{"id":353432,"date":"2010-02-23T11:20:16","date_gmt":"2010-02-23T16:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.szone.us\/f95\/even-obama-can-t-open-cuba-s-clenched-fist-39857\/"},"modified":"2010-02-23T11:20:16","modified_gmt":"2010-02-23T16:20:16","slug":"even-obama-cant-open-cubas-clenched-fist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/353432","title":{"rendered":"Even Obama Can?t Open Cuba?s Clenched Fist"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>On 02.23.10 07:00 AM posted by Ray Walser<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/fidel_raul0904091.jpg\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/fidel_raul0904091.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cuba\u0092s communist regime lashed out at the Obama Administration over the weekend following bilateral meetings in Havana.<\/p>\n<p>A visit by a senior State Department official &#8212; Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Craig Kelly \u0096 marked the highest-level contact thus far. The chief aim of the visit: a discussion of migration issues.<\/p>\n<p>Ambassador Kelly also tested the political waters by meeting with prominent Cuban dissidents and civil society figures.<\/p>\n<p>The Cuban reaction was swift and predictable.* The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/aponline\/2010\/02\/20\/world\/AP-CB-Cuba-US.html\" >Castro regime fulminated: <\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>from the very day he [Kelly] arrived in the country, [he] was warned that a visit with dissidents would not be tolerated.* *This meeting &#8221;demonstrated anew that (U.S.) priorities are more related to supporting the counterrevolution and the promotion of subversion to destabilize the Cuban revolution than with the creation of a climate conducive to real solutions to bilateral problems.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>To reinforce its message of repression, the regime prevented prominent dissident <a href=\"http:\/\/www.internationalrelations.house.gov\/111\/ant111909.pdf\" >Jorge Luis Garcia Perez<\/a> \u0093Antunez\u0094 from attending the Kelly meeting; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.laht.com\/article.asp?ArticleId=351989&amp;CategoryId=14510\" >roughed up demonstrators<\/a> supporting the 76-day hunger strike of gravely-ill prisoner of conscience <a href=\"http:\/\/article.nationalreview.com\/425369\/historic-holy-cuffs-c\/jay-nordlinger\" >Oscar Zapata Tamayo, <\/a>and continued to hold U.S. citizen and government contractor <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/ap\/20100220\/ap_on_re_la_am_ca\/cb_cuba_us_9\" >Alan Gross<\/a> on trumped-up spying charges.<\/p>\n<p>The Obama Administration\u0092s attempt at better relations with Cuba flounders upon rocky shoals. *Like its predecessors, the Administration is unable to make headway against a regime committed to defending the absolutism of its Marxist-Leninist system and preserving the unchecked rule of the Castro brothers.<\/p>\n<p>Cuba\u0092s broadside against Ambassador Kelly again demonstrates the real limits of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foreignpolicy.com\/articles\/2010\/02\/19\/terms_of_engagement\" >engagement<\/a> with the gaggle of anti-American tyrants stretching from Havana and Caracas to Damascus and Tehran.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/02\/23\/even-obama-cant-open-cubas-clenched-fist\/\" >http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/02\/23\/&#8230;clenched-fist\/<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 02.23.10 07:00 AM posted by Ray Walser Cuba\u0092s communist regime lashed out at the Obama Administration over the weekend following bilateral meetings in Havana. A visit by a senior State Department official &#8212; Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Craig Kelly \u0096 marked the highest-level contact thus far. The chief aim of the visit: a discussion [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-353432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}