I'm Right Again Dot ComA new commentary every Wednesday - April 15, 2015
Castro and Cuba: The possibility of change in the repressive regime.
It was 1959. I remember watching the youthful "liberator" of Cuba, when he appeared on American Television's "Meet the Press," along with a panel of journalists eager to learn first-hand the story behind the handsome, bearded revolutionary's victory. The struggle was intended, Castro stated, to rescue the downtrodden Cuban peasants from a near-feudal existence under a supremely corrupt military dictator, General Fulgencio Batista. Following two coups, Batista began a deplorable association with Mafia "godfathers" from the U.S. and had turned the island into a horrific playground of corruption and debasement.
Many American looked upon the handsome heir to a sugar plantation, as a Latin "Robinhood." After all, a little over a half-century earlier, American "Rough Riders" had helped break Spain's despotic rule over Cuba. For a time, the media in the U.S. supported Castro. After a failed attempt at an overthrow, Castro retreated to a mountain fastness and began to rally the people to their liberation from Batista. In 1959, the new "Maximum Leader" of the Cuban people was invited to come to the United States by the American Society of Newspaper editors.
Fidel Castro, after delivering a wreath at the Lincoln memorial, 1959.
By that time, reporters had begun to question him about his feelings regarding communism, much of it due to the excesses of Che Guevara, a close lieutenant born in Argentina, who did little to veil his admiration of the form of socialism favored by Russian Bolsheviks. American politicians, notably President Eisenhower, decided to play golf and avoided meeting with Castro when he came asking for support for his cause from the United States.
It was during that sojourn to the United States, when millions were watching the television program "Meet the Press," a panelist asked Fidel, "Are you a communist?" He answered (in heavily accented English), "No, I do not agree with communism."
Was he lying at that moment or did he later seek support from the USSR after receiving what he perceived to be a rebuff? It was not until 1961 that he declared in a televised address to an adoring audience in Havana, "I am a Marxist-Leninist," and went on to say that communism would be the dominant force in Cuban politics. Already, the educated and the moneyed class had begun to flee to Florida.
For whatever reason, within a very short time, his prisons were full of critics and he was embracing Khruschev, who was extremely happy to accommodate him. Fidel and his cohorts invited the Ruskies to plant fields full of ICBMs aimed at America, bringing about a missile crises during which President Kennedy prevailed over Khruschev, but only after many tense hours.
So, here it is, 56 years later. The vast, evil empire of the USSR is fragmented and Putin is both tired of propping up the Cuban economy and busy dealing with the formation of a new hegemony in eastern Europe—while fighting terrorists in Russia's former eastern (Islamist) republics.
For decades, the Cuban people have been threatened with shortages of every description, only some part due to a continued embargo of varying dimensions led by the United States. The fact that the Cubans have continued to exist says much about their resilience. Yet, despite improvements in health care and education somewhat, the Castros and communism have failed in Cuba. The beautiful island is a prison, where a new generation of inmates yearn to be free.
On the main, we Americans are optimists, almost always compelled to sing "Kum-bah-yah," with any former enemy, when invited to do so.
We can hope for an equitable solution, while insisting on certain imperatives. If we lift the economic restrictions and support an influx of trade and tourism, what are we...and the Cuban people, going to get in return? A genuine democracy? True and full human rights? Freedom of speech and of the press? A free and unfettered opposition, now waiting in the shadows? Is this hoping for too much? Probably, for the time being. Despite his failing health, we fear that Fidel remains the Maximum Leader, still ruling from his hospital bed.
The promise of a new detente must offer more than just cigars and rum.
-Phil Richardson, Observer and Storyteller.
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