Cuba, Venezuela pose subtle, but real dangers to United States

Havana Malecon, summer 1994

This bicoastal discussion with a colleague began on Twitter. We are often — to avoid the absolutes — on different sides of most issues. This one exchange over the weekend was no different.

We were tweeting along, disagreeing respectfully, when she came up with a question that was difficult to answer in 140 characters. What danger do Cuba and Venezuela represent to the United States?

This was not a question of human rights, or of democracy, or even of communism. The question was simple and direct. I was stumped, particularly when limited in space. I have to admit that, in that Twitter conversation, I was check-mated.

This is why I resort to a lengthier format; one in which I am more comfortable in responding to my colleague.

Cuba and Venezuela do represent a serious dangers to the United States, but not directly in a militaristic way.

Cuba did at one point represent a very real danger to the United States — during the 1962 Missile Crisis, when armed with Soviet missiles the world came closer than ever to a nuclear war. That, however, was almost five decades ago — it will be 50 years ago in October 2012. Certainly, that is not the case now.

Still both Cuba and Venezuela, each in its own way, present a real and present danger to the United States today. No, the danger is not of a military invasion, or of terrorists attacking this country, or even of invading other countries in the region. Still, they represent a real and present danger to this country in many other ways.

First, let's start with Cuba. The Cuban regime has repeatedly used its people as weapons against the United States. It has done so at least three times, and could do it again at any point as a way of relieving the pressure from its failed economy. South Florida felt the brunt of its fury in the 1960s when Fidel Castro opened the Port of Camarioca in 1965, forcing the United States to adopt an orderly flow of exiles from Cuba that brought 270,000 Cubans to the United States over the next seven years.

Fifteen years later, Castro did it again when he opened the Port of Mariel and allowed 125,000 Cubans to cross the Florida Straits in less than five months. And in the mid-1990s, he allowed more than 33,000 people to flee on rafts in a few short weeks.

Back in the 1980s, then-Ambassador Victor Palmieri, director of Refugee Affairs in the State Department when Jimmy Carter was president, wrote in an unpublished paper that Mariel had been "an act of war." And this is a weapon Cuba can always use on the United States to test the will of a U.S. president.

Venezuela and Hugo Chávez, Castro's most advanced disciple, represent an enormous danger to U.S. diplomacy in the region. In much the same way that Castro tried to oust regimes in Latin America by helping guerrilla movements, Chávez now is the chief financial officer of the movement to elect socialist leaders in countries to set up an anti-American block in Latin America. For starters, we can talk about Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. All have been helped by Chávez, whose petrodollars feed anti-American sentiment in the region.

Cuba and Venezuela still support Iran, as well as Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who is now probably fighting for his life in the city of Serta against Libyans rebelling against his regime. They also back the Palestinian effort to be recognized as a nation, and quietly oppose the state of Israel.

Furthermore, Venezuela's armed forces have billions in new weapons purchased from Russia to please its generals, who are now heavily Involved — albeit secretly — in the drug trade. As Colombian rebels have lost power, it has moved across the border to Venezuela where its own armed forces supervise the drug trafficking to Europe and the United States.

The elected authoritarian regimes rising in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua are not a direct danger to the United States. They do represent, however, represent a danger to the freedoms of people in the hemisphere. Freedom of the press and human rights are constantly violated in these countries. People live in fear of their governments and thousands have been forced to flee their homeland.

But no, none of this represents a clear and direct danger to the United States; just to the type of government we would like our neighbors to our south to have. So point, set and match go to my colleague on the West Coast. Or does it?

By Guillermo I. Martínez

Source: Sun Sentinel 

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In Cuba, would soldiers pull the trigger on protesters?

Cuban police.

Nineteen eighty-nine was a good year for freedom. Only in China did the Communist Party crush the protesters who slowly took possession of Tiananmen Square from April 14 on. When the tanks and soldiers rolled in on June 3-4, there was hardly any concrete to be seen on the square. Up to 1,500 people were massacred.

Even so, Tiananmen left us an image of hope: the man who repeatedly blocked a tank while the soldier driving it never ran him over. Internet searches for “tank man” in China come up empty. One here will get you nearly nine million results. The man’s defiance and the soldier’s refusal to kill him still threaten the Chinese leadership.

In Eastern Europe, communist regimes fell like dominoes. Mikhail Gorbachev’s “Sinatra Doctrine” — Moscow would no longer intervene to prop them up — left the region’s communist leaders to fend for themselves. When citizens took to the streets, all but Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu blinked rather than give the order to fire.

Cuba had its own 1989. In June, a group of military and state-security officers were arrested and tried for drug trafficking. Four were brought before firing squads. Perhaps these men were also involved in reform efforts. No matter, it is still crystal clear that the scandal bared a regime predicament.

Fidel Castro’s demand for unconditional elite loyalty required a high degree of tolerance for wide-ranging elite behavior. Whether or not he knew about the officers’ activities, full responsibility fell on his governance style. Havana, however, blamed a few bad apples even if two of the men executed — Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa and Colonel Antonio de la Guardia — had long been close to Castro.

Today we are witnessing young people in the Middle East march for freedom. Unlike Eastern Europe, however, Middle Eastern regimes sprung from within and, in that sense, are more akin to China. Autocracies in Egypt and Tunisia withered away with little bloodshed. Not so in Libya where Moammar Gadhafi has unleashed loyal troops, foreign mercenaries and air strikes against the people. Hundreds have already died and the regime no longer controls eastern Libya.

After 1989, Cuba was thought to be next. Bumper stickers proclaiming En el noventa, Fidel revienta! (In 1990, Fidel will burst!) were widely seen in Miami. George H.W. Bush thought freedom would come to Cuba under his watch. Castro, however, stood fast and survived to transfer power to Raúl in 2006.

Be that as it may, the elder Castro’s leadership style is still the heart of the matter. Fidel always preferred governing on his own than through even undemocratic institutions. It took Raúl Castro a while to put the house in order. Now he and his elderly cohorts are trapped.

On the one hand, the thought that they would be the ones to lose power keeps them awake at night. On the other, they are committed to saving Fidel’s legacy which is also their own. Still, Castro’s unwillingness to put the interests of ordinary Cubans at the center of his rule has made Raúl’s task all the harder. Too much time has been lost and the costs now are even steeper.

Cubans are facing layoffs to the tune of 1.8 million over four years. Though there are conflicting reports on whether the first round of 500,000 has even started in earnest, the mere announcement of layoffs suggests a new social contract. “You’re on your own,” the leadership is, in effect, saying.

What’s happening in Libya might be especially troubling for the Cuban leadership. Fidel Castro and Gadhafi once had close relations. We don’t know how much Cubans know about Libyan developments. Elites in the military, the state and the party, however, are well aware of the defections among their Libyan counterparts.

Would young Cubans be willing to risk the regime’s wrath by taking to the streets? Would the regime give the order to fire on them? Would the officers and soldiers pull the trigger? These aren’t idle questions. Incipient reforms are already shaking up Cuban society, and that’s the place to look for change.


Marifeli Perez-Stable

From: KansaCityStar

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Qaddafi's Friends in Cuba

A friend in need is a friend indeed?

With the unrest in Libya and particularly with his recent public relations debacles, leader Muammar Qaddafi is rapidly losing any remaining fans. Yet down in South America, apparently, a few stalwarts remain.

Fidel Castro penned a column in Cuba's Granma, warning of Libya's appeal to the United States because of it's vast petroleum reserves. "For me it is absolutely evident that the United States is not worried about peace in Libya, and will not hesitate to give NATO the order to invade this rich country maybe in a matter of hours or very few days," he wrote. Perhaps tellingly, though, while the two leaders have been allies at times, Castro was reticent with outright support for Qaddafi, noting that "we have to wait the necessary time to know with rigor how much is fact or lie."

In a look at the history of Qaddafi's relationship with Venezuela, Caracas daily El Universal reported that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proclaimed his support for Qaddafi in 2009, claiming that "Qaddafi is to Libya as [Simon] Bolívar is to us." Simon Bolivar was involved in the liberation of much of Latin America from colonial rule. The superlatives didn't end there, Chavez calling Qaddafi a "revolutionary soldier," "a leader of of the Libyan revolution," and a "leader of all of Africa as well as Latin America."

Chavez and Qaddafi, both leaders of oil-rich nations, have had an unlikely relationship blossom between them in the past few years. El Universal reports that Chavez has visited Libya five times. Libya awarded Chavez with the "Qaddafi Human Rights Prize" in 2004. In March 2009, Qaddafi named a football stadium in Benghazi after Chavez. On his end, Chavez made Qaddafi the special guest at a conference between African and Latin American countries held on Venezuela's Isla Margarita later that year, where he also presented Qaddafi with a replica of Simon Bolivar's sword. Rumors were swirling as recently as last night that the Libyan strongman had made his way to Venezuela to seek shelter.

By Eli Rosenberg

From: The Atlantic Wire

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