Cuba Releases 53 Political Prisoners as Part of U.S. Deal

[Suzanimal]

The move clears a major hurdle for the normalization of ties between the two countries

(ISLAMABAD) — Cuba has completed the release of 53 political prisoners that was part of last month’s historic deal between the United States and Cuba, the Obama administration said Monday. The move clears a major hurdle for the normalization of ties between the two countries after more than five decades of estrangement.

The prisoners had been on a list of opposition figures whose release was sought as part of the U.S. agreement last month with the Cuban government. They had been cited by various human rights organizations as being imprisoned by the Cuban government for exercising internationally protected freedoms or for their promotion of political and social reforms in Cuba.

Speaking in Louisville, Kentucky, President Barack Obama’s U.N. ambassador said the prisoners were released in recent days. “Welcome as that step is, and heartening as it is for their families, (it) does not resolve the larger human rights problems on the island,” Samantha Power said, according to prepared remarks.

Earlier, an official traveling with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Islamabad said the U.S. verified the release.

Power was speaking Monday at an event hosted by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. She outlined issues which the administration and the Republican-led Congress could work together on and issues they remained further apart on.

Both sides want to advance freedom in Cuba, she said, but they disagree on strategy.

“Some of the embargo’s staunchest defenders are Democrats and Republicans with deep ties to the island — people whose families came to America fleeing the Castros’ repression,” Power explained. “These are men and women who are completely dedicated to doing all they can to ensure that Cubans on the island get to enjoy true freedom. So it is important to acknowledge that while there may be disagreements on the best way to get there, we share a common goal of advancing the rights of the Cuban people.”

Power said changes already are occurring in Cuba. When Cuban artist Tania Bruguera and other activists were detained after announcing an anti-government event in Havana’s historic Revolution Square, she said, nearly 300 Cuban artists signed a letter supporting her freedom.

“In spite of genuine fear, Cubans were speaking out,” Power said. “And the Castro government was forced to explain why it would rather arrest a woman than let her speak freely in a public square.

Last month, Cuba and the U.S. agreed to work to restore normal diplomatic relations as part of a deal in which Cuba freed an imprisoned U.S. aid worker along with an imprisoned spy working for the U.S. and the imprisoned dissidents. The U.S. released several Cuba intelligence agents.

“Certainly, for those 53 prisoners, it’s a great deal. We don’t know who they are,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said in an appearance Monday on “CBS This Morning.”

Rubio said he supports improving ties with Cuba but said he’s worried that the Cubans are getting virtually everything they want from the United States for “these minimal changes.”

He said he wants to be certain that improved relations between Washington and Havana provides equal benefits to the U.S.

“My interest in Cuba is freedom and democracy,” he said. Rubio, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who’s considering a run for the presidency, said there is “no current example” around the world where a “government of resistant tyranny” has moved to greater freedom and democracy as a result of changes in international relations that are based on economic incentives.

http://time.com/3663670/cuba-political-prisoner-release-us/

[Lucille]

“My interest in Cuba is freedom and democracy,” he said. Rubio, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who’s considering a run for the presidency, said there is “no current example” around the world where a “government of resistant tyranny” has moved to greater freedom and democracy as a result of changes in international relations that are based on economic incentives.

How about America? Does what's best for our own country and our own people ever enter that clown's mind? No (http://voxday.blogspot.com/2011/06/are-neocons-are-losing-red-faction.html), because that's not how neo-Trots roll.

Free Trade: The Engine of Revolution
http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/free-trade-engine-revolution/


Bromfield’s main nonfiction book was A New Pattern for a Tired World (PDF), which Rothbard called “a hard-hitting tract on behalf of free-market capitalism and a peaceful foreign policy.” In it, Bromfield argued that a policy of containment strengthened communism in both the weak nations America was “protecting” and the strong nations viewed as threats. Why? America’s military presence in weaker nations propped up local tyrants who were willing to cooperate with the U.S. agenda. Meanwhile, the populace at large looked at the American soldier as just the next face in a long history of occupying colonizers. Sanctions against the stronger nations were equally destructive. They imposed little personal hardship on the ruling elite, but they did increase the abject misery of average people.

Containment had four broad and bad consequences. First, it placed tyrants in power over occupied people who then resented the United States for their oppression. Second, it increased the general poverty, helplessness, and fear in the populace; these were conditions from which communism had arisen and upon which it fed. Third, sanctions allowed the ruling elite within the larger communist nations to point a finger of blame at America for hardships and so deflect the blame from themselves.
[...]
Free trade is the best containment of communism

What, then, was an effective method for America to battle communism? In writing of communist China, Bromfield maintained the best strategy was “opening up all trade … co-operating with her in the field of know-how and even perhaps capital investment.” These acts promoted the conditions that favored freedom; they created the rising prosperity and beneficial interactions from which goodwill between peoples flowed globally.

Moreover, loosening trade had the advantage of also threatening the status quo of tyranny and communism because it promoted what has been called a “revolution of rising expectations.” The term was popularized during the 1950s to describe a situation in which people’s realistic hope for a better future leads them to demand political change. Thus, Bromfield thought loosening trade was the Third World’s best path away from communism and America’s best defense against it.
[...]
A New Pattern for a Tired World deserves to take its place as one of the most insightful analyses of foreign policy that has issued from the individualist movement. It recognizes the incredible power of free trade as a foreign policy weapon. That power is the exact opposite of what current wisdom proclaims. Cutting off trade does not punish “the enemy” but strengthens him.

[Zippyjuan]

We need to release a few more political prisoners from Cuba as well- from Guantanamo Bay.

[Danke]

We need to release a few more political prisoners from Cuba as well- from Guantanamo Bay.

http://journals.concrete.org.au/nat/archives/fell_off_seat-thumb.jpg

[Suzanimal]

Wow. I wish 'em the best.


Freed by Cuba, dissident couple doubt quick changes

Havana (AFP) - A couple who were among 53 political prisoners Cuba freed under a US detente deal thanked Washington on Tuesday but voiced doubts of seeing immediate changes on the communist island.

Haydee Gallardo, a 51-year-old member of the Ladies in White dissident group, and her husband Angel Figueredo, 53, were freed last Thursday after spending eight months in prison.

They were among political prisoners whose release was part of the historic pact last month between US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro to normalize relations after a half-century of Cold War rivalry.

"I want to thank the US government for making this deal and forcing the Castros (Raul and his brother Fidel) to free us," Gallardo told AFP from her modest apartment in Havana, surrounded by her two children and granddaughter.

In the family's living room, the words "Change" and "Freedom" were framed on the wall.

Gallardo and her husband were jailed last May after a heated argument with neighbors who back the government. The couple, married for 38 years, was detained for "disturbing public order."

Prosecutors requested a sentence of two years and a half against Gallardo, who was awaiting trial when she was released.

She recalled the tough first three months behind bars, losing weight and getting hit sometimes.

"When I saw my children again it was glorious. A little later, I saw my husband," she said, relishing the reunion.

"It's something that a mother and wife feels at that moment. What you want the most is to hug your children, kiss them, enjoy them because you gave them life," Gallardo said.

The official document of her release grants her "immediate release" but Figueredo's says it is "conditional," which to him means he could "return to prison whenever they want."

Despite their ordeal, the couple insisted they were determined to continue their struggle in favor of more human rights and political openness in single-party Cuba, where any opposition remains illegal.

"I am going to change, but with more conviction and more strength within the opposition to the Castro regime," Gallardo said.

For his part, Figueredo said his opposition activities were aimed at "backing human rights and the Ladies in White" and that after leaving prison "the idea remains the same, but stronger now."

The Ladies in White emerged after the so-called "black spring" of 2003, when Cuban authorities rounded up 75 dissidents and sentenced them to lengthy prison terms.

Mothers, wives and daughters of the prisoners marched silently every Sunday down a boulevard, all dressed in white, after attending a Roman Catholic mass.

They were awarded the European Parliament's Sakharov rights prize in 2005. Many of them left Cuba after their relatives were freed in 2010 and 2011 following the mediation of Spain and the Catholic Church.

But the group refilled its ranks with around 100 new women, including Gallardo.

- 'Things look worse' -

Echoing other dissidents, the couple had mixed feelings about the US-Cuba rapprochement because Washington did not secure any guarantees on human rights.

"I don't seen any changes or improvements. Things look worse," Gallardo said.

Her husband had a more nuanced view, noting that Obama wants human rights at the center of talks between the two nations.

"If Obama wants to reestablish relations, the most important thing is for human rights to be respected in Cuba, and that the people have access to information," Figueredo said.

"That's what's important, and that's through the Internet," whose access is restricted by the authorities, he said.

In his December 17 announcement of the US-Cuba deal, Obama pledged to allow exports of some telecommunications materials in Cuba to develop the Internet, and maybe give dissidents a voice.

"But I am certain it won't happen like that," Figueredo said.

http://news.yahoo.com/freed-cuba-dissident-couple-doubt-quick-changes-212614706.html

[Suzanimal]

New U.S.-Cuba Trade And Travel Rules To Take Effect Friday

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration says new rules to significantly loosen the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba and open up the communist island to greater American travel will go into effect Friday.

They are the next step in President Barack Obama's plan to re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba. They come three days after U.S. officials confirmed the release of 53 political prisoners Cuba had promised to free.

Only Congress can end the five-decade U.S. trade embargo of Cuba.

The measures include permission for Americans to use credit cards in Cuba and U.S. companies to export some technologies. Americans authorized to visit Cuba need no longer apply for special licenses.

Americans can also bring home up to $100 in alcohol and tobacco from Cuba, meaning the ban on Cuban cigars is officially over.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/15/us-cuba-travel-rules_n_6478172.html?utm_hp_ref=politics