Thursday, February 26, 2009

Not again, please!

By Nelson Taylor
Ontario, Canada

In February’s 26, 2009 edition of Miami Herald (Spanish version) it is published: US recommended seeking ‘constructive engagement’ with Cuba. It seems that, once more, bureaucrats will ignore the mistakes of the recent past.

It could be prudent to ask: has it ever, somewhere, such policy of constructive engagement worked?

Constructive engagement is being implemented as an official policy between Canada and Cuba for over 15 years now. What has it been obtained with this endeavour, so much liked and brandished by academics? To answer briefly: 800 thousand Canadian tourists per year, billions of dollars in investments, and hundreds of millions in annual sales from Cuba to Canada (which is Cuba’s second import partner). In exchange for all these “achievements”, the Castro mafia implemented the crackdown on dissidents during the infamous Black Spring of 2003 and all sorts of human rights violations.

For those naive enough to believe that such policy will make the Castros change, I would ask:

  • Since when is a tourist interested in debating about politics?
  • What in this world would an American say to a "blind Cuban" that hasn’t been already said by a Canadian tourist? That blind Cuban, by the way, is forbidden by law to interact with foreigners.

We know what these millions of “agents of change” are searching for when they overflow Cuban beaches every year. They go for cheap sex and all-inclusive bargains.

Totalitarian (communist) regimes are by nature unaccountable, secretive and controlling. In a transaction with a free and open society, they have nothing to offer and everything to obtain. It has been recently known that Sherritt and Pebercan, 2 Canadian based multinationals, are being hit with the club of doing business with the Castro brothers, who now declared themselves unable to fulfill their financial commitments with the Canadians. Why would American companies receive a different treatment when the only barrier left (access to credits) with the so-called embargo is lifted?

Eventually, as always, the Cuban people will continue being ignored and trying to escape the tropical hell, because there can never be a constructive dialogue between cancer and chemotherapy.

No comments:

Post a Comment