The American case for a reboot of U.S. Cuba policy

Current Cuba policy does not serve the just interests of the United States

 Raul Castro with North Korea's Army Chief, General Kim Kyok-sik

 Cuba is a communist totalitarian regime, a political model that over the past century has claimed over 100 million lives of the people they govern. Manufactured famines are a feature of this type of regime. This type of regime once installed is difficult to dislodge. Furthermore the Castro regime is hostile to U.S. interests and has allied with enemies of the United States such as North Korea, and has successfully sought to undermine democracies in the Western Hemisphere, and promote terrorism world wide.

What we are undergoing now is a debate over what U.S. Cuba policy should be and as a conservative I ask: "What would serve the just interests of the United States?" The current policy fails on several counts and needs to be dismantled and replaced.

First, during the previous Administration the effort at outreach and loosening economic sanctions coincided with an emboldened dictatorship in Cuba that invited back the Russians, was caught smuggling heavy weapons (including war planes and missile technology) to North Korea, got its hands on a U.S. Hellfire missile, used in NATO exercises in Europe, on its way back to the United States ended up in Cuba by June of 2014. Despite a request from the Administration, Cuba refused to return it until it became a public embarrassment over a year later in February of 2016. All this took place while the White House was secretly negotiating with the Castro regime.

Mystery: How did a US Hellfire missile (pictured above) end up in Cuba?

Second, the rest of the world that trades with Cuba is owed billions of dollars and the Castro regime has defaulted on tens of billions of dollars more over the years. The argument made U.S. law should be changed to provide this notorious deadbeat regime credit would end up leaving U.S. taxpayers holding the bag to subsidize the dictatorship in Cuba. This is what the citizens Canadians, Mexicans, Italians, Spaniards, Argentineans, Japanese, Russians an other nations have been doing for decades. It is also what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Ag lobby do not want Americans to know. How does it serve U.S. interests to subsidize a hostile military junta in Cuba with taxpayer dollars in order to destabilize democracies and support regimes that want to do harm to the United States?

The Chamber's dirty Cuba secret

Third, the fruits of the policy can be seen today in Venezuela where tens of thousands of agents of the Cuban government assist in the building of a totalitarian dictatorship there, killing nonviolent Venezuelan protesters, while infiltrating all levels of government.  The Castro regime's intelligence services and military have a high level and active presence in the country. Doing business in Cuba, almost always necessitates doing business with the government, at a time when Venezuelans are being killed by Cubans in Caracas, this is a profound injustice.

1975 Fraunces Tavern bombing committed by Cuban backed FALN

Fourth, Cuba despite having a track record of sponsoring and training international terrorists since the 1960s, placed on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism when it was discovered that the regime used drug trafficking to finance a revolutionary guerilla group in Colombia. Despite continued bad actions by the Cuban government, the previous Administration to satisfy demands by Raul Castro, in order to restore normal diplomatic relations removed them from the above mentioned list and freed a Cuban spy serving a life sentence for conspiracy to murder four Americans, including a retired U.S. marine.

Cocaine from Cuban ship hidden under molasses discovered in Panama 2016

 Furthermore to share drug intelligence with a government with a half century track record linked to facilitating drug trafficking into the U.S. does not serve American interests, but places in harms way countless young Americans with the explosive growth of drug smuggling.  In 2016 a shipment of 401kilos of cocaine was discovered camouflaged under molasses.

Fifth, the October 2016 Presidential Policy Directive ordering U.S. intelligence agencies to share information with the Castro regime's spy agency considering all the above is a profound threat to the just interests of the United States, endangering lives and property. It needs to be ended immediately.

Finally, the United States since its founding has been a symbol of liberty that over time has worked to build a more perfect union in which civil liberties have expanded and deepened for most of its history. The advocacy for human rights, siding with the victims of repression, and advocating for greater freedoms is an element of the soft power of the United States that is weakened by going back to the old ways of embracing dictators for economic interests. 

Please U2 consider adding Cuban women democrats to your Ultraviolet montage on Women's movements

Open plea to the Irish rock band to consider adding images of Cuban women human rights defenders to their tribute to women's movements during the song Ultraviolet.

Images of women's movements and movement leaders during U2 concert

Dear Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry:

Great show tonight in Miami. One Republic was also a great opening band. Furthermore thank you for your shout out of support tonight for Senator Marco Rubio, and his support for AIDS funding for those most in need. I've been a U2 fan since high school, remembered your performance during the Conspiracy of Hope tour in in 1986 and seen all your concerts in Miami beginning with the Pop tour and was there on June 29, 2011 when you gave a shout out of concern for Cuban human rights defender Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet:

"Now I would like you to do something we've never done before. A beautiful man, a doctor who has spent his time in the prisons of Cuba. He is also released. His name is Dr. Biscet. I want you to hold him up. Let everyone in Cuba know that he is special to us and we are watching WE ARE WATCHING. Hold him in your thoughts. Hold him in your prayers."

The past six years have been difficult ones and although Dr. Biscet, perhaps thanks to your shout out, is still alive and doing well others have not been so fortunate.

Laura Inés Pollán Toledo died on October 14, 2011 at 7:50pm from heart failure at the age of 63 under suspicious circumstances in the custody of Cuban State Security. Dr. Biscet called it a case of purposeful medical neglect. Laura was one of the founders of the Ladies in White, a movement nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and winner of the European Union's Sakharov Prize.

Laura Inés Pollán Toledo (1948 - 2011)

The Ladies in White came into existence in the midst of a government crackdown in Cuba that imprisoned 75 Cuban human rights defenders in March of 2003 sentencing them to long and unjust prison sentences. Amnesty International recognized them all as prisoners of conscience. This movement was made up initially of the wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters of these political prisoners. They began organizing regular events, marches and campaigns for the liberation of their loved ones. They faced regular harassment, beatings, and death threats but refused to back down. They continue to march and protest today under the leadership of Berta Soler.

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, and Harold Cepero Escalante were killed in what has all the hallmarks of state security extrajudicial execution camouflaged as a car accident on July 22, 2012. Both were members of the Christian Liberation Movement. Oswaldo was the founding leader and Harold, a youth leader in the movement.

The Christian Liberation Movement (MCL), founded on September 8, 1988, organized a petition drive in Cuba named after a Catholic priest called the Varela Project that called for human rights reforms in the Cuban legal code. Tens of thousands of Cubans signed it, MCL turned into the National Assembly and it led the Castro regime to ignore its own laws refusing to debate this initiative and instead change its constitution to make it "unchangeable." The current MCL leader in Cuba is Eduardo Cardet, who has been jailed since November 30, 2016 and is an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience.

Rosa María Payá Acevedo

Following the deaths of Oswaldo and Harold, Oswaldo's daughter Rosa María Payá Acevedo began the CubaDecide campaign calling for a plebiscite, that she says is a continuation of the Varela Project. She frequently travels to Cuba and remains a legal resident there.

Tonight watching the images of women's movements during your performance of Ultraviolet from the Achtung Baby album I was surprised not to see the Ladies in White or Rosa Maria Payá represented.

Both Rosa Maria Payá, and the Ladies in White would benefit by being highlighted in your Ultraviolent video montage on Women's movements. Please consider adding these Cuban women democrats to your tribute to women's movements because at times of uncertainty it could make a crucial difference.

Thank you.

A lifelong U2 fan


 

Honoring the memory of over 100 million victims of communism

"To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.” - Elie Wiesel, Night 



Friday, June 9th starting at 9:00am on the corner of Massachusetts and New Jersey Avenues NW in Washington, DC for the tenth year there will be a Roll Call of Nations Wreath Laying Ceremony at the Victims of Communism Memorial.  This annual event is hosted by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Government representatives of formerly captive nations, civil society groups and victims of communism will gather to honor the memory of the more than 100 million persons killed  by communism over the past century.

Communists massacred the Russian royal family in 1918

 Last year I was physically present and humbled to translate for Cuban dissidents Oscar Elías Biscet and  Sirley Ávila León at the Roll Call of Nations at the Victims of Communism Memorial.

Roll Call of Nations Wreath Laying Ceremony at Victims of Communism Memorial

 This year I will be unable to physically but will be there in spirit and lament that I will not be able to once again meet such great heroes of freedom as Mart Laar of Estonia and Vytautus Landsbergis of Lithuania.  They not only played crucial roles in the liberation of their perspective countries but have been steadfast champions for the freedom of Cuba.

Communists today celebrating a bloody and murderous legacy

 2017 has an important historic significance because it marks the 100th anniversary of a tragic event, the founding of the first communist dictatorship that murdered the Russian royal family, plunged Russia into what would be a bloody century of war, repression, manufactured famines and terror that claimed tens of millions of lives.  Children were not spared. Like their totalitarian Nazi counterparts the Communist Party of Great Britain will be celebrating this criminal enterprise.

Communists manufactured famines to liquidate class enemies started in the USSR

However the apologists for communism will downplay the human cost and the 1939 Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact where the Soviet Union, the first communist regime, allied itself with Nazi Germany to divide up Poland and usher in World War II.

German Nazi and Russian Communist soldiers greet one another in Poland (1939)

Think of it for a moment, over a 100 million lives over the span of a century. One million state engineered violent deaths a year for one hundred years. The death toll of communism can clearly be seen today rising in places like Venezuela, North Korea, and China but the killings although lower profile also happen in other communist regimes.

We owe it to both the victims of communism from the past and of today to remember them and denounce what has happened and is still happening now in order to finally bring an end to the communist death toll. Below is a partial list of the dead reaches 102.566 million dead.

Communist death toll (estimate)*

Soviet Union 61 million dead

Peoples Republic of China 35 million dead

Khmer Rouge (Cambodia) 2 million dead

Communist Vietnam 1.670 million dead

North Korea 1.663 million dead

Communist Ethiopia 725,000 dead

Communist Rumania 435,000 dead

Communist Cuba 73,000 dead

Please if you live in or near the nation's capitol then this Friday, June 9th at 9:00am join in this vigil for justice for victims of communism on the corner of Massachusetts and New Jersey Avenues NW in Washington, DC. I'll hold a moment of silence at that time in remembrance of the victims. Either way please consider sending a tax deductible donation to the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation because they are doing important work educating America's youth on the real nature of communism.



 *Source: HOW MANY DID COMMUNIST REGIMES MURDER? By R.J. Rummel

The Case for a Reboot of U.S. Cuba Policy

"They are selling a virtual reality as if it was real change, and that is fraud. It is outrageous." - Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, Cuban opposition leader interviewed on October 3, 2011

 The New York Times has published an Editorial titled "Undoing All the Good Work on Cuba" that rehashes Obama Administration talking points that advance a specific policy agenda, although ignoring the current situation, changing policies over the past half century, security concerns, and how sanctions on the Castro regime have protected US taxpayers.


During the eight years of the Obama Administration the situation for Cuban opposition leaders became more precarious and this was demonstrated with the deaths of high profile figures that could have over seen a democratic transition such as Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Laura Inés Pollán Toledo.

The current situation

Levels of violence against dissidents worsened while the old totalitarian patterns of repression still endure.  Rising violent repression against political dissidents in Cuba, including crippling and disfiguring machete attacks, became a high profile regime tactic starting in 2013. The case of Sirley Avila Leon in May of 2015 is well documented, even if it is not widely well known because The New York Times did not find it "fit to print" but thankfully others have.

Machete attack victims 2013 - 2015

 There is no right to education in Cuba if you dissent from the official line. Fếlix Yuniel Llerena López, a 20 year-old religious freedom defender, was expelled from the Enrique José Varona Pedagogical University in Havana on May 8, 2017 following a visit to the United States. 18-year-old journalism student, Karla Pérez González, was expelled from Marta Abreu University of Santa Clara for “political reasons” on April 12, 2017 and her expulsion ratified three days later on April 15th. 24 year old David Mauri Cardoso was expelled from the University of Cienfuegos in February of 2017 after he honestly answered politically loaded questions in what was supposed to be a Spanish literature exam.

If you have a relative who is a dissident, although you are not, you can still be fired from your job. Professor Dalila Rodriguez from the University of Las Villas was expelled from her job on May 9, 2017 because her father, Leonardo Rodriguez is a dissident. 

Dissidents have been jailed and mistreated in psychiatric facilities in Cuba. The practice continues today with Daniel Llorente Miranda, the dissident who on May Day ran out in front of the parade with an American flag shouting out for a free Cuba, held in Mazorra.

There is no right to travel for Cuban nationals and dissenters are regularly denied exit and entry. Ivan Hernandez Carrillo, and Sayli Navarro were denied the right to travel by the Castro regime on June 4, 2017. 

Amnesty International has recognized Eduardo Cardet as a new Cuban prisoner of conscience and has an urgent action underway for his release.


What is taking place in Cuba is fake change. The regime is working to achieve regime succession and prevent a democratic transition in Cuba.

Policy changes over the past half century

The argument made by the Obama Administration and repeated by The New York Times that "hard-line sanctions-based approach was in place for more than 50 years after the 1959 revolution and never produced what anti-Castro activists hoped would be the result" is both a straw man argument and untrue.

The Castro regime beginning in 1959 sent armed expeditions to Panama, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic to overthrow their governments. The regime's destabilization policy led two thirds of the 21 states of Latin America voting to expel Cuba from the Organization of American States on February 14, 1963.   A cache of three tons of weapons was found on a Venezuelan beach in November 1963 that was to be used to disrupt the democratic elections there.

Due to the 1961 Bay of Pigs debacle that consolidated Castro's rule and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis that ruled out a direct U.S. invasion, economic sanctions were put in place not to eliminate the Castro regime but limit its ability to expand into the rest of the hemisphere and to force the Soviet Union to expend large sums in keeping the Castro regime afloat which may have contributed to the USSR's demise in 1991.  The embargo was not designed to overthrow the Castro regime but to contain its mission to destabilize other governments in the region.

President Carter ended Cuba travel embargo and began normalizing relations in 1977

On April 27, 1977 representatives of the Carter Administration and the Castro regime sat down and personally negotiated an international fishery agreement. This was the first time since 1958 that any officials of the United States government sat down with representatives of the Castro regime to formally negotiate an agreement. 

President Carter in an interview with Robert Fulghum on December 19, 1996 quoted on page 310 of the book Conversations with Carter said: "When I had only been in office two months in 1977, I opened up all travel for American citizens to go to Cuba and vice versa. And we opened up an entry section, which is just one step short of a full embassy in both Havana and Washington. And those offices, by the way, are still open."

Outcomes of Carter normalization with Castro regime

Robert A. Pastor, of The Carter Center in July 1992 in the report "The Carter Administration and Latin America: A Test of Principle" summed the outcome of the Carter policy on Cuba: "In November 1977 there were 400 Cuban military advisers in Ethiopia; by April 1978 there were 17,000 Cuban troops there serving under a Soviet general.

The Castro regime also played a crucial role in the Sandinista victory in Nicaragua while the Carter Administration imposed sanctions on the Somoza regime when it refused to pursue democratic reforms. According to Robert Pastor:  "Somoza pretended the sanctions had no effect on him. He doubled the size of the National Guard and evidently believed he was secure. However, by May 1979, with Cuban President Fidel Castro's help, the three Sandinista factions had united and established a secure and ample arms flow from Cuba through Panama and Costa Rica."

During the Mariel crisis of 1980, when over 125,000 Cubans sought to flee the island, the Cuban dictator sought to save face by selectively releasing approximately 12,000 violent criminals or individuals who were mentally ill into the exodus. 

Towards the end of the Carter Administration the discovery of a Soviet ground forces brigade operating on Cuban territory and the ineptness in handling the Mariel boat lift crisis spelled not only the end of the policy but was also a contributing factor to the defeat of President Carter during his 1980 re-election bid. 

This first attempt at normalizing relations saw a worsening human rights situation in Cuba, a migration crisis and reversals in US interests in the region.

President Reagan restores Cuba embargo in 1981 and challenges Castro regime on international stage

Carter's policy of détente was rejected by the Reagan administration. Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981 and re-imposed the travel ban, toughened economic sanctions, in 1982 placed the Castro regime on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and started Radio Marti to break through the communist monopoly with uncensored information for Cubans on the island. 

Ronald Reagan backed the creation of a Radio Free Cuba to break Castro regime's information monopoly over the Cuban people beginning in 1981. When it finally went on the air in 1985 Radio Marti marked a before and after inside Cuba. At the time President Reagan hoped that Radio Marti would ''help defuse the war hysteria on which much of current Cuban Government policy is predicated.'' 

Outcomes

The Castro regime's response was to end an immigration agreement and suspend the visits to Cuba by Cubans living in the United States. The Reagan Administration named former Cuban political prisoner Armando Valladares Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and made human rights in Cuba a priority there. The end result was that for the first and last time Amnesty International, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN Human Rights Commission were able to visit Cuban political prisoners inside the island. There was no Cuba migration crisis during the Reagan Administration.

President Clinton seeks rapprochement with Castro regime in 1993

The Clinton Administration in 1994 initiated regular contacts between the U.S. and Cuban military that included joint military exercises at the Guantanamo Naval base. Despite this improvement of relations the 1990s saw some 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.  This led to the signing of the Helms - Burton Bill later in 1996, but as soon as he was re-elected President Clinton renewed his drive for normalized relations with the Castro regime. 

Outcomes
 
The worsening human rights situation was a contributing factor in the August 1994 rafter crisis in which 35,000 Cubans fled the country. Experts have identified that this was a migration crisis engineered by the Castro regime. The Cuban dictatorship did this because it successfully reasoned that it could coerce the Clinton Administration to the negotiating table to obtain concessions which indeed it did and prolonged the life of the dictatorship  President Clinton  shook hands with Fidel Castro in 2000 and opened cash and carry trade with the dictatorship loosening economic sanctions.  This new period of engagement coincided with the rise of Hugo Chavez and reversals of the democratic gains made in the 1980s and early 1990s.

President Obama pursues normalization of relations with Castro regime in 2009
 
The Obama Administration beginning in 2009 loosened sanctions on the Castro regime. On his watch concluding on December 17, 2014 the Obama administration freed all five members of the WASP spy network, including Gerardo Hernandez -- who was serving two life sentences, one of them for conspiracy to murder four members of Brothers to the Rescue murdered during the previous attempt at normalizing relations during the Clinton Administration. They de-linked the pursuit of full diplomatic relations from the rise in human rights violations in Cuba and in the region by Cuban state security.

The Obama administration doubled down on concessions ignoring the Castro regime's continuing sponsorship of terrorism and smuggling of weapons to North Korea in order to take Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism. President Obama followed through on his pledge made at the State of the Union to work for the lifting of economic sanctions on the dictatorship.

The Obama Administration marginalized dissidents and downplayed their importance early on in 2009 refusing to meet with them; the Obama State Department threatened the daughter of a martyred dissident in order to protect the sensibilities of the Castro regime's foreign minister in 2015. Not to mention claiming that there was no room for dissidents at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Havana later that same year.

President Obama went to Cuba with his family in March of 2016, in the midst of a human rights crackdown, and legitimized Raul Castro's regime before an international audience. In October of 2016. Less than a year after a fleeing refugee was shot in the back in the spring of 2015 by a Cuban state security agent. Mr. Obama issued a Presidential Policy Directive ordering U.S. intelligence agencies to share information with the Castro regime's secret police.  In January of 2017, in one of his final acts, President Obama further gutted the Cuban Adjustment Act ushering in the wholesale deportation of Cubans fleeing to the United States.

Outcomes

President Obama on December 17, 2014 claimed to have charted a "new" course on Cuba but in reality it was a very old and discredited policy applied in Cuba of marginalizing democrats and embracing dictators for perceived gain.

Human rights have deteriorated in Cuba with rising levels of violence against nonviolent activists. including machete attacks, and the suspicious deaths of human rights defenders such as Orlando Zapata Tamayo (2010), Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia (2011), Laura Inés Pollán Toledo (2011), Wilman Villar Mendoza (2012), Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas (2012), and Harold Cepero Escalante (2012).

There were 9,940 politically motivated arbitrary detentions over the course of  2016. In 2009, the first year of the Obama Administration, there were just 869 arbitrary detentions documented. During the eight years of the Obama White House there has been an eleven fold increase in politically motivated arbitrary detentions with 2016 being the worse. Religious repression escalated in Cuba in 2016 including the beating of pastors, the confiscation of Churches and some demolished by the dictatorship.

This worsening situation in Cuba is also reflected in an increase in Cubans fleeing the island. In 2008 there were slightly more than 10,000 visaless Cubans entering the United States compared to 46,635 visaless Cubans entering the United States in the first ten months of 2016.

On the economic front the Obama White House repeatedly claimed to have achieved $6 billion in trade with Cuba under the new policy but the actual number according to the U.S. census bureau is $380.5 million dollars in trade in goods with Cuba.

 

Trade between Cuba and the United States imploded under the Obama Administration. Peak year of U.S. trade in goods with Cuba was 2008, the last year of the Bush Administration. The two worst years in trade are the ones following the new Cuba policy launch in December of 2014. All of the details are available at the U.S. Census Bureau. The Cuban economy contracted in 2016 and at the same time military control over it has expanded.

The consequences in the region have also been negative. The Castro regime's military and intelligence services have been heavily involved in the attempt to build and impose a totalitarian regime in Venezuela for the past 18 years. Furthermore in Bolivia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Ecuador regimes with links to Havana pursue an anti-democratic agenda. Yoani Sanchez, the Cuban dissident blogger journalist, wrote a May 28, 2017 entry titled "The Kremlin is Back."  The Russians returned to Cuba, and made new inroads into Latin America during the Obama years.  


Conclusion

The New York Times has a terrible track record in Cuba and its latest editorial continues that lamentable tradition trying to make the case for the Trump Administration to continue the failed policies of the Obama Administration on Cuba. However, even a broken clock is right twice a day and The New York Times on December 8, 2016 reported how increased U.S. tourism to Cuba has meant more food shortages for Cubans because food production is geared to tourists. The record indicates that the case for tightening sanctions, and pushing a human rights centered policy will best serve both U.S. national interests and the prospects for a non-violent democratic transition.

The good work on Cuba was undone by the Obama Administration when it prioritized engaging with the Castro dictatorship, marginalized Cuban democrats, ignored the regime's support for outlaw regimes, and terrorist groups all in the service of a flawed policy.

Tiananmen Square Massacre at 28

In memory of those who stood up for their rights, lost their lives and for those still unjustly imprisoned today in China.

Students peacefully demonstrating in Tiananmen in 1989

Tiananmen Square and the events of June 1989 remain a censored topic in mainland China, but now one finds that "mistaken" censorship is also taking place outside of communist China. On May 11, 2017 The Wall Street Journal reported in the article "China Tells Facebook to ‘Come Learn From Us’ on Censoring Content " that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg "has tried everything" to get Facebook Inc unblocked in China.  Days later on May 26, 2017 Facebook rejected a Hong Kong activist's profile picture frame referencing the Tiananmen massacre. Following an outcry Facebook apologized and approved the image.

Image "mistakenly" censored by Facebook

What are so many so desperate to forget?

Twenty eight years ago the Communist leadership of China opened fire on the Chinese people. The Pro-Democracy Movement that had taken to the streets in April of 1989 was violently crushed by the Chinese communist dictatorship beginning on the evening of June 3, 1989. By dawn on June 4, 1989 scores of demonstrators had been shot and killed or run over and crushed by tanks of the so-called People's Liberation Army, the blood of students and workers splattered and flowed in the streets of Beijing. The Chinese Red Cross had initially counted 2,600 dead when they were pressured to stop by Chinese officials and silenced on this matter.

Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Nobel Peace laureate, is currently jailed for his continued non-violent activism but had already served a prison sentence for his participation in the 1989 Tiananmen student protest. On June 2, 1989 Liu Xiaobo and three others entered Tiananmen Square and started a hunger strike at 5:00pm reading a lengthy proclamation excerpted below:

We start our hunger strike. We protest. We call upon people. We repent. We are not looking for death, we are looking for the true life. Under the irrational militant violence by the Li Peng regime, Chinese intellectuals must end their all-words-but-no-action tradition of osteomalacia. We must protest the military rule with our actions. We must give birth to a brand new political culture with our own actions. 

Powerful international interests sided with the Beijing dictatorship and helped to perpetuate totalitarian rule in China.  One high profile example at the time was former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who persuaded the Bush Administration to downplay the human rights considerations surrounding the Beijing Massacre and to focus on the economic and strategic relationship. One month after the massacre on July 4, 1989 George H.W. Bush sent a secret high level delegation to meet with the Chinese regime and join with them in celebrating American independence.   


Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) published a October 1, 1989 article revealing Kissinger's direct business ties to Communist China and his defense of the regime and justification of the massacre. FAIR reported how on August 1, 1989 this business consultant who also heads "China Ventures" [that engages China's state bank in joint ventures] wrote a column that appeared in The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times claiming that "The Caricature of Deng as a Tyrant Is Unfair."

Democrats proved no better on China.  

President Carter normalized relations between Washington and Beijing on January 1, 1979. China's one child policy that systematically violates the reproductive rights of all Chinese was first applied in 1979. The conventional belief then with regards to China was that normal relations would lead to a greater opening for human rights and a peaceful transition to democracy. The opposite has been the case. In China the policy of trade and political engagement has led to a thriving economic system under Communist party control and modernization and expansion of both the military and police state to continue repressing the Chinese people.

President Carter meeting with future author of Tiananmen massacre, Deng Xiaoping

Ten years after Carter succeeded in normalizing relations with the communist dictatorship in China that same regime on June 4, 1989 engaged in a massive crackdown killing thousands of Chinese students and workers who had been non-violently protesting corruption and demanding democratic reforms. American Independence while downplaying pro-forma criticisms made by the Administration. Candidate Bill Clinton would critique this de-linkage of human rights and commercial interests by the Bush Administration only to intensify the practice during his own presidency on May 26, 1994. This reached a symbolic low point in 1996 when the General responsible for the 1989 massacre was received at the Clinton White House with a 19 gun salute. 

This failure of the United States government and much of the Western world sacrificed human rights and decency for the sake of economic interests. Leaving it to civil society, the press and non-governmental organizations to try and take up the slack. The outcome has been a steady deterioration of human rights and freedoms around the world. China is now a rising superpower with a regime that has blood on its hands and refuses to recognize, apologize or repent for its past crimes including the events surrounding Tiananmen.  

Twenty eight years later and it remains up to civil society, and the press to remember and continue to demand justice. In Hong Kong hundreds of thousands will take to the streets in memory of those who stood up for their rights, lost their lives and freedom on June 4, 1989. 

Elie Wiesel in his 1986 Nobel Lecture explained why this date should be remembered: "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." 

Vigil in Hong Kong on June 4th to remember Tiananmen

 In China four activists were indicted and jailed for producing and promoting their own baijiu (a popular Chinese liquor) that commemorated the 28th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown. Amnesty International declared them prisoners of conscience on May 17, 2017 and have a campaign underway #ToastToRememberin order to observe the anniversary of the June 4, 1989 Beijing massacre.

#ToastToRemember in order to Remember #Tiananmen