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posted by Blackmoore on Thursday December 18 2014, @10:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the pigs-flying-in-a-bay dept.

Peter Baker reports at the NYT that in a deal negotiated during 18 months of secret talks hosted largely by Canada and encouraged by Pope Francis, the United States will restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba and open an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half-century. In addition, the United States will ease restrictions on remittances, travel and banking relations, and Cuba will release 53 Cuban prisoners identified as political prisoners by the United States government.

Although the decades-old American embargo on Cuba will remain in place for now, the administration signaled that it would welcome a move by Congress to ease or lift it should lawmakers choose to. “We cannot keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. It does not serve America’s interests, or the Cuban people, to try to push Cuba toward collapse.

We know from hard-learned experience that it is better to encourage and support reform than to impose policies that will render a country a failed state,” said the White House in a written statement. "The United States is taking historic steps to chart a new course in our relations with Cuba and to further engage and empower the Cuban people."

 
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Friday December 19 2014, @12:57AM

    by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Friday December 19 2014, @12:57AM (#127336) Journal

    I don't think that Cuba has had anything as bad as Guantanamo in it's sovereign territory for the last 50 years.
    I may be wrong, but I'll want some indication beyond the accusatory rantings of exiled plantation owners who were rich off of near-slave labour under the old regime.

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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday December 19 2014, @02:29AM

    by frojack (1554) on Friday December 19 2014, @02:29AM (#127347) Journal
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Friday December 19 2014, @02:37AM

      by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Friday December 19 2014, @02:37AM (#127349) Journal

      Yeah. No rectal re-hydration. No monsoon exposure without a roof.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 19 2014, @03:05AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 19 2014, @03:05AM (#127359)

      wcl.american.edu/hrbrief/v7i3/prison.htm

      In some ways, that sounds as bad as the treatment Bradley Manning got or that received by e.g. Pelican Bay SHU inmates.

      The political prisoners thing has me wondering what qualifies.
      From what I have read, Cuban politics are quite open to ideas.
      To run for office, you don't have to belong to any party (much less THE party of so many so-called "Communist" countries).

      -- gewg_

  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday December 19 2014, @02:44AM

    by Thexalon (636) on Friday December 19 2014, @02:44AM (#127352)

    What is definitely true is that immediately after the Revolution, a lot of people were executed without all the niceties of public trial. Che Guevera carried out quite a few of them personally, and wrote about how he felt after shooting people in the head.

    There's not a lot of evidence that Cuba was much worse than anybody else in Latin America in regards to their human rights abuses, though. Many of the most notorious regimes during that period were brutal, the best known examples being Chile under Pinochet, the Nicaraguan contras, and El Salvador's junta. And a lot of those groups got their backing and training from Washington DC.

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    • (Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Friday December 19 2014, @06:41AM

      by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Friday December 19 2014, @06:41AM (#127403) Journal

      And you can bet that if there ARE inhumane treatments and "justice" meted in Cuba without benefits of legal protections?
      US being best buddies will do nothing to change these conditions - only some of the people receiving.

      Like Bahrain or Saudi Arabia. Or Uzbekistan or Israel. Or Columbia or Burma. Or...

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 19 2014, @02:47AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 19 2014, @02:47AM (#127355)

    > near-slave labour

    Go back far enough and it was literally slave labor.

  • (Score: 2) by cmn32480 on Friday December 19 2014, @05:59PM

    by cmn32480 (443) <reversethis-{moc.liamg} {ta} {08423nmc}> on Friday December 19 2014, @05:59PM (#127536) Journal

    Please feel free to talk to anyone who has spent time in one of Castro's political prisons. I have family who fall into this category and the stories they tell are bone chilling. Castro's communist government is not innocent of human rights abuses.

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    • (Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Friday December 19 2014, @07:12PM

      by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Friday December 19 2014, @07:12PM (#127551) Journal

      That the US is even involved in pissing matches about who's prisons are worse? FAIL TEAM AMERICA.

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