Robert Steinback. Published Monday, June 10, 2001 in the
Miami Herald.
The all-counts verdict in the Cuban spy trial is a resounding validation for
Cuban Americans who have tried, with only marginal success, to warn other
Americans that Fidel Castro's threat to liberty is real.
That the five spies were inept doesn't mitigate that Castro attempted to
undermine the U.S. political process, penetrate the U.S. military structure and
manipulate public opinion using underhanded tactics.
Worst of all, evidence of the Cuban government's conspiracy in plotting the
1996 executions of four Brothers to the Rescue fliers -- three of them U.S.
citizens, two born in this country -- deserves American public outrage.
Whether the Cuban-American and non-Cuban-American public will be made wiser
by the revelations of this trial remains, alas, an unresolved question.
The jury -- which included no Cuban Americans -- laid waste to the silly
rationale put forth by defense attorneys that the spies' mission was a case of
justified Cuban self-defense against hostile exiles.
If this argument had acquired even a trace of credibility, any attempt by
Americans to promote freedom in another country could be construed as a hostile
act.
Americans typically bristle at the idea of foreign thugs toying with our
country and its institutions. Any non-Cuban American who is untroubled by
Castro's intrigues on U.S. soil is certainly less than patriotic -- and flirting
with racism.
The reason: Most Cuban-American immigrants, and certainly their children,
are U.S. citizens. Americans should never qualify their commitment to fellow
citizens based on ethnicity, race or national origin -- or their determination
to bring freedom to another nation.
But that's happened before. American public reaction after Cuban military
jets shot down the two Brothers airplanes was one of the most shameful displays
of patriotic indifference I've ever witnessed. The customary U.S. pride that
tolerates no foreign power messing with U.S. citizens melted into wishy-washy
equivocation on that occasion.
That must not happen this time.
Cuban Americans also face challenges in the wake of the trial's outcome.
For one, they must ponder the reality that those who conspired against them
are Cubans themselves. The exile mission must go beyond the demise of Castro;
they will also need strategies for winning over the loyalties of Cubans who
still support him.
They also need to introspect about how to make themselves less
vulnerable to Castro's manipulations.
Beyond this, I hope Cuban Americans will use the spy trial verdicts as an
educational tool, not as a hammer, in conversations with non-Cubans.
The outcome doesn't make Cuban Americans right on every issue related to
Cuba, and it doesn't invalidate all opposing views. It doesn't automatically
prove, for example, that the U.S. embargo of Cuba is wise policy or that Elián
González shouldn't have been returned to the custody of his father. Those
remain open debates with strong arguments on both sides.
Nor does the trial change the urgency Cuban Americans should feel to improve
domestic relations with Miami's other ethnic communities -- which has nothing to
do with Cuba.
But the convictions should serve as powerful proof to non-Cubans that the
exile community has a legitimate basis for its passion about overthrowing the
Cuban tyrant. Those who are inclined to think of Fidel Castro in benign terms
should think again. A U.S. courtroom has proven the Cuban government will
utilize any immoral tactic -- even murder -- to achieve its aims.
Which means that if non-Cuban Americans truly believe in freedom, human
rights and democracy, as we so often profess, then we must view the
Cuban-American cause sympathetically. Their story of oppression and
victimization as a people continues. We trivialize the exile cause at the risk
of our own integrity.
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 