Critics say Biden missed a chance to support the Cuban freedom movement

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The Biden administration on Monday imposed new sanctions on Havana and aligned with 20 other democracies in collectively condemning the Cuban regime’s recent crackdown on protesters, but critics and anti-Communist activists say US measures are not enough .

President Biden, they say, is missing a historic chance to support a major movement for freedom on the Communist-controlled island, and that a few more sanctions on a country facing a 60-year US embargo will do no good difference.

“Where’s Joe Biden?” Cuba needs him. Freedom needs him and we expect him to lead, ”Rep. Mike Waltz, Republican of Florida, told a crowd of protesters who gathered near the White House on Monday to call for an end to the war. communist regime in Cuba.

The rally, with fiery remarks from several Cuban-American activists, came as the administration sought to draw new attention to the almost unprecedented protests that erupted in several Cuban cities in early July. Secretary of State Antony Blinken released a statement on Monday saying the United States “supports[s] the Cuban people’s desire for freedom and to determine their own future.

Foreign ministers from 20 other countries, but only five in Latin America, joined the United States in a separate collective statement condemning the mass arrest and detention in Havana of Cubans who participated in the July 11 uprising.

“We call on the Cuban government to respect the legally guaranteed rights and freedoms of the Cuban people without fear of arrest and detention,” the joint statement said. “We urge the Cuban government to release those detained for exercising their right to peaceful protest. We call for freedom of the press and the full restoration of Internet access, which allows economies and societies to thrive. “

The joint declaration was signed by Mr. Blinken and the Foreign Ministers of Austria, Brazil, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Guatemala, Greece, from Honduras, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Poland. , South Korea and Ukraine.

The July 11 protests in Cuba drew global media attention, with protesters in some cities chanting “Libertad” or “Liberty” and calling on President Miguel Diaz-Canel to step down amid deteriorating economic conditions amid the crisis. COVID-19 pandemic.

The uprising has been the largest against the Cuban regime in almost two decades. But after the regime’s rapid arrest and detention of hundreds of protesters, there has yet to be a second wave of protests. Mr Diaz-Canel, meanwhile, said the decades-long US sanctions and trade embargo in place against Havana are to blame for the economic hardships that sparked the protests.

Monday’s joint statement by the United States and other democracies came as the Organization of American States, the main multinational institution in the Western Hemisphere, remained silent on developments in Cuba, with some members appearing to even defend the regime. Cuban.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday he believed Biden needed to make a decision on the decades-old US trade embargo with Cuba. “It is not conceivable that in these times they would want to punish an independent country with a blockade,” Lopez Obrador said, according to Reuters.

He noted that the entire United Nations General Assembly except Israel and the United States voted for a 29th consecutive year last month in favor of a resolution demanding an end to the ’embargo.

Some in Washington argue that the White House must act quickly to offer tangible help to Cuban protesters calling for regime change. The administration says it is looking for ways to do so without enriching Communist authorities or raising false hopes and expectations among protesters.

The administration last week imposed new sanctions on the Cuban defense minister and the Cuban army’s special forces brigade for their role in the recent crackdown on protesters.

Others say the administration is following a delicate line. Andres Oppenheimer, the union foreign affairs columnist born in Argentina with the Miami Herald, argued in a column last week that Mr. Biden “deserves credit for his reaction to the Cuban regime’s crackdown.”

“He resisted calls from the far left Democratic Party and the Black Lives Matter Foundation to lift US sanctions. This would be tantamount to rewarding the crackdown, ”Mr. Oppenheimer wrote. Mr. Biden would do well to give Cuba’s internal opposition greater recognition and make it a key player in all dealings with the regime, he argued.

It is a more nuanced approach than the approach favored by the Cuban-American protesters.

As First Lady Jill Biden returned to the White House from the Tokyo Olympics on Monday, her motorcade passed a protester on the National Mall who said: “No negotiations with the Cuban regime.

Congressional Republicans are expected to highlight the Cuba issue at a protest in Washington on Tuesday that serves as a counter-program to the commission of inquiry’s first hearing into the Jan.6 riot on the United States Capitol.

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