Fidel Castro has decided that he will be el presidente no more. After suffering an invasion attempt and bungled attempts at assassination, he gets to leave on his own terms which will royally piss off the Cuban émigré in the US and their supporters. It also represents a failure of the cold war hissy fit that passed as US policy on Cuba for many decades.
Hopefully, Castro’s resignation will see a detente in relations between between the US and Cuba and an end to the irrational US policy on Cuba. On the Cuban side, there is a lot that needs to be done to relax restrictions on political freedom as well as improve their human rights record.
A historical what if is would have Castro held onto power so long of the US had adopted more liberal approach to their relations with Cuba?
Then again, maybe the reason for Castro’s resignation is something akin to what happened in this Simpsons’ episode:
Fidel Castro: Comrads, our nation is completely bankrupt! We have no choice but to abandon communism!
Castro’s Aide #1, Castro’s Associates: [sigh]
Fidel Castro: I know, I know, I know… but we all knew from day one this mumbo jumbo wouldn’t fly! I’ll call Washington and tell them they won.
Castro’s Aide #1: But presidente, America tried to kill you!
Fidel Castro: Ah, they’re not so bad. They even named a street after me in San Francisco!
[Aide #2 whispers something into his ear]
Fidel Castro: It’s full of what?
I’ll miss the old bugger. The way he used to stick it to the yanks was a constant delight.
I’ll miss him too. Already Bush is spewing excrement about American helping Cuba to ‘democratise’. (Yeah cause they are being so helpful bringing democracy to the ME). I know this is unfinished business for the Yanks but I do hope that they will let the cubans work out what’s next on their own…(sigh)
As with Suharto, I prefer my dictators dancing on a gibbet like Saddam.
But dying screaming with cancer is good too.
What a horrid little man: riding to victory on waves of discontent under dictator Battista, at first claiming he didn’t want to be President, then bringing in a murderous and dictatorial regime; and - surprise, surprise - awarding himself President-for-Life.
By duration of rule, easily outdoing Battista. By duration of Presidential monologues in Havana, vying for Bore-of-the-Century. By low living standards, a disappointment to his people. By secret police, Neighbourhood Watch for dissidence, jail terms for oppositionists, just another crummy little tinpot, macho dictator. What a fraud. Gave “centralist socialism” a bad name - were it possible to outdo various predecessors around the globe.
The economic blockade was nasty - but pehaps preceded by Cuban Govt seizing US property? (I can’t recall). It may have been entertaining to watch him taunt los Yanquis - but at what cost to the Cuban people? What price are we prepared to pay [meausred in the misey of distant sisters and brothers] for a bit of cheap political entertainment? I ask as one who once found him amusing…. but have since been reading accounts of his early years. Sad reading, vicious and ineffectual policies.
The front page story in The Age today referred in its second paragraph to Castro as the man “who brought the world to the brink of nuclear war”. Several pages inside there was a story about Lee Oswald and Jack Ruby and the assassination of John Kennedy. Surprise, surprise, Kennedy wasn’t glossed as a man “who had brought the world to the brink of nuclear war”.
I’m reminded of Hitchens’ line: many people remember where they were when Kennedy was killed, but how many remember where they were when Kennedy tried to kill them?
Anthony, the notion that Castro and Che Guevara “brought the world to the brink of nuclear war” was also held by the Soviet leadership at the time. This transcript of a discussion between Anastas Mikoyan and the Cuban leadership (sans Castro, who was indisposed, but including Che) shows that the Cubans were deeply unhappy with the Soviets’ decision to withdraw the missiles. Che berated Mikoyan in the most romantically r-r-revolutionary terms. Mikoyan sagely said in response:
At the risk of confirming Graeme Bird’s prejudices, I think we owe a debt of gratitude to the cool heads of Mikoyan and Khrushchev during the Cuban Crisis, without which there might well be many fewer of us here to argue about those events.
George is speaking out, all right, Raye.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/world/americas/20rwanda.html?ref=world
He reckons the Cubans should have “free and fair elections” in a move towards democracy. We can only hope that something similar might eventuate in his homeland. That boy is always good for a laff isn’t he?
Hopefully this will mark the beginning of the end of the futile sanctions regime, and the regime it has bolstered.
For a start they might begin with legalising political parties other than the ruling Communist party, then holding free and fair multi-party elections.
And by establishing an independent judiciary which upholds the rule of law rather than the whims of the dictator.
One can only hope.
Some more interesting transcripts from the missile crisis here, here and here.
Hopefully this is 1989 for Cuba.
I should add that the documents I’ve linked to will all require some sifting of the Leninist-Stalinist rhetoric and codes in order to get to the gist, but it is clear enough that Castro and Che were spoiling for a fight with the Americans and probably had no idea of the possible consequences.
Craig Mc,
While I never approve of capital punishment, murderous tyrants like Castro come closest to deserving it. The gibbet should be for no-one.
The pity is he may never face a court and be forced to confront the simple fact that he has murdered, starved and impoverished “his” people for half a century and, in the process, tried to help the process that would have killed us all.
The US policy was and is undoubtedly a failed one, but that in no way excuses him for his many crimes.
I have always found it odd that some people will excuse (or even laud) crimes when they are done in the name of “Socialism” or “Communism” while those same crimes, with the same effects, are detested when they are done in some other cause - like “Nationalism” or “Patriotism”.
Both are wrong, and using affectionate terms (like “old bugger”) for their perpetrators is simply, IMHO, wrong.
“I should add that the documents I’ve linked to will all require some sifting of the Leninist-Stalinist rhetoric ….”
Paul thanks for the warning but i am sure that many here listen and watch The ABC, the official organ of the communist party of Australia. We can pick the nuance.
Now that Castro is gone or will have less influence on events in Cuba there is a great opportunity for the true flower of socialism to bear fruit. It’s unfortunate that Castro became sidetracked by the enmity bestowed upon Cuba by the United States and failed to achieve in other areas of the Cuban economy the wonderful results that came about in Health and Education.
We can only view with envy what really principled policy can achieve and with Castro’s leaving the stage new opportunities for socialism to flourish and provide an example of what is possible in a decidedly hostile region should be looked forward to by all socialists and progressives with eager anticipation.
Ive always seen Castro’s Cuba, whatever else it might be, as a a long delayed nationalist period. Cuba was unusual in not already being independent from Spain when the US seized it and Puerto Rico as colonial booty in 1898, followed later by a host of absolutely worthless and abusive tyrant puppets backed by the US.
Much of Cuban Communism was a long delayed nationalist movement.
I personally dont expect much will change till Castro dies; whether he’s retired or not he’ll wield power.
and I similarly always find it odd that people who are so quick to beg for “context”, nuance, counterfactuals and deep analysis when discussing dictators who are friends of the west, like Suharto and Pinochet, never extend the same kindness to a man who took over a repressed and poverty-stricken nation. What would Cuba have been like without the revolution? Haiti, most likely, and I bet there aren’t many Cubans who would like to live in Haiti. Cuba without the embargo is a different story altogether, yet it is always Castro who is blamed for “impoverishing” Cuba, a nation which despite a 49 year embargo can give development aid to other nations.
Perspective, eh, it’s a wonderful thing in defense of Pinochet, but a right shit when you have to offer it equally to all sides.
(Not that I particularly accuse you of this, Mr. Reynolds - but the media are rife with it today, and of course no challenge of the embargo, which really … has there ever been a less effective piece of foreign policy barbarity?)
Cuba has a crap economic growth record despite huge Soviet subsidies, due to self-inflicted errors. Human Development indicators look good for the current level of national income but ask why national income is so low? On human rights the main factor that will drive the CP’s electoral defeat is less the individual persecutions of dissidents than the overwhelming sense of surveillance and control. What % of the population are secret police informers?
SG,
What would Indonesia have been without Suharto? Perhaps Cambodia or Laos? Does that excuse what Suharto did any more than what Castro has done to Cuba? I would say no, but it certainly does not place Castro in any better a category that Suharto is in.
Suharto took a country that was grindingly poor but rich in natural resources, stole much of the resource base but at least kept development going.
Castro took a country that was (comparatively) rich and has left it an economic basket case. We do not know if he stole much of it. As for the embargo really hurting? Nonsense. It has been a convenient whipping boy for decades. Europe and the rest of the world never blocked trade with Cuba and the things Cuba sells were always in demand beyond the US.
At a rough guess, at a proportion of the population killed they would be much of a muchness - although I am happy to be corrected there.
Who was better?
Actually, Cubans-against-Castro are a bit like the Judean People’s Liberation Front from Life of Brian:
“What has that despot ever done for us apart from remove our political freedoms?”
“Well, there’s education”
“… and better child mortality indices than the US”
“… close to the best doctor/patient ratio in the world”
“… almost no incidence of AIDs”
“… the world’s only country that meets sustainability and human development criteria of the UNDP”
“… Yes, but apart from health, education, and a sustainable environment, what’s he ever done for us?”
Dave,
You could at least get the revolutionary group’s name right - they were the “People’s Front of Judea”. The “Judean People’s Liberation Front” were a mob of splitters.
As for the rest, looks like you have swallowed the propaganda virtually wholesale.
Hands up if any of the statistics that came out of any of the former Soviet Bloc countries was correct. Any of them. Any at all.
Even if any any every one of those numbers was correct (and I very much doubt they are) even then you are at risk of excusing mass murder on the basis health outcomes. Dodgy grounds indeed.
I’m not really a defender of Cuba, but to compare it in any way to Suharto’s Indonesia in terms of state orchestrated executions is ridiculous, and probably undermines serious critique of the regime in question.
Indonesia by a country mile.
Well Andrew, if you are going to complain that only what you believe is true (the statistics are wrong, are they?) and if you are going to use some legalistic excuse like “Europe never blockaded Cuba”, there isn’t much left to talk about is there? The claim that Cuba was “comparatively” rich before Castro could be fleshed out a little - is that comparative to the US or Haiti? The US or Indonesia?
And then we’re meant to believe that Cuba experienced the same level of mass murder as Indonesia? Or perhaps you were comparing it to Cambodia?
I thought I mentioned something about balance…
Indonesia refuses to admit homosexuals exist.
Castro on the other hand recognised their existence… by putting them in front of a firing squad for it.
Oh yeah, the US Mafiosi who controlled the casinos and pulled Battista’s strings were very rich.
As a friend of mine who spent time in a Cuban labour battalion observed - if the Yanquis move back in after Castro dies, they’ll have the best educated children in the world to exploit as prostitutes this time
My take on that is that Castro was compelled to ally with the Soviets considering the policies of the United Stated states as evidenced by the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954.
>
When Castro took power Allen Dulles was still the director of the CIA. Dulles, along with his brother John (Eisenhower’s Styate Secretary) had interests in the United Fruit Company which was cosy with Latin American plutocrats like Batista. Castro’s choice was plain: go with the Yanks and continue on with business much as usual thus making his revolutionary struggle meaningless, try and go his own way and set up a liberal/social democracy aka Arbenz and risk getting the boot or the bullet from the CIA or ally himself with the Soviets.
>
In realpolitik terms the solution was obvious. It was also a class illustration of Machievelli’s assertion that politics have no relation to morals. Given that the United States, at least from the end of the second World War to the present, has betrayed itself (to borrow from Barbara Tuchman) and that it has frequently undermined genuine democratic movements in favour of ruthless autocracy in furtherance of its own interests, Castro made the smart move. A cursory examination of the treatment of the Sandanistas will show how difficult it is to institute genuine democracy in the region if the US feels such is counter to their interests.
>
Which isn’t to say that this wasn’t most unfortunate for all those people who faced the rough end of Communist ‘justice’.
>
I hope that the Cubans will be able to make the transition to democracy in the near future. I hope also that the US will produce a leader who is wise enough and strong enough to see that, no matter the short term losses, in the long term it is in their interests and the interests of the world to see such happening; to say nothing of Cubans themselves.
>
Funnily enough I was thinking of this thru the prism of A Few Good Men last night. Two lines went thru my mind. The first by Col Jessop who boast that he “eats breakfast 300 yeards from 4000 Cubans who are trying to kill him”; the second from Lt Comm Galloway (Demi Moore) who lauds the marines because “they stand on a wall and say nothing is going to hurt you tonight. Not on my watch”.
>
??? The self-delusion is amazing. I know it’s only a movie but I think it expresses something about the paranoia at the heart of US foreign attitudes. From these lines one would think that it was Cuba that was the aggressive superpower occupying a corner of the sovereign land of the poor little United States.
>
Castro should’ve called elections in 1964 when he promised to do so. That he didn’t is his fault. It is however hard for most people to simply walk away from power. The Americans made it much much harder.
Suffice to say, political killings are unacceptable, period.
But if we’re talking ‘levels’ or percentages, Cuba is much like Pinochet’s Chile - and a mile behind the disgusting ‘anti-communist’ (actually, anti-indigenous)purges by US backed regimes in Guatemala, with nominally elected leaders like Rios Montt (of course, a graduate of US School of the Americas). Estimated deaths since the installation of a pro-US regime in 1954 are at least 100,000, mainly between 1960 and 1985. And still going on - 2500 murders since 2001.
Rios Montt is yet to face justice.
Andrew Reynolds
You said:
Hands up if any of the statistics that came out of any of the former Soviet Bloc countries was correct. Any of them. Any at all.
Actually, data I’ve used on my own blog (this is the post with the densest hard data) comes from such sources as the UN Development Program, the World Wildlife Fund, and, wait for it, wait for it, THE CIA WORLD FACT BOOK. If the US Central Intelligence Agency were to fudge any figures about Castro, you can bet the data would have been skewed negatively. CIA data on Cuban demographics, literacy and health are here, child mortality rankings here (US is 180th worst in the world, Cuba at 182, Oz at 202, Singapore (best) at 221).
Do you care to give a source for what you call “mass murders”?
BTW: If you visit the CIA, check out the Junior Secret Squirrel pages, including games.
Cuba never had much going for it besides cigars, sugar, tobacco and tourism, all of which continue to support, if you can call it that, its economy today, and those’re all it’ll have when Castro and communism are gone for real. The transition away from communist totalitarianism is inevitable at this point, although, like the Miami exiles I’m not holding my breath. Don’t expect the U.S. to invade, either, absent a descent into Haitian-style chaos. But when the change comes, the biggest export Cuba will produce will be immigrants, and it’s biggest import will be lawsuits.
And music. Don’t forget the music.
Poor Cubans, frozen in a rictus of commie self-righteousness.
Dumb Yanks. They could have loved Castro to death decades ago. Instead they elevate him into icon status with their own version of self-righteousness.
Even the Bay of Pigs veteran interviewed on the ABC this morning implored Bush to butt out of Cuban affairs, given the now genetic inability of the US to deal sensibly with the existence of a small, poor nation under its nose.
Castro bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war?? Gimme a break. He exercised his sovereign right to arm his country as he saw fit.
The Khrushchev got rid of the Jupiter missiles in Turkey, got a guarantee of non-invasion of Cuba by the US.
And the KGB got rid of Khrushchev.
(And about 50 nukes remained in Cuba after the pull-back of the photographed ones.)
Not a bad result for 13 days’ work.
Hands up if you know how many Cuban doctors have voluntarily served in East Timor.
I very much doubt that 50 nuclear-armed missiles remained in cuba, el katz!
hasta la vista
286 Mr zorronsky
As I said, happy to accept correction. If anyone has (reasonably) accurate statistics related to political murders (or any murders) by the governments of Cuba both before and after the revolution I would be interested. I strongly suspect they would have gone up markedly after the revolution - though perhaps not to the levels of Suharto, or, much worse, Cambodia, China or Russia.
As for the rest, I agree with Greg. Despite having (probably) improved health outcomes and better education the people of Cuba they are now dirt poor and, after the next government actually ditches dictatorship, they will probably be well-educated taxi drivers and other underpaid service personnel.
I hope I am wrong in that, BTW.
That was the allegation made to John Ranelagh in his study of the CIA, ep 1, “Hi-Tech, Low Cunning”.
http://www.answers.com/topic/cia-the-secret-files-part-1-hi-tech-low-cunning?cat=entertainment
Bill Mollison the Alternative Peace Prize winner,and Permaculture Gardens were immediately acceptable to Castros Cuba.Barefoot Marxism had him as a booted Marxist,or to be more correct Barefoot Socialism,a good mag,all about leading a green revolutionary life,and work no more than two hours a day.Apparently,one can only find fault with Cubas Castro for shooting homosexuals,to starving the population to viciousness generally,whilst the U.S.A. is the cleanest skin on the Planet with all sorts of records out in front of any known civilized society in the killing and other races.The reason they havent bombed the innocent citizens of Cuba is because they had other locations to get rid of spent Nuclear warheads,and,also destroy other island states around the Bermuda triangle.The bravest thing Fidel has achieved is retiring unambiguously,and heaps of money for and against him has gone to all the publishers of books on him,maybe more than the total Gross figures for every year of Cubas existence.And all these Publishers are totally and completely honest without a vested interest!?Dont you think!?
There are several hundred Cuban doctors in Timor - Ive met a few. More importantly, they are training nearly 1000 Timorese back in Cuba to take over when they graduate. PNG and Vanuatu look likely to take some doctors to, may have already.
The Cubans also run a major rural literacy program in Timor.
Lefty E,
Good to see they are sending out people suited to help fix problems, rather than Che.
Also good to see the doctors are doing some thing more useful than driving taxis, as they probably would be doing in Havana.
Katz@28
“poor Cubans”, eh? Perhaps you meant “Poor Cuban government”? If there were free elections, I doubt the commies would get many votes. Shall we open a book here? I bet their vote is below 15%.
Katz said: “Castro bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war?? Gimme a break. He exercised his sovereign right to arm his country as he saw fit.”
oh well, that’s OK then. By this logic it’s OK for Israel, Pakistan, India, France, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Canada, USA, China, UK, Australia, Ghana, Egypt, etc to have nuclear weapons too. Sovereign states. Arm themselves as they see fit. Fine and dandy. No objections from Katz. I’m lost for words. Really. Have you read about or visited Hiroshima? And that was a SMALL nuclear bomb, nowhere near “world’s best practice” Katz.
Katz writes: “Not a bad result for 13 days’ work”. Although there’s a fair bit of competition, I nominate this as an entrant in the next Callous Flippancy Awards. My guess is that you were alive and literate in 1962. Do you remember the fear, Katz?? Many millions in Europe, USSR, North America thought they were likely scheduled for vaporisation. And the vaporised would have been the lucky ones. The radiological pall would have blighted the planet for decades. Yet you adjudge the outcome of that international crisis “not a bad result”. Your words send a chill through me. The planet is real, Katz. Many of us would prefer it NOT be converted into a longlasting horror….
Katz you call Cuba a small, poor nation. By your lights, do most “small, poor nations” have the right to possess or host nuclear missiles? You can guess my likely attitude. I’m interested to hear of yours.
Andrew you don’t get it, do you? 50 years of blockade and you accuse Castro of making Cubans dirt poor? The blockade was intended to stifle capital flows and trade - how else was Cuba meant to get rich?
It’s ridiculous blindness, plain and simple.
SG,
Is the US really the only country Cuba can sell sugar, tobacco etc. to? Nonsense. All the embargo (not blockade - that was in place for a few days in 1961 only) has done is close US ports to Cuba. Everything Cuba has wanted to sell it has been able to sell to others. All the capital it was willing to take could have been provided to it.
The embargo has been a consistent, and incorrect, excuse for decades - held on to by those who imagine that trading with the US is the best type of trade of all. I would not have thought you as being such a starry-eyed admirer of the US, SG - but I guess I was wrong.
What is this, Confected Outrage Week?
Why didn’t someone tell me? I’m genuinely outraged.
No actually, I’m only pretending to be outraged if it is in fact Confected Outrage Week.
Gosh Ambi.
Let’s straighten a few things out.
1. My sympathy was for the suffering of the Cuban people who have had to put up with Castro for almost half a century.
2. They weren’t Castro’s missiles. They were the Soviet Union’s missiles. Castro simply agreed to host them, like Turkey did for the US’s at the same time.
3. It was up to the US whether they decided to chuck a spaz over the Soviet Union’s missiles in Cuba. That’s what Kennedy did. No US spaz, no missile crisis. Capeche?
In reality the only ones to suffer from the blockade, SG, have been US cigar smokers who, if they want a legal one, need to get one from the Dominican Republic. They are not as good.
Wow! Clear thinking at its worst. Try no nuclear tipped missiles 130 kms off your coast then no missile crisis. And before you jump in with “what about Turkey?” I think that a very good outcome of the missile crisis was that the US withdrew their missiles from Turkey.
It gave us twenty years of relative peace until the Soviets decided to deploy the SS20, leading to the inevitable US and NATO response.
I certainly liked Castro. He reminded me of my father. Ready to lead from the front. Liked the sound of his own voice. Hard as nails.
I dare say the patriarchal thing is a strong element in his popularity throughout the world, especially amongst those with Latin background. Just as matriarchy works for the Queen, particularly amongst those Anglos who remember nanny.
I also had some time for his ideological program. Welfarist in economics, Nationalist in politics. Conservative in culture.
The results were not to bad, esp given the diverse nature of his nation. Cuba’s HDI rating is 51, ahead of Mexico. Evidently close economic relations with the USA are not the only thing that go to make a society work.
Pity he couldnt find some space for a bit of entrepreneurial capitalism, ala China.
Castro made Cuba a nicer place for families. was rather old-fashioned in his cultural philosophy, which favoured harsh punishments for social vices. The streets of Cuba were safer than pretty much any other Carribean country, except perhaps for Barbados. No Yardies in Havana!
All that will change when the Cubans get a proper dose of post-modern liberalism, surely coming their way as they open up to the RoW, esp Miami. It already got a taste, unfortunately.
GregM exhibits ideational inflexibility.
Why couldn’t the US have accepted missiles in Cuba as an unwelcome inevitability of the nuclear age?
Need I remind him that the US had already accepted the much more dangerous reality of the USSR as first a minor nuclear power and then for a time the most capable nuclear power without threatening imminent global armageddon? Why not threaten to go to war over that unwelcome inevitability?
It was the choice of the US to escalate the Cuban missile sites, a relatively small increment in the nuclear balance of terror, into a potentially world-ending confrontation.
27 Lefty E Feb 20th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Castro on a par with Pinochet as a political murderer! Well, that is almost right, except a little hard on Pinochet. He re-stored Chilean democracy and reived the Chilean economy.
Still it does Fidel an injustice. He always came accross as more human than the cold and unsympathetic Pinochet.
Lefty E says:
The ruling elites of Latin America have never needed much help from the US to monster their populations, as the example of Cortez proves. In fact Latin America , as the Cold War wound down in the late eighties, started to liberal democratise, with considerable prompting from the Reagan admninistration.
Now they wont have gringos to blame their problems on anymore.
But I understand it is important for Lefty preachers to maintain a healthy fear and loathing of right-wing demons amongst their congregation.
I saw Castro speak at a UN conference about 10 years ago. It was true there were few heads of state there, but when Castro addressed the conference, the hall was packed with members of other countries’ official delegations. He had a bigger audience than anyone else by a long shot. I thought this was interesting in itself.
He spoke in Spanish, but we had the instant translation. He railed against the west and against the US in particular. I thought he was charismatic and was a compelling performer. Lots of people lined up to have their pictures taken with him - including one of my colleagues.
Andrew, you do know that foreign companies which do business with Cuba are penalised in the US, don’t you? The embargo isn’t quite the toothless tiger you make it out to be.
But even if it were, are you trying to tell us that the sudden disappearance of US trade from the world economy tomorrow wouldn’t affect us all a little? That all those central banks and governments the world over worrying about a US recession are just silly? How much worse for a small nation economically dependent on primary industry exports to a vastly richer economy, do you think? Especially if that richer economy completely disappeared?
Few people in the Western world have any idea of the all-pervading vindictiveness of the medieval economic siege that Cuba has been forced to operate under for almost 50 years, one that has only increased in intensity over time.
Western propaganda has ensured that Westerners are almost totally ignorant of the fact that any corporation or business anywhere in the world that does any form of commercial exchange with Cuba is blackballed in the international commercial arena. So they stay away.
Yes, Cuba’s standard of living is low and its buildings are falling down and they have few flush toilets and they are forced to keep reconditioning cars from the fifties and bicycles probably from the forties to get around. Yet I defy any nation on earth to operate under such a horrendous, long-term, foreign-imposed economic burden and still manage to keep its people basically fed and sheltered – let alone achieve a world class medical and education system.
And, yes, a tight lid is kept on any form of seditious dissent – particularly of the right-wing kind. Yet in the face of the ongoing terrorist campaign mounted from US soil by the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organisations (including the downing of Cuban Airlines Flight 455 in 1976 with the loss of 73 lives) to overthrow the Cuban government and assassinate its president, I defy any nation to respond in any way other than Cuba has.
Jack, its wise to put a sock in it when you know nothing about an issue.
Read up on Guatemala, the School of the Americas, the fall of the Arbenz government (US planes literally flew in the new junta) and get back to us later.
The US could not have more centrally involved in the Guatemalan regime.
Well they could respond by having free and fair multi-party elections to resolve the issue. In the last twenty years lots of countries have done that and overall the outcome hasn’t been bad.
We seemed to have pulled off one here in Australia last year without too much bloodshed.
But there I go again with ideation inflexibility, a heinous wickedness according to Katz.
I wouldn’t assume free and fair elections would bring about all that much change. Almost all the anti-Communist Cubans live in the States, and the great majority wouldn’t be rushing back. Although the human rights picture is disturbing, it would be foolish to overestimate the size of the mostly middle class and very small opposition to Castro. I’m not pushing the whole “socialist paradise” line, but you have to remember what came before - and the reality of literacy and health in Cuba.
The same sort of thing that happened in Russia is most unlikely to happen in Cuba. Any sort of transition is likely to be much closer to where, say, Vietnam is now.
And, incidentally, Russia is a good counter-example to the narrative of “with democracy comes love of capitalism” thing. Not that I’m saying that’s what you’re saying, GregM.
Interesting and nuanced post from Shiraz Socialist, who was in Cuba in the 90s:
http://shirazsocialist.wordpress.com/2008/02/20/socialism-in-one-country-fidel-steps-down/
Not wicked, just enervating.
<blockquote.And, incidentally, Russia is a good counter-example to the narrative of “with democracy comes love of capitalism� thing. Not that I’m saying that’s what you’re saying, GregM.,/blockquote.
Actually it is what I am saying Kim. Russia is working itself out. With a legacy of five hundred years of autocracy and seventy years of even worse autocracy it’s not doing a bad job at all. Just be patient.
.I’m not pushing the whole “socialist paradise� line, but you have to remember what came before - and the reality of literacy and health in Cuba.
Kim, have you ever researched those statistics. Cuba before Castro wasn’t heaven on earth but it wasn’t hell either. They were doing pretty well both on the literacy and health scales of the time, indeed on a number of measures better than European countries.(I appreciate that here Katz will intervene to point out my ideation inflexibility, but I’d rather stick with the facts).
Oh yes it would,Kim. Even if it returned every member of Castro’s party to office it would give them legitimacy. They would speak as authentic voices of their people, which they are not now.
Gee, just when I was agreeing with Jack’s observations for once, he had to go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like “started to liberal democratise, with considerable prompting from the Reagan admninistration”.
You mean like funding the Contras by selling weapons to murderous fundie dipsticks?
“And, incidentally, Russia is a good counter-example to the narrative of “with democracy comes love of capitalismâ€? thing.”
As is China. Between ‘em they’ve a invented a new model for the 21st century. Globalised capitalism without democracy. Good for us Western legacy holders (cheap computers!)so far…
GregM, that comment at 53 was completely facile. It isn’t even true - Palestine had free and fair elections a year ago too, remember, and as a result their democratically elected government was put under siege by an aggressive foreign power, thrown under a vicious embargo by the US, and then subjected to a coup. This is what would happen if Cuba had “free and fair” elections which voted in anyone but the preferred US partner.
Is there some special name for the argument that people like GregM and Andrew Reynolds are using? Some kind of toxic combination of wide-eyed naivete, glorification of western virtues, ignorance of history, ignorance of pretty much everything else, and breathless optimism all at the same time…
Cuba provided great support for other countries in their struggle against dictatorship and colonization. This generosity came at a cost internally.
They have been on a war footing for a long long time. A bit like those Japanese in the jungle.
Is there some special name for the argument that people like GregM and Andrew Reynolds are using?
Yes. We call it democracy. An alien concept to you, apparently. Still we’ll stick up for it while you think of a better way, in your opinion, that you’d like to make other people, but not yourself, live.
GregM, at which point between the succesful overthrow of Batista and today do you think Cuba’s best shot at Australian style democracy came?
And what factors lead to this failure?
“It was the choice of the US to escalate the Cuban missile sites, a relatively small increment in the nuclear balance of terror, into a potentially world-ending confrontation.”
Not sure about being “relatively small”, Katz. I don’t think ICBMs existed at that point, so before Cuba the USSR had no way to guarantee delivery of nuclear weapons to US soil. Long-range bombers could be shot down by the extensive US air defense system with its specialised interceptors. Soviet nuclear missile subs would have to come close to the US coast, making themselves vulnerable to ASW.
But I’m just quibbling. You’re quite right about the morality of the crisis. I don’t follow the logic of the people on this thread who think US nuclear missiles in Turkey were hunky-dory, but Soviet missiles in Cuba were TEH OUTRAGE!
Morality is hardly the issue anyway. The US and USSR were playing hard-nosed strategy, and they both in the end made the right choice: each gave up something in exchange for something they wanted more, and defused the crisis. One can respect both Kennedy and Khrushchev (though not Castro) for their decision making at this time.
Letterman put his finger on the real danger here. Will Castro be succeeded by his idiot son Fidel W. Castro?
It’s fascinating to read this thread in conjunction with the recent one on Saudi Arabia. Let me see if I can synthesise the two.
Let’s say we have a country X that has a less-than-ideal record on human rights and democracy.
Who must be blamed for this? Well, it depends …
a) If the US has friendly diplomatic relations with X, and buys its products in huge quantity, well then, its obvious — the US is to blame! The US should cut ties and impose sanctions in order to pressure country X to improve.
b) If the US has unfriendly diplomatic relations with X, and buys none of its products, well then, its obvious — the US is to blame! The US should normalise relations and remove sanctions in order to entice country X to improve.
Or to put it more briefly, if anything bad is happening anywhere in the world, it’s America’s fault.
I’ll be fascinated to see if this attitude changes at all once Obama gets in.
Well, I won’t debate Russia with you, GregM, because it would be off topic. Suffice it to say that we differ.
Yep, they were coming off a reasonable base. But there are significant advances in penetration and equity of delivery, and Batista’s regime was hardly a pinup for either democracy or human rights (again, not that you’re saying that, but it’s worth saying).
I have no doubt the regime has majority support, but point taken. However, don’t assume they won’t take that step, or a few steps along the way. It would put the US’ rhetoric in a very interesting light and put the economic blockade on very shaky grounds indeed.
By the way, slightly off topic, but a great insight (and a sympathetic one despite his own leftieness) into the mentality of the Cuban exiles is John Sayles’ novel Los Gusanos (and it also gets Miami just right). If people only know Sayles as a film maker, and like him, they really should track down his novels!
Err, Paulus, I haven’t read the whole thread but I, for one, don’t think
(a) Castro had anything to be proud of on human rights (as I said);
(b) that the US’ stance towards Cuba has anything much to do with human rights.
It has everything to do with winning votes in Florida. Ask any of the congress people (including McCain, if memory serves) who’ve tried and failed to wind back the blockade.
Anyway, I thought the standard free trade argument was that economic relations being enhanced promoted freedom.
Kim, I don’t disagree with any of that. I’m just responding to the people who think you’d help the HR/democracy issues with Saudi Arabia, by the US imposing sanctions, and with Cuba, by the US removing sanctions.
So, which is it to be: help HR/democracy by free trade, or by sanctions? Personally, I’d go for the former rather than the latter. But either way, one should be consistent.
I’m not sure you do have to be consistent, Paulus. Horses for courses, I reckon. The Cuban economy could potentially be interlinked much more closely than the Saudi economy with the US, and the nature of the two regimes (and for that matter the nature of the human rights abuses) is very different.
NB - I wasn’t saying sanctions for Saudi Arabia, either, lest I be misunderstood.
But political moves would presumably be much more fruitful there, because the US and Saudi governments are close. The Cuban government wouldn’t give a fuck what representations were made to them by the current administration, at least. There’ve been several attempts on the part of past administrations to make things more sensible, but all have fallen on the stony ground of domestic US politics. In any case, as with so many other things, nothing much can be hoped for til there’s a new American president - whoever that might be.
Fred Halliday in Open Democracy:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization/castro_3855.jsp
GregM, your definition of democracy is “ome kind of toxic combination of wide-eyed naivete, glorification of western virtues, ignorance of history, ignorance of pretty much everything else, and breathless optimism all at the same time…” ? No wonder we got howard. Perhaps from this working definition you could answer wbb at 62?
Paulus at 65, is you seem to be suggesting that some commenters here believe the US is way too friendly with some dictatorships, and way too cruel to the citizens of other dictatorships it doesn’t like. You seem, in fact, to be suggesting that some commenters here have a problem with the hypocrisy of US foreign policy, and maybe even believe US power could be used in a more positive way across a range of problems. Good of you to catch up with the discussion, but I don’t think the rest of us needed the summary. Do you have any other unique insights to add?
Got up close and personal with Fidel one night, nearly two decades ago. One of the few Anglos in the Presidential palace, besides me - a dry as, pommy acquaintance, who was cracking funnies with me, about Fidel and/or his beard – gave me the tip to stand behind the most beautiful blonde in the ballroom, and bang-o, up comes 20th century revolutionary icon and translators, to have a chat, (in Spanish of course) with said blonde. I was standing behind her suppressing a serious desire to do rabbit ears. The English bloke’s black London-based Cuban wife stood patiently beside the blonde, Fidel finally noticed her, and asked about her braided hair, while fingering one of her braids, and asking where she was from. When she said ‘from Cuba’ – he smiled and said loudly – “but of course you are�, petted & kissed her hand, before heading off to another group of guests. We almost had to revive her.
I was in Havana as delegate at a Latin American film festival; the fortnight had everything and more than you would expect:
A sleazy Cuban general, hiding the supposed dissident Cuban lover of my French film-maker friend in our hotel room, with bumbling hotel security pretending not to look for him, (he was behind the curtains with his feet sticking out – really dumb stuff, they didn’t find him btw, and I heard he was a diamond or narcotics smuggler years later), the cream of the Latin American arts scene lounging on elegant crumbling verandahs most nights – Gabriel Garcia etc, second generation PLO and ANC trainees arguing about tactics in lobbies, fat Eastern European bureaucrats in bad suits stuffing breakfast in the old Sinatra room, an official welcome home to Cuba’s soldiers from the Angolan war in which Cuba, the US, and South Africa had only signed a peace treaty the year before, , oh, a film festival……and then if it wasn’t already like a film about a film festival, it turned into Rick’s Cafe late one night, as the combined US airforce took off from Gitmo and other home bases to invade Panama and take down Noriega (current address: Federal Penitentiary) shock and awe alright, curing the German head jurist of at least five neuroses in his room (ok. too much information) and lastly ‘Socialism or Death’ on the telly, and mass street protests just as the carnival pulled out of town, a few days later.
In relation to Cuba generally, I thought at that time, that you clearly wouldn’t be swapping places with any ‘poor bugger’ in Honduras or Guatemala or Haiti, or a number of other central and south American countries with firing squads aplenty, and no decent hospital for the bullet wounds. It was a functional society with a lot of joyousness, personal safety, a huge amount of national pride and multi & mixed racial harmony in spades.….but for someone who’d grown up in the West, it did feel like a giant school camp with some serious penalties for disobeying the camp rules, let alone wanting reform, or indeed regime change from within. But considering the constant war footing Cuba had stood at for decades, it was remarkably relaxed and although poor – it wasn’t grindingly so. Like I said, school camp seemed infinitely preferable, given that choice.
It was also clear that there was going to be a growing generation gap between older Cubans, who had experienced life before the revolution and then the revolution with subsidies, and younger people who were sooner enough going to be confronted with the American dream with increased communications, amidst much tougher times.
Right at that moment, the eastern bloc was dissolving on an almost daily basis, I think CeauÅŸescu,
had just been strung up weeks before, and sugar wasn’t going to be swapped for buses and power plants etc. in the new world order. Castro should have taken the first steps towards to a mixed economy, and some low key democratic reforms at that point, but from all the signs on the ground, you could see that tourism dollars, and low value state exports, and a hardening up by the regime against the small but growing internal dissatisfaction, was about as grand a plan there was, in the pipeline.
It was also hot and fertile, and I wondered why locals in the cities, didn’t plant fruit trees and veggies, in their tropical gardens, instead of spending hours lining up in front of shops full of empty shelves. A local version of Burke’s Backyard would have been most useful, I was thinking. And I lined up quite a few times, just to line up.
And the music was fooking amazing – it was pre-the Buena Vista Social Club, and the house band at the Havana Libre Hotel (the old Havana Hilton completely intact, with mattresses from 1958) were these old amazing old dudes….funnily enough….. I’m pretty sure Ruben Gonzalez was the pianist (or his older brother), as we sat long into the night drinking mojitos as the almighty righteous drone of Uncle Sam flew over head.
And in relation to being a ‘poor country’ – the spread Castro laid on for his very esteemed guests was the proof, literally in the pudding – the hot tucker was served from old sunbeam electric frypans – beans and rice (angels and devils), and some other hot dishes, and cut up fruit platters for dessert. If he was hoarding something, it must have been good food. The rum however, instantly addictive, and the coffee as strong as pub speed. The guards at the Presidential palace btw. were the sharpest looking black dudes in Shaft-era clobber packing 70’s heat in all the right places.
As for the general who trapped me one night on the lawns of the Hotel Nationale and was fondling without permission, I whispered in his hopeful ear – that he shouldn’t be fooled by my good hearted fellow country folk, who come to Cuba to dig sewers and build school houses in their own holidays – where I came from we sent armies to kill communists…. and took our own ammo. He didn’t speak English, but got the message.
And lastly, the reason I got the gig was, I had shot a video for my French fellow film student, based on the Rainbow Warrior story – half French/English – a black comedy – called ‘Let Them Eat Yellow Cake’, I never saw the final edit, or attended its modest screening.
Everyone:
Okay, I’ll own up. As a young fellow, I was one of those who cheered when Castro took power - after the appalling murdering, plundering Batista regime, who wouldn’t? Then, Castro spoiled it all by becoming yet another lawyer-turned-politician.
What Castro did, though, was build Cubans’ pride in themselves and give them a respected place in the world. For instance: of all the foreigners working in Viet-Nam in the early 1980s, the Cubans were probably the most genuinely admired and liked; maybe it was the same in parts of Africa too.
Of course, all the education and health care and national pride in Cuba came at a heavy social cost - and Castro was indeed ruthless in dealing with opposition - but he was far less so than were some of the brutal dictators who were our supposed friends-and-allies.
Would Cuba be different today if the United States had not been so irrationally and counter-productively hostile to Cuba? You bet it would!! And today, Sen~or F. Castro would be signing copies of the 9th edition of his monumental History Of The Hispanic Peoples, written during his decades in open detention, with everyone praying he would last long enough to receive his well-deserved 2008 Nobel Prize for Literature. It didn’t happen.
It didn’t happen because the United States cannot survive without having The Evil Enemy on whom to focus their hatreds - what else can you expect out of a country that was founded by Puritan fanatics and by the 17th century religious extremists, Bible-banging terrorists and the hate-filled fundamentalists kicked out of a devastated Europe after the Thirty Years War? Just as well the Americans in power had Castro and Cuba to hate …. otherwise we Australians might have become their evil enemy. It’s a real pity, though, that all the sensible Americans who wanted a firm yet open approach to Cuba had their voices drowned out by the screaming zealots.