Cuba is cracking down. As always, that means more Cubans escaping the island | Editorial

Life in Cuba is becoming unbearable. The U.S. State Department confirmed it last week, releasing a human-rights report revealing it has received credible evidence of “unlawful killings, forced disappearances and torture of political activists inside Cuba.”

We in South Florida already knew Cuba had been cracking down on its citizens; we’ve seen evidence every week of Cubans in the boats and rickety rafts that aim for the Florida coast daily.

We have long been able to take the social and economic temperature inside Cuba by the desperate things that those on the island will do to leave their country, by land and sea, and at the rate at which they do it.

But at a meeting of high-level U.S. and Cuba officials scheduled for Thursday, resuming suspended migration accords between the two countries might be on the table. The goal being to end the perilous escapes from the island.

Cubans fleeing

Earlier this month, Miami Herald reporter Nora Gamez Torres disclosed that in five months alone, between October and the end of February, some 47,000 Cubans arrived at the Mexico-U.S. border, according to the latest U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Coast Guard in South Florida is also tracking a similar rising trend in Cubans’ attempts to reach South Florida by sea. Since Oct. 1, 2021, Coast Guard crews interdicted 1,257 Cubans, up from 838 interdictions the previous year.

That total combined number of Cubans arriving is larger than the 39,303 Cubans who came in the entire fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2021, a figure that already marked a steep increase over previous years.

The last time so many Cubans decided to leave the island was during what is now called the 1994 rafter crisis. That summer, more than 35,000 Cubans climbed on boats and rafts and headed to Florida.

These issues are expected to be on the table, as U.S. and Cuban officials are scheduled to meet in Washington on Thursday to discuss migration concerns. The talks are unusual because the administration has not sat down with Cuba since President Biden took office.

Hard to believe that the United States will agree to any substantial changes, such as once again allowing relatives here to send remittances to their families on the island, which has always eased shortages in Cuba.

State Department report

The State Department report is hard evidence, but we’re not surprised the island government is mistreating those who demand political change. That has been the modus operandi of the Cuban government for six decades.

What was new is that in clear, direct language the State Department report warns of “significant human-rights issues” in Cuba and highlights “systemic and violent repression” unleashed by Miguel Díaz-Canel’s government against Cubans who took to the streets last July 11 to call for political freedoms and better living conditions, the Miami Herald reported.

The demonstration was a great embarrassment to the regime. In fact, the hope in Miami was that the protests would continue, expand and possibly bring Díaz-Canel’s government down.

They did not; the regime squelched street protests, unfortunately.

The Cuban government has said it prosecuted more than 700 people in connection with the protests. But activist groups have told the outside world that the number is closer to 1,400 arrests.

According to the State Department report, their information was gathered from the testimonies and documents obtained by family members of those detained, activists and human-rights organizations, some confirmed in media reports, the Herald reported.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have also condemned the treatment of the July 11 protesters in their own reports, describing several violations of due process in the trials that followed. The Cuban government doesn’t care much, and it never has, continuing to announce harsh sentences against the demonstrators.

Responding to the report, Cuba’s foreign minister said the “U.S. human rights disinformation operation intends to deflect attention from severe violations against its population, where 1,009 people were shot to death by police in 2021.”

The State Department also notes that, “As a result of self-censorship and lack of access, many foreign journalists rarely published stories on human-rights violations while inside the country.” And that’s a shame. A silenced press helps Cuba hide its abuses.

As for government accountability, the report concludes that, “Impunity was pervasive.” According to the assessment, “There were no known cases of prosecution of government officials for any human-rights abuses, including torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment,” the Miami Herald reported.

Baloney, said one Cuban official in a tweet. Bruno Rodrigues Parrilla, Cuba’s foreign minister, denounced the report and said, “That to manipulate and intimidate countries that do not subordinate Washington’s interests, the U.S. is using human rights as an instrument.”

The story of Cubans trying to flee their country en masse is long and torturous and begins with the rise to power of Fidel Castro during the Cuban Revolution of 1959. And it has not let up in 63 years.

There is nothing new in this latest exodus of Cubans and in the State Department’s human-rights abuse report from inside the island.

These horrible revelations are just more of the same, thanks to the cruelty of the Cuban government.

This story was originally published April 20, 2022 at 6:00 PM.