By Tomas Perez Morejon, Contributor from Pinar Press
Pinar del Rio, February 25 (Pinar Press) The latest, most evident economic feat in Latin America, was accomplished by the people of Chile during the Pinochet administration.
The evident success could be breathed in the healthy atmosphere of a country without foreign debt, where the people were well fed and clothed. Where healthcare was available, education was good, and where there were jobs for all.
Even though freedom of expression was relative, the image of an autocratic system made Pinochet unpopular in the eyes of the people. This attitude manifested, and materialized itself, when the mine workers civically, and unquestionably, rejected the general- come- dictator, and he, in a democratic gesture, accepted a referendum that proved that the people not only wanted bread, but also freedom, and the long awaited transition to democracy was approved.
Free and clean elections gave the oportunity to the Chilean people to choose their democratic representatives without coercion.
We ask ourselves now, how would the Cuban people react if they had the abundance of the Chilean people, without freedom, and what would the attitude of the Chileans be if they had to also suffer, in addition to the lack of freedom, the extreme impoverishment of the Cuban people?
Could it be that the Cuban people renounced their rights to freedom because they did not know what freedom was, or because they just had not experienced freedom in a long time? Could it be that, in their eternal struggle to satisfy their need for those irreplaceable elements in life, bread and freedom, disdain set in?
In these long 38 years, there have been many experiments performed on our humble people, to supposedly reach the utopic earthly paradise they promised: a country without prostitution, gambling, layoffs, or displacements. People! No one has the right to use millions of human beings in experiments, as if they were laboratory mice.
Human beings need air to breathe, and also bread. But more importantly, they need freedom. We cannot wait any longer. Those who need to solve the situation need to do it now, with the urgency required by the country's bitter stations of the cross.