Unsatisfied with missing Obama’s clear about-face on Cuba, Yank liberal blogger Steve Clemons has written this extraordinary post for Comment is Free. It’s clear that his advocacy for ending the trade embargo is moored to his twittish belief that life in Cuba is just peachy:

While few have yet come to understand the importance of his announcement and the manner of it in the US, the fact that Castro is concluding his term at the end of his constitutionally determined tenure demonstrates a respect for rule of law, at least in Cuban terms.

Actually, there is nothing in the Cuban constitution that determines the length of Castro’s “presidency;” all it does is stipulate that the National Assembly decides who occupies this post. As far as a “higher body of people’s power” is concerned, the National Assembly operates much like the Soviet Central Committee did. (One of the unfulfilled promises of the Communist revolutionaries was to restore the country’s 1940 Constitution, which Batista abrogated but which had previously been hailed one of the most “progressive” democratic covenants in the world.) Also, a “respect for rule of law”? How dare Clemons?

The current constitution legally guarantees “the enjoyment of political freedom, social justice, individual and collective well-being and human solidarity.” Now here is the introduction to Amnesty International’s 2005 report on the imprisonment and systematic abuse of prisoners of conscience in Cuba:

In March 2003, the Cuban government carried out the most severe crackdown on the dissident movement since the years following the 1959 revolution. Scores of dissidents were detained, seventy five of whom were subjected to summary trials and quickly sentenced to prison terms ranging from 26 months to 28 years. This crackdown came as a surprise to many observers who believed that Cuba might be moving towards a more open and tolerant approach towards opponents of the regime: the number of prisoners of conscience had declined and had been superseded by short term detentions, interrogations, summonses, threats, intimidation, eviction, loss of employment, restrictions on travel, house searches or physical or verbal acts of aggression. In addition, in April 2000 the Cuban Government began implementing a de facto moratorium on executions, which was broken in April 2003 with the execution of three men convicted of hijacking a tugboat to leave the island, in which no one was harmed.

[…]

According to the trial documents available, the evidence on which the March 2003 prosecutions were brought and the sentences confirmed included:

1. publishing articles or giving interviews, in US-funded or other media, said to be critical of economic, social or human rights matters in Cuba;
2. communicating with international human rights organisations;
3. having contact with entities or individuals viewed as hostile to Cuba’s interests, including US officials in Cuba, or members of the Cuban exile community in the United States or Europe;
4. distributing or possessing material such as radios, battery chargers, video equipment or publications, from the US Interests Section in Havana(2);
5. being involved in groups which are not officially recognised by the Cuban authorities or which are accused of conducting counterrevolutionary activity, including among others: unofficial trade unions; professional associations such as doctors’ and teachers’ associations; academic institutions; press associations or independent libraries.

Instead of even the barest acknowledgment of this gruesome reality, Clemons chooses to regale his readers of his own good-natured run-in with the authorities:

I even tried to get into a major national event where vice president Raul Castro and National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcon were giving away awards for the 50th anniversary of a student revolt against former Cuban President Fulgencio Battista. I was in my running attire and tried to sneak through, telling the guard that I was an American observer (I was just a bit obnoxious to tell you the truth). The guard laughed it off and gave me credit for trying - but no man-handling, nothing of the sort that has become commonplace in American cities when mayors in DC or NY tell their police forces to arrest first and ask questions later when a WTO meeting or political convention is being hosted.

Sidney and Beatrice Webb smile beatifically on the American observer in his sweaty jogging wear. Of course, given that all opposition in the caudillo’s island paradise has either been murdered or jailed might account for the shrugging indifference with which one useful idiot was met.

Clemons is more than a bit obnoxious, to tell you the truth.