Just a few weeks ago, Castro locked up 75 dissidents and executed three Afro-Cubans accused of hijacking. Yet, even after that crackdown, some lawmakers still call for an end to sanctions against his regime. They claim American goods and tourists will hasten a democratic transition.
That would be a first. Commerce and tourism with the Soviet Union, for example, didn't bring down the Berlin Wall or produce perestroika. Trade with Moscow did change perceptions about Americans in a part of the world unfamiliar with us. But the Soviet dictatorship collapsed when its economy ran out of gas.
Similarly, lifting the current embargo on Cuba would have no effect on Castro. Like other tyrants in history, he lives in a dream world that he forces others to inhabit and sustain. He will insulate it from all threats and do whatever it takes to keep it alive.
Those threats include a vocal dissident movement and a populace that seems more cynical about the old dictator every day. Holding them in check requires money to keep his repressive state running. Tourism and credit from a market the size of the United States could help supply the financing his government needs.
Historically, Castro has liberalized only when forced to do so. He didn't begin tolerating self-employment, for example, until Soviet subsidies to the island dried up in 1991. And he released dozens of political prisoners in 1998 only after Pope John Paul II made a plea before an international audience.
In contrast, commerce, joint ventures and aid money from Canada and other donors have produced no change in behavior. It's easy to see why. Entrepreneurs hoping to sell Cuba something don't want to question Castro's human rights record or the regime's business practices. Castro holds all the cards. Those who won't play his game lose their place at the table.
Canadian and European tourists haven't helped democracy flourish on the island. But they have fueled the growth of Cuba's joint-venture resort industry that supplies the state with hard currency. Like others before them, American visitors would be unlikely to go out of their way to criticize a state where there is no freedom of speech, nor to risk a jail term helping dissidents.
The only valid argument in favor of lifting restrictions is whether the U.S. government is justified in so limiting the freedom of American citizens to travel to another nation. There is a legal basis for establishing such limits in the interest of national security, but the government must continually make a case for keeping them. Right now, Cuba maintains a huge electronic espionage complex directed at U.S. shores, conducts research into biological warfare and sponsors international terrorist groups. So it would seem that current policy wins the national interest debate.***
''The United States wants to impose a universal, Nazi-fascist dictatorship,'' Castro told the admiring crowd. Perhaps the crowd didn't realize what he was projecting: Castro himself has imposed such a totalitarian dictatorship on the Cuban people.
Ironically, Argentines who still laud Castro are, in effect, supporting the kind of military dictatorship that terrorized Argentina with censorship, disappearances, torture and summary executions. Except that Argentina's dirty war lasted seven years while Cuba's has gone on 44 years and counting.***