Posts in Political Prisoners
Halftime at the VI Party Congress
For VI Congress-watchers, the weekend brought colorful images of Cuban school children cheerfully waving miniature Cuban flags, the appearance of a gleaming Granma, and the fiery sounds of salsa music blaring as Cubans marched toward the Plaza de la Revolución. While Saturday’s parade communicated a cheerful, confident, and orderly Cuba, the reality that prompted the VI Congress is a far different one.
At the core of the Congress is the Lineamientos document, a set of proposed reforms for which the government has been soliciting input since November 2010. In his two-and-a-half hour address to Congress delegates on Saturday (the text of which can be found here), President Raul Castro made his case for the reforms “in order to secure the continuity and irreversibility of Socialism as well as the economic development of the country and the improvement of the living standard of our people combined with the indispensible formation of ethical and political values.”
In the weekend’s biggest news, Castro effectively proclaimed the end of Cuba’s Castro era when he announced the introduction of term limits for high-ranking party officials. Two consecutive periods of five years and you’re out. If these new limits are applied retroactively, it could mean that Castro himself would be forced to vacate office as “soon” as 2018, leaving Cuba without a Castro at the helm for the first time in more than 50 years and definitely ushering in a new generation of political leadership in Cuba.
As soon as Raul Castro took power in 2008, speculation commenced about who would succeed him. With the 2009 ousting of Felipe Perez Roque and Carlos Lage, who, until then, had been considered the most likely candidates, the scratching of heads only become more furious. While we still lack clear indications about the identity of Castro’s successor, (new economic reform czar Marino Murillo and Secretary of the Communist Party in Santiago de Cuba, Lazaro Exposito have been mentioned as possibilities) we now have a timetable that will force these decisions to be made sooner rather than later.
Some other notable excerpts from Saturday’s speech:
Obama Fumbles on Cuba
Like many Cuba policy watchers, I've been deeply disappointed by the Obama administration's total lack of awareness of what's going on in Cuba in recent months, along with its apparent total lack of memory of the very conditions it set forth - repeatedly - for further engagement with the island. In a commentary I wrote for Foreign Policy Magazine, I recalled the message the President himself sent via the Spanish government to Raul Castro last year. It went something like this:
It was nearly one year ago that President Barack Obama delivered a message to President Raúl Castro via Spain's prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero: "We understand that change can't happen overnight, but down the road, when we look back at this time, it should be clear that now is when those changes began," Obama said. "We're taking steps, but if they don't take steps too, it's going to be very hard for us to continue." If Cuba proved willing to improve relations with the United States, Obama seemed willing to reciprocate.
One year later, a lot has happened - most of it in the last several months, as crickets chirped in Washington. More than forty political prisoners are out of their cells and headed to the United States thanks to the efforts of the Cuban Catholic Church and the Spanish government, and big, truly big changes in the economy are finally underway. How does our president respond?
Rather than greet the changes, Obama has replied with mild skepticism. "I think that any release of political prisoners, any economic liberalization that takes place in Cuba is positive, positive for Cuban people, but we've not yet seen the full results of these promises," Obama told Hispanic media at the White House Tuesday.
It's hard to imagine a more clumsy response coming at a more critical moment than this one.
U.S. Should Take Steps to Encourage Reforms in Cuba
During a markup hearing in the House Agriculture Committee in June of this year, opponents of a bill that would restore the rights of American citizens to travel to Cuba argued that the move was a “concession to the Cuban regime,” and that the U.S. should not move unilaterally but rather demand positive steps from Cuban leaders first. One Representative opposing the bill argued that Cuba should release political prisoners before the Congress move to lift the travel ban, a demand frequently made by defenders of the status quo until recently. But then the Catholic Church in Cuba announced in July that Cuban leaders had agreed to free the remaining 52 political prisoners from the “Black Spring” of 2003 and just a quickly as word of the announcement spread through the world media, the very people who had been demanding their release as a condition to the lifting of the travel ban quickly dismissed the significance of the move. This has been the attitude that has characterized defenders of the status quo as long as Raul Castro has presided over the greatest number and scope of reforms in Cuba’s 50-year revolution.
Berman Gears Up for Action on Cuba
The other day, I participated in a conference call with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman. I was eager to see what he would have to say, ever since the House Agriculture Committee passed legislation to end the Cuba travel ban and ease agriculture trade restrictions back in June. Many Cuba pundits have wondered what Mr. Berman, who has jurisdiction over the travel ban piece of the bill, might do next.
Berman cleared that up in no short order, and candidly expressed his determination to round up the votes he needs to pass the bill, make it available for subsequent floor consideration, embolden the Senate to act, and to provide political cover and encouragement to the Obama administration to use its executive authority to loosen restrictions on travel until the Congress is able to finish the job. This late in the Congressional session, Berman seems to have decided, rightly I think, to use both private and public persuasion to get the votes he needs.
I've long been in Berman's camp when it comes to why the travel ban should end - as he said on the call, "as a matter of principle, this is about Americans' right to travel."
Don't Miss These
While we do not normally do news round ups here on The Havana Note, seeing as our friend over at the Cuban Triangle who usually covers all the "odds and ends" is on vacation, we thought we would take a look at some of the news stories that have flown under the radar in the shadow of the coming administrative changes.
Cafe Fuerte reports on the trial of three Cuban-American exiles that staged an armed incursion into Cuba in 2001. The three men were caught with a range of weapons and reportedly confessed that they had planned to commit violent actions against the island, which the Cuban government has called "an act of terrorism". After waiting eight years for a trial, the three men, who had been associated with the militant anti-Castro exile group Alpha 66, received sentences of 30 years to life in prison. The timing of this is quite interesting, as the State Department recently released its terrorism report on August 5th, which once again designates Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. The report, however, does not mention any of the terrorist actions committed against Cuba that originated in the U.S.
Five dissidents were arrested on Monday August 16, 2010, after peacefully protesting on the steps in front of the University of Havana and chanting "Down with the Castros". Two of the five were released on Wednesday, but the rest remain in police custody, according to the Miami Herald. This seems to be another instance of the Cuban government holding opposition activists for short periods of detainment rather than sentencing them to longer prison terms. Elizardo Sanchez of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, is paraphrased in the Miami Herald article, explaining that "Police technically have 10 days to file charges, but can obtain extensions of the deadline".
Reina Luisa Tamayo, the mother of the prisoner who died earlier this year after a hunger strike, has been facing sustained harassment from "pro-government mobs," which have prevented her from going to church and marching through the streets with relatives to mourn her dead son, according to this AP article.