Want change in Cuba? End U.S. embargo [View All]

[Judi Lynn]

Want change in Cuba? End U.S. embargo
By A. Perez Jr., Special to CNN
September 21, 2010 -- Updated 1025 GMT (1825 HKT)

(CNN) -- In April 2009, the White House released a presidential memorandum declaring that democracy and human rights in Cuba were "national interests of the United States."

Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela repeated the message in May of this year to the Cuban-American National Foundation in Miami.

The Obama administration, he said, wanted "to promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms ... in ways that will empower the Cuban people and advance our national interests."

Fine words. But if the administration really wanted to do something in the national interest, it would end the 50-year-old policy of political and economic isolation of Cuba.

The Cuban embargo can no longer even pretend to be plausible.

On the contrary, it has contributed to the very conditions that stifle democracy and human rights there. For 50 years, its brunt has fallen mainly on the Cuban people.

This is not by accident. On the contrary, the embargo was designed to impose suffering and hunger on Cubans in the hope that they would rise up and overturn their government.

More:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/20/perez.cuba.embargo/index.html