Cuba

The current administration is talking of relaxing the sanctions against the Cuba government, or more specifically Fidel and Raul Castro.

We originally posted these sanctions due to the confiscation of US capital, property and defining shift towards communism.

The Times produced a handy list of ten reasons to hate Castro:

1. Sending homosexuals to forced labour camps.
2. Executing people attempting to leave Cuba (as recently as 2003).
3. Urging the USSR to launch a nuclear first strike against the USA.
4. Holding 316 known political prisoners in 2006.
   
5. Banning independent trade unions.
6. Single candidates for all seats in the National Assembly.
7. Computer and internet access is severely restricted.
8. In 2003, 22 libraries raided with 14 librarians arrested with jail terms of up to 26 years, for having banned literature.
9. Opposed even modest economic reforms, including the opening up by Gorbachev.
10. Cuba's imperialist adventures in Africa, including supporting the Mengistu regime that was behind the 1980s Ethiopian famines that Bob Geldof relaunched his career off of.

Not a glowing set of recommendations to say the least.

What else has Castro "given" to Cuba:

He stated that he believed in private property, but confiscated the property and wealth of Batista's followers claiming it was gained "illegally".

He confiscated all "inherited property" and instituted state farms with all the workers becoming state employees.

Cuba has one legal political party, The Communist Party" all newspapers though not government owned are published by "different" political organizations. Castro silenced all newspapers critical of his new regime.

In the late '50's there were various "purges" and hasty executions, many administered by Raul Castro himself.

Religion was subdued and clergymen expelled from the country.

One of Castro's main exports has always been Revolution, ask Angola or Ethiopia.

Obama seems to think that opening up our hugs to Cuba will change the way we look at that country today and that their past is nothing to be concerned with.

From where I sit the Castro brothers past is not to be forgiven.

WP