Dissident Antonio Rodiles says network with exiles can facilitate Cuba's transition to democracy

Posted on Tuesday, 04.30.13

Dissident Antonio Rodiles says network with exiles can facilitate Cuba's
transition to democracy
By JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayor@ElNuevoHerald.com

Cuban dissident Antonio G. Rodiles said Tuesday his Estado de SATS
movement is trying to knit together a network of domestic and exile
opposition forces that will facilitate the nation's transition to democracy.

Washington should maintain the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, he said
during an interview with journalists from The Miami Herald and El Nuevo
Herald, and Raúl Castro's economic reforms are "minuscule maneuvers."

Rodiles, who left Cuba in 1998 but returned in 2007 after living in
Mexico and starting a doctorate in mathematics at Florida State
University, is the fifth blogger or leading dissident to visit Miami
since the Cuban government eased its migration controls in January.

The 40-year-old, who was detained for 19 days last year on charges of
resisting arrest, said he plans to return to Havana in early May, then
leave the island again for a trip to Spain, Sweden and perhaps some
former Soviet Bloc nations.

Rodiles said Estado de SATS, founded in 2010, is an attempt to create a
public space where Cubans can talk about different key issues and create
a network of connections among civil society groups and activists across
the island.

It has videotaped about 70 panel discussions on different topics and
passed them around in DVDs, each containing three or four programs.
Movies and musical performances also have been used to publicize Estado
de SATS' message, he added.

One of the group's main campaigns, Por Otra Cuba — For Another Cuba —
has gathered more than 4,000 digital signatures demanding that the
island's government ratify two U.N. agreements on civil and political
rights that it signed in 2008.

Cubans abroad must be part of the network and can help by sending as
much information into the island as possible — in DVDs, USB flash drives
or any other memory device as well as other types of aid, he noted.

He declined to discuss the other types of aid, saying that the Cuban
government can crack down on dissidents who receive assistance from
abroad even though authorities often fire or deny work to dissidents and
they have no other means of support.

His parents shut down the bed and breakfast they ran out of their home
in Havana, Rodiles said, because government officials apparently did not
like that Estado de SATS was holding some of its meetings there, he said.

Rodiles said that now "is the worst time to lift the embargo" because
the island's disastrous economy is already forcing Raúl Castro to make
"minuscule" reforms. "The table is set," he said, for opposition groups
to "try to find the cracks in the system" and eventually ease Cuba
toward democracy.

He is scheduled to meet Wednesday with the three South Florida
Cuban-Americans in the U.S. Congress — Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
and Mario Díaz-Balart and Democrat Joe García— as well as former
Republican Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart..

On Thursday evening Rodiles is expected to address a conference at Miami
Dade College, and on Saturday afternoon he is scheduled to be at
CubaOcho on SW 8th Street. for an address on the For Another Cuba project.

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