Response to Paquito D’ Rivera
"Let's not help out the communists by sabotaging the person (Yoani Sanchez) who has done the most harm to them these past few years and today continues to hit them where it hurts." (Paquito 'D Rivera 3/12/13)
Observation:
Say a serial ax-murderer has been running amock in your neighborhood for half a century. Almost superhuman guile on his part and almost superhuman gullibility and swinishness by those inside and outside of this neighborhood have allowed his long reign--along with much luck (JFK defeating Nixon in 1960.)
Say the handcuffs--and perhaps even the noose--seem to be finally closing in on the criminal.
Now say somebody from this neighborhood has finally captured the attention of some of those outside the neighborhood and alerted them to this criminal spree. Indeed the word is spreading rapidly. But this person claims this criminality simply consists of hub-cap theft. And that rather than handcuffs and a noose, this criminal would respond well to probation and counseling. In fact, she claims that even the threat of handcuffs and noose are "counterproductive" towards ending his criminality.
Is such a person doing this criminal "the most harm?" In fact, if you were that criminal and felt the handcuffs and noose closing in inexorably this time for sure--might you even help promote this person's campaign, knowing that if she prevailed in her admonitions to call off the handcuff and noose wielders, then you could probably slip genuine punishment and keep getting away with murder, as you have SO many times during close calls in the past?
And why must EVERY mention of Yoani Sanchez by a Cuba-exile start with something close to how Dorothy and her three friends addressed the Great and Powerful Oz?..
"Please!..Please!!! understand...I FULLY RESPECT and DEFEND with every fiber of my being, her right to say WHATEVER!...Really..REALLY I DO!!!"
Best I can tell, nobody--not even the most hard-line, not even Vigilia Mambisa--have ever called for curtailing her "right" to speak and write and opine. Some simply question her judgement calls during these writings and speakings and opinings.
Shake out of it, people! Loosen up!...such craven obsequience, flattery and banalities are the LAST thing Cubans were traditionally known for.
In fact there are thousands of Cubans and Cuban-exiles who abundantly merit such reverence. The longest suffering political prisoners--male and female, black and white--in the modern history of the human race defiantly suffered their tortures in Castro's jails and torture chambers.
But in my humble experience with some of them, they strongly reject such reverential treatment. 
They reserve it for the thousands of their compatriots and band of brothers and sisters who never made it out alive.
Humberto,
As you accurately stated, there is a long line of dead and alive Cubans, opponents of the Castro tyranny, that deserve far more recognition than Yoani Sanchez...
Is there a list of actions, such as prisoner releases, enactment of human rights covenants, governments changing their Cuba policies demanding the regime move toward democracy, etc., that can be attributed to the harm Yoani has caused the regime?
YS is compromised, which may be inevitable given her personal history (like that of most Cubans under 60 on the island), but she clearly has no idea how compromised she is. She thinks it's just being postmodern, or 21st century ambiguity, or some such trendy and innocuous condition (which of course goes over perfectly with the liberal left). She may be quite sincere and well-intentioned, but it is absolutely insane to anoint her as The One. Cubans should NEVER do that again with ANYBODY. Doing so with Fidel Castro was utterly Latrine and an unqualified disaster. Given how much YS has been blown out of proportion, which is frankly ludicrous, she CAN be a tool for significant harm even if she means none. She will certainly be seized upon and used for all she's worth by perverse opportunists whose agenda is clearly NOT good for Cuba. Any call for a hands-off policy with her, or with anybody else, is automatically out of line and should be ignored. Hindus may have sacred cows, but we simply CANNOT.
Ziva, YS has proved a marketable product, certainly much more palatable to those who control the flow of information and set fashion worldwide than she ever would have been if she were truly implacable or intransigent regarding Castro, Inc. Just as in many spheres of endeavor, such as the entertainment field, it is perfectly possible to become a celebrity with no major talent, but being marketable is absolutely crucial for popular success. She’s very non-threatening to a liberal/leftist audience for rather obvious reasons, including the way she writes and the way she looks, which has the appeal of apparent fragility, so they can feel both superior and protective. This feeds into their need to feel virtuous without being challenged or confronted, and also into their preference for feeling over hard facts and harsh reality. One must admit she’s rather soothing in her way, even if that’s natural as opposed to deliberate. Most people only want a filtered, low-key, toned-down version of Cuba, or Cuba Lite--in other words, no guilt, no pressure. She gives a very influential and powerful audience what it wants, and they've rewarded her accordingly (which they obviously have NOT done with people like Biscet or Berta Soler). There's absolutely no surprise here.