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Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s article is informative important because of
the light it sheds on the errors and miscalculations made by the United
States during the Cuban missile crisis, such as Washington’s
conclusion that there were 10.000 Soviet troops in Cuba when there
actually were
43,000, and the belief in Washington that warheads there were no nuclear
on the island, when they were there and we now know that the Soviet
field commanders in Cuba were authorized to use them against an American invasion. Equally interesting is the article’s discussion
of human rights violations in Cuba, including the recent abuses against
María Elena Cruz Varela, who, as described by the article, “was
brutally treated by government demonstrators and forced to swallow a
moving declaration of principles she had written for the small human
rights group Criterio Alternativo.” The article allows the reader to
perceive the callousness and simplistic, scapegoat mentality with which
the Castro regime views the human rights activists it is punishing, like
Yndamiro Restano, Sebastian Arcos and Elizardo Sánchez Santacruz, whom
Carlos Aldana, “the leading ideologue of the Politburo,” is quoted
in the article as having described as “counterrevolutionary garbage...
directed by the CIA.” Given the state of repression in Cuba that Mr. Schlesinger
forthrightly describes, it isn’t surprising that his “Havana
Diary” concludes describing Fidel Castro as “a tyrant and a bully”
and wondering whether he won’t end as one of “the last of the
neo-Stalinist dinosaurs.” Given
this background and the admission that “opportunities for
observation” during his visit to Cuba “were limited,” it is
surprising, however, that Mr. Schlesinger could even suggest that
“Castro seems to retain much of his old popularity,” while in the
next breath he notes that “without free speech, free press, free
elections, how can one tell?” and clarifies that “the police are
ever ready to suppress public protest and dissidence.” Surely the
world’s experience with the fall of totalitarian states over the last
couple of years should have taught us to look past the apparent
“popularity” of their leaders (like Ceausescu, in Romania),
particularly in circumstances like those in Cuba, which have led to a
dramatic increase over the past two years not only in escapes by the
disadvantaged, who risk their lives in
precarious boats, but also in defections by people in positions of
privilege in the government and the military. It
is also somewhat surprising, given past miscalculations, that Mr.
Schlesinger would recommend normalization of relations between the
United States and Cuba and argue that the embargo currently in effect
hasn’t worked over the past thirty years. There is, of course, no way
of knowing what would have happened over the past three decades had the
embargo not been in place, but there is abundant evidence of what has
happened each time this country reduced its pressure on Cuba. Three
examples should suffice: In 1975 the United States eased controls that
had prohibited trading with Cuba by off-shore affiliates of US companies
and ended all restrictions on foreign flagships in the Cuba trade. In
the face of these actions, Cuba intervened in Angola. In 1977 the United
States stopped reconnaissance flights over Cuba and reduced restrictions
on travel to the island. This time Cuba immediately increased its troops
in Angola and sent troops to Ethiopia. In early 1979 the State
Department circulated a report recommending the reestablishment of
diplomatic ties with Cuba. A few month later two Soviet brigades and
MIG-23s capable of carrying nuclear weapons were on the island and
Castro’s major intervention in Central America began. Now
Castro would have the United States believe that these destabilizing
Cuban activities have stopped because the Cuban government has become
“more mature,” as he told Mr. Schlesinger. The fact is that Cuba
simply no longer has the means to maintain tens of thousands of soldiers
on various fronts, as it had. With the collapse of Communism all over
the world, Cuba has lost the sources of support that helped with its
adventurism and enabled it to hold out in the face of the embargo. In
fact, without hard currency to replace its lost, cheap supply of Soviet
oil, Cuba is reduced to drawing many vehicles by animal power. In these
circumstances, the danger of Castro’s further exporting revolution is
no doubt limited so why, one wonders in light of past experience with
eased restrictions, would the United States want to lift the embargo
now? It is the Cuban “New Class” and the military, which consume a
large part of the island’s resources, that suffer most from the
embargo; lifting it would result in the channeling of resources there,
not to the people. If history teaches us anything, certainly lifting the
embargo isn’t going to lead the Cuban government to a new found
respect for human rights or to allow the people to freely choose the
kind of society in which they want to live or the government they
prefer. |
