Cuba ties diplomatic renewal to US ending aid to dissidents

The Washington Post

HAVANA — Cuba said Friday that it’s demanding that the United States drop much of its support for dissidents as part of the restoration of diplomatic relations.

The highest-ranking U.S delegation in more than three decades visited Cuba this week to negotiate the reopening of U.S. and Cuban embassies in Havana and Washington and set out an agenda for the broader normalization of relations between the longtime adversaries. A central U.S. demand is the lifting of Cuban restrictions on American diplomats traveling outside the capital. Diplomats accredited to the U.S. Interests Section in Havana now must seek special permission two weeks in advance if they want to leave Havana and the surrounding province. Cuban diplomats in Washington are under similar restrictions.

U.S. diplomats say the restrictions prevent them for talking to ordinary Cubans and severely curtail their mission.

The head of Cuba’s delegation told The Associated Press Friday that Cuba is willing to consider granting the right of free diplomatic travel if the U.S. reduces support for dissidents. Cuba has long objected to the U.S. offering Internet access and classes in English, information technology and journalism inside the U.S. Interests Section, resources used by Cubans including some well-known dissidents.

“From inside the Interests Section they give classes and training and that isn’t part of the recognized responsibilities of a diplomatic mission,” Josefina Vidal told the AP. “Those are themes that we discussed in this meeting and that the U.S. delegation took note of.”

Asked about whether reducing dissident support was a necessary condition for Cuba to allow U.S. diplomats free travel, Vidal said that, “We haven’t presented it as a condition, we haven’t used that word, but, yes, we’ve said that that consideration, on Cuba’s part, is associated with better behavior.”

She described U.S. activity as “organizing, training, supporting, encouraging, financing and supplying small groups of people that act against the Cuban government and really represent the interests of the United States inside our country.”

“That is action that is not acceptable for Cuba and they know it,” she continued.

Vidal’s description was the most significant indication to date of potential problems arising in the round of talks about what many expected to be relatively easy discussions about the logistics of reopening embassies.

The Obama administration says that while it is loosening its trade embargo and trying to build more diplomatic and economic ties, the goal of its Cuba policy remains the same: creating more freedoms for ordinary people. Cuban diplomats said throughout the negotiations in Havana that the U.S. needs to abandon hopes of using closer relations to foment change on the island.

Vidal’s counterpart, Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson, told reporters Friday that the talks had left her with no clearer idea of whether Obama’s new policy has good prospects of success.

“It’s very hard to say exactly how this will work,” Jacobson said, adding decisions need to be made that will advance U.S. interests and empower the Cuban people, “but the verdict on whether that succeeds is still to be made.”

The comments by Jacobson and Vidal lay bare the pressures each side faces at home — in the U.S., from Republican leaders in Congress and powerful Cuban-American groups, and in Cuba, from hardliners deeply concerned that rapprochement could undermine the communist system founded by Fidel Castro.