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Jewish World Review March 15, 2001 / 20 Adar 5761
Philip Terzian
If the intent was to bring about the end of the Castro regime, we know the answer to that
question. There is not much residual affection for the author of the 1959 revolution among
ordinary Cubans; and in his 74th year, Fidel Castro is no longer the bearded post-adolescent
rebel in green fatigues. (Greeting Pope John Paul II in a blue serge suit here three years ago,
he looked like a retired professor of romance languages seeking the papal blessing.) But the
state apparatus is rigid in Cuba, and power rests firmly in Castro's deft hands. Dissenters not
in prison -- the government admits to 400 or so -- are closely watched, and their numbers are
probably doubled by informers.
If the intent was to cripple the Cuban economy -- leading, presumably, to discontent and
rebellion -- the answer is more complicated. Clearly, Cuba is impoverished, and dangerously
dependent on tourism dollars. But while the Castro regime points to the embargo as a source of
misery, it should be recalled that the United States is alone in imposing an embargo. No other
country in the world, including many of our closest allies, maintains any sort of economic
sanctions against the Castro regime. British, Mexican, Canadian, German and Spanish interests
are free to invest, to export and import, and defy the spirit and letter of the Helms-Burton
Act, which punishes foreign businesses for dealing with Cuba. And Cuba remains impoverished.
The reason, of course, is not the U.S. embargo, but the nature of the communist regime in
Cuba. Castro has no interest in convering Cuba into a Caribbean version of post-Soviet Eastern
Europe: Foreign investment -- indeed, investment of any sort -- must be squeezed through the
ideological blender that has brought such squalor to this island. Talk to any senior minister
in the Cuban government, and it is clear that the only thing worse than the privations Cubans
suffer because of the embargo is the prospect of capitalism breaking out in Cuba. Ricardo
Alarcon, president of the National Assembly, and a likely successor to Castro, was especially
emphatic on this point: "Cuba is not privatizing its economy!" he declared -- a few moments
before the lights flickered and went out in his office.
Which leaves politics. Who benefits from the embargo? Obviously, Fidel Castro is the
principal beneficiary: The embargo not only tightens his grip on Cuba, but gives him a handy
propaganda weapon. Every president who has ever been inclined to loosen the fetters -- namely,
Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton -- has been rewarded with an insult: The Mariel boatlift in 1980,
or the shooting-down of the Brothers to the Rescue plane in 1996. Castro's chief asset is the
American embargo, and the only challenge to his authority would come from its abolition.
In that sense, of course, the attitude of the Cuban exiles in Miami is paradoxical.
Motivated, with good reason, by a fixed animus against the Cuban dictator, they are the primary
constituency for the embargo. But the Cuban-Americans who are most vociferous about maintaining
the embargo are the same ones who send dollars and medicine and scarce consumer goods to their
cousins on the island. It is a double standard grounded in competitive emotions: Disdain for
the regime that has brought such misery to them and their homeland, coupled with a natural
desire to help their brethren.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if the Bush administration defied
expectations, and offered Cuba "normalized" relations and a pledge to urge Congress to end the
embargo. It would, of course, put Castr in a genuine predicament: He could hardly refuse what
he has demanded all these years, but he has to fear the awakened expectations of Cubans.
In the end, the embargo is a self-defeating vestige of the Kennedy era. On a practical
level, it does America no good by cutting off a market ripe for two-way traffic, and ceding
Cuba to foreign traders who would like to make a buck. How does a box of Cohiba cigars endanger
our security?
In principle, however, the embargo harms the very people it was intended to help, and
comforts the tyranny it sought to undermine. Cuba is not an especially happy place, and remains
a police state; but it is not a charnel house, and treats its dissidents with considerable less
ferocity than our trading partner, China, or any number of African states. Castro has ceased
exporting revolution in the hemisphere -- Che Guevara's skeletal hands now rest in a museum --
and the onetime scourge of Yankee imperialism is reduced to begging the Chamber of Commerce for
dimes and nickels. The Cold War is over, our side won, and Castro will soon join Che on
03/06/01: Take it easy, Mr. C
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