1/23/2015
MIAMI – The official talks being held in Havana between U.S. and Cuban delegations and, above all, President Barack Obama’s call to Congress to end the embargo against the communist island, has sparked strong divisions among Cuban exiles in Miami.
While a good number of anti-Castro groups are attacking Obama for making what they call “unilateral” concessions to the Cuban government, others are applauding the reasoning behind his request.
The director of the Cuban Liberty Council, Ninoska Perez, called Washington’s rapprochement with Havana a “crazy idea” and emphasized that – in her opinion – Havana is “violating every law and human rights” and is holding back the process of transition toward a regime where the population enjoys appropriate freedoms.
In Cuba, she told Efe, “the Ladies in White are still being beaten, (dissidents are being) repressed and jailed” and she said she does not understand “how this can be called a move forward for diplomacy.”
Nevertheless, Perez said that, with a Republican majority in Congress, Obama’s plan will not get far and will be rejected by the majority of the lawmakers.
However, other spokespeople for exile groups, including Cubanow and the Democracy Movement, are in favor of beginning a new phase in bilateral relations and ending the trade embargo.
“I applaud what President Obama said. It seems to me that more than half a century of the same policy that provided no results” and only served to “strengthen the Cuban dictatorship more,” did not lead to any advances, Juan J. Almeida Garcia, the son of one of the Cuban revolutionary commanders, told Efe in Miami, where he lives.
“New roads have to be explored to try and get to the Cuban people,” said the son of late Cuban Vice President Juan Almeida Bosque, who in 2010 emigrated to the United States after having asked the Cuban government for seven years to let him leave the country for medical treatment.
The Democracy Movement, headed by Ramon Saul Sanchez, for years has been in favor of lifting the embargo on Cuba, a stance that it also maintains after the reestablishment of diplomatic relations, which broke more than half a century of animosity.
“I agree with lifting the embargo, but on hearing Obama on Tuesday I thought about the embargo that the Cuban regime maintains on the political and economic freedoms of Cubans,” Sanchez told Efe.
While not coming out in favor of or against the lifting of the embargo, Antonio Diaz Sanchez, the head of the Christian Liberation Movement said that his group’s main concern is “the freedom and the rights of Cubans, who cannot live in a democratic country where a state of law prevails.”
source
MIAMI – The official talks being held in Havana between U.S. and Cuban delegations and, above all, President Barack Obama’s call to Congress to end the embargo against the communist island, has sparked strong divisions among Cuban exiles in Miami.While a good number of anti-Castro groups are attacking Obama for making what they call “unilateral” concessions to the Cuban government, others are applauding the reasoning behind his request.
The director of the Cuban Liberty Council, Ninoska Perez, called Washington’s rapprochement with Havana a “crazy idea” and emphasized that – in her opinion – Havana is “violating every law and human rights” and is holding back the process of transition toward a regime where the population enjoys appropriate freedoms.
In Cuba, she told Efe, “the Ladies in White are still being beaten, (dissidents are being) repressed and jailed” and she said she does not understand “how this can be called a move forward for diplomacy.”
Nevertheless, Perez said that, with a Republican majority in Congress, Obama’s plan will not get far and will be rejected by the majority of the lawmakers.
However, other spokespeople for exile groups, including Cubanow and the Democracy Movement, are in favor of beginning a new phase in bilateral relations and ending the trade embargo.
“I applaud what President Obama said. It seems to me that more than half a century of the same policy that provided no results” and only served to “strengthen the Cuban dictatorship more,” did not lead to any advances, Juan J. Almeida Garcia, the son of one of the Cuban revolutionary commanders, told Efe in Miami, where he lives.
“New roads have to be explored to try and get to the Cuban people,” said the son of late Cuban Vice President Juan Almeida Bosque, who in 2010 emigrated to the United States after having asked the Cuban government for seven years to let him leave the country for medical treatment.
The Democracy Movement, headed by Ramon Saul Sanchez, for years has been in favor of lifting the embargo on Cuba, a stance that it also maintains after the reestablishment of diplomatic relations, which broke more than half a century of animosity.
“I agree with lifting the embargo, but on hearing Obama on Tuesday I thought about the embargo that the Cuban regime maintains on the political and economic freedoms of Cubans,” Sanchez told Efe.
While not coming out in favor of or against the lifting of the embargo, Antonio Diaz Sanchez, the head of the Christian Liberation Movement said that his group’s main concern is “the freedom and the rights of Cubans, who cannot live in a democratic country where a state of law prevails.”
source
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