WSJ on Cuban "sexual exploitation of minors"

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxx>]

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(The Wall Street Journal is escalating
its editorial campaign against Cuba.

(Those who support the blockade,
either for "political" reasons, or due
to their having a material stake in it,
are now using any and every thing
they can, real or imagined, as they
struggle to try to keep the blockade
.
(These people are getting more wild
and desperate with this miserable stuff.

(Since Elian, blockade support has dropped
and continues to do fall, even following the
dissident trials and the executions of those
armed hijackers earlier this year.

(Last Friday we had the attack on the
American Library Association. Now the
WSJ embraces of the State Departments
"report" claiming that the government of
Cuba "facilitate[s] the sexual exploitation
of minors by foreign tourists."

(You really need to at least take a look,
if not to actually read through the full
report to see that the US is claiming
similar kinds of things all over the
world.

(Note here that the WSJ only pulls out
the Cuba part to focus on because it
Cuba is something it's obsessed with.
I haven't looked at the entire report
about virtually every country on the
globe, I must admit. Nevertheless...

(The claim that Cuba is either allowing
or encouraging such things can only be
credible among those who know NOTHING
at all about the real life of this country.

(That regrettably means most people in the
United States. They only have the so-called
"mainstream" media to get their information
about life on the island from. What little they
get is maximally distorted in most cases.

(The Cuban media has, indeed, had lots
of material about people arrested and
charged for drug trafficking, pimping and
other such activities, including Cubans
and foreigners alike. Reports on THESE
things, which were a big deal in Cuba,
were either ignored completely or not
reported at all in the US media.

(Earlier this year when the new and very
tough Cuban drug laws were published,
I was amazed at their severity. But it's
notable that the text of these laws never
found their way into the US media. The
problem of prostitution and pimping is
mentioned there, along with that of
illegal drugs, which was the main point
of that new law.

(No one here who is providing housing for
foreign tourists can be unaware of this
effort by the Cuban government as it's
recently being reinforced.

(All over the world and throughout human
history, people [most often men, but not
always] who have money and want sex
have found ways to pay people with less
money [most often women, but not always]
to have sex sith them.

(With Cuba using tourism as its principal way
of earning hard currency, makes these kinds
of things inevitable. If you look at the kinds
of advertising which is done to encourage
tourism to Cuba, the emphasis on female
sensuality is one anyone can easily see.

(But please, a little PERSPECTIVE HERE:

(Let's remember that prostitutition in the
US happens completely LEGALLY in the
state of Nevada. It has brothels licensed
and taxed by the state and FEDERAL
government.

(Therefore, some of the United States
Secretary of State Colin Powell's salary
comes from Nevada brothels, so who
the hell is he to criticise CUBA???

(It is certainly my impression that Cuba's
government is NOT encouraging nor is it
condoning such activity. Indeed, Cubans
sometimes complain bitterly about their
being either barred entry, or harassed
when they try to enter even the bar at
some Cuban hotels. Cubans are also
not allowed to rent rooms in hotels that
operate in hard currency (dollars). They
complain about that, too.

(Finally, for the country which has the
Cuban Adjustment Act, which facilitates
and encourages the trafficking of people
by smugglers who charge $5-10,000 US
DOLLARS per person is hardly in any
position to fault Cuba for this.)
=============================

WALL STREET JOURNAL
EDITORIAL
June 27, 2003
REVIEW & OUTLOOK

Fidel's Sex Problem

Fidel Castro has a nasty sex problem. And he's livid at
Colin Powell for exposing it to the world. "Despicable,"
"rude," "cynical" and "repugnant" are only a few of the
words Fidel used during a recent tirade.

So what's got Fidel so exercised? The answer lies in a
just-released State Department report scoring his
government for the "state-controlled tourism estab-
lishments and independent operators that facilitate
the sexual exploitation of minors by foreign tourists."

Cuba, the report goes on to say, turns a blind eye to this
prostitution because it provides a source of badly needed
hard currency. And though Cuba shares its dismal rating with
14 other nations, ranging from Greece to North Korea, the
charges carry a particular sting in Havana given Fidel's
indictment of the previous regime for making Cuba notorious
as "the whorehouse of the Americas."

The preferred State euphemism for this kind of activity is
"trafficking in persons," but the introduction to the report
speaks much more boldly. "As unimaginable as it seems,"
it begins, "slavery and bondage persist in the early 21st
century." Though trafficking also includes forced labor, a
good chunk of the 800,000 to 900,000 human beings
trafficked across borders are captives of the sex trade.

All too often they are women lured by the promise of work as
nannies or waitresses only to find themselves forced into
selling their bodies. With their passports or travel
documents confiscated and with no means of escape, often
threatened with beatings, they have little recourse. And the
above figures do not include those trafficked internally, as
in Cuba.

The good news is that this is one report that has teeth.
Starting this year, countries that find themselves in the
"Tier 3" category -- governments not making significant
efforts to combat their human trafficking problems -- are
threatened with the loss of all nonhumanitarian aid from
America as well as the loss of access to international
financing from, say, the IMF or World Bank.

The mere listing has already had its salutary effects. Since
last year's report, the United Arab Emirates jumped from
"Tier 3" to "Tier 1" with a concerted anti-trafficking
effort.

>From the vantage of history, the great human-rights causes
that have triumphed can look inevitable, whether it was the
British Navy's role in suppressing the African slave trade
in the 19th century or Ronald Reagan's call to tear down
the Berlin Wall in the 20th. At the dawn the 21st, the
deliverance of women and children from the bondage of what
Mr. Powell rightly calls a "modern-day slavery" is the great
issue of our own day. No one pretends that this report alone
will force these governments to change. But judging from the
attention Fidel's already giving it, it's plainly getting
their attention.

READ THE REST OF THIS DOCUMENT WITH ADDITIONAL
"INFORMATION" FROM THE STATE DEPARTMENT, ETC:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/18374

FOR MUCH MORE INFORMATION ON CUBA:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/