CUBAN COMMUNIST ENDORSES SOCIALIST OBAMA....
- From: Christian <mormoninfo@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2012 16:57:28 -0700 (PDT)
Obama wins endorsement from Raul Castro's daughter
By the CNN Wire Staff
June 4, 2012
(CNN) -- The daughter of Cuba's president supports the re-election bid
of U.S. President Barack Obama, but believes he could do more were it
not for the pressures he is facing, she said in an interview broadcast
Monday on "CNNi's Amanpour."
"As a citizen of the world, I would like him to win," said Mariela
Castro Espin, daughter of Raul Castro, in the exclusive interview,
which was conducted Friday in New York. "Given the choices, I prefer
Obama."
The 49-year-old gay rights advocate said that Obama has been
constrained in his ability to effect change. "He wants to do much more
than what he's been able to do," she said. "That's the way I interpret
it personally. I don't know if I'm being objective."
Still, she said, "I believe that Obama needs another opportunity and
he needs greater support to move forward with his projects and with
his ideas, which I believe come from the bottom of his heart."
Asked if Obama would lift the half-century-old trade embargo on Cuba
if he could, Castro said, "I believe that Obama is a fair man. And I
believe Obama needs greater support to be able to make these
decisions. If Obama had all the political support of the American
people, then we could normalize our relationships, as good or better
than we had under President Carter."
During his single term as president, from 1977 to 1981, Jimmy Carter
eased restrictions on U.S. travel to Cuba.
Castro added that she supports the release of Alan Gross, a U.S.
citizen arrested in Cuba in 2009 and sentenced to 15 years on charges
of subversion. But, she added, she also wants to see the release of
the "Cuban Five," who are being held in the United States for crimes
of espionage.
Castro was unswayed by Gross' recent request that he be allowed to
visit his 90-year-old mother before she dies if he promises to return
afterward to prison in Cuba.
"Alan Gross has been granted everything that he's asked for: He has
been able to see his wife, he has been able to have matrimonial,
conjugal visits, and he has been treated with respect and dignity the
way we always treat prisoners in Cuba," Castro said. "We haven't
received the same treatment on the other hand for our five prisoners
who have very long sentences that are not right. I think that the six
must be released -- both the five Cubans and Alan Gross."
"Is that what you're saying, that Alan Gross should be released and
the Cuban Five?" host Christiane Amanpour asked.
"Of course," Castro responded. "I'm referring to the five Cubans and
Alan Gross. I believe that this would be the happiest solution for all
involved."
The gay rights activist said that sexual orientation and gender
identification are among the rights that Communist Cuba still needs to
address. A bill legalizing civil unions, not same-sex marriage, has
been proposed, "however, this hasn't happened as yet," she said. "And
people who are in same-sex couples do not have any protection in that
sense."
She predicted the legislature would address the matter, which her
father has not opposed, this year.
Castro said the nation had learned to acknowledge and correct past
mistakes after its aggressive quarantine policy for HIV-positive men
and women during the early years of the AIDS epidemic was abandoned in
1993.
"I never agreed with these quarantines," she said. "There were several
international health organizations that evaluated these quarantines as
a positive thing at a time when not much was known about how the
epidemic spreads."
Amanpour pointed to a Human Rights Watch description of Cuba as "the
only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of
political dissent."
But Castro said the rights group "does not represent the opinion of
the Cuban people. And their informants are mercenaries. They're people
who have been paid by a foreign government for media shows that do not
represent Cuban positions directly."
She defended her nation as one that allows dissent. "People who
dissent don't go to jail," she said. "Everybody in Cuba expresses
their view and there's a political participation so that we can
express ourselves and question everything."
Holding an opinion contrary to that of the government "enriches the
debate," she said. "No one goes to prison for an opinion, rather for
serving foreign interests who pay them. That's called being a
mercenary and that's penalized in laws everywhere in the world,
including the laws of this country."
She said the island's single-party system would disappear if other
nations would stop trying to impose their will on Cuba.
"If Cuba's sovereignty weren't threatened, if the internal affairs of
Cuba weren't manipulated in media campaigns, if Cuba weren't the
subject of an economic and trade embargo, which has caused so many
problems for us, then in Cuba, it wouldn't make sense to have a sole
party, just one party," she said.
Though some critics have said the nation relies on the embargo to
crack down on internal dissent, and that the nation's socialist system
would collapse if the United States were to lift the embargo, Castro
disagreed about what would happen to her country.
"I think it would become stronger," she said. "This is why they don't
lift the embargo."
Castro offered no sympathy for Yoani Sanchez, the dissident blogger
inside Cuba who has won multiple awards for her work, which is
critical of the Castro government.
"She gives service to foreign powers who are interested in eliminating
the Cuban experience," Castro said. "She's an official voice of the
global dominant powers."
Castro disputed Sanchez's assertion that she was not allowed to work.
"She is allowed to work in Cuba," Castro said. "But she makes much
more money with the prizes, which are being sent to her from abroad,
than for any work that she might do with the very low wages that we
have in Cuba."
Castro predicted that Sanchez's audience will "get bored of hearing
lies," and her influence will wane. "She doesn't really fight for
authentic rights; she's not committed to the rights movement in Cuba,
because she doesn't even participate in any of the debates that are
trying to achieve rights."
Castro blamed the trade embargo for the fact that many Cubans are not
able to use the Internet. "We pay Internet over satellite, which is
very expensive," she said. "We don't have the access to the fiber
optic lines that pass by Cuba. We're negotiating with Venezuela to
help us so we can maximize access to Internet."
But she said Cubans still have access to "very big social networks."
"There is more access to the Internet in Cuba, legal and illegal, than
you can imagine, because the Cuban people are a curious people. And
you can't deny us the access to information."
Asked about Sen. Robert Menendez's description of her as "a vocal
advocate of the regime, an opponent of democracy, who has defended the
brutal repression of democracy activists," Castro called the Democrat
from New Jersey "a person who really doesn't have his feet down on the
ground."
Asked why the United States had issued Castro a visa, a State
Department spokesman noted that she had visited the United States
twice during the George W. Bush administration. "However, one should
not mistake the fact that a visa was granted to this person with our
general policy towards Cuba," Acting Assistant Secretary of State for
Public Affairs Michael A. Hammer told reporters in Washington. "In
fact, we want, and we allow freedom of expression in our country,
something, which in fact, does not occur in Cuba."
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