A Presidential Toast

A great toast tonight by U.S. President Barack Obama in honor of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good evening. Guten abend. Michelle and I are honored to welcome you as we host Chancellor Merkel, Professor Sauer, and the German delegation for the first official visit and State Dinner for a European leader during my presidency. (Applause.)

Angela, you and the German people have always shown me such warmth during my visits to Germany. I think of your gracious hospitality in Dresden. I think back to when I was a candidate and had that small rally in Berlin's Tiergarten. (Laughter.) So we thought we'd reciprocate with a little dinner in our Rose Garden.

Now, it's customary at these dinners to celebrate the values that bind nations. Tonight, we want to do something different. We want to pay tribute to an extraordinary leader who embodies these values and who's inspired millions around the world -- including me -- and that's my friend, Chancellor Merkel.

More than five decades ago -- in 1957 -- the first German chancellor ever to address our Congress, Konrad Adenauer, spoke of his people's "will of freedom" and of the millions of his countrymen forced to live behind an Iron Curtain. And one of those millions, in a small East German town, was a young girl named Angela.

She remembers when the Wall went up and how everyone in her church was crying. Told by the communists that she couldn't pursue her love of languages, she excelled as a physicist. Asked to spy for the secret police, she refused. And the night the Wall came down, she crossed over, like so many others, and finally experienced what she calls the "incredible gift of freedom."

Tonight, we honor Angela Merkel not for being denied her freedom, or even for attaining her freedom, but for what she achieved when she gained her freedom. Determined to finally have her say, she entered politics -- rising to become the first East German to lead a united Germany, the first woman chancellor in German history, and an eloquent voice for human rights and dignity around the world.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest honor a President can bestow on a civilian. Most honorees are Americans; only a few others have received it, among them Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, and Helmut Kohl. So please join me in welcoming Chancellor Merkel for the presentation of the next Medal of Freedom. (Applause.)

I want to conclude by inviting all of you to stand and join me in a toast. And I want to do so with the words that Angela spoke two years ago when she became the first German leader to address our Congress since Chancellor Adenauer all those decades ago.

Her words spoke not only to the dreams of that young girl in the East, but to the dreams of all who still yearn for their rights and dignity today: to freedom, which “must be struggled for, and then defended anew, every day of our lives.”

Cheers. Zum wohl. (Applause.)

A Disservice to Miami Herald Readers

UPDATE: Our thanks to the Miami Herald's Frances Robles for the follow-up. However, make sure to see the original images of Sequin's site (not just his newly edited version).

In April, we strongly condemned the vulgar sex-sites of Havana Journal's Rob Sequin.

Sequin's sex-sites denigrate Cubans with tasteless images and comments such as the following:

"Seriously, Cuba is the place to get laid... man, woman, straight or gay! There may not be freedom of speech but there certainly is freedom of sex."

Now, Sequin is looking to financially prey on the same community he's shamelessly insulted.

So he's set up a new business, Cuba City Hall, which charges Cubans an exorbitant $495 to use his contacts within the Castro regime and expedite official documents (e.g. birth certificates) certified by Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Relations.

This week, the Miami Herald wrote a story -- virtually a free advertisement -- about Sequin's new business.

Yet sadly, it did not bother to disclose his controversial sex-sites.

Did the Herald think its readers wouldn't want to know about Sequin's other Cuba interests?

Obviously not, as it mentioned one of Sequin's non-sex-sites, Havana Journal.

This blatant omission is a disservice to Miami Herald readers, which deserve to be fully informed about where their hard-earned money could end up.

(To be fair -- the Herald's story did, at least, elude to the predatory rates that Sequin is charging for his regime contacts).

There are also legal questions.

Is it a coincidence that Sequin officially launched this business soon after the Obama Administration issued new rules allowing non-Cubans to send (limited) remittances to the island?

Is this how Sequin is forwarding payments to his associates in Cuba?

After all, he's providing a non-official service that requires official channels -- for a hefty fee.

Moreover -- judging by the story -- he seems to be the only non-official provider currently able to obtain official documents and get them certified by the Ministry of Foreign Relations.

Thus, his associates must work for -- or have close contacts in -- the Ministry of Foreign Relations.

Is he remitting extra-official payments to them?

Sequin boasts that his "South Florida lawyer" informed him that this business falls within the sanctions exemption for "informational materials" (thanks to the 1988 Berman Amendment).

And he's probably right.

However, it doesn't exempt him from sending payments to a prohibited official of the Government of Cuba, a prohibited member of the Cuban Communist Party, or even the provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

But that's a matter for Treasury and Justice.

For now, we strongly urge all Cubans to take a close look at Sequin's sex-sites before contracting his services.

(He's edited these sites since April, but Babalu Blog has preserved the original ones for posterity).

Furthermore, we hope the Miami Herald will provide its readers with all of the information they deserve to know about Sequin's Cuba interests.

In other words, with the full story.

More Arrests and Re-Arrests

From Catholic News Agency:

Cuban government detains two recently released dissidents

Cuban dissident Jorge Luis Garcia Perez denounced the country's government on June 2 for detaining 10 opposition leaders.

Perez said the detentions occurred while the two men were meeting to "coordinate a national march that will extend across the island, from one end to the other," reported Cubaencuentro.com.

The arrests included Ivan Hernandez Carrillo and Felix Navarro, who were both part of the Group of 75 rounded up by the Cuban government during the "Black Spring of 2003."

The two men had been released from prison in February and March of this year.

The other dissidents who were detained were Raul Risco Perez, Frank Reyes Lopez, Julio Columbie Batista, Rene Fernandez Quiroga, Guillermo del Sol Perez, Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina, Yoan David Gonzalez and Gliceria Paseiro Espinosa.

The True Color of Raul, Saif and Bashar

Thus far in 2011, there have already been 1,393 known political arrests in Cuba -- which nearly matches the number of known political arrests for all of 2010.

And those are only the ones that are accounted for -- there are countless other arrests and acts of repression that remain unknown.

Yet, despite Cuban dictator Raul Castro being en route to double his amount of political arrests from 2010, there are still those that continue to ignorantly promote him as a "reformer."

These are the same "wishful thinkers" that -- for years -- also hyped Libya's Saif Gaddafi and Syria's Bashar al-Assad as "pragmatic reformers."

This concept is now nearly unanimously rejected as regards the Gaddafi clan in Libya.

Unfortunately though, Syria's Assad (and Raul) still enjoys the support of it's regional neighbors and a relatively weak stance from the international community.

(Ironically, U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA) has publicly given up on Assad as a "reformer," but still gives Raul the benefit of the doubt).

What's irreversible is that the true color of these tyrants has now been exposed -- at the countless suffering of pro-democracy activists in these countries.

It's bloody red.

In My Humble Opinion, Pt. 31

From the Pulitzer Center:

Beyond fake boogie boards: Promoting democracy in Cuba

It was a novel plan: Disguise satellite dishes as boogie boards. Smuggle them into Cuba and set up a mobile Internet connection free from socialist government control.

"The internet works VERY RAPIDLY!" a technician told his Cuban contact while explaining the set up. "...You may use Skype, Yahoo video + voice... Next week we will be talking FOR FREE!"

But Cuban authorities say they were onto the plan from the beginning, and the improvised communication system wound up in the hands of Cuban agents, thwarting the U.S.-financed effort.

Three years later, U.S. democracy programs in Cuba have been redesigned and improved, their supporters say. And they are operating on the island, despite a 20-month delay in new funding and political fights over their effectiveness.

The U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department have set aside more than $94 million for the democracy programs since 2007, budget figures show. The programs form a key part of President Obama's bid to promote democratic change in Cuba, something 11 successive American presidents have failed to do.

"I think the programs are important," said Mauricio Claver-Carone, a leader of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, which supports hard-line policies against the Cuban government. "No program is perfect. But I think we have seen continuous improvement" [...]

Claver-Carone, a lawyer and lobbyist, said the Cuban government "hates these programs passionately" because the U.S. support "goes to people who don't agree with their views."

He is optimistic the $20 million will be distributed.

"Congress approved those funds. Congress voted. Even if Sen. Kerry completely disagrees, he's cognizant that this was voted on. This is Sen. Kerry holding up President Obama's request. It'll go through."

"We want to help the Cuban people. We're not trying to impose anything on them."

Sanctioning Irredeemable Thugs

Bloomberg's Editorial Board recommends a tougher U.S. policy toward Syria.

Sound familiar?

(Yet ironically some of the points below are criticized when it comes to Cuba policy).

Squeeze Syria's Thug-in-Chief Enough to Make It Hurt

What the U.S. and its allies can do is put more economic pressure on the Syrian regime. Already, the U.S. and European Union have frozen local assets of Assad and his top associates. China and Russia are unlikely to agree to broader UN sanctions, so the U.S. should seek alternatives. One would be working with the EU and Turkey to freeze the assets of Syria's state-owned banks, which finance the Syrian oil industry and key figures in the pro-Assad business elite. The U.S. and EU should also bar flights to and from Syria, and widen visa bans on Syrian officials, especially military officers and their families.

These measures aren't likely to bring down Assad's house. But they would sting. Having established themselves as miscreants, the regime's agents should now be denied the privileges of international life. The sanctions would also let the Syrian opposition know the democratic world is behind them.

Should the Syrian Spring fizzle, the Assad regime would press for a return to normalcy, and many countries would be apt to go along. But the sanctions must remain, at least until there has been accountability for the atrocities being committed now. Since he succeeded his father in 2000, Bashar al-Assad has toyed with projecting the image of reluctant ruler and reformer. As Hamza al-Khateeb's (murdered young protestor) family knows perfectly, he is but one thing: an irredeemable thug.

We Will Never Forget

The courageous pro-democracy activists murdered by the Chinese dictatorship on June 4th, 1989, in Tienanmen Square, while the international community sat idly by (weighing their commercial options and investments).

The Importance of Democracy Programs

In response to questions from U.S. Senator John Kerry's (D-MA) staff regarding USAID's Cuba democracy programs, the State Department has provided an excellent explanation of the goals and importance of these programs in dictatorships throughout the world.

Perhaps it's now time for Senator Kerry to explain his bias (and information hold) against these Cuba programs, while not holding similar and more costly programs in other dictatorships to the same single-handed obstructionism.

Here's the State Department's explanation (Along the Malecon has posted the entire Q and A):

Globally, in countries such as Belarus, Burma, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Syria, and Zimbabwe, the U.S. Government responds to autocratic challenges by providing training, materials, and internet and radio platforms and organizational support for civic groups, networks and the media. Support for universal values is a cornerstone of the National Security Strategy of the United States. Those values include the rights of people to speak their mind, assemble without fear, and have a say in how they are governed.

In our solicitations' selection criteria, we place an emphasis on prior experience, at both the organizational and personnel level, in working in closed societies. We have found that prior experience in similar environments facilitates implementation since there is an understanding of the unique challenges likely to be encountered. We instruct our partners to tell Cuban recipients the source of the assistance when asked.

While seeking to advance and defend universal human rights principles, the USG develops and implements its democracy and governance strategies and program interventions according to the country's current democratic state, justice system institutions, human rights conditions, quality of governance, and other situational factors, while taking into account each country's unique history and culture. Still, within broad country categories there is consistency to our strategic approach.

In authoritarian and semi-authoritarian states, the major challenges facing the USG are how to create and maintain political and civic space in the face of a hostile regime that is prepared to use state resources to prevent criticism and meaningful reform. The strategy in these countries is to strengthen democracy and human rights activists outside government by working with democracy and human rights NGOs, watchdog groups, and independent media that are committed to democratic principles and value fundamental freedoms. Ensuring citizens' access to independent information sources is critical in these environments. When possible, the USG supports pockets of reform within government institutions, such as within the judicial branch, independent electoral or anti-corruption commissions, and/or local governments. The primary strategic focus of USG democracy and governance assistance in these countries is in the areas of human rights and civil society, especially independent media.

Within the foreign assistance domain, our top priority in authoritarian and semi-authoritarian states is invigorating an engaged and dynamic civil society, in particular journalists who represent the voice of civil society, and traditionally marginalized groups, such as minorities and women. For example to empower citizens in closed societies, DRL supports programs which aim to develop the necessary precursors for democratic reform by using new media to inform citizens about human rights and provide them a lens into the outside world. DRL also works to build the capacity of human rights activists, lawyers, and journalists to advocate for human rights by training them on how to defend their rights, including investigating and documenting human rights violations.

Farinas Begins New Hunger Strike

From AFP:

Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas has launched a hunger strike, his 24th in 15 years, to ask the government to prosecute those "responsible" for the death of a fellow activist.

"I started the hunger strike today at noon (1600 GMT), demanding the government to bring the perpetrators of the murder of Juan Soto and stop beating dissidents," the 49-year-old Farinas told AFP via telephone from his home in Santa Clara, east of Havana.

The online journalist, who led a 135-day hunger strike last year to demand the release of political prisoners, said he would keep up his protest "until the ultimate consequences" and would only agree to negotiate with the government on "equal conditions."

Soto's supporters say he died last month after being taken to the Santa Clara hospital following his arrest in a park and subsequent beating. Cuban official media quoted Soto's doctor and his sister as saying that police brutality had nothing to do with his death.

Cuba authorities said Soto, who was in fragile health, had been arrested for a few hours by the police for a "public scandal," then freed "without incident."

Farinas, who was awarded the European Parliament's 2010 Sakharov prize, said Soto told him he had been beaten and that he had seen bruises on the lower back of Soto's corpse.

The Americas' only one-party communist regime has already detained Farinas several times this year.

Lula's (Inexcusable) Lost Opportunities

Former Brazilian President Lula da Silva has just concluded another visit to Castro's Cuba.

His last trip -- in February 2010 -- coincided with the tragic death (murder) of Cuban political prisoner and hunger striker, Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

At the time, Lula infamously stood silently by, while Cuban dictator Raul Castro laughed off Zapata's death.

This time, Lula was in Cuba as four young pro-democracy activists were tried, convicted and sentenced (all within a few hours) for the "crime" of peacefully distributing leaflets calling for freedom.

And -- once again -- Lula (inexcusably) lost another opportunity to stand on principle.

Meanwhile, foreign news bureaus in Havana, which covered Lula's visit to a port project in Mariel and a press conference upon his departure, (also inexcusably) lost an opportunity to ask him the following question:

President Lula, you have a long history of fighting for freedom of expression and liberty in Brazil.

Yesterday, four young Cubans were sentenced to years in prison for distributing leaflets calling for that same freedom of expression in Cuba.

Given your track record, did you plead with the Cuban government for their release?

Moreover, should distributing leaflets be considered a "crime"?

Similar Regimes, Same Tactics

It's not a coincidence that Cuban dictator Raul Castro and Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad are such close friends.

They (tragically) share the same tactics -- the murder of dissidents, the manipulation of coroners and the intimidation of relatives. 

From AP:

A medical examiner and relatives of a late Cuban dissident have concluded that he died of natural causes and showed no signs of being beaten, as some government opponents have claimed, Cuba's official news media said Thursday.

Juan Wilfredo Soto's sister and other relatives who accompanied him to the hospital said he did not mention any police abuse, the Communist Party newspaper Granma reported.

"It's a big lie that he was beaten," Rosa Soto Garcia was quoted as saying. "He did not have a single mark on him."

Other Cuban dissidents have accused police of hitting Soto when they detained him May 5 in the central city of Santa Clara.

From The Daily Star:

A Syrian boy, who activists say was tortured and killed by security forces, has emerged as a powerful symbol in protests against the rule of President Bashar Assad which have been met with a bloody crackdown.

A childhood snapshot of 13-year-old Hamza al-Khatib has been emblazoned on posters by protesters across Syria after a YouTube video of his bloodied corpse sparked international outrage [...]

Coroner Akram al-Shaar verified the claims, saying, according to a transcript on the state news agency: "There are no marks on the surface of the body that show violence, resistance or torture using the nails or scratching or bruises, or fractures, or joint-dislocation," Shaar said.

A man who identified himself as Khatib's father on Syrian TV said he had met with Assad who "engulfed us with his kindness, graciousness and promised to fulfil the demands which we've called for with the people."

"The president considered Hamza his own son and was deeply affected," the man said, adding Assad had promised reforms would start the next day.

On the Right Side of History (in Cuba and Burma)

Please read this carefully, as it applies to both Burma and Cuba.

It is, by far, the column-of-the-year.

From the Editorial Page Editor of The Washington Post, Fred Hiatt:

The U.S. could get on the right side of history in Burma

Long before Syria's Bashar al-Assad was ordering the murder of his people, the generals misruling a Southeast Asian nation 4,000 miles distant had shown the way.

In 1988, the regime in Burma, a once-promising nation of 50 million, slaughtered unarmed university students to derail democracy. In 2007 the junta gunned down pacifist Buddhist monks in their robes and sandals.

But outrage fades, people forget, a few generals have traded in their uniforms for civilian suits — and so pressure is building from governments, companies and nonprofit groups to lift sanctions and "engage" with the regime.

Before that happens, it's worth thinking about some early lessons of the Arab Spring.

The engagement argument comes down to this: Sanctions against Burma haven't worked. Two decades since the regime threw out the results of an election that it had (in its delusions of popularity) allowed, it is no more popular but no less entrenched. With U.S. companies and diplomats mostly absent, China has become the dominant power. The Burmese people remain poor and isolated from the world.

Why not try something new? Why not jettison self-defeating idealism for something a bit more pragmatic?

A few possible reasons come to mind. One is that engagement with a regime that so suffocates its nation may strengthen the regime. Western Europe has been engaging with Cuba for decades; the Castros pocket the euros at no apparent cost to the stability of their dictatorship.

Nor would engagement do much for the U.S. economy. As long as Burma pursues its peculiar brand of paranoid crony socialism, it won't offer much of a growth opportunity.

Moreover, it's a bit unfair to say that sanctions don't work, because the United States has never fully tried them. It hasn't targeted the personal finances of Burma's rulers and their relatives with any focus or intensity. It has never made clear to Burma's neighbors — some of which are new democracies themselves, uncomfortable rubbing shoulders with brutal generals — that helping democrats inside Burma is a strategic priority. It talks about a United Nations commission of inquiry into the regime's crimes against humanity — mass rape, child labor, ethnic cleansing — but has never pushed for it, despite support for a U.N. inquiry (though not a tribunal) from Burma's democratic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

Pushing might dilute the perennial charge of hypocrisy (why bomb Moammar Gaddafi but do nothing as Burma's regime empties village after village?). Pushing also might show Gaddafi, Assad and other Arab dictators that they can't just wait out the world's disapproval.

But the strongest argument emerges from a public opinion survey carried out this spring by the Pew Research Center — in Egypt.

There, for decades, the United States followed the entirely pragmatic policy of engagement. Led by U.S. ambassadors in Cairo for whom the Mubarak clan could do no wrong, U.S. governments routinely dismissed as naive and unrealistic the Egyptian people's desire for a more dignified life. When Egyptians finally took to the streets to demand self-rule, the United States stuck with President Hosni Mubarak until any hope of his survival was gone.

The result? "Only 20 percent of Egyptians hold a favorable opinion of the United States," Pew found. "The American president gets more negative than positive reviews for how he is handling the political changes sweeping through the Middle East. . . . A plurality of those who disapprove say Obama has shown too little support for those who are calling for change."

The United States put itself on the wrong side of history, in other words, and now it is paying the price.

Which raises the question of where exactly pragmatism lies.

If you believe that the Burmese junta represents the future, then it makes sense to build ties and mend fences. And it's true that no one has figured out how to predict precisely when a regime will crumble — or when its soldiers will decide they no longer want to shoot students and monks.

But the junta clearly understands that it is hated. That is why it censors all media, imprisons thousands of dissenters (many of whom have been on a hunger strike this month), bans the only political party with popular support (Aung San Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy) and squanders billions on an isolated new capital where no ordinary people are allowed to live or even enter. On some level, as the rest of Asia speeds past them, these septuagenarian thieves must understand that they do not, in fact, represent the future.

The United States can affect the date of their demise only at the margins, just as it took the Egyptian people to bring about Mubarak's fall. But what America does now could affect the results when Pew conducts its first survey in democratic Burma.

Six New Political Prisoners in One Week

From Human Rights Watch:

Six Sentenced in Summary Trials for Exercising Basic Rights

With this new round of prosecutions, the Castro government is sending a clear message to dissidents that the status quo has not changed in Cuba. Publicly criticizing the government can still earn you a harsh prison sentence.

The conviction of six dissidents in summary trials for doing no more than exercising their fundamental rights highlights the continuing abuse of the criminal justice system to repress dissent in Cuba, Human Rights Watch said today. Raúl Castro's government should immediately release the prisoners, who were given sentences ranging from two to five years in prison, and cease all politically motivated repression against Cubans who exercise their fundamental freedoms, said Human Rights Watch.

Four people were sentenced on May 31, 2011, in Havana for distributing pamphlets criticizing Raúl and Fidel Castro, and two human rights defenders in Holguín were sentenced on May 24, charged with "insulting national symbols" and "disorder" for public acts that they denied had taken place.

"With this new round of prosecutions, the Castro government is sending a clear message to dissidents that the status quo has not changed in Cuba," said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "Publicly criticizing the government can still earn you a harsh prison sentence."

Luis Enrique Labrador, 33; David Piloto, 40; Walfrido Rodríguez, 42; and Yordani Martínez, 23, were sentenced in Havana on May 31 on charges of contempt and public disorder. An official document addressed by the state prosecutor to the Criminal Court of Havana, a copy of which was obtained by Human Rights Watch, said the four were detained on January 14, when they went to Havana's Revolutionary Square and threw leaflets into the air with slogans such as "Down with the Castros."

When agents of the National Revolutionary Police arrived at the scene, the four men sat down on the ground, an act the prosecutor deemed "a defiant and provocative attitude...that interrupted the traffic flow." Martínez was sentenced to three years in prison, while the other three were each sentenced to five years, according to their families and human rights defenders in Cuba.

Family members told Human Rights Watch that state security agents had visited their homes the day before the trial, warning relatives that if they "created a scene" and called attention to the hearing, the detainees would be left in pretrial detention indefinitely. One man's mother said she was fired in April on the grounds that she was "the mother of a counterrevolutionary." The families also told Human Rights Watch that Martínez and Piloto went on hunger strike in May in Valle Grande prison to demand they be put on trial. In response, they later told their families, they were handcuffed and beaten by a prison official.

In a taped interview with a Cuban human rights defender, Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leiva, which was later replayed for Human Rights Watch, Rodríguez called the trial a "a mockery." He said the judge simply rubber-stamped the prosecutor's recommended punishment, ignoring the defendants' arguments in their defense. Elizardo Sanchez, the director of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, an independent human rights group not recognized by the Cuban government, told Human Rights Watch that state security agents surrounded the local courthouse where the trial took place, preventing human rights defenders and other members of the public from attending.

On May 24, Marcos Maikel Lima Cruz, 33, and Antonio Michel Lima Cruz, 28, brothers who were members of a human rights group in Holguín called Pedro Luis Boitel - were sentenced to three and two years in prison respectively in a closed, summary trial. Their father, the independent journalist Marcos Antonio Lima Dalmau, said the two were arrested on December 25, 2010. Lima Dalmau, who was allowed to attend his sons' trial, said they were accused of insulting national symbols and causing public disorder for allegedly dancing naked in front of their house, and spitting, urinating, and stepping on a Cuban flag, which both denied.

Human Rights Watch believes that the charges were fabricated to prosecute the brothers in retaliation for their human rights work. Lima Dalmau said that one of the witnesses who testified in their trial - a neighbor - said he had accompanied police when they inspected the brothers' home, and had seen the flag hanging undamaged on a wall.

Cuba's laws empower the state to criminalize virtually all forms of dissent, and grant officials extraordinary authority to penalize people who try to exercise their basic rights. The Cuban Criminal Code penalizes anyone who "threatens, libels or slanders, defames, affronts or in any other way insults or offends, with the spoken word or in writing, the dignity or decorum of an authority, public functionary, or his agents or auxiliaries." The violations are punishable by one to three years in prison, if directed at high ranking officials. Such laws violate the right to freedom of expression recognized in article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - signed by Cuba in 2008.

"The dissidents were prosecuted on the basis of their political beliefs, and because they dared to exercise rights that all Cubans should enjoy," Vivanco said. "They should never have even been tried, let alone convicted."

Better Dinner Guests for Secretary Clinton

USA Today's Dewayne Wickham has just returned from Cuba, where he was looking to fill-in-the-blanks of his predisposed narrative (just read his previous columns) that Raul Castro's farcical "reforms" are actually significant.

During his trip, he met with Castro regime officials and "members of [Cuba's] emerging middle class" (meaning more regime officials) and is now providing the following "sage" advice to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

"Have dinner with Jony Jones."

Now, we have no idea who Jony Jones is -- and she might very well be a nice person -- but sadly that's the best Wickham was able to come up with, in order to attribute his narrative and to draw this audacious (unfounded) conclusion:

"What's clear is that there is no widespread support here for a 'Cuba spring' -- no looming upheaval like those that toppled a government in Egypt and threatens to do the same in Libya. If Hillary Clinton doesn't believe me, she should come here and have dinner with Jony Jones."

In other words, Wickham can confirm there will be no "Cuban spring" based on counsel from Castro regime officials and dinner in a designated tourist zone with Jony Jones -- both of which might be inter-changeable.

Yet, if he'd bothered to leave his escorts behind, Wickham could have visited with courageous pro-democracy activists who are challenging the regime every day -- and come up with better dinner guests for Secretary Clinton.

For example:

How about dinner with Yris Perez Aguilera?

Yris is the head of the Rosa Parks Feminist Movement. She is beaten and arrested almost on a weekly basis for undertaking peaceful, non-violent, marches and sit-ins. Last week, the regime's thugs kidnapped her for four days, then released her all bruised and battered.

How about dinner with Yris's husband, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez"?

Antunez was first arrested when he was 17-years old for protesting against the dictatorship in a public square. He spent nearly half of his life in prison. He's now in his 40s and leads weekly protests against the Castro regime, for which he's continously beaten and arrested.

How about dinner with the four young Cubans (or their parents) sentenced to four years in prison yesterday for peacefully handing out leaflets?

Their names are Luis Enrique Labrador, 33, David Piloto, 40, Walfrido Rodriguez, 42, and Yordanis Martinez, 23.

How about dinner with some of the Ladies in White and their supporters, e.g., Crispina Xiomara Duquesne or Sonia Garro Alfonso?

Crispina's son was arrested and murdered (poisoned) by the Castro regime for her opposition activities.

Meanwhile, the Castro regime's state security organizes modern-day lynch mobs against Sonia and her husband (who heads the Association of Independent Afro-Cubans) asserting that "those black counter-revolutionaries must be punished."

But of course, none of them would fit Wickham's narrative.