HAVANA (Reuters) - Leading Cuban dissidents on Monday rejected President Bush’s plans to speed up a democratic transition in communist-run Cuba and said U.S. meddling would not help bring political change.
The White House announced steps on Thursday to spend $36 million on promoting democratic change in Cuba and blocking a communist succession when President Fidel Castro dies.
The measures include new sanctions to squeeze the island’s battered economy and the broadcast of anti-Castro television signals from a military C-130 transport off Cuba.
“This is a total interference that does not benefit the building of democracy in Cuba,” said moderate dissident Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo, who criticized Bush’s policy in a statement he handed in at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana…
Cuba’s best-known dissident, Oswaldo Paya, winner of the European Parliament’s Andrei Sakharov human rights prize, said it was up to Cubans, not the United States or a European government, to design a post-Castro transition for the Caribbean island…
“The proposals are totally counterproductive,” said veteran Cuban human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez, who warned that opponents receiving U.S. money would be immediately exposed to arrest.
Cuba watchers questioned the timing of the measures and said they appeared to be tailored to curry favor with hard-line Cuban-American voters in Florida, an important state in November’s presidential election.
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From: Otto J. Reich, Special Envoy for Western Hemisphere Initiatives
To: All staff
Re: The embargo - How we’re doin’
Hola, amigos!
There’s been a bit of negative reaction to the President’s proposal, and some of you might be hearing about it. So I thought I’d take this opportunity to give you some historical perspective and let you know how the Cuban embargo’s going.
In a word, it’s going GREAT. There are problems, naturally, but in general we’re incredibly happy about the embargo and its effect. Some are saying that we oughta work towards lifting it, maybe try something new. But a careful analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of lifting the embargo shows that this is completely unwise:
Advantages
- 40+ years of the embargo has utterly failed to shake the regime of Fidel Castro.
- Despite the continued reign of Castro, 40+ years of the embargo has helped foster extraordinary amounts of poverty and suffering in Cuba.
- The threat of the spread of communism worldwide, which was the major rationale for the embargo, has passed.
- Most of the world thinks we’re nuts on this one.
- Cuba has not been a military or strategic threat to the United States for years.
- Lifting the embargo and allowing trade and travel could have a democratizing effect, open up Cuban society, benefit both of our economies, allow seperated families to see each other more frequently, and improve the living conditions of all Cubans.
Okay, I’ll admit it - those are pretty big positives. Convinced, are you? Not so fast!! Let’s look at the other side of the coin…
Disadvantages
- Castro could crack any day now.
- If we soften our stance on the embargo, Kerry wins Florida. Kerry wins election. Game, set, match.
When our analysts looked this over, the choice was clear. The embargo stays. Maybe even toughened up a little, just to show Castro we mean business.
Thanks,
Otto
Fanny Roborat
13 comments
Murray
May 11, 2004 at 5:11 pm
1Now that we are experts at installing democracy, all we ask is to do to Cuba, what we have done to Iraq. I’m sure that they will greet us with dancing in the streets.
Oh! And we can pay for it all with another tax cut.
Jim E-H
May 11, 2004 at 5:24 pm
2As Dave Barry so eloquently put it:
CIA (Motto: “Overthrowing Castro since 1959!”)
jerry
May 11, 2004 at 6:46 pm
3I’ve never been a fan of the “embargo”. It never really seems to work properly.
For instance there was a pretty strict embargo imposed on Libya. There was general consensus around the world that certain things shouldn’t be sold there. That worked so well that they were able to produce many things including 23 tons of mustard gas – a very nasty blistering agent.
There was a very strict embargo of oil sales from Iraq. We even asked the UN to run the only exception program, the Oil-for-Food program. That was HUGE success - if you were an employee of the program you realized real financial gains in a tough world economy. It appears that even politicians and advisors around the world benefited. It worked so well that the UN, the leading agent calling for governmental transparency around the world says it doesn’t need an outside auditor.
Embargos and sanctions as effective tools for pressure. Nope – give me a good old-fashioned blockade any day.
It would be interesting for both parties to call for the lift of the ill-performing embargo of Cuba. Until such time –neither party can be panned nor praised for Cuban policy.
jerry
May 11, 2004 at 6:48 pm
4(dangit - I forgot something)
the conserva-troll
Bob
May 11, 2004 at 7:57 pm
5“Hola, amigos!”
Wait a second–is Otto J. Reich just an alias for Jim Anchower?
sly
May 11, 2004 at 11:32 pm
6I don’t know if I support a lift of the embargo. What would happen to the nice street vendor in Union Square if Cuban cigars were available everywhere?
Mojo
May 12, 2004 at 12:01 am
7I agree that the embargo against Cuba has outlived its usefulness. Also, the specific changes being made aren’t part of an embargo anyway; they’re an expansion of the propaganda effort and proposals to interfere in the internal affairs of a neighboring country. (After Castro and the reason for the interference is gone?!) However, I disagree with Jerry about the usefulness of embargoes. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. The embargo against Libya
was one of the primary factors in their deciding to give up support for terrorism and WMDs. The sanctions against Iraq effectively prevented them from rebuilding their military to the point that it could become a viable threat to neighboring countries (or even defend themselves as it turned out) and severely slowed or, in some cases, halted their WMD programs. It is a fallacy to say that, because an action doesn’t accomplish a specific aim perfectly and unassisted, it has failed. By that logic, democracy as a political system is a failure if a single election is rigged.
My theory is that the administration has simply noticed that Castro is really, really old and will probably die of natural causes soon. Therefore, they’ve decided to do something at random in the hopes of claiming the credit for “liberating” Cuba when Castro goes to whatever part of hell is reserved for brutal dictators that aren’t supported by the US (our friends are winged to heaven on the prayers of the 700 club).
PC (Politically Creative) Pete
May 12, 2004 at 3:27 am
8The NeoCon shieldbearers under Shrub would surely be panicking at the thought of all those happy, musically gifted, lightly oppressed Cubans launching a mass migration wave to The Greatest Nation On Earth ™ when the old man pops his Cuban clogs. How would they be able to buy the American Cuban vote if there were no Cuban Cubans left to prop up their claims?
I’d also be interested to see what sort of propaganda they’d be beaming into Cuba. “When your leader dies, STAY THERE! We’ll send you a new leader!”
In a related topic, I heard a report on the BBC a couple of days ago where the reporter asked a Castro supporter what she’d do if Castro died. Her first response : “What? Is he ill? How do you know he’s going to die?”. Her second response : “He’s not going to die. He has the best doctors. He will live until he is 120 years old!”. Now Bush would love to hear THAT!
ken... Just Ken
May 12, 2004 at 10:36 am
9I say we stay with the embargo.
You can see how effective the Iraq embargo was in helping us win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi People; the way they welcomed us with open arms and danced and sang in the streets.
Their still dancing now, aren’t they?
Those are flowers they’re throwing, aren’t they?
lovable liberal
May 12, 2004 at 2:27 pm
10I don’t know if I support a lift of the embargo. What would happen to the nice street vendor in Union Square if Cuban cigars were available everywhere?
It’s an ill wind that blows smoke up nobody’s ass!
mothis
May 12, 2004 at 11:16 pm
11The only time a embargo has ever worked was with the Cuban missle crisis and that was more of a blockade anyways.
Liz
May 25, 2004 at 11:15 pm
12The EMBARGO MUST STAY! Cuban-Americans are in favor of it because it serves to weaken the Castro regime, and prevent it from becoming stronger. Cubans in the island deal with the unbearable torture of communism on a daily basis. The Castro regime is not poor, it is greedy. The people are hungry, oppressed and controlled by fear. Those that want it gone, do so for the personal gratification of traveling to an island where leisure is inexpensive to tourists. Yet, as Americans we must have the knowledge that we do NOT support a communist government. Plus, Cuban-Americans who have family in the island are allowed to visit just the same. I, and countless others, support the embargo for all the right reasons!
Sabine
May 26, 2004 at 6:07 pm
13Hola, que tal?
To lift the Cuban embargo? Cubans would dance on the street after a “rescue” from US?
Background: I´m German, I was living for 6 months in Cuba in 2003 and travel normaly 3 or 4 times a year to Cuba. I stay in private houses, live together with Cubans and takl with them.
Lifting the embargo will just make Fidel Castro stronger and helps that the Cubans will getting closer to him!!! Because it shows the Cubans how bad the US government is and how good their Fidel is. This is the thinking of the Cuban people and no Bush or somebody else will change this.
The Cubans would never dance on the street after an invertention of US. If you talk with the Cubans who are living in Cuba, nobody of them wants any people of US in Cuba (like Iraq). Every country is wellcome to help Cuba, especially after Castro´s dead, but the Cuabns do NOT want the US people, also not the Cubans from Miami!
The US government should reduce their arrogance. The fights of US government is always against the politicians of other countries, but who must suffer of all and has the pain of life after US was raging? Sure not the politicians US is fighting against - the poor people of a country must suffer a lot. It is always against the little people.
The US government didn´t know and didn´t understand the way of thinking of the people of Iraq, and they don´´t unserstand the way of thinking and feeling of the Cubans. But this is essential for success.
How was it possible, that Fidel Castro has survieved more than 700 attacs, especially from Miami-Cubans and from CIA??????