Por: Capitol Hill Cubans
Yesterday, Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Arturo Valenzuela, made the following important observation to the AP:
"We commend the release of these political prisoners. We think it's a very positive step, but clearly not enough. It's not sufficient for the Unites States to normalize relations with Cuba."
Kudos to Assistant Secretary Valenzuela for recognizing that the banishment to Spain of political prisoners, who were unjustly imprisoned in the first place, is another charade by the Castro regime to temporarily clean-up its beleaguered image.
It only took the Castro regime one night to arrest this group of political prisoners and, as the regime showed last month alone, it only takes it a few hours to arrest even more political dissidents than those released.
Furthermore, nearly a dozen of the political prisoners announced for release by the Castro regime refuse to be banished to Spain.
They include:
Angel Moya
Arnaldo Ramos
Diosdado González
Fidel Suárez
Guido Sigler
Iván Fernández
José Daniel Ferrer
Luis Enrique Ferrer
Librado Linares
Nelson Molinet
Oscar Elías Biscet
Due to the insistence of these political prisoners to remain in their homeland -- a fundamental international human right -- their fate now remains in question (as does the fate of countless other Cuban political prisoners).
Valenzuela proceeded to state:
"There are changes taking place in Cuba, we all know it, in part due to the difficult economic situation that Cuba is facing today. They have decisions to make and they are very difficult ones."
This is an important recognition that economic pressure does indeed work and that the Castro regime is begrudgingly considering certain reforms out of necessity, not desire.
Thus, a note of caution -- if the Castro regime is being forced to consider reforms due to increased international condemnation and economic pressure, then the last thing the U.S. should be considering are measures that would ease those economic pressures, i.e., sanctions.
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