A year after sentencing journalist and poet Raul Rivero to a twenty year conspiracy sentence, the Cuban government has suddenly released him (see yesterday’s MobyLives news digest). Why? In a commentary for Slate, Paul Berman writes, “The immediate reason appears to be a diplomatic change of attitude in Europe,” led by the new government of José Luis Zapatero in Spain being considerably friendlier towards Cuba than the previous government of José Maria Aznar. Says Berman, “Here is a victory, then, for the bad cop/good cop approach toward Cuba—the bad cop having been Aznar, and the good cop, Zapatero.” But also, interestingly, Berman points out that it is also a victory for another writer: Vaclav Havel, “who, after his retirement from the presidency of the Czech Republic, has taken up the cause of Cuban freedom. Just a few weeks ago he organized an international meeting in Prague to pressure for the release of the Cuban dissidents.”