So then when he [Fidel Castro] separates himself from power, or illness separates Fidel from power, everyone thought Raul Castro would produce changes. I, being a skeptic as well as pragmatic, noted that Raul Castro would never betray what Raul Castro considers his brother’s legacy, which is his own legacy because he was always with his brother. Therefore, Raul Castro has established a scheme for survival; since he is going to survive until death or until the end of times, he makes people believe that he will actually bring about change.
And the fact that dissidents can now travel is more than a change, it is a right that was never returned to the people. It has been returned selectively with the new implementation of rules that permits the government to say, “Look you cannot leave for following a school of thought” or “You can go.” But these trips have had various consequences.
So then that’s when the analysts, the theorists begin to get confused. And that’s why Raul Castro says, “We are not in a hurry [to institute reforms]. This is our way,” because he has the power. And it’s a power that the Cuban exiles do not have the strength to bring down. The dissidents do not have enough strength to bring it down. Therefore there isn’t a real plan that the exiles have to break the power of the military junta governing Cuba. There is no homogenous, national, organized, coherent plan that can put half a million Cubans on the streets for the Cuban opposition.
So therefore, the only plan that is moving forward is Raul Castro’s plan, his rhythm, his music, and his steps. That is the political reality. If we speak politically correct then we begin to sound like the American left and the Europeans or like the American right in speeches that are very well founded in Cuban relations but are purely theoretical. In practice, in real politics, the concrete fact is that the Cuban opposition does not have the strength to take down the Cuban government.
The Cuban exiles do not have the strength or a plan to take down the Cuban government. And everything turns into a speech, or associations, congregations, theorizing, “Cuba-alogues” forecasting. The “Cassandra Syndrome” comes over us; we are all fortune tellers and we all say what’s going to happen but really what is concrete is that there is no solid national organization [in Cuba] that’s coherent. And obviously since there’s no independent economic power in Cuba; the bourgeoisie, the petit bourgeoisie, it cannot help the opposition because it doesn’t exist.
[The term “Cassandra Syndrome” derives from Greek Mythology. It refers to a situation in which valid warnings or concerns are dismissed or disbelieved.]
But aside from that, if inside of Cuba the “business man” is seen as a change, like a concession of the government to the people, then those who know about the repression and the government’s power become against solidarity with the dissidents.
[Since coming to power in 2008, Raul Castro instituted economic reforms permitting the establishment of some private businesses in Cuba as long as they are authorized by the government. These reforms were motivated by the government’s need to reduce its bloated payroll.]
“Don’t get close to me because I don’t want to lose my business.” It was the other way around when it happened to Fidel Castro [during the 1959 revolution] because it was the national bourgeoisie that gave him money, which supported Fidel Castro so that he could take power; who would buy the guns, who would run the errands. So then, the petit bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie are the ones who sweep Fidel Castro into power.
The U.S. government supported Fidel Castro, if not directly then indirectly by not supporting [Fulgencio] Batista. [Fulgencio Batista (1901 – 1973) served as the president of Cuba from 1940-1944. In 1952, he returned to power via a bloodless coup and ruled the island through a military dictatorship until being overthrown by Fidel Castro in 1959.] In the end, in order to realize the defeat of a government there are certain realities that are needed in Cuba that they don’t have; neither the opposition nor the Cuban exiles. So then what happens?
The whole world is waiting for Raul Castro to produce some changes. Yes, Raul Castro will produce some changes, the changes that are convenient for him through a militaristic, authoritarian view, for the heir of authoritarian communism from Fidel Castro and to continue the legacy of his brother.
So what happens is that there is a huge population, a population that is absolutely incapacitated to win, because we can talk about 10 Ladies in White that march to a church…but like the saying says, “One swallow does not make it summer.” [Meaning,] Until the Cuban people rise to the streets… I don’t know…like in Egypt…in the Arab Spring…there won’t be any changes.
[Raul Castro (1931 – ) is the younger brother of Fidel. He assumed leadership of the Communist Party and the country in 2008.]
Born in 1951, Manuel Vázquez Portal grew up in the early days of the Castro regime. He received a degree in philology and worked for several years as a teacher. Afterward, he served as a literature advisor in the Ministry of Culture and a journalist with a state-owned media outlet. Through his work, he discovered first-hand how the regime used media and literature as propaganda and banned anything that challenged government ideology. Disillusioned with the regime’s censorship, Manuel focused his talents on children’s literature, a field that offered more flexibility for creativity and imagination.
In 1995, Manuel joined an independent news agency called Cuba Press, and in 1998, he helped form a similar organization called the United Workers Group. In 2003, Manuel was arrested along with 74 other nonviolent dissidents as part of a massive government crackdown known as the Black Spring. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison for his criticism of the regime. While incarcerated, Manuel worked with fellow political prisoners to organize protests against the prison guards and hunger strikes.
Also during this time, Manuel smuggled his diary out of prison with its descriptions of the conditions he and fellow prisoners endured; his testimonies were published for the outside world under the title Written Without Permission. The Committee to Protect Journalists presented Manuel the International Press Freedom award in absentia for his efforts to expose the regime’s treatment of political prisoners..
In 2004, Cuban authorities transferred Manuel from prison to a hospital; years of abuse and malnutrition had caused his health to deteriorate. Much to his surprise, Manuel was released and went into exile. He brought his family to the United States where he continues to champion a free and democratic Cuba.
Cuba, an island nation of 11.4 million people in the northern Caribbean Sea, is a totalitarian state.
Fidel Castro led the 1959 Cuban Revolution and ruled the country for 49 years before formally relinquishing power to his younger brother Raul in 2008. Raul Castro is the current head of state and First Secretary of the Communist Party, which is recognized by the Cuban Constitution as the only legal political party and “the superior leading force of society and of the state.” Raul Castro has said that he will step down from power at the age of 86 in 2018.
Cuba was a territory of Spain until the Spanish-American War. The United States assumed control of the island until 1902, when the Republic of Cuba became formally independent. A fledgling democracy was established, with the U.S. continuing to play a strong role in Cuban affairs.
In 1952, facing an impending electoral loss, former president Fulgencio Batista staged a successful military coup and overthrew the existing government. While his first term as elected president in the 1940s largely honored progressive politics, universal freedoms, and the Cuban Constitution of 1940, Batista’s return to power in the 1950s was a dictatorship marked by corruption, organized crime and gambling. He held power until 1959 when he was ousted by Fidel Castro’s rebel July 26th Movement.
While promising free elections and democracy, Castro moved quickly to consolidate power. By 1961, Castro had declared Cuba to be a communist nation.
Castro’s communist government nationalized private businesses, lashed out at political opponents, and banned independent civil society. As Cuba aligned itself with the Soviet Union, Cuban-American relations soured, including a U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba. In the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union came close to war, after the Soviets installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, prompting a U.S. naval embargo.
Since the revolution, Cuba has remained a one-party state. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the evaporation of Soviet economic support, Cuba loosened some economic policies, became more open to foreign investment, and legalized use of the U.S. dollar. By the late 1990s, Venezuela had become Cuba’s chief patron, thanks to the close relationship between the Castro brothers and Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chavez.
The regime continues to exercise authoritarian political control, clamping down on political dissent and mounting defamation campaigns against dissidents, portraying them as malignant U.S. agents. In a massive crackdown in 2003 known as the Black Spring, the government imprisoned 75 of Cuba’s best-known nonviolent dissidents.
The Cuban government does not respect the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, association, movement, and religion. The government and the Communist Party control all news media, and the government routinely harasses and detains its critics, particularly those who advocate democracy and respect of human rights. Frequent government actions against dissidents often take the form of attacks by regime-organized mobs. Prison conditions are harsh and often life-threatening, and the courts operate as instruments of the Communist Party rather than conducting fair trials.
Cuba relaxed its travel laws in 2013, allowing some prominent dissidents to leave and return to the country. It continues to experiment with modest economic reforms but remains committed to communist economic orthodoxy.
In Freedom House’s Freedom in the World report, Cuba was designated as “not free” and is grouped near the bottom of the world’s nations, with severely restricted civil rights and political liberties.
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