Tag: Obama and Cuba

The New York Analysis of Policy & Government concludes its review of the change in U.S-Cuban relations.

The Trump alteration to the Obama Cuba policy will directly impact commercial ties between the U.S. and the Castro regime.

The American Enterprise Institute notes that “Trump’s announcement Friday in Miami takes the first steps toward cracking down on commercial ventures and tourism that aid the dictatorship. It also scuttles efforts in Congress to liberalize travel or arrange taxpayer-financed credit for exports to the debt-ridden government…The windfall of tourism travel—which the Cuban government says has increased by 75% in the last year—is a primary target. The Obama Administration skirted the law by removing virtually all restrictions on travel; the tourism industry is more dominated than ever by entities linked to the Cuban military. Trump’s plan will restore licensing requirements to ensure that travel is purposeful and structured, falling within one of 12 authorized categories of travel, including for religious, educational, scientific, cultural purposes. The most important Trump initiative is forbidding U.S. companies and individuals from doing business with the state-run conglomerate GAESA (Grupo de Administración Empresarial, S.A.). GAESA, which experts on the Cuban economy say generates as much as 80% of the country’s business revenue, is directed by Luís Alberto Rodríguez, son-in-law of dictator Raúl Castro. The firm’s holdings include retail stores, gas stations, and nearly 60 hotels, and Rodriguez is the gatekeeper to any foreign firm seeking to do business on the island. This vast family-controlled business empire gives the Castro clan a stranglehold over Cuba’s economy, with an aim of dictating the terms of the country’s future.”

A bipartisan statement  by U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-Florida), Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey) and U.S. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Florida) welcomed President Trump’s initiative.

“…  many Cubans say human rights conditions on the island have worsened since President Obama’s visit to the island in March 2016. Human rights groups documented nearly 500 political arrests during President Obama’s trip alone, and nearly 10,000 political arrests in all of 2016. And as these negotiations were ongoing, the Castro regime continued its anti-American activities, such as smuggling weapons to North Korea, illegally holding a U.S. Hellfire missile, continuing to harbor fugitives from U.S. justice like FBI “Top Ten Most Wanted Terrorist” Joanne Chesimard, and openly allowing Russian ships to dock in its ports to conduct espionage against the U.S.

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“Unfortunately, the previous administration’s policy is currently funding this brutality and repression. Cuba’s military monopoly, Grupo de Administración Empresarial SA (“GAESA”), which is run by Raul Castro’s son-in-law, is the biggest business enterprise on the island, and also serves as the brutal instrument for suppressing the Cuban people’s liberty and right to self-determination. GAESA controls every aspect of the Cuban economy – including tourism – through its shell companies. It even controls foreign remittances flowing to Cubans from relatives abroad, taking a significant percentage of every transaction.

“GAESA has taken full advantage of the new U.S. engagement. It has absorbed all of the benefits of American business, and has left virtually nothing for the average citizen on the island. This flow of funds has only given the Castro regime additional resources to oppress those who dare to freely express themselves.

“Nothing will change in Cuba as long as GAESA maintains its tight control over the economy, and freedoms are not protected. President Trump understands this, and his new Cuba policy will ensure that the United States truly empowers the Cuban people instead of the dictatorship. The changes he announced will assist Cubans struggling for liberty by ensuring that U.S. policy toward Cuba actually benefits the Cuban people.

“The new policy will also enforce human rights protections for Cubans and help connect them to the free world by guaranteeing free and unimpeded access to information, including from sources currently unavailable to the majority of Cubans such as telecommunications and the internet. The right to independent, outside information from any source is a fundamental right protected under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. U.S. policy must support that right…”

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government examines the change in U.S.-Cuban relations in this two-part review.

President Trump’s change in U.S.-Cuban relations seeks to reverse an Obama foreign policy failure.

In making the announcement, President Trump stated “I am canceling the last administration’s completely one-sided deal with Cuba… Our policy will seek a much better deal for the Cuban people and for the United States of America…With God’s help…a free Cuba is what we will soon achieve.”

Obama’s major policy changes were done through executive order and altered regulations, in order to bypass Congress.   Critics maintain that his radical departure from the half-century U.S. stance towards the totalitarian-ruled island indicated that the White House chose to side with the Castro regime rather than the oppressed Cuban people.

Even during the discussions leading to the change, the Havana government imprisoned 140 additional people for political reasons. Freedom House noted that “In 2014, the Cuban government increased its systematic use of short-term “preventive” detentions—along with harassment, beatings, and ‘acts of repudiation’—to intimidate the political opposition, isolate dissidents from the rest of the population, and maintain political control of all public spaces. A record number of politically motivated detentions were recorded in 2014, and crackdowns on activists continued. That year, Freedom House also reported that ‘Cuba is the only country in the Americas that consistently makes Freedom House’s list of the Worst of the Worst: the World’s Most Repressive Societies for widespread abuses of political rights and civil liberties.”

Former Ambassador Roger F. Noriega  wrote: “President Obama’s new push to normalize relations with Cuba neglects the Cuban dictatorship’s internal oppression, relentless hostility to US interests, and implacable opposition to change. The Obama administration has rushed to facilitate new travel and trade with Cuba, but the Castro regime controls virtually every aspect of the economy, benefits from cash remittances and tourism, and stifles the country’s potential growth. While the Obama administration struggles to justify its unilateral concessions and has yet to press for international help on Cuba, the Castro regime has rejected calls for change and is making new demands to put the administration on the defensive…President Obama’s decision to normalize diplomatic relations with the Castro government will neither advance US interests nor produce any significant change on the island.”

Considering that neither the United States nor the Cuban people received any substantive benefit from Obama’s initiative, and human rights considerations were essentially ignored, why did the Obama White House choose to aid the Castro regime, particularly at a time when Havana was assisting Moscow’s expanding military presence in Latin America? (In 2014, The Guardian reported that “Russia has quietly reached an agreement with Cuba to reopen a Soviet-era spy base on America’s doorstep, …The deal to reopen the signals intelligence facility in Lourdes, south of Havana.”)
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In the time since the Obama opening of relations with Cuba, the human rights crisis has continued unabated. Human Rights Watch  recently revealed:

“The government continues to rely on arbitrary detention to harass and intimidate critics, independent activists, political opponents, and others. The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, an independent human rights group that lacks official authorization and is therefore considered illegal by the government, received more than 7,900 reports of arbitrary detentions from January through August 2016. This represents the highest monthly average of detentions in the past six years. Security officers rarely present arrest orders to justify the detention of critics…Detention is often used preemptively to prevent people from participating in peaceful marches or meetings to discuss politics. Detainees are often beaten, threatened, and held incommunicado for hours or days. The Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco)—a group founded by the wives, mothers, and daughters of political prisoners also, like the Cuban Commission on Human Rights, lacks official authorization and is therefore considered illegal by the government. Its members are routinely harassed, roughed up, and detained by either police or state security agents before or after they attend Sunday mass…

“The government controls virtually all media outlets in Cuba and restricts access to outside information…Independent journalists who publish information considered critical of the government are subject to smear campaigns and arbitrary arrests, as are artists and academics who demand greater freedoms… The government denies access to its prisons by independent human rights groups, which believe that additional political prisoners, whose cases they cannot document, remain locked up…

“Cubans who criticize the government continue to face the threat of criminal prosecution. They do not benefit from due process guarantees, such as the right to fair and public hearings by a competent and impartial tribunal. In practice, courts are subordinated to the executive and legislative branches, denying meaningful judicial independence…

“As a member of the UN Human Rights Council from 2006 to 2012 and from 2014 to the present, Cuba has regularly voted to prevent scrutiny of serious human rights abuses around the world—opposing resolutions spotlighting abuses in North Korea, Syria, Iran, and Ukraine. However, Cuba supported a resolution adopted by the council in June 2016, establishing the post of an independent expert to combat violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

The Report concludes Monday.