Our Man, Cuba’s Pawn

February 4, 2010

This post is a follow-up to my Unleash the Googles entry from last week. But now I would like to specifically focus on the human rights implications of Alan Gross’ detention.

Why is the U.S. keeping so quiet… still? This has been a vexing question. There’s no grand geopolitical strategy behind our silence.

Alan Gross did not sign a privacy waiver. That simple. Out of respect for this request, the U.S. won’t say anything about Gross—either in his defense or in defense of our policies. This is true even though it’s in our best interests to clarify what Gross was doing and what equipment he was distributing.

For now, it’s all very murky, enhancing the cloak and dagger mystique around this 60-year-old guy from the suburbs of Washington DC. This makes the nature of his work seem all the more insidious.

We could be rebutting more aggressively the charges that the Obama administration is still Cuba’s arch enemy, working stealthily to topple its regime. Gross is being turned into the predictable tool for the Castros and the Chavistas to denounce the U.S., reminding me of how Fidel Castro sought to use Elián González as a pawn against the United States.

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Unleash the Googles on Cuba

January 29, 2010

U.S.-Cuba dynamics continue to follow the traditional script of mixed signals. The romance is there; the trust is not.

Shortly after U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Bisa Williams returned from extended talks in Havana, the Cuban regime seized Alan Gross, a U.S. subcontractor for a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) democracy program in Cuba.

Another kicker came on Thursday when the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, told reporters that immigration talks in Havana were scheduled for February 19.

Part of the Cuban agenda presented to the government of the United States is a proposal for a new immigration agreement and solidifying cooperation in the fight against people trafficking,” Rodríguez is translated as saying in English by Reuters. Let’s hope that Cuba’s wishes to exchange Gross for the Cuban Five will remain a non-starter.

The imprisonment of Mr. Gross (or “Harold,” as he was first named to me in early December) serves as a good reminder of the criminals-in-office we are dealing with in Havana. And also a reminder of our ill-conceived, yet well-intended, Cuba policies and programs.

Why didn’t we complain louder about Gross’ continued detention? For one, the man and his family did not sign a privacy waiver with the State Department, and without that waiver the U.S. Department of State and U.S. embassies and consulates abroad cannot release information on an individual—even when it hurts our national interests.

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