Is a Cuba libre on the horizon?

OPINION:

Change is in the air in Cuba, but it is not because of an internal uprising. The totalitarian dictatorship built by brothers Fidel and Raul Castro with the aid of the Soviet KGB, East German Stasi and former Waffen-SS members has built through terror and murder the perfect prison to contain the Cuban people in misery.

Despite this, Cubans risked everything standing up for freedom in Cuba through citizen initiatives such as the Varela Project and paid the ultimate price.

Some sought to begin new lives abroad and freedom, only to be massacred by Cuban government agents in the Florida Straits. Others died because of the elements and the lack of fresh water.

Brothers to the Rescue, an initiative by volunteer pilots, came into existence in 1991 after the death of 15-year-old refugee Gregorio Perez Ricardo because of a lack of water.

They sought to save refugees in the Florida Straits and succeeded in saving more than 4,200 lives.

Brothers to the Rescue also connected with the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta and held teach-ins on nonviolence in South Florida.

On Jan. 13, 1996, from international airspace, they successfully leafleted Havana with a message of empowerment and solidarity, along with excerpts from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Cuban dictatorship, outraged by this legal act of resistance, initiated Operation Scorpion, using its spy network in the United States to gather information, sow division and plan the downing of the Brothers to the Rescue planes.

The terrorist attack was carried out by Cuban MiGs on the afternoon of Feb. 24, 1996, and killed Armando Alejandre Jr., 45, Carlos Alberto Costa, 29, Mario Manuel de la Pena, 24, and Pablo Morales, 29, over international airspace.

It also led to the passage of the Helms-Burton Act (Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act) on March 12, 1996, which codified sanctions and their lifting on the following three conditions: the liberation of all political prisoners; the legalization of all political parties, labor unions and the press; and the scheduling of free, multiparty elections for the Cuban people.

Change is underway because of the United States. The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy states that it will not tolerate hostile actors in the Western Hemisphere.

“After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region. We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere. This ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine is a commonsense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests.”

This is bad news for the dictatorships in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela that are hostile to the United States and allied with Beijing, Moscow and Tehran.

The Cuban dictatorship is the oldest of these dictatorships. It exported and successfully implanted its model in Caracas and Managua, visiting misery and terror on millions more in those nations. On Jan. 24, the Trump administration issued an executive order describing Cuba as a malign influence undermining U.S. national interests in the region and provided some specific examples.

The Cuban regime aligns itself with numerous hostile countries and malign actors, hosting their military and intelligence capabilities. For example, Cuba hosts Russia’s largest overseas signals intelligence facility focused on stealing sensitive national security information from the United States.

Cuba provides a haven for transnational terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and supports adversaries in the Western Hemisphere, undermining U.S. sanctions and regional stability.

The regime persecutes and tortures political opponents, denies free speech and press, profits corruptly from the Cuban people’s misery and incites chaos by spreading communist ideology across the region.

These actions constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to U.S. national security and foreign policy, requiring immediate response to protect American citizens and interests.

Havana also has visited terrorism on innocents throughout the region, including the United States, and continues to harbor terrorist fugitives who murdered Americans, such as bomb maker Guillermo Morales, to the present day.

The United States entered the Spanish-American War after the explosion of the USS Maine on Feb. 15, 1898, and Cuba’s independence was declared in April 1898 by the Teller Amendment, which became law.

Today, thanks to the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, passed because of the Brothers to the Rescue plane downing 30 years ago, and U.S. national security interests in the region, history may be rhyming to a similar tune: that of a Cuba libre with a clear path to democratic, multiparty elections and freedom for all political prisoners in exchange for all sanctions being lifted.

• John Suarez is a human rights activist, the executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba and a former program officer for Latin America programs at Freedom House.