US VISA Restrictions on Complicit Politicans and their Family Members involved in the Cuban Government's Coercive Forced Labor Export Scheme

USA Visa Restrictions on African, Cuban, and Grenadian Government Officials Involved in the Cuban Regime’s Coercive Forced Labor Export Scheme

Today, the Department of State took steps to impose visa restrictions on African, Cuban, and Grenadian government officials, and their family members, for their complicity in the Cuban regime’s medical mission scheme in which medical professionals are ‘rented’ by other countries at high prices and most of the revenue is kept by the Cuban authorities.  This scheme enriches the corrupt Cuban regime while depriving the Cuban people of essential medical care.

The United States continues to engage governments, and will take action as needed, to bring an end to such forced labor.  We urge governments to pay the doctors directly for their services, not the regime slave masters.

The United States aims to support the Cuban people in their pursuit of freedom and dignity and promote accountability for those who perpetuate their exploitation.  We call on all nations that support democracy and human rights to join us in this effort to confront the Cuban regime’s abuses and stand with the Cuban people.

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Cuba: A Black Spring and White Ladies!

By Rebecca Theodore


Lo! The paradox unfolds. The gleam of the golden morn of freedom pierces through the night of gloom and oppression. The old paradigms and systems are decaying, ready to be replaced with new, more evolved ideas and energies. There is a voracious indignation. At last! The Twitter Revolution comes to Cuba.

‘And the vultures circle overhead waiting for the old man to die.’

Cubans yearn for Wal-Mart and McDonald’s. They covet ATT, Coke, Nike, and Levi’s. The young stare in passion at iPhones and Apple computers. Pornography is the entertainment of choice. Evangelists lie in wait with a message of redemption hungry for the harvesting of souls. Old exiled Cubans chat in busy coffee shops on Miami’s boulevards. They long to touch the green, green grass of home and light cigars under the starry nights and reminisce of memories lost, long before a 1959 revolution usurped their world of contentment.

“Enough is enough they say”

The voices of Ladies in White -- "Las Damas de Blanco” -- wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, widows and fatherless brides waiting for their bridegrooms, lament in pain as political prisoners continue to die dehydrating deaths in dark dungeons of shame. Yet, they continue to rebel against a demagogue government. For them Cuba is not a Caribbean paradise, it is the gates of hell. They live in humble homes and buy food with ration books. They lay claim to the “freedom” that exists in Cuba.

Abuse of human rights dissipates the void. Freedom of assembly and expression sparkle the emptiness of reality and cease to derail on the frontline of time. Youthful endeavours are lost in dreams unknown. Beyond the smoking curtains, they no longer want to be like ‘Che Guevara’, for they seek deliverance from the oven of wrath.

It is true that Cuba has a better literacy rate than the United States, better maternity leave for mothers, better equality for women in the workplace and more doctors per capita than the US. These are economic factors that should make Cuba the envy of many countries, but Castro’s method of freedom and human rights inspire another revolution.

Moreover, in a new and technological zeitgeist, where communism is just an antiquated political philosophy, a footnote in history, and an unsuccessful ideological experiment, a technological revolution looms supreme.

In a country where Castro is the currency of real politics, Cubans are no longer afraid. Power is slowly being taken over by social media. Repression and internet censorship are gently peeping through their veils of suffocation. Gross darkness dispels into the light of liberty.

It is clear that ideology has failed.

Hark! The courier -- The Cuban Revolution is now an emblem on a T-shirt. Fidel Castro a man against capitalism and commodities is now a commodity sold for capital on the streets of America. St Castro is now the new patron saint of capitalism. Cuba is now gripped in the claw of ‘Manifest Destiny.’

Hereafter, there will be blood. There will be freedom. There will be a Cuban Spring.

October 12, 2011

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