Category — Opposition

By Mary Anastasia O’Grady | Wall Street Journal

Hurricane Gustav and Hurricane Ike inflicted misery on millions of Cubans. But when the Castro dictatorship looks at the devastation, it sees opportunity.

Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl, who took over as head of state in February, for years have been calling for an end to the U.S. embargo, which they say is starving Cuba. But Cuba can already buy from U.S. producers all the food and medicine it can pay cash for. What the totalitarian tag-team really wants is an end to the ban on private-sector credit to the Cuban government.

Their demand has gone nowhere in Washington, both because of moral objections to doing business with tyrants, and because the Castro brothers are world-class deadbeats. They have defaulted on billions of dollars in debt to the rest of the world, and want credit from the “empire” (i.e., the U.S.) only because their options for borrowing elsewhere have narrowed significantly.

Now they are using the latest Cuban tragedy to ratchet up the pressure on Washington through the international press. Rather than accept an offer of $5 million in humanitarian assistance from the U.S., the regime is demanding that the credit ban be lifted. [Read more →]

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The Wall Street Journal tells the story of  Armando Valladares, author of Against All Hope which details his harrowing twenty-two year imprisonment as a political prisoner of the Cuban government:

In late December 1959, nearly a year after Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista had been run out the country by a movement that had a goal of restoring the 1940 Cuban constitution, Fidel Castro was tightening his grip.

At the time, Armando Valladares was a 22-year-old government bureaucrat at the Post Office Savings Bank. One day a group from the Communist Party showed up in his office and put a sign on his desk that read “If Fidel is a communist, put me on the list. He’s got the right idea.”

Castro had not yet made public his communist intentions. But Mr. Valladares says that “the sign was part of the campaign by the party and by Fidel to prepare the population for communism, which most knew little about. The idea was that since Fidel had already made his name synonymous with the Cuban messiah, he must be right about communism.”

Mr. Valladares told his visitors that he didn’t want that sign on his desk. “Five or six days later, in the wee hours of the morning, they came to my house. My mother’s room was closest to the front door so she heard the knock and got up to see who was there. When she opened the door, the men pushed her out of the way and rushed into the house. I awoke with a machine gun against my temple.”

The young Valladares had a lot of company. Thousands were being rounded up. Some waited months for their trials. Many others were immediately marched before firing squads.

Mr. Valladares got his day in court within the week. The judge, he says, sat with his feet up on the desk reading a comic book and making jokes. The search of his home had produced “no evidence, no weapons, no propaganda opposing the state.” Nevertheless he was convicted as a potential conspirator against the Revolution and sentenced to 30 years. His cell mates applauded the decision, because the only other possible sentence was the death penalty.

[Read more →]

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Via BBC:

The number of political prisoners in Cuba has fallen in the past six months, according to a new report by the island’s main human rights group.

[...]

But the report also says that the authorities are continuing to take a tough line against dissidents.

It says that any change in the human rights situation remains “unlikely”.

There are an estimated 219 political prisoners currently held in Cuban jails, 15 fewer than in January this year.

But according to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCHRNR) this does not represent a fundamental change in the treatment of dissidents under Raul Castro.

Instead, the latest half yearly report by this illegal but tolerated organisation points to a change in tactics, with a marked increase in what it calls arbitrary systematic detentions.

Instead of high profile arrests and imprisonment, opponents are picked up by police, often prior to planned meetings or rallies.

They are then released without charge, usually within 24 hours.

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Oxford Analytica remarks about the state of post-Fidel:

Ever since long-standing Cuban leader Fidel Castro handed power to his brother, Raul, to undergo gastric surgery, expectations have been for change on the island -– even more so after Fidel announced his retirement in February, with his brother ratified as president.

Raul has indeed announced a series of (primarily economic) reforms since taking office, designed to address increasingly visible and vocal public demands for change:

• Legalising the sale of products such as mobile phones and computers
• Allowing Cubans to stay in tourist hotels (if they can afford it)
• Liberalising the agricultural sector, with land handed over to farmers, and the state selling them tools and inputs.

However, external challenges have limited the scope of reforms:

• High international food and energy prices have hit Cuba particularly hard, leaving the government unable to afford other promises — including a pledge to eliminate wage equality by rewarding higher productivity; and to end wholesale food subsidies through rationing.

• Indeed, Raul warned in a recent speech of the need for increased austerity — in energy consumption, for instance — to cope with the effects of global inflation.

Public demands

While reform efforts are constrained, public desire for change has not eased. Spaces are emerging for discontent to be voiced:

• Blogs such as the irreverent “Generacion Y”, are now maintained from the island, albeit hosted on foreign servers.

• A social democratic party has recently been formed, which claims to be leftist and, in contrast to many other dissident groups, opposes the long-standing US economic embargo on Cuba, and does not receive US funding.

• Even official sources seem more open to critical views than in the past, with the Communist Party newspaper starting to publish a (carefully filtered) “letter to the editors” section, in effect delineating the acceptable extent of criticism.

Still, the government believes for now that it can contain political dissent and manage rising public expectations. While its grip on power will remain tight for the foreseeable future, and periodic low-level harassment of some opponents will continue, it is likely increasingly to struggle to manage popular discontent.

Changing international alignments

More change is visible on the international stage, as the government re-thinks old alliances:

• Cuba remains extremely reliant on Venezuela and China, but Raul is seeking to be less dependent on alliances with other left-wing governments.

• Brazil, for instance, could become key to more balanced and diverse international relations — its foreign minister, Celso Amorim, recently stated it wishes to be Cuba’s main international partner.

• The EU recently officially lifted sanctions on Cuba (already suspended since 2005). While differences remain on how to handle relations with the Raul government, the Spanish have made unilateral attempts to encourage further liberalisation.

The Cuban government will continue to respond to such moves, though it will be careful not to seem eager in doing so. For instance, irrespective of who takes office in Washington next year, US-Cuban bilateral relations will improve -– but gradually, in recognition of domestic politics in each country, and accompanied by occasionally harsh rhetoric. Those hoping for change will have to be patient.

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The Christian Science Monitor reports on why women now lead dissident fight in Cuba.

Only a handful of dissidents, such as Rivero, are willing to take on the risk of fighting for basic freedoms. While these spirited few – many of whom are now women – don’t wield much clout, they insist that more people are quietly asking them how to get involved.

See my post about the success of nonviolent resistance.

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