The result of a deal brokered between the Cuban government and the Catholic Church calls for the (incremental) release of more than 50 political prisoners from Cuban jails, who will be allowed to leave the country. It’s being billed–including via AP accounts–as the island’s largest “mass liberation” since Pope John Paul II visited in 1998. It was trumpeted after a deal-sealing meeting between Cuban President Raul Castro and the archbishop of Havana, Cardinal Jaime Ortega. Also formally weighing in and giving his geopolitical blessing: the foreign minister of Spain, Miguel Angel Moratinos.
“Liberation,” however, hardly seems appropriate.
Political-opposition activists are not being freed to speak their conscience in a Cuba that remains anathema to personal liberties. Those being released are representative of a long-running Cuban strategy. The government periodically releases political steam from the pressure cooker of frustration that is daily life in Cuba for those who dissent. They are thrown out of their own country.
No, exile, is not to be confused with “liberation.” Indeed, it is liberation that is still in exile.