Cubans Want Much More Than an End to the U.S. Embargo

By Armando Chaguaceda and Coco Fusco in The NY Times. Mr. Chaguaceda is a Cuban political scientist. Ms. Fusco is the author of the book “Dangerous Moves: Performance and Politics in Cuba.” Excerpts:

"Some progressive groups argue that Cubans are protesting food and medicine shortages caused by the U.S. trade embargo. This interpretation falsely claims that the embargo makes it impossible to obtain food and medicine, even though the United States created an exception to its trade embargo of Cuba in 2000 to allow food and medicine sales and sells millions of dollars’ worth of food to the country, including grain and protein consumed by Cuban households.

But Cuban citizens are last on the list of its government’s priorities. The nation channeled a good deal of the little money it has into vaccine research. And yet a lack of basic medical supplies compels Cubans to ask relatives abroad to send them aspirin, vitamins and even prescription medication. Instead of investing in education and upgrading its battered housing stock, the government opts to build luxury hotels and tourist resorts. Fidel Castro’s grandchildren flaunt their wealth on the internet, while Cubans wait in line for food and collect dwindling food rations.

While the embargo has proved to be a failed policy, we do not agree that it is the country’s only problem, or that its unconditional elimination would guarantee the changes that Cubans are demanding. Lifting the embargo will not stop the Cuban government’s repression of its people. Its violation of fundamental human rights to assembly, free expression and due process has nothing to do with the U.S. trade embargo. They are the strategies employed by the police state, and are a crucial cause of Cubans’ dissatisfaction with their government.

Since the beginning of the revolution, Cuban intellectuals and artists who have sought to organize independently of state institutions have been thrown in labor camps, subjected to electroshock therapy, expelled from jobs and universities, censored and imprisoned for their ideas. The government accuses anyone who challenges it of being mercenaries and C.I.A. agents of a supposed counterrevolutionary plot against the regime.

The Communist Party’s reach extends beyond the island for the Cubans who have left. It vilifies exiles and extorts outrageous fees for passports and other documents needed to travel back to Cuba. Since the 1990s, it has subsidized its priorities and investments, rather than the Cuban economy, using billions of dollars expats send in remittances to their families."

"Both the Cuban government and progressives are complicit in their disregard for Cubans’ right to their own opinions and aspirations. We Cubans are used to misguided perceptions of what life in Cuba is really like. Fidel Castro promised a more prosperous country, a nation where all Cubans could live in dignity and true equality. But his bait-and-switch revolution delivered an educated people that in 60 years have been able to elect only three presidents. A cultivated people that have no access to public debate and participation.

The Cuban people are tired of Communism and broken promises. For the first time, in more than 50 cities and towns throughout the island, they took to the streets to demand change. They have been told that it is unchangeable, but they are asking for the right to alter the conditions of their lives. They want more than an end to the embargo.

They should have the right to create a society by and for themselves. Even if their specific aspirations disappoint the utopian views of some foreign progressives."