UBA | ANALYSIS
Is Raul Castro taking risk in church talks?
Raúl Castro's negotiations with the Catholic Church have sparked hope, but recognizing the church as a mediator is uncharted territory.
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
Raúl Castro's talks with the Catholic Church on political prisoners have sparked hopes, skepticism and assertions he's taking a risk by recognizing the church as a mediator in Cuban affairs.
The meetings with Cardinal Jaime Ortega are the first time in memory the communist government has negotiated with a national, independent organization like the Cuban church, on an island where authorities try to control virtually all activity.
They also represent Castro's most important political shift since succeeding his ailing brother, Fidel, two years ago. The meetings also have given added weight to a church that the state has kept on a short leash throughout most of the past five decades.
Castro has promised to move some political prisoners in poor health to hospitals, move other jailed dissidents to institutions closer to their homes and eventually release some of Cuba's estimated 190 prisoners of conscience.
`A MIDDLEMAN'
While the local church has long decried Cuba's problems, ``what is new is the government's readiness to publicly recognize the Cuban Catholic church as a middleman for resolving key issues,'' Havana dissident Oscar Espinosa Chepe wrote in a column Monday.
Fidel Castro freed 3,600 political prisoners after 1978 negotiations with exiles, and about 300 dissidents and common criminals after Pope John Paul II's 1998 visit to Cuba. He also released a few to visitors such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
Now his brother's meetings with Ortega have raised hopes for an improvement in Cuba's human rights record, too. But there also have been accusations that the cardinal is being manipulated by Raúl Castro to give a propaganda boost to what may amount to meager changes for political prisoners.
Some analysts are also cautioning that Castro is taking a risk because his talk
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