Cuba’s Message to Its People: Be on Your Best Behavior for Obama

[WestVirginiaRebel]

NY Times:

HAVANA — Elizardo Sánchez flew to Havana from Miami on Saturday, looking forward to meeting President Obama with other Cuban dissidents invited to the United States Embassy here on Tuesday. But at the airport, Cuban officials decided he would have to wait.

 

He was separated from his wife, he said, sent to a cold, windowless room and told that he was not being “detained” but rather “retained.”

 

“Can I make a phone call?” he said he asked, as officials made copies of every document in his bag. “No,” came the reply.

 

Three and a half hours later, Mr. Sánchez, a graying, steady critic of Raúl Castro’s government who runs the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, was set free, angry but unsurprised.

 

“It’s the climate of intimidation the government is creating for Obama’s visit,” he said on the patio of his pink house here. “There are dozens of other cases.”

 

Security and control are mainstays of every country Mr. Obama visits. But Cuba — a police state still working out how much to open up to the world, and to its own people — has gone above and beyond to prevent embarrassing surprises.

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Obama's Cuban vacation...

[Valin]

AFP news agency

#BREAKING Dozens of Cuba dissidents arrested hours before Obama arrival

 

12:25 PM - 20 Mar 2016