Repressive Benefits of People-to-People Travel

at 8:49 AM Saturday, August 20, 2011

BY: THE HILL

This week, the first people-to-people tours (approved by the Obama Administration) arrived in Havana.

Their itineraries consisted of luxury hotels, rum, cigars, music, baseball and, most insulting of all, visits with the Castro regime's repressive Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs).

The CDRs are one of the lead entities responsible for the wave of repression sweeping through Cuba, including this week's brutal beating of nearly 50 Ladies in White.

Thus, these tours are financing (through their regime-approved visits), giving a seal-of-approval (visiting with CDRs) and turning a blind-eye (as soon as they head back to the Hotel Nacional) to repression.

So it's clear how these people-to-people tours benefit the Castro dictatorship.

But how do they actually help the victims of repression?