Marc A. Olshan. Published Thursday, June 14, 2001.
Miami Herald
Legislation introduced recently by Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and
Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina -- The Cuban Solidarity Act of 2001 -- moves
our Cuba policy one step closer to complete incoherence.
The idea is to send $100 million in aid to dissident Cubans while leaving in
place an embargo that generally prohibits Americans from investing in Cuba or
spending money there.
Encouraging Cuba's internal opposition while trying to push Cuba into
bankruptcy may sound like a great one-two punch but both policies are stunningly
flawed.
For starters, Cuba is already bankrupt. Years of disastrous sugar-cane
harvests, the abrupt cut-off of Soviet support and a tourism industry of
marginal profitability have left Cuba with billions in debt and no way to pay
it. Cuba's socialist economy is incapable of providing for its citizens. Ration
books supply food for two weeks out of each month. Health care and education --
the supposed triumphs of the revolution -- operate on the edge of collapse.
Yet Fidel Castro still delivers his lengthy discourses. Billboards still
offer the sad options of socialism or death. Young "pioneers'' still line
up each morning in schoolyards pledging to emulate Che Guevara.
What accounts for this survival? Part of the answer is found in the
impressive resilience and ingenuity of the Cuban people. Homemade charcoal is
used to cook pigs and chickens raised on urban balconies. Pre-revolutionary cars
are kept running with jury-rigged parts and when they finally die, are replaced
with bicycles.
But such subsistence tactics don't contribute to the cash economy. They
can't explain the crowds in "dollar stores'' buying everything from Italian
cooking oil to Japanese TVs in U.S. currency.
The dollars that pay for these goods, as much as an estimated $1.1 billion a
year pour in from outside the island, mostly the United States. U.S. regulations
allow anyone over 18 to send any family in Cuba up to $1,200 a year, five times
the average Cuban salary. Envelopes stuffed with cash arrive via paid couriers,
visiting relatives and accommodating tourists.
These remittances represent Cuba's largest moneymaker. They dwarf profits
from any other sector of the economy. And they go a long way toward explaining
the longevity of an otherwise non-functional economy. For many Cuban families,
remittances mean the difference between slow starvation and scraping by.
For the Castro regime, remittances represent a foreign-exchange windfall.
Dollar stores, a government monopoly, serve as a giant dollar-collection system.
The signs in front of some stores even read "Foreign Exchange Capture.''
State-owned companies import the goods, sell everything at inflated prices,
pocket the difference and hope this peculiar American policy will continue
indefinitely.
What amounts to an ongoing massive subsidy for the Cuban government helps
Castro pay the wages of those forces most responsible for perpetuating his
regime: The National Revolutionary Police, Ministry of Interior agents, Rapid
Response Brigades and other specialized thugs.
It's difficult to know on which side of the Straits of Florida the more
fabulous hypocrisy lies. Havana blames Cuba's penury on the U.S. embargo while
nurturing itself on a steady infusion of American cash.
NORMALIZE RELATIONS
Washington criticizes those who do business with Cuba while permitting
direct remittances and donations of food, clothing and medical equipment in
amounts sufficient to maintain the status quo indefinitely. This self-defeating
policy serves neither the interests of Americans nor those of Cubans.
The Cuban Solidarity Act only prolongs a manifestly failed policy. Its $100
million in U.S. government funding would be "captured'' by the Cuban
government, as are the much larger sums sent now from private sources.
Instead of adding legislation to the ineffective tangle of carrots and
sticks called our Cuban policy, Congress should consider the one measure most
likely to deliver a deathblow to the Castro regime: Normalizing relations with
Cuba.
A Cuba awash with U.S. visitors, businessmen and ideas would be one in which
Castro would become irrelevant, except perhaps as the island's foremost tourist
attraction.
Marc A. Olshan is a professor of sociology at Alfred University in New York.
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 