Monday, 06 Apr 2015 01:44 PM
By Jennifer G. Hickey

As a consequence of President Barack Obama’s decision to chart a new course in U.S.-Cuban relations, Cuban dictator Raul Castro will attend this week’s Summit of the Americas with the upper hand and an opportunity to set the regional agenda, says Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady.

“Repression is on the march in the Americas, and U.S. ambivalence is part of the problem. In the White House’s lack of moral clarity, the region’s bullies smell weakness. One result is that a Caribbean backwater run by gangster brothers now has the upper hand in setting the regional agenda,” writes O’Grady.

For the first time, Cuba was invited and chose not to boycott the event, which O’Grady says is a sign of how much damage the Obama administration has done to the cause of democracy in the region.

“Being outcasts made Raúl and Fidel Castro feel disrespected. So they pressured much of the rest of the region to say that if Cuba were again left out, they would boycott the event. In December Mr. Obama folded. It was a sign of how bad things are in the Americas. Authoritarian governments now rule in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Venezuela, Ecuador,

Evidence of Cuba’s anti-democratic actions was seen on Sunday when dissident Rosa Maria Paya was arrested on Sunday night at the airport in Panama, according to The London Telegraph.

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