Next step: Cuban five?

Barack Obama has already signed the Executive Order requiring the closing of Guantanamo Bay’s detention facilities within the year. Meanwhile, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has offered the new Administration’s first official comments on Cuba, acknowledging a change underway in the Cuban-American community and assuring that the Administration is “sensitive” to it. Both moves indicate a certain level of willingness in the White House to use a different framework for dealing with Cuba.

A rough English translation of a Prensa Latina article provides insight into what many figures in the international community believe would be a productive next step in the process toward such a framework [read the Spanish version here]. Freeing the Cuban Five, much like Guantanamo, would be more than a positive gesture to Cuba; it would be an opportunity to continue to clean up the U.S. international reputation. The individuals in question have been jailed in the United States for ten years after what the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (and countless other international groups and individuals) declared an unfair trial. Heeding this call would be another way for the new Administration to differentiate itself from its predecessors in the international eye.