The world wakes up with the news of a hunger strike in Havana, but no just another, Alan Gross, an American contractor sentenced to 15 years in prison for trying to smuggle forbidden technology in Cuba, declared a hunger strike “to protest the treatment to which I am subjected by the governments of Cuba and the United States.”
Gross laments the inaction of his government and calls upon President Obama to take steps for his release.
This hunger strike begins just two days after it was known, from the revelations of The Associated Press, that the USAID sought to develop a project called zunzuneo for inciting social disorder and topple the Cuban government. This program was implemented a few months after the arrest of Gross, by the same agency that has long denied that their plans were intended to result in regime change.
But perhaps the most significant issue is that the public announcement of Gross takes place the same day that the USAID presented to the Senate Appropriations Committee its report on the budget for 2015. In this presentation, the agency administrator, Dr. Rajiv Shah after hesitation and under pressure from the questions of Senator Patrick Leahy said he did not know where the idea came to create zunzuneo , yet he said it was not a covert operation but “discreet” .
Alan Gross has become the only U.S. government employee who is serving time in a foreign country for which the administration has taken no apparent steps to secure his release. The history of the United States shows that it doesn’t leave its citizens unprotected but , however , in the case of Gross and obeying a stagnant in the memory of the Cold War policy, their actions have been limited to demand unconditional release without sitting at the negotiating table with Cuba .
It is ironic to hear the USAID Administrator, Dr. Shah, almost annoyed at the questions of Senator Leahy when he asked “Have you done anything specifically you personally to bring him home?” And almost stammering he replies, “Yes, I have. I think about him all the time. We think of Alan every day. “
Think time is running out. It is time for politics.
Alan Gross has put an ultimatum to the government. United States should consider a political solution to the case of the contractor, even when it has shown that its policy towards Cuba continues to use illegal and immoral methods that violate international laws and treaties to which it is a signatory.
It is clear that Cuba has included in the debate the case of the three intelligence agents serving sentences in U.S. federal prisons. There is no documented precedent, in cases of espionage, in which the United States has not interceded for its prisoners, either by way of dialogue or military rescues, discarded in this case. The manipulated sentences the Cubans are suffering have been condemned by international human rights associations and their release demanded in many forums around the globe.
U.S. policy is at a crossroads not to let Alan Gross die in Cuba. In this case, the decisions are not on the Cuban side. On numerous occasions the Cuban government has proposed a horizontal dialogue with their American counterparts. It’s time to take into account that the credibility of the Cuban-American lobby in Congress is not at stake but the prestige of the foreign policy of what is supposed to be the most powerful nation in the “free world”
Alan Gross has decided to put his case on the table. He knows he is a hostage of absurd hostilities, the remnants of a war that spans over fifty years and has only managed to alienate two neighboring countries with common interests. Zunzuneo, the budget presentation of USAID and the hunger strike of Gross, should be enough signs for Obama to ponder, to be understood that we must seek a permanent solution to a dispute that damages the credibility and influence of the USA.
Patrick Leahy, one of the greatest Senators of the United States, was calling his government to take “substantive and significant steps to negotiate Gross’ release as a result of an irresponsible program designed under the Bush administration”
Time is running out for Gross. This hunger strike is a desperate cry. The administration of President Barack Obama has in its hands the solution to this problem; it is time to act responsibly and with political courage. In U.S. military jargon there is a saying that says, if they have hurt one of us, they have hurt us all.
It seems that Gross is not one of theirs; it seems that he is one of the forgotten.
* The statement of the Foreign Ministry reiterates the will of the Cuban government to seek a negotiated and humanitarian way out for the case contractor “The Cuban government reiterates its willingness to seek, in conjunction with the U.S. government, a solution to the case of Mr. Gross, acceptable to both parties, that addresses the Cuban humanitarian concerns related to the three of the group of the Cuban Five, that continue unjustly imprisoned in the United States for over 15 years, “the note reads.
