The Daily Signal - Is There Still Hope for a Free Cuba?

Episode Date: December 17, 2021

Cuba's communist regime has done almost everything in its power to put an end to pro-democracy protests there. Now, the movement for freedom is fighting to stay alive even as many of its leaders and others have been imprisoned.  Last month, Cubans again tried to gather and protest the regime, but the government met the effort with intimidation and force. The protest ultimately resulted in “about 80 new people that were detained and remained detained,” says John Suarez, executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba.  The pro-democracy movement in Cuba gained new momentum in July, when thousands of Cubans took to the streets during several days of unplanned protests. Cuba’s communist government is still detaining over 700 of those involved in the protests.  The Cuban government's motive is that "they want control,” says Suarez, who joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to describe the situation and what hope remains for a free Cuba.  We also cover these stories:  President Biden signs a measure, passed by Congress, to raise the debt ceiling by $2.5 trillion. YouTube cancels conservative talk show host and comedian Steven Crowder for the rest of the year. Kim Kardashian discusses cancel culture with former New York Times writer Bari Weiss on the podcast "Honestly."  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, December 17th. I'm Doug Blair. And I'm Virginia Allen. The Cuban regime has done everything in its power to put an end to the pro-democracy protests in the country. There are still more than 700 protesters being detained in Cuban prisons. John Suarez, the executive director of the Center for Free Cuba, joins the show today to discuss the tactics the Cuban communist government is using to maintain control in the country. and what hope remains for a free Cuba. But before we get to Virginia's conversation with John Suarez,

let's hit our top news stories of the day. On Thursday, President Biden signed a measure that would raise the debt ceiling by $2.5 trillion. The debt ceiling increase comes after the Senate voted Tuesday, 50 to 49, to pass the measure after Democrats and Republicans reached a deal to avoid a filibuster. Last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell,

agreed to a one-time exemption from the filibuster to approve the debt ceiling hike with a simple majority vote. Later that same Tuesday, the House passed the bill 221 to 209, sending it to the president's desk to sign. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had previously warned Congress that the federal government could default on its debt if the debt limit wasn't raised. YouTube has canceled conservative talk show host and comedian Stephen Crowder for the remainder of the year. Crowder is host of the last. Louder with Crowder podcast and talk show. This week, he received an email from YouTube

informing him that he would be banned from the platform for the rest of 2021. Crowder discussed the cancellation on his show this week and share the discussion on Twitter. As usually, they did not provide any details for the suspension. And it's one of those things where we could say, hey, we could guess, but it's just so hot. It's like, I mean, take your pick. In the email to Crowder, YouTube said the video titled The Left Hates Elon Musk, because he's two-based, contained content that was in violation of YouTube's anti-hate speech policy. But YouTube did not provide any details on what the platform found to be hate speech.

This is not the first time YouTube has censored Crowder. Earlier this year, YouTube deleted some of Crowder's videos and blocked him from uploading new content for a week. Kim Kardashian joined former New York Times writer Barry Weiss on her podcast, honestly, to discuss cancel culture, how Kardashian's been a victim of it and how it's impacted her as a person. Kardashian said, I believe that if we cancel someone for something that they had done or said in their past, then we're not inviting them into the conversation to really understand. She added that she doesn't worry about what every single person online says. I would never be me.

That's why I think cancel culture is the most ridiculous thing, because I really do believe in rehabilitation and freedom of speech. I've never really been into cancel culture. Now stay tuned for my conversation with John Suarez as we discuss the future of the pro-democracy movement in Cuba. The Biden administration has been in power for almost a year. And the radical left has been imposing its dangerous ideology on America. Not only do they want to expand government control and promote cancel culture, but they also want to rewrite our nation's history. Indctrinate American students in our public school system. Attack our traditional values of honor, liberty, and justice for all, and implement a Marxist agenda that unleashes socialism throughout our country.

Here at the Heritage Foundation, we need your help to finish the year strong and, prepare for the battles that lie ahead in 2022. By making a tax deductible year-end gift right now, you'll help advance your principles, free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense at a time when our nation needs these principles most. Visit heritage.org slash year-end to make your tax-deductible donation today. I am so pleased to be joined by the executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, John Suarez. John, welcome back to the show. Thank you, Virginia. It's an honor to be with you. While we have seen so much happen in Cuba over the past six months, if we think back to July

11th of this year, that was a really pivotal moment for Cuba. We saw large pro-democracy protests break out in Cuba really organically. And Cuba's communist government, they acted as quickly as they could to shut that down. But leaders of this pro-democracy movement, they've been really trying to keep this momentum going. So in November, on November 15th, they organized another protest, catch us up what has been happening and what happened in mid-November when these pro-democracy protesters tried to kind of reinvigorate this movement. Well, I think I think it's important to highlight that what made July 11th different than prior protests was its spontaneous nature, wasn't something organized by the pro-democracy

movement. And many observers at the time said that that was the reason it succeeded because the secret police and the state security apparatus would have preemptively shut down something that had been organized. So what we saw is we had this movement called the archipelago movement. and its most visible leader, Juno Garcia, called for civic marches in Cuba,

initially on November 20th. And they did formal petitions, which under Cuban current Cuban law, in the Constitution of 2019, in theory, permits public protests when you've done your due diligence and gotten your permits. And what happened was

they applied for the process, permits. The Cuban government initially didn't reject the permit. What they did was they announced that on the days leading up to and on November 20th, they were going to have a mass military mobilization of the country. So the organizers decided out of prudence to move back the protest from November 20th to November 15th. When they did that, the regime formally rejected the permit applications and warned the organizers that they'd be subject to legal proceedings if they went forward. The organizers decided to go forward and things escalated. Over the month of October all the way into November, there were acts of repudiation, crowds

organized by the regime to attack the homes of organizers, secret police picking up organizers and organizers' family members and threatening them. New Garcia's door appeared with a dead, bloody chicken at his door. And all this combined with continual warnings of prison for the organizers. And in the final weeks leading up to the protest, they started spreading images of their regime supporters that had been handed out clubs. And in some cases, assault weapons, things that look like AK-47s to their supporters. to post on social media. Oh, wow.

So this was leading up to that. And then on the 14th and 15th, they started rapid militarization, secret police everywhere. Union Garcia's home was surrounded. He actually put up a sign saying that his home had been blockaded. And you could see it from the street. And what ended up happening was that the regime

used giant Cuban flags to cover up his windows. You couldn't see him. And Garcia is one of the streets is one of the primary leaders, correct, in this pro-dochry movement? Exactly. And so he had announced that a day prior to the 15th, he was going to go out as an individual and do this civic march solely with a white flower

and leave it at a statue, and they stopped him from doing that. There was some controversy generated because after that flag came down, they didn't know what his situation was, and then about 48 hours later, he appeared in Spain. in Madrid and gave full declarations as to what had been going on, indicating that he feared for his safety and his family's safety, and that he wouldn't have been able to speak because

everything was blocked, all his communication channels. So by whatever means he was able to get out, get to Spain, and he's been able to make some very strong declarations in terms of the repression and the dictatorial nature of the regime. Meanwhile, inside of Cuba, there were about 80 new people that were detained and remained detained. And this is in addition to over 700 that we know of that were detained back in July that have been subjected to political show trials. And they're asking for, you know,

20 year prison sentences and higher in many of these cases. So did anything really take place on November 15th? Or was Cuba's communist government successful and really totally shutting it all down. Some individuals were able to get out to protest sites, but they were arrested and detained. One of them, Servario Portal Contreras, who'd been a political person in the past. It just got out a few months ago, was re-arrested again. And as I say, another 80 activist have been detained and continue to be detained that we know of. We also know that along with the

July 11th protesters, that they're in excess of 20 children that are currently locked up for engaging in peaceful protest. We know that at least one mother is on a hunger and thirst strike, currently demanding the release of her son, who is, let me make sure I have the age, right? I believe he is, yes, 17 years of age. Jonathan Torres Farat and his mother, Barbara Farat, Gaiyan. She has been on a hunger and thirst strike for a few days now,

which is something that worries us greatly. That's what's taking place. there have been a number of events. What we've tried to do is to organize, obtain international visibility, so around the 14th, and again now on the eve of the 10th with that summit for democracies

that President Biden put together. We put on statements that we sent to democratic governments across the world international agencies, also to Catholic bishops. Because in the days leading up to the November 15th protest, The Catholic bishops of Cuba came out with an important statement calling for the freedom of Cuban political prisoners and for a national dialogue. And we were basically put out a request to bishops around the world to echo their message and to pray for political prisoners and their masses, especially now during Christmas. And is the Biden administration putting pressure on Cuba to release these prisoners?

The State Department has had a campaign jailed for what. This was a campaign that was also underway during the Trump administration. They would highlight specific cases during the Biden administration. They have expanded it, especially post-July 11th. They've also targeted regime repressers first for July 11th and sanctioning them. And there were also an additional nine that they announced that were. sanction now after the November 15th protest. So they are doing something.

Obviously, we wish they would do more. And by more, we mean backing, first encouraging other countries that have Magnitsky regs on their books to apply those sanctions against the regime repressers that they have done against so far. We also request that they expand it to include Miguel Diascaned, the president of Cuba. Oftentimes people say you can't go after a current head of state with sanctions,

but the Europeans have done it with Lukashenko and Belarus with Magnitsky, and therefore the precedent has been established that they could also do that with Diazgenel in Cuba. And as we know, Diazgenel was calling for people to combat in the streets, and we saw his paramilitaries dressed in black firing on unarmed protesters, and by any measure that's a crime in international circle. In addition to that, we've been calling on the Biden administration to carry out a public diplomacy campaign about the internal blockade in Cuba. And that's something that the Cuban regime has been very effective in their spin that the hunger in Cuba is due to the economic sanctions of the United States, which is an incredible falsehood. The reality is that the internal blockade is imposed by Cuban.

officials on the Cuban people. And when you say internal blockade, you mean an actual? Well, I mean that there are a series of laws and regulations in place that prevent Cubans from fishing in boats around their island. They have laws on the books that prevent farmers from selling their goods to Cubans at market. So they have to turn it over to a government agency called an aquaupial. And the typical communist efficiency, oftentimes the,

The communist officials show up late, so much of the food rots rather than getting to anyone. And if you try to sell it while you're waiting, you're subject to prison terms. So you have a situation where pre-Castro Cuba, Cuba is able to feed itself. And today under the communist regime, Cuba has to import 80% of its food. And much of it is imported from the United States. The chicken people today are eating in Cuba is grown in Arkansas. It could be grown in Cuba. the communist permitted it as it was pre-1959.

And this isn't just Cuba. You saw the same pattern in Mao's China where 45 million people start to death because of communist agricultural policies there. In the Soviet Union, throughout its periods of the 1960s, 70s, they had to import grain from the United States, although Russia prior to communism was an exporter of grain. And post-communism became an exporter of grain once again to the rest of Europe. So it is clear that the communist economic model is a disaster that causes hunger. And that needs to be highlighted and that's sometimes lost in this conversation.

And that's something that we're calling for. And furthermore, in terms of that chicken that's being sold to Cubans, there is an outrage because the Cuban government is purchasing it at about a dollar per kilo and then selling it to Cubans at seven. dollars per kilo. Whereas Americans, when you go to the supermarket, you're probably paying between two and three dollars per kilo. And obviously the salary of a Cuban national is a fraction of the salary of an American. You do the math, that's where the scarcity comes from. Yeah, absolutely. Help us understand a little bit more why in these communist regimes, like in Cuba, why is the government motivated to cut off that internal production, the agriculture and the farming, why would they want to be reliant, essentially on other countries to provide those goods when they could be

growing that within their own country? What's their motive? Well, their motive is that they want control. And in their obsession over control over their people, they're willing, and also their ideology. Their ideology is they believe that communist centralized planning is superior to markets. And the reality is that it is not. And then secondly, they want to have control. The Cuban government, even before they had shortages of food in 1960, set up a ration card. So the idea is that if you want to eat, you need to be in a good relationship with the Cuban government. The other issue is, which is one of the mistakes when we had this conversation about communism and socialism is that under the communist regime of Cuba, if you want to eat, you have to work.

If you don't work in Cuba, you go to prison. If you don't work, you're viewed as a parasite of the state. And that happens also in other communist regimes. This idea that you get a check from the government and you don't have to work is a feature of welfare capitalism, not communism. Okay. Really fascinating, John. Thank you for breaking that down.

You know, one of the things that I have been wondering is I have been really, reading about everything that's happening in Cuba is how how is the Cuban government fostering this loyalty among citizens because there's you know I've been reading about there's now you know a radio channel set up for private citizens essentially to inform on their neighbors who might be part of this pro-democracy movement but you know maybe from the outside it's easy to sort to say well why why wouldn't every Cuban if they're all experiencing hunger, if they're all experiencing these shortages, why wouldn't they all be on board to, you know,

have democracy go forth in their country? Why are there still loyalists to the Communist Party who are willing to inform on their own friends, or even their own family, knowing that these people will be jailed, beaten, maybe even killed? Well, I think it goes back to the idea of the, the panopticon, which is an idea where you have the idea of a prison where everybody feels that they're being surveilled constantly, even though they may not be the case in reality. And the regime has

been successful in fostering the idea of having an all-pervasive, all-powerful, 24-7 omnipotent police day. Now, they do have an incredibly sophisticated police day. The KGB actually, one of their colonels said that it was a better police state than what they had. They had the training not only of the KGB but the East German Stasi. And in the 1960s, when Mr. Castro was disappointed in the Soviet Union, not engaging in a first strike on the US during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he also brought in members, former members of the Wauphin SS, Nazis, to train his security forces. So we're talking, this is a state security apparatus that has had the best training from the Wauphin's not only the communist world, but also the Nazi world.

And what they have sought to do is to set up a police state in which Cubans police themselves. So they've set up committees in defense of the revolution that spy on Cubans at the block level. And those neighborhood spying committees are themselves spied on to ensure compliance. The head of the committee in defense of the revolution nationally right now is head.

Herrado Hernandez Nordello, he was one of the five Cuban spies released by Obama back in December of 2014, who was serving a double life sentence, one life sentence for espionage against the United States, and another for murder conspiracy in the Brothers to the Rescue Shootdown, in which three U.S. citizens, one of them who was a decorated Marine, Amanda Alejandre Jr., Carlos Costa, and Mario della Peña were killed, along, together with Pablo Morales, who was a Cuban resident, who'd been rescued by brothers to the rescue years earlier, himself on a raft in Cuba. And they were killed while engaged in a humanitarian mission in the Florida Straits by the Cuban government. Tragic. And we hear these stories,

and it is, it's just your heart goes out to these people and what they're walking through on a daily basis, the things that they're facing. We've recently learned that a Cuban journalist, Mabel Paz, she was beaten in her home last week, and she told VOA that she believes that the reason for the attack is because she has been reporting on the situation, on the reality of the situation in Cuba,

on the protests against the government. How common is this in Cuba that journalists are attacked by the government. Well, Cuba currently is one of the countries that the Committee to Protect Journalists is focusing on because there are a number of journalists currently jailed. Back in 2003, Cuba had the largest number of journalists jailed in the world. They were competing with China in excess of 20. So this is not at all uncommon.

And there have been cases. There was a case of a journalist who went missing and who's never been found. And he was interviewing young people that were, this was back in 2003 during the Borrella project, which was a citizen initiative organized by Osvalo Paya Sardinias to reform Cuba's human rights standards to bring them in line with international standards. Mr. Paya, along with the youth leader, was killed in 2012 and it appears to have been an extrajudicial killing. But back in 2003, this journalist was interviewing a number of young people who had been expelled. from the university for circulating the Borrella project, which according to Cuban law was perfectly legal, but the regime was not happy with. And a short time later, he went missing.

So it's, it is, it is a dangerous profession in Cuba to be an independent journalist and to be open about trying to provide fair, truthful news. Also, the international journalists are also subjected to great pressures. We saw leading up to the November 15th protest that Efe's news agency was expelled from the island. Their credentials pulled, and that created a bit of friction with the Spanish government, which is a left-wing government that's normally friendly with Havana. But we've seen over the decades how the regime has been very effective with international journalists in Cuba of expelling journalists that are reporting, even if they are, They don't, they're not as harsh as they should do with the Cuban government,

but they do some even-handed reporting, and that's enough to get them expelled from the island. And what it does is it has a chilling effect on the reporters who remain behind. Yeah, and I can only imagine that as a journalist, if you know, oh, you know, so-and-so was also just, was beaten or has disappeared or has been imprisoned for their work, really makes you pause and think about what you're going to write, what you're going to say.

Now, where exactly do things stand right now? And what is the path forward? Is there a path forward for the pro-democracy movement in Cuba? Well, the path forward and one that we've been observing now for a long period of time is to continued nonviolent actions carried out by these movements inside of Cuba and developing and improving their strategies. But in order to do that, it also requires

solidarity internationally. So what we've been calling for, based on the calls coming out of the island, especially by the Christian liberation movement, this movement that had been started back in 1988 by Osvaldo Paya Sadeghis and still exist today with Eduardo Cardet, his successor after Mr. Paya was killed in 2012.

They're calling for a South Africanization of Cuba. that Cuba, for all intense purposes, is in an apartheid-style state that systematically denies its citizens, their basic rights. And they're calling for a number of things and we're sharing in that call, which is first and foremost, calling on democracies

to denounce the crackdown and pro-democracy activists and to sanction Cuban officials involved in that crackdown. Secondly, calling on the UN Security Council to respond to the situation by sending a delegation to Cuba, also seeking to establish a humanitarian corridor for direct emergency assistance to needy Cubans without the participation of the regime. The regime has been doing everything to block direct transfers assistance from Cubans abroad to Cubans inside the island. They don't permit private humanitarian agencies from reaching out to Cubans directly on the island. Another thing that we've been calling for is the establishment of global arms embargo on Cuba.

Lamentably, some countries like Spain have been selling weapons that are being used against Cubans by the Cuban government, suspending economic and military cooperation agreements such as the EU-Cuba cooperation agreement that presently stands. And as I said earlier, applying Magnitsky sanctions against regime repressors, raising the cost of repression to individual actors in the island and finally obviously underscoring the importance of revealing that it is the Cuban government that is responsible for the scarcity that the Cuban people are suffering from the reality that buildings are collapsing in Havana due to a lack of upkeep that are killing Cubans including young girls a few months ago at the same time that the Cuban regime is building hotel resorts for foreign tourists is an outrage that needs to be made

known. And what is the number one thing right now? What what does the Biden administration need to do tomorrow in in its engagement with Cuba? Well, what they what they have been doing that is correct thus far is continuing the policies of the previous administration to maintain sanctions on the regime, to apply sanctions against repressers. I think they should be more aggressive about it. But they have been at least taking steps in the right direction there. I think that the important thing for the Biden administration to do is to make a harder push multilaterally to encourage the Europeans, the Canadians, and other democracies to apply those Bainzky sanctions against regime repressors, against raising the cost of repression under repressors in the island. and also pushing the establishment of a global arms embargo on the regime. And lastly, I think especially from the side of U.S. public policy,

really exploring and outlining how the regime is imposing that internal blockade that I've mentioned already a couple of times on the Cuban people. Excellent. John, tell us how our listeners can follow the work of the Center for Free Cuba. They're welcome to visit our web page, which is www.cubacenter.org. They can visit us on Twitter at Cuba Center. And we'd be more than happy to welcome them to our, we have something called Cuba Brief that comes out a couple times a week informing on what's taking place in Cuba.

And they can request that through sending me an email at John. dot Suarez, S-U-A-R-E-Z, and John is J-O-A-H-N at cubacenter.org. Excellent. John Suarez, executive director of the Center for Free Cuba. John, thank you so much. We really appreciate your time and these updates. This is a situation that we are watching closely here at the Daily Signal, and so we're really excited your expertise to give us the latest updates on what is taking

place in Cuba. Thank you, Virginia. it's very important to keep an eye on what's going on the side of the island. And I think just to conclude, it's not just what's going on in Cuba. This regime has had a negative impact in places like Venezuela and Nicaragua. They've helped Daniel Ortega become a full-fledged autocrat. They assisted Hugo Chavez and helped install Nicolas Maburo that has caused one of the greatest humanitarian disasters in the region. And that would not have happened without the continued existence of the communist regime in Cuba.

John, thank you for your insight. We really appreciate your time. Thank you, Virginia. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks so much for listening, and we will be back with you all on Monday. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation.

It is executive produced by Virginia Allen and Kate Trinco, sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, please visit DailySignal.com.