Chilean president ignores Cuban political prisoners

[Judi Lynn]

Thursday, February 12, 2009
Chilean president ignores Cuban political prisoners

Cuban dissidents expressed disappointment that Chilean President Michelle Bachelet is not interested in meeting with them during her official visit to the island, adding that her personal history as victim of political persecution makes the issue even more regretful.

Opposition economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe said the Chilean leader's decision was "most regrettable ... (and) inconsistent" particularly since dissidents in Cuba "are suffering now what she suffered" during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

"She's a person who has much prestige in Cuba within the dissident movement. She herself was a prisoner, tortured by the Pinochet regime. Her father, an Air Force commodore was also tortured and murdered" said Espinosa, one of the 75 opposition figures imprisoned during 2003 repression wave but was later released for health reasons.

“We greatly regret this decision and are very sorry about it, although we'll continue to have a high opinion of her as president" he said.

Meanwhile, Vladimiro Roca, the head of the Agenda for the Transition, speaking with the Spanish news agency Efe said that Bachelet's "indifference" to the internal Cuban dissident movement "means abandonment" and is something "unexpected," given the "record in defence of human rights that she has had".

"She's a person who suffered the effects of a dictatorship. She lost her father, suffered prison and torture and was under an oppressive regime and later exiled in Eastern Germany. Her history is what makes us feel disappointed, because with that history we were hoping for more solidarity" Roca said.

~snip~
Paya said that several years ago the Chilean Embassy in Havana broke off contacts with his group, a move that he interprets as “a clear message that it is a government that doesn't want to have anything to do dissidents and rather scorns them”.

http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=16087&formato=HTML

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,412041,00.jpg

Oscar Espinosa Chepe, Vladimiro Roca, Martha Beatriz Roque, Oswaldo Paya (plaid shirt) with Jose Maria Aznar

~~~~~~~~~~
Bachelet is not connected to the Cuban terrorists in Miami who participated in Operation Condor, which KILLED people like Bachelet's father. Bachelet represents the people who were oppressed by fascism, not supportive of it.

[rabs]

1. Mercosur news agency erred in the headline

Chilean president ignores Cuban political prisoners

should have been

Chilean president ignores Cuban political dissidents

who as far as I know, are not prisoners at this time.