Free at Last! What Raśl
Rivero's release from prison means for Cuba
By Paul Berman. Slate,
Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2004.
Good news! A little more than two months
ago, on Sep. 24, I published in this space
a loud boo directed at the movie The Motorcycle
Diaries because of its celebration of Che
Guevara. And I pointed to an alternative
hero of Cuban freedom, Raúl Rivero,
an opposition journalist and a marvelous
poet. In 2003, Rivero was sentenced to 20
years of prison on the charge of having
conspired with the United States.
Last Friday, Rivero was transferred to
a military hospital. And, on Tuesday of
this week, he was suddenly released. Free
at last!-free from prison, anyway. He was
liberated together with five other Cuban
dissidents from the group of 75 who were
imprisoned last year. (Seven others had
already been freed.)
Why were these new prisoners released just
now? The immediate reason appears to be
a diplomatic change of attitude in Europe.
Spain's last prime minister, José
María Aznar, took a hard line on
Castro, beginning in the 1990s. The European
Union as a whole adopted Aznar's position
and launched what became known as the "Cocktail
War." The Cocktail War meant that,
at diplomatic receptions, governments began
inviting Cuban dissidents to attend, together
with Cuban officials. This sort of thing
communicated a European disapproval of Cuban
policy and a European respect for the Cuban
opposition. The Cocktail War didn't prevent
European businesses from investing in Cuban
tourism, which means that the Cocktail War
was not exactly a heavy bludgeon raining
down on the poor battered head of Fidel
Castro. And yet, it did communicate a spirit
of condemnation.
Aznar was voted out of office last March,
however, and his successor, José
Luis Zapatero, reinaugurated friendlier
relations with the Cuban state. Zapatero's
initiative was followed by that of the European
Union, just as Aznar's had been. Europe
is friendlier now. And Castro appears to
have rewarded the new policy by releasing
Rivero and the five other dissidents.
Here is a victory, then, for the bad cop/good
cop approach toward Cuba-the bad cop having
been Aznar, and the good cop, Zapatero.
And here is a victory for the people who,
especially in Europe, have made a cause
of Rivero's case and that of the other dissidents.
Here is a victory for Václav Havel
especially-Havel, who, after his retirement
from the presidency of the Czech Republic,
has taken up the cause of Cuban freedom.
Just a few weeks ago he organized an international
meeting in Prague to pressure for the release
of the Cuban dissidents. And why shouldn't
Havel engage in this campaign? For if there
is a Václav Havel in Cuba, surely
that person has got to be Raúl Rivero-the
artist/politico with the wry and ironic
view of the world.
Rivero wrote a poem called "Open Gift,"
which I happened to see in a very fine literary
magazine published in Puebla, Mexico, called
Crítica. The poem explains that the
poet's friend Susannah has given him as
a present a yearly almanac. The almanac
comes from a cold and far-away country,
and the information in it strikes the poet
as somewhat preposterous and even funny.
The book is full of facts about the hardships
of winter. It explains when one should wear
a warm coat, and when to prepare for fog-exotic
arcana of no possible use for anyone who,
like the poet, lives in the tropics. So,
the poet contemplates this curious gift
and chuckles at its uselessness. And yet
he finds something touching in the almanac:
Rivero's friends in other places around
the world may live in free societies where
people don't get thrown in jail for writing
poetry and journalism. These faraway friends
have nonetheless managed to understand that,
in some places, life is a little more wintry.
Havel has written that every meeting, every
conference, every protest on behalf of the
Cuban dissidents is a step toward freedom
in Cuba. Apparently there have been enough
of these steps to get Rivero and five other
people out of jail. That leaves merely 62
other imprisoned dissidents to go, not to
mention the cause of the independent librarians
in Cuba (who have just now opened 14 new
independent libraries-a bold thing to do),
not to mention the cause of Cuban society
as a whole.
Havel has been saying lately that Cuba's
days as a dictatorship may be reaching an
end. Is he correct? This possibility lends
a tremendous drama to these struggles right
now in Cuba. The poet, the librarians, the
independent workers union that is sponsoring
the libraries, the 62 dissidents still in
jail-these people do not seem to have lost
their energy. Only, how can we tell if Havel
is right? We can't. Sheer guesswork. Still,
let us recognize that some people do seem
to have a pretty good insight into the mysterious
question of when a dictatorship is about
to collapse, and if Václav Havel
is not one of these unusually insightful
people, who is?
Paul Berman is the author
of Terror and Liberalism and The Passion
of Joschka Fischer.
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