Cuban President Raul Castro responded to the unacceptable and provocative comments of Donald Trump by characterizing U.S. President's statement on Cuban Independence Day as "ridiculous and controversial".
More specifically, as Telesur reports, in
a broadcast on Cuban state television Saturday, President Raul Castro
said Trump’s imperial
castigation of the communist island as
home to “cruel despotism” were "the contradictory and clumsy
pronouncements of the millionaire magnate-turned-president on issues
of both foreign and domestic policy."
With
Saturday marking 115 years since Cuba’s victory against Spanish
colonial and U.S. military rule, Trump offered his timeworn criticism
against the country, saying, "The Cuban people deserve a
government that peacefully defends democratic values, economic
freedoms, religious freedoms and human rights. And my administration
is committed to achieving that vision.”
Saying
that independence marked the beginning of Cuba becoming "the
Yankee neocolony” due to U.S. imperial intervention until it was
defeated decades later with the victory of the
Cuban Revolution on
January 1, 1959, Raul Castro affirmed that Cuba will continue
with its revolutionary ideals.
On
May 20, 1902, Tomas Estrada Palma began his term as the first
president elected by the citizens of the island, ending over three
years of U.S. military rule in the wake of quashing 400 years of
Spanish rule in 1898, when Cuba won a half-hearted independence as
Spain ceded the island to the U.S. For decades, Washington was
legally allowed to unilaterally intervene in Cuba and dominated
Havana and the island's resources.
Trump’s
comments came two weeks after the State Department, in
its customary “soft power” warfare,
said the White House would press Cuba on “human rights
progress,” saying it was carrying out a "comprehensive
policy review."
The
United States and Cuba announced plans in December 2014 to
re-establish long-frozen relations. Since then, the two countries
have seen landmark reforms in U.S. policy toward Cuba and bilateral
ties between the two nations.
However,
Cuba maintains that the normalization of ties will not be complete
until the United States lifts the financial, commercial and economic
blockade against the island, closes down the U.S. military base at
Guantanamo and commits to fully respecting Cuban sovereignty.
But
Trump has demonstrated hostility toward Cuba and rejected the thawing
of ties, claiming that the normalization process should be scrapped
unless Havana agrees to a better “deal,” while Raul Castro has
reaffirmed that despite the changes the socialist country will
never head toward capitalism.
