U.S. Cuban Policy Criticized

Lifting the United States' embargo on Cuba would not guarantee an end to Fidel Castro's human rights violations, Jorge L. Mas Canosa, chair of the Cuban-American National Foundation, said in a speech Wednesday night at the Kennedy School of Government.

In his address, titled "The Realities of Cuba Today," Mas Canosa condemned the proposed "180 degree change in policy" of the United States, saying that the current embargo is "the only language that Castro understands."

Mas Canosa, who called Castro the "Napoleon of the Caribbean," told an audience of approximately 150 that Castro "remains unrepentant and offers the Cuban people no hope for the future."

Cubans are becoming increasingly disheartened and disillusioned, he said.

One Cuban-American student summed up the feelings of thousands of Cubans in one statement, according to Mas Canosa.

"We are zombies. You talk to us, and we don't know who we are," Mas Canosa recalled the student as saying.

As a result of the Cuban government's recent concessions to capitalism, he said, "The only thing sinking faster on the island than the economy is Castro's credibility."

Since the violence of the Cuban regime is so evident, the speaker said the U.S. government should be willing to discuss only the terms of Castor's departure: "When, how, and where," Mas Canosa said.

He added that the claim that the U.S. embargo was hurting the Cuban people was only an excuse.

"The Cuban people are suffering because Castro continues to deny them freedom," he said.

Mas Canosa ended his speech with a call for the realization of a new Cuban republic founded on a "reverence for the freedom of our homeland and the freedom of man."

The address was co-sponsored by the Harvard Institute of Politics and the Cuban-American Undergraduate Students Association.