest gesture is enough to justify going beyond the timid advances that they have so far made to the Cuban government led by Raul Castro.

'There is no longer any reason for the European Union to keep up its 'common position' policy towards Cuba,' Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said enthusiastically at the end of a visit to Havana on Wednesday.

Cuban dissident Oscar Espinosa Chepe, who has traditionally backed the sanctions included in this common position, agreed that it would now be 'prudent' for Europe to respond to the Cuban move.

'The EU will have to take it into consideration that there has been a gesture on the part of the (Cuban) government,' Espinosa Chepe admitted.

'If there is a prisoner release, if the government starts to make changes, I think it would be prudent, sensible, to start also to take some steps in solidarity, above all with the Cuban people who are in a terrible situation,' he told the German Press Agency dpa over the telephone.

And Brussels did indeed appear to pick up the glove. On Thursday, the bloc's diplomatic director Catherine Ashton 'welcomed' a gesture which she saw as moving in the right direction.

Spain in particular has regularly called for the EU to improve ties with Cuba and lift sanctions in place since 1996. But the initiative flopped as other EU states in June decided that Havana had not done anything to warrant improved ties.

The release of political prisoners, Ashton said, is an 'indispensable step' for the EU to review its policy, but any decision would have to be approved by all 27 EU states. Talks among EU member states on whether to push for closer ties with Havana 'will be resumed after the summer,' she said.

The United States has been more cautious. The first official reaction came nearly 24 hours after the announcement of the release of 52 political prisoners in Cuba.

The United States has long called for the release of all political dissidents in Cuba. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who said she spoke with Moratinos, on Thursday welcomed the 'overdue' decision.

'We welcome it. We think that's a positive sign,' she said, before adding: 'It's something that is overdue but nevertheless very welcome.'

Clinton used the same cautious terms that US authorities have used since the Cuban Roman Catholic Church started mediating with Castro's government in May.

Such a cool response is hardly surprising in the light of the domestic situation facing US President Barack Obama. The Cuban issue continues to prompt loud reactions from conservatives who have not even forgiven Obama for his shy moves of last year, including the easing of some restrictions for Cuban-Americans on travel and on the sending of remittances to the island.

US experts on Cuba, however, insist that this is the right time to make bolder moves.

'This is something new going on, something big. It doesn't end the human rights problem in Cuba, but represents a dramatic change and is certain to draw a reaction from Washington and Europe,' Phil Peters, of the Washington-based think tank Lexington Institute, told The Washington Post.

The prisoner release should lead the Obama administration to 'do something to encourage the trend,' Wayne Smith, of the Centre for International Policy and a former top US diplomat in Havana, told The New York Times.

Indeed, the news from Havana appeared to brace a key initiative for a change in US relations with the island.

Last week, a bill to lift all restrictions on travel to Cuba for US citizens and to increase food exports to the island got past its first hurdle by going through the Agriculture Committee of the House of Representatives.

The proposed legislation would not end the decades-long US embargo on Cuba, but it would significantly restrict its effects on the island.

It still has a long way to go before becoming a law, with a most likely very tough test at the Foreign Affairs Committee. But the release of dissidents will be an important argument for those favouring legal change.

For Espinosa Chepe, the US government can now 'shake off a bit of the pressure of the conservative lobby which does not let it move regarding Cuba,' using the prisoner release as a carrot.

But initial reactions from conservatives show that the road will not be easy in Washington.

'We must not be fooled. Until all political prisoners are liberated; all political parties, labour unions, independent media are legalized and allowed to operate freely; until the Cuban people are able to exercise their universal rights free of coercion and intimidation, maximum pressure must be exerted on the Cuban tyranny,' said Republican representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Ros-Lehtinen, who was herself born in Havana, is one of the top representatives of the anti-Castro movement that remains deeply entrenched in the US political field.