Cuba: The tourist gulag

By Anthony Rainone

The communist Cuban dictatorship is attempting to lure American tourists to explore Cuba and take advantage of its natural beauty, courtesy of a misinformed U.S. Congress. 

Recently, Congressman Collin Peterson, Minnesota Democrat, along with 30 co-sponsors, introduced the “Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act,” a bill that would remove restrictions on U.S. agricultural sales and travel to Cuba. There is currently no Republican support for this proposal.

The Obama administration seeks "a new beginning" with Cuba, despite the regime's continued mistreatment of political prisoners and human rights abuses. Some members of Congress are currently being duped by a regime that desperately needs convertible foreign currency so that its economy will not collapse due to failed Marxist economic policies instituted by ruling brothers Fidel and Raul Castro. Cuba is an economic basket case now dependent on foreign government handouts from Venezuela, Russia and China. The regime uses the remittances from prosperous Cuban Americans for political and economic gain of its elites rather than for the benefit of the Cuban people.

The nearly 50–year-old political and economic embargo must remain in place because the Castro regime will not change its authoritarian nature: The embargo, along with diplomatic pressure is needed to bring about real reform after the deaths of the Castros. A viable reform movement cannot take place unless the autocratic Castros pass from the scene and a new, younger generation of leaders implement democratic reforms.  Advocates for lifting the sanctions maintain that tourism will somehow lead to a more open regime. This is foolish and wishful thinking: As long as the Castro brothers remain alive any true and honest political opening will be met with contempt by this despotic regime that seeks to hold onto power, whatever the cost. As in the past with Canadian and European tourism currency, the funds do not go to the long-suffering Cuban people who work in the tourist industry but to Castro’s inner circle and the military, thereby prolonging and not hastening the demise of this despotic regime.

Cuba remains a threat to America and to other nations. There are many historic examples of Cuba’s aggressive nature, including the 1962 missile crisis that almost led to the near nuclear annihilation of human civilization; the Soviets placed nuclear- tipped missiles on Cuban soil with the full backing of the Castro regime.  From 1975 to 1991 Cuba was engaged in military adventurism in Angola in support of Soviet expansionism in Sub Saharan Africa. Those acts still scar the region today. In addition, the Cuban regime has fanned radical Marxism in Central America since the 1980s.

Extreme Marxist-Leninist regimes in Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and to a lesser extent, Ecuador, hold the Castro regime as a role model to repress, silence and corrupt democratic institutions in their countries, mostly for the sole purpose of staying in power indefinitely. These regimes are now grave threats to peace and security in the Western Hemisphere. The Castro regime also supports terrorist organizations such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), The Army of National Liberation (ELN) and the Shining Path which threatens the survival of the robust democracies of Colombia and Peru. 

Also, America’s national security remains at grave risk due to Cuba’s desire to weaken the intelligence capabilities of our Armed Forces. Consider the case of Ana Montes, a senior Cuban intelligence analyst working for the Defense Intelligence agency. She passed vital intelligence information to Cuban intelligence agents and was captured on September 21, 2001. Yet her actions severely weakened our intelligence gathering capabilities worldwide.

America must demand a full accounting of human rights abuses by the Castro regime and  real political and economic reforms. The human rights record of Cuba's long-oppressed people is appalling, as witnessed by the recent hunger-strike death of political prisoner Orlando Zapata in February.  The free world also watched in horror as a pro-democracy blogger, Yoani Sanchez, was savagely attacked in November, 2009 by supporters of the Castro dictatorship.  In response to these and many other repressive attacks on free speech and freedom of expression, the U.S. State Department talks tough by issuing “statements of concern.” But without effective and coordinated diplomatic, economic and political actions, these threats become hollow and lose their well-intentioned meaning.

One million American tourists coming to Cuba’s sun-splashed beaches, playing golf and spending money in the Cuban economy will do little to foster meaningful change in Cuba. Tourism will not change a regime that has imprisoned over 10 million people that desperately want to leave this gulag in quest of liberty.

Washington would be wise to dissuade the Hollywood left, the media elite and members of Congress (travelling at U.S. taxpayer expense) from visiting Cuba and extolling the virtues and benefits of the Cuban healthcare system. The true reality is that the Cuban healthcare system is a nightmare for the average Cuban and mismanaged by an inefficient communist bureaucracy.

Members of Congress and the current administration must take a clear and moral stand against the Castro brothers and deprive them of any additional tourism revenues. The Castros are using their openness to tourism to soften their international image and deflect criticism. This aging dynastic dictatorship is moribund and needs a gentle shove into the grave. Rather than playing into their hands, Congress should retain the tourist embargo and expose the Cuban tourism scheme as a desperate attempt to preserve a tyrannical regime that has for too long brutalized and enslaved its people.

-Anthony Rainone is a retired Army intelligence officer.