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*** Cuba has not recovered since the collapse of the Soviet Union more than a decade ago, and has exhausted most of its credit with suppliers in European and other nations. ***

This is the time to twist Castro's arm not tighten the shackles on his slave labor.

Fidel Castro - Cuba

I'm really not sure what will happen here. It's unlikely they'll be able to get the cash (which means they'd be in violation of the law, but that doesn't seem to matter to corporations anymore). If they do sign contracts without getting their cash, then the cost of US food will skyrocket to cover the losses. We'd be ok if only a few companies do this--because those idiots could no longer compete. But if most of the major companies indulge, the US consumer is going to get stuck.

SEEING CUBA AS IT REALLY IS
FOUR DECADES AFTER THE REVOLUTION,
CUBA'S POLITICAL PRISONS ARE STILL FULL
AND IT SUFFERS FROM SELF-INFLICTED SHORTAGES
OF PRACTICALLY EVERYTHING

By Dennis Hays*
Guest Columnist
The Miami Herald
Florida
U.S.A.
Colaboración:
CANF News**
Septiembre 25, 2002

Gov. Jesse Ventura says he is a different kind of politician. I hope that he is. He will have a chance to prove it later this week when he travels to Cuba. Through his actions and his public statements, the governor has an opportunity to do something significant in Havana.

The governor believes in education. Well, the most exciting grassroots movement is Cuba today is the growth of the independent libraries — simple rooms in peoples' homes where average Cubans can find books and magazines otherwise denied them.

For their efforts, librarians are often beaten, arrested and thrown out of their houses by the Castro regime, but collectively they bring information and hope to a population that has little of either. The governor can help this movement by taking boxes of Spanish language books to Cuba and personally giving them to one of the independent libraries.

The governor believes in labor rights. He must then know that the International Labor Organization has repeatedly condemned Cuba for the systematic violation of practically every labor right there is.

Hotel jobs are reserved for the communist party faithful and there is rampant racial discrimination in hiring. The regime takes money from foreign partners in dollars and pays workers at an artificial rate in pesos, effectively confiscating over 95 percent of the workers' wages. Independent trade unions are illegal and labor activists imprisoned.

The Dutch human rights organization, Pax Christi Netherlands, notes in a scathing report that the vast majority of Cubans are physically barred from entering tourist areas, a practice known as "tourist apartheid."

The governor has an alternative to becoming complicit in these abuses. There are rooms available in private Cuban homes, known as "casas particulares." By staying with a Cuban family, rather than in a segregated "Sun City" style resort, the governor would register his clear support for the rights of the worker.

The governor wants to promote exports. I hope he has done his due diligence. If so, he knows that Cuba is a bankrupt, deadbeat nation — that Castro owes billions of dollars to every country that has ever been foolish enough to do business with him, that the current round of purchases of American agricultural products is being financed by the regime's decision to stop payment on the debts it owes to other nations, and that the Europeans and Canadians have lost patience with Castro and no longer want to throw good money after bad — thus explaining the Cubans' new interest in us. The regime needs a new source of credit, and we're the only one left.

The governor is justly proud of his service in the military. On his trip he may well be introduced to the Cuban Minister of Higher Education, Fernando Alegret, a man identified in congressional hearings as the infamous "Fidel," a Cuban agent who sadistically beat, tortured, and killed American POWs in Vietnam. Will the governor shake his hand? Or will he insist that Castro release a full accounting of the activities of his agents in North Vietnam?

Finally, the governor spoke movingly on Sept. 11 of how freedom is the foundation of all else. I know he believes this. He must also know that four decades after the revolution, Cuba's political prisons are still full. Cuba suffers from self-inflicted shortages of practically everything, but there has never been a shortage of Cubans who believe enough in freedom to risk their lives.

I urge the governor to go unannounced to the prison cells of Dr. Oscar Biscet, Francisco Chaviano, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez or any of the hundreds of other political prisoners identified by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other organizations. He will know nothing of Cuba if he does not hear their stories.

It is worth noting that the record of Midwestern governors in Cuba is not particularly inspiring. Last month, North Dakota's John Hoeven took the position that whatever the Castro regime does is not of concern to him — as long as Cuba buys his state's agricultural products.

This was practically a "Profiles in Courage" moment, however, when compared with Illinois Gov. George Ryan in 1999. While speaking at the University of Havana, Ryan deleted the entire section of his speech that dealt with human rights, so as to "not offend" Fidel Castro, as he later explained. Castro believes, with ample reason, that American politicians are too polite or too greedy to point out the obvious — that Cuba is a failed state and the single biggest impediment to any improvement is Castro himself.

Ventura has a reputation for being a maverick. Although the odds are against it, I hold out the hope that he earns this reputation and surprises everyone — starting with Fidel Castro.

*Hays, who served coordinator for Cuban Affairs at the State Department from 1993-95, is executive vice president of the Cuban American National Foundation.

Havana is also banking on the end of a U.S. prohibition on credit that has forced it to pay cash up front for the imports needed to feed Cuba's 11 million people.

European diplomats in Havana complain that Cuba is paying cash for its U.S. imports while it owes their countries tens of millions of dollars in past purchases.

I hope the Americans aren't so stupid as to sell anything to Castro on credit.

Cuba's problems, BTW, are not the US embargo. They could buy anything we produce from other countries (no embargos) but the reason they do not is lack of money.

"It's a policy that has not worked for 40 years," Ventura, dressed in jeans and wearing a U.S. Navy SEALS cap, said as he got off a plane from Miami.

On the contrary, it's a policy that has worked for 40 years, but that's a reality unlikely to make it into the wrestlin' rink where pretending is everything.