Cuban dissidents not invited to U.S. flag raising

Washington • Cuban dissidents, so long the center of U.S. policy toward the island, won't be invited to Secretary of State John Kerry's historic flag raising Friday at the U.S. Embassy in Havana. Kerry intends to meet more quietly with prominent activists later in the day, officials said.

The Cuban government labels its domestic opponents as traitorous U.S. mercenaries. As the two countries have moved to restore relations, Cuba has almost entirely stopped meeting with U.S. politicians who visit dissidents during trips to Havana.

That presented a quandary for U.S. officials organizing the ceremony Friday to mark the reopening of the embassy in Havana. Inviting dissidents would risk a boycott by Cuban officials including those who negotiated with the U.S. after Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro declared detente Dec. 17. Excluding dissidents would certainly provoke fierce criticism from opponents of Obama's new policy, including Cuban-American Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio.

Officials familiar with the plans for Kerry's visit, the first by a sitting U.S. secretary of state to Cuba since World War II, told The Associated Press that a compromise was in the works. The dissidents won't be invited to the embassy event, but a small group will meet with Kerry at the U.S. mission chief's home in the afternoon, where a lower-key, flag raising ceremony is scheduled.

Their presence at the embassy would have risked setting back the new spirit of cooperation the U.S. hopes to engender, according to the officials, who demanded anonymity. But not meeting them at all, they said, would send an equally bad signal.

The Obama administration says it is normalizing ties with Cuba after more than 50 years of hostility failed to shake the communist state's hold on power. It argues that dealing directly with Cuba over issues ranging from human rights to trade is far likelier to produce democratic and free-market reforms over the long term.

Key dissidents said late Tuesday that they had not received invitations to any of Friday's events.

Dissident Yoani Sanchez's online newspaper 14ymedio has received no credential for the U.S. Embassy event, said editor Reinaldo Escobar, who is married to Sanchez.

"The right thing to do would be to invite us and hear us out despite the fact that we don't agree with the new U.S. policy," said Antonio Rodiles, head of the dissident group Estado de SATS.

In a statement Wednesday, Rubio called the embassy omissions "a slap in the face" to Cuba's democracy activists.

"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," Rubio said.

The cautious approach is consistent with how Obama has handled the question of support for dissidents since he and Castro announced a prisoner swap in December and their intention to create a broader improvement in relations. The process has resulted in unilateral steps by Obama to ease the economic embargo on Cuba.

When Roberta Jacobson, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, held talks in Havana in January, she met several government critics at the end of her historic trip but was restrained in her criticism of the government. Since then, U.S. politicians have flooded Havana to see the sights, meet the country's new entrepreneurs and discuss possibly ending the U.S. embargo with leaders of the communist government.