Castro's Gift to Obama

Barack Obama has made restoring normal relations with Cuba a major part of his second term foreign policy agenda. The hope was that the restoration of economic ties would help liberalize the island prison community.

Obama's making nice with the Castros was criticized by Cuban American Senators on both sides of the aisle, including Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Robert Menendez. These children of Cuban immigrants predicted that normalizing relations would simply provide the Castros with more cash to operate their prison state.

Today it appears those gentleman are right. As Obama arrived in Cuba, Raul Castro provided him with a gift- an absence of protesters. As USA Today notes:


Just hours before President Obamalanded Sunday in Cuba for his historic visit to the communist island, Cuban authorities arrested more than 50 dissidents who were marching to demand improved human rights.

Members of the group, known as the Ladies in White, are used to the routine. They march each Sunday after Mass at a church in a suburb of Havana called Miramar and usually get arrested and detained for hours or days.

Some in the group thought Cuban authorities would back off this Sunday out of respect for Obama's visit. Berta Soler, one of the founding members who has been marching since 2003, said while walking to the church Sunday morning that maybe they would be allowed to protest without getting arrested.

"Everything looks good so far," she said.

Despite dozens of international reporters in town for Obama's trip, the group was quickly rounded up in buses and police cars.

Will Obama decry this crackdown on free expression, or will he simply pretend it didn't happen, and go on living in a fantasy world where the Castros are interested in political freedom?

Source: AAN