From: kamine@is.rice.edu (Jorge Hershel Kamine)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.latin-america
Subject: Re: Cuban Rights Advocate Beaten and Detaine
Date: 28 Dec 92 16:32:40 GMT
Organization: Rice University

In article <1992Dec15.135806.21414@zeus.ieee.org> jbarth@ep.ieee.org writes:
>Of course it is wrong to beat up political dissidents.  No decent
>person would disagree with that sentiment.  Human rights groups
>have regularly documented and condemned human rights violoations
>in Cuba.  As Gilberto points out, however, you'd likely be 
>"desaparecido y muerto" in many other countries.
This does not make it acceptable.  With all the imperfections in
the U.S., people still have a protected right to express their
political beliefs.  I cannot in good conscience overlook the
oppression of free speech exerted by the Cuban government on its
people.  Furthermore, as a U.S. citizen and taxpayer, I object to
U.S. support (either openly or by its silence) of governments
that oppress these rights.  You may call this cultural or
idealistic elitism, but I feel the freedoms we enjoy in this
country are inherent rights with being human.  Finally, I think
we defeat this aim by applying a double standard in many cases.
However, the question in this case is Cuba.

>But there are human rights violations taking place in the US
>everyday that have been substantially eliminated in Cuba, 
>such as homelessness and lack of access to medical care.
This may be true in some cases, but I would hardly call the
quarantining of AIDS patients in an extremely restricted
environment as being accessible medical care.  Additionally, a
Spanish documentary on current conditions in Havana should
unmaintained and unsafe conditions in much of the housing which
would have long been termed as "condemned" in the U.S.  Although
Cuba hardly has the economy that the U.S. or other industrial
nations have, I think it should be noted that access to the
supplies needed to improve the housing has been available through
Mexico and other Latin American and non-Latin American countries.
Why wasn't money spent on this needed repairs instead of sending
soldiers to fight in Angola?

>Health is also a human right, and it's still not guaranteed
>in the US, in case anyone missed hearing about that little
>secret during the recent presidential election.
This is true, but I don't think that the availability of
healthcare in Cuba somehow makes the severe repression of what we
in the U.S. consider civil rights acceptable.

>Of course, some people will see children's milk and medicine
>as just a sinister tool to prop up the repressive Cuban regime.
>Maybe the bibles that the ministers in the delegation were
>bringing down will be additional misery to the Cuban people.
No, but it undermines the effort to use economic pressure to
encourage the Cuban government to change its policies toward the
Cuban peoples right to free expression.  More importantly, I
would not object to the aid caravan if I thought its supplies
would go to the people who need it.  In fact, I am more inclined
to believe the government will selectively distribute the aid
beginning with govt officials.
	The whole situation is very sad and I feel especially sad
about the no win situation in which the average Cuban has been
placed as a result of a handful of selfish political leaders.
Regardless of all the rhetoric we kick back and forth on this
newsgroup, the fact remains that things are so bad in Cuba that
people are constantly risking their very lives to leave their
homes in Cuba in hopes of a better life.  Of all those involved,
I think many of these individuals deserve our sincerest
sympathies as they have given up everything they had and knew in
exchange for a glimmer of hope that they might enjoy a portion of
the freedoms and opportunities that many of us received by act of birth. 
-- 
*******************************************************************************
*       Jorge Kamine Arreola      * "An eye for an eye leaves two men blind."  
*       email: kamine@is.rice.edu *  -Edward James Olmos   
*******************************************************************************