Human Rights Issues

The Cuban Government's human rights record remained poor in 2001. The Government continued to violate systematically the fundamental civil and political rights of its citizens. Citizens do not have the right to change their government peacefully. Prisoners died in jail due to lack of medical care. Members of the security forces and prison officials continued to beat and otherwise abuse detainees and prisoners, including human rights activists. The Government failed to prosecute or sanction adequately members of the security forces and prison guards who committed abuses. Prison conditions remained harsh and life threatening. The authorities routinely continued to harass, threaten, arbitrarily arrest, detain, imprison, and defame human rights advocates and members of independent professional associations, including journalists, economists, doctors, and lawyers, often with the goal of coercing them into leaving the country. The Government used internal and external exile against such persons, and it offered political prisoners the choice of exile or continued imprisonment. The Government denied political dissidents and human rights advocates due process and subjected them to unfair trials. The Government infringed on citizens' privacy rights. The Government denied citizens the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and association. It limited the distribution of foreign publications and news, reserving them for selected faithful party members, and maintained strict censorship of news and information to the public. The Government restricted some religious activities but permitted others. The Government limited the entry of religious workers to the country. The Government maintained tight restrictions on freedom of movement, including foreign travel and did not allow some citizens to leave the country. The Government was sharply and publicly antagonistic to all criticism of its human rights practices and discouraged foreign contacts with human rights activists. Violence against women, especially domestic violence, and child prostitution were problems. Racial discrimination was a problem. The Government severely restricted worker rights, including the right to form independent unions. The Government prohibits forced and bonded labor by children; however, it required children to do farm work without compensation.

Source:U.S Depatment of State

We the U.S care or should care about cuba cause of many thing. For starters, in Cuba the U.S has one of its most important prisons, Guantanamon Bay, we send some of our most dangerous prisinors their. Second we still embargo, or trade, with cuba some crops and goods. Cuba would also make a good ally ,but the U.S left Cuba a few years back. Also even if they are poor, Cuba has great medical studies. those are some of the reasons why we should care about Cuba.

Background History

The history of cuba starts with the Arawak (or Taino) Indians inhabiting Cuba when Columbus landed on the island in 1492 died from diseases brought by sailors and settlers. By 1511, Spaniards under Diego Velásquez had established settlements. Havana's superb harbor made it a common transit point to and from Spain. In the early 1800s, Cuba's sugarcane industry boomed, requiring massive numbers of black slaves. A simmering independence movement turned into open warfare from 1867 to 1878. Slavery was abolished in 1886. In 1895, the poet José Marti led the struggle that finally ended Spanish rule, thanks largely to U.S. intervention in 1898 after the sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor. An 1899 treaty made Cuba an independent republic under U.S. protection. The U.S. occupation, which ended in 1902, suppressed yellow fever and brought large American investments. The 1901 Platt Amendment allowed the U.S. to intervene in Cuba's affairs, which it did four times from 1906 to 1920. Cuba terminated the amendment in 1934. In 1933, a group of army officers, including army sergeant Fulgencio Batista, overthrew President Gerardo Machado. Batista became president in 1940, running a corrupt police state. In 1956, Fidel Castro Ruz launched a revolution from his camp in the Sierra Maestra mountains. Castro's brother Raul and Ernesto (Ché) Guevara, an Argentine physician, were his top lieutenants. Many anti-Batista landowners supported the rebels. The U.S. ended military aid to Cuba in 1958, and on New Year's Day 1959, Batista fled into exile and Castro took over the government.

The U.S. initially welcomed what looked like a democratic Cuba, but within a few months, Castro established military tribunals for political opponents and jailed hundreds. Castro disavowed Cuba's 1952 military pact with the U.S., confiscated U.S. assets, and established Soviet-style collective farms. The U.S. broke relations with Cuba on Jan. 3, 1961, and Castro formalized his alliance with the Soviet Union. Thousands of Cubans fled the country.

In 1961, a U.S.-backed group of Cuban exiles invaded Cuba. Planned during the Eisenhower administration, the invasion was given the go-ahead by President John Kennedy, although he refused to give U.S. air support. The landing at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961, was a fiasco. The invaders did not receive popular Cuban support and were easily repulsed by the Cuban military.

 

A Soviet attempt to install medium-range missiles in Cuba—capable of striking targets in the United States with nuclear warheads—provoked a crisis in 1962. Denouncing the Soviets for “deliberate deception,” President Kennedy promised a U.S. blockade of Cuba to stop the missile delivery. Six days later, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev ordered the missile sites dismantled and returned to the USSR in return for a U.S. pledge not to attack Cuba. The U.S. established limited diplomatic ties with Cuba on Sept. 1, 1977, making it easier for Cuban Americans to visit the island. Contact with the more affluent Cuban Americans prompted a wave of discontent in Cuba, producing a flood of asylum seekers. In response, Castro opened the port of Mariel to a “freedom flotilla” of boats from the U.S., allowing 125,000 to flee to Miami. After the refugees arrived, it was discovered that their ranks were swelled with prisoners, mental patients, homosexuals, and others unwanted by the Cuban government.

 

Seventeen months after his emergency intestinal surgery, 81-year-old Castro released a public statement declaring that he was not healthy enough to campaign in the upcoming parliamentary elections, although he has not withdrawn from the election. Castro's announcement on January 2008, was followed by a national television broadcast showing a recent meeting between Castro and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil where he told the Brazilian president that he was feeling very well. During the Jan. 2008 parliamentary elections, both Fidel and Raúl Castro were reelected to the National Assembly as well as 614 unopposed candidates. In Feb. 2008, Fidel Castro ended 49 years of power when he announced his retirement. The 81-year-old, who ruled Cuba since leading a revolution in 1959, said he would not accept another term as president. Raúl Castro succeeded his brother, becoming the 21st president of Cuba on Feb. 24, 2008.

At the UN in Feb. 2008, Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. The Covenants ensure citizens' political and civil freedom, and gaurantee the right to work, fair wages, social security, education, and high standards of physical and mental health. Roque also announced that in 2009 the United Nations Human Rights Council will be allowed to examine Cuba at will. The government relaxed land restrictions for private farmers in July 2008, in an effort to boost the country's poor food production and reduce dependence on food imports. The U.S. Congress voted in March 2009 to repeal the long-standing restrictions on Cuban-Americans visiting Havana and sending money into the country. President Obama has signaled a willingness to establish warmer ties with Cuba, a subtle acknowledgement that isolation has not been effective in forcing the Castro regime from power. Castro made the surprise announcement in July 2010 that he plans to release 52 political prisoners. The prisoners—activists and journalists—have been held since a 2003 crackdown on dissidents. Fidel Castro said the activists were "mercenaries" acting at the request of the United States.

Celebration of Culture

Music and dance:

• Cuba has been influential in the development of multiple musical styles in the 19th and 20th centuries. Cuban music has its principal roots in Spain and West Africa, but over time has been influenced by diverse genres from different countries.
•  Cubans love dancing. Many types of dance have originated in Cuba, for example the salsa dance called "casino". Great theatres stage quality plays, an excellent classic ballet, and a very live musical movement, from salsa to jazz and rock and a merge of salsa and jazz called "timba-jazz".
• In this video are some examples of Cuban dances and music:

Art:

• Cuban art is like music and dancing, they were influenced and related to Spain and Africa(western side).

Cuban cuisine:

• Cuban cuisine is a fusion of Spanish, African and Caribbean cuisines. Cuban recipes share spices and techniques with Spanish and African cooking, with some Caribbean influence in spice and flavor. This results in a unique, interesting and flavorful blend of the several different cultural influences. A small, but noteworthy, Chinese influence can also be accounted for, mainly in the Havana area. During colonial times, Cuba was an important port for trade, and many Spaniards who lived there brought their culinary traditions along with them.As a result of the colonization of Cuba by Spain, one of the main influences on the cuisine is from Spain. Along with Spain, other culinary influences include Africa, from the Africans that were brought to Cuba as slaves, and Dutch, from the French colonists that came to Cuba from Haiti. Another important factor is that Cuba itself is an island, making seafood something that greatly influences Cuban cuisine. Another contributing factor to Cuban cuisine is the fact that Cuba is in a tropical climate. The tropical climate produces fruits and root vegetables that are used in Cuban dishes and meals.

For more information please visit:http://www2.cedarcrest.edu/academic/soc/ccameron/soc215/cuba/cuba.htm

Country Overview

For more information go to CIA World Factbook.

-Location: Caribbean, island between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, 150 km south of Key West, Florida.

-Geography: Mostly flat to rolling plains, with rugged hills and mountains in the southeast. The climate is tropical; moderated by trade winds; dry season (November to April); rainy season (May to October).

-Population: 11,087,330 (July 2011 est.)

-Current government type: Communist state

-Political state:Communist state

-Education and literacy rates: definition: age 15 and over can read and write

                                                    total population: 99.8%

                                                    male: 99.8%

                                                    female: 99.8%

-Languages: Spanish (official)

-Religions: nominally 85% Roman Catholic prior to CASTRO assuming power; Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, and Santeria are also represented

-Birth rates: 9.99 births/1,000 population (2011 est.)

-Death rates: 7.47 deaths/1,000 population (July 2011 est.)

-Life expectancy: total population: 77.7 years

                              male: 75.46 years

                              female: 80.08 years

-Ethnic groups: white 65.1%, mulatto and mestizo 24.8%, black 10.1%

-Legal system: based on Spanish civil law and influenced by American legal concepts with large elements of Communist legal theory; has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction

-Suffrage (voting rights); 16 years of age; universal

-Unemployment rate: 2% (2010 est.)

-Population below poverty line: NA%

-Industries: sugar, petroleum, tobacco, construction, nickel, steel, cement, agricultural machinery, pharmaceuticals

-Communications: 1.168 million telephones, 443,000 celullars

-Military service: 17-28 years of age for compulsory military service; 2-year service obligation; both sexes subject to military service

-Transnational issues: Disputes ;US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay is leased to US and only mutual agreement or US abandonment of the facility can terminate the lease