As part of last month’s deal between Washington and Havana, Cuba agreed to release 53 political prisoners that had been detained for their criticism of the Castro regime.
The Washington Post reports that both governments “refuse to publicly name the prisoners,” and that their release “was not a precondition for renewing diplomatic ties.”
But, the fate of the dissidents – and even their identities – remains unknown. Nor is it clear how many have been released yet.
On Monday’s “Special Report with Bret Baier,” Charles Krauthammer said that this lack of information calls into question the wisdom of the deal, calling it “hollow from the very beginning:”
“There is no real care in this administration for human rights abroad. Obviously, they have no great interest in these prisoners — it was a throw-in at the end of the deal.”
Krauthammer added that the Obama administration also had no regard for “the revolution in Iran in 2009” or for the “Russian dissidents who stand in the way of the deal with the Russians.”
Krauthammer said that the release of the prisoners should have been a prerequisite for any deal made with Cuba.
“Look, the reason that [White House press secretary] Josh Earnest was pretending that this was a humanitarian, independent gesture on the part of the Castros is because we don’t want to offend the Cubans into thinking it was somehow a deal,” said Krauthammer. “Well, why in God’s name did we immediately release the three Cuban spies and not insist that there be an immediate release of the 53 Cubans? Why is it in stages? Here are people that are entirely innocent of a real crime other than opposing the regime and [we’re] releasing real criminals.”
Krauthammer called the administration’s failure to release the prisoners “the worst part” of the deal:
We’re going to start negotiations in two weeks on normalization without insisting in advance that the prisoners are released. That’s not a precondition. We are going to start and get absolutely nothing? It’s impossible to believe that the administration would be so weak and thoughtless in doing that. We will see. They have two weeks to produce. I hope they do, but I’m worried that they won’t.
Krauthammer’s fellow panelist George Will added that the president is an “unreliable negotiator” and thus may force Congress to “take charge” of upcoming negotiations with Iran.
