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| Pete Souza, The Obama-Biden Transition Project |
President Obama is coming under a lot of criticism for his
behavior on International Human Rights. The most recent criticism comes after
Obama shook hands with Cuban President Raul Castro at Nelson Mandela’s memorial
service in South Africa.
Freedom House rated Cuba as “not free” in a 2013 report on
human rights. The report pointed to a rise in short-term detentions of
political dissidents. The detentions spiked in Cuba on several occasions last
year. There was a spike in March when the late and former Pope Benedict XVI
visited the country. Another spike took place in July when activists Oswaldo
Paya and Harold Cepero became involved in a car crash that killed both of them.
And another took place on Human Rights Day. It has been alleged that the crash
that killed Paya and Cepero happened after Paya’s car was deliberately forced
off the road.
Obama’s administration has attempted to improve relations
with Cuba since the death of Fidel Castro.
“More serious thinking has to be given to an American
diplomatic strategy that will encourage freedom in Cuba, and we should assess
what might work and what hasn’t worked in the past,” said Arch Puddington, Vice
President of Freedom House.
“Cuba is still a hellish dictatorship, but at the same time
it is a country that is undergoing a measured amount of change,” he said.
Criticism of the handshake came from several lawmakers in
the United States.
The most powerful statement came from Representative Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen (R., Fla.) who told Fox News, “It is nauseating. He shook the hand
of a murderer, a thug, and those are bloody hands.”
Ros-Lehtinen fled Cuba with her family when she was a child.
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