Why we remain resolute against traveling to Cuba

Posted on Saturday, 03.10.12

Why we remain resolute against traveling to Cuba
By Humberto Fontova

"More travel to Cuba means more freedom for Cubans," goes the
anti-"embargo" mantra.

Now here's what a recent story by Reuters out of Havana said: "Cuba just
completed its best year for tourism with 2.7 million visitors in 2011.
Hotels are full to the brim and Old Havana, the capital's historic
center, is teeming with tourists from around the world.... 'We are at
capacity….totally full,' said the manager of a foreign hotel company."

Now here's a recent report by The Cuban Commission for Human Rights as
reported by Marti Noticias: "December 2011 was the worst month for
political arrests in 30 years. Elizardo Sánchez said 'all signs are
indicating that … the regime has greatly ramped up its repressive
machinery' …This indicates that the regime has granted top priority to
the institutions of repression."

In the 1950s when Cuba hosted an average 200,000 tourists annually, it
was billed as a "tourist playground." Well, for two decades now Cuba has
been hosting from five to ten times the number of tourists annually as
it hosted in the 1950s. Result?

The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom shows no loosening
in Cuba's repression during this tourism windfall. For over a decade
Cuba has consistently ranked as the most economically repressive regime
in the hemisphere and among the four most repressive on earth,
consistently nudging North Korea for top honors.

"But if Americans can legally travel to North Korea," comes the
reflexive retort, "why not to Cuba?"

Because tourism represents a tiny source of income for North Korea's
terror-sponsoring regime, whereas it represents the main life-support
(right behind Venezuelan subsidies) of Cuba's terror-sponsoring regime.
So the United States applies a different type of sanctions to Stalinist
North Korea than to Stalinist Cuba.

As shown earlier, the evidence, proof and verdict on Cuba-travel are all
in. Rather than soothing the savage beast of Castroism, travel to Cuba
enriches, entrenches and thus emboldens the regime to shrug off
criticism and sharpen its fangs.

But point this out and "experts" on the matter will unanimously denounce
you as "embittered" "irrational" and "blinded-by-emotion."

For much of the past decade the United States has been among Cuba's
biggest food suppliers. The expenditures by an estimated 400,000
travelers from the United States combined with a blizzard of remittances
puts the estimated cash-flow from the United States to Cuba last year at
$4 billion. While a proud Soviet satrapy, Cuba received $3 billion to $5
billion annually from the Soviets. So to label our current relationship
with Cuba an "embargo" is laughable.

To label it a "blockade" shows appalling ignorance, functional
illiteracy — or more likely — Castro-regime advocacy, on its payroll or
off. And given the absence of any person or entity registered with U.S.
Department of Justice as agents of the Cuban government, we have to
assume the latter.

Payments from Castro's payroll, however, can appear in laundered form.
Take the case of the oft-quoted (especially here at The Miami Herald)
champion of unfettered U.S. travel to Cuba, Phil Peters of the Lexington
Institute. A Nexus-Lexus search shows that Mr. Peters could be properly
billed as the mainstream media's "go-to" source on the Cuba "embargo" issue.

Well, here's some background on the Lexington Institute's funding:

In a joint venture with the Castro regime, Canadian mining company
Sherritt International operates the Moa nickel mining plant in Cuba's
Oriente province. This facility was stolen by Castro gunmen from its
U.S. managers and stockholders at Soviet gunpoint in 1960 (when it was
worth $90 million.) Now here's something from a legal memo uncovered by
Babalu Blog as part of a court case discovery: "Canada's Sherritt works
quietly in Washington... recently it has given money to a former State
Department employee, Phil Peters, to advance its interests. The money to
Peters goes through contributions to the Lexington Institute, where
Peters is a vice president. Because the Lexington Institute is a 501(c)
(3) not-for-profit, there is no public record of Sherritt's funding.
This has allowed Peters to advise and direct the Cuba Working Group (a
Congressional anti-embargo cabal) in ways beneficial to Sherritt while
presenting himself to the Group as an objective think-tank scholar."

In brief: One of the Castro regime's top business partners funnels
under-the-table payments to America's top anti-embargo publicist, who is
invariably billed as an "impartial scholarly expert" in every media mention.

And in brief: Every shred of observable evidence proves that travel to
Cuba enriches and entrenches the KGB-trained and heavily-armed owners of
Cuba's tourism industry, and thus the most highly motivated guardians of
Cuba's Stalinist status-quo.

Humberto Fontova is the author of four books, including "Exposing the
Real Che Guevara" and "Fidel Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant." More at
hfontova.com.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/10/v-fullstory/2686827/why-we-remain-resolute-against.html