Havana---The highest-ranking US official to visit Cuba in 35 years will meet with dissidents on Friday, one day after historic talks aimed at normalizing relations with the communist regime.
Roberta Jacobson, the State Department's top official for Latin America, has invited members of civil society for breakfast at the residence of the chief of the US diplomatic mission in Havana.
Dissidents said participants will include Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White group; Jose Daniel Ferrer, who heads an opposition group in western Cuba; and Elizardo Sanchez of the Cuban National Human Rights Commission.
US officials have not made the guest list public.
The dissident community voiced unease after US President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro announced on December 17 that the Cold War rivals would work to normalize relations that broke off in 1961.
The US government has been the dissidents' main allies and source of funding over the years.
In Washington, some lawmakers on both sides of the political divide have criticized the rapprochement, saying Obama conceded too much to the Castro regime without getting much in return in terms of changes to the one-party system.
- A first step -
Jacobson led a US delegation during talks with Cuban foreign ministry officials on Thursday focused on reestablishing diplomatic relations.
"We have ... to overcome more than 50 years of a relationship that was not based on confidence or trust," she said.
The two sides fell short of announcing dates for the reopening of embassies, but they pledged to meet again to work toward that goal.
Both nations are currently represented by "interests sections" that restrict the work of diplomats in each capital.
At the end of the talks, Jacobson issued a statement saying she had "pressed the Cuban government for improved human rights conditions, including freedom of expression and assembly."
While the two delegations praised the tone of the meeting, Cuba hit back with its own statement accusing Washington of a host of human rights abuses.
Cuban delegation chief Josefina Vidal said her government "has never responded to pressures."
But she invited the United States to hold a new meeting about human rights because countries with deep differences "can live together."
Jacobson is the most senior US official to visit Cuba since an envoy of then president Jimmy Carter met with Fidel Castro in 1980.
The leader of Cuba's 1959 revolution has yet to publicly comment about the detente that his brother Raul has engaged with his old enemy.
Pope Francis played a central role in mediating the secret negotiations that led the December announcement.
After meeting with dissidents and holding a press conference, Jacobson will visit Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega.
"The process of normalizing relations will take time, it will be tortuous at times and smooth at others," Orlando Marquez, spokesman for the Havana archdiocese, said in an article in the Catholic magazine Palabra Nueva (New Word).
"But the first step has been taken and that is what's most important because the stalemate has been broken," he said.
AFP
