WASHINGTON -- Like many before her, the most recent cast-off from Fidel Castro's Cuba is independent-minded. She is contemptuous of a system that feeds on fear and sympathetic to those who are brave enough to dissent.
But she is not Cuban.
Robin Meyer, the former human rights officer at the U.S. mission in Havana, was expelled by the Cuban government in August for ``activities incompatible with her status,'' which Havana officials said included aiding and helping organize Castro opponents. Last month, Undersecretary of State Peter Tarnoff bestowed upon Meyer one of the department's highest honors for her ``dedication, bravery and consistently sound policy recommendations.''
In a rare interview, Meyer recently reflected on life in the cross hairs of the Cuban government, on her role as ally and friend to the island's political untouchables.
Three months after her expulsion, her tan is fading. But Cuba remains underneath her skin.
``I am an exile,'' said the Chicago-born diplomat. ``Who knows when I'll get back? When am I going to see my friends again?''
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Meyer arrived in Havana in 1994, at a time when food shortages, frequent blackouts and unreliable transportation made the lives of ordinary Cubans excruciating. Unable to address such basic needs, the Castro government dropped its guard that summer and allowed tens of thousands of U.S.-bound refugees to pour into the sea.
At the time, the administration was embarked on a policy that included aggressive outreach to nongovernmental players on the island. Through increased contacts with Cuban academics, religious figures or avowed dissidents, U.S. officials hoped to nurture the makings of a civil society on the island.
Important voices of dissent started to filter out of Cuba and catch the imagination of activists around the world.
A spontaneous riot rocked Central Havana in August of 1994; professionals banded together in independent trade organizations; and this year, in the most historic effort of its kind, 132 groups sought to meet to discuss Cuba's future on Feb. 24 under the rubric of Concilio Cubano.
But by mid-February, the growing clamor was mightily snuffed. Nearly 200 Concilio members were arrested or interrogated and the coalition's meeting was banned. Then, Cuban fighter jets shot down two U.S. civilian jets piloted by Cuban Americans over international waters. Meyer saw her own labors come crashing down as well.
Her job at the U.S. mission included building bridges to Cuba's pariahs: those who openly declared themselves opposed to Castroism and others who through their deeds, faith, reading habits, family ties or simple desire to flee had been officially shunned in Cuba.
Gatekeeper role
She was their quiet champion, stepping into their dark, dilapidated homes with everything from books and newspapers to cookies and soup.
One of her most important tasks was that of gatekeeper. She had a say over who would have access to senior U.S. diplomats at the American mission. She also decided which dissidents to recommend to American journalists, academics, rights monitors and lawmakers.
It was a difficult chore in a society so permeated with government informers and everyday needs.
``We threw her all the chaff that goes with dissident activities,'' recalled one colleague, who deemed Meyer's judgment ``almost infallible.''
Meyer had little to offer dissidents, beyond moral support. The administration, stung by past CIA failures in Cuba and worried that Castro would portray his homegrown opponents as U.S. agents, barred funding for dissidents.
Though constantly tempted, Meyer said she never dipped into her own purse either. Instead, she offered aid of a different sort.
She provided her home -- with its diplomatic protection -- as a meeting place. She zipped through the countryside, visiting churches and jails. In Havana, she kept dissidents up to speed on what others were doing, threading their hopes for unity when their phones were either tapped, didn't work or both.
Cookies and running shoes
And she baked. Cookies, cakes -- Christmas gifts that even Scrooge couldn't deny. ``I'm a great baker,'' she said.
When Sebastian Arcos, an internationally known dissident, was released from prison after a four-year sentence in May of last year, Meyer arrived at his door with a surprise gift for the once inveterate jogger: running shoes.
But Arcos emerged in worse shape that anyone had imagined, and the shoes Meyer's mother had sent from Chicago would never be used for laps. Arcos was ill with cancer, a rectal tumor that could have been ``easily diagnosed,'' had spread and metastasized, Meyer said.
Arcos, who has since moved to Miami, where he continues to battle the disease, returned the affectionate gesture a year later: When Meyer traveled through town after her expulsion, he presented her with a bouquet of roses.
One of Cuba's leading dissidents, Elizardo Sanchez, said Meyer stood by many families as relatives were tried and sentenced for crimes against the state.
``It was a labor of love,'' Sanchez said in a telephone interview from Havana. ``You know she was trying to give some hope to many desperate people. She is sorely missed.''
Dangerous liaisons
Meyer moved among the dissidents aware that her contact with them could endanger them. At times, she said, her visits almost guaranteed a police raid. But still they asked her back.
Activists who visited Meyer's house in Havana's Miramar neighborhood fared no better. Once, she invited 10 human rights activists to an informal reception for a newly arrived Canadian diplomat. Nine of the 10 were detained en route.
``I suppose I can reluctantly thank the Cuban government for teaching my [Canadian] colleague so much so quickly,'' she remarked.
Increasingly, the harassment turned on Meyer as well.
Early this year, as Concilio Cubano gained the attention of foreign press and governments, Meyer arranged for some of their leaders to meet with two U.S. Democratic lawmakers, Reps. Joe Moakley and Bill Richardson. Meyer used a U.S. van to ferry a group of the dissidents to meet the congressmen at the Hotel Nacional -- an unpardonable sin that Havana official Raul Alarcon would later decry.
As Concilio's Feb. 24 meeting date drew near, Meyer began having car trouble. Her tires were punctured, often two at a time. Once, after her car broke down, she found herself stranded, staring ruefully at a nearby carful of state security ``baby sitters'' who would become her constant shadow.
On Feb. 18, the Castro government banned the planned Concilio meeting, then set out to make sure it didn't take place. Day after day, dozens of Concilio supporters were rounded up for questioning or jailed in one of the broadest police sweeps ever.
Meyer chronicled each arrest and briefed the foreign press and diplomats.
Too many `accidents'
On Friday, Feb. 23, she was driving home from the U.S. interests section when a white Soviet-built Lada nearly sideswiped her car. She wrote off the near-miss to faulty brakes. Then it happened again. And again. She doubled back to the mission and had a U.S. security agent escort her home.
The next day, she left for work, comfortably sandwiched between two U.S. escort cars. But another Lada, stuffed with her now-familiar baby sitters, tried to break into the chain of cars. She fled through an intersection on a changing light. The Lada tried to follow but was too late, and was slammed by an oncoming car.
Just hours later, the Cuban government shot down two unarmed U.S. civilian planes belonging to the Miami-based Brothers to the Rescue -- setting in motion the events that led to the current policy of stark confrontation.
Back in Washington, Meyer is amazed that some of her old friends don't grant Cuba's human rights record the same scrutiny as, say, Guatemala's. At a speech at her undergraduate alma mater, Grinnell College in Iowa, last September, she made the point plainly:
``Cuba is suffering the effects of having been Guatemala 30 years ago. There were firing squads [then],'' she said. ``. . . But the most overt abuses have ended because there there is no longer any need. There's a climate of fear. What exists is a complete lack of freedom.
``So they don't need the firing squads anymore. People inherit the fear.''
Waiting for her next posting -- possibly following African affairs at the United Nations -- Meyer flinches at the suggestion she was expelled for doing her job only too well.
``If I had known they were going to kick me out, I'd have done double,'' she said. And, while proud of the State Department plaudits, Meyer is blunt: ``I'd rather be in Havana.''
Copyright © 1996 The Miami Herald