The U.S. shouldn’t reward Castro regime with bad policy
The announcement that the Castro regime is prepared to release 52 prisoners of conscience has provoked a flurry of commentary as to its broader "meaning" for Cuba’s future. Others don’t care much what it means, they only want the Obama administration to "reciprocate" forthwith. One would have thought that these sorts of Cold War-era political ...
The announcement that the Castro regime is prepared to release 52 prisoners of conscience has provoked a flurry of commentary as to its broader "meaning" for Cuba's future. Others don't care much what it means, they only want the Obama administration to "reciprocate" forthwith.
The announcement that the Castro regime is prepared to release 52 prisoners of conscience has provoked a flurry of commentary as to its broader "meaning" for Cuba’s future. Others don’t care much what it means, they only want the Obama administration to "reciprocate" forthwith.
One would have thought that these sorts of Cold War-era political prisoner releases would have long ago been consigned to the dustbin of history, but alas not so in Cuba, which has been frozen in time under the Castro brothers’ despotism for pretty much five decades.
Freedom for the prisoners is, of course, welcome for their sake and that of their families, but in the broader context it is meaningless as far as heralding a new dawn in Stalinist Cuba. The same laws and repressive apparatus that make it illegal to do anything in Cuba except praise the Castros are still in place and could be used again tomorrow to jail those very same prisoners who do not accept the regime’s "invitation" to leave the island.
The prisoner release is instead indicative of a regime increasingly desperate to change a very negative narrative that has developed over the past year. From the arrest of American Alan Gross for providing internet access to an apolitical civil society group, to the February 23rd death of dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo after a 75-day hunger strike, to increasing international recognition of the "Ladies in White" — wives and mothers of political prisoners who peacefully march in Havana on behalf of their husbands and sons (that is, when not attacked by government goons) — to the current high-profile hunger strike of dissident Guillermo Fariñas, the regime was clearly losing control of events and making it extremely difficult for the likes of Spain and other international enablers to preach accommodation and appeasement of the regime.
The regime’s decision to trot out an ailing Fidel Castro this past weekend is also part of this narrative-changing effort, as it tries to rally the international faithful while diverting attention from the misery it continues to foist on the Cuban people. The signal to the Cuban population couldn’t have been more overt: The Old Man is still around, so don’t get any ideas that any deeper changes are forthcoming.
As noted above, many critics of U.S. policy towards the Castro regime nevertheless argue that the prisoner release demands a policy response from the United States. Our "credibility" is at stake, they say. No, it isn’t. Rewarding the regime for a self-serving tactical maneuver that could be reversed at any time would be counterproductive and a waste of the leverage the United States does possess to push for fundamental reforms in the best interests of all 11,000,000 Cuban political prisoners.
More from Foreign Policy

Russians Are Unraveling Before Our Eyes
A wave of fresh humiliations has the Kremlin struggling to control the narrative.

A BRICS Currency Could Shake the Dollar’s Dominance
De-dollarization’s moment might finally be here.

Is Netflix’s ‘The Diplomat’ Factual or Farcical?
A former U.S. ambassador, an Iran expert, a Libya expert, and a former U.K. Conservative Party advisor weigh in.

The Battle for Eurasia
China, Russia, and their autocratic friends are leading another epic clash over the world’s largest landmass.