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Rangel v. Rodríguez
New
York Sun Editorial,
February 2, 2007.
While Congress is considering Congressman
Rangel's bill to eliminate the American
embargo against Cuba, meet Alberto Justo
Rodríguez. Mr. Rodríguez is
a Cuban who, along with about 100 of his
countrymen, was sent by his government to
work in a dry dock in Curacao. When they
arrived, their passports were seized, and
they were closely guarded by Cuban officials,
including one of Mr. Castro's nephews.
Mr. Rodríguez and his companions
were forced to work 16-hour days in dangerous
conditions - hanging from the sides of ships
and scraping rust or huddling in wet spaces
while working with high voltage equipment.
Injured workers received no compensation,
and on free days - which were few - the
Cubans had to watch videos of Mr. Castro's
long, rambling speeches. The Cubans received
the equivalent of $16 a month -between 3
and 4 cents an hour. The real value of their
labor was paid to the Cuba's communist regime
by the Curacao dry dock in hard currency.
Mr. Rodríguez and two of his coworkers
later escaped to America, and last year
they filed suit against the dry dock in
an American court under the Alien Torts
Statute. It's an important lawsuit because
the case of the Cuban dry dock slaves is
not an isolated one. Resorting to supplying
slave labor in exchange for hard currency
is a well-documented strategy of the perpetually
cash-strapped Cuban government. The Cuban
doctors who travel the world doing cataract
surgery get paid a pittance, while their
masters in the Cuban government pocket dollars.
More cynically still, European companies
set up factories in Cuba with the same arrangement.
The entire Cuban tourism industry is designed
to provide luxury service to foreigners
in exchange for hard currency, while the
Cubans that work in the industry earn slave
wages. Mr. Rangel knows about all this.
He's stayed in Cuba's luxury hotels multiple
times at the invitation of Mr. Castro, and
he has been served by the Cubans forced
to work at those hotels for what amounts
to slave wages.
If, as Mr. Rangel is proposing, Congress
were to allow American citizens to spend
their dollars in this system of oppression,
it might be great for American business.
Yet in the years since the Soviet Union
collapsed and Cuba began trading with the
rest of the world, the Castro regime has
not only remained, but has grown stronger
as it developed this system in its scramble
for hard currency. Dropping the American
trade embargo would perpetuate a kind of
slavery that is typical of the communist
system and that has no place in the civilized
world.
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