Dear Mr. President,
Whoever sits in the Oval Office has a special responsibility. Every nation you visit you bring more than your office, but also the prestige, the honor and values of the United States of America. Surely you will agree that our nation has provided more freedom, hope and opportunity to more people than any nation in the history of the world.
Mr. President, unlike Members of Congress or the Senate, you alone have the unique ability to raise on the international stage the cruelty and oppression of the worse human rights abusers and dictators.
It is truly an awe-inspiring responsibility.
When President Ronald Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as the “evil empire”, one just has to read Natan Sharansky, who stated those words reverberated in the hearts of every victim, political prisoner and dissident being crushed under the weight of communism.
Mr. President, do you realize that Amnesty International has detailed that the number of political arrests of human-rights protesters and political dissidents has doubled since your very public “rapprochement” with the Castros? In December, on International Human Rights Day no less, Cuban security police arrest close to 200 human rights dissidents, without trial.
Mr. President, you stated that diplomatic recognition would help the oppressed Cuban people; thus far it has only legitimized it.
Now is the time to take a stand.
Mr. President you can give a voice to the voiceless. In American, I live under the tree of liberty where I can freely write this column critical of your trip and the Castro regime. However, if I had been born in Cuban, such a critical communication would mean in the middle of the night an inevitable knock on the door, from communist security forces that will accuse me of “counter-revolutionary activities.” I would be beaten and arrested without trial, lose my job, and it will likely mean my family will never see me again.
Two countries only miles apart; in one I can breathe the air of a free man; in the other, I would suffocate under the oppression of a communist dictatorship.
Mr. President, you have a special charge in you visit this week to the only non-democratic nation in the entire Western Hemisphere.
You have the ability to speak out on behalf of the Cuban citizens, residing in misery only 90 miles from our great nation, having no freedom of speech, worship, or the ability to dissent from a government that derives no consent from the governed.
In January, I had the pleasure of hosting former Cuban dissident Basilio Guzman as my guest during the Governor’s State of the Commonwealth. Mr. President, if you have ever talked with those that have suffered as political prisoners you will know that the one thing they find most discouraging isn’t the beatings, the torture, the malnutrition or isolation from their loved ones and family.
It is the sense that they have been forgotten.
Mr. President, you alone have the power to ensure those Cuban prisoners of conscience aren’t forgotten.
Mr. President, you can highlight to the world that when Fidel Castro came down from the Sierra Maestra mountains after the overthrow of Batista that he promised the Cuban people free elections. It has now been 57 years later and still no democracy, no free elections, and no political opposition under the Castro brothers brutal dictatorship.
I beg you, Mr. President, speak out on behalf of Morera Bacallao, who is in grave condition rotting away in one of Castro’s prisons because he had the temerity to speak out for free elections in Cuba.
Mr. President, you can inquire about the condition of Jose Daniel Ferrer, the leader of the pro-democracy Cuban Patriotic Union recently arrested by the regime and whose whereabouts are currently unknown.
Mr. President, please take fifteen minutes of your time and make a symbolic visit with the internationally recognized Ladies in White, the mothers and female relatives of Cuban political prisoners. These are the same Ladies in White who were beaten and harassed by the Cuban government immediately prior to your visit to the island dictatorship.
Mr. President, I know that too many people in your own party and the Left have always had an unhealthy obsession with Castro’s communist despotic regime. For some absurd reason “free” substandard and atrocious health care somehow justifies the brutal torture, harassment and imprisonment each day of Cubans who yearn for freedom.
However, as President of the United States, you hold the same seat as that great Virginian Thomas Jefferson, and as such you have a special responsibility during this Cuba trip to speak out on behalf of the timeless universal principles written by your predecessor; the self-evident truths that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights’ including the Right of Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness.”
Mr. Jefferson was able to utter those words to the might British Empire 240 years ago, surely Mr. President you can advocate these same timeless truths to the Castro regime today.
The ball is in your court, Mr. President.
The oppressed, those rotting in Castro’s jails and prisoners of conscience will be watching.
The world will be watching.
History will be your judge.
Rise to the occasion Mr. President.
Please.
Jason Miyares is a Cuban-American whose family fled the communist island in 1965, and is the first Cuban-American to serve in the Virginia General Assembly. He previously served as a Virginia Beach prosecutor (Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney) and is an attorney in Virginia Beach. He is currently the Delegate for the 82nd House of Delegates where he won his November 3rd election by a record margin. For more information, visit http://www.JasonMiyares.com or by following him on Facebook.
