There is some talk going around that President Trump is planning to roll back former President Obama’s policies towards Cuba. If so, he will hopefully insist on human rights, particularly for the political prisoners and dissidents like the Ladies in White and Yoani Sanchez.
I was ten when my parents put me on a plane bound for Miami. Before passengers left the airport in Havana, the Communists would strip each of all valuables. Children were not exempt. When they saw I had an American quarter, they pounced on it. Let me tell you, no one’s greedier than a Communist.
In 1959 when dictator Fulgencio Batista left the island, the country was happy. People thought life would improve. Instead, within a year, life began to get worse. Suddenly, food became scarce—in Cuba, of all places! And not just food, everything: shoes, toothpaste, books, deodorant, cars, gasoline, furniture, comic books, toys, nails, pencils, hammers. Store shelves were empty. People had to form long lines when a store got a shipment. To make things worse, there were always the stooges in line who would start pro-government chants, which everybody was expected to join.
The Soviet Union would send stuff over, like cans of food teeming with deadly botulism. People learned to avoid Soviet food unless they had a death wish. They also sent Soviet films, which were so bad, so plotless, so mind-numbing, that they would empty movie theaters. Even the mice would scurry away.
The Terrors Were Mental as Well as Physical
And there was the persecution, the paranoia. In every street block there was one official informer who would stick his nose into everyone’s business, especially having an ear out for any comments the regime might...
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