Posted By José R. Cárdenas Tuesday, July 13, 2010 - 12:30 PM Share
The announcement that the Castro regime is prepared to release 52
prisoners of conscience has provoked a flurry of commentary as to its
broader "meaning" for Cuba's future. Others don't care much what it
means, they only want the Obama administration to "reciprocate" forthwith.
One would have thought that these sorts of Cold War-era political
prisoner releases would have long ago been consigned to the dustbin of
history, but alas not so in Cuba, which has been frozen in time under
the Castro brothers' despotism for pretty much five decades.
Freedom for the prisoners is, of course, welcome for their sake and that
of their families, but in the broader context it is meaningless as far
as heralding a new dawn in Stalinist Cuba. The same laws and repressive
apparatus that make it illegal to do anything in Cuba except praise the
Castros are still in place and could be used again tomorrow to jail
those very same prisoners who do not accept the regime's "invitation" to
leave the island.
The prisoner release is instead indicative of a regime increasingly
desperate to change a very negative narrative that has developed over
the past year. From the arrest of American Alan Gross for providing
internet access to an apolitical civil society group, to the February
23rd death of dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo after a 75-day hunger
strike, to increasing international recognition of the "Ladies in White"
-- wives and mothers of political prisoners who peacefully march in
Havana on behalf of their husbands and sons (that is, when not attacked
by government goons) -- to the current high-profile hunger strike of
dissident Guillermo Fariñas, the regime was clearly losing control of
events and making it extremely difficult for the likes of Spain and
other international enablers to preach accommodation and appeasement of
the regime.
The regime's decision to trot out an ailing Fidel Castro this past
weekend is also part of this narrative-changing effort, as it tries to
rally the international faithful while diverting attention from the
misery it continues to foist on the Cuban people. The signal to the
Cuban population couldn't have been more overt: The Old Man is still
around, so don't get any ideas that any deeper changes are forthcoming.
As noted above, many critics of U.S. policy towards the Castro regime
nevertheless argue that the prisoner release demands a policy response
from the United States. Our "credibility" is at stake, they say. No, it
isn't. Rewarding the regime for a self-serving tactical maneuver that
could be reversed at any time would be counterproductive and a waste of
the leverage the United States does possess to push for fundamental
reforms in the best interests of all 11,000,000 Cuban political prisoners.
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