Once again we say not in our name: Response to Biden Administration's new policy on Cuba.

The State Department announced on May 16, 2022 a new Cuba policy they claim are "new measures to support the Cuban people." The opening and closing statements pay lip service to human rights, and mention political prisoners, but the meat of the policy is a rehash of the Obama policy.

This is not a surprise. When high ranking Biden Administration officials went to Caracas in early March 2022, it was understood that when they went to Cubazuela, they would meet with both Maduro and his Cuban handlers. At the time this trip do criticism in the press, because analysts recognized that it legitimized Maduro and sidelined Guaido.

This followed up by the "migration talks" a little over a month later between a U.S. interagency delegation led by Emily Mendrala, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, and the Cuban dictatorship’s delegation led by Vice Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio. This did not inspire much confidence in the Cuban diaspora. 

President Biden, early on in his 2020 campaign, indicated that he would return to the Obama Cuba policy, and when the announcement came, the advocates for the old policy heralded its return. Early news was that for the first time since 1960 - the United States would permit financing and investing in a "Cuban private enterprise."

Will U.S. taxpayers be left on the hook if the investment fails? This has happened to their European counterparts.

The Chamber of Commerce maybe happy with this turn of events, but how does that help Cuban political prisoners or end the internal blockade erected by the Castro brothers that keeps Cubans in misery?

Hanging over all of this is the new penal code in Cuba that the Castro dictatorship approved that further clamps down on independent journalists and human rights defenders with "penalties of 10 to 30 years," and "in extreme cases, even death" for giving "information to international organizations, associations, or even people who have not been authorized by the government." 

This is why once again we say not in our name.

Our recommendation to Cuban friends of freedom is to join the Cuban Freedom March on May 21, 2021 in New York City. A new generation of young activists are speaking truth to power, and deserve all our support.