Carter in Cuba for meetings with Raúl, Ortega
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@elnuevoherald.com
Former President Jimmy Carter arrived in Havana on Monday to discuss
Raúl Castro's economic reforms and how to improve U.S.-Cuba relations,
stymied by the imprisonment of U.S. government subcontractor Alan P. Gross.
Carter is the most important U.S. figure to visit Cuba, both under Fidel
Castro's rule in 2002 and now under his younger brother Raúl. The older
Castro has praised him as the president who tried hardest to normalize
U.S. relations with Havana.
His first scheduled meeting, with leader of Cuba's tiny Jewish
community, strengthened speculation that he will push Havana to free
Gross, a U.S. Agency for International Development subcontractor serving
a 15-year sentence.
Gross, a 61-year-old from Potomac, Md., was arrested in late 2009 after
he delivered sophisticated equipment to members of the Jewish community
and other non-government groups so they could communicate better with
each other and the outside world.
Havana officials have branded the Washington campaign to improve Cuban's
access to the Internet, part of its effort to support civil society on
the island, as a thinly disguised effort to subvert the communist
government.
The Obama administration has repeatedly said that any significant
improvements in U.S. policies toward Cuba will not be possible until he
is freed as a "humanitarian gesture."
Dissidents in Havana reported that authorities arrested at least two
government critics who staged a protest Monday near Havana's Cuban
Capitol to coincide with Carter's arrival. They identified the two as
Eriberto Liranza Romero and Boris Rodríguez Jiménez, both members of the
Cuban Youths for Democracy Movement, and added that other dissidents had
been detained Sunday night to block their participation in the protest.
Wearing a white guayabera, Carter was greeted at the Havana airport by
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez and the top U.S. and Cuban
diplomats in Havana and Washington, Jonathan Farrar and Jorge Bolaños.
After his meeting with the Jewish community, Carter met with Cardinal
Jaime Ortega, whose unprecedented talks with Raúl Castro last year led
to the release of more than 100 political prisoners. About 90 were freed
only after they agreed to go into exile in Spain, and 12 remain in Cuba.
The Carter schedule released by the Cuban government did not say whether
he would meet with dissidents or Fidel Castro. The former Cuban leader
usually meets with important visitors to the island.
Carter is not expected to make any comments until he holds a news
conference in Havana's massive Conventions Palace on Wednesday, just
before he flies back to the United States.
During his six-day visit to Havana in 2002, he met with Fidel Castro as
well as dissidents and delivered a nationally televised speech that
urged improvements in Cuba's human rights record.
The Atlanta-based Carter Center announced last week that the former
president was making the trip to Cuba as a "private mission" and at the
invitation of Raúl Castro.
He was accompanied by his wife, Rosalynn; Robert Pastor, the White
House's point man on Cuba during the Carter presidency 1977-1981;
Jennifer McCoy, director of Americas programs at the Carter Center; and
Carter Center President John Hardman.
U.S. relations with Havana reached their warmest point since 1959 under
Carter, who negotiated the establishment of diplomatic missions in each
other's capitals and allowed U.S. tourists to visit the island.
Relations were frozen again when Fidel Castro increased his troop
deployments in Africa and then unleashed the Mariel boatlift.
The Carter Center's announcement said the former president wanted to
learn more about the market economic reforms that Raúl Castro is
pushing, and the Communist Party congress scheduled for the second half
of next month — its first since 1997.
Gross' wife, Judy, issued a statement over the weekend saying she hoped
Carter — who last year won the release of a U.S. citizen jailed in North
Korea during a visit to that country — would intercede on behalf of her
husband.
"If he is able to help Alan in any way while he is there, we will be
extraordinarily grateful," she declared. "Our family is desperate for
Alan to return home, after nearly 16 months in prison. We continue to
hope and pray that the Cuban authorities will release him immediately on
humanitarian grounds."
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/28/2138730/carter-in-cuba-for-meetings-with.html
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