MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Castro brothers against opening Cuba, because that’s the end of them, claims Clinton

Guillermo Fariñas, Cuban dissident on hunger strike

The Cuban brothers Fidel and Raúl Castro do not want to normalize ties with Washington because they would “lose their excuses” for the country's lack of development and openness, said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.

Despite US efforts to “enhance cooperation,” President Raul Castro and his brother Fidel “do not want to see an end to the embargo and do not want to see normalization with the United States because they would then lose all their excuses for what hasn't happened in Cuba in the last 50 years,” Clinton said.

“I find that very sad, because there should be an opportunity for a transition” to democracy in Cuba, the only country in the Americas run by a communist regime.

“The people of Cuba should have democratically elected leaders and a chance to chart their own future. But unfortunately, I don't see that happening while the Castro brothers are still in charge,” the top US diplomat said.

Raul Castro officially took office in 2008 after long-time leader Fidel was sidelined with serious health problems.

A popular revolution in Cuba led by Fidel Castro (and supported by US intelligence) in the late fifties ousted Dictator Fulgencio Batista. However a couple of years later Fidel declared himself and the revolution Marxist (in the middle of the Cold War) and then US president John F. Kennedy declared an economic embargo on Cuba that remains largely in place to this day.

Clinton also pointed to what she said was a growing acknowledgment from the international community that Havana was cracking down on human rights.

“For the first time, a lot of countries that had done nothing but berate the United States for our failure to be more open to Cuba have now started criticizing Cuba because they let people die,” she said.

“Many in the world are now seeing what we have seen for a long time, which is a very intransigent, entrenched regime that has stifled the opportunity for the Cuban people.”

A leading Cuban political prisoner, Orlando Tamayo Zapata, died in hospital February 85 days into a hunger strike to protest against appalling conditions inside the country's jails. A second dissident Guillermo Fariñas is also fasting since February demanding freedom for political prisoners.

Hillary Clinton recalled that when her husband Bill Clinton was president he attempted on several times an opening towards Cuba. But the “Fidel ordered his military to shoot down two small civilian planes from Miami that were dropping pamphlets over the island”.