Containing CastroREPRESSION AND anti-Americanism are the glue that maintains Fidel Castro's hold on power in Cuba. The United States cannot do much about the former now, but it should not encourage the latter, as the Bush administration seems intent on doing.Yesterday, Castro led a march of several hundred thousand people around the US mission in Havana. The pretext was a new US report that lays out a strategy for subverting Castro and easing a transition to democracy.
It will probably do neither. The report is aimed mainly at Cuban-American voters in Florida. It trots out some old, failed tactics -- radio broadcasts and a tightening of the economic embargo -- with a new target: the hundreds of millions of dollars Cuban-Americans take to Cuba when they visit their relatives. It's true that these dollars prop up Castro, but while restrictions seem harsh, they contain so many loopholes that Castro can still gather in enough to maintain power. The new rules, which are gradually taking effect, will make life harder for Cubans who depend on the money to buy necessities on the black market or at government-run dollar stores. In reaction, Castro closed the dollar stores except for food and personal hygiene purchases while blaming the United States. He knows that a focus on US perfidy distracts attention from continued repression. News of the US crackdown and the Cuban reaction has drawn attention from the hunger strike by Manuel Vazquez Portal, a journalist who was one of 75 dissidents swept into prison last year. The news also eclipsed an announcement that Castro will not allow the creation of new small businesses. The United States and other democracies must keep fighting repression through publicity and support for dissidents. The report contains useful recommendations here, but these are undercut by the new sanctions.
Castro is 77. Steady encouragement of democracy and openness in Cuba, not a tighter blockade, will increase the likelihood that tyranny will not long remain after he is gone. Castro is 77. Steady encouragement of democracy and openness in Cuba, not a tighter blockade, will increase the likelihood that tyranny will not long remain after he is gone. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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