Island that Dared

by Dervla Murphy

  By 1970 so many commandos had been captured or killed in Cuba that the CIA/Bacardi/RECE alliance decided to operate elsewhere and William Blum records that ‘During the next decade more than a hundred serious “incidents” took place in the US … including at least one murder.’

  In 1976 the CIA’s new director, George H. Bush, organised the more extreme exile gangs into a coalition known as CORU and chose Orlando Bosch to lead them. This Bosch (a paediatrician, unrelated to Pepin) had until recently been advisor to General Pinochet’s infamous secret police (DINA). In 1968 he had been convicted of sabotaging a Polish cargo boat in Miami harbour, a peccadillo the future President George H. Bush didn’t hold against him. On 14 October 1976, not long after starting his new CORU job, Orlando Bosch and his RECE colleague Luis Posada Carriles were arrested by the Venezuelan police and charged with dynamiting a Cubana Airlines plane.

  Posada Carriles had been planted in Venezuela by the CIA to ‘advise’ the Venezuelan security forces who so appreciated his advice that they made him Commissioner of their political police. Following his arrest in Caracas the CIA’s terrorist tactics were partially exposed and Washington felt painful national and international pressures. It seemed Castroism’s defeat would require another strategy: less direct action, more political manoeuvering. In Varga Llosa’s words, ‘RECE wedded itself to rum and politics again, and Bacardi was put in charge once again of almost all the bills.’

  During the early 1980s RECE was replaced by a far more coherent and economically powerful alliance, the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), skilfully constructed by a few RECE terrorists (rtd), several Bacardi directors and major shareholders, and enough experienced CIA operatives to give the others a new glow of confidence. Soon, surely, Cuba would be free!

  From its inception, CANF was involved in President Reagan’s secret NSC Directive No. 77 (‘Project Democracy’ – Oliver North, Irangate and so on.) The Foundation, studded with names respected in the best circles, served as a useful conduit for the National Endowment for Democracy’s (NED’s) funding of the Contras. Several high-ranking Bacardi executives were ‘Associates’ of CANF, providing sheaves of strings to be pulled and dollars beyond reckoning.

  As part of Project Democracy, the setting up of Radio Marti was approved in 1983, though many in the US Congress opposed it, foreseeing that it would boomerang. Its most enthusiastic backer was Charles Wick, director of the US Information Agency (USIA), the main US generator of misinformation. Richard Allen of the NSC described it as ‘CANF’s first important act in collaboration with the US government’.

  After the establishment of the ‘Bacardi Chair’ at the University of Miami in 1986, notable visiting academics, linked to both the Company and CANF, regularly lectured on such themes as ‘The History of Cuba’ and ‘Understanding Cuban Culture’. Among them was Jaime Suchlicki, author of Cuba from Columbus to Castro and Beyond. He is misinformative about the post-Soviet Cuban economy, the poor state of the health service, the US invasion of Grenada, the US embargo and the Castro brothers’ alleged involvement with the drugs trade. Oddly enough, he nowhere mentions CANF. However, this well-written history is worth reading for the insights it gives into the formation of the CANF-style mind-set during pre-Revolution generations.

  As the Soviet Union lay on its deathbed Washington’s NED was working overtime to ensure that all former members of the Soviet bloc would toe the line exactly where it was being drawn by the Unholy Trinity (the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization). CANF’s richest leaders, including a strong Bacardi component, were predictably involved in this enterprise. Soon two NED directors, the Republican politicians Robert Graham and Connie Mack, were accompanying a CANF pressure group to Moscow, to discuss with senior government officials the desirability of quickly turning Cuba adrift. As a reward, New Russians would receive preferential economic treatment in the US – especially in Florida. Who could spurn such a reward? Certainly not any of the New Russians then being seduced by the Unholy Trinity.

  Early in 1990 Jorge Mas Canosa, CANF’s chairman, issued a document for the eyes of his fellow-directors only. It ‘laid out the tactical elements which will be implemented prior to the expected collapse of the [Cuban] communist government’. Read in conjunction with the State Department’s ‘Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba’, Mas Canosa’s blueprint is chilling. It ends:

  Organise a task force to systematise and strengthen working relations established with the State Department with the aim of jointly devising and developing new international policies which respond to the present situation … Nothing nor no one will make us falter. We do not wish it but if blood has to flow, it will flow.

  Before noon on 25 December 1991, hours after the birth of the New Russia, a CANF delegation met Foreign Affairs Minister, Andrei Kozyrev. Everyone was happy. As Varga Llosa has recorded:

  The minister promised to put an end to subsidies and change the relationship with Cuba to one based on strictly commercial lines … to speed up the withdrawal of troops and to vote against Cuba in Geneva … That was when the glasses were raised to toast a free Cuba. Because in a way that morning sealed Castro’s fate. That was when the halting of economic aid to Castro was announced to the world … There was nothing secret about the discussion. We raised a toast in front of the TV cameras with Bacardi rum. The box and bottle stood out in the middle of the table, the name of the rum displayed for all to see.

  As we now know, that toast was premature.

  The 1990s saw three Cuban-Americans elected to the US Congress: in New Jersey Robert Menendez, in Florida Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart (a nephew of Fidel’s first wife, Mirta Diaz Balart). To increase the Special Period’s hardships by penalising any company trading with Cuba, the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 (aka the Torricelli Act) was sponsored by a Democrat from New Jersey where many Cuban exiles had settled. Robert Torricelli and his fellow-lobbyists received generous funding from the Bacardi family, as did CANF’s pressure group in Washington which modelled itself, very successfully, on the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee.

  When President Clinton partially lifted the embargo on Vietnam in 1994, CANF feared he might do likewise for Cuba. Sounding more than slightly mad, they called for a nation-wide ‘Great Patriotic Strike’ to hit factories, shops, offices. They demanded the revocation of ‘the agreement with the old Soviet Union, made during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and in which the US undertook not to invade Cuba’. Frantically they called on President Clinton to accept their ‘preparations for military action against Fidel Castro’s government’. In support of this strike call, Xiomara Lindner, political advisor to the president of Bacardi Imports, provided a fleet of buses to take a thousand or so Miami protesters to Washington where they stood outside the White House brandishing banners accusing Clinton of ‘communism’. Bacardi (by then Bacardi-Martini) must have had some hidden reason for encouraging these rabid subversives.

  By 1995 it had become apparent that Torricelli was not working, that Fidel was in no danger of being lynched by starving mobs. Instead, Cuba’s economy was being revived by transfusions of hard currency from the tourist trade. And so the Bacardis opened their purses yet again to grease the wheels of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act (aka the Helms-Burton Act). This was designed to intimidate investors from Europe, Japan, Latin America, Canada; its designers were sensitive to the fact that, come the new ‘democratic’ free-market Cuba, all those foreign investors would get in the way of US and Cuban-American entrepreneurs.

  CANF invited Jesse Helms to Miami in April 1995 while he was seeking support for his Bill. A local newspaper, Diaros Los Americas, reported:

  Lunch was taken in an atmosphere of true patriotism, attended by many of the most representative and distinguished Cuban exile groups. Pepe Hernandez, CANF president, gave a speech heard with rapt attention. Next up to speak was Rodolfo A. Ruiz, president of Bacardi Imports, who eloquently addressed the audie
nce expressing the feelings of all those present that it was imperative to see a free Cuba. Senator Helms stepped on to the platform to outline his thoughts. He had always been a dedicated fighter on behalf of the freedom of all peoples, on this occasion by presenting a Bill that would worsen the economy for the oppressive Havana regime.

  The Baltimore Sun noted: ‘Bacardi executives joined Jorge Mas Canosa, who heads CANF, in sponsoring a fund-raising lunch for Mr Helms which grossed more than seventy-five thousand dollars.’

  Miami’s El Nuevo Herald noted: ‘The Bill contains measures that will benefit businesses such as Bacardi and the Fanjul family of sugar magnates. This is normal given the tradition that exists in the US of lobbying in Congress on behalf of private interests. In this case, however, criticisms are raised due to its openly stated political aims.’

  The Miami Herald noted that ‘on the Hill’ the Helms-Burton proposals were known as ‘the Bacardi Bill’ and Wayne Smith referred to it as ‘the Bacardi Claims Act’. Juan Prado, advisor to the chairman of Bacardi’s Miami board of directors, made no attempt to deflect such criticisms. Bluntly he stated – ‘Bacardi would be a prime beneficiary if the Helms Bill became law’.

  El Nuevo Herald commented: ‘Although Bacardi’s headquarters are in Bermuda, its US subsidiaries or any one of the around five hundred family members who have become citizens of our country could benefit from this Act and lodge claims in the courts.’

  What Jesse Helms described as his ‘Adios, Fidel Bill’ had been designed as an ‘enhanced’ anti-Castroism missile. But then, like many such weapons, it caused unexpected collateral damage. The Unholy Trinity and kindred institutions didn’t appreciate being threatened with US sanctions if they eased Cuba’s economic discomfort in any way. The EU’s rage was white-hot – how dare the US try to bully other countries into obeying its laws! Helms-Burton violated the general principles of international law! Canada also took umbrage, quoting the case of Ian Delaney, Sherritt’s CEO, who was forbidden to enter the US because his company had set up a joint venture in Havana. It seemed the State Department’s Bacardi-driven lawyers, beavering away in their Washington offices, had lost sight of reality; everyone united to condemn the Helms-Burtons Act which stays on the statute books but has been used gingerly. However, the relevant financial institutions have remained cautious and the Cuban government must still pay abnormally high interest rates to private lenders.

  Chapter 13

  Undaunted by previous experience, I booked a seat on the twice-weekly Havana-Bayamo train service (alleged dep. 7.25 p.m.). The only alternatives were hitch-hiking, which could take several days, or a Viazul coach.

  At 8.50 p.m. we passengers were loosed on to the ill-lit platform and confusion immediately set in; even by daylight the faint print on my ticket, giving coach, compartment and seat numbers, was well nigh illegible. When I opened a coach door at random its inner panel fell off, blocking my way. Clambering over it, I groped down a corridor by a glimmer of platform light and found an empty compartment where I was still alone at 9.45. The engine then made eerie noises, setting it apart from any other engine I’ve known, and moved off at a slow walking speed. All this seemed too good to be true; silence and darkness blessed my coach, whatever its number: I could stretch out and sleep, at least until the first stop.

  Some time later three chain-smoking adults and a fretful toddler woke me. Unsurprised, I sat up, eyelids drooping, and tried to determine from the voices how many of each sex were present; for moments the toddler was so fretful I thought s/he (?) was two toddlers. Soon the adults (two male, one female) were furiously quarrelling and exhaling rum fumes. Cubans tend to shout, even when not arguing, possibly because conversations must often compete with insanely amplified music coming from several different directions. This row, inexplicably, quieted the toddler.

  An hour or so later, when the last cigarettes had been stamped on the floor and everyone except me was asleep, all hell broke loose nearby. A conductress was on the prowl, checking everyone’s seating. In Havana, where conflicting views were held about the numbering of twelve unmarked coaches, many passengers had settled wherever they could find space and now resented being moved.

  Oddly enough, my companions were correctly placed – very clever of them, I thought. Now the combination of her own dying torch and my faintly inked ticket challenged our conductress. Only when one of the men lent his cigarette-lighter could she see that mine was seat three in compartment B in coach six – three coaches away. She then recruited this same man to lead me through total darkness. He wore my rucksack, I carried my shoulder-bag and used my umbrella to steady myself: hereabouts the train was behaving like a small boat on a stormy sea. One is accustomed to the bits between coaches moving beneath one’s feet – that’s unalarming. In this case however there were no bits: one had to leap from coach to coach. As we moved slowly along the corridor of the second coach I felt the floor giving beneath my feet and momentarily I panicked. (Readers of some of my previous books – e.g., Laos, Siberia – will understand why.) However, the sinking floor sensation happened repeatedly and was just another of the Bayamo service’s idiosyncrasies and not immediately threatening – though one day those rotting boards may well claim victims.

  In coach number 6 my guide used his cigarette-lighter to peer at labels, then roused a man comfortably curled up on two seats – his and mine, apparently. Without complaint, he shifted his position as I thanked my guide; until then, he and I had exchanged not a word. With rucksack on lap, because I couldn’t see where to store it, I leant back in my seat and received a small but painful scalp wound; it oozed enough blood to matt my hair. Where a headrest had been three sharp metal spikes protruded. My bag contained one tin of Buccanero, for emergencies. I now felt its time had come and quickly drank it – a mistake …

  In due course those 355 ml. sought the exit and by the light of a full moon, newly emerged from dispersing clouds, I located the baño – seemingly occupied. Having waited a reasonable time I tried the door again, pushing hard. It swung open to reveal a vacuum: below was Mother Earth. At a certain point one ceases to believe in the reality of what’s happening – it must all be an illusion – yet somehow one has to go along with it. But for the moon, I would have stepped forward to my death – not exactly a premature death but an unpleasant and rather silly way to go. The door bore a prominent notice – DANGER! DO NOT OPEN! – but some more drastic deterrent is required in an unlit train that habitually travels by night. Opposite the baño was the coach exit, its steps conveniently missing so that one could pee, more or less accurately, on to the track. But only more or less: such situations provoke penis envy.

  The baño at the other end of number 6, visited during the day, had no door – or loo or washbasin, though their sites were obvious. Here one had to relieve one’s bladder and bowels in full view of passers-by. The latter activity was performed as close as possible to the walls – a much used space, halfway through our twenty-hour journey.

  We covered the first two hundred and fifty miles in eleven and a half hours including a long stop in Santa Clara, while a passenger train and two freight trains passed on their way to Havana. Then, speeding up, we achieved fifty miles in one and a half hours. After that I lost interest in our progress and concentrated on my awakening companions. All five were going to a conference at Bayamo University and their company made the travail of moving to coach 6 seem worthwhile. Four spoke English – ‘necessary for our research’. Academic salaries left them with no choice but to take this unbelievable train, one-third the price of the cheapest bus. My tourist ticket cost CP25.50, they paid the equivalent of CP1.50.

  Moribund sugar-mills, their stacks visible from afar, punctuated these hundreds of miles of flatness. Some were inscribed ‘MADE IN PERU: 1978’. My commenting on the job losses brought a sharp response from Aleida, leader of the academics. All those workers had been retrained, given new jobs. When I asked what sort of jobs my tone perhaps suggested scepticism and the Professor snappe
d, ‘In factories and municipalities’. It would have been too provocative to wonder how those institutions suddenly came to need thousands of extra workers.

  Aleida seemed to distrust the foreign writer. Her four male colleagues would, I intuited, have talked more freely but she, their senior in age and status, retained firm control of our exchanges. Sometimes my companions spoke English for my benefit, sometimes they argued in Spanish about Bush, Guantanamo Bay, tourism – and then one sensed the men’s hesitancy when disagreements arose. Rather than assert themselves, they exchanged furtively supportive glances. It was of course a coincidence that the professor happened to be white – a thin, tense, humourless little woman – while her much more outgoing juniors were mulattos and a black.

  From Bayamo’s station a ten-minute walk took me to Miranda’s rather luxurious casa particular where my hostess exclaimed, ‘Desde Havana el tren! Muy dificil!’ ‘Si,’ I agreed, ‘pero muy interesante!’

  Later, writing my diary, I recalled a stimulating debate at Key West’s literary seminar: to what (if any) extent is it permissible for travel writers to embellish or exaggerate incidents – even to enhance narratives with fiction if that makes for a ‘better read’? Our divergence of opinion was decisively age-related. The oldies – Peter Matthiessen, Barry Lopez and myself – were adamantly opposed to any element of fiction and only grudgingly tolerant of embellishments and exaggerations. I think it was Barry Lopez who noted that travel writers have a duty of accuracy. By being strictly factual they can make a small but not insignificant contribution to future generations’ knowledge of how things were, in countries A, B or C, when they went that way. Someone mentioned Afghanistan as an example. The version of that country’s culture and history currently being promoted is counter-balanced or contradicted by such travel writers as Mountstuart Elphinstone, Robert Warburton, George Robertson, Robert Byron, Ella Maillart, Peter Mayne, Eric Newby, Peter Levi (and myself). Incidentally, Peter Levi’s perception seems even more painfully keen now than it was when he wrote in 1971: ‘As a political entity Afghanistan is nothing but a chewed bone left over on the plate between Imperial Russia and British India.’