Let there be light Sixth Part Extraordinary 179

People always try to judge the actions of others instead of analyzing objectively the causes and consequences of events. I will not try to improvise in my opinion; I will rather try to give meaning to President Obama's speech, in the context of  Cuba's present situation. The cause of Obama's decision, besides the humanitarian and political purposes of the prisoners' exchange, is evident when he declared: "to those who oppose the steps I'm announcing today, let me say that I respect your passion and I share your commitment to liberty and democracy. The question is how we uphold that commitment. I do not believe we can keep doing the same thing for over five decades and expect a different result." In other words, the U.S embargo has lasted for about half a century, and what have we Cubans done to give meaning to it? I can say that not much. Nevertheless, the U.S. president says: "but I believe we can do more to support the cuban people and promote our values, through engagement. After all, these 50 years have shown that isolation has not worked. it is time for a new approach." And I guess, Obama knows how far he can go with his flexibilities in relation to Cuba's goodwill steps. And that's why he points out: "where we can advance shared interests, we will, on issues like health, migration, counterterrorism, drug trafficking, and disaster response. where we disagree, we will raise those differences directly, as we will continue to do on issues related to democracy and human rights in Cuba." And for our peace of mind, although he announced: "We are taking steps to increase travel, commerce, and the flow of information to and from Cuba...", the economic injection Cuba needs, which by the way, according to cuban economic advisers the regime is not ready to implement, will not be 100% effective, for fear that further countermeasures of the Republicans might affect pioneer investments. So that the Castros will only be left with Obama's request: "we are calling on Cuba to unleash the potential of 11 million cubans by ending unnecessarily restrictions on the political, social, and economic decisions... The United States believes that no Cubans really should face harassment or arrest or beatings merely mainly because they are exercising a universal suitable to have their voices heard, and we will continue to assistance civil society there...we continue to think that Cuban workers should be absolutely free to form unions, just as their citizens need to be free to participate in the political course of action." The U.S. President's intention in this respect is stated thus: "...I am convinced that via a policy of engagement, we can extra proficiently stand up for our values and assist the Cuban persons support themselves..." And to guarantee the monitoring of the results, he suggested: "We welcome Cuba's selection to provide much more access to the World wide web for its citizens, and to continue escalating engagement with international institutions like the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross that promote universal values... This April, we are ready to have Cuba join the other nations of the hemisphere at the Summit of the Americas. But we will insist that civil society join us so that citizens, not just leaders, are shaping our future. And I call on all my fellow leaders to give meaning to the commitment to democracy and human rights at the heart of the Inter-American Charter." Now, the question is: What will we do to help ourselves? To wait for others to do our assignments, while we keep on looking for the guilty ones? To be continued...