Home News Tribune Online 06/12/07
ROGER E.
HERNANDEZ
You'd have to be a masochist, a journalist or a CIA analyst to sit
through more than 30 seconds of the latest Fidel Castro video appearance.
In an interview for Cuban TV, the guy meandered as he wished and spent
interminable minutes reading out loud factoids from a book about
Vietnam. Did you know that, as of three years ago, 45 percent of
Vietnam's rural population had access to "modern sanitary
installations"? They hope to make it 85 percent by 2010, Castro said,
because economic development in Vietnam is geared toward "the people."
Castro seemed more rested and healthier than he did a few months ago in
a clip in which he looked like a cadaver trying to appear alive by doing
an exercise routine designed for the undead. Still, he spoke slowly,
sometimes pausing for several seconds at a time to regain his train of
thought.
He no longer looks like a man on the verge of death. But neither does he
look like he will ever have the energy and sharpness to regain power.
Fidel Castro is history.
His regime is not, and Cuba is not freer or more prosperous since his
brother Raul took power after Castro became too ill to govern. That
happened last summer, almost one year ago, and there is still zero sign
of reform.
Is there anything that the United States, Europe and those Latin
American democracies so inclined can do to help Cuba become a country
where people do not go to jail for disagreeing with the government?
One thing the international community should not do is follow the path
of Spain's socialist government. In April, Foreign Minister Miguel Angel
Moratinos visited Felipe Perez Roque, his counterpart in Havana, and
refused to see dissidents. A joint statement after the meetings said
both ministers agreed to "political consultations, including a dialogue
on human rights." But at a press conference later, Perez Roque said in
the presence of Moratinos that their talks had not touched on the
subject of political prisoners, because "this is not a matter we discuss
with other countries." More talks in late May also excluded dissidents,
and accomplished exactly nothing.
Last week, in a quick visit to Madrid, Condoleezza Rice criticized
Spanish President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Cuba policy. "I think
democratic states have an obligation to act democratically, to support
opposition in Cuba, not to give the regime the idea that it is just
going to be transition from one dictatorship to another," she said.
She is right. There can be a healthy debate about the effects of
loosening parts of the U.S. embargo. Could allowing more Cuban-Americans
to visit strengthen reformist elements in Cuba, or would it give the
regime a boost? It's a legitimate question. What is unforgivable is the
kind of uncritical diplomacy in which the Zapatero government is
engaging, premised on the naive notion that if you are nice to Havana,
maybe someday Havana will start acting nice. It is a policy that props
up the regime while weakening the opposition — certainly no way to
promote democracy.
Zapatero's habit of hoping bad people will turn out to be good if you
just give them a chance took a blow on his domestic front this week,
when the terrorist Basques of ETA announced they were going to start
planting bombs in Spain again. It marked a humiliating defeat for
Zapatero and his heavily criticized plan to negotiate with ETA. He has
been humiliated by Cuba, too, even if he doesn't know it yet.
The problem is that there is nobody in the international community that
can help move Cuba in a positive direction. Zapatero will forever remain
Bambi, as one columnist in Spain called him, "an innocent and idealist
fawn." The rest of Europe does not care. Latin America likes having a
Castro or two to prove it is gloriously independent of U.S. policy. And
the United States, after six years of incompetence, obliviousness and
bullying, has never been more impotent on the international stage.
So managing the transition will be up to Cubans themselves. When it
comes to politics, that has never been a good thing.
Roger Hernandez is a syndicated columnist and writer-in-residence at New
Jersey Institute of Technology. His latest book is "Cubans in America"
(Kensington). Write to him in care of this newspaper or send e-mail to
rogereh@optonline.net.
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