Miami Herald
After Castro, Cuba may be in chaos
By Juan O. Tamayo. jtamayo@herald.com. Published Monday, March 6, 2000
The chances for chaos in Cuba once President Fidel Castro leaves power are ``better than 50-50'' if he continues to block significant reforms, says Michael Kozak, the former top U.S. diplomat in Havana.
And that is why Cuban exiles should step up contacts with the island, Kozak added, to help strengthen Cuban society so that it can better withstand the shock of Castro's disappearance and move toward democracy.
``I don't want to say civil society is the magic pill, but it's a good element in starting to prepare Cuba for the future,'' said Kozak, who headed the U.S. Interests Section in Havana from 1996 until last October. Kozak, who was replaced by Vicki Huddleston, is now in Washington awaiting a new
State Department assignment while he learns Russian. But he remains concerned about Cuba's future, he told The Herald.
CHAOS LOOMS
Credible Cuban analysts on the island, he said, are already worrying about the mayhem that might erupt once Castro, who is 73 years old, surrenders the reins of power he has held since 1959.
``I would put the chances for a chaotic transition at better then 50-50,'' Kozak said, noting that such a scenario probably would involve some level of violence but not necessarily an all-out conflict.
``There will be some vengeance-seeking . . . whether it's every night four or five people getting beat up or knocked off by their neighbors for something they've done in the past, or something on a larger scale,'' he said.
But the worst problem in the long run, Kozak added, is that Castro has done almost nothing to put in place the kinds of reforms and structures that could help maintain Cuba's stability once he is gone.
REFORMS TOO SMALL
Economic reforms adopted since 1993 have been far too modest, and political reforms have been absent altogether.
``A Cuban reformer is someone who thinks the Chinese have it right,'' Kozak joked.
One change he noticed over his three years in Havana, Kozak said, was that top Cuban officials are now openly maneuvering for position and power in a post-Castro regime.
``After Cuba goes through the preplanned drill for a funeral, they will all stand together and pat each other in the back and show how unified they are,'' he said. ``But after a couple of months . . .''
Senior government officials will likely start arguing over budgetary allocations or economic policy, Kozak said. And the island of 11 million people could then fall into disorder. Violence ``in a way is the secondary part. The bigger worry is if you create such a mess that people take desperate
measures. More people can get killed drowning than getting shot,'' he added, referring to the possibility of a massive emigration wave toward Florida.
MORE CONTACTS
One way to try to avert such chaos, Kozak argued, is to strengthen Cuban society by supporting the Clinton administration policy of promoting so-called ``people to people contacts.''
``I would encourage people, instead of worrying about those who go to Cuba and are manipulated by the government, to find other people with eyes wide open and do something that won't be subject to manipulation,'' he said.
Cuban exiles could be particularly helpful in promoting the kinds of peaceful and reasonable activities that can help build and strengthen civil society in Cuba, Kozak added.
``You're going to lose some of the battles,'' he said. ``But if you are willing to run the risk [of Cuban government manipulation] and you can run through their interference, that's what building civil society is all about.''
Cigar lovers dine, place bids in Cuba
By Anita Snow . Associated Press
HAVANA -- Billowing smoke cast a veil across the room as hundreds of businessmen from around the world puffed on Cuban cigars and bid tens of thousands of dollars on humidors at an auction attended by President Fidel Castro.
Among the highest prices bid in the early morning hours of Saturday: $130,000 for a wooden humidor set in a six-foot-tall bronze sculpture of a man holding a cigar.
The auction, conducted by Christie's of London, was the final event in the weeklong second annual International Habano Festival. After the auction, organizers said $800,000 was raised to buy medicines for Cuban children from the sale of seven fancy humidors filled with premium cigars.
``This is my first visit here and I'm sure to come back next year,'' said a 38-year-old American real estate investor who gave his name only as Jeff in apparent fear of getting into trouble with the U.S. government for traveling to Cuba in violation of the U.S. embargo.
``I've smoked about 20 cigars since I got here three days ago and have a few more days to go,'' said the man, who wore a shirt with metal buttons fashioned like a hand holding a cigar.
Under U.S. Treasury Department regulations, legal travel by most Americans to Cuba is made impossible by restrictions on spending money on the island. U.S. citizens who break those regulations can receive written warnings and even fines if the government discovers they traveled to Cuba without a
special license.
LARGE U.S. MARKET
Officials of Habanos S.A., the national cigar company, say the United States remains the largest potential market for Cuban cigars because of the island's location and American fascination with the product.
But the U.S. embargo of nearly 40 years blocks the importation of Cuban cigars into the United States. Nevertheless, cigar company officials in Havana estimate that about six million cigars annually enter the United States as contraband.
There were a few Americans in the group of about 800 lovers of Cuban tobacco who dined by candlelight and with classical music at the ``cigar dinner'' held before the auction at Havana's Pabexpo convention center. But, like the real estate investor, they were reluctant to talk with reporters.
The $350-a-plate meal that began Friday night featured lobster cooked in Havana Club rum, pumpkin soup, Moet & Chandon Champagne and a dessert of raspberries and blackberries soaked in rum and arranged next to a large piece of chocolate shaped like a tobacco leaf. White and red Chilean wine
flowed, and Cohiba and Punch brand cigars were offered between courses.
Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and Vice President Carlos Lage were the highest-ranking Cuban officials at the dinner.
CASTRO APPEARS
But after the plates were whisked away, diners burst into applause as Castro showed up around midnight in his traditional olive green uniform for the auction. Castro, a former cigar smoker, gave up the habit years ago.
Positioned at a table near the auctioneer, he sat next to Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a longtime friend.
Castro's attendance was largely anticipated. The 73-year-old leader, now in his 41st year in power, signed the auctioned humidors and personally greeted every participant when the dinner finished,
Castro accuses Elian uncle of abuse
By Elaine De Valle. edevalle@herald.com
Cuban President Fidel Castro told reporters in Havana Saturday morning that the great-uncle of Elian Gonzalez -- who has temporary custody of the boy in Miami while the 6-year-old's fate is decided -- had sexually molested young children while he was a physical education teacher in Cuba.
At his Little Havana home, Lazaro Gonzalez scoffed at the allegation and said the Cuban government was obviously grasping at straws in its effort to have Elian returned to Cuba. Gonzalez has filed a suit in federal court in an attempt to keep him here.
``I'm not even insulted by this. After 41 years, we are used to taking lies and humiliation from him,'' said Gonzalez, 49. ``He is desperate.''
Lazaro Gonzalez's brother Manuel, who believes the boy belongs back in Cuba with his father, said he doesn't believe the allegation.
``There's no way I would believe that,'' he said when reached at his Little Havana home by telephone Saturday afternoon. ``I think it is fabricated. It's a little embarrassing just to hear them say it.
``What is all of this coming to? Where is it going to end?''
Castro told local and foreign press in Havana that Gonzalez was ``a pervert'' who had abused students in two or three sports schools where he worked, the French news agency Agence France Presse reported Saturday.
The charge comes more than three months after Elian was found clinging to an inner tube off the Florida Coast. Castro offered no evidence to support his allegation.
``If that were true, why didn't they bring any charges against me when I was in Cuba,'' said Lazaro Gonzalez, who left the island in 1983. ``Why didn't they arrest me when I went the year before last and they accepted me and everything was fine? Why don't they ask the kids, who are adults now --
men and women who I visited two years ago when I went?''
He said that Castro was just trying to stain his family's name and that the Cuban government had already spread lies about him, his relatives and others in the Elian case.
His brother Delfin has been painted as a terrorist bomber in the Communist Party daily Granma; Gonzalez said he was simply a political prisoner for not agreeing with the party line. The boy's stepfather, Lazaro Munero, was labeled a delinquent and violent man in the same newspaper, which also
said the other two survivors of the tragic voyage -- Nivaldo Fernandez and Arianne Horta -- were a womanizer and a prostitute, respectively.
``What haven't they said? Nobody who is against him is any good. He's inventing stories about anyone who doesn't agree with him,'' Lazaro Gonzalez said.
Manuel Gonzalez's wife, America, who agrees with her husband that Elian should be reunited with his father on the island, was also adamant that the charge wasn't true.
``Oh, my God. No, no, no. Oh, my God,'' she said.
An older, bolder Castro? CIA to update profile
Fidel Castro's peculiar behavior in recent months has led the U.S. State Department to ask the CIA to update its psychological profile of the 73-year-old Cuban president for any hints of instability.
``We have asked the appropriate agencies to take a look at the impact of aging on Mr. Castro, a State Department official said Friday.
CIA analysts regularly write lengthy psychological profiles on foreign leaders, using both secret and public information to help Washington interpret their actions and predict future decisions. The reports are updated when the behavior is perceived to change or pose a risk to U.S. interests.
Word of the requested update on Castro came after Brian Latell, the CIA's former top Cuba analyst, told a Miami audience last month that he was concerned that, instead of mellowing, Castro might pursue riskier policies as he ages.
Other communist rulers have taken impulsive and adventurous actions in their late years -- ``seeking a sentimental rediscovery of their revolutionary roots, said Latell, now a Georgetown University professor.
``It's been called `geriatric overexertion,' Latell said, noting that China's Mao Zedong was 73 when he launched the Cultural Revolution, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was 68 when he deployed nuclear missiles to Cuba and his successor, Leonid Brezhnev, was 72 when he ordered troops into
Afghanistan.
``There are some who say that at age 73 Castro is mellowing, Latell told a University of Miami seminar on Cuba's post-Castro future. ``But I am concerned that we use too much the `rational actor' model.
BIZARRE ACTIONS
U.S. officials say Castro has been acting especially bizarre in the case of Jose Imperatori, the Cuban diplomat and alleged spy who resisted expulsion orders from the United States and Canada.
As evidence, they cite three rambling letters he wrote to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien explaining Imperatori's unprecedented refusal to leave Canada when ordered. He repeatedly phoned Cuban diplomats in Washington to micromanage the case, knowledgeable officials said.
Castro is also credited with personally writing several exceptionally long articles in the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma defending Imperatori and Mariano Faget, a Cuban-born official of the Immigration and Naturalization Service arrested in Miami on spying charges last month.
One article went so far as to intimate that Cuban exiles had poisoned U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler, who was replaced on the Elian Gonzalez case after he suffered a stroke last month.
PHYSICALLY FIT
Castro seems physically fit these days, perhaps more so than most men his age. Though he walks with a slight limp, he has been pronounced healthy by a number of recent foreign visitors, including Illinois Gov. George Ryan.
But U.S. officials said the decision to ask the CIA to update his profile dates back to a series of incidents beginning in November that seemed to indicate Castro was showing the first signs of aging.
His speeches have become more rambling than usual, his digressions longer and less germane to the main topic, his attacks on enemies more bitter and personal than ever before, journalists in Cuba said.
Despite the impressive bladder control he has displayed through scores of five- and six-hour speeches since 1959, Castro abruptly interrupted a news conference on live television Oct. 30, apparently to relieve himself. ``Play a little music or something until I come back, he told the surprised
TV producers as he left his seat in the middle of his speech.
Four days later, Castro used the respectful term compañero for Gen. Jose Abrantes, apparently forgetting that he had sent the former interior minister to jail on drug corruption charges. Abrantes died in prison in 1991.
BEWILDERING LETTER
On Nov. 29 he wrote a four-page, single-spaced letter to Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., offering an almost unintelligible explanation for his decision not to attend an international trade conference in Seattle. He later said the Seattle police crackdown on street riots during the World Trade
Organization summit was ``worse than that unleashed by [Gen. Augusto] Pinochet after his coup in Chile.'' More than 3,000 Chileans died as a result of political violence following the coup.
By early December Castro was turning Elian Gonzalez into a national icon, ordering massive street protests that drained his poor country of millions dollars in transportation costs and by forcing the closing of dozens of factories and schools.
Wayne Smith, former head of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana and a frequent visitor to Cuba, acknowledged that Castro's behavior has become a topic of discreet conversation in Havana.
``There are all these things that don't necessarily mean Castro is going over the hill, but certainly people are wondering . . .,'' Smith said.
Cuban professors may visit Miami
Pablo Alfonso, El Nuevo Herald. Published Monday, March 6, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Dozens of professors and academic specialists from Cuba are expected in Miami next week.
A total of 112 delegates from 35 organizations in Cuba are scheduled to participate in the 22nd congress of the Association of Latin American Studies, which will be held here March 16-18.
It will be the largest number of official delegates from Cuba to visit Miami since Fidel Castro seized power 41 years ago.
``The presence of Cuban academicians in the association has always been positive and should not be any different in Miami,'' said Eduardo Gamarra, director of the Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University, the group helping to host the gathering.
Gamarra said the goal of the gathering is to ``strengthen the existing links among sociologists, political experts, anthropologists, to develop a better understanding of Cuban reality.''
Although the visit is being planned, the presence of the Cuban academics is not guaranteed. They must secure permission from Cuban authorities to leave the country and then obtain proper American entry visas.
``It would be a true shame not to have the visit for reasons not connected to academic reality in the United States,'' Gamarra said. ``In my opinion, [the gathering] has been historically one of the few places where there has been a genuinely academic debate between researchers on the island and
researchers in the United States.''
The convention was first held in Miami in 1989. The meeting was attended by several Cuban academicians, but the group was much smaller.
The group hosting the meeting includes specialists from all over the world. They study Latin American issues and meet every 18 months. The last convention took place in Chicago in October 1998.
Copyright 2000 Miami Herald
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