What Are We, 'Amigos' or 'Imperialistas'?

They choose to overlook Cuba's 50 years without free elections, free speech or freedom of the press. They refuse to see the dissidents rotting in jail or drowning while trying to escape from the communist island. They shamelessly align themselves with the world's oldest dictatorship, yet Latin American leaders make it seem as if the only country that has stood firmly against such atrocities — the United States — is really the villain.

"We ask the government of the United States of America to fulfill the requirements of the 17 successive resolutions approved by the United Nations General Assembly and put an end to the economic, trade and financial blockade it maintains against Cuba," the leaders declared in a joint statement issued at the end of a two-day summit in Brazil last week.

Not surprisingly, no mention was made of the numerous U.N. resolutions condemning human rights violations on the communist island or the countless refusals by the Fidel/Raul Castro regime to allow U.N. inspectors to look in their dungeons for political prisoners.

As the Castro dictatorship turns 50 years old Jan. 1, 2009, the world wants to turn a blind eye on a half-century of atrocities in Cuba. Some leftist Latin American leaders now want to make it seem as if the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba — instead of the Castro brothers — is the reason the Cuban people are living in a state of misery. Because Cuba trades with the rest of the world (even U.S. products constantly are arriving there, through third-party countries), the Cuban government uses the U.S. embargo as a phony excuse for all its failures. Only the leftist "useful fools" are duped into believing that the U.S. embargo is more evil than Fidel.

"In the defense of free exchanges and the transparent practice of international trade, the application of unilateral coercive measures that affect the well-being of the people and obstruct the processes of integration are unacceptable," noted the statement from 33 presidents and top officials from Latin American and Caribbean countries. If world leaders felt that way about all economic embargoes, South Africa still would be ruled under apartheid.

In reality, what has made the U.S. embargo against Cuba ineffective is the fact that it has been unilateral. Had it been bilateral — had the rest of the world, especially Latin America, joined the United States in squeezing the Castro brothers out of power — Cuba would have been a free country some decades ago.

The problem is that through the years, with some rare exceptions, most Latin American leaders have been a bunch of cowards.

They fear Cuba and its leftist guerrilla allies much more than they fear the United States. And because the Latin American left — led by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez — has been much more aggressive and intimidating in recent years, nowadays more cowards than ever are finding it easier to condemn the United States instead of Cuba.

One such leftist leader, Bolivian President Evo Morales, went as far as to propose expelling U.S. ambassadors from Latin American countries. Most of these countries never have expelled Cuban ambassadors — not even to condemn Castro's firing squads or Cuba's support of terrorists and guerrillas throughout the Americas — but now Morales wants to give an ultimatum to the Obama administration. "If the new United States government doesn't lift the economic blockade, we should expel its ambassadors," Morales said.

However, giving Barack Obama an ultimatum is not a very bright idea. If they want the embargo lifted, the last thing the Latin American left should do is pick a fight with the U.S. president-elect. After all, although Obama has pledged not to lift the embargo until Cuba makes some steps toward democracy, he also has vowed to lift some travel restrictions to Cuba. Obama has said he would meet with the Castro brothers "without preconditions," and he has surrounded himself with Cabinet members who oppose the embargo. If Obama doesn't ease U.S. sanctions on Cuba, no one will!

Yet we have to wonder whether there is a motive behind Morales' illogically antagonistic attitude toward the "new United States government." With a leftist president in the White House, how will the Latin American left opt to deal with the United States? Will we still be "Yankee imperialists," or will we become "amigos"?

If we go by Morales' attitude, it is safe to assume we still will be imperialists. And what about Raul Castro's response to a question about Cuban dissidents? While in Brazil, Castro sarcastically suggested that the dissidents, whose only crime was to try to express themselves freely, could be exchanged with five Cuban spies serving time in U.S. prisons. That statement once again demonstrated that perhaps the Castro regime still will be unwilling to engage in democratic reforms and still prefers to have us as "enemigos."

Do the Latin American socialists really want the U.S. embargo against Cuba lifted, or are they seeking to create impediments to prevent it from happening, as they have in the past? On more than one occasion when the U.S. government has begun a process of easing its sanctions against Cuba, it is the Castro brothers who have made some outrageous moves to prevent it from happening. Many Cuba observers believe the Castro brothers may want to continue using the embargo as a reliable pretext on which to blame their amazing mismanagement of the Cuban economy.

After all, once the embargo is lifted, what excuse will the Castro brothers have for all their cruelty and all their failures?

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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