"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana
On March 22, 2016 the President of the United States did the wave with a dictator
President Barack Obama had good intentions with his outreach to Cuba, but was ill served by those who presented him a false history of U.S.-Cuba relations and the intentions of Cuba, led by a regime driven by an ideological mission that views the United States as existentially hostile. Below are some lessons from President Obama's detente with the Castro regime: :
President Obama announced his new Cuba policy on December 17, 2014 and commuted the sentences of three Cuban spies, including Gerardo Hernandez who was serving a life sentence for his role in a murder conspiracy that claimed four innocent lives in 1996. They returned to Cuba the same day, and Alan Gross, an innocent mas, was finally freed. This submission to blackmail only encouraged the hardliners in Havana.
Trade between the United States and Cuba collapsed during the Obama opening, and worsened after the December 17, 2014 announcement that the two governments would seek normalized relations. Peak year of trade was the last year of the George W. Bush Administration ($711.5 million) versus ($185.7 million) in 2015. Worse yet, the Cuban military seized control over larger sections of the Cuban economy during the US-Cuba detente.
“Don’t be confused about this. I will maintain the embargo,” Mr. Obama said. “It provides us with the leverage to present the regime with a clear choice: If you take significant steps toward democracy, beginning with the freeing of all political prisoners, we will take steps to begin normalizing relations.”
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.”
Cuba policy is now being reviewed, and there is always room for improvement, but one must also learn from the past and recognize the nature of the regime in Havana. There are scores of brain damaged U.S. diplomats that are apparent casualties of not doing this. Doing the wave with Raul Castro, a dictator who killed Americans, at a baseball game in March 2016 legitimized his dictatorship, but did not advance U.S. interests.
This was not a foreign policy but wishful thinking that was also doing the bidding of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Agriculture lobby to open up credits to the Castro regime that would saddle Americans with the bill, and perpetuate the Castro dictatorship at the expense of the Cuban people.
Victims of state violence in Cuba during Obama detente
Oswaldo Payá, and Laura Pollán, opposition leaders that would have overseen a democratic transition were killed, and repression exploded without consequences during the Obama years. Extrajudicial killings of fleeing Cubans continued but during the Obama years high profile activists also met untimely deaths that
appear to have been carried out by Castro's state security service. The same
spy agency that Obama's October 2016 Presidential Directive on Cuba ordered the CIA to share intelligence with.
Explosion in arbitrary detentions during Obama detente with Castro regime
Finally, with regards to the point raised by Alan Gross on agricultural export sales. They collapsed on President Obama's watch because they were no longer politically necessary to purchase leverage in the American political process. The Castro regime was getting everything it wanted through unilateral concessions.
Secretary Clinton and Foreign Minister Lavrov press button marked "overload" in 2009
On March 6, 2009 Secretary Hillary Clinton in Geneva, Switzerland announced the "Russian reset" with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov but things did not go as expected as Time Magazine's Simon Shuster reported a year later when there were already signs that things were going in the wrong direction:
Last March, she had the honor of starting Obama's charm offensive by presenting her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, with a little red button. It was supposed to have the Russian word for reset on it and was meant as a harmless bit of fun. But thanks to a spelling mistake somewhere in the State Department (presumably the Gimmicks Directorate), Lavrov had to explain that the button actually said overload. It caused some awkward laughter.
On March 26, 2012 President Obama was caught on a hot mike telling then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that "This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility." President Medvedev replied, "I understand. I transmit this (inaudible) to Vladimir." President Obama went on to win re-election.
In August of 2012 President Obama made his famous statement of a "red line" in Syria over the use of chemical weapons leading to a U.S. military response only to back down when Assad used them.
This was all taking place under a backdropwhere the Putin regime was transitioning into a more authoritarian regime murdering opposition activists, human rights defenders and independent journalists. The Obama administration did not allow these developments to effect their approach to Russia.
U.S. foreign policy during the Obama administration has been a mixture of signals perceived as weak being sent, inviting aggressive responses by outlaw regimes and adversaries, followed up by responses that threaten to explode into conflict.
This "Russian reset" was part of President Obama's overall charm offensive with various adversaries of the United States which amounted to neo-appeasement, and as was the case in Cuba and Venezuela failed terribly, and has created the conditions for future conflict that are now erupting at the end of his presidency.
Some
years ago, two friends of mine were talking to a refugee from Communist Cuba.
He had escaped from Castro. And as he told the story of his horrible
experiences, one of my friends turned to the other and said, ``We don't know how lucky we are.'' And the Cuban stopped and
said, ``How lucky you are? I had some place to escape to.'' - President Ronald Reagan, July 13, 1988, Remarks on Signing the Captive Nations Week Proclamation
President Ronald Reagan on July 13, 1988 issued his final Captive Nations Week proclamation in the last year of his presidency with an inspiring call for freedom and solidarity with the victims of communism that contrasts dramatically with the final proclamation issued by President Obama today in the last year of his presidency. The excerpt below from 1988 is clear in its denunciation of totalitarianism while at the same time offering specificity:
The citizens of the captive nations daily hear the mighty call of
freedom and answer it boldly, sending an echo around the globe to remind
totalitarians and all mankind that their voices cannot be quelled -- because
they are the voices of the human spirit.
Across
the continents and seas, the cry for freedom rings out and the struggle for its
blessings continues, in the republics of the Soviet Union, in the Baltic States and throughout Eastern Europe, in Cuba and Nicaragua, in Ethiopia and Angola, and in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. It also continues in Afghanistan, despite initial Soviet
withdrawal, because the Najibullah regime imposes its
will upon the Afghan people. We in America, who have held high the
torch of liberty for 2 centuries and more, pause during Captive Nations Week to
express our solidarity with those who strive at great personal risk and
sacrifice to win justice for their nations. We commemorate as well the many
freedom fighters and individuals such as Polish Father JerzyPopieluszko and Ukrainian poet VasylStus who have given their lives in the imperishable cause
of liberty. We cannot and will not shirk our duty and responsibility to insist
on the speediest end to subjugation, persecution, and discrimination in the
captive nations. We repeat our call for all governments to respect and honor
the letter and the spirit of the United Nations Charter and the Helsinki
Accords.
Whereas President Reagan highlighted specific countries under the grips of communism in 1988 the current occupant of the White House offers no such details with the exception of Cuba and there is no inspiring call for freedom or solidarity with or naming of the victims.
"It also means
discussing our differences with nations more directly. And we have
opened a new chapter in our relationship with Cuba, which includes
direct engagement with their government on human rights and steps to
empower and create opportunity for the Cuban people."
No mention of the victims of communism in Cuba during President Obama's watch. Why not commemorate those Cubans such as Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, Harold Cepero, Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, and others who gave their lives in the cause of freedom in Cuba while the Obama Administration pursued detente with the Castro regime who played a role in their deaths?
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero murdered four years ago on 7/22
President Reagan addressed the legacy of communism in 1988 in clear terms that are needed today to avoid having others fall under the siren call of communist apologists who promise an earthly paradise but time and time again deliver Hell on Earth.
We cannot forget decades of tragedy, the tens of millions of lives
lost, or the enormity of the suffering inflicted on the innocent. We applaud
the courage and faith that have sustained countless people and kept alive the
dream of freedom against unthinkable odds. Despite starvation, torture, and
murder, the indomitable human spirit will outlast all oppression. We continue
to stand ready to cooperate in meeting the just aspirations of the oppressed
and needy of the world. We will remain forever steadfast in our commitment to
speak out for those who cannot, to seek justice for those to whom it is denied,
and to assist freedom-seeking peoples everywhere.
28 years ago Ronald Reagan made his final remarks after signing the Captive Nations Week Proclamation and today he is honored and remembered in countries that are now free across the world. Unfortunately, all indications are that President Obama will not repeat this legacy.
The author in Poland next to a statue of Ronald Reagan
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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
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.
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 reportdengue 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Some of the Cuban rights defenders since 2009 who have died suspiciously
The Obama administration and a substantial portion of the U.S. establishment have resurrected the discredited and discarded policy of détente pioneered by the Nixon administration, continued through the Ford and Carter administrations before being rejected by Ronald Reagan in 1981. Today as members of the State Department met with representatives of the Castro regime to discuss the basis of a human rights dialogue the office of the spokesperson at the State Department released the following statement:
United States and Cuban diplomatic delegations met today at the State
Department to discuss the methodology, topics, and structure of a future
human rights dialogue. The atmosphere of the meeting was professional,
and there was broad agreement on the way forward for a future
substantive dialogue, the timing and location of which will be
determined through diplomatic channels. Each side raised concerns about
human rights issues, and both sides expressed willingness to discuss a
wide range of topics in future substantive talks.
Unfortunately, the Obama Administration along with some members of congress have sought to down play the Castro regime's human rights record in order to pursue the new policy of engagement with the dictatorship. For example, President Obama on December 26, 2014, days after commuting the sentence of Gerardo Hernandez, the Cuban spy serving life for conspiracy to murder four members of Brothers to the Rescue on February 24, 1996 in an act of state terrorism, described this crime as a "tragic circumstance." The unrepentant spy and terrorist was greeted as a national hero by Raul Castro and announced that he was "ready for his next order."
The so-called "substantive dialogue" will most likely regurgitate the sophist arguments of the Castro regime seeking to re-define human rights along a false ideological divide in order to justify its systematic and gross violation of human rights.
At the same time their appears to be blind faith in technology, especially the internet, as the magic solution to opening up Cuba. However, in today's news the Agence France Press reported that "Cuba wants to boost public Internet access while keeping the Communist government's control over it."
Technology is neutral, and repressive regimes have contracted Western companies to place draconian controls on the internet that are used to target activists. Amnesty International identified "Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Nortel Networks, Websense and Sun Microsystems"
as having "provided technology which has been used to censor and
control the use of the Internet in China." These repressive applications
of new technologies have been transferred to other dictatorships including the Castro regime.
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