MIAMI, United States. – After the measures announced by the United States Government this Mondaydozens of Cuban activists, writers and politicians have spoken out on social networks and have considered the announcement as a “thaw part two”similar to the one promoted by former President Barack Obama.
The feminist activist Salomé García Bacallao, a member of the group 11J, assured on Facebook that the Biden administration rewarded the new Penal Code approved on the island with “a thaw,” which it considered a “threat to all forms of dissidence in Cuba.”
“Yesterday the Cuban regime approved one of the most severe Penal Codes against dissent and civil society… Today the US Government announces a package of measures that changes the policy of that country towards Cuba… Someone who advises Joe Biden [que] he’s doing really bad.” said on Twitter the activist Magdiel Jorge Castro.
For her part, the art curator and activist Anamely Ramos, who is prevented by the island’s regime from returning to national territory, lamented on Twitter that the United States has opted for a new thaw after the approval of the new Penal Code in Cuba “to better repress” and while “more than 1,000 political prisoners” are kept in the country’s jails, including several minors.
“A new approach must be based on precise objectives. I prefer fluidity and dialogue to isolationism, but the engagement it cannot once again ignore the reality of Cubans, nor displace the political actors who have worked so hard for a better country”, opined the essayist and historian Abel Sierra Madero.
Meanwhile, the opposition Rosa María Payá, coordinator of the Cuba platform decides, said that it was “outrageous the ineptitude of an administration that prefers the approval of the dictatorship and gives in to its migratory blackmail, even against the clamor of the people. When the repression is maximum and there are children imprisoned for shouting freedom in Cuba, Biden shouts remittances. It’s a mockery.”
Likewise, the lawyer Eloy Viera Cañive pointed that Obama’s policy could not be “traced on the Cuba of 2022.”
“Democracy implies prosperity, but above all things it implies that citizens have the ability to define or at least influence the forms and those who theoretically build and manage their future,” he assured.
“Cuba is another after the 11J . This variable should be part of all the analyzes of those who build foreign policies to Cuba . The Cuban ‘exceptionality’ is unsustainable after the summer of 2021. The double standard in the treatment of Cuba as well”, he concluded.
This Monday, the US government announced that it would restore flights to several airports in Cuba, as well as the family reunification program suspended for years.
In addition, the US Government will also allow group trips for educational or professional exchanges and will lift the limits on remittances sent to the Island, which were subject to a maximum of 1,000 USD per quarter.
In this way, and as promised in his campaign for the presidency, Biden reverses several measures adopted by former President Donald Trump, which tightened the embargo imposed on the Island regime.
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