For over sixty years, Havana has offered the world one alibi for Cuba’s misery: El bloqueo, the American embargo. It is a marvelous excuse for its failure, since it keeps blaming a country ninety miles away. The evidence, however, proves the contrary. Havana insists the American embargo starved the island. But Cuba trades with half … Read more
In Cuba, slave labor is producing products for export. A new, comprehensive report has revealed the existence of a systemic forced labor program involving tens of thousands of prisoners, including political dissidents, whose hard labor produces goods destined for European markets. Cuba’s communist system has always resorted to forced labor and incarceration to control its … Read more
The Cuban Bishops Conference expressed concern about Cuba’s dire economic situation in a June 15 Jubilee Year message titled “Pilgrims of Hope” distributed to all the nation’s parishes. Many have expressed surprise at the “strong” or “blunt” tone of the letter, as it complains bitterly about the nation’s never-ending disastrous state. However, the letter states … Read more
In the eighties, hundreds of thousands of Cuban troops fought as proxy soldiers for the Soviet Union in Angola. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, that relationship supposedly ended. It now appears that the old partnership has returned. The Russian government is signing up thousands of desperate Cuban citizens who are enticed to enter … Read more
Electricity is at the forefront of essential services for a functioning modern society. However, in Cuba, after decades of central economic planning under communist leadership, reliable electricity remains an elusive luxury. The Marxist nation can spread revolutionary ideas worldwide but struggles to keep the lights on. On March 14, 2025, the entire nation went dark … Read more
The ongoing collapse of the Cuban electrical grid is not a typical power outage that most countries experience but the result of decades-long systemic neglect, underinvestment and reliance on obsolete technologies. Most Cuban power plants were built in the seventies and were expected to last 20 or 30 years. However, they are long overdue for … Read more
Question—What does the United States Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have in common with the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society, Venezuela’s Resistance and Rebellion Collective, the Communist Party of Chile and the Zimbabwe Movement of Pan-African Socialists? Answer—All of them have taken public positions advocating that President Biden remove Cuba from the State Department’s list of “State … Read more
In the early seventies, Cuba and Taiwan shared similar economic conditions that should have made them prosperous nations. However, the two islands took opposite paths. As a free nation today, Taiwan’s GDP is eight times that of communist Cuba. Contrast Cuba with Taiwan The similarities are striking. Both islands are close to significant world powers. … Read more
In the summer of 2021, vast numbers of Cuban citizens rose in protest against the nation’s communist regime. They hoped that international public opinion would take notice of their loud cries for freedom and deliver them to help remove the yoke of communist slavery. Sadly, those hopes and protests fell upon deaf ears. Protesting in … Read more
When the Soviet Union dissolved the day after Christmas 1991, it inaugurated a season of celebration in Miami’s many Cuban neighborhoods. Long-time exiles pulled yellowing deeds and other legal documents out of bank safety deposit boxes, preparing to return to Cuba and reclaim land, homes and businesses confiscated by Castro’s socialist experiment. There was no … Read more
