The Doberman and the White House

What is being proposed? Perhaps inaugurating a period of “benign neglect.” Ignore what is happening in Cuba, including complaints by victims, and remove all signs of anti-Castro hostility. Ultimately, Obama had not even been born when this insanity began.

Will Obama persist in his endeavors? He will probably find that it’s not worth the trouble. The abuses happen too close for the United States to ignore. Previously, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton tried it, but without success. The conduct of the dictatorship ultimately always prevented it. Havana cannot avoid it. It’s like Dobermans. Biting is in their nature.

Right now there is a ferocious repressive wave that can be seen on YouTube thanks to cell phones and denouncements by people such as Yoani Sánchez. They savagely beat the democrats from the opposition who protest, whether they are men, women or children. The legendary Jorge Luis García (“Antúnez”) has received his umpteenth beating and has begun his umpteenth hunger strike. The musician Gorki, who is brave like Pussy Riot, without a Madonna to defend him, has again been put in prison for his irreverent songs.

What are the government measures that Obama wants to eliminate or modify?

U.S. policy toward Cuba has had three pillars since the middle of the century: anti-Castro propaganda, economic restrictions—the embargo—and diplomatic isolation. From Lyndon B. Johnson onwards, the intention has not been to kill the Doberman, but to restrain and muzzle it.

But the USSR disappeared and communism was discredited as a form of government, though Cuba, North Korea and other groups indifferent to reality remained stubbornly clinging to error and power thanks to the unlimited authority that their leaders wielded.

In Cuba, the same faces, the same policies and the same prison cells continue. However, “containment” on the island has been running out of steam bit by bit. From Washington’s point of view, Havana’s regime has been a blurred anachronism. An absurd Cold War relic that will go on crumbling as time goes on.

From the Cuban point of view, the vision was different. For Raúl, the relic was not the archaic regime, but the U.S. policies opposing it. Those who had to change were the Americans, not them. Only, in order to change Washington’s conduct, it was essential to appear as if the regime itself was changing.

How did they do it? They mounted an offensive in the small academic and journalistic world aided by their friends from The Nation. With Mariela Castro, the dictator’s cheerful sexologist daughter, at the forefront and with a skillful campaign in favor of the rights of the LGBT community—despite the long and cruel homophobic history of Castro’s regime—they managed to forge an alliance between economic interests of the right, the most radical sector of the democratic party and some “think-tanks” and university departments of Latin American studies of that persuasion. The Cuban intelligence apparatus and its department of “active measures” secretly orchestrated everything. They are large and tireless political operators.

Simultaneously, Raúl Castro announced, with much pomp and circumstance, a series of reforms that gave the false sensation that the island was moving in the direction of freedom. It wasn’t true. Raúl does not want to change anything fundamental. He is just trying to change the mode of production to make it less irrational. His intent is to maintain the same system of oppression. He is the same Doberman with a different collar.

Graver still, as Raúl practices his most innocent reformist expression while still beating and locking up the opposition, he sells and exports his repressive model to countries like Venezuela, Bolivia and to a lesser extent, Ecuador. The dictatorial tutorial of remaining in power indefinitely is the only commodity left on its sad shelves of true Cuban socialism.

Will the Cuban dictatorship manage to placate Washington without making concessions this time? I don’t believe so.

The three Cuban-American senators—Democrat Bob Menéndez and Republicans Marcos Rubio and Ted Cruz—agree on maintaining sanctions while the dictatorship does not respect human rights. The four members of Congress of this ethnic background agree—Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Balart and Democrats Joe García and Albio Sires.

It is difficult to jump to a bi-partisan caucus saddled with this specific weight. Obama will throw in the towel.