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Venezuelan, Cuban Refugees Call on Trump to Help Free Their Countries From Communism

Refugees Talk About Their Firsthand Experience With Socialism, Communism

By Ella Kietlinska

July 12, 2020 Updated: July 12, 2020

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Venezuelan and Cuban activists in Florida on July 10 urged President Donald Trump attending their roundtable on “Supporting the People of Venezuela,” to help people oppressed by socialist and communist regimes in Venezuela and Cuba to regain freedom and eliminate narco-terrorism and poverty.

Ernesto Ackerman, the president of civic group Independent Venezuelan-American Citizens, requested Trump at the roundtable held in Doral, Florida, to “eliminate the germs of socialism” from Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba, and other countries in the region and to “help the people of Venezuela to get rid of the narco-terrorists who have kidnapped our nation.”

Ackerman, born in Venezuela, is a son of a Venezuelan concentration camp survivor who still lives in Venezuela. He said that his organization has lobbied the U.S. Congress for over 18 years to impose sanctions on narco-terrorists in Venezuela.

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Cubans line up outside a bakery in Havana, to buy bread on December 13, 2018. (Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images)

Dr. Orlando Gutierrez Boronat, Cuban-born co-founder and spokesperson for the Cuban Democratic Directorate and a leader of the Cuban exile community, said at the roundtable that there “should be a task force [in the United States] to educate Americans about socialism and communism.”

Gutierrez-Boronat shared key life experiences in communist Cuba helped him to understand the nature of socialism and communism.

He recalled that church services in Cuba were attended by very few people since churchgoers were persecuted and discriminated against by the communist regime for believing in God.

“Everywhere communism and socialism have come to, the first freedom they strike at is religious freedom,” Gutierrez-Boronat said, adding that this is the reason why the statues of Jesus are knocked down.

“The right to believe or not to believe, to have faith or not to have faith, that’s fundamental and that’s one of the first things communism in Cuba tried to eradicate. They tried to wipe out Christianity in Cuba,” Gutierrez-Boronat said.

The strategic sanctions imposed by the United States “aimed at the military and the intelligence and security sectors [in Cuba] have weakened them,” Gutierrez-Boronat said, adding that this is why protests erupted in Santa Clara, Cuba, in the past months.

Cuba was self-sufficient, its economy thriving, and it even exported food before the communists took over the country in 1959, he said, but “Cuba today cannot feed itself without U.S. donations of food.”

Gutierrez-Boronat criticized Hollywood and media outlets that spread false information about socialism, communism, and about what happened in Cuba.

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Seven would-be Cuban emigres remain in a homemade boat moments before being arrested by Cuban military agents after their attempt to escape from the island nation was thwarted by the sea currents, on June 4, 2009 in Havana. (Adalberto Roque/AFP/Getty Images)

He also urged Trump to consider indicting the Cuban regime for its 1996 killing of Cuban Americans who were helping people escape Cuba by rafts in international waters, and for other crimes against humanity that the Cuban regime committed.

Trump said the United States has imposed “historic sanctions” on the Venezuelan regime led by socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro and that it stands with “with the righteous and rightful leaders of Venezuela.”

Trump added that his administration indicted Maduro’s regime for narco-terrorism and imposed sanctions on Nicaragua for human rights violations.

He ended the Obama administration’s “pro-communist policies” that he said Joe Biden has pledged to reinstate.

Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) said that socialism and communism in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba is not only disastrous for people there but also poses a national security threat to the United States.

Venezuelan Communism Exposed

Venezuela-Political Crisis

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, sitting at desk second from right, speaks with Supreme Court President Maikel Moreno at the Supreme Court before giving his annual presidential address in Caracas, Venezuela, on Jan. 31, 2020. (Ariana Cubillos/File/AP Photo)

Lourdes Ubieta, a Venezuelan-born activist who has been working for media in Venezuela and the United States for over 25 years, said that her Cuban parents living in exile in Venezuela fled Cuba to escape “Castro communist tyranny.”

Venezuela was a prosperous and generous country until 1999 when Hugo Chavez took power and imposed socialism on the country.

Almost two decades of socialist rule has devastated Venezuela, Ubieta said, bringing 75 percent of Venezuelan families into poverty where they even cannot even afford the “basic food basket.”

“Out of 7.8 million children in the country, 40 percent report difficulties to attend school for problems with water supplies, blackout, no food at home, lack of transport, or lack of teachers,” she said. The child mortality rate has also increased dramatically in Venezuela, she added.

The socialist regime has destroyed the country’s economy to the point that the food sector cannot produce enough food and the oil industry cannot produce enough gasoline, Ubieta said.

Venezuela generates most of its revenue from oil production as its oil reserves are one of the world’s largest. During the 1970s Venezuela’s oil industry was nationalized. In 1989 the oil prices plummeted worldwide causing the country’s oil-reliant economy to fall. Consumer prices including food and gas increased and people’s living conditions deteriorated.

Chavez’s socialist policies made the country even more dependent on oil export and his successor, Maduro, continued his policies.

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An anti-Maduro protester is detained by security forces during clashes in Caracas on May 1, 2019. (FEDERICO PARRA/AFP/Getty Images)

“Transnational organized crime controls Venezuela. Drug cartels, Colombian guerrillas, international mobs, and Iranian financed terrorists operate freely” under the Venezuelan regime “with the Cuban agenda,” Ubieta said, adding that Trump has been the only U.S. president “who has stood firm against these criminals.”

“I ask you [Mr. President] not to leave Venezuela. Each minute that passes is one of the greatest sufferings for Venezuelans,” Ubieta said.

“I will not forget what I heard today, it’s very moving, it’s a very tough situation and we’ve made a lot of progress as you probably have seen,” Trump said before concluding, “I have a feeling you won’t be disappointed.”

Democratic Party Roundtable

Earlier on the same day ahead of Trump’s visit, the Democratic Party organized a virtual roundtable on Facebook for Cuban and Venezuelan community leaders to condemn the Trump administration for “broken promises to Venezuelan and Cuban communities,” according to FloridaDems.org.

“He’s going to sit down today with Venezuelan migrants, I saw his agenda. Is he willing to grant Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans? … we have 150,000 people here in this country with a vulnerable migration status, Leopoldo Martinez Nucete, a Venezuelan Latino Victory board member, said at the Democratic roundtable, according to FloridaDems.org.

“Look beyond what says—and assess and evaluate what he has done. He has done nothing to resolve this pandemic. Pretty much like he has done nothing—just talk—about Venezuela. He doesn’t care about Venezuelans,” Nucete added.

Dr. Frank Mora, Cuban American, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Western Hemisphere said at the Democratic roundtable, “Why isn’t he granting TPS [Temporary Protected Status] for Venezuelans? Why increase the deportations of Cubans? Why are Cubans being detained without their cases being considered in Louisiana? Why are there so many Cubans in at the US-Mexico border without also having their cases heard?” reported FloridaDems.org.

The TPS Act for Venezuelans was passed by the House in July last year but has not been voted on by the Senate. Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) explained that while the current situation in Venezuela is exactly the reason the temporary program was created, it is practically impossible to rescind it.

The Trump administration tried to rescind TPS designations for six countries in 2018-2019 but was blocked by judges each time.