Which State Department Official is Lying About Obama's Cuba Policy? Capitol Hill Cubans November 4, 2015
In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 3, 2015, Tom Malinowski, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, stated:
"The promotion of universal human rights and the empowerment of all Cubans must be the bedrock of our policy toward Cuba. President Obama has made clear that it will be."
During the same hearing, Roberta Jacobson, Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere, stated:
"The President’s initiatives look forward and are designed to promote changes that support universal human rights and fundamental freedoms for every Cuban, as well as changes that promote our other national interests."
Both statements were utterly contradicted yesterday by Amb. David Thorne, senior advisor to Secretary of State John Kerry, who in an interview from Havana now contends that (despite the dramatic rise in repression in Cuba):
"As in other parts of the world, we are really trying to also say: Let's find out how we can work together and not always say that human rights are the first things that we have to fix before anything else."
Meanwhile, as regards the U.S.'s national interest, Thorne reveals that it's really about accommodating the Castro dictatorship:
"The pace is really going to be set by the Cubans and we are satisfied with how they want to do this."
Thorne's comments come amid his farcical trip to "support Cuba's emerging private sector" -- but which in reality was focused on visits with Castro regime officials and their military-run monopolies.
So who is lying about Obama's new Cuba policy -- Malinowski, Jacobson or Thorne?
It also makes you wonder whatever happened to Obama's historic Inauguration Day axiom:
"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."
Perhaps that will go down as the ultimate lie.
________________________ |