Cuba: U.S. diplomat joined demonstrators

Posted By Joshua Keating Thursday, March 18, 2010 - 1:25 PM Share

Cuba's state news agency is reporting that Lowell Dale Lawton, an official at the U.S. interests section in Havana, joined a protest march by the womens' opposition group Ladies in White yesterday. The Miami Herald's Cuba Colada blog translates the report:

The American diplomat mingled with the demonstrators and walked with them the length of the provocation, which was spontaneously rejected by the local people," Prensa Latina said.

On Tuesday, the agency said, two other diplomats – one German, the other Czech – took part in a similar street protest "in open collaboration with the petty counter-revolutionary groups organized and funded by the United States and some European nations.

"These actions of provocation in Cuba, with the presence of diplomats from the United States and western European countries, take place amid a media campaign against the island that intensified on March 10, when the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning alleged human rights violations," Prensa Latina concluded.

Police used force to break up the march by Ladies in White, an organization of the female relatives of political prisoners.

Lawton, along with the German and Czech diplomats were reportedly shown on television participating in the March. It does seem unusual that a U.S. diplomatic employee would participate in a political demonstration, but if the reports are true, it would seem to be a sign that U.S. officials aren't backing down from supporting Cuban civil society groups after the arrest of USAID contractor Alan Gross.

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R.HOWE

4:41 PM ET

March 18, 2010

1 Step @ A Time, LDL

Can anyone imagine a Republican appointee doing what Lowell Dale Lawton just did? What a creative use of diplomatic status! We are so attuned to the belligerence of past presidents FP, we find it hard to recognize the subtle changes BHO is making. Rather than condemn & threaten with great bluster, Mr. Lawton simple joined the demonstrators. Not only did that act bestow some credibility on the gathering, it help to keep things non-lethal. I know a few women were hurt, but no one died. Isn't that what we seek, pro-social change without loss of life?

HOMER

3:08 AM ET

March 20, 2010

Cowardly republicans

Yeah, the Democrats are great appointees. Like the Clinton-appointed ambassador to Zimbabwe that used to show up at official functions with two local working girls, and got sent home because he was having cocaine shipped to him in the diplomatic pouch?

Yeah, that's the kind of people we need appointed instead.

Or, how about keeping politics out of it and get the best people out there regardless of anyone's political affiliation, since governemnt employees of all agencies aren't allowed to have one in the execution of their job.

I hope he had offical sanction to be there. If not, he needs to be sent home, reprimanded and shipped out to someplace in sub-Saharan Africa.

PARVUS

10:59 PM ET

March 18, 2010

I'm not surprised the Cuban

I'm not surprised the Cuban regime is claiming that Lawton joined the march. But I wonder if a more likely scenario is that he was there monitoring it, as opposed to taking part. The clips from Cuban TV that are available on-line show the two European diplomats monitoring events from a distance. They don't appear to have joined a march that was a very raucous due to the intense harassment from the plain clothes police and government rent-a-mob.

MORGANJAMES

9:08 AM ET

April 10, 2010

good

good for them!

Can't be anything wrong with publicly taking a stand again Cuba and their human rights violations. Cuba is country of people trapped in political and human rights bondage and it's time somebody takes a stand against them.

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