The United States government and the Obama administration are in the unenviable position of dealing with economic, social and military crises and issues so it was with surprise I read the headline “US Lawmakers meet with Castro, Push for New Policy on Cuba”. My jaw dropped at the sheer audacity of the recent US congressional delegation, which met with both Raul and Fidel Castro and were transported by none other than Air Force One.
The delegation included six members of the Congressional Black Caucus and Rep. Mike Honda D-Calf., It even included my state’s own representative in the list: Mel Watt D-N.C.
Cuba has long been a thorn in the side of the U.S. government and a misplaced point of advocacy for the Democratic Party since the ‘80s with an absolutely deplorable human rights record that is only second to China (according to Human Rights Watch): a record that is a result of a systematic regimen of torture, arbitrary imprisonment, unfair trials, and extrajudicial executions.
In case that was not enough, Cuban law nearly completely eliminates freedom of expression, assembly, movement and the press. Judicially, there is no due process and the constitution binds the courts to the government, the Communist Party, or more precisely the Castros.
Generalities aren’t needed to indicate just how horrible of a dictatorship and totalitarian regime Cuba is. For those with short memories one only need be reminded of March 2003 dubbed “Black Spring” in which the Cuban government arrested human rights activists, librarians and journalists ultimately sentencing them to an average prison term of 17 years. Amnesty International labeled the trials “hasty and manifestly unfair.”
Or you can put an individual face on the many cases of injustice in Cuba. Oscar Elias Biscet, was a doctor who was sentenced to jail for 25 years in horrendous conditions for peaceful but vocal opposition to Castro. Funny that our own liberal high mindedness ignores these cases; imagine someone in the United States being jailed for criticizing former President Bush.
The scene of the delegation’s meeting with Castro would be ironic if it were not so tragic with American congressional black caucus members heaping praise upon a man who not only faithfully represents the terms dictator, barbarian and brute but, also, racist. Cuban author Esteban Dominguez in his book The Challenges of the Racial Problem in Cuba calls race a “social bomb” that if uncontrolled by the government “totalitarianism would fall”. Another author, Carlos Moore, put it clearly “there cannot be a civil rights movement. You will have instantly 10,000 black people dead.”
Clearly, these members of congress do not understand this. On the contrary, a statement released by Fidel Castro following the meeting indicated that these congressional members thought the US should “apologize” to Cuba and that American society is largely “racist” despite the election of a black president. While, these members try to appeal to their intellectual, liberal constituents they send quite a direct message to black Cuban-American citizens and to those that remained oppressed in Cuba; it amounts to: “We don’t care”.
Ask the CBC members about the aforementioned human rights record though; surely they will at least admit to the plausibility of these claims? They simply must have at least mentioned the issue in passing to the Cuban government as a condition for the warming of relations? Talk about wishful thinking: “We didn’t talk about it (human rights) much,” said Rep. Marcia Fudge D-Ohio, “You don’t go into someone’s house and insult them.” You’re right Mrs. Fudge; apparently the only thing you do not hesitate to insult is our intelligence
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