Countries that stood up for Cuba were duped by the island’s dictatorship | Opinion

Cuban ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel has effectively laughed in the face of the leaders of Mexico, Argentina and other Latin American countries who went out of their way to defend the Cuban dictatorship at the recent Summit of the Americas that President Joe Biden hosted in Los Angeles.

On June 13, the very first work day after the summit had ended — and as participating delegations were just returning to their home countries — the Cuban regime slapped draconian sentences of up to 25 years in prison on 381 peaceful protesters who had participated in last summer’s anti-government demonstrations.

For weeks before the summit, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador made a big fuss about Biden’s decision not to invite the Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan dictatorships to the meeting. When Biden made his final decision not to invite these regimes, López Obrador boycotted it and sent his foreign minister instead.

Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard then used much of his opening speech at the summit to berate the United States for not inviting Cuba and Venezuela. Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández, who attended the summit, did much the same in his speech, as did the prime minister of Belize and other participating heads of state.

In fact, Biden had made the right decision. Under a resolution issued by the Summit of the Americas in 2001, only democratic countries should be invited to these regional meetings, which take place only every three or four years. In addition, following the recent brutal crackdowns on peaceful protests in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, inviting their rulers would amount to rewarding repression.

Cuba’s new round of repression began as soon as the summit ended, much like the country’s behavior after President Barack Obama’s 2014 normalization of ties with the island, proving that the island’s civilian-military dictatorship has zero intention of adhering to international human-rights norms.

According to human-rights groups, the Cuban regime’s latest punishments against peaceful protesters are ridiculously harsh.

“We have rarely seen such massive and abusive sentences against largely peaceful protesters in Latin America, with the possible exception of Nicaragua,” says Juan Pappier, a Cuba expert with the Human Rights Watch advocacy group. “In Cuba itself, we hadn’t seen something like this in decades.”

A total of 790 Cubans, including the 381 sentenced on June 13, were arrested during the July 11, 2021, anti-government protests in Cuba, which were the largest ones on the island in recent memory.

Many of them were arrested for chanting “freedom” or for holding signs reading “Patria y Vida” — “Fatherland and Life” — a slogan challenging dictator Fidel Castro’s rallying cry “Fatherland or Death!”

Most of those sentenced were condemned to prison terms of between 10 months and 25 years. Among those sentenced were 16 youngsters between 16 and 19 years old, according to Cuba’s government prosecutors.

Prisoners Defenders, a Madrid-based human-rights group, described the trials as “a theater.” The group tweeted, “Jail terms: without judicial supervision. Attorneys: government-appointed. Trial documents: kept secret. Trials: behind closed doors. Investigators: from Cuba’s Interior Ministry. Witnesses: only police and government officials.”

A statement by Cuba’s attorney general’s office announcing the sentences said the defendants had “attacked the constitutional order and the stability of our socialist state.”

Six European ambassadors to Cuba, including those from Germany and the United Kingdom, tried to enter the courtroom, but were not allowed to do so, human-rights activists say. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch had also unsuccessfully asked for permission to attend the trials.

Yet, at the time of this writing, the Latin American countries that led the diplomatic offensive to invite Cuba to the summit in Los Angeles have not said a word about the regime’s sham trials or its absurd verdicts.

The presidents of Mexico, Argentina and other countries have been taken for a ride by the Cuban regime. The least they should do is to publicly condemn Cuba’s inhumane prison sentences for peaceful protesters as vociferously as they condemned Biden’s decision not to invite the dictatorship to the summit.

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