Latin America/Caribbean Archives

More Continuity than Change: Cuba’s ‘cosmetic’, ‘illegitimate’ dynastic succession

Miguel Diaz-Canel succeeded Raul Castro as Cuba’s president on Thursday, saying that there will be “no space for those who aspire for a restoration of capitalism, the LA Times reports (HT: CFR).” He will be scrutinized by members of an inner circle that aims to guarantee the succession of a socialist state — all while managing the delicate task of not creating the appearance of a family dynasty reaching into its third reign, the Times adds.

Purely cosmetic

“Don’t anyone get their hopes up,” said María C. Werlau, a Cuba researcher who studies the violent legacy of the Cuban revolution. “Díaz-Canel is purely there for a cosmetic change; he is an offshoot of Raúl and has no power or perceptible source of power. The succession is well underway, and the second generation of Castros is well lined up to take control when Raúl is really out of the picture.”

The handover was “an illegitimate transition,” according to the Organization of American States. “The presidential succession we have witnessed in Cuba is an attempt to perpetuate a dynastic-familial autocratic regime. It is called a dictatorship,” said the OAS General Secretariat.

“We cannot allow the Cuban people to continue to be oppressed by an infamous dictatorship, a dictatorship that carries the weight of decades of human rights violation,” said OAS secretary general Luis Almagro (left), addressing a gathering civil society activists at the Summit of the Americas.

But regional governments cannot reach a consensus on Cuba or Venezuela, analysts suggest.

“OAS member states are completely deadlocked over democracy promotion in the Americas,” Harold Trinkunas, senior fellow of the Latin America Initiative at the Brooking Institution, told the World Weekly, “with a substantial number opposing a pro-democracy agenda for the region.”

Díaz-Canel is “a puppet of the Castro regime,” said a group of Cuban dissidents.The “true Cuban civil society” and spokesperson Rosa Maria Paya called on the OAS and regional leaders to not recognize Diaz-Canel because the Cuban people “deserve to elect a true President.”

As human rights watchers have noticed, Cuba remains one of the world’s most oppressive regimes, Frida Ghitis writes:

The nonpartisan Freedom House ranks it “Not Free,” without a free press, economic, or political freedoms. Those who challenge the status quo or try to set up civil society organizations outside Communist Party control have endured harassment, arrests, disappearances, and mysterious accidents.

Some see Díaz-Canel’s persona as crafted and less genuine than is often supposed. “It was a bit of demagoguery… It was a bit a manipulation of the people,” said Guillermo Fariñas, a well-known dissident and Cuban psychologist who grew up with Mr. Díaz-Canel in Villa Clara, the Times adds:

Mr. Fariñas recalled how, after graduation, Mr. Díaz-Canel became a teacher and party functionary at his university, joining a nationwide campaign to fight “negative tendencies” in Cuba. “They tried to convince people that if you were not a real communist, you had to be sanctioned,” Mr. Fariñas said of Mr. Díaz-Canel. “He was the head of that at the university.”

Cuba remains a dictatorship, notes a prominent analyst.

It’s been a totalitarian state since 1959, says Christopher Sabatini, lecturer of international relations at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and executive director of Global Americans:

There are no democratic elections. Cubans are not allowed to congregate freely and are limited in their freedom of expression and access to information. There’s only one official newspaper run by the Communist Party, and it consists almost entirely of propaganda to support the party and its policies.

“The result is that Cubans have become atomized,” he tells the Council on Foreign Relations. But not so atomized that individual Cubans will not speak out.

Juan Menendez (below) did what Cubans are taught never to do: speak openly and critically about their government (HT: Center for a Free Cuba):

Juan was so plain-spoken about poverty, censorship, intimidation, and general mismanagement of his country, it was easy to forget we were in Cuba–and that Juan was incredibly brave for speaking out. In this video, Juan says he hopes his children can someday watch this video to see their father wasn’t scared.

Diaz-Canel is faced with some very serious challenges, adds Sabatini, a former Latin America program officer at the National Endowment for Democracy:

The first is currency unification. There are two currencies in Cuba, which create huge distortions in the economy and act as disincentives to foreign investment… Unification could be a very wrenching process, and could even risk inflation and a higher cost of living.
The second is, of course, finding ways to generate hard currency.
The third is tax collection, and the large number of cuentapropistas [self-employed persons] who make up the informal sector and evade taxation. Diaz-Canel will have to show very strong leadership, but always in the context of the revolution. RTWT

Cuba’s dissidents hope transition generates change ‘from within’

Cuba’s national assembly meets today to elect the next president of the country, Foreign Policy reports. Current vice president Miguel Diaz-Canel is widely expected to be chosen. Still, current president Raul Castro is likely to remain a dominant political figure as the first secretary of the Communist party, until 2021. The move to replace Castro (Guardian) would end six decades of rule by the Castro family, the CFR adds.

The man likely to become Cuba’s next president is from a younger generation of leaders and has advocated modernizing the island but he is also a longtime Communist Party apparatchik who is not expected to push for sweeping political change, Reuters adds.

“[T]here is no evidence in favor of him being a reformist and assuming he will abandon the one-party system or stop favoring the state sector over the non-state sector,” said Arturo Lopez-Levy, a former Cuban government analyst who now lectures at the University of Texas.

On the eve of the presidential handover, Manuel Cuesta Morua (right) is striving to find a new path for the island’s outlawed and fractured opposition, AFP adds.

“It’s about overcoming some of our weaknesses in opposition while at the same time realizing there is a political transition which we must try and make the most of so that it becomes a transition towards democracy,” he says. “The era of all-out rebellion against oppressive regimes is over. The Arab Spring has shown that these do not necessarily lead to democracy,” he said. So the focus now is on institutional reforms — a strategy for generating change “from within,” Cuesta Morua added.

The Castro family will continue to cast a long shadow on any future government, says Christopher Sabatini, a lecturer at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and executive director of Global Americans [a partner of the National Endowment for Democracy]. Though he’s stepping down from the presidency, Castro, 87, will remain the secretary general of the Cuban Communist Party (the only official party, which sets the agenda of the state), and he will keep his post as head of the armed forces, which control a large share of Cuba’s command economy, he writes for the Times.

The regime is risk averse and risk is everywhere in the current political and economic climate, notes Michael Touchton, an assistant professor in the University of Miami’s Department of Political Science. The ruling Communist Party is concerned about several new US-backed initiatives, including the Cuba Internet Task Force, to promote broad access to information. Such initiatives raise the Castro administration’s concerns that the US will take advantage of Cuba’s presidential transition to promote civil society and civil liberties to undermine the communist regime.

The succession amounts to a tricky effort to build a new generation of leaders without the Castro name, a move considered essential to cementing the central role of Cuba’s communist system, the Post adds.

“This is about institutionalizing the regime,” said Jorge Domínguez, a Cuba expert and professor of government at Harvard University. “It’s about Raúl Castro saying, ‘I am president, but I have a term, and then someone else is going to lead.’ . . . If you are someone who really wants the regime to endure, it’s what Raúl needs to do.”

The government’s authoritarian credentials were on full display at the VIII Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru, where Cuba and Venezuela mobilized pro-regime GONGOs to silence dissident voices, the Miami Herald reports.

“The protests were sparked by the shock troops that the Cuban dictatorship brought here, and a (Cuban) ambassador who was very aggressive with the secretary general,” said opposition activist Rosa María Payá (right), who heads the Latin American Network of Youths for Democracy and is campaigning for a binding plebiscite on the island’s political system.

“They demanded that I not be allowed to speak, that if I spoke they were not going to remain silent. It’s the same blackmail of always, the blackmail of dictatorships,” she added.

Dynastic succession

Castro intends to choreograph a transfer of power to a new generation of Castro’s, argues Otto J. Reich, Senior Research Associate at the Cuban Studies Institute:

The top echelon includes: his son Alejandro Castro Espín, a Colonel in State Security; his erstwhile son-in-law Gen. Alberto Rodríguez López-Callejas; and his grandson, Raul Rodriguez Castro, who heads his grandfather’s Praetorian Guard. What Castro intends is a dynastic succession resembling the Kim’s in North Korea or the Assad’s in Syria.

No one expects Cuba to radically change course. Although Castro is officially stepping aside, he’ll go no further than the top slot at the Cuban Communist Party, where eminence grise is the new khaki, Bloomberg adds.

While it is not in America’s interest to promote investment to prop up an anachronistic, repressive regime, it is also not in its interest to stand by while a neighbor’s fragile economy crumbles under the weight of its failed policies, argues Sabatini.

Venezuela on edge of precipice: Maduro using food as ‘tool of political coercion’

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill) traveled to Venezuela on Wednesday as pressure mounted on President Nicolas Maduro to hand over a Utah man jailed in the turbulent South American country for nearly two years, according to reports. “The Venezuelan people continue to suffer immensely under the Maduro regime’s repressive actions,” Durbin tweeted, supporting sanctions while condemning the “criminal regime and its complete disregard for democracy.”

Durbin today spoke (above) about his meetings met with Maduro, members of the opposition, the President of the National Assembly, the Ministers of Health and Nutrition, business leaders, civil society groups, doctors, and humanitarian organizations.

“What I found was in fact a country on the edge of a precipice, facing overlapping economic, humanitarian, and political crises,” he said, condemning Maduro’s use of food as a “tool of political coercion.”

“I was heartbroken by what I saw and heard, particularly regarding the collapse of the country’s ability to feed and medically care for its people and children,” Durbin told the AP. “Republicans and Democrats don’t agree on much these days in Washington, but they do agree on Venezuela and the consequences of President Maduro continuing down the current path,” he added. As if to demonstrate Durbin’s point, ahead of the Summit of the Americas, fellow Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), urged the region to restore democracy in Venezuela.

A group of Venezuelan rock bands hope to popularize songs against Maduro by handing out a CD called “Rock Against Dictatorship” during a summit of Latin American and North American countries in Lima this week, Reuters reports:

The 16-track disc ranges from catchy pop tunes to angry punk anthems that denounce corruption, hunger and human rights abuses at the hands of the ruling Socialist Party, which has overseen a devastating collapse of the once-prosperous nation.

“Let’s go to paradise, to fiscal paradise,” sing Emigdio + Superpower on the CD’s opening track, a swipe at Venezuelan officials and government-linked businessmen who have been accused of stashing illicit cash in offshore havens. The track “Nazional” rages against the National Guard, which faced withering criticism for excessive use of force in breaking up anti-government protests in 2017. The often violent demonstrations over four months last year left 125 people dead.

The regime has spearheaded a program of mass domestic repression and humanitarian deprivation unprecedented in the country’s history, notes Policy Options Journal:

This is not a “bitter class war,” as some have described it, of rich versus poor; it is a struggle for dignity and justice for the Venezuelan people in the face of oppression from Maduro’s violent and kleptocratic elite. Indeed, those opposing the regime constitute a broad and inclusive cross-section of Venezuelan society — urban and rural, rich and poor, young and old — united in common cause.

As if it couldn’t sink any lower, the regime is now exploiting mass h hunger to get votes.

But beyond domestic ramifications, the spiraling international ramifications of the crisis demand sustained, focused U.S. leadership as well, writes Jason Marczak, the director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

“As Latin American heads of state have made clear, the region wants and needs humanitarian assistance in the face of this crisis, and Washington shouldn’t hesitate to lead the charge. Doing so shouldn’t be seen as charity, but as a strategic imperative,” he contends. “Successful management of this refugee and migrant crisis will be crucial to the stability of the region — stability on which many of our national security and economic interests rest.”

Credit: HRW

Latin Americans and their governments should speak out and urge Maduro’s government to recognize and tackle the devastating human rights and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, Latin music star Ricardo Montaner (left and below) and Human Rights Watch said about the #TodosConVenezuela (Everyone With Venezuela) campaign launched this week.

“Venezuela needs help to tackle an overwhelming crisis,” said Montaner, who has sold more than 30 million records and won numerous awards, including a Latin Grammy for Lifetime Achievement. “Join me. It’s not just my job or yours, it’s something we should all do. Tell your friends – let’s do this together.”

“Let me be clear in my concluding message to the Venezuelan Government, said Durbin, the Senate Democratic Whip:

[S]pecifically to only proceed with an election that meets the following basic standards: all political prisoners must be released and all candidates and parties must be allowed to openly compete; there must be at least six months for legitimate campaigning; the National Election Council must be led by credible professional members who can carry out a legitimate election process; there must be no linking of food with voting or political party affiliation; the National Assembly must have its powers restored; and credible international and local election monitors must be allowed to observe the pre-election and actual election processes, with full accreditation and access.

Durbin also met with Josh Holt, a U.S. citizen being held by the regime on trumped up charges.

“I visited him in a prison known by its prisoners as ‘Hell on Earth,’ he said. “He and his Venezuelan wife have served 21 months with no end in sight. He is suffering and clearly a political hostage of the regime. I appealed to President Maduro to release him. I am one of a bipartisan group of members of congress who will continue to push for his immediate release

In February, Durbin led a group of ten senators in introducing a resolution condemning repressive and undemocratic actions taken by the Venezuelan government, and calling for free and fair elections for its people. In 2017, Durbin introduced the Venezuela Humanitarian Assistance and Defense of Democratic Governance Act which directs the State Department to work through nongovernmental organizations to provide public health commodities, basic food commodities, and related technical assistance to Venezuela.

The Corruption Cure: Brazil’s democracy gains from anti-kleptocracy moves

Brazil’s jailing of its beloved former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Saturday sent a strong signal to all of Latin America that the era of political impunity was over, notes Robert I. Rotberg, author of The Corruption Cure. Some presidents in Brazil and other South American countries have been impeached, but very few politicians have previously been sent to prison, and none as popular as Lula (as he is widely known in Brazil), he writes for the Globe and Mail:

More than 165 politicians and corporate executives have been jailed and fined for corruption in Parana and in other courts as a part of the still unfolding and lavish Lava Jato, or Car Wash, case. In 2014, the police pursued a money-laundering episode that occurred in a petrol station’s car-wash establishment. Arrests there led to the discovery of about US$800-million in illicit payments made in Brazil and throughout Latin America by the Odebrecht construction company to secure contracts from Petrobras, the big state-owned Brazilian petroleum company, and to buy influence in a dozen other South and Central American nations.

The protests against Brazil’s ruling kleptocracy were a sign of “an anticorruption Zeitgeist that has swept the world in the past decade,” says Carnegie analyst Sarah Chayes.

In Brazil, they object to an entrenched and highly corrupt political elite that has failed to provide basic services like health and education to the general public, notes Stanford’s Francis Fukuyama, a board member of the National Endowment for Democracy.

“For them, it is not enough that Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, was herself a left-wing activist jailed by the military regime during the 1970s and leader of the progressive Brazilian Workers Party,” he wrote for the Wall Street Journal. “In their eyes, that party itself has been sucked into the maw of the corrupt ‘system,’ as revealed by a recent vote-buying scandal, and is now part of the problem of ineffective and unresponsive government.”

Anti-corruption protests

Does democracy have anything to gain with Mr. da Silva’s imprisonment? analyst Carol Pires asks. We don’t know yet. What we do know is that the one person who stands to gain from his downfall is Jair Bolsonaro, the retired military officer and presidential candidate who is No. 2 in the polls. Mr. Bolsonaro was among the first to publicly endorse General Boas’s remark about corruption, yet another cause for concern among many Brazilians already troubled by Mr. Bolsonaro’s repeated praise for the former chief of Brazil’s dictatorship-era torture center, she writes for the New York Times:

For the moment, the army’s resurgence suggests that when the government loses political control, the desire for political power is stoked anew among those in green. In an extreme situation, a mass riot could become a dangerous excuse for those who seek to undermine the democratic system by using the upsurge of radicalism as its pretext. RTWT

The central theme of the upcoming Summit of the Americas will be “Democratic Governance against Corruption”. CIPE’s Ken Jaques and Tim Ridout interviewed Renato de Oliveira Capanema, Brazil’s Director for Integrity and International Cooperation at the Ministry of Transparency and Office of the Comptroller-General.

Time to tighten the screws on Cuba

IRI

With President Raul Castro’s impending retirement, the United States should consider stepping up pressure on Havana, relenting only when new leadership grants the Cuban people real democratic gains, argues Council on Foreign Relations analyst Elliott Abrams.

Contrary to claims and some expectations, “the increases in tourism and remittances and the opening of official diplomatic ties did not spur gains for Cubans on the human rights and political front,” he writes:

The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, an independent nongovernmental organization, found that in 2016 Cuban authorities detained 9,940 individuals, a record number. There were 5,155 detentions reported in 2017, but there were likely many more prisoners of conscience. Internet censorship has not diminished nor has access expanded. There have, of course, been no free elections.

The Military Units of Production Assistance (UMAP) as “a very dark affair in the history of revolutionary Cuba,” said singer-songwriter Pablo Milanés, who described them as “concentration camps” where thousands of young people were sent to be “reeducated” by order of Fidel Castro, he told Diario de Cuba:

In an interview with the newspaper La Tercera the musician described his experience between 1965 and 1967, when these detention centers were in operation and where he was subjected to forced labor and rigid indoctrination. Milanés managed to escape and flee to Havana, but was jailed for insubordination.

The architect of Cuba’s Gulag was no less than Che Guevara, a figure lionized by some in the West, notes Carl Gershman, head of the National Endowment for Democracy. The real heroes of Cuba’s revolution against dictatorship were figures like Pedro Luis Boitel and Huber Matos, who remained true to democratic principles, he adds.

One would think that remittances – averaging perhaps as much as $3 billion annually – could help democracy in Cuba by financing civil society, note analysts Javier Corrales and James Loxton. But because poverty is rampant and financing scarce, most remittances get used for household consumption or self-employment activities, with very little left over for the sorts of civic groups that are indispensable for democracy to emerge, they write:

Perhaps the only possible pressure for greater democracy after the succession could come from a conflict between the party and the military. These are separate entities, each with its own culture, resources and base of support. It is conceivable that an eventual conflict between the party and the military could produce a political earthquake, which could in theory produce a political transition.

Given the failure of previous efforts, the United States should maintain or heighten pressure on Cuba for at least two reasons, adds Abrams, a board member of the National Endowment for Democracy:

First, U.S. policy should reflect American values. The United States should refuse to relax any trade policies that will bring economic gains to the regime unless there are tangible benefits for the Cuban people. …. At the very least, the United States should avoid any words or actions that assist the regime in maintaining its tyranny or undermine the morale of Cubans working peacefully for change.

Second, Cubans, as well as the international community, will expect improvements with the end of the Castro period. The United States should press hard for change once Raul is out because it’s unclear if the regime will be able to keep its monopoly on power and deny political and human rights progress.

RTWT

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