Readers Write: A blind eye toward Cuban oppression

The Island Now

I read with great interest Jerry Kremer’s essay on his trip to Cuba entitled “Cuba seen through a different lens.”

A more appropriate title should have been “Cuba seen through a delusional lens.”

It’s distressing that the Port Times gave Mr. Kremer a platform to offer a completely biased account on one of the world’s most repressive regimes.

Mr. Kremer wrote a 500-word plus postcard for Castro’s Cuba but was only able to dedicate 26 words to the political repression that has occurred in Cuba since the revolution.

His mention of political prisoners was also done in the condescending manner of equating the treatment of political dissent in Cuba with a number of European countries.

Who knew that when it comes to political freedom that Cuba is the Sweden of the Caribbean?

Before anyone books a trip to Cuba based on Mr. Kremer’s fantasy land description of the country, I would suggest reading the Human Rights Watch Report on Cuba for 2015.

Despite President Obama’s ill-advised restoration of diplomatic relations in December 2014,  6,200 Cuban citizens were detained from January to October 2015 for political activities.

According to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, detainees are often beaten, threatened and held incommunicado.

No one knows how many prisoners are rotting in Castro’s gulag because Amnesty International hasn’t been allowed in the country since 1990.

The Ladies in White is a group founded by wives, mothers and daughters of political prisoners.

According to Human Rights Watch, they are routinely harassed, beaten and detained before and after they attend Sunday mass.

On Aug. 9, 2015, a few days before John Kerry was due to visit the country, 90 political activists were arrested including 50 Ladies in White after Sunday mass in Havana.

During the visit of Pope Francis in September 2015, police arrested 150 dissents who were scheduled to see the Holy Father.

Miriam Leiva, one of the founders of the Ladies in White was scheduled to meet the Pope but missed meetings on September 19th and 20th as she was detained by the Cuban police.

Mr. Kremer tells us about the lack of heavy police presence anywhere.

Maybe he should have put down his pina colada and found one of The Ladies in White and asked them if there is a police presence in Havana.

Or maybe Mr. Kremer can ask Lazaro Yuri Roca, an independent blogger who has covered the Ladies in White about police activity.

He may find that Mr. Valle Roca is reluctant to discuss the matter as on June 7, 2015 he was detained by the Cuban police, driven 30 miles outside of Havana and with a gun to his head warned to stay away from the Ladies in White demonstrations.

The above episode is not surprising as the Cuban media is owned by the state and the independent press in considered illegal.

According to Freedom House, independent journalists are routinely harassed by the secret police and it remains illegal to distribute independent media.

Mr. Kremer writes about the crumbling buildings and lack of capital investment in Cuba.

The Castro sympathizers on the left often blame the U.S. embargo for the failing Cuban economy.

But there is no embargo on Cuba from Europe and Asia.

Foreign businesses and governments have avoided investing in Cuba due to the widespread corruption and control of all key economic assets by the Castro brothers and the military.

When Castro came to power in 1959, GDP per capita was $2,067 per year.

By 1999, 40 years later, it was only $2,307 per year. The average Cuban state worker makes $20 per month.

Cuba went from being one of the wealthy nations in the Caribbean and South America to one of the poorest.

The people of Cuba have been impoverished while the Castro brothers and the military have become rich.

As if the damage inflicted on their own people wasn’t enough, Cuba exported their corrupt socialism to Venezuela where recent reports detail massive food shortages and people eating pets for survival.

Mr. Kremer tells us about the light security at the airport in Havana and lack of soldiers with heavy weapons.

I would agree with him that one benefit of a trip to Cuba is the remote chance of being involved in a terrorist attack.

The main reason that Cuba is not a target for terrorist organizations is that the country was on the State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism from 1982 through 2015.

ISIS doesn’t usually like to attack other members of the club.

Thanks to President Obama, Americans are now free to travel to Cuba and enjoy the beautiful beaches.

But I hope that prospective travelers think about the fact that their presence is not helping the Cuban people but extending the life of a brutal and corrupt regime.

Vladimir Lenin supposedly said that communism would prevail across the globe because the West was full of “useful idiots” that whether they realized it or not would help advance his cause.

Fortunately, Lenin was wrong about the result of the global struggle between communism and capitalism but he was right about “useful idiots.”

The people of Cuba still live under repressive communism and their prison state is supported by “useful idiots” such as President Obama with his restoration of diplomatic relations and Mr. Kremer with his love letter from Havana.

 

John Stacconi

Sands Point

Share this Article