The Cuban people have a profound need for international solidarity from the outside world, which has been partial and inadequate because of the obfuscation and wrong-headedness engendered by Castroism, argues Carl Gershman, the President of at the National Endowment for Democracy. But their liberation must come from within, and so must the effort to find a balance between reconciliation and coming to terms with the truth of the past nearly six decades, he writes for World Affairs:
Now that relations between Cuba and the United States have been normalized, its urgently important that relations be normalized between the Cuban people and their government. Many people have suffered and died to achieve that goal that is called democracy, and the number of Cubans who share this vision continues to grow. If they can hold together, the future is theirs.
What will become of us now that Fidel is gone? asks Wendy Guerra,the author of the forthcoming novel “Revolution Sunday.” Cubans of my generation have been educated under a paternalistic system that is nothing like the jungle to which we have now escaped. We are totally unprepared, she writes for The New York Times:
What will become of us without the zoo where they feed you, cure you, train you, polish you and gag you — and then realize that they don’t know what to do with you, with everything you know, are and want to be? What will become of the Cuban people without an obsessive, overprotective “father” who won’t allow them to sneak out into “savage capitalism”? What will become of us without that person who thinks for us, who gives us permission to enter and exit an island surrounded by politics and water? Who will give me — or deny me — permission to be the person I am?
Two years ago, President Obama announced that his administration would normalize relations with Cuba’s Castro regime, citing the need for a new approach for U.S.-Cuba policy, The Heritage Foundation writes:
Meanwhile, Cuba’s leader Raul Castro has failed to reciprocate and continued its crackdown against the island’s opposition. Political repression has greatly increased with over 10,000 political arrests this year alone…… Christian Solidarity Worldwide reports a tenfold increase in religious persecution from 2014 to 2015 with 2,300 separate violations in 2015. ….The incoming administration has the opportunity to refocus U.S. policy onto human rights and freedom for the Cuban people. Join a discussion of the two-year anniversary of the Obama Cuba policy and what a Trump Administration can do to advance liberty on the island.
Cuba at a Crossroads: How President Trump Can Support Freedom in Cuba
Featuring
Ambassador Roger F. Noriega
Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute,
and former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs
Antonio Rodiles (above left)
Opposition Movement Leader
José Cárdenas
Director, Visión América, and former Acting Assistant Administrator
for Latin America and the Caribbean, USAID
Hosted by
Ana Rosa Quintana
Policy Analyst for Latin America, The Heritage Foundation [and a Penn Kemble fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy]
Wednesday, December 14, 2016 at 3:00 p.m.
The Heritage Foundation’s Lehrman Auditorium
