Sen. Marco Rubio slammed the Obama administration on Wednesday for not inviting Cuban dissidents to Secretary of State John Kerry’s flag-raising ceremony at the U.S. embassy in Havana Friday.
“This is a new low for President Obama and a slap in the face by this administration to Cuba’s courageous democracy activists,” said Rubio, a top GOP presidential contender and a leading voice against renewing ties with Cuba.
“Cuban dissidents are the legitimate representatives of the Cuban people and it is they who deserve America’s red-carpet treatment, not Castro regime officials,” he continued. “What a pathetic policy President Obama has embarked on that shuns Cuban dissidents like this, yet has welcomed Castro regime officials to the White House.”
The Florida Republican was reacting to reports that the Obama administration had decided not to invite prominent dissidents to Friday’s flag-raising ceremony, and instead to meet with them separately later that day for a lower-profile event. The decision is a powerful example illustrating how U.S. policy is shifting from a focus on the island’s opposition to its single-party government, the Associated Press reported.
In recent months, the Cuban government has stopped meeting with American politicians who meet with dissidents during their visits to Cuba. Reports say U.S. officials believe that inviting dissidents to mark the U.S. embassy’s historic opening in Havana would risk a boycott from Cuban officials.
Ahead of Kerry’s Cuba visit, Rubio had pushed the administration to include dissidents to the embassy ceremonies, but the administration has clearly opted for a more cautious approach.
Roberta Jacobson, undersecretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, visited Cuba in January but only met with dissidents at the end of her trip. Some 20 U.S. lawmakers have since traveled to the island nation since February without sitting down with government critics there.
Meanwhile, the Cuban government continues to arrest and round up protesting dissidents.
“Normalization is a process, we’ve been very clear about that,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Tuesday. “We’ve been very clear that this doesn’t alleviate every challenge in the relationship, but it does give us the ability to speak directly with and to the Cuban government, engage with them more directly.”
“We’ve gotta take this step by step, and you know, we believe the results will bear out that we’ll see a stronger relationship while again being very clear that we’re not brushing away concerns about civil society or human rights,” he continued. “Those are all going to remain important challenges that we’re going to continue to talk with the Cuban government about.”
