Report skips over depths of Cuba's dictatorship
Posted on Wed, May. 21, 2008
BY FRANK CALZON
www.cubacenter.org
In a 77-page report just released, the New York-based Council on Foreign
Relations presents a hodge-podge of recommendations to America's 44th
president -- whomever he or she may be -- in order to confront ''a
critical opportunity to reframe and redirect U.S. relations'' with Latin
America. The report is based on an economists' worldview of the
hemisphere, which emphasizes improving access to market opportunities in
Latin America, tax reforms, streamlining business regulations and U.S.
economic interests. Almost nowhere to be found are the words
''freedom,'' ''liberty'' and ``democracy.''
Among the recommendations for the new administration are calls for
convening international conferences, a ''public-private summit'' and
other boilerplate suggestions. Others are simply the type of pie in the
sky that often is the result of reports prepared by committees. In the
case of emigration, the reports read: ``The task force urges the next
administration and Congress to negotiate and approve comprehensive
immigration reform in 2009. Viable immigration policy must: improve
border security and management; address the unauthorized work force
already here; ensure employer security verification and
responsibilities; and expand a flexible worker program to meet changing
U.S. economic demands.''
The next president does not need a task force to identify those goals
about which there already is something close to a national consensus.
The devil, as usual, is in the details. What is the priority among the
various goals, and who, how and for how much are those goals to be
implemented? These questions are largely unanswered.
The report prescribes several courses of action for Latin American
governments. It says that they ''must establish the institutional
infrastructure necessary to boost public revenues if they are to
confront social and economic problems successfully,'' but it generally
gives short shrift to the democratic process and to the need for
democratic mechanisms such as those instituted in the ''Democratic
Charter.'' This accord signed by all democratic nations in the
hemisphere is designed to ''strengthen and uphold'' democratic
institutions, yet it is mentioned only once, and that in order to
criticize the alleged U.S. endorsement of a military coup against Hugo
Chávez in Venezuela.
The report mentions the word ''business'' 19 times, the word ''markets''
32 times, while it mentions ''freedom'' one time, and ''elections'' five
times. In its 77 pages about the United States and Latin America the
words ''freedom of the press,'' ''political parties'' and ''liberty'' do
not appear.
In the case of Cuba, the harshest military dictatorship in the region,
the report credits Gen. Raúl Castro's regime with implementing ''a
number of measures designed to enhance the quality of people's lives and
personal freedom.'' About the U.S. trade embargo the report recommends
the ''repeal of the 1996 Helms-Burton Law'' and to ``initiate a series
of steps, with the aim of lifting the embargo against Cuba.''
Absent from the report is that Cuba, whatever the regime says to its
foreign apologists, remains a cruel dictatorship where there is no
freedom of the press, where the right to strike and labor unions are
prohibited, where most economic activity by private individuals, which
is taken for granted around the world, is severely punished; and where
as recently as late April, as reported by the international media, about
10 women dressed in white who gathered peacefully at a park to present a
petition to the authorities were roughed up and arrested by some 100
government thugs and security officers.
Their group, the Ladies in White, mothers, sisters and daughters of
Cuban political prisoners, was given the Sakharov Award by the European
Parliament in 2005. After their detention in Havana, The Washington Post
called attention to the ''apologists'' of the Castro regime, who have
renewed their calls for a lifting of the U.S. trade embargo . . .
[while] unsurprisingly such Cuba buffs haven't had much to say about
[the Ladies in White].''
The report by the Council on Foreign Relations, while giving the benefit
of the doubt to the almost 50-year-old Havana regime, fails to mention
the women.
Frank Calzón is executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba in
Washington, D.C.
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/other_views/story/541054.html
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