25.05.2017, Cuba.
“The 20th of May, the day, chosen by Trump to congratulate the people of Cuba on the Republic of Cuba anniversary, is known among Cubans as the date when Cuba became a US protectorate,” a Cuban expert, Iroel Sánchez Espinosa said on May 23 in his commentary to the Rossa Primavera News Agency.
“After the US, like real opportunists, interfered in the Cuban war against Spanish colonialism, the claim that back then Washington was concerned with Cubans’ human rights, made now after a century of US aggression and interventions against Cuba, has been strongly rejected by most Cubans,” the expert continued.
Regarding Trump’s policy towards Cuba, Iroel Sánchez Espinosa said that, despite the current US government’s promises to revise Obama’s policy, migration agreements entry permits for Cubans residing in the US, and the sales of agricultural goods to the island find wide support in the business community and in the security services. So far, it is unlikely that all this will be dismantled. For now, escalation is only in the US President’s political rhetoric, while the agreements reached by President Obama have not been actually canceled so far.
On May 20, 2017, the US President Donald Trump congratulated the people of Cuba on the 115th anniversary of the Republic of Cuba; in response, the Head of the Cuban Government Raúl Castro said that the country counts its history from the revolution of 1959 led by Fidel Castro.
In his address to Cuban Americans, Donald Trump promised to help Cuba have a government upholding democracy and civil freedoms.
“Today, we remember patriots like José Martí, who devoted himself to making Cuba an economically competitive and politically autonomous nation. He reminds us that cruel despotism cannot extinguish the flame of freedom in the hearts of Cubans, and that unjust persecution cannot tamper Cubans’ dreams for their children to live free from oppression,” Trump said in his statement. “The Cuban people deserve a government that peacefully upholds democratic values, economic liberties, religious freedoms, and human rights, and my Administration is committed to achieving that vision.”
Commentary
Such statements made by the US President sound very similar to the US Department of State’s addresses to the Venezuelan opposition that led to bloody protests; the latter have been taking place for nearly two months leaving about 60 people killed.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
