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 44th Year of Fidel Castro's Dictatorial Rule of Cuba Myles Kantor WorldNetDaily Editor's note: Last January marked the 44th year of Fidel Castro's dictatorial rule of Cuba. To discuss this anniversary and prospects for change in Cuba are Agustin Blazquez, a documentarian of Communist Cuba whose recently released "Covering Cuba 3: Elian," which is available through www.CubaCollectibles.com; Enrique Encinosa, a historian and news editor of WAQI radio in Miami, whose books include "Cuba: The Unfinished Revolution"; Servando Gonzalez, author of "The Secret Fidel Castro: Deconstructing the Symbol" and most recently, "The Nuclear Deception: Nikita Khrushchev and the Cuban Missile Crisis"; and Juan Lopez, a political science professor at the University of Illinois and author of the recently released "Democracy Delayed: The Case of Castro's Cuba." Myles Kantor © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Question: On Jan. 8, 1959, Fidel Castro entered Havana after Fulgencio Batista left Cuba for the Dominican Republic. What's your response to the claim that Castro's occupancy of power 44 years later reflects popular support? Ted Turner, for instance, claimed at the Harvard Law School Forum in March 2001 that "most of the people that are still in Cuba like him." BLAZQUEZ: What I have learned from sources inside Cuba is that 90 percent of the general population despise the regime. The rest is part of Castro's privileged ruling elite who, for personal economic and security reasons, are afraid of the consequences inherent in the collapse of the regime. His longevity is not a factor of popular support. It is a factor of his highly repressive totalitarian machinery that controls all aspects of life in Cuba. Since the law forbids freedom of speech and association, the democratic opposition forces in Cuba are unable to carry their message to the rest of the population or outside Cuba without incurring significant risk. Thus there is a generalized lack of confidence that any opposition actions can bring about change. Contributing to the maintenance of the status quo is the lack of support from outside Cuba. The general ignorance of the American public and the rest of the world of the real Cuban situation is due to the rampant misinformation distributed by the left-wing-controlled mainstream news media. It generates insensitivity and a lack of international solidarity for the cause of the liberation of Cuba. Therefore, it is a serious roadblock to freedom. ENCINOSA: If Castro has so much popular support as Ted Turner claims, why doesn't he allow opposition political parties and free elections? The facts indicate he has no popular support but maintains power based on repression and fear. Over 15,000 Cubans have been executed by firing squads, thousands more have died at sea escaping, tens of thousands have been guests of his concentration camps and almost 2 million - out of 11 million - have escaped to exile. GONZALEZ: Though it is impossible to know the extent of support for Castro - opinion polls in totalitarian countries are pretty unreliable - I don't think that Cubans in Cuba like Castro. Though it is true that in the very first months of the popular revolution - of which Castro was just one of its many leaders - the majority of the people supported it, as soon as Castro managed to get total control this support began to diminish. Though in the last couple of years the dislike of the Cuban people for Castro is more and more evident, and they express it more openly, for many years they feared repression and disguised their feelings as best as they could. But, in several opportunities, Cubans have expressed their anti-Castro feelings by voting with their feet. This was evidenced when Castro opened the gates in the port of Camarioca in September of 1965 and again during the Mariel boatlift of 1980, when close to 125,000 Cubans precipitously escaped from Castro's proletarian paradise. I am convinced that if tomorrow Castro would open the gates again, in less than six months no less than half of the Cubans would escape from the island. There is, however, at least one kernel of truth in Turner's words. In 44 years of Castro's tyrannical rule, no major anti-government rebellion has occurred. Save for an initial strong opposition, only a relatively minor incident in the summer of 1994, the so-called Habanazo riots, has been reported. Therefore, even if Cubans don't like Castro, it seems that they don't hate the tyrant enough to risk their lives trying to get rid of him. Contrary to common belief, liberation from Castro's tyranny is not a difficult thing to accomplish, but is has a high price. To do it, Cubans don't need freedom of association or civil liberties. They don't even need guns. They only need to supply their blood. A spontaneous rebellion would force the Castro regime to bring tanks to Havana's streets and would end in several thousand Cubans massacred by Castro's army. This would destroy the myth of Castro's popularity and inflict a mortal blow to the tyranny. Unfortunately, Cubans obviously value life more than freedom, and they are not willing to pay the ultimate price for it. In his much-quoted dictum, "Give me liberty or give me death," Patrick Henry expressed it brilliantly. People who value life above freedom sooner or later will become slaves. Unfortunately, this seems to be the case of the Cuban people. LOPEZ: Under dictatorships, it is not possible to conduct a reliable public opinion survey to determine what percentage of the population supports the dictatorship. However, there are various indirect measures to assess the degree of support for the Castro government among citizens in the island. These proxies suggest that the support for the Cuban government is very low. Whenever the opportunity to leave Cuba has come up, as in 1980 with the Mariel episode and with the rafters in 1994, there have been endless streams of people wanting to get out. Only force has put an end to the migrations. Indicators of social anomie, like high rates of suicide and alcoholism, repeated spontaneous protests (for example, to complain about poor services and breakdowns in the supply of basic necessities), and small-scale strikes (to demand unpaid wages or for other reasons) are further evidence of discontent. Then there are the facts that the dictatorship does not want free elections, suppresses free speech and freedom of association and is terrified of the possibility that mass protests could develop. Any government that is confident of enjoying majority support does not oppose free elections. Castro is even afraid of holding a referendum, as the Varela Project asks. It should be clear, for those who want to see, that mass mobilizations carried out by totalitarian regimes to orchestrate a facade of public support are just exercises in mass coercion. Many signs also indicate that there is considerable discontent with the regime among members of the Communist Party, the armed forces and other state institutions, for example, defections abroad, widespread corruption and even expressions of criticisms. As for Ted Turner's comment, the most likely explanation is that he is a conscious supporter of the Castro dictatorship. No wonder some people refer to CNN as Castro's News Network. Evidence shows that CNN news reports are highly biased in favor of the Cuban government. Other possibilities are that Turner is an idiot or one of Castro's uninformed foreign dupes. But I think that the first explanation is more accurate. Q: Rationing of food and other goods continues in Cuba; destitution and decrepitude are prevalent (yet Communist elites drive Mercedes). What is responsible for this misery? BLAZQUEZ: The shortages and rationing of food began in Cuba after Castro but prior to the U.S. Embargo. For example, on July 4, 1961, cooking oil and shortening were added to the list of the rationed items. On Feb. 3, 1962, John F. Kennedy stopped all exports to Cuba, except food and medicines. However, on Feb. 11, 1962, the rationing of medicines began. And on March 12, 1962, the rationing book was implanted in Cuba as the only way to obtain food, clothing and other items of necessity. From the beginning, this book was almost a joke because most of the time the items were not available anyway. It was not until March 24, 1962, that Kennedy stopped almost all exports to Cuba, except medical products, cultural, scientific and sport exchanges. In addition, subsidiaries of U.S. companies abroad are not included in the ban. And, Cuba's trade with the rest of the world was not affected. The population's ever-present concern with such matters of daily need distracts their concern for their lack of freedom. The timing of the rationing for a previously self-supporting country that exported food makes it obvious that Castro planned to create the need for rationing. The continued misery is a convenient tool under the direct responsibility of Castro. ENCINOSA: In Cuba, it is more important to be a good Communist than a good worker. For years, promotions have been awarded based on political knowledge, not on work merit, creating poor performance levels in production. Rationing has also been used as a political weapon. A nation that has to stand in endless lines to buy essential items has no time or resources to rebel against the system. GONZALEZ: I don't know what is responsible for misery, but I can surely tell you who. The only one responsible for this misery is Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz. The causes for the present state of things in Cuba are to be found only inside the convoluted mind of Fidel Castro. Before he grabbed power in 1959, Cuba was one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America, and its economic indexes were far superior to many countries in Europe. Now, Cuba ranks below Haiti and only excels in the production of Castroist propaganda. Most people who have studied the collapse of the Cuban economy and think that Castro is the true cause believe that the disaster is the result of economic mistakes committed by the Maximum Leader and his close associates, i.e., Che Guevara. That also was my opinion for many years. Of lately, however, I have come to believe that the economic and social destruction of Cuba, and the moral and physical destruction of its people, is not the result of Castro's mistakes, but of a carefully conceived plan. If my interpretation is true, Castro accomplished his goals, and, far from being a failure, Castro's Cuba has proved a total success. By the way, it seems that some important people agree with my interpretation of Castroism as a successful experiment. If one is to believe media mogul Ted Turner, U.N. Deputy Secretary General Maurice Strong, Wall Street banker David Rockefeller, World Bank President James Wolfensohn, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches Rev. Konrad Kaiser, UNESCO's General Director Federico Mayor, Secretary of State Colin Powell and other movers and shakers of this world, Castro's Cuba is the model to follow. LOPEZ: The economic misery prevalent among the population is fundamentally due to policies of the Cuban government. The Castro regime continues with a Soviet-type economic system, despite the tinkering on the margins. History has amply shown that this type of economic system is a failure. The foreign investment that Castro has allowed is in the form of enclaves oriented toward foreigners, either as tourists or as consumers (export of nickel for example). The beneficiaries of the enclaves are basically the Cuban state and foreign capitalists, the co-owners of the ventures. These enterprises employ a very small percentage of the labor force, and the wages of workers in foreign enclaves are not much different form those of workers employed by the state in other sectors. As a matter of fact, the Cuban government confiscates about 99 percent of the income that foreign capitalists pay the Cuban government per worker. Foreigners cannot hire Cuban workers directly. The very limited space that the Castro regime allowed citizens to establish micro-enterprises starting about 1993, when the Cuban economy was in a nosedive due to the end of Soviet subsidies, has been rolled back. Recently, the intense attack by the government against these private endeavors suggests that the government wants to eliminate them as much as possible, if not totally. In a country in which there is a serious shortage of food, the Castro government hinders in numerous ways the production of independent farmers, who can be more productive than the state cooperatives; the latter control most of the land. Those who claim that the American embargo is responsible for the scarcity of food in Cuba should take a close look at the policies of the Cuban government in the agricultural sector. As the economy stabilized in 1994, the regime started to backtrack on the limited market reforms it had allowed among the population. This fact is an indicator that if the American embargo is lifted, and Castro gets the income he wants from American tourism and credits, he will be even less likely to permit market-oriented reforms. Q: What is your opinion of the claim that America's economic sanctions give Castro an excuse for his failures and cause Cubans to share his anti-Americanism - that is, that Castro doesn't want sanctions ended? BLAZQUEZ: There are advantages for Castro either way. With the embargo in place he conveniently uses it as an excuse for everything that goes wrong in Cuba. All the while, the embargo has little effect because before Castro Cuba was self-sufficient - did not have the need to import food. Cuba has four growing seasons and four harvests each year. The disappearance of fruits and vegetables, milk, meat and fish, had nothing to do with the embargo. I believe Castro wants the sanctions ended but on his own terms with no strings attached so he and his oppressive Mafia-type regime can continue to completely control all aspects of the economy and distribution of goods. He wants it to end because he can make even more money with an accelerated economy buying on credit (that, as history has shown, he doesn't pay back, leaving the American taxpayers to pay the bills) and because he needs a big political victory against the U.S. A David against Goliath victory. It would greatly raise his popularity in the eyes of the anti-Americans of Latin America and others all over the world. Overall, I think he'd rather it was lifted, but either way it doesn't make that much difference to him. ENCINOSA: Communists are excellent at finding excuses. If the embargo were lifted today, 15 years from now the communists would still be complaining that "we are still feeling the effects of an embargo that lasted four decades." Castro wants the embargo lifted on his terms - an unconditional surrender - that would provide a huge moral victory. GONZALEZ: The so-called U.S. "economic embargo" has been so inefficient that it only has benefited Castro by giving him a pretext to justify the Cuban disaster. It's highly revealing that some aspects of the embargo, which would have made it truly effective, have never been implemented. Now, just a perfunctory look at the list of influential Americans I mentioned in my previous answer - some of with strong influence in U.S. foreign policy decisions - who believe that Castro's Cuba is a total success, shows that one does not have to be a conspiracy nut to suspect that the embargo was actually created not to hurt Castro, but to guarantee his undisturbed staying in power in Cuba. Of course, Castro's worst fear has always been the end of his main disinformation tool: the U.S. embargo. About the possibility that, because of the embargo, Cubans may share Castro's anti-Americanism, there's nothing to fear: Despite 44 years of Castro's anti-American rhetoric, Cubans are today more pro-American than ever before. I have still not made up my mind, though, as to interpret it as a failure or a success of Castroism. LOPEZ: That is a common claim in the anti-embargo movement. Survey data from recent Cuban arrivals to the U.S. indicate that very few people in Cuba believe that the embargo is responsible for their dire situation. They blame the Cuban government. Reports from independent journalists in Cuba support this conclusion. It should not be hard for people in Cuba to figure out that government repression against private enterprise among common citizens is not due to the embargo but rather to Castro's policy choices. Appeals to nationalism by the Castro government in an attempt to bolster support are worn out. Nicolae Ceaucescu in Romania followed the same tactic, and his appeals to nationalism came to fall on deaf ears. In any case, with tourist apartheid and the discrimination in favor of foreigners and against Cubans when it comes to allowing private entrepreneurship, the identification of the Castro regime with Cuban nationalism has deteriorated. The argument that the Castro government does not want the embargo lifted is nonsensical. The Cuban government has been a very active participant, expending considerable time, effort and personnel, in helping the anti-embargo movement. Just to cite one activity, Cuban government officials have crisscrossed the United States selling the idea to American farmers' associations and other capitalists that if the embargo were lifted they would make millions selling their products to Cuba. It was not until corporate America got on the anti-embargo bandwagon that the movement started to make headway. Q: Another objection to economic sanctions is that they punish Cubans for Castro's abuses. Your thoughts? BLAZQUEZ: Lifting the economic sanctions with Castro and his repressive regime in place is not going to reduce the human-rights abuses in Cuba. It is Castro who has been creating the punishments of the Cuban people for 44 years, not the sanctions. This punishment and war against the will of the Cuban people started as soon as Castro took power in 1959, almost three years before Kennedy declared the economic sanctions on March 24, 1962. If the sanctions were lifted, his control of the distribution of goods would increase the inequities between the ordinary Cubans and the elite, one of his means for maintaining control over both segments of the population. ENCINOSA: Lifting the embargo unconditionally would not guarantee an improvement in any way. Castro is the one punishing Cubans, not the embargo. Castro is the one who imposes his will, executes and jails opponents. GONZALEZ: To the extent that the U.S. economic sanctions have helped Castro to justify his staying in power, it has punished the Cuban people. But I would like to qualify the question a little. Actually, the U.S. economic sanctions have not punished all Cubans. Despite, or, perhaps, because of, the U.S. economic sanctions, Castro, his cronies and the rest of the Castroist nomenklatura, have been for long years enjoying Castro's "sociolism." (Sociolism: from "socio" [buddy], Castro's version of crony capitalism.) LOPEZ: The embargo hurts most of all the finances of the Cuban government. It curtails American tourism, some investment and credits/loans. Given that enclave capitalism in Cuba is a business between the state and foreigners, that these enclaves employ a very small percentage of the labor force, and that the state confiscates almost all the wages of workers in this sector, the trickle-down benefits of ending the embargo are bound to be minor. The credits/loans that the Cuban government has received from other countries have not ended the precarious economic conditions of the general population. And as I have indicated, the greater the ability of the Cuban government to muddle-through economically, the less inclined it is to allow entrepreneurship in the population. The embargo weakens the dictatorship. It is not enough to bring it down, but it is an element in the recipe to foster a transition to democracy. Even if the end of the embargo would spill some crumbs among citizens (which would not provide a real solution to their miserable conditions), forgoing these crumbs for the sake of getting rid of the dictatorship would be a good deal for the sake of a much better future. Q: What would be the effects of ending economic sanctions? BLAZQUEZ: Ending the sanctions would benefit Castro because the Cuban economy that he owns and operates would increase. He could make even more of the money he needs to maintain his power. The ending of the sanctions would have no positive effect unless they were tied to conditions with respect to such things as human rights, freeing of all political prisoners, freedom to establish political parties, freedom to open businesses and own property and free and internationally supervised elections. Meantime, I think it is immoral to do business with any Charles Manson. ENCINOSA: Lifting the embargo without conditions would: 1) Give Castro a huge moral and political victory that would enhance his image with the Left; 2) Open the door to international loans that he could use to strengthen his repressive machinery; 3) It would not guarantee a higher standard for Cubans, for Castro could limit tourism and foreign investment to "dollar areas" and keep Cubans away from tourists. GONZALEZ: Paradoxically, the same way that the creation of the embargo helped Castro to stay in power for so long, the direct effect of ending it now would be to guarantee the continuation of Castroism in Cuba after the death of Fidel Castro, as a courtesy of the American taxpayers. The fact that the ones who are now pushing behind the scenes to end the embargo are the same ones who implemented the inefficient embargo more than 40 years ago seems to indicate that their true goal is not to help the Cuban people, but to guarantee the continuation of the Castroist totalitarian regime after the death of the tyrant. LOPEZ: The end of the American embargo with the Castro regime in power would mean propping up the regime by increasing its financial resources. The No. 1 goal of the regime is to remain in power, and it would use the windfall mainly for this purpose. For example, it will have more resources to distribute benefits among regime cadres in efforts to decrease discontent inside the regime. The end of the embargo would help the dictatorship to continue muddling-through. The Cuban government shows signs of having serious financial difficulties. Also, American investment in Cuba could be a source of problems for Cuban-American relations in the post-transition period, and it is in the interest of the Cuban people to try to have good relations with the U.S. without sacrificing Cuban sovereignty. It is likely that foreign investors under the Castro government will be taken to court after the transitions for violating labor laws, for polluting the environment, for using stolen property, and for having made business contracts with an illegitimate government. Q: One of the recent internal efforts to de-totalitarianize Cuba has been the Varela Project, which utilizes a provision of Cuba's 1976 "Constitution" and calls for a referendum on civil liberties, economic and electoral reform, and amnesty for political prisoners. What do you think of this campaign? BLAZQUEZ: Anything that can help - short of wasting time to establish a dialogue with Castro - to open the doors to a change in Cuba should be explored. However, it is extremely difficult to imagine that working within Cuba's 1976 "Constitution." It is specifically designed to prevent any effort from changing any of its provisions. It enshrines the Communist Party as the only alternative for Cuba and clearly curtails all human rights as well as freedom of speech for as long as it is not in favor of the Communist ideology. Also it curtails parents' rights to raise and educate their children as they see fit and gives all authority to the state (Castro) to foster the Communist formation of the children. The power of the Varela Project is its revelation to the world of the sincerity and valor of its participants in their struggle against overwhelming odds under conditions of personal threat. As far as I am concerned, that 1976 "Constitution" approved "unanimously," the norm in totalitarian regimes where fear reigns, belongs to the trashcan of history. Ultimately, the 1940 Constitution, created in a democratic way, should be reinstated with adjustments for the 21st century. ENCINOSA: I do not support the Varela Project. It works within the structure of the system, accepts its laws and judicial system and excludes some political prisoners from amnesty. I consider myself an opponent, working to overthrow the system, and to me the VP is a dissident project working within the structure of a system that does not need to be changed, but totally overthrown. GONZALEZ: The Varela Project follows too closely for comfort some propaganda and psy-op lines developed by Castro and implemented by his intelligence services since the mid-'90s. In this sense, the leaders of the Varela Project are, wittingly or unwittingly, playing their role in this plan to perpetuate Castroism after Castro's death. On the other hand, I am not intrinsically against the Varela Project, because I am convinced that, as soon as Cubans know of Castro's death, all the carefully designed plans, including the Varela Project, will crumble and go right to the trash bin of history. As a matter of fact, the Varelistas should be concerned about their future. Sometimes the masses turn violent, and they particularly dislike collaborateurs. LOPEZ: The Castro government will not allow any referendum whose outcome it cannot control. Oswaldo Payá knows this, as does any reasonable person who knows the nature of a hard-line, post-totalitarian-sultanistic regime as one finds in Cuba today. Collecting signatures will not bring about the end of the Castro regime, no matter how many signatures are gathered. But the campaign has made, and is making, three important contributions in the struggle to topple the Castro government. One is to get citizens to take one step in publicly showing their opposition. By signing, people move forward in the process of overcoming fear and participating in an act of opposition (although a very limited one that is insufficient). Second, the campaign has helped bring international attention to the opposition movement inside the island and to the struggle for human rights and democracy in Cuba. And finally, the project has served as an excuse to help organize citizens independently from the state. Such organization and networking can be useful in promoting mass protests, if and when propitious conditions develop. Only with mass and repeated protests can the population bring about the collapse of the dictatorship. Q: What is your assessment of the Cuban exile community's opposition to Castro? BLAZQUEZ: The Cuban exile community has a very valid and strong case to oppose Castro's tyranny. They have firsthand experience living inside the island. They know extremely well what life before and after Castro have been. They are the experts on Cuba who have the freedom to speak. Because the Cuban people on the island are not permitted a voice, the exiles are their voice. The Cuban exile community in the U.S. and abroad are the same Cubans that used to live on the island in a state of imposed fear that made it necessary for them to praise the revolution and Castro. But they have been unfairly mistreated and maligned by the left-wing-controlled U.S. media and academia as well as many liberal, left-wing, and socialist-believing politicians on Capitol Hill. I believe that the Cuban American opposition to Castro would be more effective if it were more unified. Many powerful individuals are reluctant to compromise with each other to put together a unified front using coordinated techniques to reach the common goal. Most efforts should be directed at the misinformed American people who instead receive most of their information from the U.S. media. The frequent use of the Spanish language in protests and denunciations of Castro's violations of human rights for 44 years has been a handicap because the message rarely reaches beyond the Cuban exile community and some other Spanish-speaking groups with less political power than the mainstream American public. Too many are content to merely share beliefs with others in the community with the same beliefs. ENCINOSA: Most of the Cuban exiles have a hard line against Castro. Some tiny organizations - some of which are linked to the Cuban government - receive a lot of press in the liberal media as "moderates," which they are not. The overall quality of Cuban anti-Castro opposition in exile ranges from stereotypical idiots to brilliant, brave people. GONZALEZ: Though the anti-Castro Cubans in the U.S. have been very successful in making money, it is evident that they have not been so successful in fighting Castro. One of the main reasons for their lack of success is that they deposited their trust in the U.S government, and the U.S. government has systematically betrayed them, mostly because the interests of the United States are not the interests of Cuba. The U.S. government betrayed the Cuban people when it retired its support of Batista and opened the way for Castro's road to power. It betrayed the invaders at the Bay of Pigs, the anti-Castro guerrillas in the Escambray Mountains and the urban resistance, as well as decapitated the anti-Castro exile organizations in Florida. Then, it betrayed the Cuban people again when, during the missile crisis, it failed to seize the opportunity - which Khrushchev had served Kennedy on a silver plate - to overthrow Castro. I can keep adding items to this list, but space constraints do not allow for it. I will study the subject in detail in my forthcoming book, "Fidel Castro Supermole: Walking Back the Cat in the Cuban Operation." LOPEZ: The exile community does basically three things: 1) tries to prevent the anti-embargo movement from weakening or ending the embargo; 2) publicizes the cause of democracy in Cuba like disseminating information about violations of human rights and tries to get various international actors to condemn the Castro government; and 3) channels some material assistance to opposition activists inside Cuba. These activities are certainly important. For example, international publicity of abuses against activists in the island protects the activists somewhat from further or worse abuses in the future. But what the exile community is doing will not bring an end to the Castro regime. If the exile community just continues to do what it is doing, Castro will die of old age about ten years from now. The opposition in Cuba needs the exile community to bring about a transition to democracy in the near future. Exiles have to play a crucial role. People in Cuba can bring the dictatorship down, but they cannot do it without the help of the exile community. Back to Articles |