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« Back to Cuba after Castro main page    Transcript for: Cuba after CastroTHINK TANK WITH BEN WATTENBERGTTBW 1201 'CUBA AFTER CASTRO' PBS feed date 1/08/2004 Funding for Think Tank is provided by: At Pfizer we’re spending over five billion dollars looking for the cures of the future. We have twelve thousand scientists and health experts who firmly believe the only thing incurable is our passion. Pfizer. Life is our life’s work. Additional funding is provided by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation. (opening animation) Ben Wattenberg: Hello, I’m Ben Wattenberg. In January 1959, Fidel Castro rode triumphantly into Havana after successfully ousting dictator Fulgencio Batista. Forty-five years later, Castro is the world’s longest ruling head of government and the leader of one of only a few remaining socialist countries The United States maintains a controversial embargo on trade and travel to Cuba, and l life for Cubans is quite grim. Now 77 years old, Fidel Castro boasts that the Cuban socialist state will survive him. Will it? Is anyone waiting in the wings? What-if anything--should the US be doing now to help foster democracy? To find out, Think Tank is joined this week by: Mark Falcoff, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and author of Cuba: The Morning After And Juan Lopez, visiting scholar at the University of Chicago’s Center for Latin American Studies and the author of Democracy Delayed: The Case of Castro’s Cuba The topic before the House: 'Cuba After Castro' This week on Think Tank. (musical interlude) Ben WATTENBERG: Mark Falcoff, Juan Lopez, thank you very much for joining us on Think Tank. Juan, thank you for flying in from Chicago for this august event. Let me start off by asking a question. After the Soviet Union collapsed, all its satellite states as it were, went independent, went free, went democratic, but not Cuba. Now how come? Juan, why don’t you start. You were born in Cuba? Juan LOPEZ: Yes. One of the things that were missing was the ability of independence sources of communication to reach most of the population. There was, you know, Radio Marti, later TV Marti was established, but TV Marti never managed to reach the population and Radio Marti has been severely jammed by the Cuban government. Connected with this absence of the effectiveness of independent sources of communication is the feeling in the Cuban population, from the research that I have done, that change is not possible. You know, in Eastern Europe people went through the streets to protest, as you have... Ben WATTENBERG: The Cuban people feel that change is not possible? Juan LOPEZ: Right. People in Eastern Europe came to believe that participating in these mass demonstrations could bring about some political change. That’s not the case in Cuba. The people of Cuba think that it would be useless to go and march. Ben WATTENBERG: You buy that Mark, that that’s a critical factor? Mark FALCOFF: Certainly it’s one of the elements. I would have thought that there are so many reasons that Cuba is different from the eastern European countries. The myth of the revolution... Ben WATTENBERG: Well I mean if the Cuban people, if you put a million-and-a-half people in the main square of Havana things happen. But that didn’t happen in Cuba. Is it so much of a police state that you can’t put that together? Mark FALCOFF: Well it’s certainly one of the most efficient police states. A product of the best teachers that could be found. But you have a number of push/pull factors. One is, of course, the possibility of immigration to the United States acts as a damper on many people who would probably militate in opposition organizations. A lot of people just opt out and apply to leave. Ben WATTENBERG: How does that work? That the United States doesn’t want a flood of Cuban immigrants? Is that right? Mark FALCOFF: That’s right. We don’t want an uncontrolled flood and so there’ve been a series of migration agreements over the years, the most recent was signed... Ben WATTENBERG: But if Cuba became free and democratic and commercially active with the United States, is it possible that some of those Cuban immigrants from the Miami area might return to Cuba? On an American dollar you could probably make out pretty well. Mark FALCOFF: I don’t personally foresee this massive return of a Miami Cuban community. The people in Miami that are the most financially solvent are people who now have very deep roots in the United States. Their children are Americans. The most recent arrivals are people that have rather modest incomes. Ben WATTENBERG: What has happened to Elian Gonzalez? I mean for about six weeks he covered the whole television world. Have we heard any reports about him? Juan LOPEZ: Well, you know, he’s in Cuba and he’s used from time to time by the Castro government for, you know, propaganda reasons... Ben WATTENBERG: Oh, he is? Juan LOPEZ: ...he’s sort of, you know, taken out of the shelf and shown around. WATTENBERG: Would Castro win a democratic election? Is he popular in Cuba? Juan LOPEZ: No. Ben WATTENBERG: No. Mark FALCOFF: I don’t think he would win a plebiscite of the type that they had in Chile for example. Ben WATTENBERG: Yes. Mark FALCOFF: Pinochet didn’t win it either. Ben WATTENBERG: Now Mark, you used to be - let me characterize it - a real hard-liner on this stuff and say we should maintain the embargo against Cuba - no trade, no tourism of Americans although we have people get around it, but minimally. Now I understand from your new book, and I’ve heard you talk about it, you think it would be okay to relax the embargo or take it off. Mark FALCOFF: No, the way I feel about it is this, Ben. I’m tired of making the embargo the center of the discussion. I wish the embargo didn’t exist because in its existence it allows the Cuban government and some people in the United States to act as if the big problem is between Washington and Havana; whereas in fact the big problem is between the Cuban government and its own people. It also weakens the position of the United States when we go to the international forums like the Human Rights Commission, everybody sees us as a big guy versus little guy argument. And the third thing is, Ben, the embargo is practically fictitious, it hardly exists. It leaks like a sieve. The biggest single source of hard currency in Cuba today are remittances sent by the Miami Diaspora. Ben WATTENBERG: Juan, it’s said, by conservatives particularly, that America’s commercial engagement with China, which is admittedly in a different league, helps push that country toward democracy because they have to deal with commercial reality and so on and so forth. Why wouldn’t that apply in Cuba? Juan LOPEZ: The key reason is that the government controls the economy. The foreign investment that comes into Cuba is limited to some enclaves basically in the tourist sector. Ben WATTENBERG: People say that the embargo isn’t punishing Castro; it’s punishing the Cuban people. Juan LOPEZ: That’s false. Ben WATTENBERG: That’s false. Mark FALCOFF: I agree. I don’t think that the Cuban people’s welfare would be significantly improved by lifting the embargo. No, I don’t believe that at all. Ben WATTENBERG: Why not? I mean -... Mark FALCOFF: Well, to give you an example, Ben, the tourist industry as of right now only employs about three percent of the Cuban population. Ben WATTENBERG: Well, yes, because the big source of where tourism would come would be from the United States. I mean here’s a country of about three hundred million people, ninety miles away, I mean you could have hundreds of thousands of tourists a year coming in from the United States at least for the first time. I mean they may not want to go back although I hear the beaches are beautiful and whatever. Mark FALCOFF: Well there are lots of countries in the Caribbean basin that have beautiful beaches. Ben WATTENBERG: Yes, I understand. Mark FALCOFF: And the infrastructure that’s on the ground in Mexico or even the Dominican Republic is far better than Cuba. I think people want to go to Cuba because they’re told they can’t go. Juan LOPEZ: One of the problems with the lifting of the embargo in Cuba is the government controls access and the government controls the economy. So wealth doesn’t trickle down into the population. I don’t know if you’re aware that foreign investors cannot contract workers directly, so they have to get their workers through the Cuban government. So they pay the Cuban government about ten thousand dollars a year and then the Cuban government turns around and pays about one hundred and fifty dollars a year to the worker. And then there is this wage confiscation that constitutes about fifty percent of the earnings from foreign investment in Cuba. The more foreign investment you have the more you will stabilize the economic situation in Cuba. Ben WATTENBERG: Have the Europeans been investing in Cuba? Juan LOPEZ: Yes. Yes. Ben WATTENBERG: Successfully, from their point of view, from the European’s point of view? Mark FALCOFF: Well, it’s a very mixed record. Some European countries have not, or the European investors have been disappointed and have pulled out. The Spanish have had some success with tobacco and hotels. But it’s a mixed record. Ben WATTENBERG: Why hasn’t the Catholic Church, which in Eastern Europe played a huge role in overthrowing and resisting the Soviets and encouraging the dissidents, has apparently been relatively quiet in Cuba? Is that accurate, and if so why? Mark FALCOFF: I don’t think that’s a completely accurate picture. But you have to understand, Ben, the Catholic Church has a very different history in Cuba than it does in Eastern Europe. The old Catholic Church in Cuba was on the wrong side of the war of independence. You know, Spain. And it was not a popular church. It was an upper middle class, upper class church in the pre-Castro period. But today it has become the only independent center of spiritual and cultural life of the country, and because it now sees this new possibility of sinking deep roots into a society which it really didn’t have before, the Vatican and the hierarchy are ambivalent about this. They want to continue to develop a hold on the society that they didn’t have before. And, of course, the government plays a game of cat and mouse with the church too in the sense that, for instance, the spaces that were open to the church just before the Pope’s visit a couple years ago have been largely closed again. So the church has a different agenda. Juan LOPEZ: The church has a long-term view. After the Pope’s visit to Cuba in 1998, the church gained a little bit of a space, of freedom of worship. Ben WATTENBERG: Civil space, I mean... Juan LOPEZ: Well just freedom of worship. For example, the church has been making a lot of demands, like for example, access to the media, to have Catholic schools. And the government has not yielded on those demands, so I think that there is probably two reasons why the church has adopted the very submissive position. One is to preserve its limited space for worship and another is to try to see if, you know, if it behaves in a submissive manner, if the government might be willing to grant some more concessions. But you know, let me tell you that the church is divided in Cuba. The hierarchy represented by Cardinal Jaime Ortega pretty much wants to maintain a very cordial relationship with the government and keep a distance from the opposition, but there are other members of the church, especially in the eastern part of Cuba, for example, Archbishop Pedro Maorisa that is a lot more sympathetic to the opposition and a lot more critical of the government for violating human rights. Ben WATTENBERG: As I was doing my good-boy reading for this show, I hadn’t realized there are apparently within the Bush administration, allegedly, some plans brewing to put the screws on Cuba, non-militarily. Do you all know anything about that? Have you heard that? Mark FALCOFF: Well there’s a commission that is being put together but I think the purpose of it is to try to think through what our policy should be when Castro isn’t there. Ben WATTENBERG: I see. Mark FALCOFF: And also I hope that that commission will address the humanitarian crisis that exists in Cuba right now. Probably twenty percent of the population is suffering from malnutition. Ben WATTENBERG: Well tell me about this. There was this crackdown recently... Mark FALCOFF: 80 human rights activists and independent journalists, independent economists and so on.... Ben WATTENBERG: And what, they were put in jail? Mark FALCOFF: They were all put in jail. Some for very long sentences. Ben WATTENBERG: These were people in Cuba? Mark FALCOFF: Yes. Ben WATTENBERG: But Cuba doesn’t have a free press. Where were their documents seen that Castro... Mark FALCOFF: Well, a lot of those independent journalists were phoning their stories out to outlets in Spain, Mexico, and the United States. Much of what we know on the web about Cuba came from these independent journalists. Ben WATTENBERG: I see. Are the other Latin American countries - I mean there’s South American countries, Caribbean countries - are they sort of, I don’t know, pro-Castro-- I mean a little bit pro-Castro, or soft on Castro, in part, to sort of snub their nose at America? Mark FALCOFF: I always say that for the other Latin America countries and particularly for the small countries of the Caribbean, Cuba - Castro’s Cuba--is kind of like a pornographic movie. I mean they don’t want to do these things, they don’t think it’s sensible, but they enjoy watching Castro do them. And they don’t have to pay the freight for it. I mean the Cuban people end up paying for it, but I think there’s a lot of sympathy for Castroism in Latin America. It’s kind of cheap form of getting even with the United States for the fact that Latin America’s falllen so far behind compared to our own development. Ben WATTENBERG: What are the American politics about Cuba? Juan LOPEZ: The American government...it started with Clinton in 1994 and it has been continued the same policy under Bush...the American government wants to maintain the status quo in Cuba. It doesn’t want to rock the boat; it doesn’t want to take Castro down. It wants to wait it out, to see if when Fidel Castro dies for some reason some person or group of people get power in Cuba and are willing to negotiate a transition to democracy. The word in Washington is to achieve a smooth landing in Cuba. And so to negotiate a transition in such a way that surveillance and control over the coastline of Cuba will be maintained and thereby avoid a potential wave of rafters. So I think that a key... Ben WATTENBERG: A wave of rafters? Juan LOPEZ: Rafters. I think that a key fear of those that determined U.S. policies towards Cuba is, you know, having Castro fall now in what they call a chaotic way and then have to face a wave of rafters. So I think basically bottom line is, the Bush administration wants to keep Castro in power, to avoid a wave of rafters and then, you know, see if something might happen in the future. Ben WATTENBERG: But Bush also wants to make nice to the Cuban Floridians or the Floridians who originally came either originally or their children or their children’s children, to keep them on board. They vote predominantly Republican or they have in the past. Mark FALCOFF: They have, except that Bill Clinton was the first Democratic presidential candidate that was actually able to cut significantly into that. The policy that Dr. Lopez has just described of not wanting a violent, cataclysmic transition, I think pretty well describes the policy of almost every administration for a very, very long time. On the other hand everybody wants the Cuban American vote, including by the way Governor Dean who very recently stated to my great amazement that although he had favored lifting the embargo in the past, due to Castro’s recent crackdown of the 80 human rights activists, he now thinks that perhaps the embargo should not be lifted for the moment. Juan LOPEZ: Bush has made, repeatedly, promises to Cuban Americans in Florida to do two things that would undermine the Castro regime. Make Radio Marti and TV Marti effective and increase the material assistance to the opposition. So these promises have been made repeatedly to Cuban Americans and Bush has not delivered and I don’t think that he plans to deliver. Ben WATTENBERG: Would you be in favor of-- I mean this is a pretty harsh way of putting it--but in favor of another Bay of Pigs, of organizing of Cuban Americans into a paramilitary force to... No. Juan LOPEZ: No. It’s not necessary. Ben WATTENBERG: Not necessary. Mark FALCOFF: It would not be desirable. One of the things that we want to avoid is the notion that democracy in Cuba matters more to the United States than it does to the Cuban people or that this is something the Cuban people should be passive on while the United States solves their problem for them. Ben WATTENBERG: There is, if you travel down to southern Florida among non-Cubans, some resentment that the whole southern part of Florida has been taken over by Cubans. Is there evidence of a spreading out of that Cuban community into other parts of the country and as a mainstreaming rather than a voluntary ghetto type of activity? Mark FALCOFF: Well first of all there are Cuban American communities in many cities in the United States. There’s a large community in New York; there’s one in Los Angeles; there’s one in Chicago; there are other parts of Florida. What makes Miami such a nerve center is that it’s the point of reception for the twenty-thousand that come every year under the current migration agreement. Ben WATTENBERG: That’s the quota we have for Cuba? Mark FALCOFF: That’s the quota we’ve set aside in exchange for which Castro promises not to have another migration rafter crisis. That was the agreement... Ben WATTENBERG: That was the Mariel crisis. Mark FALCOFF: No, the Mariel crisis was in 1980, in which things got completely out of control.... Ben WATTENBERG: He just opened it up and said... Mark FALCOFF: That’s right, and the Clinton administration was desperate to avoid this. Ben WATTENBERG: A lot of them were sent to Arkansas where Clinton was governor. Mark FALCOFF: That’s right and the Clinton administration was desperate to avoid this so they reached... That’s right and I’m sure that had quite a big impact on his thinking about this. And so in 1994/95 they reached an agreement with the Cuban government to take twenty-thousand unhappy Cubans off Castro’s hands every year, and in exchange for which the Cuban government would behave responsibly. Ben WATTENBERG: So we do do business with the Cuban government through what, an Interests Section? Mark FALCOFF: We have an Interests Section in Havana that actually occupies the old building of the U.S. Embassy and they occupy the old Cuban embassy here on 16th Street in Washington. We both fly the flags of Switzerland and pretend that we’re part of the... Ben WATTENBERG: And, of course, the United States still has a base in Guantanamo? Mark FALCOFF: Well, but that’s not recognized by the Cuban government. I mean they... Ben WATTENBERG: But we have it. Mark FALCOFF: We’re still there because they have chosen not to try to eject us. I find very significant one fact and that is that recently General Raul Castro who’s Fidel’s younger brother... Ben WATTENBERG: Yes, I want to talk about him for a minute. Mark FALCOFF: And he’s the officially designated successor, he recently stated that if any of the Al-Qaeda detainees in Guantanamo escaped to mainland Cuba they would be promptly returned to the United States authorities. Which led me to assume that that was Raul’s wink at the United States that after his brother’s gone we can do business with him. Ben WATTENBERG: What kind of government do you think you would get with a Raul Castro government? Mark FALCOFF: Well it seems to me that Cuba right now is undergoing a curious and perverted form of transition. And that perverted form of transition is this. It’s morphing from a classic communist state to a kind of updated version - a much more scientific, much more sophisticated version - of the classic authoritarian patrimonial family dictatorship that we saw in Trujillo’s Dominican Republic or Samoza’s Nicaragua. Ben WATTENBERG: So this would be sort of a monarchical ...brother, brother. Mark FALCOFF: Let me explain what I mean by that, Ben. A lot of the high officials of the Cuban government today, the younger people are either former army officers - Raul Castro’s head of the ministry of the armed forces and he’s also minister of the interior. He’s put a lot of his people into key jobs and some of the ministers are married to members of his family. For example, the minister of basic industries, at least as of two years ago, was married to Raul Castro’s niece. So what’s happening is this regime is beginning to more nearly resemble other kinds of authoritarian familial dictatorships that we’ve seen in the past, but obviously much more efficient, much more impressive. And the goal, I think, of this is to have all of this in place when Fidel dies so that it’s a 'fait accompli' and this is the transition scenario of the regime itself and then perhaps it would have a different kind of ideological gloss; it would have a different message, discourse to the United States. It would be the regime that could guarantee security and stability. Ben WATTENBERG: Juan, is that your view of what would happen? Juan LOPEZ: One has to be clear that it would not be a transition to democracy. You know, Raul is not a soft-liner, a negotiator that is willing to negotiate a transition to democracy. You know, he’s a hard-line dictator, so he might establish a dictatorship with a little bit of a different color but it’s still, you know, a harsh dictatorship. So, you know, one should not make any illusions about the good intentions of Raul Castro. Ben WATTENBERG: Let me conclude. I’ll give you each a crystal ball and see if we can get an answer. Look ahead, turn the pages of the calendar ahead ten years. What would you guess you’re going to see in Cuba? Juan LOPEZ: I am pessimistic. I think that the United States will follow its plan of waiting for some kind of negotiator after Castro dies. That will give the communist elite a major role to play and so a semi-democracy might be established in Cuba. There will be a lot of obstacles to implementing market reforms and, you know, Cuba will, you know, linger under repression and economic problems for a long time. This outcome is not predetermined; it can be changed to a much better future, but it depends on what policies the United States government pursues. Ben WATTENBERG: Right. Mark, how about you? Ten years out, what’s going to happen? Mark FALCOFF: Well, ten years Castro may still be alive and making very boring speeches. And the only good thing about... Ben WATTENBERG: He speaks to people for five, six hours at a time. Mark FALCOFF: Well he used to. I think now he’s cut it down to two and a half. The only good thing about that Ben is you’re going to have a couple of generations of Cubans whose only memory of this man is of a senile, boring dictator and that may provide a good anecdote. The legend will be completely dead by then, if it isn’t already. But I think the United States is ambivalent about Cuba’s future because, quite frankly, we have a lot of other things on our plate right now internationally and that alone probably causes us to freeze policy and wait. Ben WATTENBERG: Okay. Thank you very much, Mark Falcoff, Juan Lopez. And thank you. Please remember to send us your comments via email. It helps us make our program better. For Think Tank, I’m Ben Wattenberg. (credits) We at Think Tank depend on your views to make our show better. Please send your questions and comments to New River Media, 1219 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036. Or e-mail us at thinktank@pbs.org. To learn more about Think Tank, visit PBS on line at www.pbs.org, and please, let us know where you watch Think Tank. Funding for this program is provided by: At Pfizer we’re spending over five billion dollars looking for the cures of the future. We have twelve thousand scientists and health experts who firmly believe the only thing incurable is our passion. Pfizer. Life is our life’s work. Additional funding is provided by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation. This is PBS. Back to top  Think Tank is made possible by generous support from the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Donner Canadian Foundation, the Dodge Jones Foundation, and Pfizer, Inc. ©Copyright Think Tank. All rights reserved. 
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