Cuba Libre: A 500-Year Quest for Independence

by Philip Brenner

  Meanwhile, USAID increased funding for “independent” journalists and libraries to produce and distribute anti-regime information. A 2001 study by the American Library Association reported that the “independent libraries” were essentially private collections held by political dissidents.19 In March 2003, President Bush signed executive orders designed to limit official and nongovernment contacts between the countries, and he canceled semi-annual migration talks between the two countries. These involved the review of how the 1995 migration accord—under which the United States returned to Cuba exiles picked up at sea—was being implemented. At about the same time, US officials began to issue fewer visas to Cuban scholars for travel to the United States.

  Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba

  The renewed hostility directed at Cuba was not sufficiently harsh to satisfy hardliners, who pressured President Bush to do more.20 On October 10, 2003—the 135th anniversary of the start of Cuba’s 1868 ten-year Independence War against Spain—he announced the creation of a Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba (CAFC), headed by Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Mel Martinez, a Cuban-American.

  Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega, the deeply ideological coauthor of the Helms-Burton bill, coordinated the commission’s activities. Dan Fisk, who also had been a staffer for Senator Jesse Helms, led the working group that drew up plans aimed at “hastening Cuba’s transition.” Bush’s charge to the commission was “to plan for the happy day when Castro’s regime is no more.”21

  The CAFC’s May 2004 report included delusional plans for a US occupation, from reorganizing the economy and the educational system to the holding of multiparty elections. Its essential strategy for accelerating regime change was to deny Cuba money from US visitors and to limit all forms of contact between Americans and Cubans. President Bush used the report’s recommendations to tighten the embargo. His action proved particularly onerous for Cuban-Americans who had been able to travel to Cuba on grounds of family medical emergencies.

  Under the new rules, “An individual can decide when they want to travel once every three years,” Fisk callously told Reuters. “So if they have a dying relative they have to figure out when they want to travel.”22 In addition, only parents, grandparents, siblings, and one’s own children qualified as “family”; previously, uncles and aunts had been included. The new regulations also curtailed three hundred college and university study abroad programs and educational travel sponsored by organizations such as the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic. In 2003, an estimated 30,000 Americans had gone to Cuba on educational programs licensed under relaxed Clinton administration rules.

  In 2005, after winning a second term, President Bush appointed Caleb McCarry to be Cuban Transition Coordinator, in effect centralizing the effort to overthrow the Cuban government. McCarry was given an $80 million budget, though the money was largely spent inside the United States as a form of patronage to anti-Castro Cubans who created organizations with names fancifully larded with terms like “freedom” and “democracy.” The Government Accountability Office harshly criticized McCarry’s project, finding there was “misuse of funds” and “weaknesses in program oversight that increased the risk of grantees’ improperly using grant funds and failing to comply with US laws.”23 Cuban foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque described McCarry as the “Paul Bremer for Cuba,” referring to the US consul who disastrously ruled Iraq after the 2003 invasion; activist Oswaldo Payá criticized the plan by saying, “Any transition in Cuba is for Cubans to define, lead, organize and co-ordinate.”24

  Trouble with Europe

  The Bush administration’s tougher sanctions and bombastic rhetoric in 2003 set off alarm bells in Havana. US officials had used similar language prior to the March invasion of Iraq, which was undertaken on the basis of manufactured evidence.25 Cuban leaders imagined hardliners could convince President Bush that widespread criticism on the island was evidence that Cubans would be waiting for American liberators with roses and jubilation.26

  As a result of a military that had been downsized during the Special Period, Cuban security was based on a “people’s war” strategy that depended on the solidarity of the Cuban citizenry and everyone’s willingness to fight. Cuba’s generals worried that even a small crack in the façade of unity might invite US intervention, which made the harsh suppression of dissent necessary. This mind-set in part explains why the Cuban government arrested seventy-five prominent anti-regime critics in March 2003 and gave them unusually long prison terms—from six to twenty-eight years. Their arrests were a sharp warning aimed at discouraging further dissent.27

  Nearly twenty of the “dissidents” turned out to be state agents who had infiltrated groups opposing the regime and obtained evidence that those charged were receiving money directly from US agencies or indirectly through organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy. Notably, the government did not arrest Payá, who had refused to compromise his project by accepting such funds.

  About a month after the arrest of the group of seventy-five, several European countries individually declared they would reevaluate their trade, economic assistance, and diplomatic contacts with Cuba as a response to the arrests and the summary execution of three ferry hijackers.28 Two weeks later, the European Union (EU) announced it was freezing “the procedure to consider the admission of Cuba into the Africa-Pacific-Caribbean (ACP) Cotonou Agreement.”29 The EU presidency (held by Greece) followed up in June, denouncing Cuba’s “deplorable actions” and demanding that Cuba release all political prisoners. These moves were a serious matter for the economy: more than 50 percent of direct foreign investment had come from EU states, 25 percent from Spain alone.

  Yet Cuban leaders were willing to risk a break with Europe, because they perceived that suppressing internal dissent was more important than cultivating favorable international opinion. On June 12, 2003, Fidel led hundreds of thousands of people in a protest march past European embassies in Havana. The New York Times reported that “marchers carried . . . signs ridiculing Prime Minister José María Aznar of Spain and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy as fascists.”30 In his July 26th speech, on the fiftieth anniversary of the failed Moncada attack, the Cuban president dismissed the importance of Europe’s decisions. “Cuba does not need the aid of the European Union to survive,” he asserted bluntly, noting that the EU had donated only an average of about $4 million annually over the prior three years. “What does this amount really mean for a country that suffered the impact of three hurricanes between November of 2001 and October of 2002, resulting in 2.5 billion dollars in damages for our country?” He added that the loss of trade with Europe also would not be significant because in the previous five years Cuba had imported on average $1.5 billion of goods annually from Europe while exporting less than half that value in Cuban products.31

  Ironically, the decrease in commerce with Europe was offset by increasing imports from the United States. Cuba was able to step up purchases of food and medicine produced by US companies—made legal under the 2000 TSRA—after US officials reduced the red tape involved in these transactions because of the damage caused by Hurricane Michelle in November 2001. In 2002, Cuba bought $146 million in goods from the United States, an amount that more than doubled to $340 million by 2006.32 US food imports also came with lower shipping costs than European food. Some Cuban officials even imagined that the renewed trade might spur agrobusiness lobbyists and some members of Congress from farm districts to pressure the Bush administration to relax or end the embargo. The TSRA still required that the US Treasury Department license each sale, which had to be made without credit. Sellers also had to verify that none of the products were available to the Cuban military.

  Cuba Turns to Latin America and China

  Despite Cuba’s increased trade with the United States, 2003 marked a turning point in its
foreign-policy orientation. Cuba once again concentrated its attention on third world countries to which it could relate with mutual respect, not asymmetric requirements. Cuba had built a deep well of appreciation in the third world because of its assistance programs and sustained military commitment in Angola against the apartheid South African regime. Nelson Mandela highlighted this respect during a 1991 trip to Cuba, the year after he was released from prison (see box on next page). In a speech on July 26, with Fidel Castro at his side, Mandela declared: “The Cuban people hold a special place in the hearts of the people of Africa. The Cuban internationalists have made a contribution to African independence, freedom, and justice, unparalleled for its principled and selfless character.”

  Nelson Mandela in Cuba, 1991

  We have come here today recognizing our great debt to the Cuban people. What other country has such a history of selfless behavior as Cuba has shown for the people of Africa? How many countries benefit from Cuban health care professionals and educators? . . . How many countries threatened by imperialism or fighting for their freedom have been able to count on the support of Cuba?

  Figure 22.2. During his visit to Cuba in 1991, Nelson Mandela delivers an address in Matanzas at the annual July 26 commemoration. Photo by Liborio Noval, courtesy of Granma.

  I was still in prison when I first heard of the massive help which the Cuban international forces were giving to the people of Angola. The help was of such a scale that it was difficult for us to believe it, when the Angolans were under attack by the combined forces of South Africa, the FALA [Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola] who were financed by the CIA, mercenaries, UNITA [National Union for the Total Independence of Angola], and Zaire in 1975. . . . We also acknowledge that the action was carried out by the masses in Cuba and that those who fought and died in Angola are only a small portion of those who volunteered to go. To the Cuban people internationalism is not only a word but something which they have put into practice for the benefit of large sectors of mankind. . . . The defeat of the racist army made it possible for the people of Namibia to achieve their independence. The decisive defeat of the aggressive apartheid forces destroyed the myth of the invincibility of the white oppressor. . . . Without the defeat of Cuito Cuanavale our organizations would not have been legalized. The defeat of the racist army in Cuito Cuanavale made it possible for me to be here with you today.*

  * * *

  * Nelson Mandela, “Speech at the Rally in Cuba,” July 26, 1991, in Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro, How Far We Slaves Have Come! (Atlanta: Pathfinder Press, 1991). Copyright © Pathfinder Press (1991). Reprinted by permission.

  Third world countries acknowledged Cuba as a global leader in February 2003 by naming it as the host of the 2006 Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), and consequently the organization’s chair for the three years that followed. Havana had been the venue of a summit once before, in 1979. Only Yugoslavia, one of the four core founders of NAM, had been previously honored this way.

  Two months later, Latin American countries elected Cuba to hold one of the region’s six seats on the United Nations Human Rights Commission, despite Cuba’s harsh sentencing of seventy-five people in March. (The General Assembly voted by region in choosing the fifty-three members of the commission, which was replaced by the UN Human Rights Council in 2006.) The vote was a clear rebuke to the United States, which had lobbied against Cuba’s selection, and it left White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer spitting mad. “Having Cuba serve again on the Human Rights Commission is like putting Al Capone in charge of bank security,” he said.33

  A leftward turn in Latin American politics was one reason for Cuba’s increased confidence. Hugo Chávez’s election in 1998 as Venezuela’s president was followed by the victories of Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2002, Argentina’s Néstor Kirchner in 2003, Uruguay’s Tabaré Ramón Vázquez in 2004, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa in 2005, and Chile’s Michelle Bachelet and Bolivia’s Evo Morales in 2006.

  Venezuela

  Political scientist Max Azicri explains that the Cuban-Venezuelan association was held together by three interconnected ties: the personal relationship between Fidel and Chávez, the shared political goals for the hemisphere of the two leaders, and the mutually beneficial exchange of goods and services between the two countries.34 Chávez looked to Fidel Castro as his spiritual mentor and once in office turned to the Cuba leader for advice. He told Larry King in 2009 that the Cuban leader is “like a father to me, like a father, a political father.”35 Their relationship was cemented even more firmly in 2002, when Castro’s advice and actions may have saved Chávez’s life and presidency during an attempted coup against the Venezuelan president. The Cuban president reportedly counseled the Venezuelan by phone and then arranged for his daughter, María Gabriela Chávez, to speak via telephone on Cuban radio. She announced that her father had not resigned, contrary to reports the Venezuelan media had conveyed. International broadcasts of her message then spurred Chávez supporters to mount large demonstrations against the coup leaders.36

  In October 2000, Venezuela began to sell oil to some South American countries and Cuba at a price that was one-third lower than the world market price. The purchases could be made with credit; the interest rate was 2 percent and the loan would be due in fifteen years. By 2001, Cuba was importing more oil from Venezuela than it had imported from the Soviet Union in 1990. Under a 2005 agreement, Venezuela sold 53,000 barrels of oil daily to Cuba at a subsidized rate of $27 per barrel. Cuba paid for the oil, in part, by sending sports trainers, teachers, and doctors to Venezuela.

  More than three million Venezuelans benefited from the Barrio Adentro Deportivo (Sports in the Neighborhood) program, and Cuban coaches trained 68 of the 109 Venezuelan athletes at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.37 Teachers in Cuba’s Misión Robinson program contributed to the reduction of illiteracy in Venezuela, and the doctors helped Venezuela establish a medical program for the poor, Barrio Adentro (Inside the Neighborhood). Cuba sent 30,000 medical personnel to Venezuela, trained 40,000 doctors, and provided eye operations to more than 100,000 Venezuelans though Operación Milagro (Operation Miracle). Milagro later expanded to other countries in Latin America and by 2013 had restored the eyesight of more than two million people.38 Cuban doctors in Venezuela also provided basic health care to impoverished populations in the Venezuelan countryside, which in turn brought praise and support for Chávez among the poorest sectors of the country.

  At the start of the millennium, Cuba and Venezuela also began to implement an ambitious project, as Castro described it in October 2000, “to unite the Latin American and Caribbean nations and to struggle for a world economic order that brings more justice to all peoples.”39 What started with the sale of oil and free medical care emerged in 2004 as ALBA, the Spanish acronym for Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America. (The name was changed in 2009 to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America.) Aimed at competing with the US-proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, ALBA sought to economically integrate Latin American and Caribbean countries. It also created a development bank and served as a coordinating mechanism for development projects. Following the January 2006 inauguration of Evo Morales, Bolivia became the third country in ALBA.

  China

  Despite China’s size, wealth, military power, and potential for domination, Cuban leaders have tended to view China differently than powerful countries that once dominated Cuba. In part, their attitude reflects the belief of Cuba’s leaders that China’s Latin American policy is based sincerely “on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence,” which mandates that “China and Latin America and the Caribbean will treat each other as equals and respect each other.”40 China scholar Adrian Hearn notes that analysts “detect genuine traces of traditional values in Chinese policymaking,” particularly a Confucian “emphasis on consensual ‘harmonious’ development, their pursuit of ‘holis
tic’ outcomes, and their implicit advocacy of state stewardship over national and international affairs.”41

  Cuba was the first Latin American country to have diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic. But China had little capacity to provide much support to Cuba until the late 1980s, just at the time when the Soviet Union and CMEA were falling apart. In the 1990s, as China searched for raw materials to fuel its fast-growing industrial complex, it began to invest in Latin America.

  The Asian giant did not place Cuba very high on its initial target list. It did ship half a million bicycles to Cuba in 1992 and 1993 on credit, and in 1997, it funded and provided technical assistance for the start of a small Cuban bicycle industry. But it was not until 2001 that China provided nearly $400 million in long-term loans and credits to upgrade Cuba’s telecommunication infrastructure and to enable Cuba to purchase Chinese televisions, washing machines, and air conditioners. As noted earlier, it also made a $1 billion investment in modernizing Cuba’s nickel mining and production facilities. Notably, Chinese trade with Caribbean Basin and South American countries jumped from $12.6 billion in 2000 to $102.6 billion in 2007.42

  Once the economic relationship began to grow, China sought to influence Cuba’s business practices by encouraging greater reliance on privatization. Sensitive to the Cuban leadership’s concern about growing inequality and the loss of control over the direction of the economy, China’s advisers proposed simply a greater standardization of routine accounting procedures and the slow introduction of enterprise-to-enterprise contact so that not all interactions would occur at the state level.