Obama to the left of the Washington Post on the rights of Cuban dissidents Friday, June 26, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009 E-Mail this story Free Headline Alerts
By Cliff Kincaid, Accuracy in Media
If you recognize that Obama failed to vigorously and immediately support the pro-freedom demonstrators in Iran, take a look at his attitude toward those suffering under the Castro dictatorship.
An extraordinary editorial ran in the liberal Washington Post on Thursday, June 25, about the indifference of the Obama White House to the plight of those who believe in freedom just 90 miles from our shores. The editorial, ÒA Dissident Deflected,Ó told the story of how the Obama Administration wouldnÕt issue a statement recognizing the plight of five human rights activists in Cuba until the Post itself inquired about the matter.
The five leaders of CubaÕs pro-democracy movement were recipients of the National Endowment for DemocracyÕs 2009 Democracy Award. It was expected that they would not be allowed by the Castro regime to travel from Cuba to the U.S. to accept their award. But it wasnÕt expected, at least by the Post, that the Obama White House would seem unconcerned about their struggle for freedom.
The Post explained, ÒNone were able to travel to Washington. They have been represented here by Bertha Antœnez, sister of Jorge Luis Garc’a PŽrez. And Ms. Antœnez, an Afro-Cuban who was active in the Rosa Parks movement before she was forced into exile a year ago, has been snubbed by President Obama. Requests that he meet with her went unanswered. Only as the ceremony began did the White House issue a brief statement.Ó
The paper said that ÒMr. ObamaÕs hastily drafted statement Ñ issued after The Post inquired about his silence Ñ said he wished Ôto acknowledge and commendÕ the five dissidents Ôand all the brave men and women who are standing up for the right of the Cuban people to freely determine their countryÕs future.ÕÓ
The belated ÒStatement of President Obama on NED 2009 Democracy Award RecipientsÓ consisted of one paragraph:
ÒI would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and commend the National Endowment for Democracy's 2009 Democracy Award recipients Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, Librado Linares, Ivan Hernandez Carrillo, and Iris Tamara Perez Aguilera and all the brave men and women who are standing up for the right of the Cuban people to freely determine their countryÕs future. Like too many of their fellow citizens, four of these individuals have been unjustly jailed for defending the basic freedoms we all hold dear in the Americas. It is my sincere hope that all political prisoners who remain jailed, including three of todayÕs award recipients, will be unconditionally released and allowed to fully participate in a democratic future in Cuba.Ó
As important as the Post editorial was, Jack Otero of the Committee for Free Trade Unionism wrote a letter to the paper noting that the Post failed to highlight a leader of the Cuban independent labor movement by the name of Iv‡n Hern‡ndez Carrillo, who is serving a 25-year prison term since his arrest in 2003. Otero said that Hern‡ndez Carrillo is imprisoned for the ÒcrimeÓ of organizing unions not beholden to the communist-controlled Cuban Labor Confederation. ÒThe Post should have acknowledged that labor activists in Cuba also risk their lives for freedom,Ó he said.
This takes on more interest because we recently discovered that a top official of the AFL-CIO, Karen Nussbaum, who spoke at a major ÒprogressiveÓ conference in Washington, D.C., is stonewalling questions about how she traveled to Cuba as a young radical and came away gushing about the Castro dictatorship. She went to Cuba on the Venceremos Brigades organized by ObamaÕs political associate Bernardine Dohrn, then a member of the communist terrorist Weather Underground.
But the Post editorial raised questions about ObamaÕs indifference toward Cuban freedom fighters in the context of his treatment of other Latin American Marxists.
The paper commented, ÒItÕs not that the president is too busy to concern himself with Latin American politics. The White House arranged for a Spanish journalist to ask a question at TuesdayÕs news conference; reporter Macarena Vidal pressed Mr. Obama on whether U.S. allies such as Chile and Colombia were doing enough to help with Ôless democratic countries.Õ The president replied by heaping praise on visiting Chilean President Michele Bachelet, a socialist who has been promoting CubaÕs readmission into the Organization of American States and who has gone out of her way to avoid offending Venezuelan strongman Hugo Ch‡vez. ÔChile is leading by example,Õ Mr. Obama said, adding that its good relationship with Washington despite political differences Ôpoints the way for other countriesÉwhere the democratic tradition is not as deeply embedded as weÕd like it to be.ÕÓ
The Post said that the message from Obama to Ch‡vez and the Castro brothers was that ÒWe can work with youÓ while the message to CubaÕs democratic opposition was ÒWe donÕt have time for you.Ó
This is an extraordinary indictment of Obama from the viewpoint of a liberal newspaper that now recognizes the far-left nature of the PresidentÕs policies toward Latin America.
The paper then wondered if the brief Obama statement about the Cuban dissidents would be enough to satisfy the democratic forces opposed to the Communist dictatorship. ÒWe suspect not,Ó said the paper. ÒThey, like the beleaguered pro-democracy movements of Venezuela and Nicaragua, are hoping that the American president will focus his policy on supporting them. Yet for now, Mr. ObamaÕs diplomacy is clearly centered on their oppressors.Ó
The sub-headline for the Post editorial was, ÒWhy doesnÕt President Obama have time for CubaÕs pro-democracy opposition?Ó Considering his failure to immediately and actively express support for the brave freedom fighters in Iran, the answer should be obvious by now. He doesnÕt believe in the freedom agenda.
Some of us knew this was coming and predicted it. Unlike most of the media, we had examined the influences behind Obama, such as Communist Frank Marshall Davis, his mentor and father-figure, and understood before the election that this was a candidate who viewed America and the American way of life as the main problems in the world. Obama is truly a revolutionary Marxist who sympathizes not with those being oppressed by anti-American governments but with the governments themselves.
Another example of this attitude can be seen in the U.N. conference that has been underway in New York, where the Obama Administration is facilitating the work of anti-American crackpot Miguel DÕEscoto, the U.N. General Assembly President whose most notable distinctions include being suspended from his priestly duties because of his communist political activities and receiving the Lenin Peace Prize from the old Soviet Union.
By any objective measure, nothing good for America can come out of this conference. The main objective of DÕEscoto and his ilk, including Hugo Chavez and the Castro brothers, is world government financed by global taxes. They have made it clear that the American people will have to pay the price because we have desecrated ÒMother Earth,Ó as DÕEscoto called it.
The Washington Post editorial on Cuba only scratched the surface of the dangers we face from this White House. Ultimately, the question that has to be seriously addressed by the Post and other media is: What should we do about the fact that the President of the United States is allied with those forces that want to bury us?