Doctor's struggle to leave Cuba exemplifies Castro's tyranny

Castro claimed she was really interested in owning the neuroscience center for "capitalist exploitation," a charge that begs the question: Had 50 years of communism not eradicated capitalist greed from the island? Then he accused her of cloaking a controversy about stem-cell research under political pretexts, which begs the question: Had 50 years of communist rule not eradicated bourgeois morals?

She has also been criticized by a small minority of Cuban exiles in Miami because her center participated in some studies related to embryonic-nerve-tissue transplantation in search for a cure for Parkinson's disease — a type of research also conducted in the United States, Britain, Sweden, Poland, Spain and Mexico, and done under a strict international protocol.

In 2008, her mother, in her 90s, was allowed to leave. Molina was sure she would never see her mother again. But the neurosurgeon, who recovered her Catholic faith some years ago, was eventually granted permission to travel, in part thanks to help from the Catholic Church (no, 50 years have not eradicated that, either). She arrived in Argentina a few weeks ago.

To President Cristina Kirchner's credit, the Argentine government, an ally of the carnivorous left that is itself attempting these days to restrict freedom of the press, has not placed limits on her — except that pro-Castro mobs harassed her during a recent visit to the Argentine Congress.

As I listened to Molina, I kept thinking that her story was not about the tragedy but about the perfect farce that is Cuba's communism. What else can be said about a regime that reserves its medical institutions for capitalist dollars in the name of abolishing capitalism and that for 15 years, in the name of anti-imperialism, prevents a woman from crossing borders in order to join her son? Yes, one perfect farce.

Alvaro Vargas Llosa is a senior fellow at the Independent Institute and the editor of "Lessons from the Poor." His e-mail address is AVLlosa@independent.org.