WASHINGTON – Cuba’s decision to release 52 political prisoners is an overdue but nevertheless positive sign from the island’s communist government, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said yesterday.
“We were encouraged by the apparent agreement between the Roman Catholic Church and the authorities in Cuba for the release of 52 political prisoners,” Ms Clinton told reporters after a meeting with Jordan’s visiting foreign minister.
“We think that’s a positive sign. It’s something that is overdue but nevertheless very welcome.”
Cuba’s Catholic Church said on Wednesday that Havana had agreed to the release, which appeared to be a major concession to international pressure on human rights.
The church said five of the prisoners would be freed on Wednesday and allowed to go to Spain, while the remaining 47 would be released over the next few months.
Ms Clinton said she spoke on Wednesday to Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, who was in Havana and took part in talks involving church officials and the government.
She did not directly address a question on whether the reported prisoner release would influence the Obama administration’s view on whether to end the 48-year-old US economic embargo on Cuba.
US president Barack Obama has made modest efforts to improve relations with Cuba, including a slight easing of the embargo, and has said there would be further progress when the island released political prisoners.
Ms Clinton said in April that she personally believed both former president Fidel Castro and his brother Raul, who succeeded him in 2008, had no interest in truly improving ties with the US because it might threaten their hold on power.
Another factor complicating US-Cuba relations is Cuba’s detention of US contractor Alan Gross, who has been jailed in Havana since December on suspicion of espionage activities.
US officials, who say Mr Gross is not a spy and was only providing internet access to Jewish groups, maintain there will be no significant improvement in relations until he is freed.
Meanwhile, Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas, who had been reported to be near death in recent days, has ended his long hunger strike after the announcement, a fellow dissident said yesterday. Mr Farinas (48), had sought the release of 25 ailing political prisoners who are among the 52 to be freed. He was on the 135th day of his hunger strike, which began a day after the February 23rd death of dissident Orlando Zapata. – (Reuters)