Mariela Castro on Prisoner Swap with US
HAVANA TIMES — Speaking to CNN, Mariela Casto said on Monday that American “subcontractor” Alan Gross and the Cuban Five, imprisoned in the US, should be released.
“What we want most is the well-being of all of their families,” said the director of the National Sex Education Center during her visit to the US. The daughter of Cuban president Raul Castro added, “I think that all six should be released.”
According to the Cubaencuentro report, Castro stressed that “this would be the happiest outcome for everyone involved.”
Some US analysts have said that the Cuban government is holding Gross, sentenced to 15 years for threatening Cuban security, to pressure Washington to make an exchange for the Cuban Five who have been imprisoned in the US since 1998.
No one should believe that anything Mariela Castro said while in the US was not by grand design. Her suggestion to Ms. Amampour on CNN to swap Gross for the five spies is further confirmation that Cuba’s arrest, conviction and incarceration of Mr. Gross was designed to pressure the US into releasing the five. Should the US capitulate to this Cuban proposal, every ten-cent dictator in the world would be emboldened to snatch up a foreign NGO worker on specious charges in hopes gaining a foothold in negotiating with a more powerful Western adversary. Unfornately for Mr. Gross and his loved ones, the US must stand pat in its decision to reject any trade proposal with Cuba. Cuba loses nothing should the Five continue to languish in US prisons. On the contrary, the Five serve as martyrs-du-jour for a regime in search of a victimizer. The US, however, puts every NGO worker sent abroad to countries like Cuba at risk. The five spies should be sent home but not this way.