Memo to the European Union: You decided this week to lift your sanctions on Cuba, hoping it will encourage Raúl Castro to institute more "reforms," like allowing Cubans to buy DVD players, computers, cell phones and other items most Cubans cannot afford to buy. Setting aside whether such a diplomatic "carrot" from Europe means anything to the dictatorship, please note that nothing Castro No. 2 has done has bettered the fortunes of Cuba's political prisoners. They are still locked away in the dictatorship's dungeons, serving de facto death sentences designed to silence them forever.
Raúl has released a handful of political prisoners, mainly as a sop to the appeasers in Madrid, but their freedom was dependent on them leaving the island for exile. I don't begrudge those who have taken that deal, but just the same it was a bargain whose cruelty again reflects the evil nature of the Castro regime. That Europe has rewarded the dictatorship in exchange for nothing in return from Havana, only shows how forgotten the men and women of the Cuban presidio really are.
Earlier this year, political prisoner Librado Linares García, reportedly rejected a deal that would meant his release, if he promised to immediately go into exile. That was too a high a price to pay, even if meant he wouldn't finally be able to get decent medical treatment for his declining eyesight.
Since then, his health has worsened.
Independent journalist Tania Maceda Guerra reports that Linares, who already is blind in his left eye, continues to lose vision in his right eye because of the stress of prison life and poor living conditions. For example, Linares told Maceda earlier this week via telephone that he is being housed with several prisoners suffering from tuberculosis and it is possible he has become infected with the disease. (Linares already suffers from arthritis, emphysema and other serious ailments.)
Linares, leader of the Cuban Reflection Movement, is serving a 20-year sentence handed down during the "black spring" of 2003. He currently is being held at the Ariza prison in Cienfuegos.
The European Union has apparently decided that enough time has past to cast a thaw on the chilly relations between Europe and Cuba that resulted because of the "black spring."
I wonder what Europe thinks has changed for Linares and other Cuban political prisoners, that makes the Castro regime again worthy of its good graces. Why is now the time for Europe to turns it back on them?
And why does Europe think that now, absent any really good behavior on the part of the dictatorship on the issue of political prisoners, was the time to make the type of deal that a brave man like Linares would never make?
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