The Embargo is not to Blame
It is inconceivable that there be so many sensible people, or who seem
to be sensible, that insist on blaming the American embargo against the
totalitarian government of Fidel Castro for the misery, the lack of food
and other staples needed in a normal society. That is in no way because
of the relative American embargo. To begin with, the United States can
and does export food and medicines to Cuba. What is more significant,
though, there is no embargo against Cuba from the rest of the world.
The number of countries that have diplomatic and trade relations with
Cuba is as large as it is improper. And it is improper because those
countries could do with regard to Cuba what they did against South
Africa, invoking the values of human rights, values that are essential
for individual and collective freedoms.
The abundance of scarcity, so to speak, that is experienced in Cuba is
due to the very nature of the communist system. This has been well
proven by history with what many peoples that were victims of communism
have suffered. Beginning with the Soviet Union, in Russia and the other
countries that belonged to the now defunct U.S.S.R. there was rationing
just as there is rationing in Cuba; rationing of all products that are
fundamental for the daily life of a people. The state managed the
distribution of goods with ration cards that the people had to use to
buy a very limited array of products. This is what is still happening in
Cuba after almost fifty years of communism. It happens, we insist, not
because of the U.S. embargo but because the communist system creates
these conditions.
If there were no communism in Cuba, what could not be imported from the
U.S. would be imported from countries in Europe, the rest of the Western
Hemisphere, or from other regions of the world, and distributed fairly.
However, what Cuba imports today does not reach the Cuban people; it is
destined for the tourist industry and the government hierarchy.
Except in the case of people with limited mental capacity, the argument
that the scarcity suffered in Cuba is due to the U.S. embargo must be
considered deceitful, a lie, an effort to try to justify communism,
which is unjustifiable.
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