U.S. Measures Strengthen Fidel

July 2, 2004

This op-ed appeared in the Tampa Tribune on July 2nd and the Washington Times on July 4th.

By: Paolo Spadoni
Paolo Spadoni is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Florida who has made five visits to Cuba.

As a doctoral candidate researching Cuba, I just returned from a seven-week visit to the island. I witnessed firsthand the Cuban reaction to President Bush’s new provisions aimed at stemming the flow of hard currency reaching Cuba and hastening the end of Fidel Castro’s rule.

My perception of how U.S. policy is playing out: Not as Bush intended.

The measures prohibit Cuban- Americans from visiting family members in Cuba more than once every three years, reduce the dollars they can spend during their visits, and limit remittances to immediate relatives – excluding aunts, uncles and cousins. The White House also said it will intensify propaganda broadcasts and increase financial support of anti-Castro groups in Cuba.

These new provisions will have limited impact on the Cuban economy, as Cuban-Americans may circumvent restrictions by traveling to the island through other countries and delivering remittances, as they always did, through “mules” or other informal mechanisms.

Ironically, the provisions also play into the hands of the Cuban government, strengthening rather than weakening its hold.

Washington’s restrictions follow the Cuban government’s recent decision to waive entry visa requirements for Cubans residing abroad. Thus, a recurrent message on Cuba’s state- run media is that Castro is making it easier for Cuban exiles to visit the island, while Bush is making it more difficult.

The Castro government has claimed for a long time that U.S. policy toward Cuba is dictated by a powerful group of Cuban-American hard- liners who fled the island in the early years of the revolution and do not represent the larger exile community. While these Cuban-Americans, for the most part, have little interest in promoting family ties, as they have no relatives in Cuba, increasing popular sentiment in Miami against Bush’s new restrictions, widely emphasized on Cuban television, substantiates Castro’s claim that U.S. policy is driven by a minority of exiles.

The latest provisions provided cover for the Cuban government to raise prices in state-owned dollar stores, which capture most hard currency Cubans receive from abroad. Havana’s authorities said publicly that the action was needed to partly compensate for Cuba’s spending for food, fuel and maritime transportation in the last two years. However, they blamed U.S. policy, more than anything else, for the price hikes.

Higher prices in dollar stores – blamed on Bush – will also help to compensate the Cuban government for an eventual decline of U.S. dollars reaching Cuba.

Castro labels political dissidents as “mercenaries” on the payroll of the U.S. government. This is why many of the dissidents keep telling U.S. officials that it is counterproductive to stimulate major changes in Cuba solely with money. The announcement that the White House would increase financial support of dissident groups in the island will raise the likelihood of further crackdowns on internal dissent.

Finally, Cuban authorities have repeatedly warned the population that the United States might be planning an invasion of Cuba, since U.S. troops intervened in Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein. In spite of Washington’s denials, Bush’s decision to deploy a C-130 military plane to beam television signals into Cuba has been interpreted by Cuban officials as an attempt to provoke an incident with the Castro government as a pretext for a military intervention.

The new U.S. measures will achieve exactly the opposite of their aims. They will strengthen Fidel’s grip on power by allowing his government to justify increasing levels of political control and economic centralization as the United States steps up efforts to squeeze the island’s economy and put an end to its socialist system.