Rubio on Biden administration’s response to Cuba protests: ‘This is about freedom. Say it!’
A pair of Republican lawmakers took a State Department official to task on Sunday after she tweeted a message about rare street protests in Cuba that made no reference to the anti-government sentiments being expressed.
One of them, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), also slammed the Biden administration more broadly for its low-key response to the protests and the communist regime’s signaling that it will deal harshly with dissent.
“Why is it so hard? Why are they so uncomfortable coming forward and just condemning this evil socialist, Marxist regime?” he asked.
Rubio was speaking in a video clip posted online shortly before 10 PM eastern time.
As of then, a review of official Twitter feeds found no tweets relating to the Cuba situation from President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, the White House, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the State Department, State Department spokesman Ned Price, White House press secretary Jen Psaki, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, or the U.S. Mission to the U.N.
Earlier – shortly before 5:30 PM eastern – Julie Chung, acting assistant secretary in the State Department Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, had posted a tweet – possibly the first relating to the Cuba situation from a ranking administration official.
“Peaceful protests are growing in Cuba as the Cuban people exercise their right to peaceful assembly to express concern about rising COVID cases/deaths & medicine shortages,” Chung said. “We commend the numerous efforts of the Cuban people mobilizing donations to help neighbors in need.” …
“No they’re chanting LIBERTAD,” tweeted Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) in response to Chung’s tweet. “Stop playing cover for communists and support the Cuban people. My god. Why is that so hard for you.”
Rubio called Chung’s tweet “ridiculous.”
“People in #Cuba are protesting 62 years of socialism, lies, tyranny & misery not ‘expressing concern about rising COVID cases/deaths.’ Why is it so hard for @potus & the people in his administration to say that?”
In the March 2015 Trumpet, editor in chief Gerald Flurry explained the importance of Cuba to the United States:
Many do not think the Caribbean is strategically important, but that’s because the United States has dominated it for many decades. For the Catholic Spanish Empire, Cuba was the single strategic port that served two entire continents. For Napoleon, Haiti served as the basis of his empire in the New World. When he lost Haiti in a slave revolt, he gave up his ambition in the Western Hemisphere and sold off a massive chunk of territory in the Louisiana Purchase.
But there is a much more recent reminder of Cuba’s strategic importance. If you are older, you probably remember late 1962, when the U.S. discovered that the Soviet Union was deploying missiles to Cuba. Sources told the Americans that some of the missiles were so big that the tractor trailers carrying them through Cuban towns had trouble making turns. The Soviets were fortifying Cuba with ballistic missiles equipped to carry nuclear warheads. And they were about to aim these deadly missiles at the American mainland from point-blank range.
Most authorities believe this was the closest the Cold War ever came to full-scale nuclear war.
In December 2014, the Obama administration concluded a deal with Cuba that helped stabilize the regime. Mr. Flurry wrote:
Critics of American foreign policy in general and of the U.S. embargo of Cuba tend to romanticize Cuba’s ruling regime. That is a serious error! Under the Castros, the people of Cuba have suffered political terror and human rights abuses. Fidel and Raúl Castro have run the nation as a totalitarian police state, and they continue to model it after the Soviet Union. Cubans are the only people in the Western Hemisphere who haven’t been able to elect a leader in more than 55 years. …
Anybody familiar with the Castro regime’s track record knows that legitimizing and propping it up is not in the interest of the people of Cuba! The deal is based on hopes of some American leaders that the Cuban government will reform, but they required no change from it. And it is extremely rare for dictators to voluntarily loosen their power.
The normalization of relations, according to Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, “will embolden the Castro regime to continue its illicit activities, trample on fundamental freedoms, and disregard democratic principles.”
This is a bad deal for the Cubans.
Was it good for the people of the United States? Under the Castro regime, Cuba has acted as one of the Western Hemisphere’s major sponsors of terrorism and drug trafficking. Legitimizing it is a victory for those who want to see America fall. Giving in to that Communist regime emboldens America’s enemies. …
For America, this was a disgraceful surrender. The president undid a strategy that the nation had been using for 53 years, a strategy that might have been on the verge of toppling one of the world’s most renowned criminal regimes.
Now the Biden administration is pursuing a similar policy by refusing to support the latest protests. For more on Cuba’s significance, read Mr. Flurry’s article “The Deadly Dangerous U.S.-Cuba Deal.”
