Moreover, the Cuban people are not free to openly express their views, and this includes those Cubans who you interviewed in Cuba. Finally, the members of the Cuban Interests Section, including the representative to whom you have extended this forum, are active Cuban Ministry of the Interior or Cuban intelligence officers. Those who do not see the importance of conditioning democracy to the end of sanctions in Cuba do not understand what it meant for the democratic transitions in Spain and Portugal for Europe to condition democracy for those countries entry into the European Union. We maintain sanctions and deny the U.S. market to the Castro dictatorship because it is in the national interest of the United States to have a democratic transition in Cuba. However that transition occurs in Cuba, whether by the death of the dictator or through a coup, it is critical that sanctions remain in place, as they will under U.S. law, until certain fundamental developments take place.
Sanctions constitute critical leverage for the Cuban people to achieve a democratic transition.
It is the belief of U.S. policy that it is as immoral as it is unacceptable to simply stand by and allow one of our closest neighbors to languish, unendingly, under a brutal dictatorship run by a psychopath and conduct business as usual. Whether we are alone or not, the United States must stand by the people of Cuba. Those investors who ignore the goals of U.S. policy, who decide a free Cuba is not in their interest, and choose to invest in Cuba before it is a democracy, face grave risks. As the ITC completes its study, it should keep in mind issues raised by a Spanish investor, Mr. Jose Fernandez Gonzalez, who recently ran a business in Castro's Cuba for several years. He lost everything.