On October 10, the U.S. Deputy Undersecretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Eric Jacobstein, met with Johana Tablada de la Torre, [Cuba’s] Deputy Director General for the United States of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to discuss various issues. [1]
Jacobstein stressed that “the Cuban government [must release] the approximately 1,000 political prisoners unjustly detained” and allow “its citizens to exercise their fundamental freedoms. If the Cuban government seeks to improve relations with the United States, it is essential to achieve progress on these human rights issues.” Jacobstein added that U.S. policy toward Cuba “focuses on promoting accountability for human rights violations and abuses and, at the same time, increasing support for the Cuban people, including promoting safe and humane migration, and independent private sector in Cuba.”
Tablada said to media that the U.S. inclusion of Cuba on its list of state sponsors of terrorism “immediately triggered a disproportionate flow of migrants to the United States.”
The U.S. responded that “US law establishes specific legal criteria for rescinding a ‘country that sponsors terrorism’ designation, and that any review of Cuba’s status on the list would be based on the law and criteria established by the Congress.”
Moreover, the U.S. stated it has a primary objective of “guaranteeing safe, orderly, humane and regular migration between Cuba and the United States.” To that end, “Over the past year, we have taken a number of steps to facilitate such migration, including the full resumption of immigrant visa services in Havana and the creation of a new parole program for certain nationalities, including Cuban citizens. We continue to urge Cubans to follow legal immigration pathways and not risk their lives through dangerous irregular migration.”
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[1] USA: If the Cuban regime seeks to ‘improve relations’ it has to advance human rights, Diario de Cuba (Oct. 24, 2023); Torres, Cuba has ‘urgent’ need for sanctions relief, island’s diplomat tells U.S. officials, Miami Herald (Oct. 19, 2023).
Is this progress?
The US and Cuba had talks on law enforcement issues last January. However, Joe Biden’s criticism during his 2020 presidential election campaign of Bernie Sanders for praising the Fidel Castro’s social services for rural Cubans leads me to deduce that members of his administration have privately taken note of the island’s creation of homegrown vaccines and other medicines but stress that Fidel deserves to be remembered as a tyrant rather than a tireless defender of downtrodden humanity (as noted by former Cuban political prisoner Armando Valladares in his memoir “Against All Hope”, Joseph Stalin also built medical and educational facilities for the peasantry and disaffected factory workers even as he took the lives of 20 million of his own people).
Links:
https://www.state.gov/united-states-and-cuba-resume-law-enforcement-dialogue/
https://www.reuters.com/world/high-level-us-cuba-talks-yield-no-progress-top-disputes-cuban-official-2023-09-14/