Obama’s Cuba Legacy - Another Negotiations Failure

Obama's Cuba Legacy: Another Negotiations Failure
Rep. Ed Royce | Saturday Oct 24, 2015 4:44 PM

Last December, President Obama announced a major shift in US-Cuban
relations. The White House left Congress and most of the President's
own Administration – including the State Department – in the dark.
Instead, two White House aides held a series of secret talks with the
Cuban regime over two years – talks which the Administration has since
conceded were "non-transactional." In other words, these turned out to
be one-sided negotiations, with the U.S. making a series of concessions
to Havana.
Had the White House consulted more widely, it might have heard that
Havana was facing the prospect of losing the largesse of its benefactor,
Venezuela, a country suffering under the weight of failed socialist
policies, plummeting global oil prices, social unrest, and the world's
highest inflation rates. Under these conditions, the US could have
insisted that the Cuban government make basic human rights concessions,
such as ending the systematic harassment and imprisonment of dissidents
in Castro's gulags. The fact is, these negotiations turned out to be a
tragic missed opportunity for the United States to stand with Cuban
dissidents in support of human rights and democratic values.
Indeed, when the Stars and Stripes was hoisted over the U.S. Embassy in
Havana, a ceremony Secretary of State John Kerry presided over, Cuban
dissidents and human rights activists were shamefully kept out. The
Secretary later explained that the ceremony was a "government to
government moment, with very limited space," a weak excuse that
underscores the extent to which the Cuban regime is calling the shots in
the thawing of relations.
While the negotiations did secure the release of a USAID contractor who
had been held in deplorable conditions on trumped up charges, the more
sophisticated Cuban negotiators won the release of three Cuban spies
held in the U.S. for espionage and their involvement in shooting down a
US plane in 1996. As if this weren't enough, the Cuban negotiators got
normalized diplomatic relations along with relaxed trade, travel, and
banking regulations that directly benefit the regime. Cuba also won its
removal from the state sponsor of terrorism list, despite the fact that
the country continues to harbor members of US-designated terrorist
groups FARC and ETA, not to mention the US terrorist and Black
Liberation Army activist Joanne Chesimard, who is on the FBI's Ten Most
Wanted List.
Perhaps seeing how he has outmaneuvered President Obama, Raul Castro
demanded even more concessions from the United State last month at his
speech before the UN General Assembly: a return of the US Navy base at
Guantanamo Bay, the end of U.S.-sponsored Radio and TV Marti broadcasts
and other "destabilizing" activities against Cuba, and "just
compensation" for the embargo.
In defending this policy change, the President has compared our economic
relationship with Cuba to that of China and Vietnam. But China and
Vietnam at least allow foreign firms to hire and recruit employees,
without their pay going directly to the government.
Not so in Cuba, with its North Korea-like economy. Cuban workers at a
foreign-owned resort receive only a fraction of their salary – as little
as 5 percent. Castro or Kim, the method is the same: extract hard
currency from foreign business and invest in the state's security apparatus.
This makes a sham of President Obama's claim that the U.S.'s one-sided
concessions were all done in the spirit of "empowering the Cuban
entrepreneur." To the contrary, changes that would allow budding
entrepreneurs on the island to benefit from relaxed import/export
regulations designate the communist Cuban government as the arbiter of
what sector and which individuals will be considered "entrepreneurs."
This will most certainly help to further line the pockets of the Castro
brothers while leaving the Cuban people out, just as Secretary Kerry did
when he opened the U.S. embassy in August.
While White House negotiators did manage to secure the release of 53
Cuban dissidents, more than half have been rearrested at some point
since. A recent Freedom House report reads: "systematic use of
short-term 'preventative' detentions—along with harassment [and]
beatings," is used to intimidate the opposition, isolate dissidents, and
maintain control. Advocates put the number of political arrests in Cuba
last year at over 8,000. In September alone, there were 882 political
arrests, of which at least 353 were during the Pope's visit. Human
rights watchers are particularly concerned about Zaqueo Baez, Maria Acon
and Ismael Bonet, all of whom were arrested as they tried to plea with
the Holy Father during his visit to the island. While their arrests
were captured live by the international media, since their imprisonment,
there has not been any information regarding their well-being.
Instead of dismantling a 50-year-old failed policy, as it claims, the
Administration has given a 50-year-old failed regime a new lease on life
to continue its repression at home and support for militant regimes
abroad. Congress must stand firm and resist any attempt by President
Obama to hand over the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo. Despite rumors
that the Administration will acquiesce to Castro's demand that the base
be returned – and in doing so, fulfill the President's long-stated goal
of closing its detention center – Guantanamo still provides essential
support to U.S. security and humanitarian operations in the Western
Hemisphere. According to SOUTHCOM Commander General John Kelly, "Beyond
the detention operations, the naval station has played a key role as a
logistical hub in support of disaster relief, migrant contingency, and
counter-illicit trafficking operations." In addition, further attempts
by President Obama to chip away at the Cuban Liberty and Democratic
Solidarity (Libertad) Act of 1996 – continuing his penchant for ruling
by executive fiat – will be met by staunch resistance in Congress.
As with the Iranian nuclear agreement, President Obama has been
out-negotiated, in this case by a tiny communist nation. The fact is,
capitulation and the neglect of time-honored U.S. values has done very
little to bring about peace, and instead has made parts of the world
less safe, less stable, and less democratic. Obama's Cuba legacy is but
another example of his tragic foreign policy failures.

Source: Obama's Cuba Legacy: Another Negotiations Failure | Human Events
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http://humanevents.com/2015/10/24/obamas-cuba-legacy-another-negotiations-failure/