Vol. 71/No. 17      April 30, 2007

Instead of prosecuting U.S. residents for seeing Cuba for themselves, Washington should lift its criminal travel restrictions and end its economic war against that Caribbean nation.

U.S. officials claim they maintain an embargo because Cuba is a “dictatorship” and they want to foster “democracy.” That’s a lie. Before 1959, Washington backed a tyranny that tortured and murdered workers, peasants, and students while helping U.S. businessmen plunder Cuba’s wealth. That came to an end when millions of Cubans, headed by the Rebel Army and July 26 Movement, overthrew the dictatorship and established a workers and farmers government, opening the door to the first socialist revolution in the Americas.

Washington began its political and economic war on Cuba after the revolutionary government gave land to peasants, encroaching on the interests of U.S. and Cuban landlords. But the Cuban people and their revolutionary leadership would not be intimidated. Workers and peasants wiped out illiteracy within a year. They took over industry and banking, running these for the needs of the majority, not the profits of a handful. They went further than any other country in uprooting racist discrimination, and integrated women into the workforce and every sphere of social life. Cuba has aided national liberation struggles worldwide and today has thousands of volunteer doctors, teachers, and agricultural specialists serving in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. In Cuba, workers and farmers are the ones who decide their economic, social, and political affairs—not a few billionaire parasites.

To Wall Street, that's “dictatorship.” To Cuban working people, that is freedom. And to millions around the world, the Cuban Revolution is an example they may want to emulate—a dangerous example, in the eyes of U.S. big business!

That’s why the U.S. government's "cold war" against Cuba has been uninterrupted for 47 years, under Democratic and Republican administrations alike.

The travel restrictions are not only an attempt to strangle the Cuban people. They are an attack on the rights of U.S. residents. Washington should lift the travel ban and all trade restrictions, and normalize relations with Cuba.
 
 
Related articles:
Students at N.Y. high school may face fines over trip to Cuba
 
 
 
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