Column on Cuba did not accurately reflect situation

TO THE EDITOR:

Last week’s column by Zack Tyman (“Cuba is evolving with new generation,” April 8) discussing the status of the Cuban revolution should be considered from a very different perspective.

To begin, I admire Mr. Tyman’s passion and initiative to discuss his experiences in Cuba. However, as an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard who has seen the terrified faces of Cuban migrants, I see the situation down there as far more tragic.

Mr. Tyman’s column suggests that the Cuban population is generally celebratory of Castro’s leadership and the concept of the revolution. If that is the case, why are Cubans placing their families in grave danger every single day to try to escape the country?

The concern of dissatisfied Cubans is not a bad job market in Cuba or mortgage struggles; it is the absence of fundamental human freedoms that we often take for granted: speech, fair trials, voting, even freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.

These freedoms drive the capitalistic democracies Mr. Tyman seems to demonize. They are the freedoms that Fidel Castro openly suggests must be sacrificed, despite the failures of socialism and communism.

Mr. Tyman needs to know that in a country intolerant of dissent, often to the point of imprisonment or worse, even the most passionate dissenters will not share their true opinions with neighbors and friends, let alone an American tourist or student.

Make no mistake, Mr. Tyman is seeing exactly what the Cuban government hopes visitors will see.



Lt. Joe Klinker
U.S. Coast Guard
Journalism
Graduate School