White House - US, Not Cuba, Will Determine Meetings With Dissidents

White House: US, Not Cuba, Will Determine Meetings With Dissidents
March 04, 2016 9:09 PM

STATE DEPARTMENT—
U.S. officials said Friday that Cuba's human rights issues would be a
focal point when President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John
Kerry visit the island later this month.

"The president is interested in lifting up the importance of universal
human rights and the importance of the government not just respecting
but actually taking steps to protect the expression of human rights,"
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

The White House and the State Department said Friday that Kerry planned
to accompany Obama on his March 21–22 visit to Cuba.

Last month, Kerry told Senate lawmakers that he was considering an
earlier trip to Havana to "have a human rights dialogue."

On Friday, the State Department and White House pushed back against news
reports that said Kerry canceled plans for an earlier visit because of
haggling with Cuba over which dissidents Obama would be allowed to meet.
The State Department said Kerry's tentative trip was scrubbed because
of "logistical concerns."

Earnest said the president did intend to meet with Cuban dissidents of
his choosing.

"The guest list for that meeting will be determined solely by the White
House," he said.

Arrests, detentions

There have been ongoing concerns about Cuba's human rights record as the
U.S. and Cuba move forward with efforts to normalize ties.

U.S. Representative Illeana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, raised
the issue with Kerry when he testified before a House panel last month.

Ros-Lehtinen asked Kerry whether he was aware that more than 8,000
allegedly arbitrary arrests and detentions had taken place in Cuba since
Obama's December 2014 announcement of plans to normalize ties.

Kerry told lawmakers the U.S. was now engaged more directly with Cuba on
human rights issues because of its additional U.S. diplomatic presence
in Havana.

State Department spokesman John Kirby acknowledged that despite improved
relations between the U.S. and Cuba, there are still issues on which the
two countries do not see "eye to eye."

"It is the way in which political dissent is not tolerated and the speed
with which and the groundless nature with which people are arrested and
detained in Cuba," said Kirby, citing examples of human rights
disagreements.

The U.S. needs to continue to press Cuba on issues such as freedom of
speech and freedom of association, said Marc Hanson, president of the
Washington Office on Latin America.

However, he said, the U.S.-Cuba normalization process will benefit this
effort.

"It is abundantly clear that a policy of isolation did not work on
moving the needle on human rights or democracy in Cuba," he said.

Obama will be the first sitting president to visit Cuba since 1929.
Kerry will be making his second trip as secretary of state, after
attending an August ceremony to mark the reopening of the U.S. Embassy
in Havana.

VOA's Mary Alice Salinas contributed to this report.

Source: White House: US, Not Cuba, Will Determine Meetings With
Dissidents -
http://www.voanews.com/content/white-house-will-determine-meetings-cuban-dissidents/3220881.html