Why doesn President Obama have time for Cubas pro-democracy opposition?
FOR ITS winners, the National Endowment for Democracy’s annual Democracy Award can mean a brief respite from a dangerous life as a dissident: a trip to Washington, attention from Congress and the media, and — during the Bush and Clinton administrations — an Oval Office meeting or statement of support from the president. No such luck for this year’s honorees, who are five leaders of Cuba’s pro-democracy movement. Two of them — Iris Tamara Pérez Aguilera and Jorge Luis García Pérez — were detained in the Cuban town of Placetas on Tuesday when they joined a peaceful meeting of the Rosa Parks Women’s Movement for Civil Rights. A third, Librado Linares García, who is already imprisoned, was moved to a punishment cell before yesterday’s Capitol Hill award ceremony.
