The reclusive and ailing absolute dictator of Cuba, Fidel Castro, today published an essay where he indicates that US president Obama misrepresented his brother’s (Raul Castro’s) offer to hold direct talks with the United States. He asserts that those that we call “political prisoners” are, in his words, actually agents “in the service of a foreign power that threatens and blockades our homeland.” While Fidel Castro may be insinuating that he is unwilling to negotiate with them, in reality, he is just stating the official policy of the communist regime with regards to political prisoners and letting Obama know that a) the Cuban regime does not recognize them as political prisoners and b) they will be treated as agents of a foreign enemy.

I expect that any negotiations having to do with these political prisoners may require either an implicit or explicit admission by the United States that they (the prisoners) were in fact agents of the US. Castro will settle for exiling them, as he has done in the past. In essence, Castro is educating Obama on how to refer to Cuba’s political prisoners while reiterating that they are willing to exchange their prisoners for the five convicted spies that the US currently holds. Castro also criticized Obama for not doing more to lift the embargo.

Obama must stop using gentle tones and unilateral concessions in dealing with this dictatorship that only wants to eliminate the threats to their communist system by jailing and exiling pro-democracy activists. It is counter-productive… and it’s embarrassing.

Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) describes recent US “embarrassment”

-AG