Reply #38: Our Man in Havana [View All]

[Osolomia]

Published on Saturday, November 8, 2003 by the New York Times
Our Man in Havana
by Nicholas D. Kristof

It would take some chutzpah for me to accuse President Bush, Congressional Democrats and a courageous Nobel Peace Prize-winning dissident of bolstering some of the world's most odious dictators.

But here goes.

The Bush administration has variously backed, threatened, acquiesced in or hinted at tough new sanctions against Cuba, Syria, North Korea and Burma. Democrats helped lead the fight for a new ban on imports from Burma. And the gutsy Nobel laureate from Burma, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, backs sanctions that help impoverish her own people.

The U.S. imposed 85 new unilateral economic sanctions on foreign nations from 1996 to 2001. But sanctions, which cost U.S. companies up to $19 billion in 1995 alone, aren't a policy; they're a feel-good substitute for one. Usually they hurt just the people we're trying to help.

Fortunately, the Senate last month joined the House in voting to ease restrictions on travel to Cuba. There is now some hope that the U.S. will dismantle the Cuba sanctions, which have hurt ordinary Cubans while helping Fidel Castro, giving him a scapegoat for his economic failures.

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http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1108-05.htm