Great interview in The Atlantic with Cuban democracy activist, Rosa Maria Paya, the 27-year old daughter of slain democracy leader Oswaldo Paya.
Below is a must-read excerpt.
Read the full interview here.
‘The Totalitarian Regime Is Intact’: One Cuban’s Message to Obama
The Obama Administration has gone to great lengths to distract from the major security concerns stemming from new commercial flights to Cuba.
At a Congressional hearing last month, it was revealed that Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials privately expressed concerns to lawmakers about the security and infrastructure woes at Cuba's airports.
Interview from Germany's DPA news agency (via The Havana Times):
Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez on Monday decried the fact that Cuban reality has barely changed nearly two years after the thawing of relations with the United States. She warned that the process of change would be delayed for “the entire lifespan of those who control Cuba.”
During her participation in the Global Media Forum gathering in the German city of Bonn, Sanchez held a telephone interview with DPA. During this, she analyzed the current situation in her country and insisted that at present the new openness in Cuba is more a headline than a reality.
Yesterday, Florida-based Stonegate Bank announced that it will be issuing a new credit card for use in Cuba.
Only hotels and retail stores owned by Cuba's military allow the use of credit cards. These hotels are primarily located in properties confiscated from Americans, while the retail stores market brands (e.g. rums, cigars) that were similarly stolen.
As such, Stonegate's extension of credit for transactions in these properties are illegal.
There are two ways dictatorships can end, says Óscar Elías Biscet. “One is a revolution of the superstructure, where the top changes itself. The other is a change from the bottom up,” like those that introduced democracy to Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and, most recently, Tunisia. Cuba’s leading dissidents are sure about their choice. “We want to build a a civic, nonviolent movement that will overturn this regime and bring democracy to Cuba,” says Biscet.
Despite the Obama Administration's new policy, U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba declined by nearly 40 percent in 2015.
During the first quarter of 2016, the slide continues.
From January through April 2016, Castro's monopoly, Alimport, purchased only $63 million in U.S. agricultural products.
That represents a 21 percent drop from the same period in 2015.
This morning, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan (R-WI), released the House GOP's agenda on foreign policy and national security, as part of his "Better Way" blueprint for 2016.
NEW YORK (June 9, 2016) — Human Rights Foundation (HRF) welcomes the announcement made last week by Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), calling for a special session of the Permanent Council that may lead to the suspension of Venezuela’s Maduro regime from the OAS for violating the organization’s rules making democratic governance a requirement for participation. The decision by Almagro comes eight years after HRF published its first legal analysis and open letter — addressed to the previous head of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza — urging the enforcement of the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter’s (IADC) democracy clause in several countries in the Americas ruled by competitive-authoritarian regimes.
The Cuban Commission for Human Rights (CCHR) has documented724 political arrests by the Castro regime during the month of May 2016.
Thus far, there have been 6,075 political arrests in Cuba during the first five months of 2016. This represents -- by far -- the highest rate of political arrests in decades.
It already nearly matches last year's year-long tally of 8,616 political arrests.
We've seen numerous counter-productive consequences of Obama's Cuba policy on the island: a dramatic rise in repression; a new refugee crisis; tenfold rise in religious persecution; plummeting U.S. agricultural sales; and the strengthening of Castro's military monopolies.
In the last couple of weeks, we've also seen how Venezuela's regime is making a mockery of the Inter-American Democratic Charter and -- despite the best efforts of OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro -- the region's tragic ambivalence to defending democracy.
