Cuba: Viagra for the Defectors

The normalization of diplomatic relations between Washington and Havana has corrected North America´s worst foreign policy mistake. The embargo that brought Cuba´s industrial development to a standstill 50 years ago has economically and politically benefited Cuba´s defectors. According to the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, every Cuban citizen who sets foot on American soil benefits from public housing, food vouchers, and welfare agencies that provide everything — even Viagra. In addition, $400 million is earmarked annually to cover their needs until they adjust to the system.

Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, stated in 2013 that there is no reason to justify so many benefits for Cubans given that “they are no longer exiles.”* With data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Suchlicki demonstrated that many Cubans, whose lives are supposedly at risk in Cuba, take vacations to the island. These statements caused an uproar in Miami. Philip Peters, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, tried to quell the debate, saying that “more than political persecution, economic conditions are what motivates Cubans to leave their country.”** In the last decade, 300,000 exiles have reached Miami and received governmental support.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio acknowledged that “going on vacation to Cuba takes credibility away from the sanctions.”*** With the re-opening of diplomatic relations, there is no doubt that the $24 million budget that the U.S. Agency for International Development and the CIA use to run Martí Radio-TV, as well as hundreds of blogs will be reduced. Obama´s stance is consistent with the current situation in the United States. Everything is subject to cold, hard math; the new beneficiaries will be the utility, food and pharmaceutical corporations: nothing for the people.

Neither the United States nor the European Union has the moral high ground to teach lessons; only in six of the 28 countries that make up the United Nations and NATO does all the population have bread, housing, work, and a dignified salary. Unemployment and hunger are a common denominator, from Spain to Poland. In Europe, thousands of people search for food in the garbage; the public´s favorite sport is soccer; the elite and the government´s is war. There is nothing more democratic than rallying your team on an empty stomach.

This hunger re-appears just 400 meters from the White House in Washington, D.C. In the United States, 49 million people depend on state support to buy bread and milk, and hundreds of children live on the streets, from New York to California. In addition, there are 50 million illiterate people and thousands of children who have never seen a doctor. Are those examples of social justice?

Likewise, the EU and United States have repeatedly violated the principle of freedom of speech. These champions of human rights repress the messenger more than dictators, like in Korea, or Christina Kirchner do. They pursued Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and James Risen — the only journalist who denounced the abuses committed by the Bush and Obama administrations. The former reporter for The New York Times could now spend the rest of his life in a federal prison if he does not reveal the sources that gave him the information for his editorials. The CIA and National Security Agency spied on the private emails of The Associated Press news agency, and NATO employed the same policy against the BBC and The Guardian.

Last November, Cecilia Malmstrom, the anticorruption commissioner of the European Union, denounced the colossal corruption in Europe: 163 billion euros have disappeared from public funds in 10 years. The thawing of relations between Havana and Washington will only postpone the interventionism that the United States sees as its right in Latin America. But the future of Cuban youth is equally uncertain to that of Spanish and American youth, with the difference that some know more about Kim Kardashian´s butt and others about Messi. No one drinks a Cuba Libre without Coca-Cola. Let the reader be the judge.

*Editor’s Note: Although accurately translated, this quote could not be verified.

**Editor’s Note: Although accurately translated, this quote could not be verified.

***Editor’s Note: Although accurately translated, this quote could not be verified.