Hillary Clinton stops at FIU to call for closer connection to Cuban people

In hopes of reaching the White House by 2016, Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton made a stop at FIU to send a message to John Boehner and Mitch McConnell: lift the embargo on Cuba.

Her speech in the Wertheim Performing Arts Center was her first chance to speak on President Barack Obama’s move in December 2014 to begin normalizing U.S.-Cuba diplomatic relations.

Clinton echoed the sentiments of many Democrats that the embargo, in place for more than 50 years, has done little to create meaningful change in Cuba.

“The embargo needs to go once and for all,” Clinton said. “We need to replace it with a smarter approach that inspires the people of Cuba and puts pressure on the Castro regime.”

Pushing the regime to change is one of the reasons for lifting the embargo, said Brian Fonseca, director of operations in the University’s Applied Research Center.

“It’s also about creating reunification for families that have been affected by the misguided U.S. policy,” said Fonseca, who is also a lecturer in the University’s Latin America and Caribbean Center.

He said a lifted Cuban embargo would also help force change on the island by giving the people there freedom of expression and basic human rights, ideas Clinton addressed in her speech.

She said as president she would support human rights and civil society in Cuba. And she said she would direct U.S. diplomats to build relationships with Cubans – specifically those who support women’s and worker’s’ rights.

“I would make it clear that the freedom to connect is a basic human right,” Clinton said.

Throughout the years there have been changes in U.S.-Cuba policy that make it easier to travel and send remittances, according to Jorge Duany, director of the Cuban Research Institute.

However tourism is still impossible, only educational travel and for specific business reasons.

Clinton also said people in Cuba have waited long enough.

“They want a closer relationship with America” and “we should walk the road to democracy together.”

She cited the success of the 1.5 million Cuban-Americans in Miami as an example of what people with access to more economic opportunities can accomplish.

“I will look to the Cuban American community to lead the way,” she said.

Duany said a “very strong and compelling argument” for a more open Cuba is to strengthen family ties, which he also said makes a difference for students of the University and young people in Cuba.

Alexis Catalayud, president of the Student Government Council at the Modesto Maidique Campus, said half of the population in Cuba is under 30 years old.

Speaking generally, she said young people are ambitious and creative.

“When introduced to an open world they ask for opportunities” said Catalayud, a second-generation Cuban-American. “The opening of Cuba with the demographics there are promising.”

Monica Fernandez, a senior international relations and economics, said she is in favor of a new policy that has never been done before, for the sake of progress.

Although Clinton acknowledged in her speech that some Republicans on Capitol Hill have recognized that a new foreign policy for Cuba is needed, Marco Rubio – who has taught political science at the University as recently as spring 2015 – has campaigned on his parents’ story about being immigrants from Cuba.

Both Rubio and Jeb Bush have repeatedly criticized the Obama administration’s stance on normalizing relations.

Of those people Clinton said they would take the policy in the opposite direction.

“Republican candidates will reverse the progress we’ve made,” she said. “They view Cuba through an outdated-Cold War lens. Engagement is a threat to the Castros, not a gift.

“If we go backward no one will benefit more than the hardliners in Havana. Cuba’s hardliners are opposed to it; because they are opposed to it is why we need to do it.”

Outside the Performing Arts Center, between Blue Garage and the Frost Museum, there were protesters who held signs denouncing Clinton, Obama and their attempts to normalize relations with Cuba and the regime now run by Fidel Castro’s brother Raul.

Hilary protestes

On one poster, the protesters wrote what the U.S. government is attempting is “a disrespect to the Cuban exiles.”

Alejandro Flores, a junior political science major, said he understands their sentiment.

“They went through the harshest period of the most oppressive regime in Cuban history; I understand,” said Flores, who is the upcoming president of the FIU College Democrats. “My grandfather was imprisoned there for five years.”

Flores is Cuban on his mother’s side.

But he said at this point the U.S. must move forward.

“I understand the emotions but emotions shouldn’t affect policy too much,” Flores said.

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