Cuba

Cuba is an island republic in the Caribbean, just off the coast of the United States. This small nation has seen constant struggle and turmoil to retain its right to self-determination. The trade and travel embargo imposed by the United States has been in effect since 1962 and reflects the leftover Cold War, the lunacy of the right wing fringe and a small but vocal minority of Cuban exiles in a swing state.

Why does America hate Cuba so much? Although only a few miles offshore of the United States, it was Cuba who had the guts to say no more to plunder and exploitation and thumb their noses at the great economic oppressor to the north. A good simplistic example of what Fidel Castro did for his people is the story of telephones and ITT. At the time when Batista was in power, he and his friends lived real well but foreigners owned every phone in the country. You could pay a phone bill all your life but could never own a phone. Castro took over the capital and let the people have their own telephones. Then he kicked out ITT and replaced it with a Cuban phone company. Extend this story over the whole situation and you have it in a nutshell.

The imagination of people in the United States sees an enemy dictator off our shores. It rarely occurs to them the principles of freedom and self-determination should extend to other countries as well as ours. Enemies of Castro have bent the ears of Washington so the embargoes, blockades and CIA interference go on.

America does have certain arrogance about her when it comes to third world countries. Economic and military might has combined with this arrogance and worship of the god of free enterprise to presume that she can interfere with the affairs of other countries that do not agree with her economic policies. We need not look to the future to fear Big Brother, just look over your shoulder.

Cuba is no longer a slave to the multi-national American economic interests and that makes the United States very upset. If one small country could shake the multi-nationals off of their back, what would happen if all the third world countries would do the same? What would happen if nations in the south started thinking that their development loans were nothing but bribes to entice them into accepting foreign investment designed to plunder their homeland and make them slaves to the debt? What would happen if all these countries started appropriating the treasures of the north stored up in these last days to their people instead of to foreigners? What would happen if all these countries would default on their loans all at once? These questions are easy to answer - it would lead to a traumatic decline and chaos to the economic powers of the north. That is why the United States cannot do the right thing.

The history of the United States and Cuba since the Bay of Pigs has been of America's insistence that she should have ultimate economic and political control of Cuba's future. Conservatives in America decry the human rights abuses of Castro yet support any oppressive government that allows the multinational exploitation of its citizens. This hypocritical effrontery is bolstered by America's military and economic strength in imposing sanctions, restraints, prohibitions, bans, blockades, embargoes, travel restrictions and threatened military invasions intended to force Cuba into submission. Forbidding to buy and sell in the world market is the nature of the beast.

This does not hold Cuba guiltless however.

Many in Cuba were betrayed by the revolution. Many relied on Castro and the revolutionary ideals, echoing voices for a better Cuba with equality of rights and opportunities and saw their ideals fall to the floor and break into pieces. What is in Cuba is not outright communism but what is called "fidelismo" or Castroism and referred to by one as the first antithesis of Christianity. As long as the name of Fidel is equated with inFidelity to the living Christ, he will never be credited with a righteous cause, no matter how good his motives have been to liberate his people from multinational exploitation. Liberation is more than the freedom to work for a better society, it is in the spiritual freedom from self to serve a risen Savior. If Castro makes fun of Jesus, blasphemes the Holy Spirit and insults the name of the virgin, all of which he has done, his efforts are in vain and the revolution is a failure.

The Cuban revolution is compared to the right to self determination that sparked the American revolution toward economic freedom but Castro needs to be true to the revolution in a full liberation sense and not take away the rights and freedoms granted in a truly free society. There are significant abuses in the country that keep the pressure on to get Castro out. The reports of disappearances, torture, missing persons, murdered dissidents seem to be true whether they can be proven or not. A Castro joke is said to earn the death penalty.

Is it really in Cuba's interests to have the U.S. lift the trade sanctions? Good question. Although Cuba would benefit greatly if given the freedom to trade on the open market, it remains doubtful if allowing foreign interests to exploit a ripe labor market is a good thing for them. There is a strong economic contingency in America that wants America to free Cuba just so that the labor force can be tapped and new markets opened. These grandiose gestures of good will do not reflect the interests of Cuba but rather the same self-interest that they were liberated from.

Visitors to Cuba see the great progress made there. They report of a super education system, a 100% literacy rate and medical students going to school free. Music and the arts are encouraged and there is no unemployment or layoffs. Along with these great improvements however is great misery. While medical care is among the greatest achievements, medicine is rare, sometimes impossible to get unless it is through the black market. Food is rationed, amenities are scarce and the pay is meager. Because of the embargoes and sanctions against Cuba from the United States, any moves ahead are set back by economic isolation.

It is the epitome of hypocrisy for the richest country in the world to blame Cuba's economic problems on Cuba. America is to blame for Cuba's economic woes, not Cuban socialism. While the United States trades with some of the cruelest and most notorious regimes in the world in the interests of free trade, Cuba must cope with scarce fuel, broken transportation, and antiquated medical facilities. Their spirits are high, but they must be tired. Cuba still survives and the revolution lives on but American voters become more totalitarian and oppressive every day. George W. Bush is making things worse.

America will be stepping up efforts to isolate Cuba even more in the global marketplace by exerting strong international pressure against Cuba from America's allies. It is the wrong way to go. The entire world is against the United States on this issue, and it really shows America as a nation of fools.
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