Secretary of State John Kerry speaks during a news conference with Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., on July 20, 2015.
On July 20, 2015, in another day of infamy, the embassies of Cuba and the United States were opened in both countries. After the Cuban flag was raised over the Cuban embassy in Washington, D.C., Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said that this event signified the end of the first phase of rapprochement between the two countries. However, following the directive from the bloody Cuban dictator Raúl Castro, Rodríguez made new demands of the Obama administration which has already given the tyrannical regime in Havana numerous unilateral concessions without a “quid pro quo” or nothing in return.
After the ceremony Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez met with Secretary of State John Kerry for more than 45 minutes. According to Mimi Whitefield, a reporter from the Miami Herald, they both discussed cooperation with respect to law enforcement, counternarcotics, telecommunications, the Internet, environmental issues, human rights, human trafficking, and Venezuela.
Rodríguez made it clear that the next steps in the normalization of the relationship between the two nations would be a challenge. He demanded the end of the “blockade,” the Cuban term for the commercial embargo, the return of the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo, and compensation in the billions of dollars for human and economic damages caused by the U.S. embargo. Rodríguez said that the conversations with Kerry were “constructive and respectful” and urged Obama to use his executive powers even more to chip away at the embargo. In reality, President Obama illegally and in violation of the Helms Burton law has destroyed most of the embargo without the Republicans in Congress complaining.
Secretary of State Kerry stated that he is planning to raise the stars and stripes over the United States embassy in Havana on August 14, 2015. Kerry spoke in Spanish at the press conference and said that July 20 was being celebrated “because today we begin to repair what was damaged and to open what has been closed for many years.” The United States broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba on January 3, 1961. Kerry stated the following: “This milestone does not signify an end to differences that still separate our governments, but it does reflect the reality that the Cold War ended long ago, and that the interests of both countries are better served by engagement than by estrangement, and that we have begun a process of full normalization that is sure to take time but will also benefit people in both Cuba and the United States.”
Kerry said that the issue of the return of Gitmo to Cuba has not been contemplated at this time. However, Kerry previously lied to Congress when he said the Cuban spies would not be returned to Cuba at the very time that it was being negotiated. Therefore, his weak reassurances cannot be believed, especially when Obama is contemplating to return Gitmo to Cuba as he empties the naval base of dangerous Jihadists. Cuba wants to get Gitmo so that it can be given to the Russian navy which would then present a serious national security problem for the nation.
The Cuban flag is raised over the new embassy in Washington, D.C., on July 20, 2015.
As the Cuban flag was raised in the former Cuban Interest Section in Washington D.C. about 500 Cuban and American guests and members of the diplomatic corps were crowded inside the new embassy. They congratulated and hugged each other. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson and Josefina Vidal, who heads the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s United States Department, were present at the ceremony. Former Hialeah Mayor Raúl Martínez also attended the ceremony. Outside the embassy pro- and anti-Castro demonstrators held signs.
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Cuban American legislators and others complained about the opening of the Cuban embassy
Republican Cuban American U.S. Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Carlos Curbelo, and Mario Diaz-Balart watched the ceremony from Miami as the Cuban flag was raised in Washington, D.C. They said that it was a “sad” day for Cuban Americans who have fought for democracy and to not recognize Cuba diplomatically until the Castro regime held free and fair elections. The three members of Congress stood next to posters showing images of beaten Cuban opponents and the four men who died when two Cuban MiGs shot down two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft in1996.
During a press conference the Cuban-American congressional delegation from Miami stated that they would not meet with a future Cuban ambassador to the United States. They also denounced the recent “normalization” of relations between the U.S. and the communist regime in Cuba and the opening of the U.S. embassy in Havana, and the Cuban embassy in Washington, D.C. Republican Congressman Carlos Curbelo said “No” when asked if they would attend a meeting with a Cuba’s ambassador that was “facilitated” by the Obama administration. Republican Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart stated that the three legislators would “always meet with the real representatives of the Cuban people,” and not the “jailers.”
Miami’s Republican Representatives stated at a press conference that they will not meet with a future Cuban ambassador to United States.
Other Cubans led by Vigilia Mambisa, an anti-communist organization, protested in Miami. They were led by the leader of Vigilia Mambisa Miguel Saavedra.
Miguel Saavedra, leader of Vigilia Mambisa, and Osvaldo Hernandez responded to pro-Castro protesters across the street from the Versailles restaurant in Little Havana, Miami on July 20, 2015.
The anti-Castro group Vigilia Mambisa protested across the street from Versailles restaurant in Little Havana, Miami on July 20, 2015.
Laura, a protester with Vigilia Mambisa, held up a sign as the group protested across the street from Versailles restaurant in Little Havana, Miami on Monday July 20, 2015.
Miami Herald Editorial: New beginning, same script
The Miami Herald has long supported the normalization of relations with Cuba. On July 20, 2015, it criticized the Cuban regime for failing to change the nature of its regime. But why should the bloody regime relax its oppression of the people of Cuba when the president, who the Miami Herald endorsed twice, has given away the store?
Below is the editorial:
“As Cuba and the United States re-opened their respective embassies on Monday after 54 years, Secretary of State John Kerry delivered perhaps the only line on which all sides can agree: “This milestone does not signify an end to the many differences that still separate our governments.”
Indeed it doesn’t. The landmark flag-raising celebrating the re-establishment of full diplomatic ties represents an effort by the United States to try something new after a half-century of estrangement that saw freedom inside the island slowly erased and finally eliminated altogether.
It’s a hopeful moment, but many Cuban-Americans and Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits remain skeptical about the new approach. They have yet to see tangible progress in democratic reform and some sign that Cuba is ready to turn the page.
So far, there’s been little of that. Witness the remarks of Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez on Monday. He complained about the U.S. continuing to retain the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, repeated demands for an end to the 53-year-old trade embargo on Cuba and “compensation to our people for human and economic damages.”
New beginning, same script. No mention of human rights or political liberties, and, of course, no mention of the compensation that Cuba owes all the properties and businesses that were criminally confiscated after the revolution.
The regime’s actions also conform to the old way of doing things. On the day before the ceremony in Washington, for the 14th consecutive Sunday, the Ladies in White movement reported new acts of repression during their weekly march to demand respect for human rights. They were met with the usual political violence, arbitrary arrests, and other acts of vandalism by Cuban police. The repression is part of a larger, unbroken pattern of anti-democratic violence directed against the voices of dissent on the island, before and after the rapprochement.
No one could have reasonably expected the Cuban government to change its character overnight. Until some tangible sign of progress becomes evident, it is unlikely that the Obama administration’s policy will win new adherents in this country…The only way to fulfill those words is to keep pressing for human rights reforms and to ensure that U.S. diplomats in Cuba at the redesignated U.S. Embassy make it a priority to do whatever they can without violating protocol to help ordinary Cubans achieve progress toward freedom.”
Obama smiles to his new friend the bloody dictator Raúl Castro in Panama.
Conclusion
The group of 47 individuals, including 15 globalists who belong to the Council of Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Group, and the Trilateral Commission, who were the ones who wrote the letter to President Obama on May 19, 2014 requesting the restoration of relations with Cuba and the end of the commercial embargo, achieved what they wanted, though Congress has not lifted what remains of the embargo. The Council of Foreign Relations is the invisible government of the nation. The New York Times, which is the mouthpiece of the Council of Foreign Relations, wrote a series of editorials requesting the liberation of the three remaining Cuban spies, the restoration of diplomatic relations with Cuba, and the ending of the commercial embargo. One of the spies was sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in the assassination of four U.S. pilots who were blown off the skies by two Cuban MiGs over international waters.
Obama shamefully agreed to send the frozen sperm of this Cuban spy to his wife in Panama so that she could be artificially inseminated not once but twice. Never in the history of the annals of American diplomacy had such an outrageous and unprecedented action been done: the Obama sperm diplomacy to appease a bloody dictator. How will our enemies fear our nation with such a president in the White House?
Marxist Pope Francis must be quite happy to have seen the establishment of the Cuban embassy in Washington as he was involved in the secret negotiations between Cuba and the United States. Shamefully neither the Argentinian pope nor Barack Obama has done anything to advance the defense of human rights and the fundamental liberties of the Cuban people. They have not supported the opponents of the regime, who were not involved in the negotiations. They have not supported the Cuban patriots who want democracy and freedom. They have not demanded the release of all political prisoners (one prisoner has been incarcerated for 38 years) and some others have been imprisoned for almost 30 years.
Neither Obama nor Pope Francis has demanded that Cuba respect each and every one of the human rights that are recognized by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Cuba signed many years ago. Neither has demanded the dismantling of the secret police operated by thugs of the secret police (which in Cuba is called Seguridad del Estado) and utilized to oppress the Cuban people. Neither has demanded free and fair elections and the establishment of a democratic nation in the Fatherland of José Martí.
Obama stated that restoring diplomatic relations in Cuba and ending the commercial embargo would bring an end to the repressive Cuban regime. He knows that this is not true. China and Vietnam were recognized diplomatically by the United States and multinationals invested heavily in those two nations. Yet, as the economy improved in China and Vietnam, those tyrannical regimes continued to persecute their opponents and fail to establish a democracy. If anything, improving economically totalitarian regimes gives them more power and resources to continue to oppress their people. It is very sad to help economically the Cuban communist regime which has increased the repression against peaceful opponents since the announcement of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States.
Now that Barack Obama has taken Cuba off the list of nations which sponsor terrorism and embassies have been established in both countries, the Cuban regime will be eligible to receive loans from International Monetary Fund and other international financial organizations that are supported by taxpayers in the United States. Cuba, of course, has never paid a loan received by any nation. If the United States or international financial organizations would lend money to Cuba in the future, the communist regime will steal those funds and never pay back the loans. American taxpayers will suffer, but apparently neither Pope Francis nor Barack Obama seemed to care. It was shameful that the Republican-controlled Congress did not put up a fight over this outrageous and new infamy made by the Marxist who lives in the White House.
The dates of December 17, 2014 and July 20, 2015 will be remembered in history as days of infamy and high treason to Cubans within and outside the island who fight for freedom and liberty.
