Want change in Cuba? End U.S. embargo

[Judi Lynn]

Want change in Cuba? End U.S. embargo
By A. Perez Jr., Special to CNN
September 21, 2010 -- Updated 1025 GMT (1825 HKT)

(CNN) -- In April 2009, the White House released a presidential memorandum declaring that democracy and human rights in Cuba were "national interests of the United States."

Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela repeated the message in May of this year to the Cuban-American National Foundation in Miami.

The Obama administration, he said, wanted "to promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms ... in ways that will empower the Cuban people and advance our national interests."

Fine words. But if the administration really wanted to do something in the national interest, it would end the 50-year-old policy of political and economic isolation of Cuba.

The Cuban embargo can no longer even pretend to be plausible.

On the contrary, it has contributed to the very conditions that stifle democracy and human rights there. For 50 years, its brunt has fallen mainly on the Cuban people.

This is not by accident. On the contrary, the embargo was designed to impose suffering and hunger on Cubans in the hope that they would rise up and overturn their government.

More:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/20/perez.cuba.embargo/index.html

[Taverner]

1. The only reason the embargo still exists is the moneyed Sugar Barons don't want competition

[Judi Lynn]

2. To think Cuba was the largest exporter of sugar before the embargo, too.

Those Fanjuls (the brothers Alfi and Pepe giving vast amounts, one to Republicans, one to Democrats) picked up, moved operations to Florida, where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers drained swamps for them to start up their sugar plantations again, then they started up brutal exploitation of workers from the Caribbean islands for ages, until FINALLY the workers got up the nerve to try to sue them, then they replaced many with machines in later stages, after they worked them to death without any benefits, very little money, and a heavy dose of fear, since they kept their passports, and kept them as virtual slaves in hideous conditions) and also in the Dominican Republic, where they maintain a resort, as well as sugar plantations, a resort where George H. W. Bush went to huddle with one of the Venezuelan coup plotters, the wealthiest man in Venezuela, Cuban-Venezuelan media tycoon, Gustavo Cisneros.

Just one dirty continuum of money, greed, and contempt for the poor.

[flamingdem]

3. Apparently the bill to end travel restrictions will be marked up next week! nt