While General Raúl Castro, appointed President by his brother Fidel (without elections), was shaking hands with US President Barack Obama at the funeral of Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg, special services and combined police forces mounted a major operation around the home of dissident Antonio Rodiles, Director of ‘Estado de Sats,' a project in which diverse political and civic areas coexist in the illegal world of Cuban opposition.
Also, on December 10th, while the headlines of half the world’s newspapers highlighted on their front page the unprecedented handshake of the two leaders, the tough guys of the State Security were busy repressing activists in Eastern Cuba and detaining dozens of members of the opposition in the rest of the Island.
All of this takes place under the indifference of ordinary Cubans, whose main objective is to try to get enough food on the table each day for at least two meals. The handshake was just another news story for the neighborhood grocer, for the private taxi driver and for people waiting for the bus at a busy stop.
The regime knows that a high percentage of the population remains on the sidelines, passively observing the national political panorama. People in Cuba are concerned with how to survive, how to flee the country or figure out how to set up a tiny establishment that may allow them to earn some money.
In the meanwhile, the “olive-green” autocrats cry out that they want to do business… but with the United States. They do not mind, for the moment, sitting down and talking with an opposition that has unquestionable merit: the courage to dissent publically within a totalitarian regime.
The dissidents have paid the price: years of imprisonment, exile and repression. But neither the undeniable right to be considered a political force, nor the acts of repudiation nad beatings, have been able to generate a favorable opinion in the minds of the majority of Cuban citizens, who are nevertheless disgusted with the deplorable government of the Castro's for the last 55 years.
There’s the rub! By its focus being geared more towards the outside world, dissidents have no popular support. Cubans don’t identify with men and women who loudly protest in the streets the gross injustices of the regime. That inherent weakness is what allows the government to not take dissidents into account.
I do not think you should shake hands with a ruler who suppresses those who think differently. This December 10th was the 65th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which Cuba is a signatory.
No high-flying political strategy has paid off after a series of steps that have been taken by a number of democratic countries trying to insert Cuba.
Neither has the Ibero-American Summits, nor being at the forefront pro tempore of CELAC prevented the government in Havana from continuing to suppress dissidents with laws and physical violence.
Fidel and Raúl Castro have thumbed their nose at everything and everyone. They signed the Agreement on Economic, Cultural, Political and Civil Rights in February 2008, and then they did not ratify it.
Cuba is the only country in the Western Hemisphere where the opposition is considered illegal and the only nation that does not call for free elections to elect their presidents.
Cuba is not a democracy and Obama knows it well.
If behind that handshake –the second in half a century for a US president (the first was Bill Clinton to Fidel Castro, at the Millennium Summit in New York on September 6th, 2000)-- there is a discrete message of future negotiations to repeal the embargo or to improve relations between the two countries, the average Cuban and a segment of the dissidents would not oppose it.
It may be that the handshake was just protocol and proper etiquette. Or perhaps it is a change of policy in the White House. The Americans have always been very pragmatic.
In serious negotiations, both parties must compromise. The bad news is that the Cuban regime appears to make changes, but continues to suppress opponents. Diplomacy on the one hand, and a club on the other.
Also, on December 10th, while the headlines of half the world’s newspapers highlighted on their front page the unprecedented handshake of the two leaders, the tough guys of the State Security were busy repressing activists in Eastern Cuba and detaining dozens of members of the opposition in the rest of the Island.
All of this takes place under the indifference of ordinary Cubans, whose main objective is to try to get enough food on the table each day for at least two meals. The handshake was just another news story for the neighborhood grocer, for the private taxi driver and for people waiting for the bus at a busy stop.
The regime knows that a high percentage of the population remains on the sidelines, passively observing the national political panorama. People in Cuba are concerned with how to survive, how to flee the country or figure out how to set up a tiny establishment that may allow them to earn some money.
In the meanwhile, the “olive-green” autocrats cry out that they want to do business… but with the United States. They do not mind, for the moment, sitting down and talking with an opposition that has unquestionable merit: the courage to dissent publically within a totalitarian regime.
The dissidents have paid the price: years of imprisonment, exile and repression. But neither the undeniable right to be considered a political force, nor the acts of repudiation nad beatings, have been able to generate a favorable opinion in the minds of the majority of Cuban citizens, who are nevertheless disgusted with the deplorable government of the Castro's for the last 55 years.
There’s the rub! By its focus being geared more towards the outside world, dissidents have no popular support. Cubans don’t identify with men and women who loudly protest in the streets the gross injustices of the regime. That inherent weakness is what allows the government to not take dissidents into account.
I do not think you should shake hands with a ruler who suppresses those who think differently. This December 10th was the 65th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which Cuba is a signatory.
No high-flying political strategy has paid off after a series of steps that have been taken by a number of democratic countries trying to insert Cuba.
Neither has the Ibero-American Summits, nor being at the forefront pro tempore of CELAC prevented the government in Havana from continuing to suppress dissidents with laws and physical violence.
Fidel and Raúl Castro have thumbed their nose at everything and everyone. They signed the Agreement on Economic, Cultural, Political and Civil Rights in February 2008, and then they did not ratify it.
Cuba is the only country in the Western Hemisphere where the opposition is considered illegal and the only nation that does not call for free elections to elect their presidents.
Cuba is not a democracy and Obama knows it well.
If behind that handshake –the second in half a century for a US president (the first was Bill Clinton to Fidel Castro, at the Millennium Summit in New York on September 6th, 2000)-- there is a discrete message of future negotiations to repeal the embargo or to improve relations between the two countries, the average Cuban and a segment of the dissidents would not oppose it.
It may be that the handshake was just protocol and proper etiquette. Or perhaps it is a change of policy in the White House. The Americans have always been very pragmatic.
In serious negotiations, both parties must compromise. The bad news is that the Cuban regime appears to make changes, but continues to suppress opponents. Diplomacy on the one hand, and a club on the other.
