08/19/2002

EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-10077

THE TRUTH ABOUT CASTRO

Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has often boasted that his forty-plus years of Communist rule have been a great success for the Cuban people. Cuba, he once declared, is "the freest country in the world". Of course, this claim is demonstrably false. Castro has maintained a failed and oppressive system of Marxism-Leninism that has deprived the people of their livelihood and of the freedoms that are taken for granted in most of the Western hemisphere. His government persecutes dissidents and human rights activists. Hundreds of political prisoners remain in Cuban jails. Independent journalists are harassed.

It is instructive to get a glimpse of the real Cuban leadership from an important official who is no longer under Castro's thumb. Alcibiades (al-SEE-bee-ahd-ehs) Hidalgo is a former Cuban ambassador to the United Nations and the former chief of staff to Defense Minister Raul Castro, Fidel's brother and heir apparent. He recently defected to the U.S. He said that unemployment, severe food shortages, and widespread economic problems in Cuba could produce an uprising against Castro and his system. As Mr. Hidalgo declared, it is Castro's socialist policies, and not the economic embargo, that are principally to blame for Cuba's problems.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Mr. Hidalgo said that "skyrocketing unemployment across the country" is leading to unrest among the people. Food is scarce too, Mr. Hidalgo said, and many Cubans must get by on one meal a day. In fact, many aspects of daily life in Cuba could produce a "social explosion" at any time, he said.

Corruption, Mr. Hidalgo said, is one of the big problems within Cuba's government. "Things are stolen at all levels," he said. Even Castro's vaunted health-care system is in disarray. Many basic medicines, said Mr. Hidalgo, have not been available for years.

Mr. Hidalgo said he decided to leave Cuba because there was no opportunity to espouse views that differ from those of Fidel Castro. "The first right is the right to independent thought," he said. But for over forty years, independent thought in Cuba has been brutally suppressed.

The United States will continue to bring pressure on the Communist regime for fundamental change, including an economic embargo aimed at Cuba's government, not its people. As President George W. Bush has said, ""History tells us that forcing change upon repressive regimes requires patience. But history also proves, from Poland to South Africa, that patience and courage and resolve can eventually cause oppressive governments to fear and then to fall."