Help the Cuban Opposition, Not the Castros

6 minute read
Ideas
Cruz is the junior U.S. Senator for Texas.

In July 2013, I had the opportunity to speak with two prominent Cuban dissidents, Elizardo Sanchez and Guillermo Farinas. Both men had been supporters of the Castros—Sanchez as an academic, Farinas as a soldier—but had come to realize the real brutal, authoritarian nature of their Communist regime. Farinas, for example, spoke of the moment of clarity he had the first time he read Animal Farm during the 1980s, in Russian because he was in the Soviet Union receiving specialized military training.

Sanchez and Farinas painted a grim picture of life in Cuba, which they said had become “a big jail” since 1959. They described how the Castros have a comprehensive apparatus of oppression that exploits economic control, political repression, and propaganda to control each and every Cuban citizen. Growing up in Cuba, they said, meant choosing between becoming part of the repression, pretending to be mentally ill, abandoning your homeland, or confronting the regime, in which case you risked being killed, jailed, or beaten.

My family knows this hard truth about Cuba all too well. My father was imprisoned and tortured by Batista, and my aunt was imprisoned and tortured by Castro. Both fled for America and for freedom.

According to Sanchez and Farinas, Raul and Fidel Castro remain the implacable enemies of the United States. They are constantly thinking of ways to harm America—they are evil, and we cannot make a deal with an evil regime. The goal of the Castros, they explained, was to copy “Putinismo,” or the tricks and deceptions the Russian strongman had used to fool the west with the appearance of change while in reality, his authoritarian government consolidated power. Farinas cautioned that the Castros would try to get the United States to finance their “Putinist project” through the relaxation of the embargo, and that we should reject any deal that did not include real political reform.

As we now know, around the time I was interviewing Sanchez and Farinas, the Obama administration was already planning a major revision of U.S. policy toward Cuba. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recounts in her recent book, Hard Choices, that she recommended this course of action around the time she left office.

Witness Cuba's Evolution in 39 Photos

Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
An old American car, long a staple of Cuban roads, sits along Guanabo Beach, near Havana.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
A group of youngsters in Central Havana sit on a street corner to discuss the latest news of the Spanish La Liga football league. Their hair is styled like their idols'—soccer stars and Reggaeton singers.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
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In route to his job as a welder, 62-year-old Carlos stops at a government cafeteria to buy cigarettes.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Cockfighting, a Cuban tradition, takes place in an anti-aircraft bunker to avoid the police. Fighting is not forbidden, but gambling, which is always present at the matches, is.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
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Antonio Perez Hernandez shows off his prize-winning rooster prior to a fight in Campo Florido.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Havana’s most famous street, the Malecón, as a cold front rolls in.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
At his teacher's request, Rodney Cajiga, gets his hair cut in Justiz, a small town east of Havana.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Corrugated zinc sheets barely cover a grocery store.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Jesus, a fisherman from Puerto Escondido, returns from the sea. “It was a good day, despite the cold front,” he said, displaying one of the fish he caught.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Roberto, 22, is a college dropout from the East, who moved to a small cottage in Havana to farm with his father, Jorge. “My wife got pregnant and I had to support her and the child. Here I have a chance," he said.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
A pumpkin for sale, cut in half for clients to see it is still fresh.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Delvis Montero, 39, works seven days a week making charcoal and earns $100 a month. “I work hard so my children can go to school and never have to do this extremely hard work," she said.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Madelin, who works at a Havana boutique, hitchhikes to work each morning rather than taking the bus.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Around 7 in the evening, Cubans begin preparing dinner. Central Havana, usually crowded, look deserted.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
At night, neighbors leave their doors open to let the breeze in.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Yunier Utre, 19, lives in the Teodoro Rivero settlement in Jaguey Grande, Matanzas province. He works in the mango plantations from sunup to sundown.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Tourists relax on lounge chairs at Melia Las Americas in Varadero, which is next to the only 18-hole golf course in Cuba.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
The wiring for the electrical system at a tenement in Old Havana. Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Old Havana at dusk.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Juan Lara, 72, takes his cows to graze roughly 10 miles from his home every morning.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Juan Carlos has been a fisherman all his life. Close to 70, he keeps this cottage in the Puerto Escondido fishermen’s village. “I have a real house in my town, 20 miles from here," Carlos said.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Jaguey Grande’s Library, where students from nearby schools come every day to do their homework.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Fidel Hernandez sets fire to the bushes around the fence he just installed to keep his goats enclosed. He has taken his grandson with him, as he says that he loves to hang around his grandpa.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
The growth of small private businesses, like this one in Pedro Pi, is a sign of changing times.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
A woman at a telephone booth in Pedro Pi. There is only one phone in this farmer’s community, 12 miles from downtown Havana. Neighbors come to make their calls, get their messages and share gossip.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
A government-run auto repair shop in Jaguey Grande.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
A huge concrete school building.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Ricardo Rodriguez and his wife travel 30 miles every day to the town of Ceres to buy charcoal that they later sell in the town of Cardenas, near the Varadaero resort in Matanzas province. “The profits are meager, but we survive on that," Rodriguez said.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Aguedo Leon (far right), 82, goes to the cattle register in Campo Florido, Havana city, to report the birth of a calf. It is mandatory for farmers to do so immediately after the cow delivers. Failing to report a new birth can result in a $20 fine.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Outside Havana, an old American car with a new Japanese engine is used as a taxi.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
At the Puerto Escondido fishermen’s village, a welder repairs the carriage they use to move fish into town.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Riding on horse drawn carriages is still the main way to move in the Cuban countryside.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Ormiles Lores Rodriguez, 40, works as an accountant at the Grito de Baire farmimg cooperative. She says salaries have improved and employees get bonuses every three months if they meet their output quotas.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Dusk falls on Old Havana.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Despite its age, the driver claims his car can reach speeds of 100 miles per hour, thanks to its engineering that includes a mix of American, Russian, Japanese and Cuban parts.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Two young men wait to go out with a girl in Old Havana. "We dress to impress her," they said, "and we take pictures to our barber for him to know exactly what we want."Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
Alicia, 8, crosses the street to buy candy in Patricia’s Cafeteria, 2 miles from Guanabo beach.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
An aging car drives through Old Havana at dusk.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME
Cuban Evolution Joakim Eskildsen
A woman prays to Yemaya, the sea goddess, on the Malecón, Havana's main esplanade.Joakim Eskildsen for TIME

But just like the recent failed outreach attempts with Russia and Iran, the administration assumed they could persuade dictatorial tyrants to put the interests of their people and the international community before their own. And so this week, President Obama announced he is unilaterally undoing more than half a century of bi-partisan U.S. policy towards Cuba and reducing economic sanctions before the Castros make a single meaningful concession.

How prophetic Sanchez and Farinas were. America is, in effect, writing the check that will allow the Castros to follow Vladimir Putin’s playbook of repression.

But simply criticizing the Obama administration approach is not enough. As Sanchez and Farinas pointed out, no one can deny that the Castros have successfully exploited their enmity with the United States to enhance their reputation as revolutionary freedom fighters. And as the critics of the embargo argue, we are 50 years into the project and the Castros are still in power. Of course we should look for new ways to relieve the misery of the Cuban people—but there are better options than what the Obama administration has proposed.

First, the United States should have demanded the immediate and unconditional release of Alan Gross before we negotiated economic relief for Cuba. We celebrate his return, but it should have been beholden on the Castros to demonstrate good faith in advance of any concessions on our part. And we should not be creating incentives for other oppressive regimes to seize and ransom American citizens.

In addition, the United States should have recognized the significant pressures the Castro regime currently faces, which recall those in the late 1990s when deprived of Soviet sponsorship, their regime was threatened with economic catastrophe. Then, Hugo Chavez stepped in to save them, but now, with the impending collapse of the Venezuelan economy, disaster looms again. If the United States is to provide an economic lifeline to Cuba at this critical juncture, we might have extracted some significant concessions:

  • Rather than arbitrary prisoner releases, the United States should demand significant legal reform so that the Cuban government can no longer detain its citizens—or ours—indefinitely with no process. Otherwise the 53 prisoners they are to release under the terms of this deal can simply be picked up again at the whim of the Castro regime.
  • Rather than vague promises of exploring political liberalization, the United States should demand that the political opposition to the Castros be included in any and all negotiations with Cuba, so their concerns will be fully heard and their priorities addressed. Otherwise there will be no incentive for the Castro regime to engage in necessary political reforms.
  • Rather than unilaterally lifting the economic embargo on Cuba, the United States should calibrate any relaxation of sanctions directly to the cessation of their repression and human rights violations. Otherwise, American dollars will flow exclusively into the Castros’ pockets while the Cuban people have no relief.
  • These are only a few of the many ideas I look forward to our considering when the 114th Congress convenes in January. But one area on which there is already broad, bi-partisan consensus is that President Obama’s new Cuba policy is yet another very bad deal brokered by this administration. First Russia, then Iran, now Cuba.

    Raul and Fidel Castro, the men who were complicit in the Cuban Missile Crisis; the close allies of Russia, Iran, Venezuela and North Korea; and the systematic persecutors of the Cuban people, have not suddenly become our regional partners.

    We do have friends in Cuba, people like Elizardo Sanchez, Guillermo Farinas, and their many colleagues in the opposition. But this misguided policy of President Obama’s does nothing to help them. On the contrary it may well strengthen the Castros and entrench a new generation of their oppressors in power unless Congress steps in to stop it.

    See 15 Famous Cuban-Americans

    Famous Cuban Americans
    Gloria Estefan Born in Havana, Estefan is arguably Cuba's most famous singer. The seven-time Grammy Award winner. As a teenager, Estefan's family fled the Cuban Revolution for Miami. Ethan Miller—Getty Images
    Famous Cuban Americans
    Jose Canseco The former Major League Baseball All Star's family left Cuba for Miami when he was an infant.Michael Zagaris—MLB/Getty Images
    Desi ArnazFamous Cuban Americans
    Desi Arnaz The I Love Lucy star was born in Cuba in 1917. Arnaz's Father was a Cuban politician, and his grandmother an executive at Bacardi. Hulton Archive/Getty Images
    Famous Cuban Americans
    Sammy Davis, Jr. The beloved entertainer was born in Harlem in 1925 to African-American and Afro-Cuban parents. Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images
    Famous Cuban Americans
    Cesar Romero, Most famous for playing the Joker in the Batman television series, Romero was born in New York City to Italian and Cuban immigrants. Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images
    Famous Cuban Americans
    Rosario Dawson The Hollywood starlet was born in New York City to a mother of Puerto Rican and Afro-Cuban descent. Ian Gavan—Getty Images
    Famous Cuban Americans
    Cameron Diaz The Hollywood actress, and four time Golden Globe nominee, has a father from Cuba. Theo Wargo—Getty Images
    Famous Cuban Americans
    Marco Rubio The Senator from Florida grew up in Miami. Both of his parents immigrated to the US from Cuba in the 1950s. Jacquelyn Martin—AO
    Famous Cuban Americans
    Jeff Bezos Founder of Amazon.com and owner of the Washington Post, Bezos' father moved to the United States from Cuba as a teenager. Bloomberg/Getty Images
    Famous Cuban Americans
    Eva Mendes The actress was born in Miami to Cuban parents.Michael Tran—FilmMagic/Getty Images
    Famous Cuban Americans
    Pitbull Born in Miami to Cuban expats, the rapper has made a huge impression on the rap and reggaeton scene in Cuba and Latin America. Michael Caulfield—Getty Images
    Famous Cuban Americans
    Andy Garcia The Academy Award-nominated Godfather actor was born in Havana and moved to Miami in high school, where he began taking acting classes. Victor Chavez—WireImage/Getty Images
    Famous Cuban Americans
    Gilbert Arenas The basketball star was born in Florida and raised in Los Angeles. His paternal great-grandfather descended from Cuba. Susan Walsh—AP
    Famous Cuban Americans
    Soledad O'Brien The notable broadcast journalist and producer's parents are Australian and Cuban immigrants to the US. Monica Schipper—Getty Images
    Famous Cuban Americans
    Ted Cruz The Texas Senator's father was born in Cuba and fought for Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution. He later became a critic of Castro's politics and moved to Texas. J. Scott Applewhite—AP

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