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Tony Soprano has nothing
on Fidel Castro
Published on Tuesday, June
20, in the Southern
Illinoisan.
Like a slumlord who doesn't want to openly
evict unwanted tenants, Cuba's dictator
is turning up the heat on the U.S. Interests
Section in Havana.
In the last week, the Cuban regime has
cut off electricity. It's also restricting
water supply. The moves are only the latest
in a bizarre harassment campaign escalating
for months.
These are troubling signs of how far Fidel
Castro will go to counter any source that
might infect ordinary Cubans with ideas
about human rights, democracy and free thinking.
And there's no telling when, if ever, the
campaign will stop.
The United States needs to steel itself.
Castro is spoiling for a confrontation.
We shouldn't give it to him or close the
Interests Section in Havana.
Tony Soprano has nothing on Fidel Castro.
Late last year, a top diplomat in the U.S.
Interests Section entered his Havana home
to find it covered in excrement. It was
payback for allowing Cuban dissidents access
to the Internet. Other diplomats have had
tires slashed and utilities cut. Czech,
Spanish and Polish envoys have been targeted,
too. Castro wants only foreign diplomats
who protest no human-rights violations and
ask "How high?" when he says "Jump."
Perhaps this explains the contradictory
stance of the EU Council Monday. While EU
foreign ministers deplored increases in
political prisoners and repression in Cuba,
they refused to reinstate sanctions that
had been lifted last year. Had sanctions
been renewed, EU diplomats could have faced
a new round of nasty harassment in Havana.
The U.S. Interests Section, meanwhile,
has fired up generators and its desalinization
plant. It's also working around other imposed
difficulties to get gas and diesel fuel.
The processing of the 20,000 annual immigrant
visas for Cubans has not been affected,
so far. Those visas and support for dissidents
provide Cubans a lifeline of hope that the
U.S. government should sustain.
It would make no sense for Castro to close
the U.S. Interests Section and disrupt those
visas, a key escape valve for dissidents
and disaffected Cubans. But rationality
has never been this dictator's strong suit.
His sole aim is to stay in power by acting
like a thug, and he has no intention of
changing his style.
If anything, Castro is emboldened by the
support of proteges Hugo Chavez and Evo
Morales. Like China's Mao Zedong and the
Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin, Castro may
be growing more paranoid and harsher as
he ages. None of this bodes well for the
United States or Cuba's people.
- The Miami Herald
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