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

- See more at: http://americanactionnews.com/articles/castro-s-gift-to-obama#sthash.2wf1ZmRQ.dpuf

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