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(This
is a heavily abridged version of a much longer article
available at www.cubalinda.com)
Havana,
May 2003
Condemnation
of Cuba was immediate, strong and practically global
last month for the imprisonment of 75 political dissidents
and for the summary execution of 3 ferry hijackers.
Prominent among the critics were past friends of Cuba
of recognized international stature.
As
I read the hundreds of denunciations that came through
my mail, it was easy to see how enemies of the revolution
seized on those issues to condemn Cuba for violations
of human rights. They had a field day. Deliberate
or careless confusion between the political dissidents
and the hijackers, two entirely unrelated matters,
was also easy because the events happened at the same
time. A Vatican publication went so far as to describe
the hijackers as dissidents when in fact they were
terrorists. But others of usual good faith toward
Cuba also jumped on the bandwagon of condemnation
treating the two issues as one.
With
respect to the imprisonment of 75 civil society activists,
the main victim has been history, for these people
were central to current U.S. government efforts to
overthrow the Cuban government and destroy the work
of the revolution. Indeed regime change, as overthrowing
governments has come to be known, has been the continuing
U.S. goal in Cuba since the earliest days of the revolutionary
government. Programs to achieve this goal have included
propaganda to denigrate the revolution, diplomatic
and commercial isolation, trade embargo, terrorism
and military support to counter-revolutionaries, the
Bay of Pigs invasion, assassination plots against
Fidel Castro and other leaders, biological and chemical
warfare, and, more recently, efforts to foment an
internal political opposition masquerading as an independent
civil society.
Far
from being “independent” journalists, “idealistic”
human rights activists, “legitimate” advocates
for change, or “Marian librarians from River
City,” every one of the 75 arrested and convicted
was knowingly a participant in U.S. government operations
to overthrow the government and install a different,
U.S.-favored, political, economic and social order.
They knew what they were doing was illegal, they got
caught, and they are paying the price. Anyone who
thinks they are prisoners of conscience, persecuted
for their ideas or speech, or victims of repression,
simply fails to see them properly as instruments of
a U.S. government that has declared revolutionary
Cuba its enemy. They were not convicted for ideas
but for paid actions on behalf of a foreign power
that has waged a 44-year war of varying degrees of
intensity against this country.
To
think that the dissidents were creating an independent,
free civil society is absurd, for they were funded
and controlled by a hostile foreign power and to that
degree, which was total, they were not free or independent
in the least. The civil society they wished to create
was not just your normal, garden variety civil society
of Harley freaks and Boxer breeders, but a political
opposition movement fomented openly by the U.S. government.
What government in the world would be so self-destructive
as to sit by and just watch this happen?
Prominent
in the outrage at Cuba’s action against the dissidents
were commentaries of shock over how nice things had
been getting in recent years with Fidel’s mellowing
and tolerance of the dissident community, and suddenly
now THIS! In actual fact May 20, 2002 was the turning
point when in speeches in Washington and Miami, Bush
announced his “Initiative for a New Cuba.”
Central to this “new” plan, citing Poland
as a past success, he announced increased and direct
assistance to “help build Cuban civil society,”
leading to a “new government” in Cuba. I
wonder. Would it be overreach to say Bush was advocating
regime change through the dissidents? The Cubans made
no secret of their interpretation.
The
knell for “our guys” came with the arrival
in September 2002 of a new Chief of the U.S. Interests
Section in Havana, the equivalent of Ambassador were
Cuba and the U.S. to have full diplomatic relations.
James Cason is a career State Department diplomat
who has served mostly in Latin American countries,
not menacing to the eye, just a bit overstuffed in
the round face, double chinned like a Porky Pig in
his late fifties, with wide round glasses in front
of half-closed eyes. Like he’s had too many two-hour
lunches and not enough jogging. Otto Reich, Cuban-American
fanatic and one of the un-indicted criminals of Iran-Contra,
who was serving a limited recess appointment (read
no chance for Senate confirmation) as Bush’s
Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American, gave
Cason the job and apparently put an ample load of
hot sauce on his appointee’s backside.
Cason
swooped down on Havana like a fed from Gangbusters’
central casting with an “in your face” attitude
big time. But give the guy credit. He ran his ass
off all over this island burning his dissident friends,
“our guys,” and sealing their fate as he
went along. His blatant support for Washington’s
civil society in Cuba looked for all the world like
he was bent on getting himself PNG’d, expelled
as persona non grata in diplomatic parlance. He made
a show of unity with groups in the provinces as well
as Havana; gave 24-hour passes to the Interests Section
to favorites, including Cuban penetration agents,
for free internet access and other facilities; attended
meetings in dissidents’ homes where he gave the
equivalent of press conferences to foreign journalists;
personally launched the youth wing of the Liberal
Party; entertained dissidents in his official residence,
even hosting an independent journalists’ workshop
there one Saturday. His conduct went so far beyond
accepted diplomatic protocol that you might say he
was the mother of all provocations.
But
expelling Cason would have led to a new crisis with
the U.S., and the Cubans didn’t take the bait.
For six months they waited and watched through their
highly placed penetrations of Cason’s dissident
community. Then they decided to act. They had the
evidence of criminal activities in support of Helms-Burton
and in violation of other legislation on sedition,
so they finally decided to sweep away Cason’s
constituency in a stroke. And there he stood in March,
appropriately like the Emperor who wore no cool. Indeed,
there’s been not a peep from the man since his
acolytes were picked up.
One
can imagine the bitterness from prison with 75 of
“our guys” reflecting on how stupid they
were to fall for Cason’s grandstanding. So now
Cason and his staff, CIA and AID officers included,
have to start all over, pretty much from scratch.
But hey, buddy, careful whom you all recruit. You
may be salivating tomorrow over another of Fidel’s
finest. Never know, do you? Think about that when
you file for security clearances on your next generation
of dissidents.
Without
a doubt the Cubans weighed the price they would have
to pay with friends and foes before taking the decision
to act. And they knew they had a lot to lose. The
movement in the U.S. to end the embargo and travel
ban, in Congress and on the street, would peel rubber
in reverse with all the media distortions. Cuban entrance
into the Cotonou Agreement for preferential trade
and aid with the EU would likely go back into the
deep freeze, which it did. Moreover, the U.N. Human
Rights Commission was then meeting in Geneva, and
the U.S. was trying as hard as possible, with threats
and bribes, to get a motion approved condemning Cuba
for human rights violations. In the end they didn’t
get it, but the Cuban government was willing to take
this risk as well.
With
so much at stake, the timing of the decision triggered
intense speculation. In truth the dissident community,
including those imprisoned, has never been a threat
to the revolution, and Cuba could have gone on indefinitely
tolerating, penetrating and monitoring their U.S.
government-ordered activities. But the U.S. might
have seen that as weakness, and that’s the last
thing you want a Grendel to think.
Moreover
there was an important internal political dimension
to tolerating Cason’s insulting provocations
because they were so widely known here. He had gone
so far beyond the pale that people in general wondered
about the government’s tolerance. This too could
be seen as weakness by supporters of the revolution.
So they decided to stop him once and for all and to
send a message to his remaining protégés,
to stretch the protective connotation just a bit in
the Cuban context. In 1996 the government had stopped
the highly visible Brothers to the Rescue overflights
by the shootdowns, largely for internal political
reasons, knowing full well the price they would pay
internationally. So also in 2003 they decided to firmly
use the hook on Cason’s Top Gun stage act regardless
of international opinion. As in the shootdowns, internal
Cuban politics, not international reactions, more
than likely determined the timing.
The
Three Executions
The
hijacking of the Havana harbor ferry, the Baraguá,
couldn’t have come at a worse time. It was the
7th hijacking in 7 months and came on April 2, a day
before the trials of the dissidents were to start,
making it easy for Cuba’s enemies, and not a
few of its friends, to lump the two disparate events
into one “wave of repression.”
The
ferry was no more than a flat-bottomed self-propelled
barge with a cabin, safe only for calm harbor waters,
and that night there were 50-odd people on board including
children and foreign tourists. The armed hijackers
took it to sea in a highly dangerous Force 4 wind,
ran it out of fuel, and threatened by radio to start
throwing hostages overboard if they were not given
enough fuel to reach Florida. The amazing part is
how the Cuban coast guard convinced the hijackers
to allow a tow of the drifting ferry to the port of
Mariel where special forces set up a trap and divers
prepared for the rescue. After many hours of standoff,
it all ended in less than a minute when a French woman
suddenly dove overboard and was followed en masse
by the other hostages and the hijackers as well. The
hostages were all rescued, and the hijackers quickly
arrested.
In
the trial the state asked for, and received, the death
penalty for the three ringleaders of the hijacking,
an action upheld by an appeals court because it was
a terrorist act of extreme gravity even though no
one was injured. Then the Council of State had to
ratify or commute. Should Cuba end their nearly three-year
moratorium on executions? Should they stir up condemnation
from the world movement against the death penalty?
Should they delay their decision and let those guys
wait on death row for a while---not 15-20 years like
in the States but at least a few weeks so as not to
show undue haste? Or should they commute to life and
show mercy.
Frankly,
being against the death penalty, I thought a combination
of the last two would be best: wait and commute. But
I didn’t know that at the time the Cuban security
forces were investigating another 29 hijacking plots.
From the Council of State’s point of view it
surely looked like the beginning of a wave of hijackings
encouraged as always by the 1966 Cuban Adjustment
Act and the wet-foot, dry-foot policy that discriminates
against all non-Cuban illegal immigrants. Particularly
galling to Cuba is the hero treatment hijackers have
gotten in Florida and the fact that if a pilot flies
a plane over there willingly, he’s not considered
a hijacker and is guilty of no more than misappropriation
of property.
If
there is one principle that Cuba has always followed,
at least since the missile crisis of 1962, it is never
to give the U.S. a pretext for military action. Another
Mariel exodus or rafters crisis, or indeed a wave
of hijackings, would be just such a pretext, as Fidel
later reasoned, for imposing a U.S. naval blockade,
an all-out bombing campaign, and an outright invasion.
They could avoid another Mariel or rafters episode,
but they had to stop the hijackings immediately. And
he was right. On April 25th the chief of the Cuba
Bureau of the State Department told the Chief of Cuba’s
Interests Section in Washington that the United States
considers any more hijackings to be a serious threat
to U.S. national security. Understanding “one
more and we take military action” would not be
paranoia.
But
the Council of State didn’t have to wait for
that news. They knew it already. They ratified the
sentences on April 10th, and they were carried out
the next morning. You can fault Cuba on the principle
of “no death penalty under any circumstances,”
but the fact is that Cuba is one of more than 100
countries that have it on the books. They had just
seen what U.S. bombs and missiles had done to Baghdad,
saw the painstaking work of two generations at risk,
including their centers of science and technology,
educational institutions, hospitals and clinics, their
historic cultural heritage, but most important their
people who would be killed and maimed. And they didn’t
confuse the hijackers with dissidents. They were delinquents
turned terrorists who had threatened vastly more than
their 50 hostages.
It
came as no surprise to Cuba when, with the executions
and the sentencing of the dissidents at nearly the
same time, the howling around the world began. They
seemed to be ready for it to a degree, but you could
sense a certain shock when long-time friends of the
revolution like Eduardo Galeano and Jose Saramago
joined the chorus of condemnation. They were joined
by Chomsky, Zinn, Albert, Davis, Dorfman and others,
whose works are treasures in my library, who signed
the superficial statement of the Campaign for Peace
and Democracy: “We the undersigned strongly protest
the current wave of repression in Cuba…[against
dissidents]…for their non-violent political activities…”
Like the dissidents are not equal to terrorism, embargo,
and psychological warfare as instruments in Washington’s
unending campaign to convert Cuba into another American
vassal. Fair enough if that’s what they want
for Cuba. Pitiful if they signed without thinking.
Epilogue
In
Washington, despite the black eye that Cuba is seen
to have self-inflicted, the Congressional supporters
of legislation to end or ease the embargo and to abolish
the travel ban are again moving ahead with the introduction
of new legislation for that purpose. While most condemned
the April events, they are sticking with their principles,
mostly in the belief that Americans who come to Cuba
will change the Cubans. Over the years I’ve seen
just the opposite happen, but ending the travel ban
is certainly worthy, reasons aside.
The
Bush administration, peopled as it is with hard line
Cuban-Americans, continues to ratchet up the pressure
with the expulsion of 14 Cuban diplomats in Washington
and New York on vague espionage charges. Clearly a
political, not a national security decision, someone
in the FBI leaked the news that the White House had
apparently told the State Department to expel Cubans,
and State asked the FBI for some names. The FBI source
added that none of the Cubans was the subject of an
on-going espionage investigation. Conversely the Cuban-American
congressional representatives from Miami, Ros Lehtinen
and Díaz Balart, whine openly that Bush won’t
take their calls demanding a swift end to the Cuba
problem once and for all.
In
Miami all those NGOs sucking at the teats of AID and
NED to keep their anti-Castro industry going, along
with their comfortable life-styles, will have to go
back to their computers and draw up new plans for
civil society in Cuba. They’ll have to look for
ways to salvage their counterpart fronts across the
straits and for more Cubans with few enough scruples
and just enough self-destructive instincts to take
their money.
Over
here in Havana, James Cason would do well to slip
away on consultations back at the State Department
and quietly retire. He did, after all, get 75 of “our
guys” put away, some for quite a while, and all
the anti-Cuban propaganda dividend flowing from his
service to Reich in no way compensates. He’s
finished in the Foreign Service even though he was
carrying out Reich’s orders, for Cason, not Reich,
is the one who’ll take the fall. Then again he
might just find a fat new anti-Cuba career with one
of the Miami NGOs.
At
the U.S. Interests Section, State, AID and CIA officers
will now have to start beating the bushes for new
blood, sending names and background information for
security clearances on people willing to work with
the Miami NGOs following in the footsteps of the 75,
and the Cuban security service will surely oblige
with promising candidates as they always have in the
past.
And
the rest of us?
The
threat of war in Cuba from Bush and his coterie of
crusaders, all of them crazed with hubris after Iraq,
is real. A military campaign against Cuba, coinciding
with the already-underway 2004 electoral campaign,
may be the only way he can hope to finally get himself
elected, even if only for his second term. And every
day the economy is working against him with no signs
of improving for 2004. He knows the economy in ‘92
did his father in, and he may conclude that fulfilling
his divine mission to extend U.S. military control
of the world will need a crisis very close to home.
The
time to mobilize against that war is now, and not
a day can be lost.
Philip Agee is an ex-CIA agent who left the agency
in the 1970s after publishing a book that exposed
the covert agents and operations of the CIA in Latin
America. He is now the Director of Cuablinda, a web-based
travel agency in Havana which encourages US citizens
to break the economic blockade by travelling to Cuba.
Republished
with permission
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