This Time It's an American Who May be Convicted in Cuba (Revised)

Allan Gross, a United States citizen, and Jewish, may be convicted in Cuba after having been charged with distributing Internet communications equipment to Cuba's tiny Jewish community. The attorney who has been assisting Mr. Gross' family (in Cuba, but not in court), happens to be the same one representing the Castro tyranny in the United States in the case of 5 Cubans convicted of spying. The trial lasted only two days. So what could all of this mean?

On the United States' end, perhaps we can get some insights from very recent debates in Congress. Cuban American Congressman David Rivera had recently questioned Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela about whether President Obama's Administration considered Mr. Gross a hostage, and if it had granted the Castro tyranny concessions in order to obtain his release. A few days earlier Cuban American Senator Marco Rubio had also questioned the Assistant Secretary of State regarding the sudden shift in the Administration's policy to one which now allows all Americans to visit and send money to Cuba.

The sudden change in United States policy is stunning and one might not believe it were it not really happening. While an American has been held hostage without a trial for almost one year in totalitarian Cuba, the United States has been preparing to reward his captors. The reward? Well, more Americans.

Indeed, today, as Castro and his team continue to supposedly deliberate on whether and for how long to convict the American, US newspapers are reporting that airports throughout the United States and even Puerto Rico will now be able to deliver Americans (by the thousands? Tens of thousands?) to his doorstep. No longer are flights restricted to academics, journalists or Cuban American exiles flying out of Miami, New York or Los Angeles. Now, any American with a cultural interest in Castro or Cuba can also fly from Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, O'Hare in Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Tampa, BWI in Washington or Luis Muñoz Marín in San Juan, Puerto Rico. What timing.

Whatever the verdict, Mr. Castro has already set an unambiguous precedent with Mr. Gross' detention and trial: his many friends in the United States are most welcomed, and other visitors too, but not to help Cubans communicate freely with the world, let alone help them liberate themselves from his 52 year dictatorship.

Mr. Castro will probably also want to use Mr. Gross to obtain the release of the Cuban spies who in 1996 helped facilitate the interception and murder of United States citizens (Cuban exiles) in international airspace on their way to Cuba. Trading humans for humans is actually an ethical improvement in Castro's historical record. A few may still remember when in 1961 he callously and successfully traded those who back then were his adversaries, but also his fellow Cuban citizens, for American tractors.

Mr. Fidel Castro likely sees Mr. Gross as an opportunity, and will likely want more if he can get it. For example, can anyone seriously doubt he would want to make himself further immune to what his student and ally Muammar Gaddafi is facing in Lybia? Not that he faces anything remotely near such a threat. It would make no sense for Cubans to begin killing each other to rid themselves of a man in his eighties or his slightly younger brother. Nor would it make sense to resolve this problem like Lybia and thereby provide yet another tyrant opportunity to emerge.

It will be tragic however if Mr. Gross' is convicted, not only because he did nothing wrong but because his daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer after his detention last year.

See picture of Mr. Allan Gross and his daugher Shira

Published in Along the Malecon Blog

However, Mr. Gross' daughter and family will perhaps be consoled that her father is still on the just side of history. Furthermore, a New York Times prediction may ease their worries. The New York paper, which in 1959 helped defeat another tyrant* by promoting Mr. Castro into power, tells us:

"Although Mr. Gross faces a stiff sentence, most political observers expect him to be released on humanitarian grounds."

Mr. Castro, the humanitarian.

If Mr. Gross' release will come about as a result of the Obama Administration's clandestine concessions to the tyranny, The New York Times doesn't say. Nor does it ask what will happen if other Americans are taken captive. Now that permission to travel to Cuba has been broadly extended, there is a plan for that, right?

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UPDATE MARCH 12, 2011
According to the Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal and Reuters Mr. Gross was convicted today to 15 years in a Cuban prison. Granma has not reported anything yet.
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*HISTORICAL NOTE

That other tyrant was Fulgencio Batista, previously a legitimately elected president (1940-1944) but who decided to return to power in March 1952, not through elections, given he was behind in polls, but through a violent coup shortly before they were scheduled. The 59th anniversary of said coup is, hmmm, today, March 10, 2011.

Prior to Batista's coup and Castro's tyranny, Cuba enjoyed a representative democracy with divisions of power, and three consecutive legitimate elections (1940, 1944, 1948). United States President Harry Truman, nevertheless, recognized Batista as Cuba's legitimate president only 15 days after his 1952 coup. President Eisenhower also supported him, except towards the end.

The New York Times helped popularize Castro through its reporter Herbert Matthews, who spent time with him in the Cuban Sierra Maestra, where he was evidently preparing to be the next dictator while claiming to be ridding the people of a tyrant. Indeed, almost everyone in Cuba who did not support Batista's murderous regime supported Castro. But many were imprisoned or executed upon rebelling after realizing that they had been duped, that is, that Castro did not have any intention of holding democratic elections or respecting Cuba's 1940 republican constitution. That is what the university student organizations and urban rebels had been fighting for and almost everyone else's hope. Urban rebellion led by those who had fought against Batista continued for months against Castro after he consolidated power.

There are more than 8000 documented executions or disappearances under the Castro tyranny according to the Truth and Memory project of the Cuba Archive.

1961 - Cuban Patriots from the poorly US supported Bay of Pigs invasion

upon arriving in Miami after having been imprisoned and then traded by Castro for tractors.