Make Castro Pay for Abuses

Some of Cuba’s Western trading partners are openly complaining about Fidel Castro’s latest abuse of Cubans critical of the regime. They should go one step further and punish Castro with more than a slap on the wrist.

Even in Castro’s Cuba, whose record of human rights violations is dismal, jailing four prominent dissidents for exercising their right to free speech is an outrage.

Vladimiro Roca, a former fighter pilot and son of a deceased revolutionary hero, Blas Roca, was sentenced to five years in prison for criticizing a Communist Party document and posing questions about the island’s economic future. Three other Cuban intellectuals were sentenced to prison terms of three to four years, also for “inciting sedition.”

The European Union has rightly condemned the sentences on human rights grounds and called for the immediate release of the four men. Canada, which has maintained an open trade and diplomatic policy with Cuba, says Castro’s latest repressive act might bring about a review of its relations with the Communist regime. Relations with the United States were lost with the 1959 revolution.

Spain and some Latin American countries including Brazil have similarly expressed displeasure with the arrests. In some quarters, the possibility of boycotting Castro’s showcase Ibero-American Summit, set for Havana in November, has been raised.

Castro abuses his powers because he can do so at no cost domestically or externally. That deal should end.