(Want to guess which country's corporations owned most of Cuba's valuable land and infrastructure then?)
This is a central and inescapable fact that all those favoring restoration of travel rights to Cuba and normalization of relations need to grasp. Washington is no more about to recognize Cuba's government and allow its citizens to travel there with Fidel out any more than it did after Cuba met all of Washington's previous demands: that the island end its special relationship with the Soviet Union, that it remove troops from Africa, that it halt support for rebel movements in Central America, that it sign on to international anti- terrorist and nuclear proliferation treaties, that it deploy forces to halt drug trafficking in its waters, or that etc, etc, etc.
When it comes to U.S. demands on Cuba, one thing is certain: the goal posts always move.
It's not enough that Fidel is no longer part of Cuba's government, he needs to be dead. Until -and even after- then, Raul Castro needs to go as well. And when that inevitably happens, it'll be "well, the Castro brothers might be gone, but their regime lives on...."
And so on and so on into eternity -until Cuba returns "property taken on or after January 1, 1959."
Cuba's free and universal healthcare? Its free education through college and beyond? Rent-free home ownership? Guaranteed foreclosure-free farm land? Twenty-eight thousand ((28,000) volunteer doctors providing free medical care in 67 countries?
All that has to go.
Property relations must be restored to their pre-January 1, 1959 condition.
Unfortunately for Washington, as the most recent events -and the past 50 years- have clearly demonstrated, the chances of that happening goes all the way to slimmererer and none-erer.
And it's that 'no news' that's the big news.
Steve Eckardt produces CubaSolidarity.com for the National Network on Cuba.
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