The month of September 2011 has proven to be the blackest month this year in Cuba. According to the independent Cuban news agency Hablemos Press, a total of 486 politically motivated arrests took place on the island, a figure well above all other months this year except perhaps February (440 arrests). That brings the year-to-date total of political arrests in Cuba (01/11 thru 09/11) to 2,668.

486 & 2,668: Let those numbers sink in for a moment.

Toss the figure of 2,668 around in your head as you read articles from major news agencies extolling the "positive reforms" the Castro dictatorship is enacting on the island. Think about those 2,668 instances of violent repression and violations of human rights when you see a "Cuba Expert" on the television saying that we need to engage the Castro regime because they are taking steps to allow more freedom on the island. Consider those  2,668 arrests this year when you run into someone who tells you they cannot understand why Cuban exiles make such a big deal about Cuba and events that took place over half a century ago.

Think of those 486 arrests this past month when you see the latest ad aimed at Americans for tours to Cuba. Ponder if any of the American tourists enjoying a regime-sponsored and regime-controlled tour of the island this past September were allowed to witness any of these arrests, let alone be informed about them. Think about the anguish, the pain, and the misery suffered by the victims of those 486 arrests while at the same time there was a group of Americans sightseeing in Havana from the comfort of an air conditioned motor coach. While tourists frolicked in the surf of Cuba's beaches in September, and the sun shined brightly on the frost of their mojito glasses, 486 indiscriminate and vicious violations of human rights enveloped the Cuban people in blackness.

Here are some more figures to ponder:

The politically motivated arrests for the year 2011 in Castro's "reformed" Cuba

486 is a bleak enough number, but another independent source in Cuba has put the number of arrests in the month of September at 563, and the total for the year at 2,784.

I will write those numbers again; 563 and 2,784

The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, who has tallied these figures, claims September's political arrests were the highest monthly arrest total in the past 30 years. And all of this is happening while we are being bombarded from multiple fronts with the notion that things are changing for the better in Cuba.

What the "Cuba Experts" and Castro sycophants are not telling you, however, is for the good of whom. Obviously, it is not for the good of the Cuban people.