LETTERS

• No Man Is An Island
• Birds of a Feather
• Just the Facts

Ignacio Ramonet is right that public protests haven’t erupted in Cuba since Fidel Castro handed power to his brother last year (“Was Fidel Good for Cuba?” January/ February 2007). But that isn’t because Cubans don’t want change. It’s because Castro’s repressive machinery remains fully intact. Cubans know what they can expect when they call for change: surveillance, harassment, mob violence, loss of employment, enforced separation from family abroad, and prison. Ramonet is also right that Castro’s Cuba has made important progress in education and healthcare. But he’s wrong to suggest that these advances justify the systematic denial of fundamental freedoms. A high literacy rate doesn’t justify punishing people, as Cuba does, for what they write. A low infant- mortality rate doesn’t justify holding doctors hostage on the island, as Cuba does, denying them permission to visit relatives abroad on the grounds that their brains are “government property.” Ramonet is right that the U.S. embargo on Cuba has been an unmitigated failure. The embargo has hurt ordinary Cubans and only benefited Castro’s...