To promote a peaceful transition to a Cuba that respects human rights
and political and economic freedoms
Long past time to stop giving the Castro regime the benefit of the doubt on sonic attacks and profiting off Cubans
The Castro regime has a long track record of being given the benefit of the doubt, and history has demonstrated time and time again that it does not merit it.
This is why I wrote a letter to the editor to The Washington Post that was published today highlighting the Cuban dictatorship's history of harassing "American diplomats such as: killing their pets, trying to run them down or crash into their vehicle and switching out mouthwash with urine." And demonstrated how the "Havana Syndrome" continues to be used against Cuban dissidents.
U.S. Embassy in Havana has been the target of health attacks harming diplomats.
This also has larger policy implications with ramifications for both the United States and Cubans on the island. This should be approached through a bipartisan lens.
Havana is attempting to manipulate the upcoming election this Tuesday, and attempting to shape the debate over Cuba policy. The dictatorship is howling because sanctions have been applied against government enterprises directly linked to the Cuban military. The same military that represses Cubans, and thousands of which are actively propping up the Maduro regime in Havana.
Emilio Morales, president of the Miami-based Havana Consulting Group, in The New York Times on October 28, 2020 explained how the opening up of "remittances and large-scale travel" was done without doing the "due diligence on how the remittance business was channeled to the island and inadvertently put billions of dollars a year into the hands of the Cuban military leadership that in reality never ended up in the hands of its true owners, the people of Cuba.”
The threat by Havana to shut down Western Unions across Cuba, if the military does not continue receiving its cut from the remittances sent by the Cuban diaspora for their families in the island demonstrates that the dictatorship's priority is not the wellbeing of Cubans, but fattening the pockets of their military generals.
Beyond this narrow self interest the dictatorship has shown an active hostility to Cubans abroad directly helping Cubans on the island when they bypass the dictatorship. During the summer, Rosa María Payá Acevedo, together with CubaDecide, the Pan American Foundation for Democracy,and the City of Miami coordinated efforts for a humanitarian assistance drive to help Cubans on the island.Tons of food and urgently needed supplies were shipped to Cuba and arrived in August 2020. Three months have passed and the communist dictatorship continues to deny this aid to Cubans.
Over the past six decades too many have given the Castro regime the benefit of the doubt, and that has been and continues to be a mistake. It is time for the international community to distinguish between the dictatorship in Havana, and the millions of Cubans that are seeking to be the protagonists of their own lives in a free Cuba. These are incompatible visions, and friends of democracy should not be siding with generals and dictators.
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