As Kyle Drennen pointed out yesterday, the major networks almost completely avoided any coverage of dissidents when reporting on the American flag being raised at the newly-reopened U.S. embassy in Havana. However, there was one report at CNN that stood out in sharp contrast to their reticence to criticize the Castro regime. That was the report by Jake Tapper on The Lead in which he provided an in-depth interview with one of the leading Cuban dissidents.
JAKE TAPPER: Not everyone here is celebrating. Antonio Rodiles is part of the pro-democracy dissidence community, a rare and brave vocal critic on the island who dares to criticize the Castro government.
He's not only spoken out himself for years, he has hosted the dissidence community at his family home.
(on camera): What do people talk about here, human rights, democracy?
ANTONIO RODILES, CUBAN DISSIDENT: Human rights, democracy, social situation.
TAPPER (voice-over): Their campaign for greater freedom here has come at a significant cost. Rodiles and other activists are routinely rounded up and arrested as they try to make their way to mass at a local Catholic church. Women there dressed in white called Las Damas de Blanco bear silent witnesses to their husbands serving jail time as political prisoners.
(on camera): And how did they treat you? Does the government retaliate against you?
RODILES: Yes, they've been repressing a lot. They used to organize like a kind of police operations around the house to arrest the people that were -- they were coming here.
TAPPER: Just for what? Just for coming?
RODILES: Yes, exactly, because they don't want that kind of activities.
TAPPER: Have they ever done anything to you? Have they arrested you? Have they physically hurt you?
RODILES: Yes, I have been arrested several times, and also I have been beaten. I have been in jail for certain days, and both in the last time the situation has been changing for worse.
TAPPER: It's getting worse?
RODILES: Yes.
TAPPER (voice-over): This is what happened in July when Rodiles was arrested on his way to church, put in the back of a police car and beaten with handcuffs.
(on camera): President Obama and Secretary Kerry, they argue, look, we have tried it with an embargo and blockade for decades and nothing has changed. Maybe by doing this, there will be more human rights and democracy in Cuba. Do you agree with that?
RODILES: I do not agree. We really are upset because the American government doesn't want to put any pre-condition for that political process, and the Cuban government is taking a lot and they are not giving anything.
TAPPER (voice-over): As the American flag rose over the U.S. embassy in Havana today, there were no dissidents there, none on embassy grounds. Instead, Rodiles said he and others have been invited to a private ceremony with the secretary of state at the ambassador's residence in the afternoon, but he declined their invitation.
(on camera): Do you think Obama and Kerry doing this hurt the cause of people like you, people fighting for freedom?
RODILES: Sometimes, yes, because first, the government has more legitimacy in the international community. They feel more free to repress us. But at the same time, the signal for the people fighting the government, making a huge confusion, because right now, people don't understand who are their friends that are supporting the changing for democracy, who are the people supporting their government.
Kudos to Jake Tapper for treading where the "Happy Face" coverage by the networks in Cuba refused to go.
