What About Human Rights in Cuba?

Advocating for change in U.S. policy toward Cuba doesn’t mean being silent about Cuba’s real human rights problems. According to a 2002 Human Rights Watch Report on Cuba, the government continues to violate the human rights of its citizens. Some aspects of Cuba’s human rights situation mentioned by the report are:

Ø Repressive Treatment of Government Opponents. Peaceful opponents of the government continue to be jailed, subjected to short-term detentions, house arrest, surveillance, arbitrary searches, evictions, travel restrictions, politically motivated dismissals from employment, threats and other forms of harassment.

Ø Restricted Individual Freedoms. Freedom of expression, association, assembly, movement (including leaving the country) remained restricted under Cuban law.

Ø Lack of Judicial Independence. The government-controlled courts undermined the right to a fair trial by restricting the right to a defense, and frequently failed to observe the few due process rights available to defendants under Cuban law.

Ø Poor Treatment of Prisoners. Prisoners frequently suffered malnourishment and lived in overcrowded cells without appropriate medical attention.

Ø Freedom of Press Restricted. The Cuban government regularly detained independent journalists, sometimes prosecuting them. Others were harassed or prevented from working by the police. Foreign journalists also faced harassment if they attempted to work with or assist their Cuban counterparts.

(Human Rights Watch, “Human Rights Watch World Report” at http://www.hrw.org/wr2k2/americas5.html.)

These are deplorable violations of basic political rights, and we condemn them.

Historical-political context

While it is important to criticize the restrictions on civil and political liberties in Cuba, it is also important to recognize the historical and political context in which they occur. U.S. hostility toward the Cuban government is a significant long-term factor in shaping the political climate in Cuba. There have been countless expressions of U.S. hostility toward the Cuban government over the past forty years, including the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1962, the numerous attempts on Fidel Castro’s life orchestrated by the CIA, and the U.S.’ tacit tolerance of acts of terrorism committed by elements in the exile community against the island.

The U.S. embargo on Cuba and the fact that the United States has included Cuba on its list of terrorist nations since 1982, despite any actual proof of terrorist activity on the island, send a strong signal to Cuba that the United States considers it an enemy. Because Cuba perceives that the United States treats it as an enemy, it responds to this perceived external threat by closing down political spaces within Cuba and cracking down on internal dissent, which it often sees as U.S-sponsored. Oswaldo Paya is a well-known Cuban dissident and leader of the Varela citizen petition drive, an effort in Cuba to bring about more freedoms and democratic practices, calls the embargo “polemic and divisive.” Paya insists that, “The embargo isn’t an instrument of change.” Vladimiro Roca, another prominent dissident who also opposes the embargo, believes that “The prickly relationship between the two countries . . . can hurt our hopes for advancing a transition to democracy.”

Current U.S. policy should not be an excuse for Cuba’s behavior, nor should it blind us to Cuba’s responsibility for its political and economic situation. But we should recognize that U.S. hostility toward Cuba is one of the factors framing the Cuban political dynamic. In the absence of U.S. hostility, the Cuban political situation would likely evolve in very different ways.

Social and economic rights

While social and economic rights do not play a key role in discussions of human rights in the United States, they do play an important role in the human rights framework in many other countries, and in international organizations. While the Cuban government has a weak record on political and civil rights, it has a strong record on social and economic rights. The social and economic gains made over the past forty years in Cuba are impressive, with free health care and education for all citizens, resulting in marked improvements in social, racial, and gender equality. Cuba has a highly educated work force and in terms of overall health status, it is ranked alongside the most advanced industrial nations. The Cuban government has clearly made social and economic rights a priority.

Human rights projections for the near future

The human rights situation in Cuba has not changed dramatically in the last few years, and is unlikely to change dramatically in the next year or two. At times, there are signals of progress, and at other times, there are setbacks. For example, in November 2000, the Ibero-American Summit was held in Cuba, and a number of Latin American leaders met publicly with dissidents while there. Yet, the government continues to harass dissidents — there was a wave of short-term detentions in the months after the November 2000 Ibero-American summit. There have also been detentions and repression of supporters of the Varela petition drive, at the same time as the government has permitted Paya, the project’s leader to organize, speak to the foreign press, and travel abroad.

As U.S.-Cuban contact grows (the number of delegations, cultural exchanges, academic trips, etc., has increased dramatically in the last few years), there will be some pressure on Cuban officials to further relax controls over travel and informal controls over contact. This will, over time, erode social controls and encourage greater independence of thought and action in the academic community and in society more broadly. As Elizardo Sanchez, head of a leading human rights group in Cuba, notes, “The more American citizens in the streets of Cuban cities, the better for the cause of a more open society. So why does the U.S. maintain travel controls?”

Currently, the United States is in no position to encourage improved human rights conditions in Cuba or to support the institutionalization of democracy. The efforts the U.S. government makes to support dissidents, or to strengthen civil society, are mostly counterproductive. (In fact, U.S. funding for dissidents has made them more vulnerable to the charge that they are U.S. agents. Those who hope for change in Cuban society but who are not in open opposition to the government, neither seek nor accept U.S. support.) U.S. influence on the Cuban government for positive change is basically non-existent. Furthermore, at a time when the U.S. is struggling to gain international cooperation, most of the world has continually expressed their disagreement with U.S. policy toward Cuba. In 2002, for the eleventh time, the United Nations General Assembly has voted to condemn the U.S. embargo on Cuba. Only two other nations voted with the U.S. in support the embargo.

Our principal focus ought to be on changing U.S. policy, with the expectation that it will have a long-term impact on Cuba itself. At the same time, we must recognize and continue to be critical of the real human rights issues in Cuba.