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Alberto F. Montero Valdes letter to the editor of the LA Times
08/31/07
A blogging buddy sent me this letter he sent to the LA Times. I actually read it in the Times, but didn't make any connections. I'm glad he took the time to send it to me. The original's here.
He's right in that if the embargo does only affect Cubans and nothing we do will affect change, then why should Americans worry about it either way?
I'm kind of ambivilent on this issue. As much as I hate what Castro's done to his country, the embargo is hurting Cubans in some way. Is the embargo the cause of Castro's ills? Not really; he squandered Cuba's potential on conflict and rabbit-brained ideas from the start. Whatever he lost in American patronage is not only his own fault, but offset by our past mortal enemy, the Soviet Union's, patronage.
Follow up:
So what pushes me to the embargo side? I think its just that the idiocy of taking your neighbor's property, threatening her both directly and by regional proxies, insulting them in every way possible, and then expecting them to help you out demands some kind of non-cooperation.
Anyways, here's his letter:
Cuba and cash Re "It's a start," editorial, Aug. 25
Why lift any of the travel and economic bans on Cuba, as your editorial recommends, if the increased economic infusion will only be received and controlled by the very oppressive regime you acknowledge "only" threatens its own people?
If the stated purpose of these bans is to topple the Fidel Castro dictatorship, they have clearly failed. But so have 50 years of Canadian, European and Latin American engagement and tourism.
Change in Cuba will come from within, from those on the island. It will not be fostered either by external embargoes or nurtured by hordes of pale tourists basking on the beach.
Lifting these restrictions will only help maintain a dictatorship in power and remove one of the few American foreign policies resting on any moral foundation.
Alberto F. Montero Valdes
Miami
5 comments
That editorial's reasoning suggested that since the goal of travel and economic restrictions had not been achieved, i.e., toppling the castro regime or forcing it to change, then perhaps lifting those restrictions would. As I indicated in my letter, 50 years of such travel and economic engagement by other nations had also 'failed' if their goals were the same.
I don't believe the embargo 'only' affects cubans, therefore we need not worry about its use or elimination. That would be a cruel way of viewing the issue or my people.
The Times, however, in its editorial argued that since the communist regime 'only' threatens its 'own people' then it is unreasonable to ban travel there given the lack of such travel bans to other nations which directly threaten us.
I found that repugnant and insulting and I wrote to expose its fallacy and callousness. Apparently I was not clear enough.
While I believe the restrictions won't ferment change in cuba, it does deny the regime easy cash from tourism. Economic power it uses to control and oppress its 'own' people.
That is why I believe they should remain in place and not because they 'only' affect cubans on the island. To argue otherwise would be cruel and unusual for a person who loves cuba and cubans.
The embargo which needs to stop is the one imposed on the cuban people by its 'own' 'government.'
Alberto
there would be much less dis-information re cuba and what has happened there for too long ... if we had time to expose all the fallacies written by the liberal media ... and if they were all as open as the l.a. times and the ny times, (which actually published another of my missives during last year's premature celebrations in miami) to present dissenting opinions,
the washington post is the worst, have yet to read an op-ed or letter which in anyway is fair to cuban americans (see their recent publication of oliphant's cartoon - where is political correctness when you need it? lol) or the opposition on the island ...
saludos
You work so hard to prevent Cubans living in the United States from being free to visit their families on the island, and helping them economically, or inviting them to visit here in the United States?
People in the United States can visit China and Vietnam, why can't we visit Cuba? What are you afraid of?
Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California
WE stopped being afraid once WE were able to escape prison our native land has been turned into. WE destroy whatever residue of fear remains tarnished in our psyche by exercising the franchise to vote unencumbered by the domination of oppressive dictators who limit and decide what ought to done or chosen without a mandate.
Rather than being afraid of freedom we freely and exuberantly express our liberty by participating in the democratic system and have done so with much success in a short time. am sorry if that conflicts with your tour of third world police states.
Fear is the corner stone and foundation of systems like the one forced on the people of Cuba, who can not move freely within their own country, read or express views contrary to the official dogma, and who can not leave their own country.
Don't lecture us on freedom. We lost it there but regained it here. And one day ... well you know - your nightmare, there will be freedom for Cubans in Cuba.
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