Obama and Cuba

By Adolfo A. Franco.

The recent visit to Cuba by Deputy Secretary of State Lisa Williams is yet another step by the Obama Administration toward accommodation with the Castro regime and away from promoting freedom and human rights for the Cuban people.  Worse, it is undermining our national interests.

Even as the Castro brothers and Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez join hands to destabilize the hemisphere, undermine its democracies, and purge it of American influence, the Obama Administration appears to be more focused on cozying up to our enemies than defeating them.

The Cuban regime maintains itself in power only through brutal repression.  Every Cuban is constantly watched for any sign of disobedience and all aspects of life are monitored by an extensive secret police network.  Thousands of political prisoners and other innocents languish in Cuban prisons, to which human rights organizations are denied access.  As Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta, a leading opponent of the regime who has spent more than six years in jail for his political views, has said: “When will the world open its eyes and say that it’s time to close the other Guantanamos in Cuba?”

But the world already knows all of this and yet makes scant protest, so eager are they to curry favor with the Castro regime.  Is this also the direction the Administration is taking us?

Instead of a sending a high-ranking official to Havana to make unilateral concessions in return for nothing, the President should have demanded that the regime adhere to the principles of the Inter-American Democratic Charter before further discussions take place.  Far from rewarding the enemies of freedom, the Obama Administration should reaffirm long-established U.S. policy that the Cuban dictatorship has no legitimate place in a hemispheric community of democracies.  Unfortunately, the Administration appears ready to abandon the long-suffering men and women in that island-wide prison who look to the U.S. for inspiration and support in their unequal struggle for freedom.

The strongest proponents of closer ties with Cuba hold out the ludicrous prospect of the bankrupt island becoming a major market for U.S. exports.  But a half-century of Castro’s communism has created a desperately poor country.  World Bank statistics reveal that Cubans have fewer telephones, televisions, computers, and cars per capita than any country in Latin America.  The percentage of Internet users in Cuba is lower than in Haiti.  Food is still rationed.  Consumer goods that are commonplace in the rest of the world are luxuries for the Cuban people.

Cuba is among the world’s most indebted countries, with 11 million people and a foreign debt estimated at nearly $30 billion.  The regime is unable to pay the bills it already owes and could not possibly meet any new financial obligations to U.S. businesses.

The options for Cuba’s dictatorship are clear: adopt economic reforms that will undermine its hold on power or persuade others to bail it out. That is why the regime is betting on financial assistance from American taxpayers that it never intends to repay.  But every dollar we provide to Cuba only ensures more and continued repression.

The President stated in his Inaugural Address that the United States would extend a hand to our foes but only if they first unclench their fists.  He should tell Fidel and Raul Castro that, before we extend our hand with the cash they desperately seek to keep their repressive regime afloat, they must first release their stranglehold on the Cuban people.

Adolfo A. Franco is currently Vice President for Global Regulatory Affairs at the Direct Selling Association, a global trade association representing over 200 direct selling companies.  In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed Franco as Assistant Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, and the Senate confirmed him to that position in January 2002.  Prior to serving in the Bush Administration, the writer was Republican Counsel to the House International Relations Committee.

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