The Fight for Free Speech in Cuba and the United States

 In case you missed it.

Text taken from the Free Speech Forward podcast

"Welcome to today’s episode of the Free Speech Forward podcast, a conversation between Joia, Chris, and John Suarez, Executive Director at the Center for a Free Cuba. John shares his journey as a human rights advocate, discussing the importance of free speech particularly in the context of Cuba. He describes his early experiences with censorship, the historical repression in Cuba, and the need for regime change to restore free speech. The conversation also touches on the cultural decline of free speech in the U.S. and the courage required to speak out against oppression."

Find out more at: https://cubacenter.org/

 

 

Cuban human rights defender and machete attack victim unable to ask Hillary Clinton a question today

The silence of good people with regards to the unfolding disaster in Cuba

Flier distributed by the Center for a Free Cuba today at FIU

 The rally today at Florida International University left a lot to be desired and follows a pattern in this presidential cycle of an election that bears a closer resemblance to World Wrestling Entertainment with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as the protagonists in a cage fight. Call for the audience at FIU to be fired up and energized. Dissenters attempting to counter with a different message shouted down and their banner quickly and aggressively pulled down. At the same time the level of political discourse continues its downward spiral. Meanwhile matters of great importance get short shrift but are still impacting the political process unexpectedly. 

Waiting for Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine to appear, a number of speakers warming up the crowd one of them cited an abbreviated quote by Martin Luther King Jr: "History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people." This is what is being witnessed today in Cuba with escalating levels of repression following the normalization of relations with the Castro dictatorship that Hillary Clinton advocated for when she was Secretary of State. Now when the Castro regime murders a young activist and orders a machete attack in an attempt to kill another, the government of the United States remains silent.

Sirley Avila Leon, the human rights defender and machete attack victim, who attended the rally today at Florida International University would have liked to ask Secretary Clinton the following question: "Usted va a seguir la misma politica que tiene Obama sobre Cuba de seguir dando concesiones sin tener al menos el respeto del regimen a los derechos humanos de los cubanos? (Are you going to continue the same policy that Obama has for Cuba, of continuing to give concessions without the regime at least respecting the human rights of the Cubans?)

The Center for a Free Cuba handed out fliers at Florida International University asking "Hillary Clinton: Cuban lives matter. Stop the beatings of the wives, mothers, sisters and daughters of Cuban political prisoners." A plane flying overhead with a banner put the matter more succinctly: "HILLARY, STOP BEATINGS OF CUBAN WOMEN BY RAUL CASTRO."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been on the wrong side of almost every foreign policy debate (Iraq, Libya, Haiti) over the past 15 years and also on Cuba. This can be seen in her convoluted reasoning for ending sanctions back in 2010:

"It is my personal belief that the Castros do not want to see an end to the embargo and do not want to see normalization with the U.S., because they would lose all of their excuses for what hasn't happened in Cuba in the last 50 years." 

Clinton's claim ignores a pile of evidence to the contrary. The Castro regime's international campaign against the embargo, they argue is not to get rid of sanctions but to explain their failures. This also necessitates ignoring:  Castro regime's recruiting of state officials, members of congress, and corporations to lobby to end the embargo in the United States; that every Castro agent uncovered by the United States over the years infiltrated in government and academia has been working for the lifting of sanctions on the Castro dictatorship.

Badly reasoned arguments that run counter to U.S. national interests begin to be understood when the money trail is established. International Business Times reported last year on the relationship between donations to the Clinton Foundation and arm sales to countries with terrible human rights records during Hillary Clinton's tenure at the State Department.

Under Clinton's leadership, the State Department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation, according to an IBTimes analysis of State Department and foundation data. That figure -- derived from the three full fiscal years of Clinton’s term as Secretary of State (from October 2010 to September 2012) -- represented nearly double the value of American arms sales made to the those countries and approved by the State Department during the same period of President George W. Bush’s second term.

The Clinton-led State Department also authorized $151 billion of separate Pentagon-brokered deals for 16 of the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation, resulting in a 143 percent increase in completed sales to those nations over the same time frame during the Bush administration. These extra sales were part of a broad increase in American military exports that accompanied Obama’s arrival in the White House. The 143 percent increase in U.S. arms sales to Clinton Foundation donors compares to an 80 percent increase in such sales to all countries over the same time period.

 In the case of Cuba it was Bill Clinton's presidency that opened up cash and carry trade in 2000 that brought in $5.2 billion dollars in sales to the Castro regime that also generated agents of influence and lobbyists at both the state and federal level. This trade peaked in 2008 and has steadily dropped during the Obama administration reaching a fourteen year low so far in 2016. 

This trade was never sustainable but part of a regime strategy to obtain credits and financing to shift the burden to U.S. taxpayers as was the case with other countries doing business in Cuba. James Prevor, President and Editor in Chief of the publication Produce Business in October of 2002 in the article, Cuba Caution, reported on how Cuba "had exhausted all its credit lines and, at best, was simply rotating the accounts. When the opportunity came to buy from the United States, Cuba simply abandoned all those suppliers who supported the country for 40 years and began buying from us."  The suppliers were not the ones impacted by Cuba's failure to pay its debts, the taxpayers of the suppliers' home countries were the one's left holding the tab.  

While the U.S. Chamber of Commerce touts the virtues of free trade, free markets and free enterprise in its advocacy for lifting economic sanctions on Cuba what it is actually pursuing is trade with the Cuban government that passes the risk of not getting paid on to taxpayers.  Darío Fernández-Morera an associate professor at North Western University in the May 1, 2014 issue of Chronicles in the article The Cost of Normalization reports that the Small Business Exporters Association announced 

"since March 2009, a select group of commercial banks now will be able to offer terms of 180 days to five years on federally-guaranteed loans to the foreign buyers of U.S. exports without having to obtain prior federal approval.  ... Because of the foreign risks involved  in export lending, most commercial banks through-out the world do not make these loans without government guarantees. In the U.S., the guarantees are provided by the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), a federal agency.

This will mean that the Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture lobby will sell to the Cuban dictatorship and have the taxpayers pick up the tab if anything goes wrong.  The record with other countries over the past half century indicates that the Castro regime will default on what it owes.

Hillary Clinton's track record does not inspire confidence and is another reason why she should not be entrusted with The White House.  Unfortunately, Donald Trump on normalizing relations with the Castro regime is but an echo of the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton only adding that he would have negotiated something better. 

Cuban-Americans at FIU Ask Hillary Clinton to Stop Beatings of Cuban Women by Raul Castro’s Police

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Over FIU : HILLARY, STOP BEATINGS OF CUBAN WOMEN BY RAUL CASTRO

Cuban-Americans Ask Hillary Clinton to Stop Beatings of Cuban Women by Raul Castro’s Police

Text taken and adapted from Center for a Free Cuba press release

Today, Saturday, July 23, 2016, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic Party candidate for president visited Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, FL in her first joint public address with her vice-presidential candidate Senator Tim Kaine. The Center for a Free Cuba distributed fliers asking Mrs. Clinton to bring an end to the systematic beatings of Cuban mothers, wives, and sisters of political prisoners that continue to take place on the island. 

The Center for a Free Cuba is a non-partisan human rights organization dedicated to the promotion of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in Cuba. The Center’s president is Ambassador James C. Cason, former Chief of the American Mission in Havana. The Center’s Board of Directors and Research Counsel brings together several former American ambassadors, professors, business and community leaders. The Center repeats its call on President Barack Obama to condition any concessions to Raul Castro’s government on stopping the beatings of the Ladies in White, the abuse of political prisoners, and to allow Amnesty International and the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Cuban jails.

The Ladies in White is a group of peaceful women dissidents who were honored in 2005 by the European Parliament with the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. The founder of the group Laura Pollan died under mysterious circumstances in a Cuban hospital in 2011, at a time when Raul Castro and Barack Obama where Heads of State.

Four years ago today, one of the most prominent opposition leaders, Christian- democrat Oswaldo Paya was murdered on a Cuban highway when Cuban political police forced his car off the road. Together with Paya, human rights activist Harold Cepero was also murdered. The regime has not provided a timeline from the moment that they were forced off the road, when they allegedly were taken to the hospital, when they were given medical attention, what type of attention, and when they died. Oswaldo Paya’s family continues to request the release of the autopsy report.

There are more human rights activists that have been killed by Raul Castro’s regime, and to date, while other issues have been dealt with, the United States has not made these murders a high priority in its relations with Havana.

When the announcement of the re-establishment of an American embassy was announced, Amnesty International noted that if only a few political prisoners were to be released, and the repressive decrees remained in place, then the rapprochement between the two governments would be but a “smokescreen.”

All lives matter—all American lives matter, including the lives of Cuban Americans. Mrs. Clinton has yet to speak about several American terrorists enjoying the hospitality of Raul Castro in Havana after they killed American police officers and fled to Cuba. Mrs. Clinton has said that she supports Mr. Obama’s policy and remains silent to this day about the return to Cuba by President Obama of a Cuban spy who was serving two life sentences in an American prison for his role in planning the murder of three American citizens and one Florida resident by Cuban war planes that obliterated their two single-engine airplanes in international airspace while they were searching for refugees fleeing Cuba.

Mrs. Hillary has said nothing about current Washing speculation that an American spy who worked for the Castros for years while serving at the Defense Intelligence Agency would be freed and returned to Havana. Ms. Ana Belen Montes’ treason resulted in the death of several individuals, friends of the United States.

Today, an aircraft towed a banner over Florida International University with this message: HILLARY, STOP BEATINGS OF CUBAN WOMEN BY RAUL CASTRO

Mrs. Clinton spoke months ago at FIU, but she took no questions. We urged students and faculty at FIU to ask Mrs. Clinton earlier today to call on Raul Castro to stop the beatings of innocent women.

Sadly once again today she did not take questions and her vice-presidential candidate mentioned learning Spanish in Honduras but made no mention of ongoing crises in Cuba or Venezuela.

Screening at FIU of Film Short on daily life in Cuba

Free Cuban Food, Free Cuban Film, Everyone Welcome!

Enjoy some Cuban food and film at Florida International University on Monday, April 18th at 12:30pm. The film in Spanish with English subtitles is "La Muerte del Gato" (The Death of the Cat) and is a comedy about life in today's Cuba.

The film was recently screened in Bogota, Columbia with the cast and director in attendance.

The event is being co-hosted by the Cuban-American Student Organization at FIU and the Center for a Free Cuba.

What: The Death of the Cat (English Subtitles)
When: Monday, April 18th
Time: 12:30pm 
Where: Graham Center 140

Manuel Jorge Cutillas: The Passing of a Cuban Exile Exemplar

 

Manuel Jorge Cutillas, gentleman, Cuban patriot and businessman

Manuel Jorge Cutillas was the chairman of the Center for a Free Cuba in Washington DC.  He passed away on November 2, 2013 of a heart attack in Panama. Born in Cuba on March 1, 1932; Mr. Cutillas is the great-great grandson of Don Facundo Bacardi, the founder of the Bacardi Company. He left Cuba in 1960 after the Castro regime confiscated the family business.  He resided in Nassau, Bahamas. He graduated in 1955 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemical Engineering. He retired in 1997 after serving for many years as Chairman of the Board and CEO of Bacardi Ltd., one of the world's largest liquor manufacturers. 

Following the Bacardi family tradition of service he gave of his time in various causes including that of a free Cuba.  His passing is a great loss to Cuban democrats everywhere and he will be sorely missed. 

On June 25, 2012 he was the lead signer among prominent Cuban exile businessmen of a document titled Commitment to Freedom which denounced the fraudulent efforts of the Castro regime to divide and confuse that concluded stating:

We reject that outrageous proposition, since for us, and for most Cuban-Americans, there is no substitute for freedom. We believe that, absent the dismantling of the totalitarian apparatus on the island, along with the unconditional release of all political prisoners and the restoration of fundamental human rights, there should be no U.S. unilateral concessions to the Castro regime.

The future of the island-nation lies not with the current failed, octogenarian rulers, but with the leaders of the growing pro-democracy movement. They, and not their oppressors, are worthy of receiving international recognition, financial resources and communications technology to carry out their heroic struggle. 

We pledge our continued support to them--the vanguard of the emerging civil society--and look forward to helping in the reconstruction of the island where we were born, but only when the Cuban people can enjoy the blessings of freedom we cherish and they deserve.

Prayers and thoughts go out to him and his family. A mass in his memory will be held at the Epiphany Catholic Church at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, November 6, 2013. 

Requiescat in pace

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/04/3731121/cutillas-former-bacardi-chairman.html#storylink=cpy