What Castro Wants for His American Hostage

12:24 AM Monday, April 4, 2011


BY: THE HILL


Renowned Cuban author and columnist Carlos Alberto Montaner notes what the Castro brothers seek through their arbitrary incarceration of American development worker Alan Gross:

What does Raúl Castro want in exchange for his hostage? Basically, his objectives are two: that the White House eliminate travel restrictions on Americans so the annual number of tourists who visit the island — about two million — doubles or triples swiftly; and that Washington permanently interrupt the economic aid and distribution of electronic equipment to the Cuban opposition. In any case, that aid remains detained today by legal obstacles raised by Democratic Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Chairman Kerry's irresponsible delay of U.S. aid to the Cuban opposition -- which was passed by both chambers of Congress in FY 2010 -- sends a dangerous message to rogue regimes that hostage-taking is an acceptable means to extract concessions.

Let's not forget that the Castro regime has a long history of hostage-taking. It dates back to 1958, when the Castro brothers first kidnapped over 10 American civilians and dozens of U.S. Navy personnel in Cuba.

Thereafter, the Western Hemisphere's insurgent and narco-terrorist groups (e.g. Colombia's FARC and ELN) also (non-coincidentally) adopted hostage-taking as a strategy -- for they were trained in these tactics by their Cuban mentors.
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