Dust off the fisking machine

An old classmate of mine, who I love like a brother but is equivocado on US/Cuba policy sent me a link to this opinion piece in The Weekly Standard. Apparently he agrees with the author. Here’s some excerpts along with my thoughts:

For decades the United States has maintained a policy of complete ostracism of Cuba–no travel, no trade, no remittances, no diplomatic relations. This has not cut the Castro regime off from resources: Cuba receives as much aid from Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez as Israel gets from the United States.

Right off the bat the author is either mistaken or telling an outright lie. US policy toward Cuba has shifted back and forth over the years. There have been several attempts at rapprochement. Interest sections have been established in both countries to conduct low-level diplomatic business. Remittances are currently one of the largest sources of income to Cuba and the US is Cuba’s largest food supplier. Since 1979 hundreds of thousands of Americans have traveled to Cuba legally.

In October, John F. Kennedy, the Democratic nominee for president, accused the Eisenhower administration (and by implication his opponent, Vice President Richard Nixon) of permitting the creation of “Communism’s first Caribbean base” and allowing Castro to arm himself to the teeth with Soviet weapons. Nixon convinced Eisenhower to react sharply, and, on October 19, the president imposed an embargo on all trade with Cuba. With an indifference that would become characteristic of Washington’s attitude, the secretary of commerce, Frederick Henry Mueller, remarked, “If it pushes them into trade with the Communist bloc, that’s just too bad.” In January, Washington broke off diplomatic relations.

Actually, although Eisenhower put a partial embargo on Cuba in place, it did not become an embargo “on all trade with Cuba” until 1962 when Kennedy occupied the White House. And the genesis of the embargo was a response to Cuban nationalization (without compensation) of American business assets, which were, in turn, in response to the American Oil companies in Cuba refusing to refine Soviet crude. My point is that it was Soviet influence in Cuba that caused the embargo, not the other way around, as the author insists.

After the Bay of Pigs invasion failed in 1961, Castro slammed the door shut on the exodus. The transformation of Cuba into a prison was now complete, with two sets of walls–one erected by Castro to keep everyone in and the other erected by Washington to keep everyone and everything out. Cuba’s people began their lonely journey into the endless calamities of Castro’s dictatorship.

Again it’s hard to take the author seriously when he says things that are so patently false. What about the freedom flights, what about Camarioca? People have been fleeing Cuba on a consistent basis since 1959. Besides fidel himself, that’s been the one constant of the last 5 decades.

Helms-Burton forbids any dealings with Cuba until the regime meets a lengthy wish list of conditions and until both Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl are out of power. The regime has to commit suicide or be overthrown before the United States will deign to have any contact with it. It is the negotiating posture of somebody who has no interest in negotiating.

Actually, Helms-Burton, like any other law enacted by congress, can be changed or removed following the same democratic process by which it was enacted. Furthermore the “wish list” of conditions includes some very basic ones like unconditional freedom for all of political prisoners. I’m quite sure that if Cuba made a move toward meeting some of these very clear and basic and unobjectionable (to freedom loving people) reforms that negotiation would begin.
Then the author then predictably attacks the exiles.

In the exile community, opposition to Castro was for decades absolute and nonnegotiable. Exiles urging dialogue were silenced through intimidation and terrorism. In Miami, bombings and other violent acts against foreign consulates, travel agencies, and radio stations were dishearteningly routine.

While there is some truth in the above paragraph it also belies the reality that there has been a very vocal dialoguero group operating in Miami all along. The author’s purpose in bringing up the past up is to imply that those conditions still exist today. But today the airwaves in Miami not only accommodate Armando Perez Roura but also Francisco Aruca. Cyberspace has not only Babalu but also Max Lesnik. The problem for Aruca and Lesnik is not that they aren’t allowed to say what they want, it’s that nobody listens to them. Some of the other old guarddialogueros have remade their reputations and are gainfully employed in the legitimate news media and in academia and are still vocal in pushing for a “dialog”.

In an echo of perestroika and glasnost, two words have crept into official propaganda in the last year: “change” and “dialogue.” The word “change” has become common on T-shirts and in windows across Cuba, and the regime has reportedly launched a wide-ranging and historic “internal dialogue” on all issues. For the regime to admit that people want change and the freedom to talk about it, necessarily empowers public opinion as a force in opposition to party ideology.

We should take any allusions to change and reform in the official Cuban discourse with a giant grain of salt. Such claims have been made in the past only to end in the imprisonment of dissidents and those who took the invitation to discuss Cuba’s problems seriously. It’s time for the regime to stop talking about change and do it if they want the US to take it seriously. The people who post the word “Change” on their houses or wear t-shirts emblazoned with it are opponents of the regime, not part of it and they are subject to unending acts of repudiation by government-sanctioned mobs. Did I mention that we’re dealing with a dictatorship?

The all-or-nothing approach of U.S. policy is increasing the risk that the transition, when it comes, will be violent. That terrifies Cuba’s dissidents–and poses grave risks for the United States. Instability could further radicalize the regime and open more opportunities for Venezuela and Iran. It could lead to another refugee crisis. Most ominously, Cuba could become a failing state, overrun by armed gangs with ties to drug trafficking and international terrorism, as in much of Central America.

This is pure speculation. And a negotiated settlement does not necessarily mean an equitable settlement. For one thing, it increases the risk the people who have been oppressing our brothers and sisters will get away with it without facing any form of justice whatsoever or that they will continue to rule, only with a new mask on, as in the former Soviet Union.

The U.S. government should be negotiating for incremental transition, because even the smallest reforms will fuel popular expectations for more change. In 1992, Carlos Lage, then finance minister and now vice president, spent many months in Europe putting together a package of reforms aimed at encouraging small business. Castro balked on ideological grounds (he could not live with the thought that someone in Cuba might make a profit), but now that he is effectively out of power, Lage is likely to want to try again. The United States can help him: allowing Cuba access to microfinancing (even if that also gives the regime access to more resources) and letting American firms import products manufactured by privately owned businesses there.

Until whoever is making the decisions for the regime shows concretely that Cuba is moving away from the destructive and counterproductive policies of the past, there is no reason for the US to flush money down the toilet in Cuba. Every country that has lent Cuba money in the past 5 decades has lost their investment. If Lage wants to introduce reforms then let him. If his superiors don’t allow him, then he should denounce them. We can’t make Lage into Yeltsin, only Lage can make himself into Yeltsin.

Every major dissident group in Cuba has called for the United States to lift the restrictions on travel and remittances for Cuban exiles. That alone could reduce the terrible isolation in which Cuba’s dissidents are now struggling.

This is another untruth. Some of the most outspoken dissidents have denounced the regime as being the sole cause of Cuba’s misery and support the embargo.
The overall problem with the article is that it puts the entire responsibility for change in Cuba on the United States. It assumes that we can make Cuban leaders do something they would not willingly do (dismantle the current system) by introducing some sort of Trojan Horse of American engagement. The author pretends that only two countries exist in the world, Cuba and the United States, and that no other country has tried to “dialog” with or “constructively engage” the regime.
The author also mistakenly gives credit for the fall of European communism to détente and rapprochement. The fact is that the eastern bloc fell because of its own weight. Eastern bloc leaders were forced to recognize the failure in their policies and look for new alternatives. Communist leaders are like alcoholics. They need to hit rock bottom before they recognize the problem. In that sense fidel is an incorrigible drunkard always promising that things will be better but never delivering. Let’s hope his successors are more reasonable. We should listen to their claims of reform, like we would an alcoholic’s promises of sobriety, but we’re going to have to see the deeds as well as hear the promises.
If there’s one thing that I can agree with the author on it’s the idea that Cuba is not as important to the US as the US is to Cuba. Which is the reason why the US should never agree to anything less the basic reforms called for by the current policy. The Cuban leadership is only putting off their own country’s future prosperity and progress by clinging to the confrontational tactics and failed economic policies of the coma andante.