Cuba Embargo

Re “Cuba Is Focus of Educator’s Film,” March 3.

Julian Nava says that the U.S. embargo has made life miserable for Cubans, and describes the hard times they are experiencing. But as a good Castro apologist always does, he neglects to tell us that five years ago, when the embargo was already in place, Cuba was doing OK economically thanks to the huge subsidies from the now-defunct Soviet Union. It was only when the pipeline of money dried up that their bad times began, clearly indicating that the U.S. embargo is not the real reason for their situation. Yes, there is human suffering in Cuba, but it is due as much to the end of the Soviet Union and the control of most of the economy by Cuba’s totalitarian regime as to the existence of the U.S. embargo, the same one that Castro used to mock in his speeches during the good old days as “irrelevant.” I suggest to Nava that he should also include in his documentary the daily struggle of those who dare defy this hemisphere’s longest dictatorship.

ARAM ORDUBEGIAN

Glendale