by Rick Lowe
I have taken the liberty of reprinting the following letter to the editor of The Bahama Journal that was published on Wednesday, November 22, 2006.
I was disappointed to read your editorial of November 11 "Embargo as Economic Warfare" wherein the Bahama Journal asserted that United States policy toward Cuba amounted to "crude force designed to hurt the innocent and bring grief and misery to the many." While it is not surprising that the Cuban government would seek to blame the U.S. for its failures, the Journal's wholehearted embrace of such claims can only serve to mislead your readers.
The United States is not, as your editorial claims, at "war" with Cuba. The economic embargo between the United States and Cuba is designed to promote a peaceful change toward greater freedom in Cuba. Such economic sanctions are no different than those supported by The Bahamas in the 1980's and early 90's against South Africa to promote change in the apartheid regime of the time.
To the extent that conditions of hunger, misery, and desperation exist in Cuba, they are the result not of U.S. restrictions, but of Cuba's own totalitarian economic system that discourages innovation and hard work. As the collapse of the Soviet block made clear, such an economic system is doomed to failure. Today, only Cuba and North Korea are still saddled by such a dispiriting economic system - with predictable results.
Here are some facts: In Cuba, individuals cannot privately own and operate a business. There is no private ownership of property. Labour unions are illegal. Workers don't earn a fair wage. People cannot freely speak or associate. It is the Cuban government's repression of free enterprise, its misguided efforts to control the marketplace, and its persecution of entrepreneurship that are repressing the Cuban economy and limiting the potential of the Cuban people.
Contrary to the Cuban government's many claims about the embargo, Cuba is free to trade with any other country in the world without interference from the United States. In fact, only two weeks ago, Cuba's Foreign Trade Minister welcomed 800 companies from 48 countries to a trade fair at which he boasted of continuing robust growth in Cuba's foreign trade.
Here are some more facts: Contrary to Cuba's claim that the embargo denies Cuba access to food and medicine, since 1992, the United States alone has licensed over $1.1 billion dollars in the sale and donation of medical equipment for the Cuban people. We have also licensed the export of over $5 billion worth of agricultural commodities in the past 5 years.
If the Cuban government genuinely wished to see the embargo ended, it could do so tomorrow by instituting free elections, opening its economy to the private sector, allowing trade unions to operate and permitting free speech. In fact, President Bush made this offer in 2002, and it was reiterated in the 2006 Report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba - Cuba will be open to the U.S. as soon as it is open to its own people.
The United States seeks to promote peaceful change in Cuba that will end the grief and misery of the Cuban people - the misery that leads so many to risk their lives in small boats in search of the freedom and economic opportunity. The United States is committed to supporting a future of freedom for Cuba - a future that will be shaped and defined by the Cuban people themselves.
The Cuban people, just like the people of the Bahamas, deserve democracy. They deserve the right to join a labour union, just as Bahamians do. They deserve the ability to read a free newspaper such as your own that is not censored by a government. Just like Bahamians, they deserve the right to express themselves and write their opinions without being imprisoned for their views.
I have always made clear the United States respects the rights of other nations to trade with and engage Cuba. But while we may differ in our approach to Cuba, we should always be clear that our common goal - the goal of people who live in freedom everywhere - must be how best to support democratic change so that the people of Cuba can begin to share in the political and economic freedoms that Americans and Bahamians alike hold so dear.
Sincerely,
Ambassador John D. Rood
Now that is powerful stuff Ambassador Rood!
