Obama's Cuba Policy Legacy: Normalizing relations with an Abnormal Regime

 A shameful legacy

Why December 17, 2014 Cuba policy changes failed, and shouldn't be repeated

From CubaBrief 

President Barack Obama's rapprochement with Cuba began in 2009 with the unilateral loosening of sanctions, it followed the same failed pattern of other Administrations, opposition leaders killed, increased repression, and hostile actions against U.S. interests abroad. This did not prompt a change in policy, but a doubling down. It did not help that secret negotiations on Washington's side were led by Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, who is a former fiction writer with no foreign policy experience. Senior U.S. diplomats at the State Department were kept in the dark. His counterpart on Havana's side was Raul Castro's son, Fidel's protege and senior Ministry of the Interior official, Colonel Alejandro Castro Espín. His colleagues in the New York Times profile describe the Deputy National Security Adviser as "having no poker face", leading the negotiations versus some of the most seasoned and manipulative intelligence officials in the world. 

 Ben Rhodes with Rodolfo Dávalos León, a Cuban oligarch living in South Florida.  When protests erupted in Cuba in July 2021, Mr. Dávalos León tweeted: "If the revolution falls you will find me in Cuba, with my father, knee on ground, rifle in hand, defending the work of Fidel. Long live Cuba, long live Raul, & long live Fidel!" 

Nine years ago, on December 17, 2014, this thaw was elevated and formalized when President Barack Obama, and Cuban dictator Raul Castro announced the intent to normalize diplomatic relations. Obama freed three Cuban spies the same day, including Gerardo Hernandez, who was serving two life sentences, one of which was for conspiracy to murder four members of the Brothers to the Rescue in return for aid worker Alan Gross, who had been abducted by Havana in 2009, and an unidentified Cuban intelligence agent. This was a great propaganda victory for the Castro regime.

Following Obama’s announcement the Cuban military expanded its control over the national economy during the 2014-2017 detente. 

This was followed by an exodus of over 120,000 Cubans through Central America who entered the United States between 2014-2016, regine influence expanded with their client state Nicaragua becoming a full blown dictatorship under Daniel Ortega, and more hostile actions. In the midst of this on March 20, 2016 President Obama, with his family, arrived in Cuba for a state visit. On August 22, 2016 the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mohammad Javad Zarif visited Cuba, and said Iran wants to forge a “new path” in its relations with Cuba by tightening ties. Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Nikolay Pankov said on October 7, 2016 that Moscow was considering plans to return to Cuba where it had a military base in the past. 

Calder Walton, of the Harvard Kennedy School, in his article "A US ambassador working for Cuba? Charges against former diplomat Victor Manuel Rocha spotlight Havana's importance in the world of spying" published in The Conversation on December 15, 2023 reviews the Russian and Chinese presence in Cuba.

"Putin’s government reopened a massive old Soviet signals intelligence facility in Cuba, near Havana. This facility had been the Soviet Union's largest foreign signals intelligence station in the world, with aerials and antennae pointed at Florida shores just 100 miles away. Soviet records reveal that Moscow obtained valuable information from U.S. military bases in Florida. Russia may well still be trying to try to eavesdrop on U.S. targets today from Cuba, although the U.S. government is doubtless alert to such efforts and is likely undertaking countermeasures. Cuban intelligence today is also collaborating with China, which reportedly plans to open its own eavesdropping station in Cuba. Beijing has significant influence over Cuba as its largest creditor and, following in Soviet footsteps, views the island as a valuable intelligence collection base and a “bridgehead” — the KGB’s old code name for Cuba — for influence in Latin America."

Beginning in November 2016, U.S. and Canadian diplomats stationed in Havana began suffering brain injuries, and on January 2, 2017, Raúl Castro presided over a military parade in which Cuban soldiers chanted: “Obama! Obama! With what fervor we’d like to confront your clumsiness, give you a cleansing with rebels and mortar, and make you a hat out of bullets to the head.”

This was a failed policy that did not understand what motivates Havana. The Communist regime in Cuba is anti-American and over the past 64 years it has sought to end the post-1945 U.S. led world order by seeking out alliances with regimes hostile to the United States, and coordinating efforts to undermine it.  This is the strategic context that too many have ignored.

Proponents of constructive engagement with the Cuban dictatorship are asking policy makers to do three things: disregard the past, dismiss current actions by Havana, and get ready for their own country's taxpayers to foot the tab.

Richard Nixon met Fidel Castro in April 1959 and sought a detente with him in 1974

1. Disregard the past
Multilateral sanctions against Havana worked to contain communist expansion in the Western Hemisphere until Kissinger lifted them.

The Ford administration provided Havana with a number of inducements without expecting anything in return, believing that they could restore relations with the Castros. Initially, the United States supported the OAS resolution on July 29, 1975, which essentially put an end to the multilateral economic and diplomatic sanctions against Cuba. On August 19, President Ford went further loosening the US embargo, removing the sanctions against foreign aid to nations that conducted business with the regime in Cuba and enabling ships traveling to the island to refuel in the US. This was an initiative led by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Rather than the "easing of tensions" that was anticipated, the Ford Administration found itself looking foolish.  Havana’s response was to send thousands of Cuban troops to Africa, first to Angola. Secretary Kissinger was so angered by the Cuban intervention in Angola, and the failure of detente that he entertained the idea of air strikes on Cuba.  Multilateral sanctions were not reimposed and Communist Cuba's influence would expand in the region. Subsequent administrations ( Carter 1977, Clinton 1993 and 2000), Obama (2009-2017) attempted rapprochements with Havana, and endured the same cycle. Carter's opening coincided with plunging Central America into civil war, with the establishment of communist rule in Nicaragua with Daniel Ortega in 1979 and a mass exodus in 1980 which Fidel Castro personally seeded with murderers, rapists, and psychiatric patients. The Clinton Administration's normalization efforts coincided with massacres of Cubans, the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown, another exodus, the expansion of Cuban influence in Venezuela and the take over of Hugo Chavez in 1999.

2. Dismiss current actions by Havana

Lessons from Europe's constructive engagement

Although the European Union (EU) has and continues to pursue a policy of constructive engagement, and was Cuba’s top trading partner in the 1990s it did not curb its international outlaw behavior. Venezuela became Cuba's top trading partner in 2001, and was eclipsed by China in 2016 However, when Europe de-linked human rights considerations from economic engagement with Havana trade shot up. As of 2019, the EU was Cuba's top trading partner for both imports and exports. It was also Cuba’s top development partner and source of foreign investment. In 2019, a quarter of all tourists visiting Cuba, which relies on its tourism sector for income, were from the EU.This did not alter Havana's hostile posture towards Europe. Cubans are in Russian uniforms fighting to advance Moscow's objectives in the illegal war in Ukraine, and Havana is conducting military training in Belarus. Terrorists continue to be harbored in Cuba, and the Cuban dictatorship refuses to extradite them. Cuban diplomats have held high level meetings with Hamas in 2023, and Hezbollah maintains a base in Cuba. Cuba’s communist dictatorship and Iran’s Islamist regime are closely allied and coordinating efforts against Israel.

3. Get ready for taxpayers to foot the tab.

"One of the best-kept secrets of our 40-year-old trade embargo with  Cuba is that it has saved millions of dollars for U.S. taxpayers. Due to the embargo, there are no U.S. banks in the ``Paris Club'', a  consortium of Cuba creditors. (The Paris Club is currently owed between $10 and $15 billion in debt from Cuba.) Otherwise, U.S. banks now would  be hitting U.S. taxpayers to cover their losses in Cuba. If the U.S. begins to subsidize trade with Cuba--estimated at $100  million a year--five years from now, U.S. taxpayers could be holding, or paying off a $500 million tab." - Senator George Allen, May 21, 2002, Hearing on U.S. Trade Policy with Cuba

Cuba scholar Jaime Suchlicki at the Cuban Studies Institute on April 10, 2023 published an important analysis titled “The Folly of Investing in Cuba” that outlines a number of pitfalls both economic and moral to doing business with the Castro dictatorship that is a must read.

Existing U.S. sanctions have protected American taxpayers from having to shell out billions of dollars to subsidize the Castro dictatorship.

Others have not had the benefit of this policy.

China canceled $6 billion dollars in Cuban debt in 2011, On November 1, 2013 the government of Mexico announced that it was ready to waive 70 percent of a debt worth nearly $500 million that Cuba owes it. The former president of Mexico Vicente Fox protested the move stating: “Let the Cubans get to work and generate their own money…They’re normally like chupacabras.  The only thing they’re looking for is someone to give them money for free.” In December 2015 it was announced that Spain would forgive $1.7 billion that the Castro regime owes it. In December of 2013, Russia and Cuba quietly signed an agreement to write off $32 billion of Cuba's debt to the former superpower. Western governments pursued Cuban maritime debts seizing Cuban vessels and negotiating payment through Canadian courts.

The 2015 debt restructuring accord between Cuba and the Paris Club, according to Reuters, "forgave $8.5 billion of $11.1 billion, representing debt Cuba defaulted on in 1986, plus charges."

The Paris Club is made up of the following permanent members: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France,Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States. Thanks to existing U.S. sanctions, none of the $11.084 billion in debt has been left for U.S. taxpayers to pay off.

Carmelo Mesa-Lago is Distinguished Service Professor emeritus of economics and Latin American studies at the University of Pittsburgh, and in his work CUBA’S ECONOMY IN TIMES OF CRISIS: 2020–2022 AND PROSPECTS FOR 2023 provided the following table which lists debt forgiven, and remaining debt owed by the Cuban dictatorship.

 

Paradox of Cuban Trade: U.S. exports to Cuba collapsed in 2015 but now are increasing

The devil is in the details. Stop eating what the chickens are picking at.

Yesterday morning Cuban blogger and journalist Yoani Sanchez tweeted: "Chicken arrived at the neighborhood stores ... don’t ask what country it comes from this time ... you know 'that is not talked about' in the official media." Performed a quick search of the packaging and found that it is indeed an American export. Hudson Midwest Foods, Inc. is a subsidiary of the American company Tysons foods.

How can this be? If you read the propaganda spread by the Castro regime then you'd believe there is an "economic blockade" that prevents U.S. products entering Cuba.

It is true that economic sanctions have been tightened by the current Administration, and Title III of the Cuban Democracy Act will make life more difficult for those who traffic in stolen properties.

Nevertheless, trade continues between U.S. companies and the Castro dictatorship, and in 2017 and 2018 U.S. exports to the island increased compared to the last two years of the previous Administration.

It is counter-intuitive, but the December 17, 2014 announcement that the United States and Cuba would seek normalized relations was followed by a collapse in U.S. exports to the island.

The Cuban government was no longer interested in buying U.S. products. The first question one should ask was why had the Castro regime been interested in buying them in the first place?

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 left picking up the tab.

U.S. products being sold in larger quantities today in Cuba than four years ago.

Why would the Castro regime double cross the suppliers that had been supporting them for decades?

There are two fundamental reasons.

First, it was an investment to open up the credit spigot of the United States that would provide it with billions more in hard currency.

Seventeen years ago Prevor predicted where things have now arrived in the Cuba policy debate as far as agribusiness is concerned: 

"But what the really big grain traders want is to sell to Cuba on credit - and get those credits provided or guaranteed by various federal loan programs. In effect, these agribusiness behemoths want to sell to Cuba and have the U.S. tax- payer pick up the tab. And their bet is that once produce shippers have gotten a taste of the business, they will become a kind of Amen corner for the Cuban lobby, pushing Congress to approve whatever laws will be to the liking of the Cuban government. This really brings to the forefront why trade with a communist country poses unique dangers to a democratic society."

The Castro regime views the billions in goods purchased from the United States as the ultimate variation of the bait and switch con. A policy of normalization with the current government in Cuba may be good for agribusiness, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the Cuban dictatorship but it will not be good for U.S. taxpayers who will be left holding the bag like so many other tax payers around the world. 

Second, it was a way for the Castro dictatorship to purchase influence in the corridors of power both at the state and national level.

Castro used openings in trade from the Clinton era (medical products in 1992 and agricultural products in 2000)  to build up a pro-Castro lobby and to target congressional districts in agricultural states to advance the dictatorship's interests. 

The Cuban autocracy accomplished this by purchasing American exports and requiring U.S. corporations and members of Congress to sign "advocacy contracts" that turned Americans into lobbyists for the dictatorship as a condition of the Castro regime buying their goods. 

News of this practice broke 15 years ago in USA Today and in The Miami Herald but goes unmentioned today. The Miami Herald in a October 5, 2004 editorial described this practice as "peddling influence for a communist state" and said that those engaged in the practice "should be required to register as agents of a foreign government."

John Kavulich, who was the head of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council until 2005 explained in 2003 the significance of these "advocacy agreements" stating: 

''These agreements are a corruption of the commercial process,'' ... ``Once you include an advocacy clause, they're no longer commercial agreements; they're political documents.'' 

Castro's suppliers didn't eat the cost that was passed on to taxpayers in their respective countries. Meanwhile Havana maximized its influence in the corridors of power in Washington, DC and created an army of pro-regime lobbyists.

Why did U.S. exports to Cuba collapse during the last two years of the prior Administration?

US Cuba exports collapsed from a 2008 high of $711 million to $185.7 million in 2015

The prior Administration gave the Castro regime everything it wanted, caving on numerous foreign policy priorities that Havana had long been pursuing and steadily loosened sanctions. The Cuban tyrant, following several years of this, correctly calculated that further influence peddling was not needed.

Now that a new team entered the White House with different foreign policy priorities the Castro regime has been ramping up U.S. purchases to levels higher than in 2015 and 2016 while in the midst of an economic crisis.

If these patterns hold then it means that Havana is pursuing a campaign of increasing political influence in the United States to advance its foreign policy agenda, which includes, but is not limited to, lifting economic sanctions and pursuing U.S. credits.

US Cuba exports rose from a 2015 bottom of $185.7 million to $274.6 million in 2018

Political considerations drive the Castro regime's economic policies. This is why U.S. export trade with Cuba increased during the Bush Administration, and is rebounding now at a time of increased political tensions over Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

If you are pursuing free trade and normal relations with communist Cuba then you are "comiendo de lo que pica el pollo."  That literally translates to "eating what the chickens are picking at" and in Cuban slang means to "waste your time on foolish things." Cuba does not have a normal regime, but a criminal mafia driven by a murderous ideology to build alliances with bad actors and undermine existing democracies to be more like them. Venezuela is a case in point.

Version of this was originally published in CubaBrief.

Top 15 Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter 2015 blog entries

Tough year for Cuban freedom

These are the top 15 blog entries of the year in terms of visits arranged in chronological order. George Santayana understood the importance of remembering the past in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes. The first two blog entries turned conventional wisdom upside down reporting on the decline in trade during the Obama Administration and the brutal torture and murder of a Cuban American attorney visiting Havana, Cuba in January 2015. 

Swissleaks exposed the banking practices of the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes and how they have their own 1% living very well while the majority in their respective countries live in misery. 

The conventional wisdom views detente as something positive but the historical says different and that was explored on this blog. An example of how this approach is disastrous was seen in April in Panama with Cuban diplomats disrupting the Summit of the Americas and attacking dissidents in a public park and later organized acts of repudiation against them when they returned home to Cuba. 

Despite continuing bad acts the Obama administration  took Cuba off the list of state terror sponsors. On the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta this blog reflected on Cuba's Varela Project. Meanwhile both North Korea and Cuba made outrageous healthcare claims that were examined in this blog. This followed an examination of rising violence in Cuba in what appeared to be a correlation with U.S. outreach to the dictatorship while marginalizing and ignoring Cuban democrats that has generated a body count. 

In a presidential election year the Clinton record on Cuba was examined and found wanting. This blog also reported on the show trial of Leopoldo López Mendoza and the unjust verdict of guilt and sentence of 13 years and 9 months in prison. Cuban exiles protested against Raul Castro in New York City and against the Obama administration's Cuba policy in Washington DC. A soap opera of the Cuban music sensation Celia Cruz offered an opportunity to discuss how her music was censored in Cuba and she was banned by the dictatorship from returning. 

1. What the Associated Press left out of its story on Cuba Trade and the US Embargo

What Agribusiness and the Castro regime prefer you did not know: 1. How American agribusiness and members of Congress signed "advocacy contracts" in exchange for the purchase of exports and became lobbyists for the dictatorship. 2. How Castro dictatorship stopped making payments to trading partners of what they owed in order to buy billions in U.S. exports during the Bush years. 

Associated Press coverage of Cuba over the past few years has been a source of controversy with well founded claims of bias. On January 5, 2014 a new episode unfolded with the article by Michael Weissenstein "Figures show US-Cuba trade hit decade low last year." The first paragraph blames "long standing barriers to trade" but the second paragraph states: The statistics from the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council show that U.S. farmers sold slightly more than $253 million worth of food and agricultural products to Cuba in the first 10 months of 2014. If the last two months of the year reflect similar sales levels, 2014 could be the worst year for U.S. exports to Cuba since 2004. What is not mentioned in the article is that the peak years of the Castro regime purchasing U.S. food and agricultural products was during the Bush Administration. In August of 2008 the Cuban dictatorship said that the United States was its fifth leading trade partner. With the entrance of the Obama Administration in 2009 and its policy of loosening Bush era restrictions trade between the two countries has been consistently lower.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/01/what-associated-press-left-out-of-its.html

Sunday, January 11, 2015

2. Cuban American attorney killed in Cuba last week while visiting family

Details still murky

Albert Romero killed in Cuba

Tampa Bay Times is reporting that Alberto Romero (age 39), a Tampa based marital and family law attorney, was killed in Cuba while visiting extended family last week either on Thursday night or Friday morning. [...] The victims were found after a friend of Cruz Navarro tried to communicate with him and would not respond to his calls. Shortly afterwards the owner of the home went to the room rented by Romero and found the crime scene. The two men were tied up, beaten, stabbed and in the case of the Cuban American atttorney one hand was severed according to the source. Martí Noticias obtained a copy of the death certificate.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/01/cuban-american-attorney-killed-in-cuba.html

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

3. Communists from Cuba and Venezuela with Swiss bank accounts

How communists cultivate more poverty and inequality

 The regimes in Caracas and Havana speak of social justice and defending the poor, but in practice they are the opposite of what they claim. Dictators with absolute power who once and while are revealed for who they truly are: a rich and unaccountable minority plundering the riches of once great nations whose peoples are spiraling into deeper poverty and misery.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/02/cuba-and-venezuela-communists-with.html

Friday, March 13, 2015

4. Lessons from Eastern Europe on Engagement: Poland and Romania

"I think detente had manifestly failed, and that the pursuit of it was encouraging Soviet expansion and rendering the world more dangerous, and especially rendering the Western world in greater peril." - Jeane Kirkpatrick, U.S. Ambassador to the UN for President Reagan

Ronald Reagan entered office on January 20, 1981 and on December 13, 1981 the communist regime in Poland had declared martial law and was cracking down on the Solidarity movement. 10,000 people were rounded up and about 100 died during martial law. Ronald Reagan in his Christmas Address on December 23, 1981 denounced the crackdown (beginning at 4 minutes into the above video) and outlined economic sanctions against Poland while demanding that the human rights of the Polish people be respected. 

Thursday, April 9, 2015

5. The Castro Regime's idea of dialogue: The monologue of the closed fist

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. - George Orwell
 

Leticia Ramos and Augusto Monge attacked in Panama

Yesterday it was seen dramatically at Porra park in Panama City when a group of Cuban dissidents from the diaspora and the island sought to lay flowers before a bust of Jose Marti and were subjected to a violent act of repudiation by Castro regime state security. Carlos Alberto Montaner reported on twitter:  They have identified the ringleader of the attacks on Cuban democrats in Panama. It is Col. Alexis Frutos Weeden, head of Cuban intelligence in Venezuela. 

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-castro-regimes-idea-of-dialogue.html

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

6. State security organizes mobs to attack Cuban resistance leaders

 Update: State security agents repeatedly made death threats against Jorge Luís García Perez “Antunez” in reprisal for his trip to Panama and the Summit of the Americas

Jorge Luís García Perez “Antunez and Iván Fernández Depestre

ACT OF REPUDIATION ORDERED AGAINST JORGE LUÍS GARCÍA PÉREZ ANTUNEZ. STATE SECURITY OPERATION AND CASTRO MOBS SURROUND HIS HOME

Link to audio denouncing regime action (In Spanish): https://youtu.be/n_Ulli4Q0Bk

Placetas, Villa Clara April 14, 2015. Assembly of the Cuban Resistance. Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez", National Secretary of the National Resistance Front Orlando Zapata Tamayo denounces over telephone that Cuban State Security has given orders to the populace of Placetas, to do a violent act of repudiation in reprisal for his presence as a member of the Cuban resistance last week at the Summit of the Americas in Panama.
http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/04/state-security-organizes-mobs-to-attack.html 

Friday, May 29, 2015

7. Ten reasons that Cuba under the Castro regime should have remained on the list of terror sponsors

Cuba was listed until May 29, 2015

 The regime in Cuba has a long history of sponsoring terrorism and training terrorists that the Obama administration has sought to minimize and ignore in its drive to normalize relations with the Castro dictatorship. Despite evidence that the Castro regime is linked to drug trafficking and engaged in the smuggling of weapons to an outlaw regime (North Korea in July 15, 2013) and to terrorist guerrillas ( Colombia February 28, 2015) the Obama administration today removed Cuba from the list of state terror sponsors.
http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/05/top-ten-reasons-that-cuba-under-castro.html

Monday, June 15, 2015

8. The Varela Project: Cuba's Great Charter

To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice. - Magna Carta,  June 15, 1215

Today the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta is being observed in the United Kingdom and it is important to look at societies where authoritarian or totalitarian dictatorships continue to systematically deny freedom and how citizens in those societies have appealed for change echoing elements of "The Great Charter." In Cuba, the Varela Project, under the dictatorship of the Castro brothers to date is the most serious challenge where more than 25,000 Cubans petitioned the regime to reform itself in 2002-2003.  This led to the dictatorship altering the constitution to prevent amendments that would reform the system, imprisoning scores of petition organizers in March of 2003, and on July 22, 2012 extrajudicially killing Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante of the Christian Liberation Movement who had led the initiative. This citizen's demand remains active and like the Magna Carta was not a single event but a process that is still underway.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-varela-project-cubas-great-charter.html

Friday, July 3, 2015

9. Examining Cuba and North Korea healthcare claims

"Communist political violence flowed from a utopian vision of the future, from the great goals pursued, and from the intolerance the service of these ideals inspired, as well as from an intense attachment to power. The means had to be subordinated to historically unparalleled ends that require extraordinary measures." - Paul Hollander, The Distinctive Features of Repression in Communist States

Regimes in Cuba and North Korea are totalitarian allies

 Both Cuba and North Korea are totalitarian dictatorships that have made claims of great achievements in the area of healthcare over the course of the past month. On June 19, 2015 the regime in North Korea said that it had "created a wonder drug which not only cures AIDS, but also eradicates Ebola and cancer."  At the same time North Korea has approximately 10.2 million North Koreans currently facing famine. On June 30, 2015 the World Health Organization said that the regime in Cuba had "became the first country in the world to receive validation from WHO that it has eliminated mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis." This is the same regime in Cuba that tried to cover up or under report dengue and cholera outbreaks jailing doctors and reporters who warned of the outbreaks at the time in order to preserve a false image of its healthcare system. 

 http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/07/examining-cuba-and-north-korea.html 

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

10. Policy paper shows correlation between US engagement and rising repression in Cuba: The Obama Administration’s Cuba Engagement Policy and Rising Repression

“The Cuban people deserve the support of the United States and of an entire region that has committed to promote and defend democracy through the Inter-American Democratic Charter.” – The White House December 17, 2014 

Sirley Ávila León: Holds state security responsible for May 2015 machete attack

Summary:

• Levels of violence and numbers of arbitrary detentions have grown exponentially during the 18 months of secret negotiations between the Castro regime and the Obama administration. 
• Human Rights defenders were victims of brutal, life threatening machete attacks in the same month that secret negotiations between the Obama administration and the Castro dictatorship started. 
• The December 17, 2014 announcement of normalized relations was surrounded by repression, violence and death. 
• There has been an explosion of arbitrary detentions in Cuba, jumping from an average of 550 per month to 742. 
• The Castro regime has been implicated in heightening repression against pro-democracy activists in Venezuela, including extrajudicial killings. 

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/07/policy-paper-shows-correlation-between.html

Thursday, July 30, 2015

11. Correcting the historical record: The Clintons and The Castro brothers

Why friends of a free Cuba should be protesting against the Clintons.

Clinton and Kerry: No friends of Cuban democracy activists

 Hillary Clinton is going to Florida International University tomorrow to make a foreign policy speech in which she will apparently call for the end of the embargo on the Castro dictatorship. What is surprising is that this is news because back in June 2014 in her book Hard Choices, Hillary Clinton wrote that she had been urging President Obama to end the embargo on Cuba. Unfortunately, when advocates of normalized relations in 2015 claim that the sanctions policy has been in place for 55 years and that diplomatic relations have been nonexistent they overlook some key facts that get in the way of their narrative. [...] Bill Clinton in 1994 initiated regular contacts between the U.S. and Cuban military that included joint military exercises at the Guantanamo Naval base. ( Despite his rhetoric George W. Bush continued the practice during his presidency.) Despite this improvement of relations the 1990s saw some of those brutal massacres of Cubans that are rightly remembered such as the July 13, 1994 "13 de Marzo" tugboat massacre and the February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down. The shoot down involved two planes blown to bits over international airspace by Cuban MiGs killing three American citizens and a Cuban resident who were engaged in the search and rescue of Cuban rafters. Gerardo Hernandez, one of the Cuban spies freed by Obama on December 17, 2014, was serving a life sentence for conspiracy to commit murder for his role in these killings.  Jose Basulto, one of the survivors, who escaped in a third plane accuses the Clinton administration of complicity in the killings.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/07/correcting-historical-record-clintons.html

Friday, August 14, 2015

12. The body count during the normalization of relations in Cuba

“Our Movement denounces the regime's attempt to impose a fraudulent change, i.e. change without rights and the inclusion of many interests in this change that sidesteps democracy and the sovereignty of the people of Cuba.” - Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, March 30, 2012

The United States Embassy in Havana

 Cuba is much more than the dictatorship that has oppressed Cubans for 56 years, but in its official dialogue the Obama State Department by excluding Cuban democrats from the official opening of the embassy today confuses the two. Worse yet, the snub to Cuban democrats arises out of a fear that the dictatorship's apparatchiks would not attend. Combine this with Admiral John Kirby, the State Department spokesman  threatening to physically remove Rosa Maria Paya, who had proper accreditation as a member of the press from the State Department press conference with Secretary Kerry and the Castro regime's foreign minister on July 20, 2015 makes the message crystal clear.

 http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-body-count-during-normalization-of.html

Thursday, September 10, 2015

13. Show trial in Venezuela sentences Leopoldo Lopez to 13 years and 9 months in prison

 All With Leopoldo!

Learned tonight that Leopoldo López Mendoza was sentenced to 13 years and 9 months in prison.The four student protesters charged alongside Lopez had all been released on probation. The show trial has concluded. The injustice continues. The struggle to free Leopoldo Lopez and the many others prisoners of conscience in Venezuela continues. Condemned by this judicial farce is the Maduro regime that now stands revealed as a dictatorship that imprisons its nonviolent, democratic opposition leaders. This also means that the South American country is a satellite of Cuba.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/09/show-trial-in-venezuela-sentences.html

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

14. Why we are protesting Raul Castro in New York City

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." - Elie Wiesel, Nobel Lecture 1986

 

Protests on September 28th at the UN and Cuban Mission

On September 28, 2015 in New York City at the Cuban Mission to the United Nations and in front of the United Nations Cuban exiles gathered to protest Raul Castro. The question asked by many was why we were protesting? Below is an attempt to provide a succinct answer.


http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/09/why-we-are-protesting-raul-castro-in.html

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

15. Celebrating Celia Cruz and her decision to live and sing in freedom

How the Castro regime sought to censor and punish Celia Cruz for living in freedom

Celia Cruz: The Queen of Salsa

On October 21st the world will observe the 90th anniversary of the birth in Havana, Cuba of Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso better known as Celia Cruz. Last night Telemundo aired the first of an 80 part - novela of the life of the woman who would become known as the Queen of Salsa and "La Guarachera de Cuba". The first episode is available online.  However in Cuba the Castro regime continues to ban the music of Celia Cruz from the radio airwaves. She is not alone. There are other banned Cuban musicians of great importance. The above censorship is widely known, but not as well known is that when the mother of Celia Cruz was dying the Cuban musical icon was blocked by Fidel Castro from returning to Cuba to say goodbye to her mom or attend her funeral afterwards.  This practice still goes on today with Cuban dissidents in the diaspora barred arbitrarily from seeing their loved ones by the Castro regime.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/10/celebrating-celia-cruz-and-her-decision.html 

Reclaiming Dialogue from Orwellian Newspeak

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. - Winston Churchill 

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. - George Orwell

In July of 2004 Bishop Agustin Roman wrote about the necessity of rescuing, a word that he described as beautiful, but that had been twisted by the dictatorship in Cuba stating:

"It's good that to start this effort, the true meaning of the word dialogue be rescued. We have all witnessed the misrepresentation of this beautiful word, thanks to the manipulations of the dictatorship that has wanted to use it for its own purposes, and also thanks to some complying with the Castro lexicon, perhaps without noticing where the misrepresentation comes from, seem content to have them steal the dictionary, the same ones who previously stole our homeland."

The word dialogue has a long history and to have arisen in the West with Plato and the Greeks over 2,400 years ago. The root meaning of the word dialogue is formed by two words dia and logos which literally means  'two way flow/exchange' of meaning. Dialogue by definition can be applied to literature, drama, music, philosophy and for the focus of this essay in an exchange of ideas and opinions or in a purely political context: "a discussion between representatives of parties to a conflict that is aimed at resolution."

Unfortunately, in our modern era where words often lose their meaning or are twisted to suit particular agendas it appears that the word dialogue has become another victim of Orwellian Newspeak.

In this case "Dialogue is Normalization" that is when two parties meet in order to supposedly represent two parties in a conflict representing their position and interests but in reality one of the parties has invited who will represent their counterparts in the dialogue. This is done in order to promote their particular agenda which often in the case of those in power means normalizing and making permanent injustices committed while legitimizing systematic human rights violations. +972  Magazine offers the following definition of "normalization" which is often times what dialogues with a dictatorship can degenerate into: 

"It is helpful to think of normalization as a “colonization of the mind,” whereby the oppressed subject comes to believe that the oppressor’s reality is the only “normal” reality that must be subscribed to, and that the oppression is a fact of life that must be coped with. Those who engage in normalization either ignore this oppression, or accept it as the status quo that can be lived with." 

There is a spectrum of "normalization" as dialogue at one end you'll find the Brookings Institute that seeks to "overcome obstacles to dialogue" which in practice means acceding to the demands of the dictatorship on a whole host of issues then at the other extreme end is the example of Magda Montiel Davis who at a gathering of Cuban exiles, organized by the Cuban regime, in Havana in order to meet with them and "dialogue" exclaimed to Fidel Castro: "thank-you for what you have done for my people, you have been a great teacher for me."  Montiel Davis then kissed the old dictator on the cheek. The encounter of Montiel Davis with Castro was filmed by regime agents and later sold to Miami broadcasters. 

If you are to represent, as in the case of the Brookings Institution, U.S. interests in a dialogue with Cuba or, as in the case of Magda Montiel Davis, the Cuban exile community then one must represent the parties of the conflict and not seek to ingratiate oneself with the adversary while abandoning your parties positions. Also the gathering should be in a neutral location and each side should select the parties to represent them. In the case of the gathering attended by Ms. Montiel Davis all sides of the conversation were selected by the dictatorship. That is not a dialogue but a sham.

The other danger is to attempt to be "neutral." Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu ably explains the inadequacy of neutrality in a situation of injustice when he observes that:

 “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

Palestinian activists, for example, argue that "dialogue" stands in the way of justice with their conflict with Israel, but one would hope that the Palestinian diaspora would favor an actual dialogue that represents their interests and grievances. Naturally, a dialogue that embraces their adversary while abandoning their claims is another matter. Or to paraphrase the Palestinians into the Cuban context: 

Dialogue would only serve to sanitize the oppressive nature of the Castro regime. Instead, we seek to build the growing movement of people that will bring an end to the dictatorship, that will help restore human and civil rights.

Dialogue redefined as normalization and normalization redefined as caving into the adversary without addressing the underlying positions of the conflict is a recipe for stagnation that benefits those in power and in the end prolongs the conflict. On the other hand a dialogue where both parties meet on an equal playing field in a frank discussion can bear fruit.

Back in 2004, in Miami, Agustin Roman spoke of both the importance and the power of real dialogue while rejecting Orwellian newspeak: 

We begin, then, claiming the Cuban people's right to speak in possession of the real value of the words, that is the only way for good men to understand each other. That's what I would also like to see with the word liberty, with the word justice, with the word democracy, the word patriotism, and with the word peace. That never again those who hijack the essence of these words and deny our people, induce us to use them in a sense different from the goodness of its true meaning. Pray to Him who has the words of eternal life, who is the word of God made flesh, not to allow that they confuse us with the words once again.

Now in 2012, in Cuba, Cuban pro-democracy leader Antonio Rodiles offers a framework of dialogue for the Cuban context which until now, the dictatorship has rejected that Agustin Roman embraced:

Visualizing and working in support of a transition towards democracy in the convoluted scenario in which we live is a process that implies, above all, political and intellectual maturity, honesty, and a high level of civic awareness. We need to understand that such dynamics would not involve just one axis, just one angle. It is impossible to imagine a transition that does not take into account Cubans in Cuba today who hold different points of view. And a transition without full participation of those Cubans outside the Island, who constitute an essential part of our nation, is also inconceivable. It is not possible to outline a transition without the workers, intellectuals, professionals and entrepreneurs both inside and outside the country.

What will you tell him?