Senior US diplomat ruffles Cuba by meeting dissidents

HAVANA (Reuters) – A senior US diplomat in Cuba for negotiations with Havana on restoring long-frozen diplomatic relations met a group of dissidents yesterday, seeking to underline Washington’s concern over human rights but irritating the island’s communist government.

Roberta Jacobson
Roberta Jacobson

US Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson, the highest-ranking US government official to visit the island in nearly 40 years, held a breakfast meeting with the dissidents a day after talks with Cuban government officials. The State Department said it was an opportunity for Jacobson to exchange views and hear their perspectives.

But Havana has stressed that efforts to normalize ties should not be accompanied by meddling in its internal affairs. Cuban officials expressed concern beforehand over the planned meeting, a US official told Reuters.

The head of the Cuban delegation to the talks, Josefina Vidal, was dismissive of the meeting later.

“This is exactly one of the differences we have with the US government because for us, this is not just genuine, legitimate Cuban civil society,” Vidal, who is Jacobson’s counterpart at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, told the MSNBC television show “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” referring to the dissidents.

“This small group of people don’t represent Cuban society, don’t represent the interests of the Cuban people. So that’s a big difference with the United States government,” she added.

The Cuban government rarely comments on dissidents, and when it does, it often charges them with being unrepresentative of the population and puppets of the United States.

Thursday’s talks about re-establishing diplomatic ties, severed by Washington in 1961, were the first since US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced on December 17 they would seek to reverse decades of hostility between the two countries.

But the issue of political freedoms was bound to be a point of friction.

Castro has said that restoring ties with its old Cold War foe does not mean Cuba intends to give up its socialist principles. In a statement on Thursday on the talks, the Cuban government said relations between the countries should be based on mutual respect and non-interference in internal affairs.