Enough international favors to Castroism, it must be punished
Castroism must be confronted and the people supported
Castroism must be punished, enough with the concessions
Enough helping Castroism and not the Cuban people
It is time to help the people and not the Castro regime
Could there be a better way for the international community to help the Cuban people than by pressuring their rulers and demanding that they resign and finally call the democratic elections that Fidel Castro announced when he seized power in 1959?
Because today what is done—especially by Europe and Latin America—is to grant Cuba financial aid for state programs, donations of food and all kinds of goods supposedly to alleviate hunger, widespread poverty, and the miserable living conditions of Cubans.
The head of diplomacy of the European Union (EU), Kaja Kallas, recently again rejected the repeated call made by the European Parliament to end the so-called “Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement” with Cuba, through which the Castro dictatorship receives free funding for supposed programs that the government never fulfills.
The European Union continues to fund the Castro dictatorship
Thus, the Cuban governmental mafia has received hundreds of millions of euros since 2016. The height of it is that with that money the dictatorship has bought from Spain and other countries sophisticated weapons and technical equipment to intensify repression in the streets against those who dare to criticize the tyranny.
And it hasn’t mattered at all that the European Parliament has documented that EU funds sent to the island “do not reach the population and are used to sustain a repressive state structure.” It is outrageous that Europe gives money to a communist tyranny that blatantly mocks said agreement and tramples on all 31 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
As Rosa María Payá expressed a few days ago in Washington, recently elected to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, at the Captive Nations Summit organized by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation: “We also need the support of the international community. […] Those who have the power to take the funds away from the criminals who repress us, who have the power to pressure them so they lose the false legitimacy that the international community grants them when Cubans have never elected them.”
In short, the idea of not upsetting the Castroist mafia dictatorship, continuing to make concessions and sending money, food donations, and other essential goods to Cuba, is not only mistaken but deceitful.
Apartheid ended because of sanctions, not concessions
Let me offer a compelling example. When it came to the apartheid system in South Africa, the international community did not devote itself to sending donations, financial aid, and commercial credit to the Pretoria regime to alleviate the suffering of the oppressed, exploited, and mistreated nonwhite South Africans.
They did the exact opposite. There was an international boycott against the racist government of Pretoria, which included a commercial and financial embargo along with a major political, diplomatic, and media offensive.
It was accompanied by an extraordinary, massive, insistent, and prolonged global campaign demanding the release of South African leader Nelson Mandela. The phrase “Free Nelson Mandela” covered the entire planet for years.
As a result of that pressure and global punishment against the racist South African government, by 1990 the country’s president, Frederik de Klerk, acknowledged “the unsustainability of the economy” due to the sanctions. He released Nelson Mandela and recognized the African National Congress (ANC).
In March 1992, a referendum approved the elimination of apartheid. Later, the ANC was allowed to participate in the 1994 elections, and Mandela was elected president. And when asked whether the economic sanctions were decisive in ending apartheid, he replied: “Oh, there’s no doubt.”
That’s how the inhumane apartheid system was ended—by tightening the screws on the South African government, not by making concessions or sending “pity” donations to the South African people. Had the international community done with apartheid what it now does with Castroism, apartheid would likely still be in place.
This “soft hand” with the dictatorship isn’t pity, it’s politics
As for it being deceitful, I mean that this “soft hand” of all kinds of concessions to the communist-Castroist dictatorship in Havana is, in many cases, not out of “pity,” but due to political and ideological reasons. Currently, the international geopolitical context leans far more to the left than it did in the 1990s.
Furthermore—believe it or not—throughout much of the world, the myth invented by Fidel Castro when he seized power in 1959 still survives: the myth of the Cuban “revolution” as the redeemer of a “very poor country” that, like biblical David, stood up to the imperialist Goliath of the North that exploited it. The left romanticized and eternalized that falsehood.
In Latin America, there is an additional factor that must be exposed: the fear many governments have that if they confront Castroism, violent protests will erupt in the streets, organized by the “friends of Cuba” left, encouraged and even orchestrated from Havana by the long arm of Cuban intelligence.
Enough cronyism—truly help the people
In short, whatever the reasons why the international community—with the exception of the United States—does nothing meaningful for the freedom of the suffering Cuban people, the time has come to end that cronyism, overt or covert, with Castroist totalitarianism and to truly help Cubans free themselves from communism.
Enough funding the regime and sending handouts to “ease” the suffering of Cubans. It’s time to cast aside hypocrisy and half-measures. The people—the victims—must be helped, not their victimizers, the criminal mafia that usurps power.
And there is no better help than confronting that dictatorship the way the world confronted the racist regime in South Africa: boycott it, corner it, denounce its human rights violations, and demand the release of the more than 1,000 political prisoners—the highest number in the entire Western Hemisphere. Enough pampering of Castroism. It must be punished!
Roberto Alvarez Quiñones
July 16, 2025