Testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, March 5, 2008, “With Castro Stepping Down, What’s Next for Cuba and the Western Hemisphere”

Marifeli Pérez-Stable, vice president for Democratic Governance at the Inter-American Dialogue (Washington, DC) and professor at Florida International University (Miami)

For the first time in nearly 50 years, Fidel Castro is not presiding over Cuba. On February 24, the National Assembly named his younger brother, 76, president of the Councils of State and Ministers. Since July 2006, Raúl Castro had held interim power. Now he is formally in charge and, for the most part, substantially as well. As long as he is alive and mentally alert, the Comandante will remain a potent symbol and, to some extent, an influential voice. The successors face a careful balancing act: enacting changes which the citizenry desperately wants without incurring the elder Castro’s wrath.

Cuba, of course, is still a dictatorship but it is slowly starting down a different path, not towards democracy but, nonetheless, different from where it would be had ill health not felled the elder Castro. Lacking his brother’s charisma, Raúl must govern through institutions, especially the military and the Communist Party. Well before the Comandante announced his retirement on February 19, Raúl had disbanded the informal networks of loyalists his brother had used to keep tabs on the party and government bureaucracies. In his first speech as president, Raúl emphasized la institucionalidad, the importance of institutions. The first order of business is the economy; day in and day out, ordinary Cubans struggle to put breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the table. I don’t expect radical moves akin to China’s or Vietnam’s. Nonetheless, any market openings will also constitute steps away from the Fidelista legacy. For the elder Castro, market socialism is just a notch or two less objectionable than capitalism.

On February 24, Raúl named José Ramón Machado Ventura as first vice president of the Councils of State and Ministers, instead of Carlos Lage, the 56-year-old technocrat favored by the under-60 generations. Machado is a hardliner, close to Raúl since the 1950s, and the Communist Party’s long-standing fixer and ideological guardian. Yet, we shouldn’t immediately conclude that his appointment sounds the death knell for reforms. The old guard isn’t ready to give up power just yet and, moreover, the seniors may be banking on what they believe to be their legitimacy to bring changes while safekeeping the revolution. In short, there might be a “Nixon-to-China” logic at play in the old guard’s last stand.

Then again, we might be witnessing the seniors digging in their heels. We won’t know for sure until the end of the year. In his inaugural speech, Raúl announced an administrative reorganization of the state. He also addressed sensitive economic issues such as food production and the grossly devalued peso. Noteworthy as well was his mention of the libreta, the ration book whereby Cubans of all income levels purchase subsidized goods. Cuban economists have long criticized the libreta’s absurdity. Only Machado as first vice president and General Julio Casas Regueiro as Defense Minister —the post vacated by Raúl— have been named to the Council of Ministers. The rest will have to wait until the announced state restructuring and, probably, some economic reforms are in place. Possibly then, the under-60 generation will be better represented as, for the most part, ministers will have to wield more modern skills than the old guard can muster.

What happened in Havana on February 24 reminded me of Moscow in the early 1980s. After Leonid Brezhnev’s passing, two old men —first, the more open-minded Yuri Andropov, then the mummified Konstantin Chernenko— ruled the Soviet Union. Not until 1985 did the youthful Mikhail Gorbachev take the Kremlin’s reins. Is Raúl more akin to Andropov than Chernenko? Is there a Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, or Vladimir Putin waiting in the wings? No definitive signals have yet been given but three events since Raúl became president are telling.

‚ The Vatican’s Secretary of State, Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, visited Havana just as the younger Castro formally assumed power. On Cuba’s part, I don’t believe the scheduling was coincidental: Raúl wanted to meet the Cardinal as president. Though we still have few details of the meeting, it seems that there might be some progress regarding the church’s legal status (it is not registered at the justice ministry), the building of new churches, and the registration of the church’s charitable front, Caritas.

‚ Raúl dispatched Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque to the United Nations to sign two human-rights accords that Havana had long denounced and the elder Castro still opposes. On December 10 —Human Rights Day— Havana had announced it would sign the two accords but waited until Raúl assumed the presidency to do so. While Cuba reserves the right to issue future “reservations or interpretive declarations,” there is no gainsaying the symbolism of the foreign minister’s signature. A more substantive import could develop later.

‚ Cardinal Bertone recently announced Havana’s disposition to exchange the so-called Cuban five —spies serving time in U.S. prisons for their activities— for jailed dissidents in Cuba. While the offer may be a nonstarter, the United States should consider a response that includes fugitives from U.S. justice who live safely in Cuba. The Cardinal also said that the Pope would raise the issue of Cuba when he visits President Bush in April.

Let me repeat what I said at the start: under either Castro, Cuba remains a dictatorship. Neither brother brooks political opposition nor respects civil liberties. They are menaced by peaceful citizens who work for change, whether by gathering signatures as Oswaldo Payá did, convening an assembly to discuss Cuba’s future as Marta Beatriz Roque did, promoting dialogue as the Progressive Arc has, or raising the civil disobedience of Yo no coopero (I don’t cooperate) with official Cuba.

Raúl and his government —like the Comandante before them— act as if time were on their side. Yet, over the past six months, Raúl himself has repeatedly raised expectations. Will the one-step-at-a-time pace be enough to satisfy the citizenry? Cuba’s leadership doesn’t want to suffer Gorbachev’s fate. It’d be poetic justice if their conservatism quickened the pace of events and confronted them with the unintended consequences they are trying to avoid.

Should U.S. policy toward Cuba under Raúl Castro change? At a minimum, Washington —the next U.S. administration and, of course, the U.S. Congress— should summon a hard-nosed evaluation of current policy. The 2004 regulations, which imposed stringent limitations on Cuban-American travel and remittances, should be reversed. Under them, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews aren’t considered family and, thus, we cannot travel to see them nor send them remittances. Travel to visit grandparents, parents, spouses, siblings, children, and grandchildren is allowed once every three years. Whatever monetary gains Havana makes on travel and remittances, humanitarian concerns and people-to-people contacts are —like the MasterCard commercials— priceless. For nearly 50 years, Castro has divided Cuban families. Isn’t it un-American for the United States to be following in his path?

A hard-nosed evaluation of U.S. Cuba policy should step outside the box of current policy. Almost 20 years ago the citizens of Berlin tore down the odious wall. In the early 1990s, the Cuban Democracy Act —which tightened the embargo— made some sense. Without Soviet trade and subsidies, the embargo might finally work. In 1996, Helms-Burton —enacted into law after the shootdown of two civilian planes which took the lives of four people— tightened the embargo further. Today, Cuba meets its energy needs thanks to Venezuela and its own, thus-far modest oil reserves; Cuban waters, however, are thought to hold some five billion barrels of oil, maybe more. If these reserves are confirmed, Cuba could be earning $5 billion a year from oil and ethanol. Isn’t it time that the United States consider policy alternatives? Confronting the United States is easy for the Cuban government. A diplomatic give-and-take amid a partial relaxation of the embargo is a much tougher challenge for Havana.

In January, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva visited Havana. Though his meeting with the Comandante grabbed the headlines, Raúl and Lula spent four hours together about which almost nothing has been leaked. Still, Brazil and Cuba agreed to increase their economic cooperation, including the sugar industry. Ethanol wasn’t mentioned but it needn’t have been; refined sugar is not where the profits are. Lula and Raúl may also have in common a certain antipathy to Hugo Chávez. Lessening Cuban dependence on Venezuela is in the national interests of Cuba, Brazil, and the United States. Mexico, Spain, Canada, and other U.S. allies are sure to open new lines of communication with Havana. Should the United States take modest steps away from current policy, concerting a loosely joint approach towards Cuba might be possible. Under current policy, it’s impossible