Castro makes powerful foes

Cuba

Castro makes powerful foes

Isabel Vincent, National Post. Canada, June 16, 2003.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro seems to be losing all of his friends in the West.

In an anti-Western rant delivered in Havana late Wednesday, the septuagenarian Communist leader denounced the European Union, accusing it of adopting a "Nazi-fascist policy" against Cuba. The EU, formerly a reliable supporter of the Cuban leader, had decided to adopt diplomatic sanctions in response to Mr. Castro's brutal crackdown on dissidents and independent journalists in April. The EU said that it would be limiting its political and cultural contacts with Cuba.

In a three-hour speech, which was followed a day later by a government-ordered protest march in front of European embassies in the Cuban capital, Mr. Castro said the EU's policy "must have been written in a drunken state, if not with alcohol, in a state of Euro-centric drunkenness." He also called the Spanish and Italian prime ministers, Jose Maria Aznar and Silvio Berlusconi "fascists" and "bandits."

Canada is also seeking greater pressure on Cuba, urging the Organization of American States to impose diplomatic sanctions to protest the regime's execution of three ferry hijackers this spring, and the jailing of high-profile independent journalists and political dissidents.

Both Canada and the EU have historically supported Cuba and opposed Washington's economic embargo against the island. Although there have not yet been calls to impose further economic sanctions, Italy has withdrawn promises of US$40-million in aid, and the EU has decided not to send US$20-million in development aid.

"Yes, Castro is becoming further isolated, but I don't think he really cares about the views of the political classes in Europe and Canada," said Hans de Salas-del Valle, a research associate at the Cuba Transition Project, a think-tank at the University of Miami.

According to Mr. de Salas-del Valle and others, Mr. Castro's main concern in cracking down on dissidents is to ensure his own power base.

Mr. Castro, who is 76, has been planning for years to crack down on his opponents, and found an opportune moment during the Iraqi war, when the world's attention was diverted elsewhere.

Raul Castro, who is in charge of the military on the island, is expected to succeed his brother when Fidel dies.

"Castro doesn't think that his brother has the necessary charisma or power to deal with dissidents on his own, so in a way he is clearing the way for his succession," Mr. de Salas-de Valle said.

"Essentially, he wants to leave a clean slate for his succession. He doesn't want any kind of democratic opening after he goes. You have to remember that he has devoted his life to opposing the U.S. and the free market, and as far as he can he is not going to allow a challenge to any subsequent regime."

In the process, he is making some powerful enemies abroad, and increasingly surrounding himself with anti-Western regimes, such as those in China from which Cuba now depends for the bulk of its desperately needed food aid and trade credits. Western countries, including Canada, are increasingly wary of offering trade credits to the country because Mr. Castro consistently refuses to pay them back. Cuba's debt is estimated at US$12-billion.

Even Russia, which used to support the island politically and financially, has dramatically loosened its ties to Cuba.

In addition to China, which has become Cuba's leading trade partner, Castro has also forged strong alliances with Vietnam, Iran and Latin American countries that have recently elected leftist regimes. These include Brazil, Venezuela and lately, Argentina. For years, Mr. Castro supported the regime of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. For its part, China is using the island as a base for espionage against the United States.

Many analysts say Mr. Castro likely does not care about the loss of Western support. Governments are not his friends, they say. Big business is.

"The regime in Havana has what it wants from Europe and Canada in terms of investment from private companies," Mr. de Salas-del Valle said.

In the late 1990s, European private businesses invested more than US$500-million in the Cuban resort and tourism sector. An estimated one million European tourists vacation on the Communist island every year. Tens of thousands of Canadians also vacation in Cuba every year, and Canadian companies are active in nickel mining, and oil and gas exploration.

But although private companies doing business in Cuba rarely complain about its human rights record, Mr. Castro is feeling the heat from a group that has historically been very close to him, and given him a great deal of clout in international circles: Latin American intellectuals.

In April, after Mr. Castro sentenced 75 intellectuals to lengthy prison sentences, Latin American poets, writers and filmmakers, who had supported the Communist leader, turned against him.

More than 100 Latin American intellectuals voiced their outrage over the arrests and executions in a manifesto published in the Spanish daily El Pais.

Although the intellectuals, who included Mr. Castro's friend Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colombian writer, and Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, protested the crackdown against dissidents, they stopped short of condemning Mr. Castro.

This provoked another group of intellectuals to publish a counter manifesto, officially breaking their ties with the Cuban leader.

Portuguese Nobel Laureate Jose Saramago, a lifelong Communist and Castro admirer recently noted that Mr. Castro "has lost my confidence, destroyed my hopes and deceived my illusions" with his decision to execute the three ferry hijackers.

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