Last month, the Cuban government said it planned to fire 500,000 state employees, and perhaps over 1 million, saying “our state cannot and should not continue supporting… state entities with inflated payrolls, losses that damage the economy, are counterproductive, generate bad habits, and deform the workers’ conduct.” Some heralded the announcement as a long-awaited sign […] Read more
It is difficult to be against artistic exchanges with any country, including Castro’s Cuba, no matter how repressive and anti-American their regimes might be. Yet, conducting business with them as if they were normal governments emboldens them in their repression at home and hostility toward America abroad. Take the case of USAID employee Alan Gross, […] Read more
Fidel Castro ant the other leaders of the Cuban revolution were enjoying two basic advantages when propagating the socialism in comparison with their colleagues in Moscow. They were young and they were part of the Third World. When the “barbudos” (“the bearded ones”) came to power they had considerable appeal for the revolutionary movements in […] Read more
When Orlando Zapata Tamayo became the first political prisoner to die in custody since Pedro Luis Boitel in 1972, the Castro regime was forced to deal with its latest international relations disaster. Rather than make amends, Raul and company decided to double down and tighten the screws a little more. The latest issue of the […] Read more
It is increasingly likely that the answer will be the affirmative. A simple assessment of recent events is enough to arrive at this fatal conclusion. It might even be able to have a notable influence, although not determinant one, on the final cycle of a determined dictatorial state by forcing both the dialectical calculations and […] Read more
He was meant to be just another prisoner who happened to die – after all, it is a well-known fact that these things happen. The death of political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo, however, drove another wedge into the crumbling wall of the Cuban regime. And it seems that the wedge has gone in quite deep […] Read more
