The Obama administration recently scored a lot of brownie points by visiting Cuba and talking about lifting the much vaunted trade embargo.
I share the view that trade is the best way to help lift people out of poverty and embargoes do little more than cause hard feelings, but Bill Frezza notes in a recent article that this deal is not providing more freedom for the Cuban people. In fact it’s concentrating more power in the hands of the Castro regime.
He notes:
“…The only piece missing is a parade of U.S. crony corporatists eager to cut deals that will fill state coffers at the expense of the Cuban people, who will remain indentured servants dancing to their master’s tune.
“Understand how these rigged deals work. Foreign companies cannot contract freely with Cuban employees. Instead, they must fork over top dollar to the Cuban government in return for controlled access to selected markets, a handy way for first movers to box out prospective competition. The Cuban government then handpicks those privileged enough to work for the foreign employer, paying them typical Cuban starvation wages while pocketing the difference.
“This is not free trade. This is payola. This is creating an environment that encourages the worst elements of American crony corporatism to join forces with the worst elements of Bolivarian state socialism. And it’ll do nothing to bring greater freedom to the Cuban people, especially in loosening the restrictions on emigration from the Castros’ island prison.”
The Castro regime has even been more murderous than Pinochet was in Chile.
Read about the devastation of human lives in Cuba, estimated at 73,000 people here…
Find out more about the “Minor Atrocities of the Twentieth Century, including Cuba and Chile here…
Frezza closes his article with a fabulous suggestion. Turn Guantanamo Bay into a Charter City, “…Take down the barbed wire and let the Cuban people vote with their feet, populating this new free trade zone as they leave their indentured servitude behind. Let Cuban expats’ investment dollars flow back not into the Castros’ pockets but directly to the people and land they left behind, hoping for a better day.”
Now wouldn’t that be something?
