![Kerry: 'Cuba Would Be Best Served By Genuine Democracy' [VIDEO]](https://images.dailycaller.com/image/width=960,height=411,fit=cover,f=auto/https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-07-23T052053Z_1_LYNXNPEB6M078_RTROPTP_4_IRAN-NUCLEAR-e1439566024344.jpg "Kerry: 'Cuba Would Be Best Served By Genuine Democracy' [VIDEO]")
Sec. of State John Kerry was critical of the Cuban government and said that “the people of Cuba would be best served by a genuine democracy.”
Kerry was in Havana, Cuba Friday at the reopening of the U.S. Embassy when he stated the people of Cuba would be better off with a government that allowed their people to be “free to choose their leaders, express their ideas, practice their faith with commitment, economic and social justice.”
Kerry encouraged the Cuban government to, “fulfill its obligations under the U.N. and Inter-American Human Rights Covenants. Obligations shared by the United States and every other country in the Americas. And indeed we remain convinced the people of Cuba would be best served by genuine democracy, where people are free to choose their leaders, express their ideas, practice their faith with commitment, economic and social justice. I realized more fully. Where institutions are answerable to those they serve and where civil society is independent and allowed to flourish.”
Kerry further stated, “let me be clear. The establishment of normal diplomatic relations is not something that one government does as a favor to another. It is something that two countries do together when the citizens of both will benefit. In this case, the reopening of our embassies is important on two levels. People to people and government to government. First, we believe it’s helpful to the people of our nations to learn more about each other, to meet each other. That is why we are encouraged to travel from the United States to Cuba has already increased by 35 percent since January and is continuing to go up.”