Oh well… On to the next brilliant plan.
American prisoner in Cuba ends hunger strike
He was arrested for importing, distributing communication equipment to Jewish community.
MIAMI – An American contractor being held in a Cuban prison ended a hunger strike on Friday after his 92-year-old mother asked him to stop.
Alan Gross, who was arrested by Cuban authorities in 2009 for importing and distributing communication equipment to the Jewish community there, started his fast April 3 to protest his detention. Gross was upset with both the governments of Cuba and the United States for what he described as meager efforts to secure his release.
Gross estimates he had already lost over 110 pounds before starting his hunger strike. That’s why his relatives asked him to stop his fast, which involved ingesting only water.
On Friday, he agreed.
“My protest fast is suspended as of today, although there will be further protests to come,” he said in a statement dictated to his attorney, Scott Gilbert, on a phone call from his prison in Havana. “There will be no cause for further intense protest when both governments show more concern for human beings and less malice and derision toward each other.”
Gross was working under a contract from the U.S. Agency for International Development when he was arrested by Cuban authorities. He was convicted in a Cuban court in 2011 and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Gross’s case has become a central component in U.S.-Cuba relations. President Obama and other officials have called for his unconditional release, while Cuban officials say the United States should release five Cuban citizens who have been convicted on espionage charges.
Let’s not forget that Alan “Woe-is-me” Gross was motivated into taking electronic equipment to Cuba to the Jewish community that betrayed him for a $500,000 salary. Gross denounced the U.S. before being sentenced in the hope of getting less time in prison and later sued the U.S. government. Gross is no hero. He is really gross. If we make heroes and martyrs out of gullible idiots who end up in jail in Cuba, then the fugitive Robert Vesco, who died in a Cuban prison, is also a hero and martyr. Not!
This fast was such a lame idea that I expect it was never meant to go very far, but simply to get some attention, remind people Gross is still languishing as a hostage of Castro, Inc., and put pressure on Obama to make the swap for the Cuban spies. I’m quite sure Gross has been told by his captors in no uncertain terms that he’s NOT getting released on humanitarian grounds and that Castro, Inc. will only free him if it gets the spies back. The regime knows Obama won’t play hardball and it feels comfortable digging in its heels. As usual with Dem administrations, Havana knows it can get away with it.