Castro is far from an ideal leader who has sacrificed himself for his people and given them a chance-he is a tyrant and a mass murderer. Cuba's praised "social indicators," medical system, educational system, and shoes, were inherited from the previous governments. That Castro is glorified is appalling, shameful and insulting.
To the faction that criticizes the American government for being selective with its principles, I would ask if they themselves are not guilty of that which they criticize. It only takes a little examination of the Cuban government's politics to realize that perhaps it is the one being selective with its principles.
Here, in liberal Massachusetts, there was outrage when a sheriff in Dartmouth tried to bring back the prison chain gang. If the chain gang and forced prison labor is wrong here, then it should be wrong in Cuba as well. Of course, nobody from the WFP delegation would tell you that in Cuba there is an extensive system of prison labor camps, clothing assembly, construction, furniture and other factories as well as agricultural camps at its maximum and minimum security prisons. Prisoners are lucky, they are forced to work for sometimes insignificant pay, but most remain unpaid regardless of age or the standards delineated by the U.N.
Perhaps the WFP delegation would take pride in informing the Amherst community that two human rights workers (ages 66 and 69) were taken into custody in Cuba for "other acts committed against state security" and sentenced for one year, not to prison, but to a labor camp.
In liberal Massachusetts we also criticize the death penalty because it is immoral or, as Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science Austin Sarat would say, it "is incompatible with certain critical, legal values." Of course, the WFP would join me shouting, "With one exception ... Cuba!" Indeed, they left this detail out of their praises for Cuba, where a condemned prisoner has only 10 days to file an appeal whose outcome will be decided by Castro himself. Of course, these Cuban prisoners don't deserve the minimal concessions we would expect the U.S. government to give its condemned. After all, it's Cuba: the only place where it is alright for the government to tie a prisoner to a post and shoot him.
These are just two salient examples, but typical Massachusetts principles are not upheld by the Cuban government in the following instances: torture, arbitrary arrest, detention conditions, freedoms of expression, association, movement, due process, children's rights, codified repression, keeping of political prisoners, labor rights and, unfortunately, more.
Regarding the embargo, my only regret is that it provides WFP-type people with the smokescreen they need to make an illogical criticism of U.S.-Cuba foreign policy seem logical. The fact remains that several decades ago, the Cuban government took as its own the foreign investments of many American corporations.
There is no reason the U.S. should have to trade with a country that has stolen from it. There is furthermore no reason why the United States should trade with a country that savagely murdered American citizens in 1996 when it shot down unarmed civilian aircraft flying a humanitarian mission over the Florida Straits with a missile launch from a MiG fighter jet.
What was described last week as a draconian embargo has actually relaxed a little: with regard to medical supplies, for example, the U.S. only requests that Cuba not use them for torture and that they actually benefit the population. As President Clinton suggested, the U.S. is willing to open up to Cuba (as it has done to China), if Cuba is willing to work with, rather than against, us by shooting down our civilian aircraft and sanctioning terrorism. Furthermore, the U.S. has the right to choose with whom it wants to trade and to choose not to trade with a country that it considers an enemy. Trade with the U.S. is by no means a universal right.
There are at least 1.3 million people living in this country that have left Cuba because of the Castro government. Every year this number grows significantly. As the author of last week's opinion piece would tell you, 10 percent of the Cuban population, 1,114,200 people, applies to leave the country every year. Surely this figure would be higher if it were not a requirement for applicants to have relatives in the U.S. willing to provide financial support and take responsibility for their actions. Do not believe for a second that the 90 percent that do not apply for a visa want to remain in Cuba-they stay because they have no choice.
These victims of Castro's regime would highly resent the simplistic and glorified accounts that have been delivered at Amherst recently and would tell you of their 90-mile plight on an inner tube to the U.S. or the heritage and family they had to leave behind to have a slight chance at opportunity.
I am ashamed to have to walk alongside people who would criticize the American institutions and glorify a repressive and murderous regime. I would urge the WFP delegation and friends to take a deeper look into Cuba and recognize that it is not a utopia. Either that, or take the place of a Cuban political prisoner who is about to face a volley of bullets on a hill in Las Tunas for expressing the desire to live freely.