Martha Beatriz Roque Believes That The US Should “Straighten Out” The Normalization With Cuba / EFE, 14ymedio

Martha Beatriz Roque. (14ymedio)
Martha Beatriz Roque. (14ymedio)

EFE/14ymedio, Miami, 4 March 2016 — The Cuban dissident Martha Beatriz Roque told EFE on Friday in Miami that she would like to be received by the US President, Barack Obama, to ask him to “straighten out” the process of normalization of relations with Cuba.

In that process, “the only thing the Cuban government does is demand and it has given very like in exchange,” said Roque, an economist condemned to 20 years in prison in the 2003 “Black Spring” for violating the “independence and territorial integrity of the State,” collaborating and receiving resources from the United States, and trying to undermine the principles of the Revolution.

Roque Cabello, who was born in 1945 and also has Spanish nationality, arrived in Miami Thursday, on a permit granted by the Cuban government that allows her to travel outside the country one time only.

The dissident, who saw her sister for the first time in 55 years this Thursday, said that she would return to Cuba on 31 March and so will not be there when Obama visits the island on 21st and 22nd, although she would like to be able to speak with him before his trip to explain to him her opinions about the process of normalizing relations announced at the end of 2014.

“Not to be radical, I must say that the Cuban government has given very little. It does only what is required to get the embargo lifted, return Guantanamo, close Radio and Television Marti,” she said in a telephone interview with EFE.

In her view, the United States should “straighten out” this, so that the Cuban government offers something from its side.

Roque said it now is not the time to judge whether Obama was or was not wrong about the agreement he reached with Cuban President Raul Castro to end the antagonism between the two countries, which has already resulted in a restoration of diplomatic relations.

She would like to be received by Obama before traveling to the island to give him her views on the situation in the country and the changes needed, as she did with the United States Secretary of State, John Kerry, when he visited Cuba.

Roque, from the Assembly to Promote Civil Society, said that after this “private trip” she will return to Cuba on March 31 and will be subject to the parole conditions she received in 2004, unable to leave the country again.

A large group of those convicted in the Black Spring Group of 75 left Cuba under an agreement between the Cuban government, the Catholic Church and the Spanish government in 2010. Of the 11 who remained in Cuba, only seven have received permission to take one trip outside of Cuba, and of these three are not going to travel, for various reasons, according to Roque.