Island's Thinkers Untapped

December 8th, 2006 | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
by Frank Calzon

In 1901, Connecticut Sen. Orville Platt attached an amendment to a military spending bill guaranteeing the United States the right to intervene in Cuba's internal affairs. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt abrogated the infamous Platt Amendment in 1934. Nonetheless, even today Cuban politicians, when confronted by internal unrest, inevitably and instinctively react by trying to pull Washington into the crisis.

This week, 72 years after the Platt Amendment was shelved, and with hardly anyone remembering the amendment, Fidel Castro's brother and putative successor was looking north. Uncertain about the future of his regime, Gen. Raúl Castro has said for the second time in four months that he is ready to sit down at the negotiating table with the United States. Old habits are difficult to put aside.

Cuba is in the midst of its worst economic, social and political crisis in many years. It is also increasingly looking like Fidel Castro will not return to power and his brother Raúl may try to confront that crisis. While exchanging words with the United States is better than exchanging bullets, General Castro erred when he picked Washington as his interlocutor. After 47 years of repression, he should be opening negotiations with islanders -- not Washington -- over the terms for transforming Cuba into a democratic state and for rebuilding the economy.
That takes us back to 2002 and 2003 when more than 20,000 Cubans, wanting to start a dialogue, signed a petition to the Cuban parliament asking for a plebiscite on the future of the country. Fidel Castro wouldn't allow Cuba's National Assembly to discuss the proposal.

The generation that overthrew the Batista dictatorship in the 1950s is drawing to an end, and despite Fidel Castro's expectations, history has not been kind to him or his legacy. For younger officers, the guerrilla struggle against Batista is ancient history; young bureaucrats and Communist cadres -- some of whom have been permitted to travel abroad -- want more from life than endless struggle and scarcity.
Then there are the courageous voices of Cuba's democratic opposition. Whether in prison or "enjoying" a precarious freedom, the opposition dreams of realizing some of the promises made by the young Fidel in 1959: a rule of law, no more political prisoners, decency in government, social justice and the freedom to think, speak, meet, travel and establish businesses of their own.

Other freedoms are also in demand: the right not to participate in political demonstrations of "support"; not to agree to the "unanimous" decisions expelling free-thinking students from school; not to participate in "voluntary" work days; in brief, the right to say "no" to their government.
The capacity and ingenuity of Cubans is undeniable. It has been demonstrated by their economic success in the United States, a success attributed to both their hard work and the free environment in which they live. As a result, the Cuban community abroad is a great asset for the future of the island. In the early '60s, Castro told Cubans fleeing his reign that they would never be welcome back, that they were "scum," "traitors" and worse.

Today the most important source of humanitarian assistance to the island are the almost 2 million Cuban exiles. Their remittances would have a much bigger impact if those receiving money from their families were, as Mexicans and Salvadorans are, allowed to operate private businesses. Those economic freedoms, the engines of progress in the United States and most recently in China, are denied to Cubans.

That thirst for freedom, which former Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel calls "living in truth," is universal. Now, to the everlasting gratitude of the Cuban people, Havel leads the International Committee to Promote Democracy in Cuba.
The roundtable discussions that brought freedom to Czechoslovakia, the rest of Central Europe as well as Chile and South Africa took place among their own peoples. Offering to open talks with Washington is an old formula designed to keep from the negotiating table the very Cubans capable of defining a better future for the island.

Frank Calzon is Executive Director of the Center for a Free Cuba, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., that promotes human rights and democracy for Cuba.