Frank Calzon. Published Thursday, January 18, 2001, in the
Miami Herald
In a TV program recently, Raúl Castro, head of Cuba's armed forces,
said that it would be wise for the United States to negotiate with his brother
Fidel while the Cuban "president for life'' is still alive. Why? Because Raúl,
designated by the jefe máximo as his successor, said that he would be a
tougher negotiator than the incumbent.
The general's comments renewed old speculations about Fidel's health. But
how could Raúl possibly be a tougher customer than Fidel? The Cuban
leader has spent his life undermining U.S. interests throughout the world,
risked nuclear Armageddon by deploying on the island nuclear missiles targeted
at the United States, and remains proud of his support of violent anti-American
groups everywhere and of his army's involvement in bloody civil wars in Angola
and the Horn of Africa.
A hint of what Raúl meant came in the same broadcast when he said
that what happened in Eastern Europe 10 years ago -- the anti-communist uprising
-- could happen in Cuba after Fidel's death. But if such event arose, he hinted
that the response of the regime, committed to remaining in power at all costs,
would be fearsome. The Bush administration stands warned: With Raúl, it
would be, "No more Mr. Nice Guy.''
Granma, Havana's official newspaper, now tells its readers that Raúl
had not really said what he said (and they heard); that he wasn't talking about
events such as those in Moscow, Warsaw and Prague. The Castro regime now assures
the Americans that business continues as usual. But it is obvious that Raúl
is worried about the eruption of a mass movement for change, like those that
swept away the ossified East European police states.
At the time, the once-mighty Soviet Union was no longer strong enough to
defend its comrades, as it had been when Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary in
1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Today the Soviet Union is a historical memory
-- and with the exception of a couple of hundred-million dollars for its Lourdes
electronic spy facility, which targets U.S. military communications, its
subsidies are long gone. The idea of a Russian airborne armored division coming
to Castro's defense is pure fantasy.
What Raúl meant was that, should the people rise up, he will move
against them; although Havana would not resent having U.S. subsidies
underwritten by the American taxpayer.
His reference to the end of communism and Fidel's mortality elicits from
Cubans quite a different thought. Tell them that things might happen as they did
in Europe, and they are likely to think: We should be so lucky.
Why? Because, translate the events in Prague or Budapest et al to Havana,
and what do you get? For starters a free press that reports what the political
leaders (elected, not self-appointed for life) say, not a party press that
interprets their comments into its opposite. You get a country without
Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, where neighbors spy on neighbors;
schools where children stay close to home and are not sent off hundreds of miles
away to become junior zealots; an economy where the Cubans' productive
initiatives would be liberated, making food lines and ration cards obsolete, a
regime no longer telling them what to think, where to work, for whom to vote,
whom to hate -- a regime forced to open up the political process.
That is what Raúl really was worried about when he said that it would
be better for Washington to deal with Fidel now. It would be easier for the
Castro dynasty to settle its own and Cuba's fate in Washington than in Havana,
as it happened at the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898, when Washington
and Madrid left the Cubans out of the negotiations about Cuba's future. In
Havana, the regime actually would have to listen to the Cubans. The Castro
brothers believe that's asking a lot.
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 