Thread by @johnjsuarez

Detente with the Castro regime had and continues to have negative and unintended consequences. The consensus with Europe established in 1996 in the EU Common Position, linking improved relations to improvement in human rights, was ended. cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 1/25

The influx of cash and international legitimacy during the Obama Administration emboldened the dictatorship to behave more aggressively in the region, and against the democratic opposition in Cuba. cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 2/25

It was a policy born of secrecy, great injustices, skirting Congressional oversight, and U.S. law. cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 3/25

Fmr US Amb to @OAS_official warned the policy would "represent a billion-dollar windfall to Cuba’s hospitality sector, all of which is co-owned by the regime, with most of the industry operated by the military & much of it located on property confiscated from US nationals." 4/25

Despite normal relations & high level outreach early in the Obama Administration both the Ortega & Chavez regimes pursued closer relations with Russia and China. Cuban intelligence services have played a large role in both Venezuela & Nicaragua. cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 5/25

On April 17, 2009 President Barack Obama said that his Administration sought "a new beginning with Cuba" and stated further that he was “prepared to have my administration engage with the Cuban government on a wide range of issues." cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 6/25

The White House also marginalized Cuban dissidents and downplayed their importance early on in 2009 refusing to meet with them. cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 7/25

Less than eight months later Alan Gross was taken hostage in Cuba. Alan Gross was arrested on December 3, 2009. This American citizen spent 25 days in a Havana jail before being visited by a U.S. diplomat. cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 8/25

By that time Alan Gross had been approached by a Cuban “attorney” who just happened to be representing five Cuban spies imprisoned in the United States for espionage and conspiracy to commit murder. cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 9/25

This Cuban attorney represented Alan Gross before his show trial and later appeals. Alan Gross’s supposed "crime" was attempting to provide Internet access to the local Jewish community in Cuba. cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 10/25

In February 2010 Ramiro Valdes, then age 77, was hired "as a consultant for that country's energy crisis" but his expertise is not in energy. Valdes was Vice President of the Council of State & Minister of Communications in the Cuban government. cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 11/25

His role in Communications was figuring out in 2007 a way to muzzle the internet, what he called a "wild colt of new technologies." cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 12/25

Commander Ramiro Valdes, founder of the Castro regime's feared Ministry of the Interior, head of the organization between 1961 and 1968 and was viewed by some as "the No. 3 man in the Cuban hierarchy." cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 13/25

He is the architect of Cuban totalitarianism's repressive apparatus and assisted Chavez and Maduro in building the Venezuelan version. cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 14/25

The Cuban government was caught on July 15, 2013 trying to smuggle tons of weapons hidden under bags of sugar to North Korea through the Panama Canal on a North Korean-flagged ship from Cuba with undeclared military cargo.” cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 15/25

Nevertheless, the Admin continued outreach to the Castro regime thru secret negotiations, its policy of unilateral concessions, included loosening sanctions & skirting laws prohibiting travel to Cuba by redesignating it "people to people contact." cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 16/25

This policy was a reboot of a legal tactic carried out by the Clinton Administration in the 1990s. cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 17/25

President Obama announced his new Cuba policy on December 17, 2014 to great fanfare but downplayed commuting the sentences of three remaining Cuban spies and freed them the same day. cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 18/25

These spies had planned terrorist acts on U.S. soil on orders from Havana. The ring leader, Gerardo Hernandez, was serving a life sentence for his role in a murder conspiracy that claimed four innocent American lives 1996. cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 19/25

The Kerry State Department threatened the daughter of a martyred dissident in order to protect the sensibilities of the Castro regime's foreign minister in 2015. cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 20/25

Not to mention claiming that there was no room for dissidents at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Havana later that same year. cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 21/25

On March 2, 2015 the government of Colombia seized a shipment of ammunition bound for Cuba on a China-flagged ship due to a lack of proper documentation. cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 22/25

The BBC reported that "officials said about 100 tons of gunpowder, almost three million detonators and some 3,000 cannon shells were found on board. The ship's records said it was carrying grain products." cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 23/25

Hxagon, a consulting and technology company that provides risk assessments and predictive analysis in emerging markets, concluded: "Two big shipments of weapons seized in 20 months means that this is probably a regular occurrence." cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 24/25

On May 29, 2015, despite a long history of international terrorism, the Obama State Department removed Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. This did not end the Castro dictatorship's promotion of terrorism to advance its policy aims. cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2019/06/review… 25/25