During an interview aired on Friday’s broadcast of PBS’ “Firing Line,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) said that Cuba’s regime practices “slave labor” and “human trafficking” as policy and that the international community should stop doing business “with the Cuban repression apparatus.”
Diaz-Balart stated, “So, is the international community going to now say, whoa, wait a second, like they did in South Africa, when they were embarrassed because they were doing business with the apartheid regime in South Africa, eventually they got embarrassed to stop doing business with that apartheid regime. … And it’s about time that people stopped playing this game of, we support human rights in Cuba, but we’re going to continue to do business with those that murder Cubans, with the Cuban military, with the Cuban repression apparatus.”
He added that Spain “is one of the worst culprits in paying lip service to human rights in Cuba, but then going out of their way to help the regime and deal with them and do business with them. Because when you’re dealing with slave labor, it’s profitable.”
Diaz-Balart further argued, “They practice slave labor and they also practice, the regime, as a policy, in human trafficking, and they profit off of human trafficking. They, for example, will send doctors abroad, but those doctors don’t get paid. The doctors get a very small stipend. The money goes directly to the regime and to the Castro family.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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