HAVANA (AP) — President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro tussled Monday over differences on human rights and democracy but pledged to keep working on a new path forward between their two countries . . . (Obama bowed to Raul’s insults).
Asked by an American television reporter about political prisoners in Cuba, Castro seemed oblivious, first saying he couldn’t hear the question, then asking whether it was directed to him or Obama. Eventually he pushed back, saying if the journalist could offer up names of anyone allegedly imprisoned, “they will be released before tonight ends.” (Cuba arrested hundreds days before Obama came to avoid protests in Havana.) “What political prisoners? Give me a name or names,” Castro said. He added later, “It’s not correct to ask me about political prisoners in general.” (Political correctness from a dictator!) After responding to a handful of questions, Castro ended the press conference abruptly, declaring, “I think this is enough” (Allowing free press briefly in for Obama made him very uncomfortable as with any dictator.) In a history-making meeting in Havana, Castro praised Obama’s recent steps to relax controls on Cuba as “positive” but deemed them insufficient. He called anew for the U.S. to return its naval base at Guantánamo Bay to Cuba and to lift the U.S. trade embargo. (More baksheesh for the Castro dictatorship) “That is essential, because the blockade remains in place, and it contains discouraging elements,” Castro said . . . Castro worked to turn the tables on Obama by saying Cuba found it “inconceivable” for a government to fail to ensure health care, education, food and social security for its people a — clear reference to the U.S. (Most Cubans live far below the poverty level. Almost all Cubans struggle to live on twenty to twenty five dollars a month.) “We defend human rights,” Castro said. “In our view, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights are indivisible, interdependent and universal.” (This from a brutal dictator whose brother imprisoned and slaughtered tens of thousands.) “The future of Cuba will be decided by Cubans not by anybody else,” Obama said. “At the same time, as we do wherever we go around the world, I made it clear the U.S. will continue to speak up about democracy, including the right of the Cuban people to decide their own future.” (Raoul no doubt laughs on the way to the bank with new funds from the U. S.) As Castro prepares to step down in 2018, he’s held firm against any changes to Cuba’s one-party political system. (In short, he told Obama to go to hell with his democracy.)