CUBA-OUTLOOK: Earth-shattering Political Change Unlikely in 1999

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Dec 22 1998 (IPS) - The world is likely to continue opening up to Cuba in response to a call to that effect by Pope John Paul II, but the island’s government is expected to keep resisting internal political change for as long as possible.

As it prepares for its 40th year in power, the government of President Fidel Castro is trying to hang on to socialism and yield only where it has no choice. “Our political system is not changing, it is untouchable,” Castro said when John Paul II urged him, during the pope’s five-day visit to this country in January, to liberalise the country’s political system.

John Paul II called for a new society and religious freedom. He urged the Catholic Church to fight for its place in Cuba and asked Miami-based Cubans to avoid “useless confrontation”. “I ask the world to open to Cuba and Cuba to open up with all its magnificent possibilities to the world,” he urged.

But according to the head of the Communist Party, the calls for liberalisation are well received as long as they are understood as the need to end the U.S. blockade and any other attempts to isolate Cuba.

‘Liberalization toward the outside,’ seems to be the maxim that guides Cuba’s economic policy and its diplomatic offensives, aimed at creating a place for Cuba in an increasingly globalised world with no socialist bloc.

For the past eight years, the government has been stimulating foreign investment so as to get fresh capital injected into an economy in crisis, but the bulk of the economy is still in state hands and there is still little room for private initiative.

The reforms implemented so far stop short of a legalisation of opposition groups, Western-style democratic elections, or an end to the state monopoly over the mass media. Castro has been resisting foreign pressure on the political liberalisation front and when the need for change is suggested, he responds that “the most important change that Cuba has had is the revolution”.

In a special gesture to John Paul II, the government pardoned 300 common and political prisoners after his visit to the island. However, Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina made it clear that the decision did not imply extensive changes to internal policy.

“We will continue to open up to the world … but without renouncing ourselves, without becoming transvestites and appearing to be what we are not, without prostituting ourselves to win favours,” said Robaina.

By late 1996, when the Pope’s trip to Cuba was announced, there were apocalyptic predictions about the consequences it would have. However, time has vindicated those analysts, mostly in Cuba, who had voiced skepticism about such predictions.

“Rarely has a papal visit created such universal interest and bestowed such high responsibilities on the interlocutors,” noted Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, president of the Vatican’s Justice and Peace Commission.

Had the most extreme predictions come true, Fidel Castro would no longer be in power, the Cuban people would have taken to the streets in massive anti-government protests, and the U.S. government would have ended the blockade.

As it was, Castro was re-elected for the fifth consecutive time as head of the State Council – a post equivalent to the presidency – after elections in which 98.35 percent of Cubans of voting age participated, according to official sources.

In Cuba, where the most common form of expressing dissent is to spoil the ballot, only 5.01 percent of the more than seven million ballots cast were nul and void, 2.02 percent less than in the previous elections, held in 1993.

On the economic front, the process of recovery begun in 1994 was damaged by a new drop in sugar output, which resulted from a seven-month drought and Hurricane Georges in September.

Electricity and transport services have improved, and the population continues to enjoy the right to education and health. But buying power is on a constant downward slide, given the price increases of some basic products.

According to Cuba’s Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, which is not a legally recognized organization, the government showed greater tolerance toward opposition groups this year, the number of detentions decreased, and there are fewer prisoners of conscience than in the past.

The Catholic Church promoted pilgrimages during Holy Week, and received official permission to bring religious personnel into the island. On the day of the Virgin of Charity, the Church broadcast a radio message, and it managed to get the state to recognise Christmas as a holiday.

Even after all this, according to Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the expectations generated by the pope’s visit have not been met, and the dynamism of Cuba’s international relations have not been accompanied by the changes needed in its internal politics.

Prior to the Annual Convention of the Catholic Press of the United States on June 3, Ortega encouraged a process of gradual transformation of Cuban society.

The pope told a delegation of the Cuban Bishops’ Conference that visited the Vatican this month that the liberalisation he wanted for Cuba was an improvement in not only the island’s international relations, but also its internal politics.

While the pope’s visit may not have generated visible internal changes, it did bless any effort to open up to the island and reactivated the controversy over the viability of the embargo in different sectors in the Americas.

Chilean Foreign Minister Jose Miguel Insulza, believes the Pope “obtained more in Cuba with one trip” than all that has been achieved by the Organization of American States (OAS) since it expelled the Cuban government in 1960.

Brazil’s Foreign Minister Luiz Felipe Lampreia said the pope’s five-day visit to the island “opened a window of opportunity that Latin America as well as Cuba should seize to the fullest”.

Two days after John Paul II left Cuba, Guatemala announced it was re-establishing diplomatic ties with the island, and the Dominican Republic did the same soon after.

In 1998, Cuba received the prime ministers of Canada and St. Kitts-Nevis, the presidents of Colombia, Panama and Cape Verde, and the foreign ministers of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, Haiti, Italy, Jamaica, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Portugal, Seychelles, Suriname, Ukraine, and Zambia.

This year, Cuba joined the Latin American Integration Association and was accepted as an observer at discussions between the European Union and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group on an agreement to replace the Lome Convention, a trade and aid pact between the two blocs.

In 1999, King Juan Carlos of Spain and Colombian President Andres Pastrana are to visit the island, which will also host the ninth Latin American and Iberian Summit next year.

Even U.S. President Bill Clinton responded to the pope’s call, re-establishing direct flights between the United States and Cuba and authorizing remittances from the United States to the island. Clinton also announced that some restrictions in sending medicines would be lifted.

Parliamentarians, scientists, political analysts, business leaders, theatre and dance groups began visiting Cuba from the United States in droves and in October, a group of influential U.S. politicians urged Clinton to set up a bipartisan commission to review the effectiveness of U.S. policy toward the island.

Opinions remain divided in the United States: some politicians are critical of the embargo but others believe it is not the source of the problems facing Cubans.

According to Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering, pressure will be kept up on the island until the day Cuba shares “our values and dreams”.

In the meantime, Castro’s response remains invariable. “They should leave Cuba alone, they should stop their war against Cuba and then they will see what Cuba can do,” he said after his re- election as head of state.