Cuba libre?
UNITED NATIONS — If you don’t see it, maybe it didn’t happen. If you don’t hear it, perhaps it wasn’t said. If you are not there, you can’t say much. At least that’s Fidel Castro’s classically Orwellian tact in tactlessly dealing with some European Union politicians visiting Cuba to address a rare pro-democracy meeting. It was a case of right place, wrong time.
European Parliamentarians from the Czech Republic and Germany were shamelessly seized by police in Havana and packed off to Jose Marti Airport — Vamos! Two Polish politicos arriving in Cuba for the same human rights conference were unceremoniously put back on return fights!
Czech Senator Karel Schwartzenberg, former chief of staff to President Vaclav Havel no doubt knew the script — “This is the typical behavior of a totalitarian state,” he intoned. He knows of what he speaks.
Just last year, former President Havel held a Prague conference to support dissidents and democratic alternatives in post-Castro Cuba. Havel stressed that a Cuba should take its political cue from the peaceful and positive changes in Eastern Europe following the fall of Soviet communism. Havel himself a celebrated Czech former dissident, has devoted special attention towards Cuba after Castro.
German Parliamentarian Arnold Vaatz, also a dissident in former East Germany, got the same short shift. He later deplored the "romanticism of Cuba" among Europeans.
The point is that allowing a rare open dissident meeting in Havana is one thing; but by throwing European parliamentarians out, Castro violates his own rules, namely by bluntly alienating the very Europeans with whom he does thriving trade and tourism.
For a long time Castro cultivated the perception that he stands as an intrepid David against the American goliath. Havana has equally encouraged a benign image in Western Europe and needless to say, Canada. By playing the victim of Uncle Sam instead of the victimizer of the Cuban people, Castro has earned a political cachet not only among the left-wing, but many who see him as a patron of anti-globalization.
But outside scrutiny is growing, albeit slowly. The UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva passed a resolution (21-17) calling on Cuba to allow a UN envoy to visit the island to investigate human rights abuses. That resolution co-sponsored by the U.S., Costa Rica, and Poland among many others was strongly supported by the European Union and Ukraine.
Allowing a UN investigator to visit communist Cuba to interview dissidents has been flatly rejected by the Foreign Ministry in Havana, needless to say. In 2003 Castro jailed 75 dissidents, prompting an outrage, even among the Europeans.
At the same time Fidel Castro’s isolation is far from complete. Just in time for the Havana’s mammoth May Day rallies, Vermont’s lame-duck U.S. Senator Jim Jeffords, the political “independent,” was in the Cuban capital promoting improved political and trade ties between the communist island and the Green Mountain State.
Jeffords who called for lifting of Washington’s long-standing trade and tourism embargo with the Caribbean isle, later signed a memorandum of understanding for Cuba’s purchase of Vermont agricultural products. Indeed as some American food products may now legally be exported to Cuba; Vermont plans to sell livestock, apples and milk. Over the past few years Cuba has bought about one billion dollars worth of American agricultural produce.
But the future may not be business as usual for Fidel and friends. The recent dissident meeting, organized by the Assembly for the Promotion of Civil Society in Cuba, is hoping to promote democracy; it was the first open opposition meeting in 46 years of communist rule. Though Castro still holds suffocating political control over Cuba, can he ultimately rebuff the force of freedom?
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense
issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.  |
