Overview
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s Latin America Studies and Programs Center promotes individual freedom, respect for human rights, and democracy throughout Latin America, but especially Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Our researchers document human rights abuses, support in-region civil society and pro-democracy groups, and educate the American public and U.S. policy makers about the realities on the ground.
Programs
The Castro regime has developed sophisticated human trafficking and forced labor schemes to exploit the Cuban people, with emphasis on health personnel. The Cuban regime, in collusion with international communist allies, sends Communist Medical Brigades overseas to sell health care services for propaganda purposes. Communist commissaries and secret police agents oversee the Communist Medical Brigades’ workers and regularly confiscate between 75% and 90% of their wages. VOC’s Latin America Programs advocate for the rights of these workers, conducting research on Trafficking in Medical Personnel (TIMP) and providing legal assistance to these victims of communism.
Publications
At a recent hearing before the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security, three experts expressed concerns regarding a threat that—whilst not new—has become more sophisticated: the expansion of China’s influence on the island of Cuba. Dr. Ryan C. Berg, director…
Every year at the United Nations headquarters, a resolution condemning the so-called U.S. “blockade” against Cuba is overwhelmingly approved. Beyond the technical discussion—because it is not a blockade, but rather an economic embargo with very different legal and practical implications—the…
It happened again: the Cuban regime broke yet another promise. Why is anyone surprised? At the end of former President Joe Biden’s term in the White House, his administration—following in the footsteps of former President Barack Obama—struck a deal with…
Rep. Mark Green (TN-07) re-introduced a bipartisan Congressional Resolution denouncing the communist Cuban regime’s human trafficking, forced labor, and profiteering from its own medical personnel serving around the world. “We are standing up for Cuban healthcare workers to ensure they…
The Biden administration just announced a deal to delist Cuba as a state sponsor of terror. In return, the communist regime will release more than 500 political prisoners whose only crimes are that they chose to peacefully stand against abject…
Venezuelan President-elect Edmundo González Urrutia’s son-in-law, Rafael Tudares, was abducted by the Maduro regime on Tuesday, January 7. En route to drop off his children at school, Tudares was intercepted, forced into another vehicle, and then driven away. His whereabouts are…
On December 10, Jesús Armas, a Venezuelan democracy activist, former Caracas city councilor, and one of the campaign managers for Edmundo González and María Corina Machado’s presidential campaign in the nation’s capital, was kidnapped by Nicolás Maduro’s and Diosdado Cabello’s…
On November 30, 2024, Manuel de Jesús Guillén Esplugas died in a Cuban prison, officially attributed to asphyxiation from hanging. However, Manuel’s body and his clothes bore signs of torture, including muddy footprints and urine-soaked pants. In the video that…
On Monday, December 2, the Latin America Program’s team participated at an open meeting at the Organization of American States to present a report on Transnational Repression. They were joined by the Coalition for Human Rights and Democracy (Coalición por…
