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By Nancy San Martin. nsanmartin@herald.com. Posted on Sun,
Jun. 22, 2003 in The Miami
Herald.
Three months after Cuban President Fidel Castro launched his harshest
crackdown on dissidents in decades, there's still no agreement on what drove him
to take such steps and then lash out at valuable European allies that criticized
him.
Fear that dissent had escalated into a real threat? A fit of pique by a
grumpy old man? An attempt to tighten controls on society as the island's
economy tumbles?
Some foreign analysts profess to be baffled by Castro's decision to silence
dissent and blast European allies that are Cuba's most loyal sources of trade
and tourism.
''His behavior since the March crackdown has been abominable on a moral
level, and more recently against the Europeans, inexplicable,'' said Brian
Latell, a retired CIA top analyst on Cuba and Castro.
Over the past two weeks, Castro staged massive protest marches past the
Spanish and Italian embassies in Havana, announced the takeover of a Spanish
cultural center in the capital and insulted European leaders in language he
generally reserves for enemies in the United States.
But some analysts believe the crackdown was Castro's only way to deal with a
growing and increasingly defiant dissident movement receiving increasing support
from the Bush administration and recognition from other governments.
''I guess that the Cuban government has concluded that the best response to
dissidents is forceful defense of its sovereignty,'' said Geoff Thale, a Cuba
specialist at the Washington Office on Latin America, a liberal think tank.
''Clearly, they are in a battle of public opinion. They have raised the
specter of U.S. aggression to change the subject, to shift the focus back to
U.S. aggression instead of internal behavior,'' Thale added.
Latell blamed Castro's behavior more on his age, 76, and signs of
deteriorating health such as a fainting episode two years ago in Havana and
another reported -- but never confirmed -- brief collapse last month during a
visit to Argentina.
''He's clearly physically and mentally impaired,'' Latell said, adding that
other incidents such as losing his train of thought or becoming incoherent
during long speeches "leads to very informed, appropriate speculation about
the current quality of his leadership.''
''Either Castro has become totally irrational or his calculation is that
this threat is so great, it requires this kind of crackdown against the
dissidents and the Europeans'' added Latell, who now oversees the Central
America and Caribbean program at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington.
THREATENING LEVEL
Many analysts agree that the dissident movement that began to blossom in the
mid-'90s reached a threatening level for the regime with the public unveiling in
2002 of the Varela Project, a grass-roots initiative that seeks sweeping
democratic reforms through a referendum.
Other dissidents at the same time grew bolder, issuing statements to the
foreign press, creating new organizations, dispatching independent news reports
abroad and meeting openly with U.S. diplomats in Havana.
All that came to an abrupt halt in April, when 75 peaceful dissidents were
sentenced to between six and 28 years in prison on charges of conspiring with
American diplomats to undermine the socialist system, and three men who tried to
hijack a ferry to Florida were executed by firing squad.
The arrests and executions spurred a barrage of protests from around the
world, including a European Union decision to limit bilateral high-level
government visits and foster closer EU relations with dissidents on the island.
Castro responded with a ferocious outburst, calling the EU leadership
''fascists'' and ''bandits'' and saying that Europe's duty ''is to keep its
mouth shut because the dumb cannot speak,'' according to the June 13 English
edition of Granma, the Communist Party daily.
A senior State Department official said that while the department has
reached no firm conclusions to explain Castro's behavior, the U.S. focus now is
on how the global community should respond.
'COMMON OBJECTIVE'
''We already share a common objective -- Cuba's democratic transition,'' the
official said. ''What we want to pursue now, is a compatibility'' of policies
and tactics. Among the issues that American and European officials will examine
at a ministerial-level summit this week, he added, are ways that respective Cuba
policies can "complement each other in a more direct way.
''We have been very encouraged by [the EU's] statements,'' said the
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We would hope that there
would be not just strong words, but action.''
Ramón Colás, a former political prisoner who lives in Miami,
said Castro's verbal attacks on Europe were designed to create an atmosphere of
crisis within the island that would rally Cubans to support his 44-year-old
revolution. ''He creates a crisis when one doesn't exist because it is during
conflict that Castro is at his strongest,'' Colás said in a telephone
interview. "All this is for internal consumption. He is depicting himself
as a victim.''
But even if Castro's succeeds in portraying the EU as his enemy, he will
still face the widespread discontent among Cubans fueled by a tumbling economy
that is pushing already difficult lives to the brink of the unbearable.
Past economic crises have led to a familiar cycle of migration crises such
as the massive rafter exodus in 1994, increased internal opposition, more fierce
diplomatic exchanges and yet more crackdowns on dissent.
''These latest actions indicate, very eloquently, that the Cuban government,
rather than resolving the many problems in our country in a civilized manner,
prefers to close the doors and its ears,'' said Elizardo Sánchez,
longtime human-rights activist in Havana.
''I suppose that the [Cuban] intellectual community must be very worried, as
well as the political class. But nobody says a word purely out of fear,'' Sánchez
said in a telephone interview.
''My concern is that the government is willing to take our country to a
position of complete isolation. Why? To govern with more comfort,'' he added. "Dictatorships,
in that way, don't have to respond to calls of universal conscience.'' | 
