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...
