Concern for Cubans

Castro’s government extorts a share of all foreign businesses that pay the government directly for each Cuban worker. Then the Cuban government pays slave wages to the worker in a different currency, the equivalent of $15 to $20 a month. This results in an apartheid state where the Cuban people are unable to afford even the basics and certainly not hotels or restaurants.

Cuba bans access to the Internet and beats and jails dissidents. Elections are a fading memory. Contact with the rest of the world, which has been trading and traveling to Cuba all along, hasn’t affected these abhorrent policies. United States tourists and businesses by their mere presence will produce no change for the Cuban people, especially since the U.S. hasn’t insisted on any reform before acceding to Cuban demands. Before the U.S. rushes back America should insist on human rights and political reform. Cuban lives matter, too.

This story was originally published July 25, 2015 at 1:00 PM with the headline "Concern for Cubans."