MIAMI, United States.- A new scenario presents itself for Cuba with the beginning of a new US administration headed by Donald Trump. Cuban-American congressmen, who have joined forces to prevent the Castro regime from remaining in power and work for the freedom of the people, propose ways to benefit Cubans and weaken the dictatorship.
Regarding the current context and the plans aimed at achieving a transition towards democracy and the release of all political prisoners on the Island, CubaNet convert with the congressman Mario Díaz-Balart.
When the Joe Biden administration announced, among other measures, the elimination of Cuba from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, they maintained that it was a bipartisan agreement. Were the Cuban-American congressmen aware of this announcement? What was your position when you found out?
Every minute that these Cuban heroes who are political prisoners are outside is a positive day for them and their families; but let’s be clear: it was a scam, a betrayal from the Biden and Harris administration not only to the cause of Cuban freedom, but also to the National Security of the United States.
We should not be surprised that they told lies because this was not a negotiation. This was a concession. This was not an agreement but a way of trying to help the regime. The Biden administration has been trying from the beginning to help to maintain and strengthen the tyranny in Havana. The reasons why they do it is another conversation we can have, but that is what they have been seeking and demonstrates the level of complicity that the party has with the tyranny of Havana.
That’s why before leaving they tried consolidate to the regime, but they are not going to achieve it because all this is reversible.
These measures were not bipartisan and there has been rejection from members of Congress from different sides, but particularly from Florida. These know the reality of Cuba and have criticized the Biden and Harris administration for this position that I must describe as scoundrel and highly negative and dangerous for the cause of Cuban freedom, for the Cuban people and also for the National Security of the United States.
You who know the situation in Cuba, what would you have done differently?
Instead of unilaterally giving concessions to the regime, it would increase pressure. It would not only increase pressure on the regime and its members, but also on those who help finance it, those who profit from the suffering of the Cuban people, including allied countries and foreign companies.
My response would be to increase the diplomatic pressure, the pressure. There are many things that can be done government of the United States. I have said before and I reiterate that the drug tyranny of Havana, which has been going on for almost 70 years, would not have survived another four years of Donald Trump in the White House
Now that President Trump returns to the presidency with a task force that includes Senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Mauricio Claver-Caronein charge of this hemisphere, to Michael Waltz as the National Security Advisor and others, that task force knows the danger that the regime is for the United States and the horror it is for its own people.
Now that President Trump is back, if I were this tyranny in Cuba I would be highly nervous.
Have you been working on any concrete plan to present to the new administration with recommendations to address the agendas of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, countries that suffer from the same problem? evil?
It is exactly the same cancer in all three countries. A cancer that has been very dangerous for everyone in the hemisphere, for democracy, and also for their own people. This also affects the national security of the United States and President Trump is not going to accept it.
To the question if there are ideas and plans, I answer yes, there are. We have many ideas and many alternatives for the United States to help the cause of Cuban freedom, and helping the cause of Cuban freedom helps the hemisphere, democracy and National Security.
That Marco Rubio, of Cuban origin, is the new Secretary of State, what could he represent for these people subjected to communist dictatorships?
President Trump puts the senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State knowing who Marco Rubio is, knowing what his policies, his attitude and his ideology are. He also knows the effectiveness of Marco Rubio and his intellectual level. Marco Rubio, an extremely qualified and prepared person for that position.
Rubio has been very clear his entire life not only about the tyrannies in this hemisphere, but also about Iran and communist China, etc.
These tyrannies, those of Havana, Venezuela and Managua, are obviously nervous and that is why we see what the Biden administration has done in trying to give all possible oxygen to the tyranny of Cuba. Why? Because they are terrified. That tyranny is in a very, very weak situation, possibly the weakest situation in its history.
The Cuban regime promised to release more than 500 prisoners, but there are no guarantees that what it will do and that they will all be political prisoners. How to free all the people who are still locked up?
In Cuba there are more than 1,000 political prisoners, and in addition to that the entire Cuban people are imprisoned in a prison a little larger than the island of Cuba. The solution for removing political prisoners, of the misery, the poverty that exists in Cuba is that this drug-trafficking and incapable dictatorship no longer controls the island.
That is the solution for all the problems of Cubans and also the solution for the national security of the United States. We have seen this movie before: they did it with President Carter, with Clinton, with Obama. Some political prisoners are released and other prisoners do not. And then they continue to imprison. But this little game is already over.
It is not true that President Biden was confused because the measures announced were due to the complicity of the Biden and Harris administration with the regime in Havana. Now with the new President Trump, comes a new day and a new attitude.
On the same day that the releases were announced, it was also learned that two Cubans were sentenced to four and five years in prison for criticizing the regime on Facebook. How to end this infinite cycle of using the lives of prisoners as currency?
The official policy of the United States, which is in law, is very simple: pressure, sanctions and I also hope to achieve other things soon. That must be the formula until three conditions occur in Cuba: the release of all political prisoners without exception, the legalization of some basic freedoms for the town: independent political parties, free press, unions, etc.; and the third condition is supervised democratic multiparty elections. When these three conditions are met, the sanctions will be lifted and there will be help from the United States.
Now all these little games and gifts to give him oxygen and concessions to the regime, they are already over. The law is going to be enforced in a much more aggressive, much more positive way.
I repeat: the solution to eliminate poverty, the misery that exists in Cuba, slavery, the lack of future, is for Cuba to return its freedomsovereignty and democracy. That is the goal of the United States. Now there is a president with a team that understands that and who has been the best ally of the cause of the freedom of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua that we have had in the White House in many decades.
