Getting Smart About Cuba
The announcement of Fidel Castro’s retirement and the subsequent election of his brother Raul Castro as Cuba’s new president came as no surprise to Cuba experts and certainly not to the Cuban people themselves. Most Americans, though, seemed to expect that the passing of Castro - however it should happen - would be a convulsive event for Cuba. Instead, the changes happened peacefully and quietly, illustrating how U.S. perceptions of Cuba are, in general, painfully ignorant. It’s time we recognized why.
The fact that Cuba holds non-compulsory elections every five years, in which approximately 95% of Cubans vote, may surprise many Americans. While some may dismiss this systematic practice of political participation as a sham, others recognize the grassroots discussions that do occur in Cuba through a vast, deep network of community and religious groups, block associations and other “organizations of the masses.” Whatever one’s point of view, events of the past days indicate that the Cuban people have readily and peacefully accepted the results of these elections and are ready to move on.
Others are not ready to move on.
Hardliners
Similar to what happened with Iraq, where a disgruntled contingent of an exile community spun its own “intelligence” that helped lead us down the path of war, through Democratic and Republican administrations alike, the United States has allowed and underwritten a wealthy, politically entrenched subset of hardline, pro-embargo Cuban-Americans determine policy despite the best interests of much larger sectors of the population.
While Cuba evolves, U.S. policy will remain static as long as this special interest group sets the terms by which any opening can occur. These hardliners know U.S. ultimatums will never work to bring change to Cuba; they don’t expect them to. The hardliners’ goal is to punish the perpetrators of the Cuban revolution and create the chaos and institutional breakdown in Cuba that might allow them to regain a foothold on the lost island of their fantasies.
It’s curious that the policy of our nation is set by members of Congress who have never set foot on the island, and Cuban-Americans who fled a civil war for the safety of U.S. shores so long ago
The United States has, in part, been unwittingly ensconced in a small-time family-feud with Fidel Castro. After all, the father of two members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida - Republicans Lincoln Diaz Balart and Mario Diaz Balart - was a close cabinet confidant to former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, whom the Revolution threw out. Their aunt was Castro’s first wife, Mirta Diaz Balart, who left Cuba with Fidel’s first son, initiating a custody battle that eerily presaged the crisis over the custody and residency of young Elian Gonzalez eight years ago.
Even Hillary Clinton’s sister-in-law, Maria Victoria Arias, is a pro-embargo Cuban-American Miami lawyer responsible for the Clintons’ campaign contributions and consequently hard-line views on Cuba. Florida Governor Jeb Bush, President George W. Bush’s brother, ran the campaign for Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Cuban American member of Congress.
Embargo Industry
Beyond the blood ties, there is a more subtle and significant architecture that supports the status quo. It’s a taxpayer-funded “embargo industry” that employs hundreds, if not thousands, whose livelihoods depend on Cuba remaining, well - Cuba. It began during the Reagan years with appropriations for Radio and TV Marti that today top $500 million to beam U.S. propaganda into Cuba. In the case of TV Marti, even $225 million can’t buy Cuban viewers since the Cuban government jams the signal. But a half a billion bucks does buy jobs, contracts and political loyalties.
Almost simultaneously, hardliners helped create the National Endowment for Democracy. One of the agency’s first grants went to the powerful Cuban American National Foundation - a group that delivered the first Cuban-Americans to Congress. Since 2000, NED has provided at least $4.9 million to Cuba related pro-democracy programs.
The windfall from these first programs emboldened the hardliners to write more legislation funding more work for Cuba democracy-builders, that is - embargo supporters - in Miami and worldwide. U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) grants to “support political transition in Cuba” totaling more than $40 million have gone primarily to Miami-based groups since they were first doled out in 1996.
Despite a 2000 Price Waterhouse investigation that questioned the effectiveness of the USAID Cuba program, Bush called for a doubling of USAID funding for Cuba in his 2004 Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba plan. (Theplan was drawn up by Cuban American Otto Reich, a Bacardi lobbyist and former USAID administrator whose U.S. Cuba Business Council received $600,000 in USAID funds before he entered the White House as Special Envoy to Latin America.) Between 2004 and 2006, approximately $35 million in funds had been transferred to groups working to hasten a “transition” in Cuba.
In the plan, $5 million was earmarked for a public diplomacy effort to “illuminate the reality of Castro’s Cuba.” The wider community around those affiliated with these government-supported groups make political contributions individually and through political action committees meant to support the hardline, pro-embargo status-quo. Part of the strategy is preventing other Americans from traveling to Cuba to see for themselves what’s happening there.
In “illuminating the reality of Castro’s Cuba,” they have skillfully perpetuated certain misconceptions about Cuba and, in McCarthy-era style, made any positive discussion of the island and its achievements during Castro’s tenure taboo. And when momentum to lift the travel ban built in Congress, hardliners got Bush to enact regulatory changes in 2004 that cut 90% of travel to the island, eviscerating the lobbying effort emanating from those businesses and institutions facilitating such travel.
Terrorism
The pro-embargo forces say Cuba is a “terrorist” state. Long before 9/11, all during the 1990s, pro-embargo forces froze a cascade of legislative efforts to modernize our Cuba policy with terrorist allegations absent factual backing. Former U.S. Senator Robert Torricelli (a New Jersey Democrat who left his seat in disgrace) masterfully used this tactic to prevent food and medicine sales, which were banned despite violating all international humanitarian norms under his 1992 Cuban Democracy Act (CDA).
Just as former President Jimmy Carter landed in Havana, the Bush administration loudly accused Cuba of developing bio-weapons in an obvious effort to dilute media coverage of the Carter visit. Carter was blindsided, saying that in months of briefings just prior to the trip, U.S. authorities had not mentioned any such concerns
If anything, Cuba has been the victim of terrorism to which the U.S. government continues to turn a blind eye. This has undermining our credibility worldwide. In 1976, a Cubana airliner carrying the Cuban Olympic fencing team and others was blown up. Fugitives currently still protected here in the United States, including Luis Posada Carriles, took credit what was then the worst terrorist act of its time. Other acts of violence against Cuba, backed directly or indirectly by the United States, are numerous and well-documented, though one is hard-pressed to find evidence of Cuba using such tactics against our nation.
It has been troubling to watch our own democratic processes cast aside on behalf of the pro-embargo special interests. Former Rep. Tom “The Hammer” DeLay (R-TX), (another reliable embargo supporter later disgraced), violated all legislative norms to cut language easing the embargo, approved by both houses, from final legislation. Lawmakers such as Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) decried this unabashed breech of process, pointing to the irony of seeking “democracy” in Cuba while ignoring the voice of the people here at home.
Economy
Pro-embargo forces say Cuba is an economic mess, but according to the Economist Intelligence Unit and authorities such as the United Nations Economic Commission on Latin America (ECLAC), Cuba has been steadily climbing out of the deep economic depression spurred by the total pullout of their Soviet partners in 1990. China is now the largest foreign investor in Cuba. Companies from countries such as Canada, Spain, and Brazil are buying up exploration rights to Cuba’s Gulf Coast waters where industry experts are confident significant oil deposits will be found.
With the help of economic experts such as Vice President Carlos Lage, London School of Economics-trained Central Bank President Francisco Soberon, and other Cubans regularly dealing with professionals worldwide, Cuba has been diversifying its economy, opening up to foreign investment and enjoying some of the highest GDP growth rates in the hemisphere. Problems are still deep, but on the whole experts such as former World Bank chief James Wolfensohn agree that Cuba has fared better than many countries that have gotten assistance from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other multilateral assistance over the years. The United States blocks Cuba’s participation in these development programs and other international financial institutions even though Cuba is a founding member of the World Trade Organization.
The pro-embargo hardliners say Cuba is one of the world’s worst human rights abusers and compare Fidel Castro to Adolph Hitler. It’s true that freedoms of the press and assembly, for instance, are hampered in Cuba. Yet Cuba claims U.S. policy constitutes an act of war that prevents more openness. Human Rights Watch and other such groups have called for the embargo’s end for this reason. In terms of worldwide perception, however, the worst human rights abuses in Cuba these days are occurring in the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay.
While individual freedoms may suffer in Cuba, the so-called collective human rights to shelter, to healthcare, to education, are enshrined by the Revolution. The Cuban people enjoy a literacy rate
that rivals the United States and a free education through the university level. Cuba has in fact surpassed the United States in some basic health indicators through guaranteed health care for all based on sound principles of prevention and basic public health.
Healthcare
Healthcare is in fact Castro’s most treasured legacy. Cuba has gained worldwide goodwill by bringing basic healthcare to poor people around the world. Cuba offered the United States over 1,000 doctors trained in disaster management the first hours following the Katrina disaster. The offer went unrecognized. About a week later that same medical brigade was dispatched to assist Pakistan in the wake of a devastating earthquake. Cuba provided the largest number of doctors of any country there, building an enduring friendship and sympathy about US bullying among the Pakistani people.
The special interest hardliners pushed the Bush Administration to half-heartedly announce incentives to lure these Cuban doctors away from their far-flung posts with promises of free assistance to get to the United States and guaranteed green cards. While so far there has been no discernable response to this effort, it would be natural for a few of the 29,000 Cuban medical personnel abroad to accept. These few would then be paraded around for everyone as evidence of how unhappy the Cuban doctors are.
Havana now has the largest medical school in the world, where students from poor areas who could never pay for a medical education are receiving their degrees and training in Cuba in exchange for their personal commitment to practice in medically underserved areas anywhere in the world. Some 90 U.S. students are taking advantage of these full scholarships in order to return to areas where doctors are sorely needed, such as the impoverished Mississippi Delta region. Hardliners tried to have these students sent home in 2004 when basically all the educational travel to Cuba was cut, but Colin Powell interceded and gave them a special exception to stay, for the time being.
Unlike most Americans, these students have been given the opportunity to live in Cuba, to experience it, warts and all, and arrive at their own conclusions about it. That’s a freedom we all have a right to exercise, but for the machinations of those who would rather keep us “illuminated” on their own terms. The Cuban people have a right and deserve an opportunity to participate in the evolution of their country without the corrupting influence of outside interests. It’s time to cut the government subsidies that keep the “embargo industry” spinning its tales, to amputate the tail that wags the dog.
Lissa Weinmann, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, is a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute. She’s traveled to Cuba many times, directed the annual National Summit on Cuba from 2001 to 2006 and sits on the Board of Directors of the U.S.-Cuba Trade Association.
© 2008 Foreign Policy In Focus
I remember Condi saying how America was willing to help Cuba with their education and health care…both of which are far superior to the US’s. We should ask them how they acheived almost 100% literacy and how come their infant morality is a fraction of ours. Meanwhile the word arrogrant springs to mind
I find it bizarre that the author believes that Raul Castro has been elected in a “democratic” election. He is the hand picked successor (and brother) of the dictator, “elected” by a rubber stamp legislature that represents the only legal party in Cuba, the communist party. It is as if Saddam’s 99% re-election results were being trotted out as proof of the democratic traditions of ‘Iraq.
I doubt that “most Americans” believed anything at all about Cuban changes or Fidel. This is mostly a matter of concern only to the gusanos of Miami and political monsters like the Clintons, and the Miami mafia that has extracted 640 million dollars from the American taxpayer. And the money was spent on Godiva chocolates and nintendo games as well as terrorist groups. Posada Carriles walks around Miami while the haplees Bush and McCain protect him and the other terrorists that have ruined Miami and pollluted the U.S. elections.
The real transition was taking place long before Fidel’s illness with younger people such as Carlos Lage and Felipe Roque being put in place to run the government. Elections in Cuba are more that discussions; politicians act pretty much like they do in other parts of the world in that when it gets close to an election, they begin providing services and materials to the populace that they have ignored in the interim. And they do lose elections.
bligh2, Cuba should have a “least worst” party to trick the people into thinking they have a multi-party system, correct?
The question of Cuban poverty is more a question of values. If one values capitalist lifestyles then Cubans are poor. If one values humanist, socialist lifestyles, then Cubans are rich.
Naomi Klein gave the simple but most cogent answer for U.S. antagonism toward Cuba (and Venezuela and Bolivia). The U.S. doesn’t want a successful model of a socialist country in the western hemisphere.
Bligh: “I find it bizarre that the author believes that Raul Castro has been elected in a “democratic” election. He is the hand picked successor (and brother) of the dictator, “elected” by a rubber stamp legislature that represents the only legal party in Cuba, the communist party. It is as if Saddam’s 99% re-election results were being trotted out as proof of the democratic traditions of ‘Iraq.”
I find it bizarre that Bligh doesn’t seem to realize that we have an unelected President in DC. People in glass houses……
Americans should care more about the embargo, after all our rights to travel are being violated, US citizens traveling to Cuba are routinely harassed and fined.
There are a lot of misconceptions about Cuba and in particular how they run their elections.
This website is full of details about Cuba:
http://www.iammyownreporter.com/
The website is owned by an independent American journalist who has traveled to the Island several times during the last few years. It also explains in detail the laws related to US citizens traveling to Cuba and what to do if you elect to visit the Island regardless.
The embargo is not supported by the majority of Cubans living in South Florida; but only by the decreasing group of well connected and politically savvy hardcore right-wingers:
(from a LA Times article:)
Florida International University in Miami, which has been polling Cuban American attitudes since 1991, found last year that nearly two-thirds want a dialogue with the Cuban government, compared with 40% when the poll started 16 years ago. More than 55% supported unrestricted travel to Cuba.
The political exiles who left Cuba after Castro’s revolution triumphed in 1959 — bringing with them a boundless hatred for the dictator that was stoked by painful memories of confiscated homes and slain relatives — are dying off. They now make up less than 10% of South Florida’s 800,000 residents of Cuban descent.
About 125,000 Cuban refugees sailed to Florida in 1980 after an economically strapped Cuban government opened its borders, triggering the Mariel boatlift. An additional 250,000 have come with legal visas since 1994, when another rafters’ crisis spurred Washington and Havana to sign an orderly-migration accord.
Newer arrivals largely left Cuba for economic rather than political reasons, and still have friends and family there.
Most deeply resent a 2004 tightening of sanctions that limits their Cuba visits to once every three years without exception.
The Miami Cuban crowd better realize that the free ride is over. There will come a time when America god willing will come to it’s senses and tell these exiles where to get off. These exiles with their representatives like Diaz-Balart and Lehnten (or whatever the hell her last name is) are obnoxious. Those aren’t real Congress people, they are just Cuban exiles who infiltrated the electoral system to continue their little vendetta against Castro. They love to bully Americans into not having anything to do with Cuba. Enough is enough! Just because you exiles hate Castro doesn’t me that I have to, ok? Got it?
They also have a lot to teach us about PEAK OIL
Welcome!
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba’s economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate. This film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call “The Special Period.” The film opens with a short history of Peak Oil, a term for the time in our history when world oil production will reach its all-time peak and begin to decline forever. Cuba, the only country that has faced such a crisis – the massive reduction of fossil fuels – is an example of options and hope.
http://www.powerofcommunity.org/cm/index.php
bligh2: You have no evidence for your assertions. the author just told you 95% of Cubans participate in elections that are not compulsory. In the US the figure was 45% the last time. You are not at all familiar with their electoral system are you? You are just parroting something aren’t you?
The journalist that clears those misconceptions about Cuba is describing what i have seen myself. You will see much more police presence in the US than traveling around Cuba in a rented car. The occasional toll booth is all you see. There is no abject poverty as I have seen in Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala or the Dominican Republic. No keep out signs, no signs of wealth, no fenced estates. Very undramatic. Just a peacuful island with beautiful people and beaches. The people are bright and articulate. Everyone understands history and politics. They don’t realize themselves how unusual it is for a whole population to be so intelligent. Any progressive American would be in heaven there. Plus it’s a well preserved museum of antique cars.
lizard -
You just made me want to go to Cuba.
Having used the health system in CUBA I find it very good and very cheap. Cost me 15$ to get a tooth fixed that I know would cost hundreds else where. The tooth still works fine today. My wife got hurt while swimming on some coral and it cost us 25$ for the hospital stay drugs included. Even the ride to the hospital was free.
I also like how CUBA dropped the US buck. If you are on vacation you use what is called converted Peso. It is almost on par with the Euro. They will not take US bucks not even to convert to Peso. That was about 4 to 5 years ago they changed, smart move Fidel he saw the US was in the toilet even then. Now they have oil and all of a sudden the US is out in the cold.
One other thing is the military and how it works. If you do good in school you go for one year if you goof off and do bad in school you go for two years. An educated country with the whole male poplation can dimantle a AK-47 in the dark. I have found that military training follows the population through life as people in general are well kept.
“represents the only legal party in Cuba, the communist party”
bligh2 : Physician , heal thyself . The only electable party ( read “legal” ) party in the USA is the money party (read Dem/Rep ) supported by MSM and MIC . If you haven’t figured out that with a acquiescent Congress , an unjudicial judiciary and a divine-right monarchy , Americans have their own dictatorship then you and your fellow , blind flag-waving “patriots” are precicely the indemnifiers of the dictatorship.
The Castro/non-Castro regime in Cuba is really none of your damned business ; you’ve got enough problems at home.
To Caelidh : Finally ; I’ve been pitching ” the Power of Community ” for months now on CD . Thanks for the validation
Not a big fan of fidel or bush for that matter, but I see the ban on trade as a total hypocracy suggesting our ‘democratic system’ is just a bunch of rich people pulling shots.
I dont think I want to work in Cuba but I am not sure the us is much better looking at the jobs outlook in the near future.
I am hoping a rich European company in a socialist country will come ask me to work there where things are good.
I watched “The Buena Vista Social Club” just last night. Great music and a peek into Cuba and Cuban values. I’d like to visit, but man, I don’t know about all that cigar smoke!
1776: It would no longer be a paradise if you move there.
I understand the election process in communist countries perfectly well. It is exactly like the old Soviet Union, where participation was in the 95% range. You can elect your local representative of the communist party from an approved slate. That representative will then vote however the party leadership, ie, the First Secretary. tells him or her too.
No other parties are allowed, and no true voting on the leadership of the country. You are all fooling yourselves if you think a 95% turn out proves a damn thing. The elections mean nothing because they are nothing, with no power given to the elected official to stand up to “THE PARTY”
As far as my “unelected” President, he will be gone in a few months. I wonder if Raul and Fidel will follow suite willingly.
Wrong. The candidate can not be installed unless he gets more than 50% approval from the people. If he doesn’t, a new one is offered. Therefore, noone can be elected without the support of the people. As for them being told how to vote, you just made that up. It is you who is fooling himself.Clearly, if the people were unhappy they would refuse to ratify the candidate repeatedly and do the same for all. Why don’t they? Because they approve of the choices they have. A system like that in the US would be better than what we have.
Lizard, you must be smoking something if you think that the majority of Cubans agree that the seventy six year old brother of the dictator is the best choice to lead (actually not lead, Fidel is still First Secretary of the Party and therefor has all the power) the country. The elections are a farce, interchangeable faces that represent only one party. How many decisions has Fidel ever had overthrown by the people’s “elected” officials.
The country is a self-evident one family dictatorship, no matter how you would like to shade the truth on the matter.
bligh2, I know it’s a hard pill to swallow that there are actually people who love socialism and embrace it as a way of life. Considering how greedy and arrogant we are raised to be here in the U.S. However it’s true, the vast majority of cubans (in Cuba) love socialism and love Fidel and Raul. They find wealth in life, rather than in dollars.
take only what you need and give what you have.
Something our Consumist, Social climbing, McDonalds eating, he who dies w/the most toys wins society will probably never learn.
Frankly, the best thing that could happen to Cuba is for the US to stay out! Lets speculate for a minute what would happen to the country if US Style “democracy” was to happen there…
1) Health Care: Since nothing in life free, those pesky poor people will have to come up with a way to pay… market prices of course.
2) Education: There’s no money to be made in free education. Again, market prices must come in play here.
3) Shelter: No Subsidize housing in the new Cuba… if someone can’t afford a place to live, too damn bad for them right?
4) Utilities: Must privitize everything from electricity, to water and gas… market rates apply of course… and since the US drives up the market rate, Cubans are gonna have to PAY.
5) Civil Rights: While free-expression is curbed right now, we’ll have to clamp down on dissent even more just so those godless commies don’t ruin our money party.
6) Food Subsidies: That’s just horrible socialism… if they can’t afford to eat, why should we rich pay for it?
“It’s true that freedoms of the press and assembly, for instance, are hampered in Cuba. Yet Cuba claims U.S. policy constitutes an act of war that prevents more openness.”
Yeah, have to curb that stuff otherwise the US would “sponsor democracy” or something and then the country would be screwed. Perfectly logical.