When I think of the word democracy, I think of Government. Democracy is a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system. This means that Government must protect the basic rights, or liberties, of all people. This is the system of government that United States are base on.The United States, Cuba, and Democracy During the Clinton administration, the sentiment has been proclaimed on so many occasions by the president and other political leaders, and dutifully reiterated by the media, that the thesis: "Cuba is the only non-democracy in the Western Hemisphere" is now nothing short of received wisdom in the United States. Let us examine this thesis carefully for it has a highly interesting implication. During the period of the Cuban revolution, 1959 to the present, Latin America has witnessed a terrible parade of human rights violations -- systematic, routine torture; legions of "disappeared" people; government-supported death squads picking off selected individuals; massacres en masse of peasants, students and other groups, shot down in cold blood; journalists critical of the government frequently assassinated. The worst perpetrators of these acts during all or part of this period have been the governments and associated paramilitary squads of El Salvador, Guatemala, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Uruguay, Haiti and Honduras. Not even Cuba's worst enemies have charged the Castro government with any of these violations, and if one further considers education and health care -- the United Nations Universal Declaration guarantees both of which of Human Rights" and the "European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms" areas. In which Cuba has consistently ranked at or near the top in Latin America, then it would appear that during the near-40 years of its revolution...
