History will never absolve Castro
Carlos Alberto Montaner
Fidel Castro has decided to die as former president. He can no longer bear
his infirmities. After half a century of being gloriously dressed in olive
drab, disguised as a heroic guerrilla, it is very difficult to rule a
country in a jogging suit, sitting on a rocking chair in a hospital.
The balance of these 50 years is horrendous. There is no human way that
history will absolve him. The obstacles are two million exiles, thousands of
political prisoners -- of whom almost 300 are still behind bars -- thousands
of executions, an absolute absence of freedoms, broken families and the
worst material failures in the history of Latin American dictatorships.
Almost all those long tyrannies -- Stroessner in Paraguay, Somoza in
Nicaragua, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic -- were corrupt and cruelly
tormented societies, but they left behind countries that were richer and
better equipped than those they began with.
In Cuba, things have been different. As a consequence of the clumsy
governance of Fidel Castro, a pathologically capricious man, along with the
harebrained communist system imposed on the country responsible for the
island's astounding unproductivity, the five basic elements that measure the
quality of life of any society have worsened terribly -- food, housing,
clothing, transportation and communications. Beyond ideology, daily life in
Cuba is an insufferable nightmare of discomfort and shortages.
Has nothing good happened in that period? Yes. The country has 800,000
professionals, among them 65,000 good physicians, for a population of 11
million. But that fact, far from exempting Fidel Castro from blame,
incriminates him severely. Only a thoroughly incompetent ruler can keep in
poverty a society that possesses such human capital. In all corners of the
world, professionals are part of the social middle levels and live with some
degree of legitimate comfort. In Cuba, they vegetate without any hope, amid
utter poverty.
I think Gen. Raúl Castro concurs with this diagnosis and wishes to
substantially improve the lives of Cubans. Raúl does not have (as Fidel has)
an ideological vision of the social problems; his viewpoint is practical.
Before the age of 20, after a short trip to Eastern Europe intended as
revolutionary tourism, he became a communist out of his naive admiration for
the Soviet Union -- not because he read the sect's books. He has little
theoretical density, something that paradoxically makes him more human. Raúl
is closer to the manager than to the apostle, to the administrator than to
the commissar. Since 1959, he has headed the Armed Forces, an institution
that, within the general chaos afflicting the country, functions reasonably
well.
In effect, Raúl Castro will begin a cautious economic reform. What will the
changes be?
• First, more space for the self-employed workers, and the emergence
of small, family-run private enterprises that can provide the services the
state cannot furnish.
• Second, the authorization for people to freely sell or buy houses
and cars.
• Third, permission for Cubans (athletes included) to leave the
country and return.
No political reform is expected in the direction of democracy, but we may
look forward to the gradual release of the prisoners of conscience and
greater tolerance for the domestic dissidents, along with a more open
environment within the Communist Party, so the comrades may better examine
the myriad problems that afflict the country without being persecuted. It is
also probable that Raúl will cancel the ''acts of repudiation'' -- violent
pogroms against the opposition democrats -- and renounce the climate of
permanent international confrontation maintained by his brother since his
first day in power. Raúl's principal and secret objectives are to make peace
with the United States and achieve a self-sufficient economy, without
renouncing the single party.
Why? At 76, Raúl knows that he hasn't much time to revitalize the economy
and strengthen institutionality, crushed by Fidel's weight, so the country
may have a legitimate manner to transfer authority after he leaves the stage.
The last poisoned apple given to him by Fidel was the prosthetic leadership
of Hugo Chávez, along with a suggestion for the union of the two countries.
But the defeat suffered by the Venezuelan in last December's referendum
exposed the precariousness and discredit of the Bolivarian revolution, a
political mishmash even weaker than the Cuban dictatorship. Raúl is not
unaware that placing Cuba's fate in the hands of Chávez, as Fidel wished,
would be not just stupid but also a suicidal irresponsibility.
What will Fidel Castro do from now until he dies or is totally incapacitated?
For sure, he will back the so-called Talibans -- the Stalinist sector -- and
will serve as sniper, sabotaging the reforms with his newspaper commentaries,
convinced that mankind awaits with bated breath his expressions of supreme
wisdom in order to understand reality. That's how narcissists are, even with
one foot in the grave.
February 21, 2008
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