Now, you just talked about wanting to work with the Chavez government, and the other. Is that same kind of (inaudible) with the Cuban government that's open to talks?

MCCORMACK: Well, there's some -- any differences we may have with Venezuela aside, there's a fundamental qualitative difference between the situation in Cuba and anywhere else in the hemisphere.

There's one seat that's empty at the OAS, and that's Cuba's seat. The reason why it's empty is because Cuba is not a democracy. OAS is open -- seats those countries that have a democratic system of governance. You don't have that in Cuba.

I think, Raul Castro has talked about a dialogue -- dialogue with the United States and others.

I think the dialogue that needs to be had is with the Cuban people. You shouldn't get into a position or the Cuban people shouldn't have to be in the position of substituting one dictator for another.

Our clear support for a democratic transition in Cuba is stated. Caleb McCarry has talked about that. We've issued a couple of reports on that.

So the dialogue that should be taking place is not between Raul Castro and any group outside or any country outside of Cuba. It's the regime with the Cuban people and talking about a transition to a democratic form of governance in that country.

QUESTION: And you don't think a dialogue between the United States and that government could help push in that direction?

MCCORMACK: I don't see how. I don't see how that really furthers the cause of democracy in that country where you have dialogue with a dictator-in-waiting who wants to continue the form of governance that has really kept down the Cuban people for all these decades.

All right. That was such a good answer, you don't have any more questions.

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U.S. dismisses overture from Raul Castro

Eds: changes dateline, releads with U.S. response to Raul Castro

Washington, Dec 4 (EFE).- The U.S. State Department said Monday that it has no interest in responding to a diplomatic overture from Cuban "dictator-in-waiting" Raul Castro, who two days ago affirmed the Communist regime's readiness to sit down and talk with Washington.

"The dialogue that should be taking place is not between Raul Castro and any group outside or any country outside of Cuba. It's the regime, with the Cuban people, talking about a transition to a democratic form of governance in that country," department spokesman Sean McCormack said at his daily briefing with reporters.

He said it was unlikely that official talks between Washington and Havana would promote a transition to democracy on the island.

"I don't see how that really furthers the cause of democracy in that country where you have dialogue with a dictator-in-waiting who wants to continue the form of governance that has really kept down the Cuban people for all these decades," McCormack said.

Speaking Saturday on the occasion of a massive military parade to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the revolutionary armed forces, Cuba's long-time defense chief offered some uncharacteristically conciliatory words about relations with Washington.

"This is a suitable opportunity to again declare our willingness to resolve at the negotiating table the prolonged dispute between the United States and Cuba," Raul Castro said.

He said that Havana was open to dialogue based on "the principles of equality, reciprocity, non-interference and mutual respect."

The United States severed diplomatic ties with Fidel Castro's government in 1961, imposing an economic embargo on Cuba the following year. The two countries established interests sections in their respective capitals in 1977.

Raul, 75, has been Cuba's "provisional" head of state since July 31, when Fidel Castro announced he was handing over power temporarily while he recuperated from intestinal surgery to address a still-undisclosed ailment.

The octogenarian leader did not appear at Saturday's parade, even though the procession was intended, in part, as a belated observance of his 80th birthday, which was Aug. 13.

The State Department's rejection of Raul Castro's offer of negotiations came hours after a coalition of Cuban-exile organizations held a press conference in Miami to urge both Havana and Washington to eliminate restrictions on travel and remittances.

Consenso Cubano, which includes the powerful Cuban American National Foundation, added its voice to a similar call made at the end of last month by Cuba's internal opposition.

"It's a violation to restrict and limit these rights, whether it be by Cuba or by the United States. We're calling upon both countries to eliminate these measures that hurt the Cuban family," said Carlos Saladrigas, president of the Cuba Study Group.

He said that Consenso Cubano proposes the elimination of the measures put in place by the U.S. government limiting visits to Cuba by U.S. residents with family on the island.

In addition, the coalition wants Havana to allow its citizens unfettered access to the Internet and both governments to agree to normalize mail delivery between Cuba and the United States.

The groups also asked Washington to eliminate restrictions on the sending of remittances and packages to Cuba for humanitarian reasons, and they called upon authorities in Havana to allow Cubans to use aid received from relatives abroad to set up small businesses.

CANF director Julio Pichs said that his organization has always opposed the restrictions because "they hurt the Cuban family and people."

At the end of November, a broad cross-section of dissidents on the Communist-ruled island asked the United States to eliminate travel restrictions and other aspects of the embargo against Cuba, arguing that the measures do not advance the goal of democracy and human rights. EFE pi-so/bp-dr

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US rejects talking to Cuba's 'dictator-in-waiting'

WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department on Monday rejected an offer of talks with Raul Castro, Cuba's acting president, saying it saw no point in a dialogue with what it called the Caribbean island's "dictator-in-waiting."

"The dialogue that should be taking place is not between Raul Castro and any group outside or any country outside of Cuba. It's the regime, with the Cuban people, talking about a transition to a democratic form of governance in that country," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

The offer of talks, made on Saturday, was the most direct overture to the United States by the designated successor to Fidel Castro, who gave power to his brother temporarily after undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in late July.

At a military parade on Saturday, Raul Castro railed at the Bush administration and condemned the Iraq war but added: "We take this opportunity to once again state that we are willing to resolve at the negotiating table the long-standing dispute between the United States and Cuba."

Asked if a dialogue might hasten Cuba's transition to democracy, McCormack said: "I don't see how. I don't see how that really furthers the cause of democracy in that country where you have dialogue with a dictator-in-waiting who wants to continue the form of governance that has really kept down the Cuban people for all these decades."

Washington broke off diplomatic relations with Havana in 1961, two years after Fidel Castro seized power in a revolution and turned Cuba into a Soviet ally. Communication channels were restored with the opening of low-level diplomatic missions called interest sections in 1978.

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Cuba's Castro congratulates Venezuela's Chavez on victory

HAVANA, Dec 5, 2006 (AFP) -

Cuba's Fidel Castro congratulated Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for his re-election victory in a letter published Tuesday, but makes no mention of his own ailing health.

The signed letter was published in the Tuesday editions of the two leading newspapers, Granma and Juventud Rebelde.

It is the first statement attributed to Castro since November 30, and follows his failure to show up at any of the recent events honoring his 80th birthday, especially Saturday's high-profile military parade.

"Hugo: I shall be brief so that emotions do not betray me. Your victory was overwhelming, crushing and without parallel in the history of our America," read the letter.

Chavez, re-elected on Sunday to a six-year term with 63 percent support, dedicated his victory to Castro, who he called a "revolutionary father," and the Cuban people.

Castro has not been seen in public since July 26, the day before he underwent intestinal surgery, and last appeared in a video on October 28 to refute rumors he was seriously ill or even dead.

The Cuban leader was represented at the Saturday parade by his brother Raul, the country's interim president. mis-bur/ch/jmy

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Editorial

Cuba's Future Is Already Here

Eugene Robinson

5 December 2006

The Washington Post

Fiercely implacable exiles in Miami, perennially outfoxed bureaucrats in Washington and salivating real estate developers around the world have spent years trying to predict what will happen in Cuba the day after Fidel Castro dies. Now I think everyone knows the answer: nada.

That chuckling you hear is Fidel, in his hospital room, having the last laugh.

The 80-year-old revolutionary icon, evidently at death's door, appears to have engineered a seamless transition to the post-Fidel era. Brother Raul presided over last week's 50th-anniversary shindig with none of Fidel's charisma but all of his authority. If any lingering doubts about the de facto succession needed to be dispelled, Havana's biggest military parade in years on Saturday reminded everyone that Raul has been running the Cuban armed forces since Day One.

Fidel's absence from the festivities marking the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution pretty much ended any uncertainty about his health. Government officials say he's recovering like a champ and will be back on the job any day, and they sound so sincerely optimistic that you could almost look past the images of a gaunt, frail old man that were released a few weeks ago. But I doubt that anything except the looming hand of death could have kept Fidel Castro away from a cheering, flag-waving crowd of millions -- Fidel's people, filling the vast plaza named for Fidel's revolution, hoping for a last glimpse of the only leader most Cubans have ever known.

We have to assume that Fidel is not long for this world. We also have to assume that a day, a month or even a year after he dies, Cuba will be essentially unaltered.

A year isn't forever, and some kind of change will eventually come. But the Bush administration has been even more idiotic than its predecessors in its policies toward Cuba, which means that the United States is perfectly positioned to have little or no influence over what kind of Cuba finally evolves.

About all this administration can do is make things worse. Julia E. Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations, a leading Cuba expert, writes in the current issue of the journal Foreign Affairs that by "continuing the current course and making threats about what kind of change is and is not acceptable after Fidel, Washington will only slow the pace of liberalization and political reform in Cuba and guarantee many more years of hostility between the two countries."

In the article, Sweig points out what any visitor to Cuba who is not wearing ideological blinkers quickly realizes: that the Cuban government's hold on power does not derive from repression alone. In my visits to the island, I've been struck by how Cubans can be bitterly critical of the hard-line restrictions the regime imposes on speech, assembly, movement, commerce and other activities, and in the next breath speak with pride of the government's achievements in providing free health care and education.

In Washington and Miami, the prediction was that when the Soviet Union and the East Bloc dissolved, Fidel Castro's regime would soon follow. But Raul Castro and a group of pragmatic-minded young officials -- basically, the people who are running the country now -- opened the spigot and allowed just enough economic reform to keep the place going. Now, with Raul's armed forces functioning essentially as the island's biggest business conglomerate, and with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez shipping his mentor Fidel all the oil he needs, the government seems increasingly secure.

That security hardly looks permanent. Many Cubans are indeed restless for change. There are focal points around which a kind of civil society has started to coalesce -- the black-market economy, the Catholic Church, the Afro-Cuban faiths, the arts -- and the government has had little success in co-opting these independent movements.

Raul Castro is 75, so his time in the driver's seat will be brief. Maybe he will try to move Cuba toward the Chinese model of continued one-party rule in exchange for free-market liberalization of the economy -- something Fidel would never abide. Lacking his older brother's presence and oratorical skills, maybe Raul will have to be oppressively heavy-handed in using the army he built to maintain order.

For now, though, the Cuban regime has accomplished something that the Bush administration had pledged to thwart: an uneventful transition that leaves the Cuban Communist Party still comfortably in charge. The handover of power took place in August, when Fidel's illness was announced and power was transferred "temporarily" to Raul and other party leaders.

Fidel's revolution won't survive forever -- the tide of history is flowing in the opposite direction. But surely it will survive the old man's death.

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Editorials

A chance to boost relations with nations to the south

The Chicago Sun-Times

5 December 2006

Chicago Sun-Times

He hasn't been seen in public since late July. Photos taken of him in October show an emaciated man with sunken cheeks, his once full beard now grizzled and thinning. The fiery Fidel Castro appears to be dying and his failure to show up for his 80th birthday celebrations last week confirms the Cuban dictator is very ill despite reports to the contrary. Indeed, Castro's condition remains secret, and no one in Cuba has any idea what is ailing him except those in his immediate circle.

Stomach cancer is one suggestion, because it has been reported he had stomach surgery. It is rumored, too, that it could be cancer of the colon or pancreas, but those are mere guesses. Castro is gone from the public stage, although his face remains plastered on posters around Havana. Since the summer, his brother Raul, 75, has controlled the reins of government.

Like the fading Castro, Cuba is no longer the threat to the United States that it was during the Cold War, when it posed a base for Soviet missiles and mischief. But the United States still treats the tiny island, just south of Florida, as a danger: We have not had diplomatic relations in more than 40 years; we deny ourselves the pleasures of Cuban cigars, unless they are contraband, and American tourists have to sneak into the island in defiance of a ban against travel there.

We have tried in half-hearted ways to inform Cubans about the upside of political freedom through unconvincing TV and radio broadcasts, but no one there seems to be tuning in. And the Government Accountability Office recently found that money given to encourage democracy has been used to buy crab meat, cashmere sweaters and computer games for Cuban dissidents, journalists and academics we've hired to spread the anti-Castro word. Between 1996 and 2005, we gave $76 million to these so called town criers of democracy, who used much of it on luxury goods.

Latin America is turning to the left. Former guerrilla Daniel Ortega was recently elected in Nicaragua; socialist Hugo Chavez was re-elected in Venezuela. Ecuador is a socialist country, and so is Brazil. All of them are staunchly anti-American, despite their immense trade with us.

Castro's disappearance from the scene could give us an opportunity to reopen communications with the island. By establishing diplomatic relations we may mitigate the rhetoric from radicals such as Chavez who seek to dominate Central and South America. There is little Cuba can do to hurt us anymore, and opening a dialogue with that country -- now that there is a leadership vacuum -- would underline the value we place in our relations with our neighbors to the south. It would certainly give Chavez a kick in the derriere.

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Cuban faithful pay homage to Santa Barbara

By Raquel Martori.

Havana, Dec 4 (EFE).- Hundreds of people paid homage here Monday to Santa Barbara, who stands alongside Our Lady of Charity - the island's patroness - and Lazarus in the devotions of Cuba's Roman Catholic faithful.

Since Sunday, and just like every Dec. 4, which is Santa Barbara's feast day, hundreds of people have come to pray, make offerings and ask for miracles at the parish church bearing her name in the residential neighborhood of Parraga on the outskirts of Havana.

As per custom, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the capital's archbishop, celebrated a Mass that drew about 1,000 people.

Flowers, candles and red garments stand out as the distinctive symbols of the conjunction of rituals and beliefs in the annual celebration.

Raul Garcia, 36, came to the church with a bouquet of red roses and some candles to present as an offering to Santa Barbara, and he said that he does the same thing each Dec. 4 "just because of the faith that I have" and not because he has wanted to ask her for "some miracle."

In Cuba, Santa Barbara is venerated by both the Catholic Church and by believers in Santeria, a religion resulting from the synthesis of beliefs derived from the Catholicism deeply rooted in the island's population and the religions of the African slaves who were brought to Cuba during the colonial period.

Santeria believers identify Santa Barbara with the African deity Chango, who is considered the god of thunder and the king of the pantheon in the religion, which is of Yoruba origin.

Devotees of the saint seek her protection and intercession for their immediate needs, as well as on economic matters, health issues and marital problems, among others.

Many Santeria practitioners in Cuba begin their activities on Dec. 3 for the feast day of Santa Barbara/Chango by holding evening gatherings in their homes: "a party where the saints, (the practitioners') children and friends enjoy themselves."

With their altars decorated in red and white, participants worship an image of the saint and present specific foods to her, including mutton and chicken, along with bananas, squash and fresh honey.

Surveys indicate that even after nearly five decades under an officially atheist regime, 85 percent of Cuba's 11.2 million citizens maintain some religious faith. EFE

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Fidel's Final Victory
By Julia E. Sweig

From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2007

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070101faessay86104/julia-e-sweig/fidel-s-final-victory.html?mode=print

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Summary: The smooth transfer of power from Fidel Castro to his successors is exposing the willful ignorance and wishful thinking of U.S. policy toward Cuba. The post-Fidel transition is already well under way, and change in Cuba will come only gradually from here on out. With or without Fidel, renewed U.S. efforts to topple the revolutionary regime in Havana can do no good -- and have the potential to do considerable harm.

Julia E. Sweig is Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow and Director of Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground and Friendly fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century.

CUBA AFTER CASTRO?

Ever since Fidel Castro gained power in 1959, Washington and the Cuban exile community have been eagerly awaiting the moment when he would lose it -- at which point, the thinking went, they would have carte blanche to remake Cuba in their own image. Without Fidel's iron fist to keep Cubans in their place, the island would erupt into a collective demand for rapid change. The long-oppressed population would overthrow Fidel's revolutionary cronies and clamor for capital, expertise, and leadership from the north to transform Cuba into a market democracy with strong ties to the United States.

But that moment has come and gone -- and none of what Washington and the exiles anticipated has come to pass. Even as Cuba-watchers speculate about how much longer the ailing Fidel will survive, the post-Fidel transition is already well under way. Power has been successfully transferred to a new set of leaders, whose priority is to preserve the system while permitting only very gradual reform. Cubans have not revolted, and their national identity remains tied to the defense of the homeland against U.S. attacks on its sovereignty. As the post-Fidel regime responds to pent-up demands for more democratic participation and economic opportunity, Cuba will undoubtedly change -- but the pace and nature of that change will be mostly imperceptible to the naked American eye.

Fidel's almost five decades in power came to a close last summer not with the expected bang, or even really a whimper, but in slow motion, with Fidel himself orchestrating the transition. The transfer of authority from Fidel to his younger brother, Raúl, and half a dozen loyalists -- who have been running the country under Fidel's watch for decades -- has been notably smooth and stable. Not one violent episode in Cuban streets. No massive exodus of refugees. And despite an initial wave of euphoria in Miami, not one boat leaving a florida port for the 90-mile trip. Within Cuba, whether Fidel himself survives for weeks, months, or years is now in many ways beside the point.

In Washington, however, Cuba policy -- aimed essentially at regime change -- has long been dominated by wishful thinking ever more disconnected from the reality on the island. Thanks to the votes and campaign contributions of the 1.5 million Cuban Americans who live in florida and New Jersey, domestic politics has driven policymaking. That tendency has been indulged by a U.S. intelligence community hamstrung by a breathtaking and largely self-imposed isolation from Cuba and reinforced by a political environment that rewards feeding the White House whatever it wants to hear. Why alter the status quo when it is so familiar, so well funded, and so rhetorically pleasing to politicians in both parties?

But if consigning Cuba to domestic politics has been the path of least resistance so far, it will begin to have real costs as the post-Fidel transition continues -- for Cuba and the United States alike. Fidel's death, especially if it comes in the run-up to a presidential election, could bring instability precisely because of the perception in the United States that Cuba will be vulnerable to meddling from abroad. Some exiles may try to draw the United States into direct conflict with Havana, whether by egging on potential Cuban refugees to take to the florida Straits or by appealing to Congress, the White House, and the Pentagon to attempt to strangle the post-Fidel government.

Washington must finally wake up to the reality of how and why the Castro regime has proved so durable -- and recognize that, as a result of its willful ignorance, it has few tools with which to effectively influence Cuba after Fidel is gone. With U.S. credibility in Latin America and the rest of the world at an all-time low, it is time to put to rest a policy that Fidel's handover of power has already so clearly exposed as a complete failure.

CHANGE IN THE WEATHER

On July 31, 2006, Fidel Castro's staff secretary made an announcement: Fidel, just days away from his 80th birthday, had undergone major surgery and turned over "provisional power" to his 75-year-old brother, Raúl, and six senior officials. The gravity of Fidel's illness (rumored to be either terminal intestinal cancer or severe diverticulitis with complications) was immediately clear, both from photographs of the clearly weakened figure and from Fidel's own dire-sounding statements beseeching Cubans to prepare for his demise. Across the island, an air of resignation and anticipation took hold.

The dead of August, with its intense heat and humidity, is a nerve-racking time in Cuba, but as rumors sped from home to home, there was a stunning display of orderliness and seriousness in the streets. Life continued: people went to work and took vacations, watched telenovelas and bootlegged dvds and programs from the Discovery and History channels, waited in lines for buses and weekly rations, made their daily black-market purchases -- repeating the rituals that have etched a deep mark in the Cuban psyche. Only in Miami were some Cubans partying, hoping that Fidel's illness would soon turn to death, not only of a man but also of a half century of divided families and mutual hatred.

Raúl quickly assumed Fidel's duties as first secretary of the Communist Party, head of the Politburo, and president of the Council of State (and retained control of the armed forces and intelligence services). The other deputies -- two of whom had worked closely with the Castro brothers since the revolution and four of whom had emerged as major players in the 1990s -- took over the other key departments. Ranging in age from their mid-40s through their 70s, they had been preparing for this transition to collective leadership for years. José Ramón Balaguer, a doctor who fought as a guerrilla in the Sierra Maestra during the revolution, assumed authority over public health. José Ramón Machado Ventura, another doctor who fought in the Sierra, and Esteban Lazo Hernández now share power over education. Carlos Lage Dávila -- a key architect of the economic reforms of the 1990s, including efforts to bring in foreign investment -- took charge of the energy sector. Francisco Soberón Valdés, president of the Central Bank of Cuba, and Felipe Pérez Roque, minister of foreign affairs, took over finances in those areas.

At first, U.S. officials simply admitted that they had almost no information about Fidel's illness or plans for succession. President George W. Bush said little beyond soberly (and surprisingly) pointing out that the next leader of Cuba would come from Cuba -- a much-needed warning to the small yet influential group of hard-line exiles (Republican florida Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a nephew of Fidel's, prominent among them) with aspirations to post-Fidel presidential politics.

A few weeks into the Fidel deathwatch, Raúl gave an interview clearly meant for U.S. consumption. Cuba, he said, "has always been ready to normalize relations on the basis of equality. But we will not accept the arrogant and interventionist policies of this administration," nor will the United States win concessions on Cuba's domestic political model. A few days later, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon responded in kind. Washington, he said, would consider lifting its embargo -- but only if Cuba established a route to multiparty democracy, released all political prisoners, and allowed independent civil-society organizations. With or without Fidel, the two governments were stuck where they have been for years: Havana ready to talk about everything except the one condition on which Washington will not budge, Washington offering something Havana does not unconditionally want in exchange for something it is not willing to give.

From Washington's perspective, this paralysis may seem only temporary. Shannon compared post-Fidel Cuba to a helicopter with a broken rotor -- the implication being that a crash is imminent. But that view, pervasive among U.S. policymakers, ignores the uncomfortable truth about Cuba under the Castro regime. Despite Fidel's overwhelming personal authority and Raúl's critical institution-building abilities, the government rests on far more than just the charisma, authority, and legend of these two figures.

POLITICALLY INCORRECT

Cuba is far from a multiparty democracy, but it is a functioning country with highly opinionated citizens where locally elected officials (albeit all from one party) worry about issues such as garbage collection, public transportation, employment, education, health care, and safety. Although plagued by worsening corruption, Cuban institutions are staffed by an educated civil service, battle-tested military officers, a capable diplomatic corps, and a skilled work force. Cuban citizens are highly literate, cosmopolitan, endlessly entrepreneurial, and by global standards quite healthy.

Critics of the Castro regime cringe at such depictions and have worked hard to focus Washington and the world's attention on human rights abuses, political prisoners, and economic and political deprivations. Although those concerns are legitimate, they do not make up for an unwillingness to understand the sources of Fidel's legitimacy -- or the features of the status quo that will sustain Raúl and the collective leadership now in place. On a trip to Cuba in November, I spoke with a host of senior officials, foreign diplomats, intellectuals, and regime critics to get a sense of how those on the ground see the island's future. (I have traveled to Cuba nearly 30 times since 1984 and met with everyone from Fidel himself to human rights activists and political prisoners.) People at all levels of the Cuban government and the Communist Party were enormously confident of the regime's ability to survive Fidel's passing. In and out of government circles, critics and supporters alike -- including in the state-run press -- readily acknowledge major problems with productivity and the delivery of goods and services. But the regime's still-viable entitlement programs and a widespread sense that Raúl is the right man to confront corruption and bring accountable governance give the current leadership more legitimacy than it could possibly derive from repression alone (the usual explanation foreigners give for the regime's staying power).

The regime's continued defiance of the United States also helps. In Cuba's national narrative, outside powers -- whether Spain in the nineteenth century or the United States in the twentieth -- have preyed on Cuba's internal division to dominate Cuban politics. Revolutionary ideology emphasizes this history of thwarted independence and imperialist meddling, from the Spanish-American War to the Bay of Pigs, to sustain a national consensus. Unity at home, the message goes, is the best defense against the only external power Cuba still regards as a threat -- the United States.

To give Cubans a stake in this tradeoff between an open society and sovereign nationhood, the revolution built social, educational, and health programs that remain the envy of the developing world. Public education became accessible to the entire population, allowing older generations of illiterate peasants to watch their children and grandchildren become doctors and scientists; by 1979, Cuba's literacy rates had risen above 90 percent. Life expectancy went from under 60 years at the time of the revolution to almost 80 today (virtually identical to life expectancy in the United States). Although infectious disease levels have been historically lower in Cuba than in many parts of Latin America, the revolutionary government's public vaccination programs completely eliminated polio, diphtheria, tetanus, meningitis, and measles. In these ways, the Cuban state truly has served the poor underclass rather than catering to the domestic elite and its American allies.

Foreign policy, meanwhile, put the island on the map geopolitically. The Cubans used the Soviets (who regarded the brash young revolutionaries as reckless) for money, weapons, and insulation from their implacable enemy to the north. Although the government's repression of dissent and tight control over the economy drove many out of the country and turned many others against the Castro regime, most Cubans came to expect the state to guarantee their welfare, deliver the international standing they regard as their cultural and historical destiny, and keep the United States at a healthy distance.

The end of the Cold War seriously threatened this status quo. The Soviet Union withdrew its $4 billion annual subsidy, and the economy contracted by 35 percent overnight. Cuba's political elite recognized that without Soviet support, the survival of the revolutionary regime was in peril -- and, with Fidel's reluctant acquiescence, fashioned a pragmatic response to save it. Cuban officials traveling abroad started using once-anathema terms, such as "civil society." Proposals were circulated to include multiple candidates (although all from the Communist Party) in National Assembly elections and to permit small private businesses. The government legalized self-employment in some 200 service trades, converted state farms to collectively owned cooperatives, and allowed the opening of small farmers' markets. At Raúl's instigation, state enterprises adopted capitalist accounting and business practices; some managers were sent to European business schools. As the notion of a "socialist enterprise" became increasingly unsustainable, words like "market," "efficiency," "ownership," "property," and "competition" began to crop up with ever more frequency in the state-controlled press and in public-policy debates. Foreign investment from Europe, Latin America, Canada, China, and Israel gave a boost to agriculture and the tourism, mining, telecommunications, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and oil industries.

These changes rendered Cuba almost unrecognizable compared with the Cuba of the Soviet era, but they also allowed Fidel's government to regain its footing. The economy began to recover, and health and educational programs started to deliver again. By the end of the 1990s, Cuba's infant mortality rate (approximately six deaths per 100,000 births) had dropped below that of the United States, and close to 100 percent of children were enrolled in school full time through ninth grade. Housing, although deteriorating and in desperate need of modernization, remained virtually free. And a cosmopolitan society -- albeit one controlled in many ways by the state -- grew increasingly connected to the world through cultural exchanges, sporting events, scientific cooperation, health programs, technology, trade, and diplomacy. Moreover, by 2002, total remittance inflows reached $1 billion, and nearly half of the Cuban population had access to dollars from family abroad.

In 2004, a process of "recentralization" began: the state replaced the dollar with a convertible currency, stepped up tax collection from the self-employed sector, and imposed stricter controls on revenue expenditures by state enterprises. But even with these controls over economic activity, the black market is everywhere. Official salaries are never enough to make ends meet, and the economy has become a hybrid of control, chaos, and free-for-all. The rules of the game are established and broken at every turn, and most Cubans have to violate some law to get by. The administrators of state enterprises steal and then sell the inputs they get from the government, forcing workers to purchase themselves the supplies they need to do their jobs -- rubber for the shoemaker, drinking glasses for the bartender, cooking oil for the chef -- in order to fill production quotas.

At the same time, the revolution's investment in human capital has made Cuba uniquely well positioned to take advantage of the global economy. In fact, the island faces an overcapacity of professional and scientific talent, since it lacks the industrial base and foreign investment necessary to create a large number of productive skilled jobs. With 10,000 students in its science and technology university and already successful joint pharmaceutical ventures with China and Malaysia, Cuba is poised to compete with the upper ranks of developing nations.

STRAITS JACKET

The last potential turning point in U.S.-Cuban relations came with the end of the Cold War. Cubans greeted the fall of the Berlin Wall with a collective sigh of relief; it was, they thought, an opportunity to explore the kind of society Cuba might become once it could no longer depend on the Soviet Union. But over the next decade and a half, U.S. policymakers -- hobbled by domestic politics and a fundamental misunderstanding of the reality on the island -- missed opportunity after opportunity to bring decades of enmity to a close.

Instead of allowing debates about reform to take their natural course in Cuba, Washington jumped on the chance to, as Bill Clinton put it in the 1992 presidential campaign, "bring the hammer down" on Fidel. Congress passed and Clinton signed the Cuban Democracy Act, which, among other things, barred foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba and ships traveling from Cuban ports from docking in the United States. Havana reacted with predictable outrage, condemning U.S. imperial designs in dramatic public protests. More important, some reform proposals were put on hold -- lest the slightest crack in Cuba's armor open the way to U.S.-backed counterrevolution. National security trumped everything else.

The next decade saw a series of half steps forward followed by large steps back. Hoping to learn more about the island while driving a wedge between its people and its government, the Clinton administration began to allow licensed travel to Cuba for academic purposes and for the sake of lending "support to the Cuban people." It also embraced a policy of "calibrated response": as Cuba changed, U.S. policy would as well. Without ever relating them to U.S. gestures, Cuba did undertake some important (and largely unreciprocated) reforms, loosening restrictions on family and some professional travel, relaxing residency requirements for writers and artists, and continuing the economic openings. And when 40,000 rafters left for U.S. shores in 1994, after a summer of brutal heat and electricity and food shortages in Havana, U.S. and Cuban officials began secret negotiations in Canada. The result was unprecedented cooperation on migration issues -- Washington would provide 20,000 visas to Cubans a year, and the U.S. Coast Guard would send Cubans picked up at sea to the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay -- and a degree of official and people-to-people contact unknown since a brief opening under Jimmy Carter.

But these tentative steps, bitterly resisted by exiles who feared a slippery slope toward full-blown U.S.-Cuban relations, were soon thwarted. In February 1996, the Cuban air force shot down two planes being flown in the area by an exile group called Brothers to the Rescue. Led by a Bay of Pigs veteran, the group would make surveillance flights over the florida Straits (to inform the U.S. Coast Guard of rafters) and occasionally drop anti-Castro pamphlets over Havana from Cessnas bought at Pentagon tag sales. Sometimes, U.S. officials would join the flights. Havana had repeatedly warned Washington that the flights would not be tolerated, but the shootdown nonetheless resulted in swift congressional retaliation -- in the form of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidary Act, better known as Helms-Burton.

Helms-Burton took the U.S. embargo to new extremes. It attempted to halt all foreign investment in Cuba by allowing investors to be sued in U.S. courts. It mandated that future presidents could lift the embargo only if Cuba complied with a number of conditions, including holding multiparty elections, recognizing private property, and releasing all political prisoners. And it stipulated that any future change in U.S. policy would depend on Fidel and Raúl Castro -- along, implicitly, with other senior officials in the military and the Communist Party -- leaving politics altogether.

The Cuban regime responded with its own hard line. Raúl, although a leading advocate of economic reform domestically, was an absolutist when it came to confronting the United States. Even as some liberalization continued, and a new Cuban constitution opened the way for a religious revival by allowing Communist Party members to practice openly, there was a government-wide purge of academics and intellectuals -- many of them party loyalists -- thought to be associated with the United States or U.S.-backed reforms. The message was chillingly clear: given a choice between national security and a more open society, the revolution would pick security every time.

In the wake of Helms-Burton, the Clinton administration worked to revive a series of goodwill initiatives. When Pope John Paul II visited Havana's jam-packed Revolution Square in 1999, he asked "the world to open to Cuba and Cuba to open to the world." His entreaty gave both Washington and Havana political cover to revive some momentum on improving relations. The countries' coast guards worked together on antidrug operations, and retired U.S. military commanders met with Fidel and Raúl. The Baltimore Orioles and the Cuban national baseball team played each other -- once in Baltimore, once in Havana -- and after the musicologist Ry Cooder released an album of traditional Cuban ballads, there was a "Buena Vista Social Club effect," with American artists, musicians, clergy, academics, students, businesspeople, and politicians flocking to Cuba in record numbers. Cuban Americans who had not returned to the island since leaving as small children visited for the first time, and then returned over and over, reconnecting with long-lost family members. A number of prominent Republicans, including former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, called for a bipartisan commission to undertake a full-scale review of U.S. policy toward Cuba.

But the day after Thanksgiving in 2000, progress was undermined once again -- this time by the arrival in southern florida of a six-year-old boy named Elián González. Elián had left Cuba with his mother, but she had died on the trip to the United States. At first, the Clinton administration was slow to take Elián from the custody of his relatives in florida and return him to his father in Cuba -- inflaming Cuban nationalism and inciting mass anti-U.S. protests in Havana. Then, when Attorney General Janet Reno ordered federal agents to seize Elián in a predawn raid and return him to his father, the exile community erupted. The incident not only ended the prospect of a further thawing in U.S.-Cuban relations; it also (at least absent a recount) helped tip the presidential election to George W. Bush, who defeated Al Gore in florida by a few hundred votes.

Like most aspiring presidents casting around for votes, candidate Bush had promised to end the Castro regime. But it was not until the September 11 attacks, and the administration's newfound attention to democracy promotion and rogue regimes, that U.S. Cuba policy took a decidedly more aggressive turn. Bush's first-term Latin America team (many of whose members had either helped write or lobbied for Helms-Burton) rejected any business or security cooperation with Havana and encouraged speculation that Cuba was developing bioweapons for export to rogue regimes or use against the United States. (Those allegations, not surprisingly, withered under closer scrutiny.) By the end of its first term, the Bush administration had upended virtually all initiatives, official and unofficial, for improving relations. It ended the bilateral talks on migration. It stopped approving most medical sales, made legal travel to Cuba difficult for all but faith-based groups and some academics, and cut off visas for Cuban academics and artists. And it almost entirely barred Cuban Americans, who lean strongly Republican, from visiting or sending money to Cuba. Only sales of U.S. agricultural products, because they were explicitly allowed by Congress, escaped the crackdown.

INFIDELITY

Although the George H. W. Bush administration ended covert efforts to topple Fidel, the United States today spends about $35 million a year on initiatives described by some as "democracy promotion" and by others as "destabilization." Radio Martí and tv Martí broadcast from florida to Cuba; other U.S. government programs are intended to support dissidents, the families of political prisoners, human rights activists, and independent journalists. Although some Cubans do listen to Radio Martí, the Cuban government blocks the tv Martí signal, and without open ties between the countries, only a fraction of the support actually reaches Cubans living on the island; the lion's share is distributed through no-bid contracts to the anti-Castro cottage industry that has sprung up in Miami, Madrid, and a few Latin American and eastern European capitals. The recipients of such federal largess -- along with the Cuban intelligence agents that routinely penetrate the groups they form -- have become the primary stakeholders in Washington's well-funded, if obviously ineffective, policy toward Cuba.

On the ground in Cuba, moreover, these efforts are generally counterproductive. U.S. economic sanctions have given Cuba's leaders justification for controlling the pace of the island's insertion into the world economy. The perception, pervasive in Cuba, that the United States and the Cuban diaspora are plotting regime change further strengthens domestic hard-liners who argue that only a closed political model with minimal market openings can insulate the island from domination by a foreign power allied with old-money elites. Dissidents who openly associate with U.S. policy and its advocates in Miami or the U.S. Congress mark themselves as stooges of the United States, even if they are not. Moreover, the Cuban government has successfully undermined both the domestic and the international legitimacy of dissidents by "outing" some as sources, assets, or agents of the United States (or of Cuba's own intelligence services). The 2003 arrest and incarceration of 75 dissidents was intended to demonstrate that Cuba could and would preempt outside efforts at regime change regardless of the consequent international outcry and U.S. congressional rebuke.

There are some genuine dissidents in Cuba untainted by either government and not weakened by infighting. One, Oswaldo Payá, is a devout Catholic who heads the Varela Project, which collected more than 11,000 signatures in 2002 for a petition calling on the Cuban government to hold a referendum on open elections, free speech, free enterprise, and the release of political prisoners. Yet it is only by resisting the embrace of the international community, and of the United States in particular, that Payá has maintained his credibility and autonomy. Meanwhile, below the radar screen (and throughout officially sanctioned Cuban institutions), there are scores of thoughtful nationalists, communists, socialists, social democrats, and progressives who may not yet have the political space to air their views publicly but who express dissent in terms that U.S. policymakers either do not recognize or do not support.

The upshot of a half century of hostility -- especially now with ties severed almost entirely -- is that Washington has virtually no leverage over events in Cuba. With no other way to make good on its campaign commitments to Cuban Americans short of a full-scale invasion, the Bush administration established the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba in 2003 and appointed a "Cuba transition coordinator" in 2004. To date, the commission, the membership and deliberations of which have been kept secret, has issued two reports, totaling over 600 pages, on what kind of assistance the U.S. government could, "if requested," provide to a transitional government in Cuba.

The basic assumption behind the commission's planning is that with outside assistance, Cuba's transition will be a hybrid of those in eastern Europe, South Africa, and Chile. Those analogies and the policy prescriptions derived from them do not hold up. Unlike Eastern Europeans in the 1980s, Cubans, though enthusiasts of American culture and dynamism, regard Washington not as a beacon of freedom against tyranny but as an imperialist oppressor that has helped justify domestic repression. (Moreover, the United States had actively promoted travel, commerce, and cultural ties with the Soviet bloc before the transitions there began.) In the case of South Africa, the sanctions that helped topple the apartheid regime were successful because they were, in contrast to the unilateral U.S. embargo on Cuba, international in scope. And in Chile, the U.S. government was able to ease Augusto Pinochet out of power only because it had staunchly supported him for so long.

The second feature of Washington's vision for post-Fidel Cuba is more dangerous than a bad analogy. The Bush administration has made clear that its top priority is to interrupt the Castro regime's succession plans. The Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba report released just before Fidel underwent intestinal surgery in July states, "The only acceptable result of Fidel Castro's incapacitation, death, or ouster is a genuine democratic transition. ... In order to undermine the regime's succession strategy, it is critical that the U.S. government maintain economic pressure on the regime."

Since the 2003 war in Iraq, Cubans have closely observed the effects of de-Baathification there. Like membership in Iraq's Baath Party under Saddam Hussein, membership in the Cuban Communist Party is a ticket to professional advancement for devout believers and agnostic opportunists alike. Party members include sophisticated intellectuals, reform-minded economists, clergy, brash up-and-coming youth leaders, scientists, professors, military officers, bureaucrats, police officers, and businesspeople in the "revenue-earning sectors" of the economy. In short, it is impossible to know who among the roughly million party members (and 500,000 members of the Union of Communist Youth) is a real fidelista or raulista. Purging party members would leave the country without the skilled individuals it will need after Fidel, whatever the pace of change. And should the United States, or a government that Washington deems adequately transitional, ever be in a position to orchestrate such a purge, it would then face an insurgency of highly trained militias galvanized by anti-American nationalism.

One encouraging development is that the Cuban American community is no longer of one mind with respect to Cuba's future and its role in it. For decades, a vocal minority of hard-line exiles -- some of whom have directly or indirectly advocated violence or terrorism to overthrow Fidel -- have had a lock on Washington's Cuba policy. But Cuban Americans who came to the United States as young children are less passionate and single-minded as voters than their parents and grandparents, and the almost 300,000 migrants who have arrived since 1994 are generally most concerned with paying bills and supporting their families on the island. Now, the majority of Cuban Americans, although still anti-Castro, recognize that the embargo has failed and want to sustain family and humanitarian ties without completely eliminating sanctions. Overall, many want reconciliation rather than revenge.

The State Department is starting to recognize these changes, and many members of Congress must now answer to constituents from other Latin American countries who resent the outsized influence of Cuban Americans. But the hard-liners and their allies in Washington will continue to fight any proposed policy overhaul. They worry that if Washington adopts a more realistic approach to the island, the policy train will bypass Miami and head straight for Havana -- and they will have lost their influence at the moment when it matters most.

WASHINGTON'S MOVE

Even with the economy growing and new public-sector investment in transportation, energy, education, health care, and housing, Cubans today are deeply frustrated by the rigors of just making ends meet. They are eager for more democratic participation and economic opportunity. But they also recognize that Cuba's social, economic, and political models will change only gradually, and that such reform will be orchestrated by those whom Fidel has long been grooming to replace him. Washington, too, must accept that there is no alternative to those already running post-Fidel Cuba.

From the perspective of Fidel's chosen successors, the transition comes in a particularly favorable international context. Despite Washington's assiduous efforts, Cuba is far from isolated: it has diplomatic relations with more than 160 countries, students from nearly 100 studying in its schools, and its doctors stationed in 69. The resurgence of Latin America's left, along with the recent rise in anti-American sentiment around the globe, makes Cuba's defiance of the United States even more compelling and less anomalous than it was just after the Cold War. The Cuban-Venezuelan relationship, based on a shared critique of U.S. power, imperialism, and "savage capitalism," has particular symbolic power. Although this alliance is hardly permanent, and American observers often make too much of Venezuela's influence as a power broker, it does deliver Cuba some $2 billion in subsidized oil a year and provide an export market for Cuba's surfeit of doctors and technical advisers. (By providing the backbone for Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's social programs and assistance in building functional organizations, Havana exercises more influence in Venezuela than Caracas does in Cuba.) Havana, without ceding any authority to Chávez, will optimize this relationship as long as it remains beneficial.

Nor is Venezuela the only country that will resist U.S. efforts to dominate post-Fidel Cuba and purge the country of Fidel's revolutionary legacy. Latin Americans, still deeply nationalistic, have long viewed Fidel as a force for social justice and a necessary check on U.S. influence. As attendance at his funeral will demonstrate, he remains an icon. Latin Americans of diverse ideological stripes, most of them deeply committed to democracy in their own countries, want to see a soft landing in Cuba -- not the violence and chaos that they believe U.S. policy will bring. Given their own failures in the 1990s to translate engagement with Cuba into democratization, and the United States' current credibility problems on this score, it is unlikely that U.S. allies in Latin America or Europe will help Washington use some sort of international initiative to advance its desires for radical change in Cuba.

When Fidel dies, various actors in the United States and the international community will rush to issue and, if they get their way, enforce a series of demands: hold a referendum and multiparty elections, immediately release all political prisoners, return nationalized property and compensate former owners, rewrite the constitution, allow a free press, privatize state companies -- in short, become a country Cuba has never been, even before the revolution. Many of those goals would be desirable if you were inventing a country from scratch. Few of them are now realistic.

After Fidel's funeral, a "transition" government of the sort Washington is hoping for will not occupy the presidential palace in Havana. This means that the White House cannot responsibly wait for the happy day when the outlines of its commission reports can be put to the test. Instead, the current administration should immediately start talking to the senior Cuban leadership. Recognizing that Cuba and the United States share an interest in stability on both sides of the florida Straits, the first priority is to coordinate efforts to prevent a refugee crisis or unforeseen provocations by U.S.-based exile groups eager to exploit a moment of change on the island. Beyond crisis management, Washington and Havana can cooperate on a host of other concerns in the Caribbean Basin, including drug trafficking, migration, customs and port security, terrorism, and the environmental consequences of offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The two countries have successfully worked on some of these issues in the past: each has bureaucracies staffed by professionals who know the issues, and even know one another. An end to Washington's travel ban, a move already backed by bipartisan majorities in the House of Representatives, would further open the way to a new dynamic between the United States and Cuba. Just as the first Bush White House formally ended covert operations on the island, this Bush administration or its successor should also affirmatively take regime change, long the centerpiece of Washington's policy toward Cuba, off the table.

By continuing the current course and making threats about what kind of change is and is not acceptable after Fidel, Washington will only slow the pace of liberalization and political reform in Cuba and guarantee many more years of hostility between the two countries. By proposing bilateral crisis management and confidence-building measures, ending economic sanctions, stepping out of the way of Cuban Americans and other Americans who wish to travel freely to Cuba, and giving Cuba the space to chart its own course after Fidel, Washington would help end the siege mentality that has long pervaded the Cuban body politic and, with the applause of U.S. allies, perhaps help accelerate reform. Cubans on and off the island have always battled over its fate -- and attempted to draw American might into their conflicts, directly or indirectly. Lest the next 50 years bring more of the same, the wisest course for Washington is to get out of the way, removing itself from Cuba's domestic politics altogether.

Fidel's successors are already at work. Behind Raúl are a number of other figures with the capacity and the authority to take the reins and continue the transition, even after Raúl is gone. Fortunately for them, Fidel has taught them well: they are working to consolidate the new government, deliver on bread-and-butter issues, devise a model of reform with Cuban characteristics, sustain Cuba's position in Latin America and internationally, and manage the predictable policies of the United States. That these achievements will endure past Fidel's death is one final victory for the ultimate Latin American survivor.

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Profile: Restoration of Hemingway's home in Cuba threatening to create international incident

3 December 2006

NBC News: Nightly News

JOHN SEIGENTHALER, anchor:

Finally tonight, he's one of the best-known authors in America. Ernest Hemingway wrote classics like "The Old Man and the Sea." For many years, he lived in Cuba. Now there's an effort to restore his home there, but it's threatening to create an international incident. NBC's Mark Potter has more from Havana.

MARK POTTER reporting:

South of Havana, high on a hill sits a living monument to literary achievement. For 21 years, until 1960, famed American author Ernest Hemingway lived and worked here, winning a Pulitzer and a a Nobel Prize.

Ms. GLADYS RODRIGUEZ (Former Cuban Curator): This little piece of Cuban land was his home, his homeland, too.

POTTER: Since last year, Cuban workers have been restoring his home known as Finca Vigia, or Lookout Farm, after decades of tropical weather did lots of damage. And they're repairing the Pilar, Hemingway's storied fishing boat. American preservation experts are also trying to help but face political roadblocks.

While Americans can provide technical support, they are not allowed to send any money or materials for the restoration of the boat or the house. The Bush administration says that would violate the US trade embargo and support the Cuban government.

The Cubans say they need American supplies and equipment and scoff at the claim they would help Fidel Castro.

Ms. RODRIGUEZ: They are stupid things, stupid decisions.

POTTER: Jenny Phillips who heads the Hemingway Preservation Foundation in Massachusetts argues the Cuban restoration efforts are not political.

Mr. JENNY PHILLIPS: We need to rise above the politics and passions of the moment and focus on the timeless value of this literary shrine.

POTTER: Much of Finca Vigia today is the way Hemingway left it, with his phonograph, hunting trophies, thousands of invaluable papers and books, and the simple room and typewriter where he made history.

Ms. ISBEL FERREIRO (Cuban Restoration Expert): Here he finished "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and he wrote here in this room, "The Old Man and the Sea."

POTTER: A cultural legacy, too important, preservationists say, to be hindered by political conflict. Mark Potter, NBC News, Havana.

SEIGENTHALER: You can read more of Mark Potter's reporting on Cuba from our blog. The address is dailynightly.msnbc.com.

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VOA NEWS: U.S. SAYS IT WANTS CONSTRUCTIVE RELATIONSHIP WITH VENEZUELA

4 December 2006

US Fed News

WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 -- The Voice of America issued the following story:

By David Gollust

The United States said Monday it will seek to have a constructive relationship with Venezuela after the re-election of populist President Hugo Chavez. But it turned a cold-shoulder to an overture for dialogue from acting Cuban leader Raul Castro. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.

The Bush administration has had a rocky relationship with Venezuelan President Chavez, underscored by the populist leader's harsh personal attack on President Bush last September at the United Nations.

Nonetheless, the State Department says in the wake of the Chavez re-election victory, it remains hopeful for a positive and constructive dialogue with the Venezuelan government, noting that cooperation has continued in some areas during Mr. Chavez' eight-year tenure.

The Venezuelan president sounded anything but conciliatory toward Washington in post-election comments. Echoing his controversial U.N. General Assembly speech, he framed his landslide victory as a setback for the United States - in his words a defeat for the devil and those who try to dominate the world.

Asked about the election outcome, State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said the Chavez rhetoric makes things a little more difficult, yet does not preclude the two governments being able to work together in areas of mutual concern, citing ongoing cooperation, for example, on combating drug trafficking.

"We are certainly able to look beyond those kinds of comments, if there's a true will or spirit of working together. I'm not sure that sort of rhetoric serves the Venezuelan government well in the long-run in terms of its international standing. But again, the Venezuelan people have spoken in terms of who they're going to elect as their president. And we will work where we can with the Venezuelan government on a positive agenda," he said.

Mr. Chavez' verbal attack in September is widely seen as having caused a diplomatic backlash that last month cost Venezuela an election for the Latin American seat on the U.N. Security Council, a seat eventually won by Panama.