Three Cuban dissidents free but questions hang over U.S.-Cuba deal

Three dissidents were free Thursday after being abruptly released in what a leading human rights advocate said was part of Cuba’s deal with Washington to release 53 members of the island’s political opposition. Neither the Obama administration nor the Cuban government spoke publicly about the releases, adding to the unanswered questions swirling around the deal and the broader detente that the two countries announced Dec. 17. President Barack Obama ended five decades of official U.S. hostility toward Cuba by announcing that, along with an exchange of men held on espionage charges, he would move toward full diplomatic ties, drop regime change as a U.S. goal and punch holes in the longstanding trade embargo.

They’re prisoners of conscience and they’ve been freed immediately and with no conditions.

Head of Cuba’s Human Rights and Reconciliation Commission Elizardo Sanchez

His Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro, welcomed the announcement but said detente would not lead Cuba to change its single-party political system or centrally planned economy. U.S. officials told reporters on Dec. 17 that Cuba had agreed to free the 53 detainees, considered by Washington to be high-priority political prisoners. But since then, neither Cuba nor the United States has publicly identified anyone on the list or announced they have gone free. Facing criticism at home, U.S. officials said they never expected Cuba to move immediately to release the prisoners. They said the U.S. was avoiding public complaints that could provoke a backlash from Cuban officials. For many Cuban-Americans and U.S. conservatives, the apparent lack of movement supported complaints that Obama’s secretly negotiated deal was too opaque and had failed to win sufficient concessions from Cuba.

It’s unfair for us Cubans and Cuban-Americans not to be able to influence this situation that has such a tremendous relevance for the future of Cuba.

Francisco “Pepe” Hernandez, president of the Cuban American National Foundation

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