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The Dilemmas of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum

HAVANA TIMES – These two questions have always seemed to me journalistically appropriate and easy for anyone who considers themselves a democrat to answer: Is Cuba a dictatorship? Do you consider Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro, and Miguel Díaz-Canel to have been dictators?

The answers are yes and yes.

One need not look far into history to know that since 1959, Cuba has been a brutal dictatorship, characterized by political prisoners, the killing of opponents, ironclad press censorship, frequent human rights violations, and a ban on multi-party elections. If we want to know how a people can be repressed for decades, we need only look at the island.

Yet something happens to many leftist Latin American politicians that prevents them from publicly criticizing Cuba. It is as if their tongues were tied in knots. They argue that there is a US embargo—which is true—and leave it at that. They cannot—or will not—speak the truth: that the embargo neither justifies nor explains the tyranny.

President Claudia Sheinbaum, of course, won the last election in Mexico legitimately. Yet, she does not dare call for the Cuban people to have the same democratic rights that we Mexicans enjoy. It is impossible to get her to admit—even during her morning press conferences—that Cuba is a dictatorship and Díaz-Canel is a tyrant.

And when Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega recently declared that “there will never be elections here........

© Havana Times