The ranking member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee is trying to push President Obama to secure more human-rights concessions from Cuba during talks between U.S. officials and the Castro regime in Havana.
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., a Cuban-American and vocal opponent of Obama’s decision to try to normalize relations with Cuba, sent a letter Wednesday to Secretary of State John Kerry asking U.S. officials to do more to protect Cuba’s recently released political prisoners and secure the release of dozens more the Castro regime has yet to free.
Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson is in Havana this week to further negotiations related to Obama’s December executive action taking steps to normalize relations with Cuba.
While Menendez said he believes that the Obama administration should have set more conditions guaranteeing democratic concessions before traveling to Cuba to speak directly with the Castro regime, he urged Jacobson to push for far more human-rights guarantees in her talks this week.
“I am deeply concerned that several of the political prisoners who were released by the Castro regime have been granted only provisional freedom and continue to live under significant restrictions,” he wrote to Kerry.
Specifically, he said he is “troubled” that three of the 53 political prisoners released already have been rearrested, including Marcelino Abreu Bonora, who he said “was brutally beaten and jailed on December 26 for a period of two weeks.” More broadly, he said human rights organizations have recognized that more than 100 political prisoners are still in Cuban jails and the same groups have documented more than 8,899 political detentions last year alone.
He also pointed out that after Obama’s Dec. 17 announcement of his plans to re-engage with Cuba, just days later the Castro regime arrested more than 50 Cubans that “sought to test this historic moment and publicly share their vision for the future of the country.
“The event underscores the absolute intolerance of a government that jails its citizens for simply seeking to express their hopes and expectations,” he wrote.
He pressed Jacobson to hold the Castro government to its commitment to allow visits by the United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross, visits he said that must include full access to Cuban prisons and prisoners, not just regime officials.
Menendez said the administration has not provided details about how it will hold the Cuban government to account for more than $6 billion in outstanding legal claims by U.S. citizens and business for property confiscated by the Castros, or the more than $2 billion in unpaid civil and criminal judgments rendered against the Castro regime by U.S. courts.
“In her discussions this week, Assistant Secretary Jacobson must prioritize the interests of American citizens and businesses that have suffered at the hands of the Castro regime before providing additional economic and political concessions to a government that remains hostile to U.S. interests,” he wrote.
Menendez also expressed concern that, as the State Department reviews Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, the U.S. government has not raised the issue of whether the Castro regime will return the “dozens of U.S. fugitives that receive sanctuary in Cuba.”
He singled out Joanne Chesimard, who is on the FBI’s list of Most Wanted Terrorists and is wanted for the 1971 alleged murder of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster.
The State Department and the FBI reporting indicates, that as of 2007, the Castro regime is harboring more than 70 American fugitives wanted for their alleged involvement in the murder of U.S. law enforcement personnel, arms trafficking and the hijacking of airplanes, he said.
“It is of the utmost importance that [Jacobson] insists that these fugitives be immediately returned to the United States to face justice for their deplorable crimes,” Menendez wrote.
“The Cuban people in their continued struggle for democracy and fundamental freedoms, deserve nothing less than our unwavering support,” he concluded.
