Rare for tourists to speak up in Cuba

Rare for tourists to speak up in Cuba
Idea is refreshing, but unlikely
By Frank Calzon
November 18, 2009

Because of years of environmental abuse, a number of species are rare in
Cuba, but none more so than a foreign tourist willing to speak up in the
face of political repression there.

A case in point is the beating by Cuban police of blogger Yoani Sanchez.
Honored by Columbia University's School of Journalism with the Maria
Moore Cabot Award and not allowed to travel abroad to accept her prize,
she was on her way to a peace march when she was roughed up and beaten
by the police.

While that was happening, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs
announced it will hold hearings on U.S. restrictions on American tourism
to the island. Havana needs dollars to keep afloat a hostile
anti-American regime near Florida.

Advocates of lifting the tourist travel ban say that American tourists,
unlike the millions of other tourists who have visited Cuba, will serve
as catalysts for democratic reform, that American tourists will help
bring freedom to the Cubans.

But there is no example in history of tourists as freedom fighters.
Where is the evidence that the demise of Batista, Pinochet, Trujillo or
Ferdinand Marcos was helped by tourism? Why the travel boycott against
the South African white supremacist regime used instead?

According to the Associated Press, Cuba's tourist industry (run by the
regime's military and security services) controls more than 46,000 hotel
rooms; thus thousands of foreign tourists are in Cuba at any time.

Havana urged Washington to lift the restrictions on Cuban-Americans'
travel and remittances to the island. President Obama lifted the
restrictions and asked Gen. Raúl Castro to reduce the stiff tax the
regime places on remittances. The general said no, and Fidel Castro
wrote in a newspaper column that Cuban-Americans travelling to Cuba have
contributed to the increase in swine flu cases there. But there is no
swine flu epidemic in Florida, let alone among Cuban-Americans.

When Raúl replaced his older brother, Fidel, as president of Cuba, some
predicted that things would be different, but the high level of
repression has not changed, and those waiting for foreign tourists —
Americans or otherwise — to whisper a word about ongoing human rights
abuse on the island have as much chance as those waiting for snow in Havana.

Frank Calzon is executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, a
human rights organization based in Arlington, Va. E-mail him at

frank.calzon@cubacenter.org.

Tourists as freedom fighters in Cuba -- South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
(18 November 2009)
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/fl-forum-cuba-politics-20091117,0,7961059.story