Castro's last days?
Time may be catching up with Fidel Castro, the erstwhile dictator of Cuba who has ruled his country for nearly 50 years. Today he signed over powers to his younger brother, Raul, in preparation for gasto-intestinal surgery. He turns 80 in a couple of weeks, although on certain days he is still able to give a three-hour speech. That's somewhat shorter than he is known for. Castro probably talked more people to death than shot them.
I always found him a fascinating figure, despite his faults. Re-reading the New York Times coverage today from 1957-59, which is posted on the website, I understand why so many American leftists found him a romantic figure. Castro, the son of a wealthy sugar planter, defeated a brutal, rightist dictator and actually tried to do something lasting and permanent for the poor of Latin America. They still badly need somebody's help. One of the images that stuck in my mind during my own travels down there were the walls around the homes of the wealthy minority in those countries. Atop the walls you saw broken glass embedded in the concrete to keep poor criminals from climbing over. Given the choice between helping the poor or suppressing them, too many in Latin America always chose the latter option.
Cuba prior to Castro was run by American business interests and their client president, Gen. Fulgencio Batista, who seized power in 1952 to prevent democratic elections. Few in the West shed many tears for Batista when Castro overthrew him. Among the American businessmen with large interests in Cuba was Milton Hershey, founder of Hershey Chocolate. He liked to spend time at his sugar plantation, smoke cigars, and gamble in the casinos.
Castro has been demonized into caricature by conservatives in the U.S., especially the Cuban exiles in South Florida. Eventually he will die, and Raul will die, and we will finally, perhaps, get a true, unideological assessment of his reign. I don't know whether it will be net good or net bad. Like the Communist states in eastern Europe, there were good and bad aspects to Cuba. Clearly, health care was a high point for Castro. The Cuban medical system is said by relatively neutral observers to be better than that of any other Third World country and, in a few areas, on par with those of more modern, wealthy countries. Because of the U.S. embargo first put in place by President John F. Kennedy, the Cuban economy was forced to make do. After the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in 1989, the guaranteed market for Cuban sugar dried up along with all the other subsidies the USSR sent to its Latin American compadres. Yeah, they're poor, but so are a lot of other Latin Americans.
Like most Americans, I've never been to Cuba. When I worked on the student newspaper back in the early 1970s at Hope College, we received a subscription in the office to the English language version of Granma, the Cuban Communist Party newspaper. No one was sure how we got it (I have my suspicions, but will keep those to myself for the sake of the possibly guilty party), but it came regularly. Really dreadful propaganda, usually with the Great Leader's latest stemwinder reprinted in full. Anyone who longed to live in Cuba after reading Granma deserved a permanent job cutting sugar cane in the Venceremos Brigade.
My greatest fear in all this is that Bush will launch an invasion of Cuba (though one wonders with what troops) if Casto doesn't fully recover from the surgery, that he will listen to the exiles and believe the Cuban people will welcome an invasion with open arms. Just like in Iraq. We got a severe ass-kicking the last time we tried that, albeit with Cuban exiles doing the actual Bay of Pigs fighting. In theory, the Cuban Air Force could bomb Key West (90 miles) or Miami (not much further). The mind boggles at such a scenario. For what? Cubans have it little worse and in some cases better than some of the people of the supposedly free countries of Latin and South America. It would be purely a grudge match, but Bush, as we know, is no stranger to that sort of motivation.
Far better to engage Cuba as we engage China, that paragon of human rights. Throw open the doors, end the trade embargo, let Americans go there and Cubans come here. Before you know it, Cuba will look like every other Caribbean island and life will go on. But don't let the exiles seize power and turn Cuba into a clone of every other Latin American country, where the rich have houses with walls and broken glass.