"We've seen this movie before."
Contested elections in a free society where we don't know the outcome ahead of time because citizens are actually free to choose is something that those living in dictatorships aspire to one day experience. Cuban Americans want their countrymen on the island to have their sovereignty restored, and the Castro dictatorship brought to an end.
There has been controversy in the aftermath of 2020 election in Florida where the screen shot above shows a Telemundo Poll with 71% of Cuban Americans polled in favor of President Donald Trump while 23% supported Vice President Joe Biden. Meanwhile The New York Times polled 58% for Trump and 41% for Biden among Cuban Americans. Many have expressed both surprise and outrage at this result, but Cuba observers, and those versed in American politics should not have been surprised.
Andres Oppenheimer's column "Biden blew it with Miami’s Cuban, Venezuelan voters, and got clobbered" was published on Nov. 4, 2020 and he laid out a pre-existing problem the Vice President had with Cuban American voters. "Many Cuban exiles, especially older ones, still resent President Obama’s 2014 decision to restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba. Biden, then vice president, was part of that move." ... "But Biden could have overcome that by admitting that the Obama administration’s opening with Cuba has not worked as it should." Instead for far too long in 2020 the campaign engaged in gaslighting claiming that things had been better under the Obama Administration. An abbreviated examination should disabuse one of this notion.
The Obama thaw with the Castro regime did not begin in 2014, but started in 2009 with deadly consequences for Cubans, and five years of arbitrary detention for an innocent American.
In 2009 the Obama Administration sought to distance itself from the Cuban dissident movement, while pursuing a diplomatic strategy of engaging with Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, and Raul Castro that critics alleged involved ignoring regime abuses.
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| President Obama met with Hugo Chavez in 2009, with Maduro in the background |
On April 17, 2009 President Barack Obama said that his Administration sought "a new beginning with Cuba" and stated further that he was “prepared to have my administration engage with the Cuban government on a wide range of issues — from human rights, free speech, and democratic reform to drugs, migration, and economic issues.”
Towards the end of 2009 the White House was tested when U.S. citizen Alan Gross was taken and held hostage by the Castro regime. U.S. diplomats did not see him until 25 days later. Furthermore, the policy of rapprochement and loosening of sanctions continued despite Gross's continued detention.
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| Alan Gross before and after his captivity in a Cuban prison (2009 - 2014) |
On January 14, 2010 the "illegal" Cuban Commission for Human Rights, reported the confirmed deaths of at least 20 mental patients at the Psychiatric Hospital known as Mazorra due to "criminal negligence by a government characterized by its general inefficiency" and that a day later the Cuban government confirmed that 26 patients had died due to “prolonged low temperatures that fell to 38 degrees.” This only occurred because the images of the victims had been leaked and reported by independent journalists.
On February 23, 2010 Cuban prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after a prolonged hunger strike. He had been the victim of numerous beatings and ill treatment that rose to the level of torture over nearly seven years that drove him to go on a water only hunger strike. Prison guards periodically cut off his access to water, contributing to his death.
Extrajudicial killings continued at a higher documented rate than in previous years.
Cuban human rights defender Juan Wilfredo Soto García died on May 8, 2011, three days after being beaten up by police officers in a public park in Santa Clara, Cuba. Amnesty International raised concerns on the circumstances surrounding his death. In the past Juan Wilfredo had been a political prisoner for 12 years.Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, a courageous woman spoke truth to power and protested in the streets of Cuba demanding an amnesty for Cuban political prisoners. She had been a school teacher, before her husband was jailed for his independent journalism in 2003 along with more than 75 other civil society members. Laura was greatly admired both inside and outside of the island.
Laura reached out to the wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters of the 75 prisoners of conscience jailed in March of 2003 among them was her husband, they founded the Ladies in White, and they carried out a sustained nonviolent campaign that after nine years obtained the freedom of their loved ones. Since she did not dissolve the Ladies in White when her husband returned home because she recognized that the laws had not changed, and that political prisoners remained behind bars and that she would continue her human rights activism, the Castro regime did away with her on October 14, 2011.
The Obama White House and the Castro regime began having secret meetings in June 2013 in Canada. These meetings continued throughout 2013 and 2014. Reporting on these meetings do not mention any reaction to provocative actions by the Cuban dictatorship.
On July 15, 2013 the Cuban government was caught red handed smuggling tons of weapons to North Korea. This was confirmed by a March 6, 2014 report by a panel of experts for the United Nations Security Council that also reported:
6. In addition, various parts for three SA-2 and six SA-3 missiles were in the cargo, such as the nose cones housing proximity fuses, auto-pilots and transponders, transmitter antennas and some actuators (figure 4). 4 __________________ 4 The Panel notes that some of the SA-2 and SA-3 parts could also meet the criteria defined in the list of items, materials, equipment, goods and technology related to ballistic missile programmes (S/2012/947), whose export and import by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are prohibited. See in particular the Category II, Item 9 of S/2012/947 covering “instrumentation, navigation and direction finding”
There were no consequences for this action of the Castro regime that was also illegal under international law because the White House had prioritized the normalization of relations with the Castro regime, and pressed ahead with their secret negotiations.
On December 17, 2014 both President Obama and General Raul Castro
announced that they intended to normalize relations. Alan Gross was
finally
free after nearly five years in captivity, travel would be further
liberalized and that some Cuban political prisoners were to be freed was news that would be received positively.
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| The President and the dictator address their respective countries on 12/17/14 |
Nevertheless it was a sobering exercise for Cuban Americans for a number of reasons. Three spies who had spied on military installations and congressmen on American soil, that had plotted terrorist acts in the United States, and were implicated in the February 24, 1996 murder of three American citizens and one American resident were freed in a swap to return to Cuba setting a terrible precedent. Regime hardliners had won, thanks to the Obama Administration's actions. Kidnapping an American and holding him for ransom for five years paid off. Moderate elements within the dictatorship, seeking to transition Cuba into a responsible member of the family of nations, would remain silent. Gerardo Hernandez, who was serving a double life sentence for espionage and murder conspiracy, returned to Cuba and is now in charge of spying on Cubans domestically through the Committees in Defense of the Revolution.
On February 3, 2015, Rosa María Payá, in testimony before a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, indicted the indifference of the US government and the international community: "The Cuban government wouldn’t have dared to carry out its death threats against my father if the U.S. government and the democratic world had been showing solidarity. If you turn your face, impunity rages. While you slept, the regime was conceiving their cleansing of the pro-democracy leaders to come."
Rosa María Payá testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
On April 8, 2015 Cuban diplomats streamed out of the the Cuban Embassy in Panama attacked civil society representatives who were laying flowers at a bust of Jose Marti in a public park nearby. Several activists were injured and at least one required surgery. During the Summit of the Americas Cuban diplomats disrupted official meetings in order to block Cuban and Venezuelan dissidents from taking part, despite being officially accredited.
Cuban diplomats assaulted nonviolent protesters in Panama
Cuban dissident Sirley Ávila León, age 56, was gravely wounded in a machete attack on May 24, 2015 by Osmany Carrión who had been "sent by state security thug s" and that she is sure that the aggression "was politically motivated."
The attack was severe enough that she suffered deep cuts to her neck and
knees, lost her left hand and nearly lost her right arm.
On May 29, 2015 the State Department removed Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, despite evidence of continued bad actions.
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| Sirley Avila Leon was the victim of regime engineered machete attack. |
On Monday, July 20, 2015 at the State Department, Rosa Maria Payá Acevedo attended a press conference with Secretary of State John Kerry and Castro's foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez. Rosa Maria had proper accreditation as a member of the press. Rear Admiral John Kirby, the State Department spokesman, took Rosa Maria aside and warned her that she would be physically removed if she asked any questions.
Secretary of State John Kerry in an interview with journalist Andres Oppenheimer before his trip to Cuba made it known that "the United States and [the Castro regime] are talking about ways to solve the Venezuelan crisis."
The United States reopened its Embassy in Havana, Cuba on August 14, 2015, but did not invite Cuban human rights defenders to the flag raising ceremony in what the media labeled a snub. The State Department argued that it was a government to government affair and that there was not enough space to accommodate the dissidents. However, the State Department did accommodate "entrepreneurs and Cuban American activists" who flew down with Kerry and his official delegation. Despite the plane load of lobbyists and businessmen CNN anchor Jake Tapper in a tweet observed that there was plenty of space to have invited Cuban dissidents.
Excuse that there was no space at ceremony for any dissidents to be invited belied by actual space at ceremony pic.twitter.com/Cd8N2HQdT5— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) August 14, 2015
On January 7, 2016 The Wall Street Journal broke the story that in 2014 an inert US Hellfire missile sent to Europe for a training exercise was wrongly shipped on to Cuba. Since then the United States has been asking the Cuban dictatorship to return the missile
but it has not done so. Only after the embarrassing news broke was it
returned, but no doubt all the technical specs had been deciphered by
then and given (or sold) to America's enemies.
Three days before President Obama arrived in Cuba, in March 2016 Roberto Ampuero, a Chilean former
Minister of Culture and former Ambassador to Mexico tweeted in Spanish: "Paradox: After decades backing
Right wing dictatorships in Latin America, now the United States could
end up backing a Left wing dictatorship."
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| Barack Obama and Raul Castro in Havana in March 2016 |
International consequences were terrible
The European Union announced in 2016 that its two decade policy linking engagement with the Castro regime to improved human rights conditions in the 1996 EU Common position with respect to Cuba was ended to keep up with Obama's detente with Havana. The old agreement had been consonant with fundamental EU values as expressed below:
“The objective of the European Union in its relations with Cuba is to encourage a process of transition to pluralist democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as a sustainable recovery and improvement in the living standards of the Cuban people. A transition would most likely be peaceful if the present regime were itself to initiate or permit such a process. It is not European Union policy to try to bring about change by coercive measures with the effect of increasing the economic hardship of the Cuban people. The European Union considers that full cooperation with Cuba will depend upon improvements in human rights and political freedom”Unfortunately, it was the Obama Administration's Cuba policy announced on December 17, 2014 and the President's official state visit in March 2016 that both negatively impacted international solidarity and human rights in Cuba, and this included Europe. The decision of the European Union to "open a new chapter" on relations with Cuba that dropped human rights as a condition for normalization ended the 1996 European Common Position. This abandonment of a linkage between human rights and commerce was formalized in a December 12, 2016 signing ceremony that did great harm to the cause of human rights in Cuba.
There is much more and the opening ended with scores of brain damaged U.S. diplomats stationed in Cuba, beginning in November 2016. Cuban troops reviewed by Raul Castro on January 2, 2017 chanting that they would shoot President Obama so many times in the head that he would have a hat made out of bullets. Despite this affront, the White House continued meeting Raul Castro's demands that negatively impacted Cubans: ended wet foot dry foot policy for Cuban refugees, and shut down asylum program for trafficked doctors at the end of the Obama Administration.
Cuban troops in military parade chant they'll shoot President Obama in the head
Candidate Donald Trump in 2016 initially said that he backed the Obama opening, but that he would have gotten a better deal. While holding this position he was polling in the low 30s with Cuban Americans, but when he changed and began advocating undoing the Obama Cuba policy his poll numbers jumped into the 50s, and the Cuban American vote in 2016 played a key role in his election. Hillary Clinton had publicly supported continuing the Obama Cuba policy.
President Trump followed through in dismantling much of the Obama opening, and pressed further than other Presidents in fully enforcing Helms-Burton, and this led to higher levels of support among Cuban American voters.
Bay of Pigs Veterans endorsed Donald Trump
The Sanders wing of the Democratic Party also raised new concerns that drove many Cuban Americans to the Republican Party. They were also concerned about the future of America when Vice President Biden partially embraced Senator Bernie Sanders who described himself as a "democratic socialist."
Many Cubans in South Florida that fled Cuba in the early 1960s had seen this movie before. They supported Fidel Castro, who had promised to restore democracy and bring an end to the authoritarian dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, only to install a totalitarian communist dictatorship that ended free speech, freedom of assembly, religious freedom, locked up tens of thousands of Cubans for their political or religious views, and executed thousands more.
Senator Sanders celebrated the Castro regime's education system (which is a center of indoctrination) and healthcare system, which is not only mediocre for most Cubans, but conditional on political loyalty.
James Freeman writing in The Wall Street Journal on November 4, 2020 called the Vice President to task. "Attempting to generate leftist enthusiasm for a listless campaign, Vice President Joe Biden did the country a disservice by partially embracing the radical Sen. Bernie Sanders (Socialist, Vt.), rather than appropriately shunning him."
Cuban Americans understood that there is a chasm of difference between a "social-democrat" and a "democratic socialist" such as the self-identified Senator Sanders of Vermont. Social democracy works within the framework of democratic governance and the rule of law. It also recognizes the market as a necessary mechanism for the creation of human riches, but that it should be tempered by regulations and legislation to protect the environment, and seek a society that is more equitable. This movement is popular in Europe and can be seen in action in Germany, Sweden, Norway, and many other places.
Democratic socialism views private markets and capitalism as evils that need to be replaced by a system that achieves public control over the means of production with government control. Maximizing government control over the private sector took place in Nicaragua, and Venezuela through democratic socialism that transitioned into communist regimes that took over the economic private sphere, and began to silence free speech, shut down independent media, and enforce a particular political ideology on students that destroyed the democratic framework of governance replacing it with dictatorship.
The vote for Trump by Cuban Americans had a three fold significance: 1. Punishing Obama-Biden for the failed detente with Castro that they continued to gaslight Cubans as a success doubling its offensiveness. 2. Gratitude for Trump-Pence dismantling the Obama detente and identifying the true nature of the dictatorship. 3. To vote against the Party who had major candidates such as Bernie Sanders celebrating the "achievements" of the Castro regime, and omitting its bloody history.
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