Dissident Would Thank Obama for ‘Improving Cubans’ Lives’

Cuban dissident Miriam Leiva says that if she could meet President Barack Obama, she would tell him that she is thankful for his policies toward the island nation that are “improving Cubans’ lives, Cubans’ way of looking at the world.”

Leiva, a co-founder of Ladies in White, an opposition group, may get her chance to meet with Obama. The U.S. Embassy in Cuba has invited her to what she was told was a “very high-level meeting” at the embassy in Havana.

The invitation didn’t mention Obama, but the meeting will take place during his visit Tuesday morning.

Leiva, who is also an independent journalist, told VOA that if the meeting is with Obama, she hopes to “listen directly to his views and express mine.”

The 69-year-old widow said the thawing of ties between the U.S. and Cuba had “eased the tension in which we have lived for 55 years.” But Leiva is realistic, too. “Obama won’t change Cuba. But he’s giving Cubans, the ones who should be in charge of the shift, the possibility to have ways, means, ideas and contact so that we actually make those changes.”
(VOA-Report Celia Mendoza)