It has been a long, strange journey since Fidel Castro and a handful of comrades disembarked the yacht Granma on December 2, 1956, to begin a guerrilla war against the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Cuba in the fifties was virtually an American colony run by Batista for the benefit of American sugar barons and the Mafia. Against overwhelming odds, Castro and his comrades of the 26th of July Movement marched into Havana on New Years Day 1959, victorious.
Only the truly naive would have thought that American businesses in Cuba would survive the revolution unscathed. Still, to his credit, Castro made no move to expropriate American property without compensation until the United States government, already committed to Castros liquidation, suspended Cubas sugar quota, denying Cuban sugar access to the U.S. market. This was a potentially lethal blow to the Cuban economy, as it was intended to be. Castro had warned that American business in Cuba would suffer if the United States prohibited the importation of Cuban sugar, and he made good on his threat. The Nationalization Act of 1960 expropriated $850 million worth of American properties in Cuba - thirty-six sugar mills, two oil refineries, and two utilities. To save the Cuban economy, Castro turned to Moscow. Without access to the U.S. sugar market, Cuba had no choice but to become a client of the Soviet Union, bartering its sugar for Russian oil. Castro made his pact with the devil and became a pawn in the Cold War, but out of economic necessity. The United States had left him no alternative.
The hostile relationship between the United States and Cuba during the Cold War - the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, the Kennedy administrations attempts to assassinate Castro, the terrifying Cuban missile crisis - are legendary. But the Cold War is over. The loss of subsidies from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe has forever changed the future of the Cuban economy: it became a basket case overnight. Cubans have been forced to replace the oil they had received from the Soviet Union under artificially favorable terms of trade and to establish a whole new set of trading partners. Cubas economy suddenly became a "basket case" overnight. Nonetheless, Castro and the Cuban economy have staggered on by encouraging foreign investment, especially from Mexico and Canada, and promoting tourism. Cuba has much more to offer the world as a trading partner than just sugar. In pharmaceuticals and medical research the Cubans are on the cutting edge of technology. Their beaches are the most beautiful in the Caribbean.
The most formidable threat to Cubas economic survival is the trade embargo imposed by the United States since 1962. Despite the end of the Cold War and reconciliation with Russia and China, the United States not only continues fighting a cruel economic war against Cuba, the war is being escalated. The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act (sponsored by Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Representative Dan Burton of Indiana) was signed into law by President Clinton on March 12, 1996. The Helms-Burton legislation does more than strengthen our economic embargo of Cuba, it attempts to impose our law on other countries and their citizens. Title III allows U.S. citizens to sue foreign corporations or individuals in U. S. courts for trafficking in American property expropriated by the Cuban government. Title IV authorizes the exclusion from the United States of third parties who traffic in such property, i.e. the management of accused corporations and their families will not be allowed to travel or do business in the United States. This extraterritorial legislation has infuriated our NAFTA partners and the WTO. The term trafficking is so all inclusive in its application the United States could deny Canadian sugar, molasses, syrup and candy access to American markets if Canada continues to import Cuban sugar. Telmex, the Mexican telephone company, could be prevented from doing business in the United States because it has a joint venture with the Cuban utility that expropriated assets from the American owned-monoply, Cuban Telephone Company. Fortunately, President Clinton first delayed the implementation of Title III until February 1, 1998, and then extended the waiver another six months. Congress, however, is determined that there will be no more extensions.
Against overwhelming world opposition, it seems incredible that the United States would go to so much trouble, would alienate so many trading partners and allies, to attempt to rectify an injustice that occurred thirty-eight years ago. Most Cuban exiles who lost their property have created new fortunes in the United States. Expropriation of the property of the colonials has always been a feature of nationalistic revolutions. After all, if we go back far enough, the legitimacy of all property gets nebulous. (Many American loyalists who fled to Canada after the American revolution have kept excellent records of all transactions involving their expropriated assets.) The economic war against Cuba is not about ideology or human rights, its a payoff to the Cuban-American communities of South Florida and New Jersey who have political power far greater than their numbers and will not rest until Castro is overthrown. The Cuban "gerontocracy" that have ruled Little Havana in Miami for the last three decades still believe they will get their property back. That will never happen.
Fidel Castros days are numbered, if for no other reason than his age, but so are those of the exiles. Jorge Mas Canosa, the political godfather of Cuban-American exiles for three decades, swore that he would dance on Castros grave in a new Cuba. But only gods can keep promises. Mas died of natural causes in November. The wealthy Cubans and Americans who fled the island in 1960 will never return to the nostalgically remembered pre-Castro Cuba they have dreamed about for so many years. Young Cuban-Americans have no memories to draw them back. The once monolithic bloc of angry Cuban exiles must begin to consider the unthinkable: a dialogue with Castro.
Cubans are weary of the revolution and the economic hardships they have suffered because of the embargo. They are eager for change. They love American culture - its movies, its food, its glamor. But they are Cuban revolutionaries. Cuba will never return to being an American colony. If that happened, the last four decades of their lives would have been for naught. The revolution has achieved some impressive accomplishments. It has given Cubans universal health care, nearly universal literacy, and most of all, a sense of national self-respect after decades of exploitation by the Spanish and then by the Americans. If the Cuban-American exiles think they can return to recover their property and privilege and power, they are mistaken. This is no longer their Cuba.
It is ironic that Americans, one of the most chauvinistic people on earth, find it so difficult to appreciate the depth of nationalistic pride in others. Perhaps Americans are so convinced that their motives are pure that they are blind to the imperialistic side of Pax Americana. A century ago Americans justified their slaughter of Filipino freedom fighters with the excuse that it was the white mans burden to confer the blessings of civilization upon the rescued people. To that argument ,Williams Jennings Bryan answered, God Himself never made a race of people so low in the scales of civilization or intelligence that it welcomes a foreign master.
The historic meeting between Pope John Paul II and Fidel Castro in Havana has brought world attention to the plight of Cuba. More than anything else, in the eyes of the world, the visit by the pope is a rebuke to Americans. Many Catholics, both Cuban and non-Cuban, expect some miracle to occur as a result of the encounter between the pope and comandante. The true miracle would be a healing of the American heart, bringing an end to that longing for vengeance. The trade embargo is not a non-lethal tool of foreign policy; people are starving, and others are dying for lack of medicine in a country that once enjoyed the best public health record in Latin America. In one of his prayers, the pope asked that Cuba, with all its magnificent potential, open itself up to the world, and may the world open itself up to Cuba. He was speaking to the United States; hopefully, Congressmen were listening and will reconsider the morality of their Cuba policy.
Mac Williams
Cosmos Mariner
Destination Unknown
© January 15, 1998