US policymakers have long condemned Cuba for its controlled press. Cubans, we are told, do not enjoy the open discourse said to be found in the “free and independent” US media. In fact, if it counts for anything, the average Cuban has more access to Western news sources than the average American has to Cuban sources. Cuba is bombarded with US broadcasting, including Voice of America, regular Spanish-language stations direct from Miami, and a US-government propaganda station called Radio Marti. Havana has asked that Cuba be allowed a frequency for Cuban use in the United States, something Washington has refused to do. In response to those who attack the lack of dissent in the Cuban media, Fidel Castro promised to open up the Cuban press to all opponents of the revolution on the day he saw US communists enjoying regular exposure in the US major media—an offer the freedom-loving Washington policymakers refused to consider.
Cuba has also been condemned for not allowing its people to flee the island. That so many want to depart is treated as proof that Cuban socialism is a harshly repressive system, rather than that the US embargo has made life markedly difficult in Cuba. No mention is made of the lures that for forty years have been offered to Cuban émigrés who make it to the United States: public-assistance cash payments, Medicare, scholarships, and low-interest college and business loans.
Millions of people want to flee capitalist countries like Mexico, Colombia, Pakistan, India, Nigeria, Poland, El Salvador, Haiti, Philippines, Indonesia, Macedonia, and others too numerous to list, but this is never treated as grounds for questioning the free market system that inflicts such misery upon them. Imagine if the United States were thrown open to all Mexicans who wanted to come, with a guarantee of generous government monetary support. The human tide would be awesome, especially as the free-trade poverty inflicted upon that nation only worsens living conditions. As it is, illegal immigration from capitalist Mexico already has become a major issue in the United States.
In the early 1980s, in accordance with an agreement between Havana and Washington, the Cuban government allowed its citizens to depart for the United States if they had US visas. Washington agreed to issue 20,000 visas a year but in fact granted only a few, failing to live up to the agreement. But Cubans who fled illegally on skimpy crafts or hijacked vessels and planes produced better propaganda value. Hailed as heroes who had risked their lives to escape communist tyranny, they were readily granted asylum.
Given the hardships of the Special Period, most of the émigrés departed Cuba for economic rather than political reasons. A leaked memorandum from the US Interests Section in Havana to the US Secretary of State admitted that a substantial majority of Cuban refugees applied for entry visas “more because of the deteriorating economic situation than a real fear of persecution.” The memorandum noted that applications submitted by Cuban human rights groups “lack demonstrable evidence of persecution. . .. Almost none show proof of house searches, interrogations, detention, or arrest.”14
When Havana announced it would let anyone leave who wanted to, the Clinton administration reverted to a closed-door policy, fearing an immigration tide. Policymakers voiced concern that the “escape” of too many disgruntled refugees would help Castro stay in power by easing tensions within Cuban society. In brief, Cuba was condemned both for not allowing its citizens to leave and then for allowing them to go.
US policymakers regularly fail to live up to the high moral principles to which they pay lip service. Thus while claiming to be fighting terrorism, they gave sanctuary and shelter to the likes of Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, admitted assassins and perpetrators of the plot that blew up a Cuban civilian airliner in 1976, killing all 76 people aboard. The 1971 Montreal Convention mandates that persons charged with destroying a civilian aircraft in flight are to be extradited to face trial. The US government signed the Montreal Convention but still refused to hand over Carriles and Bosch, both of whom ended up living comfortably in the United States.15
In contrast, Havana sent five agents to the United States to observe and report on the violent plots aimed at Cuba by exile groups in Florida, including the bombings of tourist hotels in Cuba to disrupt its economy—terrorist acts perpetrated against civilian targets with the full knowledge of the US national security state. The five undertook this mission after Washington ignored Havana’s appeals to stop the attacks.16 The Cuban agents were eventually caught and have been imprisoned in the United States for over twelve years, in some cases facing life imprisonment with no hope of release. None of the Cuban Five ever committed an act of espionage, sabotage, or terrorism. All they did was provide intelligence to their government so that it might defend itself against impending CIA-supported terrorist attacks.17