August 20, 2010
By Professor Carlos Eire
Yes, you can go there. People always find ways of traveling to “forbidden” places. Some traveled freely to the Third Reich too, and to South Africa when apartheid was still practiced. If it were at all possible, some would undoubtedly take tours of hell, too…
August 20, 2010
By Professor Carlos Eire
Yes, you can go there. People always find ways of traveling to “forbidden” places. Some traveled freely to the Third Reich too, and to South Africa when apartheid was still practiced. If it were at all possible, some would undoubtedly take tours of hell, too.
There are all sorts of ways to sneak into Castrolandia, via other countries that have dealings with it. All you have to do is to fly somewhere where they have flights to Revolutionstan hop on one of their planes. But that is illegal for Americans. So just be sure to remind the Cuban authorities not to stamp your American passport once you get there. They are very used to that request. The only legal way for Americans to travel to Cuba is with a humanitarian or educational program. However, you should know that all of these programs have to pay their pound of flesh to the elites of Revolutionstan, and that much of the humanitarian aid is snapped up by the corrupt officials who run the island..
If you really want to go, here is something you must keep in mind: As a tourist in Cuba, you will be supporting an economic and political system that practices apartheid and discrimination. As a tourist, you will have access to hotels, restaurants, beaches, transportation, food, drink, and all other sorts of merchandise and amenities that are strictly off limits to 99.99% of the Cuban population. Until very recently, Cubans were not allowed to set foot in tourist hotels under any circumstances, or to use the beaches or pools, etc… unless they worked there. Raul Castro loosened up on this draconian apartheid, just a little bit because his need of dollars.. It is now “legal” for Cubans with dollars to step into tourist hotels, but good luck to you, my friend, if you are Cuban and dare to do that. The apartheid is still in practice, even though it has been removed from the books by sleight of hand to get the dollars relatives sent from abroad. And to work there, you have to kiss ass and play the game the governing elite want you to play. You also need skin that is not too dark. African Cubans tend to be discriminated against by the white elites who run the island. If you are lucky enough to land a job in a tourist facility, as a Cuban worker you will also only earn about 17 dollars a month, even though the European hotel chain is actually paying out about 10 dollars an hour for your labor. The military junta that runs the island skims the profits. And forget about tipping. It is illegal for Cubans to accept tips or gifts from foreigners.
Ask yourself: what is the difference between an old-fashioned slave plantation and Castrolandia? Think about the slave labor that built the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., which made the slave owners fabulously wealthy, and then about the slave labor of Cubans who toil in all of the carefully segregated tourist facilities of Revolutionstan, which makes the old white Cuban men who run the tourist industry rich. Anyone with an active conscience should eventually see the similarities. The masters of the slaves who built the Capitol got paid the going rate for labor, while their slaves got nothing at all, save their meals, which you can bet were less than gourmet quality.
Oh, but they have free medical care in Cuba, you say.
Well, think it through: the Capitol slaves got their wounds treated, along with all their other ailments. No one wants an unhealthy, unproductive slave. Slaves are investments.
Oh, but in Cuba they have free education, you say.
Well, think that one through too: slaves who toil in the tourist industry need certain skills, like reading and math. You can bet that the slaves who built the Capitol also got a “free” education in the skills they needed to haul the stones and put them in place. In Cuba the privileged elites who profit from everyone else’s labor not only boast about this sort of exploitation as “free education and medical care,” but actually argue that the only way to deliver these “free” benefits to the people is to deny them their most basic human rights.
Have you any idea how repressed the Cuban people are?
No freedom of speech.
No free press.
No freedom of assembly.
No free enterprise of any kind.
No freedom to travel outside the island.
No freedom to change residence within the island.
No labor unions.
No negotiating with the only employer, which is the government.
No access to all facilities used by tourists.
No access to boats of any kind, unless you are employed by the ministry of fisheries.
And so on…. that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
You ask how you can start exchanging emails with Cubans. Tough luck, my friend: 99 percent of the Cuban population is forbidden access to computers and the internet. Good luck finding someone who is not a member of the ruling class who will exchange emails with you. And good luck getting any honest replies from them.
Before you embark, please note that you can be arrested and imprisoned if the authorities decide that you are merely capable of causing trouble. Suspicion alone can land you in jail. And you can be held in jail indefinitely without any specific charges pressed against you.
Also keep in mind that foreigners can be arrested and held in prison if they are suspected of being agents of a foreign state. This happened to Alan Gross, an American, a few months ago, for distributing laptops and cell phones to Cubans. He has yet to be freed.
Go, then, at your own risk.
Your body will probably be safe, and you will find plenty to eat and drink, unlike the vast majority of Cubans. If sex is what you crave, you will certainly find no shortage of men, women, and children who will eagerly exchange their dignity for a few coins and fulfill your every fantasy, no matter how kinky.
Go, then. But know this: your soul will be in peril, along with your conscience. If you care about human rights.
Carlos Eire is Riggs Professor of History and Religious studies at Yale University and author of Waiting for Snow in Havana (Free Press)
August 14, 2010
In his Aug. 9 op-ed column, “Castro and the cardinal,” Jackson Diehl pointed out that some people say Raul Castro wants to modernize and stabilize Cuba. Mr. Castro wants to do both without losing power, and he has convinced Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega that the most important thing is to start “the process,” even if it takes years. Mr. Castro wants to talk to Washington but will not allow the Cubans to talk…
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Read this letter to the editor in the Washington Post
August 14 2010
Read this letter to the editor in the Washington Post
In his Aug. 9 op-ed column, “Castro and the cardinal,” Jackson Diehl pointed out that some people say Ra?l Castro wants to modernize and stabilize Cuba. Mr. Castro wants to do both without losing power, and he has convinced Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega that the most important thing is to start “the process,” even if it takes years. Mr. Castro wants to talk to Washington but will not allow the Cubans to talk.
The cardinal brought a message to the White House. Mr. Castro wants “U.S. trade and investment” and “has a desire for an opening with the U.S. government,” but as Mr. Diehl said, “the time for real change — and for a deeper engagement by the United States — has not yet arrived.” The old regime is gasping for air; 1 million workers will be laid off. No amount of U.S. trade, investment or tourism will resolve Cuba’s crisis without the significant reform that President Obama and the Europeans have requested.
Forcing prisoners and their families into exile, as a requirement for releasing the prisoners, is a cruelty that Cardinal Ortega should not have accepted. Even young children have had their passports stamped “indefinite exit.” They are forever banned from Cuba.
Madrid continues to do Havana’s bidding, but Belgium, the current leader of the European Union, says that the prisoners’ release does not justify a policy change. The Czech foreign minister, Karel Scharzenberg, who was once denied entry into Cuba for wanting to meet with dissidents, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others agree.
Frank Calzon, Arlington
The writer is executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba.
On August 1st, in the small village of Banes in Cuba, a small group of the Ladies in White try to break through a police cordon to visit the cemetary where hunger striker Orlando Zapata Tamayo is buried.
These Ladies in White continue, among other things, to denounce the murder of Tamayo for resisting the government. The authorities starved him while in prison for not doing what he was told to do, or for not thinking how they wanted him to think.
When in a country village, common women folk are not even allowed to go to Church in a group by uniformed officers, it can assuredly signify the end of the regime — spiritually, morally and civically.
August 13, 2010
By Otto Reich and Frank Calzon
www.ottoreichassociates.com
In maintaining Cuba on the official list of State Sponsors of Terrorism for another year, the Obama administration last week said Havana provides safe haven to terrorists belonging to three outlaw organizations. Additionally, Cuba, according to the United States, “permit[s] U.S. fugitives to live legally in Cuba. These U.S. fugitives include convicted murderers as well as numerous hijackers.”
August 13, 2010
BY Otto Reich and Frank Calzon
www.ottoreichassociates.com
Read this article in the Miami Herald
In maintaining Cuba on the official list of State Sponsors of Terrorism for another year, the Obama administration last week said Havana provides safe haven to terrorists belonging to three outlaw organizations. Additionally, Cuba, according to the United States, “permit[s] U.S. fugitives to live legally in Cuba. These U.S. fugitives include convicted murderers as well as numerous hijackers.”
The statements could not come at a worse time for those who want to lift Washington’s ban on American tourism to the island, apparently including Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega. Ortega traveled to Washington recently to speak with Gen. Jim Jones, Obama’s national security adviser. The National Security Council released a statement from General Jones, but kept mum about what the cardinal requested.
The Washington Post, however, reported that Cardinal Ortega “subscribe[s] to the rosier view” of those who believe that despite Fidel Castro’s opposition, “Raúl [Castro] is determined to press forward with a program of change that will extend for years, rather than months.” Ortega said it is “not realistic to begin” with the “democratic reforms” that Obama has demanded as a condition for improved relations. Yet, without democracy and the civil and economic rights that accompany it, all other reforms will fail and can only serve to extend the hold of the Castro dictatorship.
Ortega’s visit undergirds efforts by some in Congress to allow tourism and extend bank credits rather than insist on cash payments to U.S. exporters. The administration’s newest terrorism report spoils those plans: “Cuba continued to provide physical safe haven and ideological support to members of three groups designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the United States” — FARC, ELN and ETA. The first two groups operate in Colombia. ETA is responsible for many murders in Spain.
The latest assessment comes despite Cuba’s protests and efforts by sympathizers to have its name removed from the terrorist list. Cuba has been on the list under five presidents, Republican and Democrat, since 1982. The closest Havana got to being removed was in the 1990s, when Ana Belen Montes, then the highest Defense Intelligence Agency official responsible for assessing Cuba’s threat, almost convinced some well-meaning colleagues of Cuba’s innocence. She was arrested in 2001 and a year later was sentenced to 25 years after pleading guilty to spying for Havana.
About the cardinal’s visit, the NSC quotes General Jones saying: “The United States government desires to see all political prisoners unconditionally released from jail in Cuba with the right to remain in Cuba upon release.” Jones also called “for the immediate release of [USAID contractor] Alan Gross, who has been held without charge since early December 2009” in Havana, for allegedly giving laptops and cell phones to Cuban dissidents.
But if the NSC was reticent about quoting the cardinal, The Washington Post was not, concluding that Ortega has a benign view. The Cuban prelate brought the message that Raúl Castro “is ready to talk with the United States” because Castro wants “U.S. trade and investment” in order to “revive” Cuba’s economy.
Yet many Cubans believe that a dialogue between Raúl Castro and the cardinal, or even with Washington, is not enough. The road to Cuba’s “revival” should start with the release of all political prisoners, as President Obama has asked. The cardinal should take a message back: Forget about U.S. foreign investment and tourism saving the Castro regime; free the Cubans’ economic capacity, which is much more than allowing them to own single-chair barbershops or to manufacture paper flowers at home. Cubans, not foreigners, can jump-start the island’s manufacturing, trade and agricultural production, but only under the sole proven economic system: free enterprise.
As a first step, Raúl could reduce the taxes on remittances, as President Obama has asked, and permit those funds sent by exiles to finance significant economic activity. That would be real change, ameliorating the current economic crisis and providing employment for many un- and underemployed Cubans while liberating them from their dependence on the state.
That might not be what Raúl Castro wants, but most Cubans, Catholics and non-Catholics would welcome it.
Otto Reich is a former assistant secretary of state and ambassador to Venezuela. Frank Calzón is executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba in Arlington, Va.
PETITION FROM THE FORMER PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE EXILED BY CUBA TO SPAIN, TO THE FOREIGN MINISTERS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, ABOUT THE ‘COMMON POSITION’ REGARDING CUBA
Madrid, 19 July 2010
Your Excellencies, the
Foreign Ministers of the European Union
We, the Cuban prisoners of conscience exiled to Spain in recent days, aware of the manifest willingness of some European countries to modify the E.U.’s “Common Position” regarding Cuba, declare our disagreement with an approval of this measure, as we understand that the Cuban government has not taken steps that evidence a clear decision to advance toward the democratization of our country.
Our departure for Spain must not be considered a good-will gesture but a desperate action on the regime’s part in its urgent quest for credits of every type.
It is for that reason that we ask the countries of the European Union not to again soften their exigencies intended to achieve changes toward democracy in Cuba and to secure for all Cubans the same rights that European citizens enjoy.
Respectfully,
Ricardo González Alfonso
Mijail Barzaga Lugo,
Normando Hernández González,
Antonio Alonso Villarreal Acosta
Omar Rodríguez Saludes,
Luis Milán Fernández
Pablo Pacheco Ávila
José Luis García Paneque
Julio César Gálvez
Léster González Pentón
Ambassador Everett Ellis Briggs
July 28, 2010
Much has been made of the agreement brokered by Cardinal Jaime Ortega, with Spain’s pro-Castro Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos playing a supporting role, to secure the release 52 Cuban prisoners of conscience. You’d almost think the Castro brothers finally had seen the light and were ready to play by the rules of the civilized world…
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Ambassador Everett Ellis Briggs
Much has been made of the agreement brokered by Cardinal Jaime Ortega, with Spain’s pro-Castro Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos playing a supporting role, to secure the release 52 Cuban prisoners of conscience. You’d almost think the Castro brothers finally had seen the light and were ready to play by the rules of the civilized world.
You’d be wrong. These prisoners, mostly independent journalists who never should have been arrested, are a fraction of the estimated 2,000 victims of the Castro regime languishing in Cuba’s notorious lockups for such crimes as “dangerousness.” The lucky 52 are to be released in small numbers over an indeterminate period. The first seven arrived in Spain this month.
The agreement came only months after the hunger-strike death of a fellow prisoner, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, and in the midst of a second hunger strike, by Guillermo Farinas, that seemed destined for the same tragic outcome. They were protesting the inhumane conditions of Cuba’s prisons. The outcry of many, especially in Europe, over the callousness of the regime’s response to Zapata’s death may have been the catalyst for the agreement sought by the cardinal and his Spanish partner. In any case, the released prisoners have credited Zapata with having sacrificed his life for their freedom.
Their release is being hailed by advocates of a policy of accommodation with the Castro regime in the United States and the European Union as signaling a dramatic improvement within the Cuban government. Mora- tinos has declared now is the time for the EU to lift its restrictions on business with Cuba, and to respect Cuba’s insistence the EU cease all contacts with Cuba’s dissidents.
In this country, big business is renewing its push for Congress to lift restrictions on credit sales of agricultural goods to Cuba (now amounting to 80 percent of Cuba’s imports, but only on a cash basis) and on tourism, even though both would benefit the regime economically and in the case of credit sales, shift a huge financial risk to U.S. taxpayers.
A few cautionary voices have been raised, but our media have all but ignored them. Most dramatic are what the released prisoners are saying: On top of having been subjected to eight years of unspeakable treatment merely for advocating democracy and engaging in nonviolent opposition to the regime, they have been forced against their will into foreign exile. This, they point out, is another gross violation of internationally agreed basic human rights. So far, nine not yet released have gone so far as to say they’d rather stay in prison than be forced to leave Cuba.
According to Yale professor Carlos Eire, the former prisoners now in Spain are being subjected to heavy-handed treatment by the authorities. Kept in virtual isolation in a remote section of Madrid (Vallecas), they soon will be dispersed to interior towns despite their wish to remain together. The government says it will attend to their basic needs for 24 months. After that, in a country with 20 percent unemployment, they will be on their own.
To those who want to reward the Cuban government for what amounts to a cruel follow-up to eight years of abusive treatment of innocent people, with no sign Raul or Fidel are ready to allow any meaningful reforms of a system that depends exclusively on their warped whims, the basic question is: Why? What is it that would be accomplished?
Much has been claimed about the potentially positive political impact of U.S. tourists flocking to Cuba’s pristine reserved-for-foreigners beaches and other tourist attractions. That millions of non-American tourists have had no discernible effect on Cuba, other than to provide needed foreign currency to the regime and its military/security apparatus, simply is ignored.
Maybe it’s wishful thinking that obscures the obvious: The Cuban government is not about to lift its iron-fisted control that keeps tabs on visitors and ensures they do not infect its citizens with notions the Castro brothers find troublesome. Remember the hapless American Alan Gross, still in jail after seven months, accused of giving a laptop to a Cuban friend?
The Gross case is but one of a very long list of legitimate U.S. grievances that logic and good diplomacy would dictate need to be addressed before any talk of accom- modation (or “normalization”) takes place.
Just a sampling: Cuba provides refuge to a wanted New Jersey cop-killer. It has bestowed medals on the murderers of U.S. citizens whose unarmed aircraft were shot down in cold blood in the Florida Straits in the early 1990s. It owes U.S. citizens billions of dollars of stolen property. Its espionage activities in the United States are a matter of record.
Let us by all means celebrate the release of any Cuban victims of the Castro brothers’ tyranny, but let us also keep in mind the continuing reality of a Cuban regime that merits no rewards, only condemnation.
The Castros, ancient, infirm and unbending, may be able to hold on a bit longer, but surely their days are numbered. Patience remains the watchword until real change comes to Cuba. That’ll be the time to reach out to agents for democratic change in the island.
Everett Ellis Briggs is a Cuban-born retired diplomat who served as a special national-security adviser to President George H.W. Bush.
