Since protests broke out Saturday, Americans have witnessed thousands of Cubans flood the streets of Havana and other cities to demand an end to a Communist regime that has enriched itself while most Cubans scrounge for food and medicine, and many days can’t find either, in their authoritarian and poor island nation.
Ministry famous for reaching far has new message for CubaA well-known radio ministry that sends the gospel over the airwaves across the globe is sending a special message to Christian believers in Cuba, where the Communist regime is cracking down after its people filled the streets demanding freedom. Cuba allows church congregations, which are closely watched by the Communist government, and Trans World Radio has been sending programs, preaching and music across Latin America since the 1960s from the island of Bonaire. Annabelle Torrealba of TWR says the Cuba's government is blocking cell phones on the island, and there is no Internet connection, either, which is hindering Facebook Messenger, for example. “But there are some other ways to communicate with them,” she says. “That is how we got this information.” Because of the turmoil, Torrealba says TWR is currently altering its daily radio program for Cuba’s people, including special programs coming next week and the weeks after that. “To help them keep their hope,” she says, “and because we need them to know that we are with them. We are praying for them.” |
By the end of the weekend, when Cuba's unhappy regime was rounding up dissidents and blocking Internet access, the world had already witnessed the government security forces shoot demonstrators, and beat and drag many others away to a jail cell or worse.
By Sunday afternoon, Americans finally witnessed the Biden administration respond: A State Dept officials suggested that Cubans were marching over COVID-19 pandemic, and the White House press secretary, when given an opportunity to denounce Communism, said the Cuban people were protesting the “mismanagement” of their country.
If the Cuban people still had access to news and the Internet by Tuesday, they heard a message from the Biden administration: You are not welcomed to flee to the the same country that has allowed tens of thousands of illegal aliens to pour in from 20 other countries and remain here, without consequence, because they are fleeing poverty and bad weather.
“Allow me to be clear,” Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas lectured his own native people. “If you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States.”
Mayorkas (pictured at right) is a U.S. citizen because his family fled Cuba in 1960, when he was a year old, and his announcement was predictably denounced.
“Apparently he only wants people pretending to need asylum,” Donald Trump Jr. wrote in a Twitter post, “because those people still vote for socialist Democrats.”
Dinesh D’Souza, the author-filmmaker, wrote in another Twitter post that Mayorkas is making it obvious the Biden administration favors illegal aliens, who vote Democrat, because it is “slamming the door” on the anti-communist Cuban refugees who are future Republicans.
Samuel Rodriguez, who leads the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, says the Biden administration is after revenge because the Cubans of South Florida, famous for their conservatism, most recently helped Donald Trump in 2020.
“It's punitive,” he tells One News Now, “this administration punishing voters that voted for the conservative agenda.”
Even worse than that political calculation, Rodriguez adds, is evidence of a far-left ideology driving Democrats who are giving what he calls a “wink and a nod” to Cuba’s dictatorship.
That accusation, in fact, has been nakedly obvious going back decades after U.S. journalists and politicians have praised Fidel Castro and failed to challenge the claim that the Cuban people are wonderfully educated and have wonderful health care that is free to anyone who needs it.
“For Castro, freedom starts with education,” Barbara Walters proclaimed in a 2002 story. “And if literacy alone were the yardstick, Cuba would rank as one of the freest nations on Earth.”
“We're seeing marches, peaceful protests, in Cuba,” Rodriguez tells One News Now. “And the same individuals that last year supported marches in America are no longer supporting marches in Cuba.
