Miami Herald Logo

For Cuba to change requires multilateral effort | Miami Herald

×
  • E-edition
  • Home
    • Site Information
    • Contact Us
    • About Us
    • Herald Store
    • RSS Feeds
    • Special Sections
    • Advertise
    • Advertise with Us
    • Media Kit
    • Mobile
    • Mobile Apps & eReaders
    • Newsletters
    • Social
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Google+
    • Instagram
    • YouTube

    • Sections
    • News
    • South Florida
    • Miami-Dade
    • Broward
    • Florida Keys
    • Florida
    • Politics
    • Weird News
    • Weather
    • National & World
    • Colombia
    • National
    • World
    • Americas
    • Cuba
    • Guantánamo
    • Haiti
    • Venezuela
    • Local Issues
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health Care
    • In Depth
    • Issues & Ideas
    • Traffic
    • Sections
    • Sports
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Pro & College
    • Miami Dolphins
    • Miami Heat
    • Miami Marlins
    • Florida Panthers
    • College Sports
    • University of Miami
    • Florida International
    • University of Florida
    • Florida State University
    • More Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Auto Racing
    • Fighting
    • Golf
    • Horse Racing
    • Outdoors
    • Soccer
    • Tennis
    • Youth Sports
    • Other Sports
    • Politics
    • Elections
    • The Florida Influencer Series
    • Sections
    • Business
    • Business Monday
    • Banking
    • International Business
    • National Business
    • Personal Finance
    • Real Estate News
    • Small Business
    • Technology
    • Tourism & Cruises
    • Workplace
    • Business Plan Challenge
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Cindy Krischer Goodman
    • The Starting Gate
    • Work/Life Balancing Act
    • Movers
    • Sections
    • Living
    • Advice
    • Fashion
    • Food & Drink
    • Health & Fitness
    • Home & Garden
    • Pets
    • Recipes
    • Travel
    • Wine
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Dave Barry
    • Ana Veciana-Suarez
    • Flashback Miami
    • More Living
    • LGBTQ South Florida
    • Palette Magazine
    • Indulge Magazine
    • South Florida Album
    • Broward Album
    • Sections
    • Entertainment
    • Books
    • Comics
    • Games & Puzzles
    • Horoscopes
    • Movies
    • Music & Nightlife
    • People
    • Performing Arts
    • Restaurants
    • TV
    • Visual Arts
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Jose Lambiet
    • Lesley Abravanel
    • More Entertainment
    • Events Calendar
    • Miami.com
    • Contests & Promotions
    • Sections
    • All Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Op-Ed
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Jim Morin
    • Letters to the Editor
    • From Our Inbox
    • Speak Up
    • Submit a Letter
    • Meet the Editorial Board
    • Influencers Opinion
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Blog Directory
    • Columnist Directory
    • Andres Oppenheimer
    • Carl Hiaasen
    • Leonard Pitts Jr.
    • Fabiola Santiago
    • Obituaries
    • Obituaries in the News
    • Place an Obituary

    • Place an ad
    • All Classifieds
    • Announcements
    • Apartments
    • Auctions/Sales
    • Automotive
    • Commercial Real Estate
    • Employment
    • Garage Sales
    • Legals
    • Merchandise
    • Obituaries
    • Pets
    • Public Notices
    • Real Estate
    • Services
  • Public Notices
  • Cars
  • Jobs
  • Moonlighting
  • Real Estate
  • Mobile & Apps

  • el Nuevo Herald
  • Miami.com
  • Indulge

Op-Ed

For Cuba to change requires multilateral effort

By JOSÉ MIGUEL VIVANCO

vivancj@hrw.org

    ORDER REPRINT →

March 20, 2016 10:27 AM

President Obama is taking a risk in visiting Cuba. He’s right that engagement can create opportunities for change on the island that the old policy of embargo and isolation did not. But unless Obama advocates strongly for political freedoms and human rights, his trip may be remembered as little more than bonding over baseball.

The president is expected to meet both with President Raúl Castro and with critics of his government, address Cubans live on state television and attend a baseball game between the Cuban national team and the Tampa Bay Rays — presumably with President Castro. It will not be easy, especially given the casual setting of a ballpark, to strike the right balance between proclaiming a new era of engagement between the long-hostile nations and applying meaningful pressure to Castro to effect long-overdue reforms.

The human-rights situation in Cuba hasn’t changed much since December 2014, when Obama and Castro announced an agreement to normalize diplomatic relations. As part of that agreement, Cuba made a commitment to release 53 political prisoners and to allow fact-finding visits to the island by the International Committee of the Red Cross and United Nations human rights monitors. Cuba freed the political prisoners, but the monitoring visits have not happened.

Although Cuba has held fewer long-term political prisoners in recent years, laws that allow the government to lock people up for speaking their minds remain on the books. The government increasingly relies on detention without charges to keep people from participating in peaceful marches and meetings. The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, an independent human-rights group, reported more than 8,000 such cases of arbitrary detention in 2015. Just during Pope Francis’s five-day visit in September, police detained more than 100 dissidents.

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

The government still controls most media in Cuba. A small, growing number of independent journalists and bloggers are active online, but the government sometimes blocks access to websites and subjects critics to smear campaigns and arbitrary arrests.

Cuba has made important progress in a few areas, including increased freedom to travel and broader internet access, but its repressive system remains firmly in place. Obama needs to use his visit to press President Castro to begin dismantling that system by unlocking websites, ending arbitrary detentions, and fulfilling the government’s commitment to allow visits by international human rights monitors.

President Obama’s policy of engagement denies the Cuban government one of its main pretexts for repressive rule. From now on, it will be harder for Castro to paint the victims of his government’s repression as agents of U.S. aggression. And that will make it easier for other countries in the region to stand up for human rights in Cuba.

To be most effective, pressure on Havana to change should come not from the United States alone, but rather as part of a multilateral effort. Governments in the region that may have been reluctant to criticize Cuba when the island faced a hostile neighbor to the north no longer have to choose sides. After leaving Havana, President Obama will travel to Argentina, where he will meet with President Mauricio Macri, whose 3-month-old administration has been vocal on human rights in the region. In the new era of U.S. engagement, Obama has a chance to convince Macri and others to weigh in.

Through his engagement policy, Obama has created an unprecedented opportunity to support the efforts of Cubans seeking to exercise their basic rights. He should seize it — in Havana by urging real reforms, and in Buenos Aires by starting to rally international pressure on Castro to deliver. Only then should he allow himself a seventh-inning stretch.

José Miguel Vivanco is the Americas director at Human Rights Watch.

  Comments  

Videos

Hillary Clinton takes on Trump administration, rebukes Spicer during California speech

Miami poet Richard Blanco's tribute to Orlando: 'One Pulse — One Poem'

View More Video

Trending Stories

Federal prosecutors broke law in Jeffrey Epstein case, judge rules

February 21, 2019 02:51 PM

Americans arrested in Haiti with arsenal of guns won’t face U.S. charges

February 21, 2019 04:06 PM

Patriots owner Robert Kraft is among the hundreds charged in Florida sex traffic sting

February 22, 2019 12:23 PM

It’s about to get easier for legal immigrants in Miami to get their papers. Faster, too.

February 22, 2019 03:14 PM

Trump threatens to deport Venezuelan military officials’ families that have fled to Miami

February 22, 2019 07:21 PM

Read Next

Florida mayors: Gov. DeSantis, make early-childhood education his priority

Op-Ed

Florida mayors: Gov. DeSantis, make early-childhood education his priority

By Francis Suarez, Lauren Poe, Buddy Dyer, and Bill Barnett

    ORDER REPRINT →

February 22, 2019 05:16 PM

Mayors from throughout Florida sign on to the importance of pre-K initiatives.

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE OP-ED

Why is Bernie Sanders running? He’s already won.

Op-Ed

Why is Bernie Sanders running? He’s already won.

February 22, 2019 03:37 PM
Overtown, and Miami-Dade Public Library, hold a treasure trove of art

Op-Ed

Overtown, and Miami-Dade Public Library, hold a treasure trove of art

February 21, 2019 06:54 PM
Merkel, and the rest of Europe, are through with Trump

Op-Ed

Merkel, and the rest of Europe, are through with Trump

February 21, 2019 07:35 PM
Medical community must sound alarm about climate change’s negative effects on health

Op-Ed

Medical community must sound alarm about climate change’s negative effects on health

February 20, 2019 06:23 PM
Miami’s  Citadel food hall misappropriates a revered symbol of black resistance in Haiti

Op-Ed

Miami’s Citadel food hall misappropriates a revered symbol of black resistance in Haiti

February 20, 2019 05:29 PM
Knight Foundation’s investment in media seeks to preserve an essential element of democracy: an informed citizenry

Op-Ed

Knight Foundation’s investment in media seeks to preserve an essential element of democracy: an informed citizenry

February 19, 2019 01:24 PM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

Miami Herald App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Public Insight Network
  • Reader Panel
Advertising
  • Place a Classified
  • Media Kit
  • Commercial Printing
  • Public Notices
Copyright
Commenting Policy
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story