JORGE MORAGAS, Member of the Spanish Parliament
July 21, 2010
The recent releases of Cuban political prisoners from the 75-strong group imprisoned in the wake of the one-day trials held in the black spring of 2003 is a great piece of news, but it should not confuse us, the democrats, and should be analysed with some caveats in mind.
JORGE MARAGAS, Member of the Spanish Parliament
July 21, 2010
The recent releases of Cuban political prisoners from the 75-strong group imprisoned in the wake of the one-day trials held in the black spring of 2003 is a great piece of news, but it should not confuse us, the democrats, and should be analysed with some caveats in mind.
1.- The release of the political prisoners is happening under conditions that remain murky today. No amnesty is being granted to the prisoners, nor are all being fully released. Those that accept their exile and if they wish to return to their homeland in the future, they will have to seek the authorisation of the Cuban authorities.
2.- We are still unaware of the eventual fate of those prisoners, such as Dr. Óscar Elías Biscet, who have decided to remain in their country. As it currently stands they remain in prison.
3.- Even when the authorities get round to releasing all Cuban political prisoners, let us not forget that this measure has been used yet sometimes by Castro’s regime in accordance to its sole propagandistic interest and has never supposed a true openness to democratic reforms.
4.- Act 88, on the protection of national independence, more commonly known as “ley mordaza” in Spanish (the “gag law”), through which the political prisoners were sentenced for crimes associated with freedom of expression and free association, remains in full effect, as do the provisions on “peligrosidad social” (“social danger”) as enshrined in the Cuban Criminal Code, all of which the Cuban authorities can use at any time.
If, over the coming weeks, these doubts are not assuaged and there is no indication of any genuine political reform process in Cuba, then the inevitable conclusion must be that the optimism of the Spanish minister has no ground and we are witnessing another tactic of the Cuban government to buy more time and avoid the increasing international pressure due to Orlando Zapata’s death, Guillermo Fariñas’ hunger strike and the historical work of Damas de Blanco.
At Spanish People’s Party we still believe that the main objective of the Common Position, that 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…” remains valid and sound insofar as there is no evidence of Cuba’s willingness to change.
If these changes materialise, the European Union could explore a new framework of mutual relations with Cuba, with the objectives set forth in the Common Position remaining in full force. While this does not happen, we must monitor and lend our support to this process of freeing prisoners in order to ensure that the operation is not a substitution of exile instead of imprisonment. The European Parliament, within competencies recognised by the Treaty of Lisbon, should play a leadership role in this international verification process. It would be recommended to collect testimony of the recently released dissidents, as indeed requested by Julio César Gálvez following his arrival in Madrid.
The European Union must support and foster open dialogue between Cubans through the Catholic Church, while at the same time remaining vigilant to ensure that the talks yield results and are not used as a tactic to distract attention, buy time and fragment the Cuban opposition. To do so, the Common Position still remains as the most useful instrument until such time as the Cuban government truly embarks on a genuine process of reform.
We find no admissible arguments of Spanish minister Moratinos in favor to modify at this moment the common position. His arguments are a display of voluntarism and precipitation which not deserve the oldest dictatorship in the world. To avoid any innocent or interested confusion faced theses releases, the best option is to be guided by moral clarity of the political opponent leader, Oswaldo Payá: “I do not defend the Common Position, it is the Common Position that defends our rights
BY FRANK CALZON
Learning about BP’s efforts to free the Libyan terrorist serving a prison sentence for his part in the 1988 bombing of the ill-fated Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland, I came to appreciate the Bible’s verse that says “there is nothing new under the sun.”
Eight years after the Pan Am flight was blown up, four men flying two unarmed small Cessna aircraft, in a rescue mission in international airspace over the Florida Straits, were murdered by Cuban warplanes. The four, Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre, Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales, died as the result of an international terrorist attack carried out in 1996 by Havana.
Three of them were American citizens, and one was a legal resident of the United States.
Now press reports indicate that BP put profit over justice in the case of the 270 souls — 190 Americans — who were murdered by Moammar Gadhafi’s dictatorship. The deaths, as Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has indicated, meant little to BP when compared with the profits it sought by getting access to Libyan oil. The British government now acknowledges it committed a grave error by releasing the terrorist.
That the crime occurred 22 years ago has not prevented the American people from condemning BP’s disregard for the innocent victims.
Be that as it may, now the Texas Farm Bureau, the National Farmers Union and the chairman of the House Agricultural Committee, Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., are working tirelessly to provide trade benefits, subsidies and export insurance, to be paid by American taxpayers, to the Cuban regime — the regime that awarded medals to the air force officers who committed their barbarous act on the Florida Straits.
But the Cuban officers were not the only ones responsible for the crime. Cuba’s minister of the armed forces at the time was Gen. Raúl Castro. U.S. courts sentenced several Cuban spies linked to the crime. These spies, mind you, were not like the recently exchanged Russian spies; the record shows that they were assigned by Havana to find sites on Florida shores suitable for the landing of arms and personnel, who presumably were not coming to the United States to engage in a humanitarian mission.
One, Gerardo Hernández, is serving in a life sentence in a federal penitentiary. He was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, espionage and other illegal activities. Another one of the spies, Juan Pablo Roque, fled to Cuba shortly before the two unarmed Cessna aircraft were shot down.
Today we face a well-financed and orchestrated campaign calling on President Obama to set all of the Castro brothers’ spies free. And American companies selling to Havana believe that “selling” to Cuba equals getting paid, and that they are simply engaging in a business deal. Havana, however, is broke, and Spanish investors on the island are not permitted to withdraw their own funds from Cuban government banks, because of Cuba’s liquidity crisis.
Furthermore, trading with Cuba is not like trading elsewhere: There are no Cuban businesses independent of the government, and the Castros believe that when they purchase American grain, they also purchase influence by American companies. Havana believes that those who sell to Cuba have a duty to advance the regime’s interests.
The intersection between justice, American deaths and profits, is lethal to the U.S. national interest. BP played its part in the release of the man who murdered so many Americans over Scotland. American corporate interests would like to conduct business with Havana, as if the Castro brothers’ hands were not soiled with American blood.
The headline in the Times of London read, “Lockerbie bomber `set free for oil.’ ” It remains to be seen whether the murderers of Americans in the Florida Straits will be “set free for grain.”
Frank Calzon is executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba in Arlington, Va.
The Center for a Free Cuba’s Frank Calzon appears on CNN Latino to discuss recent developments in US-Cuba relations.
Asked when he left Cuba to come to the United States, Frank Calzon smiled and said, “I never left Cuba, everywhere I go Cuba goes with me.” The executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, Calzon, 66, is not being glib. He has devoted his life’s work to the country he left more than 50 years ago.
”Frank is the most dedicated person I’ve ever met — his whole life has been dedicated to Cuba,” said James Cason, president of the board of directors for the Arlington-based nonprofit. Cason, a career diplomat, served as the Chief of the United States Interests Section in Havana, Cuba from September 2002 to September 2005. Read More
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Read this article in the Arlington Connection
The Cuban government has announced that it will free 52 political prisoners — fewer than one-third of the alleged total number. Seven already have landed in Spain, and the Catholic Church says another 13 dissidents will be released in the near future.
But Dr. Oscar El as Biscet, in April 2003 summarily condemned to spend 25 years in prison, refuses to accept exile. A follower of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, Biscet was detained only for exercising fundamental freedoms of conscience and expression. Filmmaker Jordan Allott’s 2009 documentary, “Oscar’s Cuba,” tells Biscet’s story well and reminds viewers that the Castro brothers head the longest-lasting dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere.
Laura Y. Tartakoff, Cleveland Heights
Tartakoff is an instructor of political science at Case Western Reserve University.
By James Cason
July 16, 2010
In 2003, Fidel Castro sentenced to long prison terms 75 dissidents Amnesty International said had not advocated any kind of violence. At the time, I was the chief of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Cuba, and the regime charged that all of them were mercenaries of the United States. Now, Raul Castro says they are political prisoners, and has begun to release the 52 still remaining behind bars.
Unfortunately, a measure some construed as the first step in the much-awaited thaw in the regime’s relations with its own people turns out to be an effort to consolidate its power at home and abroad. The regime wants to force them into exile, and the Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, who defends the regime, says the release will ensure that the European Union ends its common position predicated on substantial government reforms, and Europe’s dialogue with the opposition.
Seven years ago, analysts said their sentencing to long prison terms would end Cuba’s democratic opposition. Instead, the opposition continued to grow. Tragically, hundreds of political prisoners remain in jail, and neither the Cuban nor the Spanish governments nor the Catholic Church have said anything about their possible release.
Those freed owe their release to the sustained international pressure on Havana, and the steadfastness of the political opposition, which has endured all kinds of abuse.
Without the internal opposition, the engagement by the church or by foreign governments achieves nothing. Aggressive niceness has never moved dictators to make concessions; they only respond when pressured.
What is the price Cuba’s freedom fighters have to pay for the release of some of their own? Will they be forced into exile? Will European diplomats snub Oswaldo Paya, Marta Beatriz Roque, Vladimiro Roca, Rene Gomez Manzano and others? Will foreign aid flow into Havana’s coffers when Havana is bankrupt and Spanish companies cannot withdraw their money from Cuban banks? Will Cuba be allowed into the Cotonou tariff agreement, without having to fulfill the human rights conditions required from all others that apply for special access to European markets?
While Raul Castro talks with the Spanish and the Vatican, he refuses to engage in the most important conversation: with his own citizens and internal opponents. By leaving the opposition out, the general hopes to delegitimize them and deny them their rightful voice.
Castro apologists say Cuba is reforming and there is no need for outside pressure. It’s just the opposite; we should stay the course until all prisoners are released and Cuba begins serious reforms. That is the right approach, not acquiescing to the forced exile of the opposition, and certainly not rewarding the regime with millions of American tourist dollars for releasing innocent people who should not have been in prison to begin with.
Ambassador James Cason, a retired career foreign service officer, served as chief of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana from 2002 to 2005.
U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) spoke on the floor today in strong opposition of lifting tourism travel restrictions to Cuba:
Mr. President, I have come to the floor many times to speak out about Cuba, and today I come to the floor once again — this time in strong opposition to any attempt in this Chamber to pass any bill that in any way lifts or lessens the travel ban on Cuba — any bill that eases regulations on the sale of U.S. products to the island. Read More
Havana’s announcement last week that it will release 52 political prisoners does not address the fate of its other such captives.
The announcement by Havana that it would release five political prisoners “who would travel to Spain with their families,” and another 47 during the next three or four months, has been credited to efforts by Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos and Cuba’s archbishop, Cardinal Jaime Ortega. Read More..
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Read this article in America’s Quarterly
Re Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega’s announcement that five political prisoners were being released by the Cuban regime and 47 others will be released within the next few months:
It is always good when political captives are released. It is encouraging that after all these years, Cardinal Ortega bears witness to the suffering of the Cuban people.
It is discouraging, however, that Raúl Castro’s government is not releasing immediately, as requested by Amnesty International, the 47 prisoners mentioned by the cardinal. All of them are Amnesty International prisoners of conscience, and none of them engage or advocated in any acts of violence. Read More..
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Read this Article in the Miami Herald
