Getting Smart About Cuba

The announcement of Fidel Castro's retirement and the subsequent election of his brother Raul Castro as Cuba's new president came as no surprise to Cuba experts and certainly not to the Cuban people themselves. Most Americans, though, seemed to expect that the passing of Castro -- however it should happen -- would be a convulsive event for Cuba. Instead, the changes happened peacefully and quietly, illustrating how U.S. perceptions of Cuba are, in general, painfully ignorant. It's time we recognized why.

The fact that Cuba holds non-compulsory elections every five years, in which approximately 95% of Cubans vote, may surprise many Americans. While some may dismiss this systematic practice of political participation as a sham, others recognize the grassroots discussions that do occur in Cuba through a vast, deep network of community and religious groups, block associations and other "organizations of the masses." Whatever one's point of view, events of the past days indicate that the Cuban people have readily and peacefully accepted the results of these elections and are ready to move on.

Others are not ready to move on.

Hardliners

Similar to what happened with Iraq, where a disgruntled contingent of an exile community spun its own "intelligence" that helped lead us down the path of war, through Democratic and Republican administrations alike, the United States has allowed and underwritten a wealthy, politically entrenched subset of hardline, pro-embargo Cuban-Americans to determine policy despite the best interests of much larger sectors of the population.

While Cuba evolves, U.S. policy will remain static as long as this special interest group sets the terms by which any opening can occur. These hardliners know U.S. ultimatums will never work to bring change to Cuba; they don't expect them to. The hardliners' goal is to punish the perpetrators of the Cuban revolution and create the chaos and institutional breakdown in Cuba that might allow them to regain a foothold on the lost island of their fantasies.

It's curious that the policy of our nation is set by members of Congress who have never set foot on the island, and Cuban-Americans who fled a civil war for the safety of U.S. shores so long ago.

The United States has, in part, been unwittingly ensconced in a small-time family-feud with Fidel Castro. After all, the father of two members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida -- Republicans Lincoln Diaz Balart and Mario Diaz Balart -- was a close cabinet confidant to former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, whom the Revolution threw out. Their aunt was Castro's first wife, Mirta Diaz Balart, who left Cuba with Fidel's first son, initiating a custody battle that eerily presaged the crisis over the custody and residency of young Elian Gonzalez eight years ago.

Even Hillary Clinton's sister-in-law, Maria Victoria Arias, is a pro-embargo Cuban-American Miami lawyer responsible for the Clintons' campaign contributions and consequently hard-line views on Cuba. Florida Governor Jeb Bush, President George W. Bush's brother, ran the campaign for Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Cuban-American member of Congress.

Embargo Industry

Beyond the blood ties, there is a more subtle and significant architecture that supports the status quo. It's a taxpayer-funded "embargo industry" that employs hundreds, if not thousands, whose livelihoods depend on Cuba remaining, well -- Cuba. It began during the Reagan years with appropriations for Radio and TV Marti that today top $500 million to beam U.S. propaganda into Cuba. In the case of TV Marti, even $225 million can't buy Cuban viewers since the Cuban government jams the signal. But a half a billion bucks does buy jobs, contracts and political loyalties.

Almost simultaneously, hardliners helped create the National Endowment for Democracy. One of the agency's first grants went to the powerful Cuban American National Foundation -- a group that delivered the first Cuban-Americans to Congress. Since 2000, NED has provided at least $4.9 million to Cuba related pro-democracy programs. The windfall from these first programs emboldened the hardliners to write more legislation funding more work for Cuba democracy-builders, that is -- embargo supporters -- in Miami and worldwide. U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) grants to "support political transition in Cuba" totaling more than $40 million have gone primarily to Miami-based groups since they were first doled out in 1996.