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Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, visited Miami on Thursday August 19th and met with a group of Cuban Americans. The concrete purpose was to continue to give animation to Joe Biden’s Cuban circus. One would think that Afghanistan would have, at least for a brief period, shamed any American government responsible for one of the biggest acts of dishonor in recorded history, from making public overtures of caring for captive nations.
“The Biden Administration stands in solidarity with the Cuban people and their call for freedom”, Mayorkas tweeted. The Cuban born co-architect of the Castro-Obama rapprochement scheme, added, “I join @POTUS in our commitment to holding the Cuban regime accountable, supporting the Cuban people, and ensuring Cuban Americans remain a vital partner in our efforts”. While one can understand why Biden has an interest in vote peddling in the third biggest and the most seminal swing state in the country, why would any Cuban American who claims to genuinely care about Cuba’s freedom, allow themselves to be used by an administration that is clearly making amends to allow the Castro-Communist dictatorship to survive its biggest threat in decades?
Those that bet on an amplification of the Castro-Obama détente with the ascendency of the Biden-Harris Democratic Party ticket, are seeing their odds greatly bettered. The three most influential Obama diplomats that negotiated the secret deal to reestablish ties with communist Cuba, were Ben Rhodes, Ricardo Zúñiga, and Mayorkas. On August 3rd, Julie Chung was replaced by Zúñiga as the Under Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. The release of the convicted Cuban spy ring, a Castro regime requisite, serving time for, among many things, the murder of American citizens and a foreign national.
The notion of a United States-sponsored “free internet” for all Cubans without the Castro regime profiting, one of the lauded objectives of Biden’s study groups to formulate United States reactive policy in dealing with the Cuban uprising of July 11th and the ongoing brutal crackdown, appears to have hit the totalitarian wall of Cuban communism and the lack of will of America’s governance. ETECSA, Cuba’s state-run communications monopoly, a part of the GAESA military commercial emporium, will continue to be the distributive venue for internet on the Island. It is not just about the hard currency entry. For the Castro regime, it is also about control.
Havana’s communist dictatorship is not leaving anything for chance. In addition to making it clear that the Chinese-built ETECSA system will continue to be the monopolistic provider of internet in Cuba, it codified into its socialist legalism on August 17th the expressed criminalization of transmitting and reporting news from inside Cuba with the Decree-Law 35. The tyrannical Cuban regime seeks to punish with jail sentences any news posting that the socialist dictatorship feels could potentially threaten its existence and “incite mobilizations or other acts that upset public order.”
Just as Obama maintained secret negotiations with Castro-Communism for months before the formal announcement of the new détente policy in 2014, the Biden-Harris government is working on its brand of an “engagement” course. That will be its response to the heroic Cuban uprising. This should not surprise anyone. Sitting down with American representatives of this shameful course of coexistence, which will only delay Cuba’s liberation course, is something Cuban Americans should not be a party to. Biden-Harris, and Obama are no friends of Cuban freedom. Just ask the Afghans.
Julio M Shiling, political scientist, writer, director of Patria de Martí and The Cuban American Voice, lecturer and media commentator. A native of Cuba, he currently lives in the United States. Twitter: @JulioMShiling // Julio es politólogo, escritor, director de Patria de Martí y The Cuban American Voice. Conferenciante y comentarista en los medios. Natural de Cuba, vive actualmente en EE UU.