• Submitted by: lena campos
• Politics and Government
• 11 / 13 / 2013

---

Cuban dissidents Berta Soler and Guillermo Fariñas said Monday that their meeting in Miami with U.S. President Barack Obama was "very important."

Soler and Fariñas were among the opposition figures who met with Obama last Friday at the Miami home of Jorge Mas Santos, president of the Cuban American National Foundation.

At that meeting, Obama said that he had begun to see changes in Cuba and added that the United States needs to be "creative" in its relationship with the Caribbean island.

Back in Cuba, Soler, the leader of the Ladies in White dissident group, told Efe that it was "very important to be able to be with the president of the United States" and to be able to thank him personally for what he is doing for the Cuban people.

Fariñas called the meeting historic and said it amounted to "backing" and recognition of the cause of Cuba's internal opposition in a telephone conversation with Efe from his home in the central province of Santa Clara.

"It was an opportunity to express to the U.S. president that there have been cosmetic economic changes in Cuba, that the repression has increased and that he must not let himself be carried away by siren songs," Fariñas emphasized.

In her greeting to the president, Soler thanked him for his "moral support" for the internal dissident movement and asked him to intercede to obtain the release of Sonia Garro, a Ladies in White member who has been held under arrest by Cuban authorities for months.

The Cuban government, which considers the dissidents to be counterrevolutionaries and mercenaries in the service of Washington, has not commented on Obama's meeting with the internal opposition members.

Soler and Fariñas last week made their third and second trips, respectively, to the United States after Havana earlier this year implemented a reform that increased Cuban citizens' chances to travel abroad.

Both are scheduled to travel next week to Strasbourg, France, to attend the celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the Sakharov Prize.

The award was bestowed on the Ladies in White in 2005 and on Fariñas in 2010.

Source: Globalpost.com