Dissidents call on US president to voice solidarity with those who have been silenced and detained under ‘totalitarian dictatorship’

Cuban dissidents are calling on Barack Obama to sharply rebuke his “totalitarian” government hosts when he makes what is billed as one of the most important foreign policy speeches of his administration in Havana on Tuesday.



The US president, whose address to the Cuban people is expected to be carried live on state television, is under new pressure to ramp up his criticism of the island’s human rights record following awkward scenes at a joint press conference on Monday.

After berating the US for its own civil rights record, Cuban president Raúl Castro moved to hoist Obama’s arm in the air, forcing the American president to let his hand go limp to show non-compliance in a photo opportunity that would have lent much credibility to the communist regime.

Despite repeated White House calls for the release of remaining political prisoners in Cuba, activists are concerned that images of the trip – which have included Obama standing in front of a giant image of Che Guevera in Revolution Square – have overshadowed US calls for political reform on the island.



“We expect Obama to say something as courageous and bold as Reagan’s 1987 speech in front of the Brandenburg Gates, when he told Gorbachev ‘Tear down this wall!”, José Daniel Ferrer, of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, said. “Once we have heard him speak, we will know whether to celebrate or lament this visit.”

Ahead of the visit, Guillermo Fariñas, a political dissident who has conducted more than 20 hunger strikes, also sent a letter to Obama, urging him to speak out against what he called a totalitarian dictatorship. As the elected US president, he wrote, Obama was “automatically the principal defender of democracy in the world” and so should use the opportunity to show solidarity with democrats in Cuba.

On the eve of the speech, White House officials sought to manage expectations about the degree to which Obama will lecture Cuba on human rights, stressing his belief that it is up to the Cuban people to determine their own future.

“He wants to explain why he took the steps that he did on December 17 [by agreeing to reestablish diplomatic ties], explain where this is headed, why he believes it will succeed,” national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters on Monday night.

“It is not as if the human rights situation was benefiting from the previous policy of closing Cuba off and having the embargo.”

Obama will meet privately with members of Cuban “civil society”, including several prominent dissidents, amid continued concern of the detention of protesters, most recently on Sunday.



“He will want to hear directly from some of the participants about what their experiences are,” explained Rhodes. “Cuba is not a monolith, the government itself is not a monolith and certainly the government and civil society have differences.”

Nonetheless the White House is determined that the speech at El Gran Teatro de Havana – scene of Calvin Coolidge’s last speech as a visiting US president in 1928 – is a moment for Obama to bridge the divide between the two countries and seal his legacy as a global peacemaker.

“The speech is important because it’s the one chance to step back and just speak directly to the Cuban people … and the fact that it will be able to be broadcast and received here in Cuba provides an important opportunity to lay out his vision for what the future is,” said Rhodes.

“This visit is a very powerful moment for Cuban Americans,” he added. “Some of them are very excited, some of them are ambivalent, some of them are opposed, and given the very complicated history, the president believes that one of the most important things that we can be doing is building bridges and facilitating a reconciliation of the Cuban American community with Cubans here on the island.”

