Cuba's dissidents say President Barack Obama's decision to normalize relations with their country will cause Cubans even more problems with the Castro regime, and that they will no longer enjoy the support of the United States for their protests.
"He betrayed those of us who are struggling against the Cuban government," Ángel Moya, a former political prisoner whose wife, Berta Soler, leads the dissident group Ladies in White,
told The New York Times. "There will be more repression, only this time with the blessing of the United States."
The dissidents said that before the agreement was announced, they could be sure that the United States would defend people who protested openly against the Cuban dictatorship. But now, that won't be happening.
Further, they say that Obama gave away far too much while getting little in return.
Experts such as Richard Feinberg, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that dissidents are also concerned that their protests will be seen as irrelevant if they don't agree to bargain with the government.
"The hard-liners here will have to either engage, or perish," said Feinberg, complaining that Obama ended decisions not to engage with the government "with a stroke" of his pen.
"Obama had a conversation with Raúl Castro," Feinberg said. "Then why can’t they?"
Obama, when making his announcement last week, did say he shares the concerns of dissidents and human rights advocates that the Castro regime represses Cubans, and that he does not expect change overnight.
And even without the agreement, other activists complain that the United States itself has made it more difficult to get democracy movements underway in Cuba.
They say that rumors and evidence that they have gotten money from the American government and Cuban exiles has given the Castro regime an excuse for cracking down even more on them.
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