Carlos Alberto Montaner. Published Thursday, January 11,
2001, in the Miami Herald
This year, the Cubans got a strange gift from the Magi. In a sign of
instability, Raúl Castro, flanked by two other aged commanders, mulled on
the death of his brother, Fidel. He suggested it could happen at any moment, and
urged the United States to normalize relations with Havana before this happened.
"Afterward will be more difficult,'' he said.
In passing, he reiterated that communism was the Cubans' immutable destiny,
and that if they tried to abandon the "model state,'' the island could meet
the same fate as the Soviet Union.
Two logical deductions may be made from Raúl's declarations. First,
that the Comandante's health has worsened. We know he suffered a pair of
cerebral-vascular setbacks that left his speech and reasoning half-impaired
(which add an element of cruelty to his endless screeds), and that he has high
blood pressure and another half-dozen maladies common for a man of 75 years, who
has spent a half-century smoking and eating like a newly adopted orphan. Second,
that the rumors of unrest in all branches of government are true.
According to accredited diplomats in Cuba, and corroborated by a worried
vice-minister traveling through Europe, a very secret trial took place some
weeks ago, involving several high-ranking military officials -- three colonels
and a general among them, all in the same Tank Brigade -- charged with
conspiracy.
SHAKY FUTURE
Raúl has to be nervous. He knows that once his brother dies, the
responsibility for maintaining control of the government falls on him, and that
he cannot handle it. He is much too sharp and informed to fail to perceive that
the entire power structure is rotted to the core. The administrative apparatus,
under Carlos Lage and Jose Luis Rodríguez, is on the verge of collapse;
built on fabricated figures and chimeric plans and projects to support a
theoretical error disproved by over four decades of disastrous experimentation.
The Communist Party is an empty shell. Whatever authority it has left
functions on inertia rather than conviction. If tomorrow, some Creole Gorbachev
or Yeltsin orders the dissolution of the PCC, it will mirror what occurred in
Russia, where 20 million people threw their membership cards down the sewers
without a single protest signal.
Meanwhile, in Cuba's Parliament, its hapless president, Ricardo Alarcón,
continually parrots the orders of José Ramón Machado Ventura,
while swearing that he feels like Lenin's mother. But this sad, decrepit,
insignificant circus that meets twice a year for 48 hours only to ratify the
Comandante's orders is the nadir the philosopher cited: a knife without leaf or
handle.
RAUL'S PLOY
Raúl Castro knows that almost everyone in Cuba wants change,
including his daughters, sons-in-law and nephews, but excluding his old,
inflexible brother. In the 21st Century, change can only go in one direction:
toward democracy and free-market economy; toward the integration of Western
financial, scientific and artistic currents. Raúl also realizes that he
is neither strong enough to lead the way or brave enough to stop it. So he asks
the United States to "normalize relations,'' to fortify himself when comes
his time to bury his brother and start to govern.
But the United States would commit the greatest of follies in accepting Raúl's
call. It would communicate the most absurd message, which is: You need not
forsake tyranny, ensure the Cuban people's freedom and fall in line with
democratic nations to enjoy the advantages of good relations with the United
States. The smart move is to do the opposite of what Raúl wants: Insist
that there will be no reconciliation until the human rights of all Cubans are
respected, and they can vote for any leader without fear.
Castro's death will be the time to offer laurels, and the spur for Cuba to
cease being the Marxist-Leninist exception in the West. That destiny comes
closer with each day.
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 