Cuba

     Fidel Castro seems to have invented the remark "I don´t care what people say about me so long as they talk about me." He has triggered such a flood of messages from WAISers that I can only summarize them. They vary from members (Linda Nyquist, Stuart Rawlings) who feel a certain warmth toward Castro (which is a common attitude outside the United States) to those who despise him completely. The last group rightly point out that the misery of the Cuban people before Castro is a myth, but they fail to recognize the corruption of the old regime which had ties with the U.S mafia, people like Meyer Lanski. A majority of the U.S. public is disgusted with the corruption of U.S. politics. Take that and multiply it by a thousand. and you have the feeling of the Cuban people before Castro. I have no solid evidence that there is anything like that degree of corruption in Cuba today.
     As for U.S. sanctions against Cuba, no WAISer represents U.S. groups which simply want to make money anywhere, but some like Dwight Peterson, who worked as a banker in the Southern Cone and witnessed the expropriations by the Allende regime, feel that similar actions by Castro were grossly unfair to honest people. Those who in the Locke tradition believe that private property is the basis of political rights would agree.
     Wilford Welch led a delegation of the San Francisco World Affairs Council to Cuba, with briefings in Washington and Miami. He has sent me his long and balanced report, of which I can post only a few significant extracts. He concludes that sanctions serve no good purpose. He says:
     "According to political dissidents and religious leaders, religious and political freedoms benefited from the visit of Pope John Paul II in January 1998. Although periodic and significant crackdowns occur, the general trend has been towards limited acceptance of civil society, religious rights, and even certain forms of political dissidence.
     Small private enterprises, such as twelve-seat restaurants and vegetable gardens, are prospering legally. However, legal private enterprise remains very limited, strictly regulated, and highly taxed by the Cuban government.
     An American medical doctor who lives and practices child psychiatry in Havana told us that economic shortages, whatever their cause, have forced hospitals to make hard choices between buying one or another medical drug. According to her, the U.S. embargo has made it more difficult to obtain the right drug at the right time. The procedure for obtaining licenses to import medicine is onerous.
     Hospitals have formed "Committees of Anguish," in which doctors make agonizing decisions about which imported medicines to buy and to which patients to give them. Since there is not enough medicine for all patients, the least needy and those closest to death may go without.
     Since the Cuban government controls virtually all foreign trade and large-scale production, the U.S. ban on food sales to the Cuban state has rendered impossible sales of food to Cuba. The largest examples of individual private enterprise are small private restaurants called "paladares." While an important example of the liberalization of the economy in Cuba, paladares are too small to buy food from U.S. exporters.
     The United States has attempted to limit Cuban trade with third countries. The Helms-Burton Act threatened sanctions against foreign companies that traffic in American properties expropriated at the time of the Cuban Revolution of 1959. The United States also pressures economic allies not to trade with Cuba. It is important to note that the sanctions the U.S. has placed on Cuba are stricter than those placed on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which can indeed import food and medicine. However, unlike the multilateral blockade faced by Iraq, our embargo of Cuba is unilateral, and Cuba has found many trading partners among other countries despite the efforts of the United States.
     In January 2000, a medical trade conference will include the participation of American pharmaceutical companies, underscoring the interest this industry has in selling to Cuba. Some members of our group have questioned what difference access to this industry will make for Cuba, since many drugs are currently available more cheaply from countries like Mexico. This is a topic that deserves further study.
     During our visit to Havana, we could find no evidence, either visually or through testimonies, that the Castro regime is weakened or hurt by the U.S. embargo. The Cuban government has survived the U.S. attempt to "tighten the screws" of the embargo through the Cuban Democracy (Torricelli) Act of 1992 and the Helms-Burton Act in 1996, which their authors predicted would bring about a fall of the regime and a transition to democracy.
     While in Cuba, we spoke with a range of religious leaders and political dissidents, people who have struggled for liberalization of the Cuban state. Every Cuban to whom we posed the question, including these religious leaders and political dissidents, supported a lifting of the embargo. Even those fighting to achieve greater freedom in Cuba do not feel that their struggle is helped by our policy.
     As one political dissident told us, "Even within the Communist Party, there are tendencies towards change. For better or worse, though, nationalism is an important factor in Cuba…The Cuban government can present things in terms of needing to protect sovereignty against the United States. Without the embargo it wouldn’t have this crutch." The embargo limits leeway for soft-liners in the regime by creating a situation in which one must be either for or against the revolution.
     According to an informed source close to the hierarchy of the Cuban Church, "The most important thing for us now would be that the U.S. government restore relations. If the American government lifts the embargo, everything will be easier, even for the government, which will be more flexible. Now the government is on the defensive. Can you imagine hundreds of thousands of Americans coming to Cuba? Can you imagine? Everything will change."
     A key perception in the United States has been that Cuban-American exiles, especially those who left Cuba soon after the revolution of 1959, have driven U.S. policy towards Cuba. Well-organized politically and capable of donating handsomely to political campaigns, hard-line groups such as the Cuban-American National Foundation have lobbied for a continuation of the embargo.
     Substantial support for the embargo continues to exist in the Cuban-American community. In a 1997 survey, 78 percent of Cuban-Americans in South Florida favored continuing the U.S. embargo. However, Lisandro Perez, Professor of Sociology at Florida International University, told our group that a hard-line stance towards Cuba may no longer represent the Cuban-American community as a whole, some of whom favor humanitarian relief and sales of food and medicine to Cuba.
     Cuban immigrants who came to the United States during the Mariel boatlift of 1980 and more recently are statistically more likely than earlier arrivals to support a moderate policy towards Cuba, but their political voice has not been as well-organized as the anti-Castro exiles’. A generational gap also separates "exiled" hard liners from their American-born children, who are less likely to advocate a hard-line stance.
     An estimated 5,000 dissidents have left the country in the last several years. There is an increased perception that certain dissidents speak out in order to gain an exit visa from the Cuban government. Some dissidents also maintain ties with Cuban-American groups as well as U.S. legislators, provoking the Cuban government’s claim that political dissidents are pawns of U.S. imperialism. The office of U.S. Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart, for example, maintains extensive contact with political dissidents in Cuba. There is some U.S. government money that may eventually reach dissidents through a US-AID program. The government often claims that many dissidents are pawns of United States government and exiles living in Miami. However, as evidenced by its toleration of many dissidents, the Castro regime has begun to differentiate between those dissidents who are closely allied with U.S. groups and those who are not.
     A Roman Catholic priest with whom we spoke stated that the visit of Pope John Paul II made a significant difference in the general climate for religion in Cuba: "The visit of the Pope helped all religions in Cuba, not just the Church." Only after the visit of the Pope were public masses and religious processions allowed.
     Religious reform began earlier. Since 1991, members of the Cuban Communist Party have been permitted to be active members in church congregations. According to Episcopalian minister and president of the Cuban Council of Churches Odén Marechal, religious practice itself has never been persecuted, only discriminated against. Certain university degree programs, such as law and psychology, and political jobs were once off-limits to religious practitioners. In the 1990’s, members of Cuba’s estimated 51 Christian denominations, Hindu and Jewish families, and practitioners of Afro-Cuban religions such as Santería have enjoyed increasing freedom from discrimination in pursuing political jobs or certain courses of study.
     Before the visit of the Pope almost two years ago, political dissidents were also much more likely to lose their jobs for speaking out. Today, according to our sources, dissidents may often keep their jobs. Political demonstrations remain illegal and strictly limited, although there are sporadic instances of small demonstrations.
     Manuel Cuesta Moruá, a Cuban political dissident, told our group that activists who are against the current Cuban government are defined as agents of U.S. imperialism. Thus, he said, the international environment with respect to the United States makes things more difficult for political dissidents bye contact with Cuban citizens, and to hold meetings off of the street.
     A law passed in February 1999 cracks down on independent journalists who send anti-government reports abroad and authorizes jail terms of up to twenty years for those who cooperate with U.S. efforts to undermine the regime. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists reports that a journalist named Jesus Joel Diaz Hernandez spent eight months in solitary confinement and is now serving a four-year sentence for starting an independent news agency in Cuba, telephoning out information for placement on the Internet by journalists outside Cuba. Meanwhile, the so-called "Havana Four," who were arrested in 1997 for issuing a manifesto critical of the Fifth Communist Party Congress, were tried and convicted this year.
     There was much attention paid to the subject of democratic freedoms and human rights during the Summit of IberoAmerican Heads of State, which began while we were in Havana. Several dissidents were arrested for staging a public demonstration and Fidel Castro attacked them in a lengthy press conference. Meanwhile, Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo encouraged Cuba publicly to adopt more democratic reforms.
     Emerging social and racial inequity threatens the characterization of Cuba made by one Cuban with whom we spoke: "There are no rich people in Cuba. We have the poorest middle class in the world but the richest poor class. This is not paradise but it is not hell, either."
     However, whether promoted by dollarization of the economy, by economic problems caused by the loss of a subsidized Soviet market for Cuban sugar, or by political and human rights concerns, there is tremendous desire to leave Cuba, as evidenced by the lottery held last year by the U.S. Interests Section in Havana for permanent resident visas. With 20,000 visas available for Cubans every year (12,500 available by lottery and the others available to political refugees and relatives of Cuban-Americans), the mission received over 500,000 applicants. The Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, which promises legal residency to any Cuban who touches American soil, may add increased incentives for emigration attempts as well.
     I understand that psychologically it is difficult for American leaders not to take a strong anti-Castro position. But put in this context, (positive steps) do not improve the situation much. The U.S. stance implicitly encourages a violent transition." The strong public anti-Castro stance has been the unfortunate rhetorical context of the "people-to-people" initiative, which the government began to promote under the so-called "Track II" of the Torricelli Act of 1992. In this context, the people-to-people initiative has been viewed with suspicion by the Castro regime.
     Pope John Paul II, during his January 1998 visit, made suggestions for change in Cuba that have worked. We believe that the best results in Cuba have come from this type of engagement. The Castro government has signed economic and political conventions with the rest of the world and, at the Summit of IberoAmerican Heads of State in 1997, was a signatory to a convention regarding greater democratization. While the government certainly continues to have an extremely mixed record on human rights, we believe that limited engagement in a manner careful to respect Cuban sovereignty represents the best hope for encouraging change in Cuba.
     Restrictions on personal freedoms in Cuba were underscored when our group went through security before our departure from Havana’s Jose Marti international airport. After interrogating two members of our group - both U.S. citizens, neither of Cuban descent - for half an hour, inspectors from the Ministry of the Interior confiscated several articles and other printed matter.
     The much-discussed matter of torture in Cuban prisons is unresolved. While the densely footnoted and interview-rich July 1999 report by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Human Rights Watch in New York City, "Cuba's Repressive Machinery," contends that torture continues to be a reality, one political dissident with whom we met, though he freely criticized many other aspects of life in Cuba, said that there is no torture whatsoever in Cuban prisons today.
     We should also note here the impressive work of the Office of the City Historian with respect to the restoration of Old Havana. While not an NGO, the City Historian’s Office works in conjunction with the Cuban state on important development issues, and it seems to have acted on important civic and social issues with a high degree of autonomy and success. The City Historian’s Office has enjoyed the personal support of Fidel Castro with respect to its restoration of Old Havana, and significantly it has been allowed to retain profits from some of its ventures and reinvest them in new restoration projects. By renting some of its renovated buildings as commercial retail and office space, the City Historian’s Office has generated revenue, as in the case of an impressive office tower near the port of Havana which was restored under a joint venture with a Spanish investor. As is typical in such arrangements, the development took place under a 50%-50% joint ownership structure in which the foreign investor provided capital and the Cuban government provided land and labor. A nearby street corner boasts a retail outlet for Benetton, the Italian clothing chain. Lest this information give the wrong impression, however, the development of Havana has so far been about as far removed from the model of Cancun, Mexico as possible. In other words, foreign investment does not (yet?) have the visible presence in Havana that it does in neighboring countries. The work of the City Historian and groups like the GDIC, mentioned above, seems designed to ensure a planned and reasoned development of Havana as it opens to foreign investment and foreign ownership of property for the first time in almost forty years.
     Writes one member of our group, "The image of a police state is of an iron security force. Instead, when I needed a taxi to get back to the hotel, I approached one of the police and asked him to help me with a taxi. He took out his cell phone and called, and then took me personally on a block-long walk to the main drag, where he hailed a taxi for me, gently escorting me into the taxi."
     Another group member writes, "I've met close to 50 Cubans in two visits over the past four years…They've been from all walks of Havana life: relatives of guides, friends of chauffeurs, government representatives, heads of official organizations, writers, artists, religious leaders, doctors, widows, music teachers, shamans of the Afro-Cuban tradition, priests, waiters, you name it. I don't think I ever met a wealthy Cuban. But despite the resentment that either such economic inequity or the Washington-Havana estrangement might evoke, I have found Cubans uniformly warm, congenial, interested, and hospitable."
     Secondly, denying food and particularly medicine to Cuba is inhumane as a matter of principle, whether or not Cuba can buy medicine from other sources, trade with Cuba, and the U.S. particularly should not demand that foreign private banks and multilateral institutions deny loans to Cuba.
     In Washington and Miami, we met with representatives of groups who support a continuation of the status quo policy. Their arguments for maintaining our embargo included registering continued disapproval of the Castro government and obtaining leverage to promote a transition to democracy after Fidel Castro’s eventual death (the euphemistically termed "biological solution"). A unilateral lifting of the embargo without a quid pro quo from the Cuban government, however, would not necessarily be self-defeating, as these people argue. Instead, lifting the U.S. embargo would eliminate an important political crutch for the Cuban government. As one political dissident told us in Havana, "A unilateral lifting of the embargo would only be a pyrrhic victory for the Cuban government, because the Cuban people want change."


     My conclusion: These are simply extracts from the long report. WAISers who want the report should contact . Among the other messages received is a long one from Tim Brown, who has for years been following Cuban affairs. I will post extracts from it likewise.


     APPENDIX A - MEETINGS AND CONTACTS


     Washington, D.C.:
     Felix Wilson Hernández, Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cuban Interests Section
     Josefina Vidal, Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cuban Interests Section
     Dianne Feinstein, U.S. Senator (D-CA)
     Steve Vermillion, Chief of Staff for Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (21st district, Florida)
     Carole Jackson, International Affairs Officer at the Office of Cuban Affairs, US Department of State


     Coral Gables and Miami, Florida
     Lisandro Perez, Director, Cuba Research Institute, Florida International University
     Elena Freyre, Cuban Committee for Democracy
     Jaime Suchlicki, Director, Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, University of Miami
     Max Castro, Senior Fellow, North-South Center, U. of Miami, and columnist, Miami Herald


     Informal contact with:
     Francisco Aruca, radio talk show host
     Carmen Diaz, psychologist and Cuban-American who emigrated with Mariel boatlift
     Alfredo Duran, first president of CCD, former chair of Florida Democratic Party
     Alvaro Fernandez, attorney and political activist
     Eloy Gutierrez-Menoyo, ex-commandante and political prisoner of 22 years in Cuban prisons
     Gladys Gutierrez-Menoyo, Cambio Cubano
     John de Leon, attorney and head of Miami section of ACLU
     Eddie and Xiomara Levy, cofounders of Jewish Solidarity
     Arnaldo Lopez, medical doctor and political activist
     Ema Lopez, political activist
     Anthony Maingot, professor of sociology and expert on U.S.-Cuban relations
     Consuelo Maingot, attorney
     Marysa Navarro, professor of Latin American history
     Raul de Velasco, medical doctor and president of the CCD.


     Havana, Cuba (Partial list)
     Natalia Bolivar Arostegui, anthropologist
     Father Rolando Cabrera, secretary to Cardinal Jaime Ortega
     Orestes del Castillo, architect, Office of the Historian of the City of Havana
     Mario Coyula, architect, development consultant, and builder of a model of the city of Havana
     Michelle Frank, American child psychiatrist practicing in Havana
     Vicki Huddleston, chief of the U.S. Interest Section, and staff
     Hedelberto Lopez Blanch, journalist
     Odén Marichal, Episcopalian minister and president of the Council of Churches
     Manuel Cuesta Moruá, political dissident and organizer
     Jose Miller, Jewish community leader
     Rolando Suarez, director of Caritas, a Catholic non-governmental relief organization
     Julio César Valdes Viera, cinematographer and documentary film producer


     APPENDIX B - DELEGATION MEMBERS


     Linda Jean Allen, Los Angeles, CA (trip manager)
     Carole Angermeir, Belvedere, CA (trip manager)
     Ronny Baxter, Pt. Richmond, CA
     Ethel Booth, Los Angeles, CA
     Ellen Cianciarulo, Moraga, CA
     Edith Coliver, San Francisco, CA
     Barbara Corneille, Alamo, CA
     Mary Culp, San Francisco, CA
     Joan Dotson, Redlands, CA
     Robert Dotson, Redlands, CA
     Harrison Dunning, Davis, CA
     Thad Dunning, San Francisco, CA
     Kristine Enea, San Francisco, CA
     Betty Gerard, Palo Alto, CA
     Wilson Harwood, Portola Valley, CA
     Lee Harwood, Portola Valley, CA
     Patricia Herron, Sonoma, CA
     Martha Hertelendy, Piedmont, CA
     Paul Hertelendy, Piedmont, CA
     Eloise Jonas, San Francisco, CA
     John Knox, Richmond, CA
     Jean Knox, Richmond, CA
     Nora Leishman, San Francisco, CA
     Karl Ludwig, San Francisco, CA
     Ann Ludwig, San Francisco, CA
     Silvia Potts, Sacramento, CA
     Erwin Potts, Sacramento, CA
     Paul Sack, San Francisco, CA
     Prentice Sack, San Francisco, CA
     Fereshteh Simone, Warrenton, VA
     Wayne Smith, Washington, DC (leader)
     Marvin Weissberg, Arlington, VA
     Wilford Welch, Belvedere, CA (leader)


     For further information on this report please contact:
     Wilford H. Welch
     Cross Cultural Journeys
     10 Thomas Drive, Mill Valley, CA 94941
     Tel: 1 (800) 353-2276; email: wpwelch@aol.com

Ronald Hilton - 1/4/00