Friday's crash of a Boeing 737-200 plane just after takeoff from Havana's Jose Marti International Airport occurred at a particularly inopportune moment for Cuba's government. Over the past few months, the country's diplomatic thaw with the United States has given way to a new Ice Age.
El evento "Cuba bajo Díaz-Canel", a celebrarse este viernes, ha quedado pospuesto, en otro episodio de los desajustes entre la Casa Blanca y el Departamento de Estado en relación a la política hacia Cuba.
Yesterday several organizations that support a transition to the rule of law and respect for human rights in Cuba called on the Department of State to reappraise a forum which the Bureau of Intelligence and Research had scheduled for today.
While the Kennedy Center in Washington hosts ARTES DE CUBA: from the island to the world for several hundred Cuban artists, the regime in Havana persecutes Cuban artists for organizing the First Alternative Biennial in Cuba. Foreign artists wanting to attend the exhibition were deported. CUBABrief reprints below a recent article on the subject.
Vice President Mike Pence, freshly returned from his participation at the Eighth Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru, penned an Op-Ed letter to the Miami Herald in which he writes: “Last year, President Trump reversed the failed policy of the last administration. No longer will U.S. dollars fund Cuba’s military and intelligence services.”
Several weeks ago I wrote an "Expert Brief" for the Council on Foreign Relations titled "Time to Tighten the Screws on Cuba?" There I argued that the one-sided and unfortunate concessions the Obama administration made to Cuba had helped the regime but not the Cuban people, and urged the Trump administration to go even further than it has already gone in reversing those concessions.
Wall Street Journal columnist Mary O'Grady tweeted today the following: "the history of Castro's revolution has been lost beneath 60 years of communist propaganda. here's a dose of truth about what really happened and why Diaz-Canel is nothing new," about an important article published by Forbes this morning: "The End Of The Castro Era. Really?" by Nestor Carbonell. The article follows.
Also in this CubaBrief, "Díaz-Canel and a Cuba without promises" by Ana Julia Faya, published in Diario de Cuba.
After all these years many opinion and decision makers around the world are beginning to understand the real nature of the Castro dynasty. Many editorials and commentary in the United States and elsewhere point out that the elevation of Miguel Diaz Canel to be president of Cuba is not a new development. During the 1960s Fidel Castro was not the head of state, although he ran the island as his personal farm.
Canada will remove families of diplomats posted at its embassy in Cuba as the cause of unusual health symptoms is still unknown, though information received from medical specialists has raised concerns of a new type of acquired brain injury, a senior Canadian government official said on Monday.
April 13, 2018, Geneva. Today, Cuban diplomats were conspicuously absent as the Cuban government was strongly condemned for its treatment of human rights defenders and, particularly, for preventing two activists from traveling to Geneva to speak at the pre-session to Cuba's third Universal Periodic Review (UPR) by the UN Human Rights Council.
CubaBrief: Cuban government sponsored disruptions of the civil society meeting being held in conjunction with the Summit of the Americas in Lima is further evidence of the disregard for human rights of both Nicolas Maduro and Raul Castro.
The Atlantic Council just released a poll which underlined the deteriorating Venezuelan situation, while Cuban troops deployed by Raul Castro there continue to repress and abuse the Venezuelan people. The Chavez- Maduro government destroyed the oil industry that made Venezuela one of the most advanced countries in Latin America, just like the Castro brothers destroyed Cuba’s sugar industry, the engine of Cuban progress and development for more than 200 years.
Right under the radar, Venezuela is getting dumped by its two sugar daddies, Russia's state-linked Rosneft energy giant, and China's state-linked PetroChina. Bye-bye money, because this is a big blow.
Former Colombian President Andres Pastrana and ex-Bolivian President Jorge Quiroga said they were denied entry to Cuba on Wednesday, after traveling to the Communist-run island to receive an award from a local dissident group.
CubaBrief: In a thoughtful opinion column just published by The New York Times, two professors from Amherst College and the University of Sidney write that "on March 11, Cuba will hold elections for the National Assembly, which in turn will select the country’s next president on April 19. President Raúl Castro, [Fidel's brother], will not run for re-election... The National Assembly is widely expected to choose a successor from outside the Castro family. Some believe "this could be the first step toward democracy," but Professors Javier Corrales and James Loxton, say that "Cuba is heading for more of the same: undemocratic one-party rule."
Amnesty International released this week its annual report. The Cuba chapter is full of specific information about the Castros’ repression; it reads like a catalogue of arbitrariness and abuse.
In the spring of 2017, and all through the year, social media feeds in Venezuela were filled with images of deprivation and despair: long lines of people hoping to purchase food; women fighting over a stick of butter; mothers who could not find milk to buy; children picking through garbage in search of something to eat; empty shelves in pharmacies and stores; hospitals without stretchers, drugs, or minimum levels of hygiene; doctors operating on a patient by the light of a cell phone; women giving birth outside of hospitals.
Earlier this week, Admiral Kurt W. Tidd, Commander, United States Southern Command testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Admiral’s posture statement covered U.S. intelligence and security concerns for the hemisphere.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson returned recently from a tour throughout Latin America in which he urged governments in the region to focus on the political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. The Colombian government announced new measures to block the flow of desperate refugees from Venezuela.
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) should be commended for introducing a Senate Resolution for the immediate extradition of American terrorists enjoying the hospitality of the Castro regime. According to the FBI there are more than 70 American fugitives “charged with offenses ranging from hijacking, to kidnapping, drug offenses, to murder” receiving safe harbor in Cuba.
