Letters to The Editor
Should The Bahamas rethink the educational agreement with Cuba?
By Rick Lowe, Nassau Institute
Jul 5, 2010 - 9:03:59 AM

The Bahamas signing an educational agreement with Cuba as reported in the press recently seems innocuous enough, particularly with the travails of the public educational system. But let's dig a little deeper.

Unless things have changed dramatically in Cuba in recent years, no Cuban citizen can sign a contract with an employer. All employees work for the Communist State and are in essence "farmed out" to employers around the world and within Cuban territory.

Should an employer have a problem with an employee, the worker is shipped back to the Government of Cuba. They have none of the legal options for employment that Bahamians enjoy and deserve as free people.

Back in 2003 it was reported ( http://bit.ly/bw3ig5 ) that Cuba's Foreign Minister told the Bahamian business community that, "some business people like doing business in Cuba, because the government hire’s the employee’s and if the company wants to downsize, they simply send them back to the government office…no strings attached. Furthermore, the system has the employer pay the government the wages who in turn pays less to the worker. It has been reported that take home pay is $5 per month for a labourer and $12 per month for an accountant."

He went on to say that "neither individuals nor businesses can own property..."

The Foreign Minister also "insinuated, that if Bahamians wanted to invest in Cuba they would have to adapt to the “Cuban way.” The only thing missing was the Defense Committee for the Revolution guards to emphasise that point."

However, according to  the Preamble to The Bahamas Constitution, this nation was founded with a belief in the "Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of the Individual ... in which no Man, Woman or Child shall ever be Slave or Bondsman to anyone or their Labour exploited..."

So, on one hand The Bahamas Government must improve the educational system for the future of the country, but in order to do so they surely must be duty bound to operate within the confines of The Bahamas Constitution and Bahamian Statute Law.

Hiring Cubans to help improve the educational system is perfectly acceptable, but if they are Slave to the Cuban Bondsman Regime, that goes against everything The Bahamas was founded on.

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