It’s time for Joe Biden to move beyond talk and “get action” on Cuba

In a viral moment of the 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden, appearing before an audience of Latin celebrities and wealthy donors in Central Florida, gingerly walks to a podium, takes off his mask, and looks to his cell phone, taps the screen and plays the hit song “Despacito” (Spanish for “slowly”; the song is about slow, passionate lovemaking) by Puerto Rican singer Luis Fonsi — who was in the crowd — and reggaetón star Daddy Yankee, woodenly nodding his head.

Critics were right to call this a cringe-worthy moment of pandering, but six months into Biden’s presidency, “Despacito” looks like foreshadowing, a sign of the way the Biden administration would handle a number of issues, including Cuba and the momentous events of July 11, when Cubans in every one of the island’s provinces publicly demonstrated against their own communist-run government, calling for “libertad” (freedom) and chanting “patria y vida” (Fatherland and Life). A rap song by that name has become a protest anthem on the island with its twist on the Castro regime’s worn slogan of “patria o muerte” (fatherland or death). Biden and his administration have, not only,  been caught flat-footed in terms of having a coherent policy to Cuba, Biden seems to just offer “tremenda muela” (a Cuban idiom for “lots of talk”) to the protestors and dissident movements on the island.

In a televised address on the recent wave of anti-government protests, Cuba’s Miguel Díaz-Canel called on citizens to confront protesters in the streets, saying “la ordern de combate está dada.” (The combat order has been issued.)

While the uprisings caught the Cuban leadership — led by Raul Castro’s hand picked successor, Miguel Díaz-Canel — similarly off-guard, the reprisals were quick and brutal. Government security forces started arresting protestors, carrying out indiscriminate beatings, and even shooting into crowds of defenseless Cubans. Well known activists, artists, journalists and other influential citizens were dragged out of their homes and thrown in jails. The list of the jailed and disappeared — ranging from small children to old men and women of all walks of life — has grown steadily since July 11. This is the way Cuba’s totalitarian rulers respond to the people’s cry for freedom. Fortunately for the 11 million Cubans living on the island, their cries and actions have not gone unnoticed by the millions in the Cuban diaspora throughout the world, who have rallied on behalf of their countrymen and women and, thanks to social media, have spread the word on the current polemic inside Cuba.

“The blackouts are planned, so Cubans know that it’s by design that they lack a reliable electricity grid for relief from the blistering heat and a means of preserving what little food they’re allotted.”

— Rolando Tomás Infante

The uprising that began July 11 might seem like an arc flash. Really, it was more like the ignition of a slow gas leak that built over time until a spark in the small western city of San Miguel de los Baños lit the island on fire. A confluence of separate, but connected events led to the public demonstrations against the government in San Miguel. Over the course of the pandemic, Cuba saw its economy shrink over 11 percent due to the loss of tourism and remittances from Cubans living abroad. Cuba has also suffered a surge of coronavirus infections, whereas last year, they remained relatively unscathed with only 146 deaths. At the midpoint of 2021, the country has fared considerably worse with over 2,400 deaths. Amid a floundering economy and rising COVID infections and deaths, Cubans must also stand for hours in line (with masks on) in the Caribbean heat to access staples — including chicken, milk, and bread — with ration cards.

Imagine being a Cuban in San Miguel, coming home with some of these necessities after standing in line for hours for both food and the bus, only to find your home in another blackout. While major media outlets have attributed the demonstrations to the regime’s response to COVID, they fail to account for what it does to a Cuban — or any person — to not even find peace within one’s home. The blackouts are planned, so Cubans know that it’s by design that they lack a reliable electricity grid for relief from the blistering heat and a means of preserving what little food they’re allotted. Blackouts like the ones that helped spark protests in San Miguel de los Baños are commonplace throughout Cuba. What recourse could Cubans  have against their state-run utility, Unión Eléctrica, or its overseer, the Ministry of Energy and Mines?

---

---

For an American living in New York City or Miami, it is impossible to envision either Consolidated Edison or Florida Power & Light not being answerable to the public service commissions in their respective states. Both utilities, which are privately owned and publicly traded, ranked among the most reliable in North America, are still required to answer to government authorities for a myriad of regulatory issues. For example, both utilities must bring forth a comprehensive case for rates they plan to charge customers for state commission approval, and the utilities are also answerable for their performance during weather-related emergencies — that goes for both preparation prior to an event and actions during the event, including the restoration of power to customers who lose service. Utilities are also answerable to local, state, and federal officials. 

In Cuba, this comprehensive system of checks on utilities does not exist because Unión Eléctrica is just one component of a broader totalitarian government, answerable to no one outside of the ruling party. In fact, Cuba’s electric generation has been sustained by its biggest financial backers — first from the Soviet Union (1959 through 1991) and then Venezuela from early 2000s to present time, with the sole purpose of keeping the communist government in power, both literally and figuratively. The problem for the Cuban people is that the government has not made the investments necessary to modernize the electric grid and, now with diminishing oil imports from Venezuela due to their own flailing economy, Cubans must now deal with regular blackouts as they deal with every other shortcoming in Cuba.

According to a study on Cuba’s electric grid by the Environmental Defense Fund, Cubans are paying more for their electric service when you juxtapose Cuba’s electric rates (0.012 per kilowatt hour) with a Cuban’s significantly low mean wage of $20 per month. According to the Fund, when you compare Cuba’s monthly salary/electric rates ($20/monthly & $0.12 per kilowatt hour) with the monthly salary/electric rates of two neighboring Caribbean islands, Dominican Republic ($462 per month; $0.20 per kilowatt hour) and Jamaica ($1,135 per month & $0.36 per kilowatt hour) the average Cuban electricity price per kilowatt hour, when considered as percentage of income, is about twice as high as Jamaica’s and about 33% higher than in the Dominican Republic. 

In refusing to divorce its power grid from the goals of political control and prioritize powering the country, the government inadvertently pushed the people to find their voice and call out for freedom from the communist monopoly that has continuously failed them. As Cuban journalist Yoani Sánchez famously tweeted, “teníamos tanta hambre que nos comimos el miedo” (We were so hungry that we ate our fear).

Back in the United States, since the July 11 uprising, Joe Biden and his administration seemed more concerned over alienating “The Squad” and their leftist supporters. The administration painstakingly avoided using words like “communism” and “socialism” to describe the cause of the Cuban people’s misery. Instead, we have been treated to opaque terms such as “government’s economic mismanagement” and “authoritarian” to describe the causes of the Cuban uprising. 

You would think that the leader of the free world and those who work in the White House and the State Department would take this opportunity to find solidarity with the Cuban people, understand why they are marching with not only Cuban flags, but American ones, and commit without equivocation to aiding Cubans in their march to democracy. Instead, the Cuban people, who are unambiguous in what they are seeking, get tepid support from this administration with bland statements, ineffective sanctions, and a fawning meeting with Cuban American acolytes. 

I find the hesitancy of this administration to call out exactly why Cubans are marching (hint: failure of communism) troubling for a myriad of reasons. Perhaps you can blame it on my own history as a first-generation Cuban American who grew up in working-class Woodside, Queens hearing stories from my family about how, in one fell swoop, they lost everything to the state. More than their home and possessions, they lost their voice and right to self-determination. My grandparents, fearing that my mother would live a lifetime without freedom, sent her to the United States via Operation Peter Pan, a mass exodus of unaccompanied minors coordinated by the Catholic Church and the U.S. government. At 14 years of age, she was the oldest child on the plane. None of those kids knew where they were going or whether they would see their parents again. These young Peter Pan exiles ended up all throughout the United States, many with foster families. Fortunately for my mother, she was taken in by her aunt, who lived in the Bronx, and lived there until reunited with her parents years later.

During my formative years in the 1980s, my family and I found hope for a free Cuba in the prevailing culture, particularly in the context of the final throes of the Cold War, with movies like Red Dawn, Top Gun, and of course Rocky IV, where good (democracy) faced off against evil (communism). My family and others like ours were comforted by the “great communicator,” Ronald Reagan, who spoke plainly on these issues, along with our NATO allies, and His Holiness Pope John Paul II who lived in communist Poland, knew the bleakness of life under totalitarian rule and even played a major role in the Solidarity movement that led to the fall of Communism in Poland in 1989.

Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in 1998 and it was a moment of brief hope for the Cuban people. When public Masses were celebrated in Cuba for the first time in nearly 40 years, Pope John Paul sought clemency for political prisoners, and a more open society for Cubans to speak their minds and practice their faith. His visit included a televised Mass in Santiago de Cuba, where Archbishop Pedro Meurice Estiu stunned the nation and government with a scathing attack on Cuba’s one-party rule that included the memorable line, “Cuba belongs to Cubans.”

“What made Roosevelt, Reagan, and Pope John Paul so effective was that their words were backed up with action.”

— Rolando Tomás Infante

Similarly, Reagan saw the presidency as carrying a duty to command the bully pulpit, a term coined by the father of the modern presidency, Theodore Roosevelt, who understood that the president of the United States should advance the interests of the United States and democratic values around the world. What made Roosevelt, Reagan, and Pope John Paul so effective was that their words were backed up with action. There was a sense of legitimacy to what they said because they backed up what they said and both their supporters and detractors knew it. Roosevelt perfectly described his foreign policy with this West African proverb, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Sadly, Biden just speaks softly and his words, as in the case of Cuba, just dissipate into the ether, without any gravitas or actionable steps that would make a difference in Cuba for its long-suffering populace.  

Today, the Cuban people are fighting their government with both hands tied behind their backs, and they’re calling out for help from the international community. Cuban exiles in the United States and around the world are pleading with Joe Biden to utilize the bully pulpit, galvanize the American public, and make a Rose Garden address, speaking plainly to the Cuban people, to let them know that the wind of democracy is behind them, pushing them forward and the United States will support their cause and bring an end to this 62-year nightmare only 90 miles from our shores, by all means necessary.

In late July 2021, thousands of Cuban Americans and other supporters of the Cuban protests that began July 11 marched in Washington, D.C. as a show of solidarity and to push the U.S. government to action in support of Cuba’s citizen uprising.

Symbolic gestures, such as ineffective sanctions, removing barriers for remittances, increasing embassy personnel, meeting with Cuban-American supporters, and publishing tweets will not suffice. Biden needs to take concrete steps to make sure American-based tech companies are bypassing Cuban governmental restrictions to curtail Internet access for Cubans on the ground. Biden needs to send a clear message to Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel and his henchmen that their days are numbered and they will face justice for their crimes against humanity, while keeping all options on the table to bring them to justice. 

As a child, Theodore Roosevelt’s father gave him a piece of advice that became the ethos of his life and presidency: “Don’t fritter away your time; get action.” The 11 million long-suffering Cubans on the island and the 2 million who make up the Cuban diaspora feel we are fighting alone. President Biden should heed these Roosevelt’s words, with a Cuban twist: “No más muela; get action!”