Cuba embargo has little to do with human rights

Editor,

I am glad dictator Fidel Castro has resigned.

I urge everyone to watch the documentary "Improper Conduct," which exposes the persecution many Cuban writers, gays and dissidents suffered under his regime. The UNM Fine Arts Library has this video.

If I had lived in Cuba and expressed my strong convictions as I do here, I would have been harassed, arrested, tortured, imprisoned and maybe executed.

For many years, I have written hundreds of short letters on behalf of conscience worldwide through Amnesty International. If I am tortured, what difference does it make if the regime responsible is capitalist, communist or whatever?

However, the main reason why the U.S. empire has hated and targeted Castro for decades is not his massive violations of freedom of conscience and expression. The U.S. has deliberately and routinely supported dozens of dictators as bloody and brutal as Castro if they played pawn to Wall Street and the Pentagon.

Castro refused to allow U.S. multi-national corporations to rob and control Cuba, and he inspired other nations to resist the U.S. empire.

I support no dictators - capitalist and communist - regardless if they stage fake elections. I support full human rights for all people in the world - nutritious food, decent shelter, voluntary simplicity, grassroots democracy, nonviolence, beneficial work, clean air and water, and personal freedom.

Don Schrader

Daily Lobo reader