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NEWS
Posted on Sat, Oct. 04, 2003
Catering to
Castro hurts Cubans
BY JAIME SUCHLICKI
jsuchlicki@miami.edu
El Herald
Opponents of U.S. policy toward Cuba continue to claim that, if the
embargo and travel ban were lifted, the Cuban people would benefit
economically, the communist system would start crumbling and transition
to democracy would accelerate. Do they really believe that American
tourists and businesses would succeed where Canadians, Latin Americans
and Europeans have failed?
For decades hundred of thousands of tourists from these countries have
visited the island, and their investments and trade have been welcomed
by the Castro regime. Yet the end result has been little prosperity and
more repression for the Cuban people.
The assumption that tourism or trade will lead to economic and political
change is not borne by empirical studies. In Eastern Europe, communism
collapsed a decade after tourism peaked. No study of Eastern Europe or
the Soviet Union claims that tourism, trade or investments had anything
to do with the end of communism. A disastrous economic system,
competition with the West, successive leadership changes with no
legitimacy, anti-Soviet feeling in Eastern Europe and the failed Soviet
war in Afghanistan were among the reasons for change.
There is no evidence to support the notion that engagement with a
totalitarian state will bring about its demise. Only academic ideologues
and some members of Congress interested in catering to the economic
needs of their state's constituencies cling to this notion. Their calls
for ending the embargo have little to do with democracy in Cuba or the
welfare of the Cuban people.
The assumption that Fidel Castro and the Cuban leadership would allow
U.S. tourists or businesses to subvert the revolution and influence
internal developments is at best nave. The repeated statement that the
embargo is the cause of Cuba's economic problems is hollow.
The reasons for the economic misery of the Cubans are a failed political
and economic system. Like the communist systems of Eastern Europe,
Cuba's system does not function, stifles initiative and productivity and
destroys human freedom and dignity.
Negative consequences
Lifting the embargo and travel ban without meaningful changes in Cuba's
political and economic system will:
• Guarantee the continuation of the current totalitarian structures and
delay any transition.
• Strengthen state enterprises, considering that money will flow into
businesses owned by the Cuban government. Most businesses in Cuba are
owned by the state and, in all foreign investments, the Cuban government
retains a partnership interest.
• Perpetuate the rather extensive control that the military holds over
the economy, including tourism. Numerous tourist enterprises including
the airline Gaviota is owned by the military.
The economic impact of tourism, while providing the Castro government
with much-needed dollars, would be limited. Few dollars will flow to the
Cuban poor; state and foreign enterprises will benefit most and a large
percentage of the tourist dollars spent will be sent abroad by the
foreign entities operating hotels and nightclubs.
The travel ban and the embargo should be retained until there is a
regime in Cuba willing to provide meaningful concessions in the areas of
human rights, democratization and market economics. To do otherwise is
to provide the Castro regime with a gift that it has not earned.
Jaime Suchlicki is a professor of history and international studies at
the University of Miami.
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