Bush admin on Cuba
[This is from Ned Sublette, who sent it to his little list.]
As you may have heard, the united states state department’s
commission for assistance to a free cuba has just released its report
to the president.
the report was has been rumored about for a while, but has only now
become available. it was probably initially planned for release on
may 20 (the alleged date of cuban independence day, though cuban
dependence day would be more like it, since it commemorates the birth
in 1902 of the neocolonial republic), which is the usual day they
release such things. you can find it at:
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/68873.pdf
the u.s. department of state’s web page about this commission
actually features as a pull quote this example of bushspeak — not a
loose impromptu to a reporter, but words of wisdom engraved on the
DOS’s web page — in which sentence five repeats the talking point of
sentence one:
“We believe the people of Cuba should be free from tyranny. We
believe the future of Cuba is a future of freedom. It’s in our
nation’s interest that Cuba be free. It’s in the neighborhood’s
interest that Cuba be free. More importantly, it’s in the interest of
the Cuban people that they be free from tyranny.”
it’s in the neighborhood’s interest that cuba be free. whose
neighborhood is he talking about?
the report also contains — get this — a secret annex, delivered
to the president but not released to the public for security reasons.
i just now saw the report, and i haven’t had time to read and analyze
the full 93-page document. but flipping quickly through it — hmm, it
promises to improve cuba’s health care system (!) — this paragraph
jumps out at me:
“We need to help reassure Cubans on the island who seek to preserve
the status quo out of fear of what lies beyond the end of the
dictatorship. We must also advance an alternative view of the future
for Cubans currently in the regime who support democratic change.
They need to know that they and their families will also have a
future in a Free Cuba. It is only Castro’s “esbirros” (henchmen) who
need to fear justice.”
this is a bush-era reassurance if i ever saw one, pure gangsterism:
fear is called for if you’re with the losing team, but if you’re down
with the winning team, you’ll be okay. elsewhere the report makes
reference to a presently existing “lista de esbirros” — a blacklist.
in other words, they already have a hit list of people who will face
“justice” in cuba when justice, bush-style, is at last meted out. how
large that list is, and who’s on it, it doesn’t say.
the report also calls for a “Law Enforcement Task Force for better
enforcement of U.S. economic sanctions on the Castro regime.” i’m
trying to imagine what such an agency would occupy itself with.
prosecuting people who travel to cuba, presumably.
note also that the commission recommends $80 million be made
available for something called the Cuba Fund for a Democratic Future.
while much of this money would likely be a patronage giveaway for the
miami-based anti-castro industry, millions of these dollars are
presumably to be spent within cuba.
walter lippmann (http://www.walterlippmann.com) e-mailed me this
response by wayne smith, though i don’t have a URL for it:
New Cuba Commission Report: Formula For Continued Failure By Wayne S.
Smith
In May of 2004, the Bush Administration’s Commission for Assistance
to a Free Cuba issued an almost 500-page report that seemed to
conclude the Castro government was virtually at the point of
collapse. Just a few more nudges - a few more Radio Marti broadcasts,
denials of a few more travel licenses, and support to a few more
dissidents - and it would all be over. The United States, the report
seemed to suggest, would then come in and show the Cubans how to
operate their schools properly, make their trains run on time, and
grow their crops more efficiently. It was envisaged as such a U.S.-
run operation that in July of 2005, a U.S. transition coordinator was
appointed. One skeptical observer noted at the time that in the case
of Iraq, the Bush Administration had at least waited until it invaded
and occupied the country before appointing a transition coordinator.
Did his appointment in this case mean the U.S. intended to invade
Cuba as well? And if not, what was the U.S. transition coordinator
supposed to do from his office in the State Department building? Even
today, that remains unclear.
Perhaps OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza’s reaction to the
idea of a U.S. transition coordinator for Cuba summed it up best.
“But there is no transition,” he said, “and it isn’t your country.”
Indeed, the transition plan put forward in 2004 had such a “made-in-
the-USA” tone to it that it backfired in Cuba. Even Cubans who had
their disagreements with the Castro government did not want to be
told by the United States how they should run their country. Leading
dissidents described the new approach as counterproductive. Elizardo
Sanchez of the Commission for Human Rights and National
Reconciliation, for example, noted that the U.S. policy announced in
2004, “has had an effect exactly the opposite of the one you should
want.”
Cuba’s Catholic Bishops also disagreed with the U.S. approach, saying
its measures “threaten both the present and the future of our nation.”
Nor did many Cubans agree with the idea that they should give up free
health care and education, and various other services provided by the
government
The New Report. Now the Commission has issued a new report, at a
ceremony on July 10 presided over by Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, Commerce Secretary Gutierrez and Transition Coordinator Caleb
McCarry. Interestingly, perhaps in response to charges that the first
report was nothing but an American occupation plan, the new one
stresses that its purpose is, rather, to offer assistance to Cubans
on the island. Solutions must come from them, it insists. The United
States simply stands ready and willing to support their initiatives.
But having said that, the report then goes on with page after page of
recommended actions, from reorganizing the economy and the
educational system to the holding of multiparty elections - always
provided, of course, that Cubans on the island wish to initiate them!
And the basic premise, that the regime is on the verge of collapse,
is as pronounced and as unrealistic in the new report as in the old.
Two years have passed and rather than collapsing, the Cuban economy
has shown strong signs of reinvigoration. Even the CIA gives it a
growth rate of 8%. Cuba has new and vitally important economic
relationships with Venezuela and China and indications of an
important new oil field off the north coast, for which various
nations are bidding for drilling sites. Things are looking up, not down.
There is no indication of that in the new report, however. Rather, it
says: “Chronic malnutrition, polluted drinking water, and untreated
chronic diseases continue to affect a significant percentage of the
Cuban people.” And of course adds that: “Conditions will not improve
as long as Fidel Castro remains in power.”
Never mind that UN indices consistently indicate Cuba’s population to
be considerably healthier than those of most neighboring states,
including the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico - one reason being that
they have free health care. It is interesting to note also that life
expectancy for Cubans is five years longer than for African-Americans!
Funds Diverted for International Meddling. Whatever the earnings
produced by the Cuban economy, the report insists they are used not
for the Cuban people, but for nefarious purposes. “The revenue . does
not go to benefit the Cuban people,” the report insists, “but is
diverted to maintain the regime’s repressive security apparatus and
fund Castro’s interventionist and destabilizing policies in other
countries of the Hemisphere..The Castro regime’s international
meddling is done at the expense of the needs of the Cuban people.”
First of all, if this were so, if funds had been so massively
diverted, Cubans would no longer have free health care and education
and other social-welfare programs would have long since collapsed.
That they have not is evidence that the report’s allegations are
false. Further, it provides no example of this “international
meddling” to which such a huge share of the Cuban economy is
supposedly being channeled. Cuban doctors have been sent to many
other countries, including Guatemala and Haiti, in addition to
Venezuela and Bolivia. They have been praised on every occasion for
their excellent and selfless assistance. If this is the meddling to
which the report refers, there should be more of it. If it is not,
then the report should provide examples of the interventionist
actions to which it has reference.
Prevent Succession. When Castro passes from the scene, he will, under
the Cuban Constitution, be succeeded by the Vice President. At this
point in time, that is Raul Castro. There will be many within that
new leadership structure, and many within Cuban society, arguing for
political and economic reforms - just as there will be other voices
opposed..
The principal objective of the Bush Commission’s new plan, however,
is to prevent the succession altogether, calling on Cuban citizens
and the international community to reject the government that would
replace Castro under the Cuban Constitution and to insist instead on
an entirely new one. But neither the Cuban people nor the
international community are likely to take so frontal a position
against a successor regime. Change, rather, will have to come about
slowly and as the result of an internal process, not as the result of
a formula imposed from abroad - and certainly not one imposed by the
United States. As Oswaldo Paya, one of Cuba’s leading dissident
leaders, stated a few weeks ago in anticipation of the publication of
this second report: “We do not accept transition programs made
outside of Cuba.”
Measures to Block Succession. The Bush administration’s objective, as
stated in the new Commission report, is to see to it that “the Castro
regime’s succession strategy does not succeed,” but the measures put
forward to achieve that goal are as inadequate as were those put
forward two years ago to bring an end to the Castro government.
Expanded Broadcasting. The new report, for example, calls for
increased Radio and TV Marti broadcasting and an expansion of third-
country broadcasting. But the broadcasting already conducted over the
past two years, of the one kind or the other, hasn’t had any
appreciable effect on public opinion. More of it isn’t likely to have
any more.
Support for Dissidents and Civil Society. The report two years ago
called for support to dissidents and representatives of “civil
society” as a means of confronting the government. The new report
calls for more of the same, and even for the establishment of an $80
million fund to increase that support. But as in an earlier report we
quoted one dissident on the island summing up the effect of that
support: “The good news is that most of that money remains in Miami;
the bad news is it makes our position more difficult even so.”
What he meant is that much of the money is given to organizations in
Miami, some of it, supposedly, to pass on to groups in Cuba, but that
little in fact gets through; it stays with those in Miami. Further,
when the U.S. says its objective is to bring down the Cuban
government, and then says that one of its means of accomplishing that
is by providing funds to Cuban dissidents, it in effect places them
in the position of being the paid agents of a foreign power seeking
to overthrow their own. Inevitably, that puts them in an even more
difficult position and severely limits their effectiveness.
That will be no less true now than in the past. The new fund, in
short, is not likely to have any greater impact than did the old one,
especially as, as noted above, many of the dissidents themselves do
not agree with the U.S. action plan. It should be noted, for example,
that one of Cuba’s leading dissidents, Oswaldo Paya, on July 1 of
this year, published an opinion piece in The Washington Post
emphasizing that Cubans wanted to preserve the right to free health
care and education - something at odds with the recommendations in
the original Commission report. Paya has also said he wants the U.S.
embargo to end and for Americans to be allowed to travel to Cuba, a
position that has enraged hard-line exiles in Miami.
Curtail Travel. Measures were introduced two years ago to sharply
reduce the travel of Americans and especially Cuban-Americans, and to
curtail remittances and parcel deliveries. Claiming that these
measures have had great success, the new report calls for their
strengthened implementation. But while the new restrictions on the
travel of Americans and Cuban-Americans to the island have of course
reduced revenues from that source, overall revenues from tourism have
not fallen, since Canadians, Europeans and Latin Americans
(especially Venezuelans) have continued to travel in even greater
numbers.
Moreover, this is a problem with several dimensions. It had long been
an article of faith, for example, that the best way to get the
message of American democracy abroad was through the travel of
American citizens. Does reducing their travel to Cuba, then, not work
at cross purposes with the broader objective of encouraging change in
Cuba? And whether the pain caused to divided Cuban-American families
is worth the few millions denied to the Cuban government is an open
question.
No Assistance to the Cuban Council of Churches. New measures are
called for even against Cuban churches, through a tightening of
regulations for the export of humanitarian items to ensure that
exports are not consigned to entities that are “regime administered
or controlled organizations, such as the Cuban Council of Churches.”
This follows on denial of visas to various members of the Cuban
Council of Churches, which the Bush administration insists is
controlled by the Cuban government. As an American religious leader
countered heatedly: “In that they have to play by the rules laid down
by the Cuban government, they are of course ‘controlled.’ But to
suggest that the Cuban Council of Churches is simply an instrument of
the government is absurd. They are legitimate religious leaders whose
cooperation we highly value.”
Be that as it may, American churches will no longer be able to send
the Cuban Council of Churches humanitarian assistance, a prohibition
the U.S.-based Church World Service is already vigorously protesting.
Effort to Monitor Nickel Exports. Given that nickel exports are now
such an important source of revenues for the Cuban government, the
Commission report calls for the creation an inter-agency Cuban Nickel
Targeting Task Force to strengthen measures to control imports of
nickel-bearing substances or products (i.e., “we won’t buy your steel
if there’s any chance it contains Cuban nickel!”), and for several
other measures to discourage other countries from buying Cuban
nickel. Such tactics have been tried in years past with very little
success. They are not likely to have any greater success now. Indeed,
they are more likely to cause a strong negative reaction in the
international community.
Reaction of the Cuban People to Efforts to Undermine Their Economy.
One must wonder also how the Bush administration expects the Cuban
people to react to its call for measures which can only have the
purpose of making their own lives more difficult? Are they supposed
to be grateful to the United States should its policies result in new
shortages and thus be ready to support its campaign against their own
government? Not likely. On the contrary, fostering a siege mentality
in Cuba can only work against any popular support for U.S. policy.
The Secret Annex. The measures to block the succession process that
are discussed in this report - or, at least those that are openly
discussed - aren’t likely to work. However, the report carries an
annex which it is said must remain secret for “reasons of national
security” and to maximize its chances of success. We can only guess
what is in the annex. Given the history of U.S.-Cuban relations,
however, there will inevitably be speculation that it contains new
assassination plots against Castro (although this time against Raul)
and new plans for exile raids if not direct U.S. military action.
There is already virtually no support in the international community
for U.S. policy toward Cuba. The uncertainty and suspicion resulting
from this secret annex are likely to reduce it even further.
Wayne S. Smith is now a Senior Fellow at the Center for International
Policy and perhaps the most veteran U.S. observer of U.S.-Cuban
relations, having been a Cuba analyst in the State Department’s
Bureau of Intelligence and Research (1957-58), Third Secretary of
Political Affairs in the American Embassy in Havana (1958-61), Cuban
Desk Officer (1964-66), Director of Cuban Affairs in the Department
of State (1977-79), and Chief of the U.S. Interests Section in