Odds and ends

• A Cubanet report says Martha Beatriz Roque led a peaceful march of 70 dissidents in support of a wife’s effort to have her husband released from prison. The report was filed from Havana and says the march took place in Camaguey “this weekend.” It praises Roque’s prominence and says the march is “without precedents in Cuba.” Actually, a march of that type takes place in Havana every Sunday around noon in Miramar on Fifth Avenue near 26^th led by the Damas de Blanco.

• An editorial in Spain’s El Pais (h/t Cuba por Dentro) contains this passage: “Cuba is a communist dictatorship, one of the last. But probably its evolution and eventual transition will not be the same as in Czechoslovakia, Poland, or Romania, because much of the opposition has abandoned the island, and for the existence a few kilometers away of a power like the United States.” Ouch.

• Mexico’s President Calderon, who has already talked about his desire to improve relations with Cuba, sent a warm message of condolence to Raul Castro following the death of his wife Vilma Espin. He praised Espin’s place in Cuba’s social history and expressed “the solidarity of the Mexican people with the Cuban people in the face of this irreparable loss.”