Castro's Trojan Horse

Cuban dictator Raul Castro says he is willing to talk to the United States about "human rights, press freedom, political prisoners — everything" — and everyone is biting, hook, line and sinker!

We are so eager to see better relations with our Caribbean neighbor — so idealistic about helping the Cuban people — that we forget to read the fine print.

Following that often-quoted line by Castro, in which he expressed his willingness to discuss "everything," Castro insisted that Cuba's sovereignty must not be challenged.

Yet no one has challenged that part of his statement. In the U.S. news media, where leftist tendencies and shallow journalists reign, that part was omitted from many articles and reports.

Castro made that statement in Venezuela as he addressed a meeting of Latin America's leftist leaders. They were celebrating the anniversary of the failed U.S.-led Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, which was in 1961. It was a defiant, arm-waving statement. He was telling his Latin American comrades that the Castro regime will not tolerate outside interference.

Yet now the defiant speech is being treated as an olive branch!

One news report called it "a major softening of the communist island's stance." Another one described it as "an extraordinary overture."

It's all wishful thinking, part of an unrealistic chorus of calls for Congress and the Obama administration to lift the U.S. economic embargo against the communist island, which lies only 90 miles south of Florida.

Yet those who have followed U.S.-Cuba relations have 50 years' worth of reasons to be skeptical. If history is a lesson, the Castro brothers will be willing to talk and perhaps even give a little, but only enough to allow them to maintain total control of their repression machine.

They may free a few political prisoners — as they have in the past, only to round them up again later — but expecting the regime to allow a free press or free multiparty elections is terribly naive. That is not how dictators function. They will negotiate on everything that doesn't affect their absolute control of power, and they will shut down when we insist that change toward freedom and democracy must become part of the bargain.

So what is Castro offering? I say it's a Trojan horse.

Fortunately, in the Obama administration, there are people who apparently see that horse coming.

In his speeches last week, first in Mexico and later in Trinidad and Tobago, President Barack Obama explained that he already had made a "good-faith effort" by lifting U.S. travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans who want to visit or send remittances to their relatives in Cuba. But he also made it clear that he expects the Cuban government to reciprocate.

"We do expect that Cuba will send signals that they're interested in liberalizing in such a way that not only do U.S.-Cuban relations improve but so that the energy and creativity and initiative of the Cuban people can potentially be released," Obama said in Mexico. He noted that most of the talk is concentrated on the U.S. ban on travel to Cuba. "There's not much discussion of the ban on the Cuban people traveling elsewhere," he said.

At the Summit of the Americas, in Trinidad and Tobago, Obama kept calling Castro's bluff. He did it in a subtle, diplomatic way, but it was reassuring to see that the candidate who said he would negotiate "without preconditions" has become a president who sees that in order to get the Castro brothers to release their choking grip on the Cuban people, preconditions are absolutely necessary.

"My guidepost in U.S.-Cuba policy is going to be how can we encourage Cuba to be respectful of the rights of its people, freedom of political speech, political participation, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of travel," Obama said in Mexico.

Yet the shallow news reports often fail to go deeper than simply discussing whether the U.S. will lift the embargo. They don't even cite specific instances when Obama clearly was responding to Castro's phony rhetoric.

For example, because Castro spoke of talking to the United States without allowing his regime's sovereignty to be challenged, Obama insists his administration's policy toward Cuba will have "guideposts." In an obvious response to Castro's sovereignty concerns, Obama noted that "United States policy should not be interference in other countries, but that also means we can't blame the United States for every problem that happens in the hemisphere. That's part of the bargain."

The media want to roll in the Cuban Trojan horse, and thankfully, we have a president who wants to take a look inside.

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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