Havana/Mike Hammer, the new White House Business Manager in Havana, has held in recent weeks numerous meetings with relatives of Cuban political prisoners and activists. The most recent of these meetings was with the opponent José Daniel Ferrer, whom he visited at home in the city of Santiago de Cuba, this Saturday.
“For almost five hours we talked about various issues of the current reality of our homeland and the importance of solidarity of all west with the Cuban people, who fight for their rights and for democracy,” wrote in his Facebook Ferrer account, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), and Recently released After the negotiations between the Cuban and Vatican regime.
The opponent took the occasion to send his thanks to the current US government, headed by President Donald Trump, for “interest in political prisoners that continue in terrible conditions in prisons throughout our country.” Ferrer’s text is accompanied by several photos where Hammer is seen at the UNPACU headquarters in the Altamira cast together with the former political prisoner, his wife, his son and other released activists or relatives of others who still have prison.
The meeting was attended by the evangelical pastor Lorenzo Rosales, convicted of participating in the popular protests of July 11, 2021 (11j) and that left prison in the middle of January, also within the framework of the negotiation of Havana and the Vatican . At the meeting was Estrella Gell, mother of the political prisoner IAM Gámez Gell, who is serving house prison, and the Catholic priest and friend of Ferrer’s family, Camilo de la Paz Salmon, adds the publication.
With this visit, Hammer adds another stop on a journey that has led him to meet numerous opposition figures and Cuban activism, independent journalists and relatives of political prisoners. So far, he has met with the opponent and former political prisoner Oscar Elías Biscet and his wife Elsa Morejón, among others. He also received in his residence, west of Havana, the leader of the ladies of Blanco, Berta Soler, the dissident Martha Beatriz Roque, who is currently hospitalized and reported severe, and visited the teacher and activist Alina Barbara López in Matanzas.
In his intense agenda of meetings, Hammer visited Annia Zamora, Sissi Abascal’s mother, prey to demonstrate during the 11J protests in Matanzas. In conversation with 14ymedioZamora says Hammer’s visit was “very pleasant.” “Everything flowed very well. He has a lot of interest in knowing the situation of our prisoners and my daughter. The family is very grateful for their concern, interest and visiting us,” he said.
In his intense meeting agenda, Hammer visited Annia Zamora, Sissi Abascal’s mother at the end of last month
Hammer was appointed last November as the new head of the US diplomatic mission in Havana. With 35 years of diplomatic career, the official has experience in the State Department and the White House, spanish fluid – in addition to French and Icelandic – and grew in Latin America. Before arriving in Cuba it was assigned in countries like Chile and Congo.
Hammer, 60, arrived on the island at a time of maximum tension in Havana, with Trump’s return to the White House next to a cabinet in which old enemies of the regime stand out, such as Senator Marco Rubio, who serves as Secretary of State. In addition, its arrival occurred in the midst of a systemic crisis in the country, with a massive exodus and unprecedented shortage.
The business manager has touched, in addition to his public relations work, continue with the agenda of his predecessor to improve diplomatic facilities, deteriorated with the crisis and with the consular break that the so -called Havana syndrome, next to the pandemic , they delved; In addition to supporting the search for a freer and more democratic future for Cuba.
