A Cuban dissident able to travel for the first time praises new U.S. ties and warns of hazards

Fast-talking and often harassed, Cuban political dissident Jose Daniel Ferrer could hold himself up as Exhibit A in the improving relations between Washington and Havana.

Ferrer, 45, has been allowed to travel abroad for the first time. And, he said Wednesday, he will be allowed to return – instead of being blocked and banned by Cuban authorities, as often happens with dissidents.

He credits the Obama administration for securing assurances for his safe passage from President Raul Castro’s government.

It is one of the positive outcomes from what Ferrer described as a slow rapprochement that has moved in fits and starts since Obama and Castro restored diplomatic ties and renewed numerous political and economic connections after half a century of hostilities.

Still, Ferrer’s two-way ticket was a one-time offer, he said, a sign of the distance yet to go in his fight for basic civil rights under an authoritarian government.

“We make advances, then the regime represses us and we have to take steps back,” Ferrer said in a meeting with reporters at a Washington public-policy advocacy firm.

“But the best thing we see is the change in the mentality of the people,” he added.

Ordinary Cubans are more willing to participate, to speak out and – however hesitantly – make demands, Ferrer said.

Ferrer heads one of the main, if small, political opposition organizations in Communist-led Cuba, the Patriotic Union of Cuba. It advocates for nonviolent change to bring about democracy and better human rights protections.

Havana regards such groups as stooges of Washington.

Ferrer spent eight years in prison for his political work after he was arrested in a 2003 crackdown called the Black Spring that rounded up 75 dissidents, journalists and others. Most were freed under an agreement with the Roman Catholic Church that the prisoners would go into exile in Spain or the United States.

Ferrer refused the deal.

He was declared an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, was released from prison in 2011, and in March was among a group of anti-Castro activists who sat down with President Obama during his historic visit to Havana.

Unlike some of his associates, Ferrer supports Obama’s policy of opening up to Cuba.

It has robbed the Castros (Raul, the president, and his elder brother, the revolutionary leader Fidel) of their ability to blame all of Cuba’s problems on the U.S. government, he said, and will create positive momentum for the beleaguered opposition.

“We want this process to help us get the freedoms we don’t have,” Ferrer said. But, he added, arrests of dissidents, including members of his own organization, continue unhindered.

Since departing Havana a couple of weeks ago, Ferrer has wasted no time, traveling from Miami to Washington and, soon, to New York, California and Madrid. He is taking his sharp criticism of Cuba’s repressive government and seeking broader support for his group’s activities.

He will visit Silicon Valley next week to talk about ways to make the Internet accessible and affordable to more Cubans, something the Havana government has resisted.

His advice to American businesses that might be looking to invest: proceed with caution in making deals on the island.

“The Castros never negotiate for a win-win,” Ferrer said. “They have a sick need to win and for the rest to lose.”

Scores of American companies in the agricultural sector, along with tourism and other industries, have been lining up for a bite at the Havana market, where consumers goods are depleted and the government spends billions of dollars a year to import food.

Missouri last week shipped 20 tons of long-grain rice to Cuba’s Mariel Port as a symbol of the possibilities of trade.

Despite the difficulties, Ferrer said he was optimistic.

“Yes, there will be periods of more repression,” he said. “It would not surprise me if, the more people we get in the streets, the more likely some sort of crackdown like in Poland” by that country’s communist regime against the Solidarity movement in the 1980s.

“But it doesn’t scare us.”

The U.S. State Department said it routinely advocates for freedom of movement and would not comment on an individual case.

Ferrer spoke excitedly, in the clipped Spanish typical of Cubans. He only slowed down when he recalled seeing his mother in Miami, for the first time since she visited him in Havana five years ago.

His voice cracked slightly and he paused, before continuing.

“We are reaching out to all sectors, to doctors, small business owners, musicians, artists,” Ferrer said in describing the gains the opposition movement hopes to make. “We are making change, growing space.”

Creating, he said, momentum.

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