Cuba Economy Struggles - and Cold War Legacy Fades

Cuba Economy Struggles - and Cold War Legacy Fades

5/19/13 8:26 PM



Cuba's President Raul Castro has made notable news by announcing on

February 24 that he will retire from that office in 2018. His older

brother Fidel stepped down from the same post in 2008, after turning

eighty-five years of age.



Reflecting the iron control the regime has exercised since

early 1959, the designated successor to President Castro was announced

simultaneously. Miguel Diaz-Miguel Bermudez, a protégé of Raul, is a

loyal functionary who has developed a reputation for bureaucratic

effectiveness through administering rural provinces. At the age of

fifty-two, he arguably represents a youthful wave in this quiet

geriatric pond. Given the extremely slow pace of change in Cuba, and the

remarkable half-century tenure of the Brothers Castro, this benchmark

event deserves some attention and reflection.



Last year marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban

Missile Crisis of October 1962, when the world stood at the edge of

general nuclear war. This was a singular event but also a punctuation

mark in a very long history of difficulties between Havana and Washington.



Raul Castro by all accounts lacks the popular appeal of his

older brother. Enemies join with admirers in agreeing that Fidel

possessed a unique leadership style before age and illness led him to

retire from the presidency. His singular charisma continues to

facilitate the regime's half-century in power.



After Havana was captured and despised dictator Fulgencio

Batista fled in early 1959, Raul Castro handled bloody mass executions

with efficient dispatch, and since has provided effective leadership of

the military and a pervasive domestic security apparatus.



Soon after taking power, the Castro brothers ended hopes

for representative democracy and nationalized major industries,

including U.S. corporate assets. Fidel Castro highlighted alliance with

the Soviet Union by joining Nikita Khrushchev in a remarkably raucous

1960 visit to the United Nations, in session in New York, punctuated by

the Soviet leader publicly pounding a shoe on a desk.



The Eisenhower administration began a clandestine effort to

overthrow the increasingly radical regime. The successor Kennedy

administration drastically escalated such efforts. The Cuban Missile

Crisis occurred in this context.



In recent years, the evolution of the Americas toward

democratic governments has been striking. As a result, Cuba is more

isolated than ever. Radical Venezuela provides important but limited aid.



When Fidel Castro stepped down, Secretary of State

Condoleezza Rice in a formal public statement endorsed the desirability

of 'peaceful, democratic change' in Cuba and also suggested that the

'international community' work with the people there. The Bush

administration had been pursuing a particularly restrictive hard line

toward that island nation.



Pres. Barack Obama early in his first term loosened

extremely tight restrictions on interchange with Cuba. Cuban-Americans

are now allowed to travel and send financial remittances to relatives

still living there.



The punitive Helms-Burton Act, passed during the Clinton

administration in an effort to court the fiercely anti-Castro Cuban

population of Florida, does not prohibit these exchanges.



Cuba today encourages trade and investment, along with

loosening travel restrictions. In this context, the American economy has

great advantages. As part of such efforts, we should work to expand

cultural and educational as well as personal family exchanges with the

island.



President Dwight D. Eisenhower initiated comparable

programs with the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War, to

great benefit. As Ike saw, the arts and science represent universal

languages. The wisest warriors appreciate peace



Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College in

Wisconsin and author of 'After the Cold War.' He can be reached at

acyr@carthage.edu.



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