There are a number of liberals including some members of Congress as well as leftist pro-Castro groups asking to stop the U.S. economic embargo on the Communist dictatorship. We should never forget that Fidel Castro in the early 60’s boisterously proclaimed that he did not need the U.S. to tender financial aid to Cuba. It was the intention of the U.S. to help Cuba as necessary during those difficult times. Castro rejected the offer and openly declared that he was tying Cuba’s future to the then powerful Soviet Union.
He announced to the world that Cuba was a Communist country and did not need to maintain relations with the “Yankee Imperialism.” Immediately he proceeded to expel all Americans from Cuba including the diplomatic corps, severing all ties with the U.S.
He expropriated without compensation all U.S. businesses, properties and bank accounts. The private property take over included also all Cuban’s enterprises and properties no matter their size. He established in a very short time a sweeping and complete totalitarian system similar to that existing in the Soviet Union. Cuba became a slave country under total government control and a rigid military autocracy.
We all know what happened to the Soviet empire. It collapsed on its own weight in 1991. The welcome and historical event devastated the Castro satrapy. The subsidies of billions of dollars a year the Soviets poured into Cuba to maintain a satellite serving as a sophisticated military base in the Western Hemisphere only 90 miles from American soil abruptly stopped. Communism disintegrated in the Soviet Union and their Eastern Europe satellites like sand castles blown away by the winds of liberty. Castro then became an international beggard, asking for help mostly from the Western European nations and China.
For some time the tyrannical reign in Cuba (now under his equally brutal brother Raul) has been imploring for the lifting of the embargo, while recruiting “useful idiots” to back Castro-Communism on this shameful effort. However, the totalitarian Castro regime continues to maintain a perverse system that enslaves an entire population under a repressive and barbarian police state. Following the advent of the Marxist-Leninist system in Cuba he executed thousands of his own revolutionary troops who had turned against him. A myriad of civilian dissidents have been either executed or imprisoned in miserable filthy jails for indefinite time by Kangaroo courts. There is no civil justice system in Cuba. Only recently a political prisoner, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, imprisoned since 2003, died after a hunger strike. His initial sentence was for three years and they extended it to 25 years because he refused to bend on his political beliefs against Communism. This is one of many similar cases which have occurred under the despotic rule of the Castro brothers. Amnesty International declared Zapata Tamayo as a “prisoner of conscience” in 2003.
Hardships, human rights abuses, incarceration and a rigid one-party system (the Communist Party) persists in the country with no hope for real change. You have to consider that over 2 million people have exited the island under the most difficult, unimaginable and perilous circumstances and they continue to do so up to the present time. Meanwhile don’t let the Castro satrapy and their misled defenders fool you.
Lately, the press has published news and editorials indicating that the Communist dictatorship has relaxed some of its rules, however, these are only cruel gimmicks to show the world that they are softening their tight grip on the desperate population. The truth is that the Communist system has been a total failure and they are attempting to mask it by adopting new twists to make it appear as a signal of change. They desperately need hard currency from the U.S. while keeping the same old failed system in place.
To lift the embargo all that is needed from the totalitarian regime is to re-establish democracy, freedom, human rights and free elections under a multi-party system. The plight of the oppressed Cuban people should be heard and the international community shall act accordingly.
The entire history of the Cuban tragedy under Castro-Communism is detailed in my book – Fidel Castro: The Rape of a Nation. (see side-bar for information)
