Although U.S. President Barack Obama is calling his visit to Cuba a success, Reverend Franklin Graham has some serious doubts about it.
"President Obama and the First Lady are in Cuba. He would like the visit to highlight his diplomatic success; however, I doubt that he will see the real poverty and horrors that have been brought about by the Castro brothers' dictatorship," the evangelist wrote on his Facebook page on Monday.
Obama left Cuba on Tuesday and arrived in Buenos Aires to begin a two-day official visit to Argentina on Wednesday.
Graham said the Castro brothers are responsible for "the imprisonment and execution of thousands of innocent people," and they have also kept the country in "economic and political chains for decades."
Graham acknowledged that Obama did some good things during his visit to Cuba, but said these weren't enough. The Cuban government needs to undergo a drastic change, according to Graham.
"Even though there are some new freedoms and President Obama relaxed travel restrictions further this week to encourage tourism, everyone needs to realize that Cuba is still a Communist dictatorship that holds its more than 11 million people hostage to their whims," he said.
"Dissent is not tolerated — people of conscience are still arrested, such as the Ladies in White who were arrested the day the President arrived. Pastor Mario Felix Lleonart Barroso's story is also in the news as his home and church were surrounded and he was arrested just hours before President Obama's arrival," he added. "While there have been some significant improvements, freedom of worship is still restricted. Let's pray that we will see real change for the people of Cuba."
Meanwhile, many Christians are praising the Obama administration for finally calling the extermination of Christians and other religious minorities by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq as "genocide." However, Graham is questioning what took Washington so long.
"It's time our government recognises it is Islam that fuels this hatred and death. Call it what it is," he said.
