David Castlemain considered the Caribbean as his second home; his retreat on St Martin, his villa and yacht in Guadeloupe, were the result of his family’s banking interest in the region that dated back to the twenties, when they had established their banking business in the islands. It was as a hedge against the changes that were occurring in those troubled years, when Ireland had struggled for its independence from the English crown.
He had entered banking as a young man at the time his father had been the majority shareholder and president of the Irish Union Bank in Dublin; it was then a small though prosperous bank. His Anglo-Irish family was amongst the largest landowner in County Meath, in the heart of Ireland, it was horse country where some of the finest animals were breed and exported around the world.
The Castlemains were very conservative, as were most old landed families in the Irish Republic. Tradition was their motto, they were not adventurers, the Dublin Horse Show for yearlings was the major event of their year. Generations of economic stagnation in the country had led to an exaggerated and stifling conservatism and those who had money had learned how to hang on to it.
As a young man and the scion of the wealthy Irish family he had enjoyed the pleasures wealth had bestowed on him. He greatest contentment came from the visits to the family business in the Caribbean, where he learnt the arcane skills of offshore banking, but it was thanks to his skill with thoroughbred horses and his own talent for polo that he got to know South America. He made many friends in Latin America not only in high society but also in politics and in business, which in any case went hand in hand. Though, as for many young men, some of the friends he made were not always to his father’s liking.
Since his father’s death, the responsibility of the bank had fallen on his shoulders and life had become much more serious. As time passed and his obligations grew he grew to regret his carefree past.
He remembered with amusement how at the age of eighteen he had longed for a different life, to be able to make his own decisions. The young Cuban revolutionaries and their dreams of changing the world had inspired him. He had visited the country on many occasions, meeting Fidel Castro and even the legendary Che Guevara. He had even tried to convince his father in the mid-sixties to become involved in the economic development of the Cuba, well after the revolution.
It had been a hopeless task; his father would have never helped people he saw as communist atheists, who had overthrown a legal government by force, nor listen to his very young and unrealistic son, who could not differentiate between business and ideals. To make matters worse, as time passed, Cuba was wracked by a series of seemingly endless convulsions as El Lider embarked on a series of catastrophic adventures.
In the late eighties, with the death of his father and the changes in the bank, Castlemain again looked at the possibility of building business relations with Cuba, changes were on the horizon and after the fall of the Soviet Block he felt the moment was ripe.
Castro himself, many years before, had expounded his theories to Castlemain as to the economics of the Caribbean and its thirty-one island nations. He had not seen a future in tourism, in spite of the region having some of the world’s finest beaches and a sub-tropical climate.
The majority of American tourists shunned the Caribbean, preferring to spend their money at home in Las Vegas, Florida or Hawaii. As for the Europeans, they were drawn by many other exotic destinations, which were nearer to home, such as Egypt and Israel, or, further afield Thailand for even greater exoticism, approximately the same flying time from most European major cities as to the Caribbean.
“One of the problems is the high degree of crime and harassment on many Caribbean islands,” Castlemain had been told by a Cuban Minister of Tourism “In Cuba our government does not want to see crime develop, it’s not good that our people develop the bad habits of rich tourists, particularly during what we call the Special Period, when people have to work harder and be patient, it is necessary we make sacrifices for the future of our country.”
The Cuban people had made forty years of sacrifice without seeing the slightest gain, the rich had fled, the middle classes had become poor and the poor were without hope.
“Crime is a consequence of the introduction of envy and bad morals, that is why we have developed Varedero, all-inclusive packages ‘sea, sun and sand’,” the minister had explained full of high principles, “not forgetting the rum, in Varedero our tourists barely need to leave their hotels.”
The fact was that many Caribbean islands found it too expensive to construct hotels and infrastructure, not having the basic industries that supplied the construction materials, cement, steel and piping, which had to be imported, more than doubling costs.
Crime, drugs and sexual harassment were a powerful deterrent to the development of tourism. In addition major international banks were not willing to take the risk of financing hotel construction, whilst potential promoters ran the risk of disaster if their hotels were not filled.
Castlemain had expressed his desire to meet Fidel Castro, but one did not simply make an appointment with the great leader. In fact knowing in advance where he would sleep or even which functions or meetings he would attend was well neigh impossible, except for the most intimate of his circle. Security came before all other things; he had been the target of so many assassination attempts that he had forgotten most of them. Wherever he went his personal doctor, a medical team, ambulances, bodyguards, a military unit and a helicopter always followed him.
It was during a hot and humid July evening, during a brown out that shut down most of Havana, Castlemain received the invitation that he had solicited many weeks before.
He was hustled from his hotel late in the evening and driven at high speed in a bullet proof Mercedes through the dark streets of the city to his meeting with El Jefe Maximo. The meeting place was a vast ornate Baroque style villa, somewhere in the west of the capital. After passing through a pair of huge iron gates, guarded by armed military personnel, he was thoroughly checked and searched by the security service before being admitted.
Once inside the villa he was ushered by a uniformed army officer into a spacious room with Spanish colonial style furnishings. Fidel, who was seated in an armchair, was in the company of four other men, all dressed in olive green military fatigues. He rose to meet Castlemain with extended arms.
“Amigo! How are you?” He looked older and seemed to have shrunk inside of his fatigues. His grey beard looked sparse. “So you see your friend does not forget you! How are you, what is going on in the world?”
They embraced and tapped each other on the back. It was a greeting like in the old days. Fidel invited him to be seated in the armchair opposite him across a low table on which were placed trays with drinks and glasses. After the exchange of banalities Fidel got down to the essentials.
“Times are changing my friend, today Cuba needs investors,” he gave one of his characteristic shrugs, “What we need are joint-ventures with our friends! Investors, such as your bank David, who would like to participate in the development our economy.”
Castlemain was immensely flattered by the use of his first name and ‘tu’, he had not been forgotten by El Lider Maximo, and moreover he had the privilege of being received as an old friend.
It was not in Castro’s style to do something ordinary. However, he was still the eternal revolutionary, looking for a miraculous solution to improve the lot of his people. He had a dream, he was an idealist and every moment of his life was a new challenge, convince those he met and to win them over to his vision of the future.
“You are a land owner, a rich capitalist, it is a fact! But, Ireland fought for its independence like Cuba! You know I have much respect for peoples who have fought against imperialism.”
He made a sign to one of his entourage to serve drinks.
“I know exactly how you feel, I myself was the son of a land owner, my father owned 26,000 acres in Oriente Province. I was trained as a lawyer, so you see we are not so diffe
rent."
It was a familiar story; Castlemain had heard it for the first time well over thirty years previously. He admired Castro like he would an older brother, a brother who had the freedom that his own father had never permitted him. As a young man Castlemain had had the freedom to enjoy himself, but never to determine his own destiny. As an only son he was destined to one day run the bank and watch over the family fortune.
“Let me tell you something David, I have a vision of a new Cuba, based on our socialist ideals, not like Russian socialism, which betrayed its friends, if you can help us you will certainly be remembered as one of our heroes.”
Fidel had launched into one of his long late night monologues, but that did not bother Castlemain, he was looking at a living legend, a hero who was offering him a chance to be part of history, something more than just a son who had inherited the wealth of his rich family.
“In my province, where I was born, in the East of Cuba, I would like to create something that will benefit our people and will be remembered. The region is poor, far from Havana, but it is beautiful. A new city should be built as a tribute to our revolution, a model for our youth and that of the world that believes in the revolutionary values of our kind of socialism.”
His face radiated the fervour that Castlemain had witnessed in Castro’s early years.
“It will be built on tourism, but not the kind you see in Varedero, it will be a real city where visitors can appreciate our values.”
He had a vision that would preserve his revolution and open it to the world, a new model, economical viable without jinteras, corruption and the bolsa negra. It was perhaps the last chance, there was not much time left and he could not fail his people and his place in history.
“If you, with the help of your country, Ireland, help me build this, I can tell you that your name will go down in our history, a friend of the Revolution, it is our project, your project, it is our dream, we shall name it Ciudad Castlemain…you will be the second Irishman, after Alejandro O’Reilly to go down in our country’s history, it is our secret, you will undertake with the help of my compays,” he made a gesture to the men around him, “they will give you all that you need from our side, I am counting on you amigo and I repeat this is our secret, it is not in the interest of the American imperialists that we succeed and succeed we will!”
John Castlemain returned to his hotel late in the night, euphoric. He was unable to sleep in the heat with the air-conditioning out, his mind churning with the thought of the challenge that had been given to him by a real hero of the twentieth century, though irritated to think there had been another Irishman in Cuban history before him.
Chapter 19
On the Run Again
Offshore Islands Page 18
