Dissident blogger says Cubans wanted more from Brazilian visit
The Brazilian leader had vowed to make human rights a cornerstone of her
foreign policy pointed to the U.S. detention camp for suspected
terrorists at Guantánamo Bay on the island's southeastern tip.
By Matthew Bristow
Bloomberg News
HAVANA -- Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez said her compatriots had hoped for
more from Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who avoided criticizing
the human rights situation on the communist island during a state visit
to Havana this week.
Sanchez said she had looked for at least a "small wink" from Rousseff,
who was imprisoned and tortured for fighting Brazil's dictatorship in
the 1960s, after a jailed dissident, Wilman Villar, died last month
following a hunger strike and President Raul Castro vowed to maintain
single-party rule.
"It was pure chance that she came at this time, but people had hoped for
more," Sanchez said in an interview last night in Havana. "I would've
hoped for a small wink, a phrase with a double meaning that we could
interpret, and that the government could interpret too."
Rousseff, who concludes a three-day visit to Havana today, said that it
was an internal matter for Cuba to decide whether to allow Sanchez to
leave the island after Brazil last week granted the 36-year-old blogger
an entry visa to attend next month a screening of a documentary she
appears in. Sanchez, a critic of the Castro government on the Generation
Y blog, has been denied permission to leave Cuba for four years.
"Brazil gave the visa to the blogger," Rousseff, 64, told reporters
yesterday in Havana before meeting with Castro and his brother Fidel.
"The rest is not a matter for the Brazilian government."
Rousseff, who has vowed to make human rights a cornerstone of her
foreign policy, failed to comment on the Cuban government's record,
pointing instead to the U.S. detention camp for suspected terrorists at
Guantánamo Bay on the island's southeastern tip.
"He who throws the first stone has a roof made of glass," said Rousseff,
whose Workers' Party has long supported Cuba. "We in Brazil have our
problems too."
While critical of the Brazilian president's stance, Sanchez said
Rousseff's silence is preferable to her predecessor and mentor Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva's siding with the Castro government after the death
of another jailed hunger striker in 2010, she added.
"I wake up every day and say to myself, today I am going to behave like
a free person," Sanchez said. "Dilma once said the same. She paid a high
personal and physical cost, but in the end life proved her right and
Brazil became a democracy."
Julia Sweig, an author of publications on Cuba and Brazil, said
criticism of the Castro government is more widespread today than it's
ever been since the 1959 revolution and taking many forms that escape
the attention of foreign governments and media. As Cuba's second-biggest
investor, helping Castro ease state control of the economy, Brazil is
well-positioned to discuss the island's rights record behind the scenes
in a productive manner, she added.
"Yoani's situation bears zero comparison to what Dilma went through,"
said Sweig, director of the Latin America program at the Council on
Foreign Relations in Washington. "Unlike Dilma, she hasn't been and
won't be jailed or tortured and I seriously doubt she's going to be
president of Cuba."
Cuba's government relies on beatings, short-term detentions, forced
exile and travel restrictions to repress virtually all forms of
political dissent, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report
this month. Cuba denies it's holding any political prisoners and
considers dissident activity to be counterrevolutionary supported by
anti-Castro "mercenaries" in the U.S.
While blocked from traveling abroad, Sanchez has emerged as a leader
among a group of young dissidents who describe the daily travails of
life in Cuba through difficult-to-access social media. Many of her
chronicles are published by newspapers throughout Latin America. She has
also written a book, "Havana Real: One Woman Fights to Tell the Truth
About Cuba Today."
Sanchez said the visibility she has gained through blogging gives her
some protection from the Cuban government.
"The day I stop blogging, they'll put me on trial," she said.
Rousseff, who travels to Haiti today, discussed the possibility of
hosting Raul Castro at a future date, according to a Brazilian official
with the president who isn't authorized to comment on the two leaders'
talks publicly.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/02/2620793/dissident-blogger-says-cubans.html#storylink=misearch
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