As the US embargo on Cuba has weakened, Fidel Castro has clamped down on
his critics, says Richard Lapper
Financial Times. Published: March 5 2001 20:12GMT | Last
Updated: March 6 2001 10:30GMT
On Revillagigedo Street in the crumbling centre of Havana, Milagros, a young
hairdresser, says the US dollar makes "things a little better".
Most of her neighbours receive a few dollars each month from renting a room
to tourists or through remittances from relatives living in the US. Only a few
pensioners are entirely dependent on the ration of beans, rice and sugar and
other basics they get from the Piloto Jesus Maria corner shop, the state-run
grocer.
Around the corner at the El Paso Café where only dollars are accepted
- Cubans sip espresso while a crowd of US tourists stand at the bar drinking
local beer.
The US embargo of the island is showing more signs of weakening than at any
time in the last 38 years. Yet rather than opening up Cuba's closed political
system, the prospect of more normal relations with its historic foe has led to
an extraordinary clampdown.
President Fidel Castro has embarked upon a fervent campaign to re-establish
old-style socialist values, cracked down on dissidents and slowed Cuba from
opening to foreign investment.
During the past few months, he has also provoked clashes with governments,
institutions and individuals who would consider themselves Cuba's allies. "They
are biting all the hands they can snap at," says Walter Russell Mead,
senior fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations, a non-partisan New
York-based think-tank.
Cuba's state-controlled media recently attacked diplomats at the Spanish
embassy for organising an Epiphany parade in which sweets were thrown to local
children. Local journalists argued that the exercise was humiliating.
Shortly afterwards, two Czech politicians were arrested when they visited
local human rights activists. When Joshka Fischer, Germany's foreign minister,
made an issue of the case and announced his intention to meet dissidents, his
visit to Havana was abruptly cancelled.
Mr Castro has picked a fight with Argentina, lambasting its foreign minister
for "licking the Yankee boot" in an incident that led to the
withdrawal of the country's ambassador from Cuba.
Foreign journalists have also come in for criticism, including Pascal
Fletcher, a correspondent for both the Financial Times and Reuters in Havana.
This flux between liberalisation and reaction is not new. In 1996, when
relations with the US were improving, Cuban security forces shot down two US
civilian aircraft piloted by Cuban exiles. Two years later, after Pope John Paul
II's visit to Cuba again raised hopes of a genuine democratic opening, the
government clamped down on internal opposition and introduced anti-subversion
laws.
This time, however, four factors have given the regime's response a new
stridency and aggression. First, Cuba is more self-confident about its economic
prospects. A decade ago, the collapse of the Soviet Union and disappearance of
its export markets threatened the survival of its economic system. Since then,
the Caribbean island has clawed its way back. In part, this is because foreign
investment has helped Cuba exploit its oil resources. Joint ventures now produce
a third of the country's needs. An oil deal with Venezuela has further eased
external pressures.
But three measures taken during the early 1990s - the opening of the tourism
industry to foreign investment; the decision to allow the US dollar to circulate
freely; and an agreement to allow 20,000 Cubans to emigrate to the US each year
- have had the biggest impact on the economy.
All have helped Cuba to diversify its sources of foreign exchange and
generate employment. According to a United Nations report, dollar remittances to
Cuba amounted to $725m in 1999 alone. The country's gross domestic product is
only about $24bn a year.
Second, Mr Castro has been encouraged by the wave of financial instability
in international markets that began with the Asia crisis and by the emergence of
a new anti-globalisation movement. In his view, the problems of Brazil and
Argentina in the last two to three years are proof of the impossibility of
stable, capitalist-based development in Latin America and vindicate Cuba's
socialist system.
Third, Mr Castro has been uplifted by signs that the lobbying power of the
anti-government exiles in the US is waning. The government sees last year's
successful campaign to bring back Elián González, the young
shipwrecked Cuban boy, as an important political victory. Rightwing Cuban exile
groups had sought to prevent the boy's reunion with his Cuba-based father after
his mother was killed in an attempt to reach the US.
Elián's return was followed by a relaxation of the embargo - the US
can now sell medicines and food to Cuba for the first time since 1962.
The legislation still makes it difficult to finance such deals, a
restriction publicly condemned by Cuba. Privately, however, the government seems
to have been encouraged.
Therein lies the fourth factor behind the country's hardening position: the
prospect of fully dismantling the US embargo is both a goal and a threat.
Certainly, Angel Dalmau, the deputy foreign minister, says that action "against
the boycott is snowballing. It is simply a matter of time. We are much more sure
of our future than we were five years ago."
But analysts say that while the government clearly wants the US embargo to
end, it also wants to be able to control the timing of any change so as better
to prepare for the consequences. "The embargo acts as a buffer that allows
them to pace their slow integration into the world system," says Julia
Sweig, a Cuba expert who also works for the Council on Foreign Relations.
Many opponents of US policy argue that the embargo itself is one of the
principal obstacles to change because it allows the government to blame all the
country's shortcomings on US agression. That is a political tool Mr Castro's
regime is reluctant to give up - for now, at least. As one European diplomat
puts it: "This government wouldn't last a year if the embargo were lifted."
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