Val is now confusing remittances with servicing Cuba's foreign debt ["Cuba Owes Billion," Dec. 4]. For his information, the money from remittances goes to Castro's victims and circulates among them before being ultimately absorbed by Castro, whereas the Cuban people derive no benefit from the loans themselves much less from repaying Castro's creditors. Remittances are a gift and loans are an obligation. The gift is for the moment and fulfills the needs of the moment. Loans contracted in their name are a financial yoke that will outlast the regime itself.
Communist Cuba reportedly owes $29.7 billion to the Paris Club, which constitutes the world's second-largest indebtedness to that financial entity. Unlike Indonesia, the biggest debtor at $36.2 billion, Cuba has no means to service its foreign debt and has been in effective default for 20 years. Val is right that this amount is only a fraction of Cuba's total debt and he is right again to fix the total at approximately $60 billion. He errs only in assuming that Obama will "bail out" Cuba. Although I do not doubt his disposition to do so, it would be impossible for him at this time, and his insistence upon it might derail his efforts to "normalize" relations with Cuba. More importantly, however, it is not necessary to "bail out" Cuba. The Castro regime is more than willing to renegotiate debts on paper which it never intends to discharge in order to be able to contract more uncollectable debts. It will enter into any agreement with the U.S., however disadvantageous to Cuba's future interests, in order to provide cover for Obama's "normalization" campaign.
I hope the debt remains unserviced so that one day a Free Cuba can repudiate it. A Fiscal Court should levy damages against all foreign creditors at least equal to the amount of their claims and wipe out all its debts. Not one cent should be paid to any government or entity private or public that ever provided a lifeline to Castro and thus extended the misery of the Cuban people. For example, Russia (successor state of the USSR) should be made to pay a compensation of $100 million dollars for each of the 20,000 Cubans killed in Angola. Spain and other contractors of slave labor in Cuba should be penalized for consorting with the Castro regime and violating the human rights of Cuban workers. Even the U.S. must be help financially accountable for casualties at the Bay of Pigs, the Kennedy-Khruschev Pact which established it as the guarantor of Communism in Cuba and the Coast Guard's predations on Cuban nationals on the high seas (for starters). When all is added up, Cuba may end up the biggest creditor nation in the world (everybody will owe us money).
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10 comments:
" Spain and other contractors of slave labor in Cuba should be penalized for consorting with the Castro regime and violating the human rights of Cuban workers." What about all the Spaniards have done for ordinary Cubans: i.e. refugee status, ways of communicating to the outside world about what goes on inside Cuba, etc.? Shouldn't that be taken into consideration?
Matt:
Cuba extended asylum to 400,000 refugees fleeing from Spain's Civil War (1936-39). We welcomed them as brothers and had a right to expect no less from Spain. Instead, some Spaniards, encouraged and aided by successive Socialist and Conservative governments, have exploited the suffering of the Cuban people to their own advantage and should be held accountable for their attempts to recolonize Cuba one square block at a time.
The Spanish government even cheated its own repatriated citizens of billions of dollars which they had earned honestly in Cuba before 1959 by negotiating with the Castro regime for "compensation" for confiscated properties that amounted to less than 1 percent of the total in claims.
fantomas:
Try to keep up with me. You will have enough time to rest after January 20th.
Yeah sue the world for it's complicity and the suffering of the slaves they use.
Amen to that post Manuel.
vana:
Yes, we will sue the world in our own courts and justice will be obtained. Their duplicity, too, shall be revealed, all that they have done inter muros to prop up Castro and his regime while, in many cases, paying lip service to the cause of Cuban freedom. They are lucky that all that it will cost them will be money. Many, I think, will not even press their claims for fear of the exposure pf their perfidy. But their perfidy will be exposed anyway.
Comment deleted by fantomas:
Fantomas said...
Manuel slow down, I can't barely comment anymore
12/04/2008 10:29 PM
Deadria Farmer-Paellman says, "Get in line."
I didn't know that about how Spain had back stabbed you guys. Thanks.
nonee:
The last American slave died long before Deadria Farmer-Paellman was born. It is impossible to repair an injustice when its victims are all dead.
It is otherwise in Cuba. Although millions have died, millions are still alive and Cuba's slave system remains very much in place. Those who have abetted and underwritten it should also be held responsible. They, too, are still very much with us.
Tellechea how much is owed by the USA?
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