Cuba Wants Money, Not Democracy

Barack Obama wanted to make his mark and be the first to do a number of things in the final stages of his term. No one can deny the political audacity he has shown in acts such as his visit to Cuba yesterday, the first visit by a U.S. president in 88 years. It is an encouraging initiative, although it represents the White House’s explicit recognition that more than half a century of policy regarding Castro’s dictatorship has been a failure. In effect, Obama has taken on the normalization of relations with Havana, while the Castro brothers and the Communist regime of the country’s only political party has not had to make a single concession. From a historical point of view, Fidel Castro has been able to attend an event that is basically a celebration of the symbolic triumph of his stubbornness in the face of the great superpower, although it has taken 56 years.

It is so obvious that the Castro regime has not changed and is not willing to make fundamental changes that it dose not even tried to hide it; yesterday, just hours after Obama’s plane landed in Havana, dozens of dissidents whose only crime was peacefully demanding — while leaving church — freedom and respect for human rights, were detained. However, we must at least commend President Obama’s brave and noble gesture in receiving several proponents of democracy in the recently re-opened U.S. Embassy, to show that he has not forgotten all of the United States’ values. It is a practice that should have been promoted by all the leaders of free nations who have visited the island. Sadly, only a few, such as former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, have dared to do so.

Symbolically, the guest who preceded Obama in Raul Castro’s office was Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a tyrant who is practically on his way out, given the current political evolution of his country. In fact, one of the reasons that the Castro regime is doing some ideological juggling, and using its propaganda to transform its eternal northern enemy into a new partner, is because Venezuela is sinking. Although it was resurrected after Hugo Chavez’s presidency, it cannot continue to subsidize an economy that is as stagnant and unproductive as that of Cuba. The threat of ruin is what has driven Castro to look to the United States, a turnaround that will prevent him from being able to claim that things on the island are not working because of its “imperialist enemies.” It is likely that trade and contact with the outside world will strengthen the middle class and weaken the dictatorship, but in order for this to happen, it is vital to continue to support proponents of democracy, and not the dictatorship.