Uncommon Sense

In the new year and beyond, Cuba's future is up to the Cuban people

My grandfather Raimundo Masferrer, my sister Alina and me, some 45 years ago or so.

Tonight, as I have for many New Year's Eves before, I remember my grandfather, Raimundo Masferrer, who along with his two brothers, packed themselves into a small boat and fled Cuba for an uncertain future in the United States. That same night, his wife -- my grandmother -- and their two children, including my father, went into hiding in Havana, not knowing for sure when, if ever, they would be reunited.

This New Year's Eve, 56 years later, that unease, that uncertainity about the future clouds the minds and hearts of those of us who worry about Cuba's future and desire for it a freedom that for too long has been extinguished on the island.

Many of us feel betrayed by an American president who appears more concerned about leaving his mark on history than keeping the promises that his predecssors had made to the Cuban people: That no rapprochement, that no lifting of the embargo, that no relaxing of travel rules, would happen until at the very least, the dictatorship began taking steps toward re-establishing democracy and freedom for Cubans.

But now, with no promises of anything in return from the Castro regime, the United States is promising the dictatorship the world: Diplomatic regcognition, easier access to the Internet, a promise to lobby Congress for the end of what remains of the so-called "embargo."

And all with no apparent signs that the president, who before he was elected said the goal of his Cuba policy would be libertad for the Cuban people, cares about those who suffer the worst deprivations and oppression at the hands of the regime he's so eager to deal with.

Recent events, however, highlight something that my grandparents and later my parents knew as they worked to grab their piece of the American dream: Achieving their destiny did not depend on the goodwill and graciousness of a government, foreign or domestic. Their success depended on their will and their willingness to make their dreams, their dream for a better life and for freedom, come true.

That is the opportunity the Cuban people have today: Their destiny is theirs to determine. To achieve the freedom that I am certain most of them desire, they will have to rise up and demand it. They must be willing to stand up and fight for it, in Cuba and not just from exile.

The odds against them are high, but whether they succeed is up to them, not the American government or most certainly, the Castro dictatorship.

In 2015 and beyond, that challenge may be more formidable than ever before.  But the promise on the other side, as my grandparents and parents knew decades ago, makes the coming struggle very much worth the fight.

Obama, Castro agree to avoid accountability on release of Cuban political prisoners

Skepticsm, if not an outright sense of betrayal, that has met President Barack Obama's deal with Raul Castro is twofold:

-- In return for diplomatic recognition of the Castro regime and a promise to work for repeal of the so-called American "embargo," the dictatorship promised nothing. Obama reversed a bedrock American foreign policy without even a vague assurance that Castro would relax the iron grip that he and his brother have held on the Cuban people for almost 56 years. The regime is free to continue with its oppression and repression of the Cuban people, but now with the knowledge that no matter how it badly it behaves, Washington doesn't care enouigh to care.

-- A more immediate cause of suspicion is Obama's assurance that Castro did, in fact, agree to give something as part of the deal: The release of 53 political prisoners in Cuban jails. A welcome outcome, indeed, but the lack of transparency for this particular of the deal is alarming. No one in the United States nor among Cuban dissidents seems to know whose names are on the list, an omission that absolves both Castro and Obama of any accountability.

A Reuters report Sunday highlighted the mystery, and how both Washington and Havana are trying to hide behind it:

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba's most prominent dissidents say they have been kept in the dark by U.S. officials over a list of 53 political prisoners who will be released from jail as part of a deal to end decades of hostility between the United States and Cuba.

For years, dissident leaders have told the United States which opponents of Cuba's communist government were being jailed or harassed, but they say they were not consulted when the list of prisoners to be freed was drawn up or even told who is on it.

The lack of information has stoked concern and frustration among the dissidents, who worry that the secret list is flawed and that genuine political prisoners who should be on it will be left to languish.

"We're concerned because we don't agree with the silence, because we have a right to know who they are. Who are they?" said Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White dissident group, which marches in Havana on Sundays to demand the release of prisoners.

"There are not just 53 political prisoners, there are more, and we are concerned that the U.S. list might have common criminals on it," she told Reuters in Havana.

U.S. officials have so far been tight-lipped about how the list of 53 was assembled and who was consulted inside Cuba. It also is not clear if some prisoners were kept off the list because the Cuban government refused to release them.

A U.S. official said on Saturday that Washington had asked Cuba to release a specific group of people jailed on charges related to their political activities, but declined to answer further questions.

Neither the U.S. nor the Cuban governments have said when the prisoners would be released. Cuba declined to comment on why more details have not been publicly released.

No one should expect any more from the Castro regime. In 56 years, it has never allowed anybody, much less the Cuban people, for how it rules the nation. It denies even holding political prisoners so it's unlikely to ever release a list of those to be freed.

But the weaselness displayed by the United States on this matter is just more reason to doubt the whole affair.

Cuba's new day was suppose to be about freedom, not an American president's betrayal

A new day for Cuba was not suppose to happen like this.

A new day for Cuba was suppose to be marked by the demise of a dictatorship and the rise of democracy. The celebration, in Cuba, in Miami, wherever Cuban blood pumps in the hearts of a waiting people, was to be astounding.

A new day for Cuba -- or better put, the promise of a new day -- did come this week. But it is not something to celebrate.

Instead, we are stunned and angry, unbelieving in the face of yet another capitulation to tyranny by an American president. As a middle-age Cuban American -- born here of Cuban parts several years after my parents and grandparents arrived as refugees -- this must have been what it felt like after John Kennedy abandoned the 2506 Brigade at the Bay of Pigs.

Regardless of how some of us never trusted Barack Obama, and his promise that Cuba under Castro would have to change before the U.S. would offer the olive branch, the lifeline, the regime was so desperate for, we are shocked at how blatant and crass is his disregard for the hopes and aspirations of the Cuban people. Just a week after at least 240 Cuban dissidents were detained while trying to commemorate International Human Rights Day, at the end of a year marked by some 8,000 political arrests, the U.S. administration made clear that the human rights of the Cuban people would not stand in the way of Obama staking another ignoble place in history.

"I do not necessarily think that we are talking about direct human rights conditionality in the restoration of diplomatic relations part," said Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson. "That is a legal process, if you will, or a diplomatic process, that will be fairly mechanical."

Many of us in exile, and not just our parents and grandparents, feel betrayed, not only as Cubans but as Americans. Betrayal of those who share our values is not suppose to be how the United States operates.

Imagine how those Cubans in Cuba who every day risk what little freedom they enjoy to fight for their human rights, to fight for their freedom, feel when they consider how the leader of the beacon of freedom to the north, cut a deal with the dictatorship that oppresses them.

"Obama was not considerate of Cuban citizens and of the civil society that is facing this tyrannical regime," said dissident leader Antonio Rodiles. "In Miami, Obama promised that he would consult Cuba measures with civil society and the non-violent opposition. Obviously, this didn't happen. That is a fact, a reality. He didn't consider Cuba's democrats. The betrayal of Cuba's democrats has been consummated."

Obama's betrayal was the result of either his ignorance of or, as is more likely, his indifference to the real plight of the Cuban people. There is no other explanation for why he would give up so much -- the "embargo," as littered with loopholes as it is and as "ineffective" as it's been in forcing regime change -- did give the United States powerful leverage that could have been used to force the changes in Havana that might one day make the Castros deserving of a rapprochement with the United States.

The embargo also put us on the right side of history, which in recent decades has shown favors the democrats over the dictators, especially if the United States has their back.

Instead, Obama gave away the credibility of his office, and of the country, for nothing, except for one day soon, an embassy in Havana, sure to stand in the eyes of many Cubans as a symbol of betrayal.

The release of Alan Gross is welcome, as is the reported release of 53 Cuban political prisoners. But by surrendering to the Castros the way Obama did ,with no promises of change in how the dictatorship treats the Cuban people, he made it a very real possibility that in the coming weeks and months, their jail cells will be filled with others.

But this time, it will be with the acquiesience and betrayal of an American president.

That will not be much of a new day for Cuba.

If U.S.-Cuba normalization doesn't free the Cuban people, it will fail

As a hisorical moment, there is no disputing the profundity of today's announcment of a new era in U.S-Cuban relations.

But for the chatter and debate it has sparked, most have it has failed to address this essential question: How will normalization of relations, and everything that will allow, without first concessions by Havana, free the Cubans of Cuba?

How that is answered -- will a Cuba with relations with Washington build a thriving democracy or will it become another China? --  will ultimately determine the failure or success of the change that is coming.

The interests of the Cuban people were absent from most of today's discussion, instead focusing on less vital questions like the how would the "hard-line" Cubans in Miami react and when could Americans start planning their Varadero beach vacations.

Absent was consideration of how the Obama-Castro thaw would improve the lives of the Cuban people, who for almost 56 years -- because of the Castros and not because of a so-called "embargo" or the lack of normal relations with the U.S. -- have suffered some of the worst oppression and deprivations in history.

Will normalization, as Obama suggested, lead to freedom for the Cuban people? That is really the only question that matters.

In his speech, Obama said he was convinced that greater diplomatic, economic and other engagement between the U.S. and Cuba, and the eventual lifting of the  "embargo," would pay off with benefits for the Cuban people, and that that hope was enough open a new era in relations between Washington and Havana. And without the Castro regime making any concessions in return.

Under the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act , or Helms-Burton Act, of 1996 (Helms–Burton Act, the embargo cannont be relaxed until Cuba begins a transition to democracy marked by steps like the release of political prisoners, holding free elections, etc.

Besides freeing American Alan Gross, Cuba did agree to release 53 Cuban political prisoners. But without other steps to guarantee Cubans' basic rights, the regime at any moment could replace them in its jails with others.

Obama said the normalization of relations with the Castro regime will provide a venue for the United States to advocate for the rights of the Cuban people and ultimately a better life for a people who have suffered so much. More hope and change.

The success of what Obama is offering depends too much on the goodwill of the Castro regime, not toward the United States but toward the Cuban people, a quality it had never displayed in the past 56 years.

As much we should hope Obama is right, it is because of that history that we should fear he is wrong.

 

Cuban political prisoner Sonia Garro released from jail but still under house arrest

Sonia Garro Alfonso

Cuban political prisoner Sonia Garro, her husband and another activist, in jail since their arrest in March 2012, were released from jail on Tuesday. But Garro said they have only been transferred to "house arrest" to await a long-postponed trial.

"We wait at home for a trial, but we do not know when it will be," Garro said after her release.

Garro, a member of the Cuban Ladies In White; her husband Ramón Alejandro Muñoz; and activist Eugenio Hernández were arrested during a crackdown in advance of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the island. Some time after their arrest, they were advised that they faced charges of public disorder and attempted murder, but the trial was postponed at least four times, most recently in early November.

Garro said officials did not tell her why she had been released. She said the charges against her were "an invention to free themselves of me."

Garro's unjust imprisonment had drawn the attention of Amnesty International and other activists worldwide.

Last month, after the latest trial postponment, Amnesty charged that the Castro dictatorship had placed Garro and the others in an "unfair legal limbo."

Political repression in Cuba has quadrupled since 2010 -- and 2014 isn't over yet

The numbers, and not fanciful notions/delusions/absurdities about how the Castro dictatorship is changing, tell the truth about repression in Cuba.

As of Nov. 30, there have been at least 8,410 politically motivated arrests in Cuba this year, compared to 6,424 in all of 2013 and more than four times the 2,074 arrests in 2010, according to the Cuban National Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

As Castro apoligists and others have tried to convince the world about how Cuba has changed since Raul Castro was elevated to dictator, and how U.S. policies must change, repression, at least as measured by the human rights commission, has multiplied by more than fourfold.

That bottom line makes meaingless the fact that the 398 arrests recorded in November was the lowest monthly tally since the 233 record in July 2013.

Repression is on the rise in Cuba and because of that, the Castro dictatorship is not deserving of any concessions.

The numbers do not lie.

For details on each arrest in November, read this.

Cuban activists say attacks part of Castro plan to eliminate opposition

Via Translating Cuba and 14ymedio:

14YMEDIO, November 28, 2014 — UNPACU issued a statement Thursday night in which it accuses President Raul Castro of having ordered the “liquidation” of the opposition. The organization cites sources from the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) according to which the elimination of the most diligent activists should be carried out in the next three months.

UNPACU believes that the latest attacks on the Ladies in White and Jose Daniel Ferrer fit within that supposed order, given that they involve violent attacks against key dissident figures in the last weeks and come from people tied, in their judgment, to State Security.

In the statement they review last Tuesday’s event in Santa Clara in which activist Guillermo Fariñas asserts he suffered an assassination attempt and in which several Ladies in White were injured, leaving one of them in serious condition. “A similar case occurred at two UNPACU sites in Santiago de Cuba and is now the source of a farce that the government is trying to fabricate against Jose Daniel Ferrer,” continues the statement.

Jose Daniel Ferrer has been called by State Security to give a statement, presumably as a defendant, for the crime of assault against the complainant Ernesto Jimenez Rodriguez. As the statement explains, last November 13th, at the UNPACU headquarters located in Reparto Mariana de la Torre, in Santiago de Cuba, this man, supposedly sent by the political police, provoked a violent altercation.

“Fortunately, with several activists and responsible individuals present at the headquarters, they managed to disable the aggressor, immobilizing him and removing from him the metal weapons that he carried,” the document highlights.

The same individual had sought membership in UNPACU weeks before, for which reason the organization made the usual investigations that “are performed before accepting any applicant.” The conclusion was that he was tied to the Ministry of the Interior.

“In view of such fact, and without telling the individual anything about it, he was allowed to enter the headquarters with the proper control and knowledge by those present of his status as a political police infiltrator and only for events of no significance for activism,” they explain.

Jose Daniel Ferrer, who has denounced the situation, said that “in no case can an individual who has been seen by more than 15 witnesses attacking numerous people cause a peace activist for Human Rights to be taken into police custody with the objective of creating a false accusation and maybe holding him there without a possible defense. We at UNPACU are not going to submit ourselves to this farce in any way.”

Castro thugs threatens -- sort of -- Cuban independent journalist

In threatneing Juan Carlos Fernandez, a correspondent for 14yMedio, the online newspaper headed by famed blogger Yoani Sanchez, a Castro police official offered the site a valuable, albeit unintentional endorsement as a "confrontational" media outlet.

Here is 14ymedio's account of what happened to Fernandez:

Juan Carlos Fernández Hernández

14YMEDIO, Havana, 28 November 28 — At nine in the morning Friday, 14ymedio correspondent Juan Carlos Fernandez attended his summons at the Piñar del Rio police station. It was the third interrogation to which he has been subjected this year, although on this occasion he did not receive an official warning. A major from State Security, who only identified himself as David, accused him of collaborating with this newspaper, which he characterized as a “confrontational” media outlet that “serves the interests of a foreign power.”

The accusation was accompanied by threatening phrases about a possible “police action” against Fernandez if he continues “doing what you are doing now,” the officer confirmed. Nevertheless, to the question of the accused about a possible arrest and legal prosecution, the interrogator downplayed the seriousness of the reprisals.

Juan Carlos Fernandez defended his right to put his opinions into writing and publish them in any press medium. “I warn you, the weight of the law will fall on you,” responded the man using the pseudonym David, but without giving details. The officer invoked the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba and said that “the Government counts on the support of the people,” at which point the reporter reminded him that the Communist Party has fewer than a million members while the population of the country exceeds 11 million.

Juan Carlos Fernandez is a member of the magazine Coexistence which is published in Piñar del Rio, and since last August he has begun working as a correspondent for 14ymedio in that province. His journalistic works cover the cultural life of the city, reports about social topics and a wide photographic coverage of the territory.

A couple of months ago, Juan Carlos Fernandez brought to light the censorship that Piñareno painter Pedro Pablo Oliva had suffered with the cancellation of his exhibit Dissidences and Utopias.