Cuba today

Any discussion of engagement with Cuba needs to take into account that Cuba is the last country in the hemisphere that represses nearly every form of political dissent. Those who lament Cuba’s absence from the summit should remember that the Cuban government systematically denies its people even the most basic freedoms. –José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch

The dawn of the new Obama Administration promised to bring change. To many Cuba watchers the hope is that it will come in the form of a new policy towards the Castro regime. Opponents and supporters of the embargo agree that it has not fulfilled its primary function of regime change. The question remains what to do.  Some argue that restrictions on trade and travel only serve to hurt and isolate the public while strengthening and legitimizing the regime. Yet, relaxing restrictions without reform could have the same effect.

Whatever form the new policy takes, it should be based on increased freedoms for the Cuban people.  Ideally, any new policy would bring about the release of all political prisoners and lead the Cuban government to observe the human rights treaties to which it is a signatory.

American policy toward Cuba should put a spotlight on the regime and hold it accountable.  In fact, Human Rights Watch has the same criticism for both the U.S. policy of isolation and South American states policies of engagement.  Not only do they counter act each other, they are equally "uncritical."  Leaders of the pro-democracy movement agree that if the international community did nothing else, they should at least bring scrutiny to the Castro’s and take account of one of the world’s most oppressive dictators.  This is the one thing that no state or international organization has done effectively.

There are distinct differences in the proposed policies.  Some on the American left want to normalize relations with little or no cost to Cuba.  Considering the gross human rights abuses, torture, and the unlawful imprisonment of hundreds of political dissidents, there is much the U.S. can ask in return for opening relations.  Barring a counter-revolution, the Castro’s will continue to defy human dignity and human rights in the face of the world.  They have created the fulfillment of a totalitarian dream state.  Before selling a new policy to the American electorate, the administration should take a look at what living conditions are really like for the vast majority of the Cuban population.

Oppression in Society

There are several mechanisms for the surveillance and control of the citizenry.  According to research from Human Rights Watch [1], the Interior Ministry oversees the bodies that monitor the population for possible dissent.  These are the General Directorate of Counter-Intelligence and the General Directorate of Internal Order.  The General Directorate of Counter-Intelligence supervises The Department of State Security.  Also referred to as the Political Police, they divide counter-intelligence operations into specialized units.

One of these units is designated to monitor religious groups, writers, and artists.  The other main body under the Interior Ministry that deters dissidents is called the Directorate of Internal Order.  This office administers two police units.  These are the National Revolutionary Police and the Technical Department of Investigation who are responsible for internal surveillance.  These powerful institutions enable the government to reach deep into Cuban life and discourage people from daring to think or speak differently from the regime.  Cuban citizens know that they are constantly being observed for signs of non-conformity.  This creates a palpable fear for most Cubans that Americans can scarcely imagine.

Beyond official government enforcement bodies, government sponsored community organizations known as Committees for the Defense of the Revolution reach into every Cuban neighborhood encouraging citizens to monitor each other.  According to Castro, the intention was to create a, "system of collective revolutionary vigilance so that everyone will know who everyone else is … what they devote themselves to, who they meet with, what activities they take part in." [2] Community organizers known as block captains run patriotic group activities.  The role of the captains is to report and spy on those who do not participate.

The Communist Party has created similar groups called the Singular Systems of Vigilance and Protection and Rapid Action Brigades to intimidate activists and control dissidents.  The government keeps academic and labor files on every citizen.  Loyalty to the regime is measured before any advancement in work or school takes place.  The Cuban government’s housing authority even exercises its power by fining party opponents and taking away their homes.

In 2003, in what is now known as the Cuban Spring, Fidel Castro arrested seventy-five opposition members, journalists, human rights activists, and librarians.  These dissidents were hastily tried and were convicted to an average of twenty years in prison.  In addition to the notoriously inhumane Cuban prison conditions of physical neglect and torture, the prisoner’s families continue to be harassed and threatened by the government as a part of their psychological torture.

U.S. Policy

Mauricio Claver-Carone of the U.S. Cuba PAC offers three reasons why the current U.S. policy is correct.  First, there is a political basis because the U.S. does not financially support dictatorships.  Second, there is a geo-political interest.  The Obama administration has made statements that the promotion of democracy and human rights in Cuba is in our national interest.  Third, the idea of trade with Cuba is an illusion.  There is only one company in Cuba and the Castro brothers own it.  That is not trade.  It is mercantilism.

The pro-democracy movement here in the U.S. was encouraged when the Obama administration suggested in April that Cuba release all political prisoners to reciprocate their end of U.S. travel restrictions.  The hope is that while acting like he is making friends, President Obama will create tangible pressure on the regime to change.  Like Obama, the freedom fighters of Cuba have based their campaign on "Change."  For some of them the cost of simply wearing the word "cambio" on their sleeve was imprisonment.  It may also cost President Obama politically here in the United States to take a serious stance on Cuban political repression.  Several members of his party are open about their ideological sympathies with Fidel Castro.  Others in the Democrat party have at least pandered to the extreme left by having their picture taken with the dictator.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee recently led a delegation of Democrats to Cuba.  Composed of Representatives Mel Watt of North Carolina, Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, Marcia Fudge of Ohio, Mike Honda of California, Bobby Rush of Illinois, and Laura Richardson of California, their message was that the current U.S. policy was not working.  They essentially propose more openness with the regime despite the fact that the point of U.S. policy is to isolate the regime.  In response to the trip, Republican Mel Martinez suggested that it would be preferable to support the pro-democracy activists and not "the Castro Regime."

U.S. National Security perspective

From a U.S. national security perspective, a hard look at the Castro regime is also imperative.  It is a common foreign policy strategy among U.S. foes such as Iran, North Korea, Syria, China, and Russia to pay lip service to diplomatic pleasantries and simultaneously act against our interests.  The U.S. cannot take Fidel or Raul at their words while they plot against us.  A staff report from the Institute for Cuba and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami characterizes, to a great extent, the national security threat posed by Cuba.  They reported the following in reference to Cuba’s support of Iran:

During the widespread protests by reform-minded Iranian university students against repressive clerical rule in the summer of 2003, authorities in Tehran turned to Havana for assistance in interfering with the satellite transmission of broadcasts by U.S.-based Farsi-language TV stations. Cuba, with decades of experience in jamming U.S. broadcasts directed at the island, used its Chinese-equipped high-power antennae to effectively jam the U.S. satellite signals. The jamming was ultimately tracked by a U.S. company to a point of origin some 20 miles outside the city of Havana, in the vicinity of Bejucal, where a joint Sino-Cuban military signals intelligence and electronic warfare facility operates since 1999. [3]

Acting accordingly as a self-defined enemy of the United States, Castro’s alliance with Iran is unsurprising.  It does not only translate into Cuba enhancing the Iranian regime at home.  It has real time consequences in North America.  The University of Miami report also offered the following analysis:

The type of espionage carried out by Ana Belén Montes, the senior U.S. defense intelligence analyst who spied for Cuba during some 16 years until her arrest in 2001, has enabled the Castro regime to amass a wealth of intelligence on U.S. vulnerabilities as well as a keen understanding of the inner-workings of the U.S. national security system. Such information and analysis was provided to Saddam Hussein and would undoubtedly be provided to a strategic ally like Iran. While one may argue that factors such as Iran’s limited military capabilities and sheer distance diminish any conventional concerns, one should expect that Tehran, in case of preemptive strikes by American forces, would launch an asymmetrical offensive against the U.S. and its European allies through surrogate terrorist and paramilitary organizations.  In such a scenario, Cuban intelligence would be invaluable to Iran and its proxies and Cuban territory could be used by terrorist groups to launch operations against the U.S.

There is a level of frankness missing from the dialogue about U.S. – Cuban relations.  For the past fifty years, Cuba has acted against American interests. In fact, the Cuban government is not shy about trying to indoctrinate its citizens to believe that the United States is their enemy.  In reference to Cuba’s Dirección General de Inteligencia (DGI), or General Intelligence Directorate the Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security states:

Today DGI collects a wide variety of data through its operatives in Europe, the Third World, and North America-especially the last of these, because the United States is Cuba’s self-declared number-one foe. The Cuban delegation to the United Nations in New York City is the third-largest in the world, and it has been estimated that nearly half of its personnel are DGI officers. [4]

The common misconception about diplomacy is that talking has disproportionately good implications when results should be the real test.  U.S. foreign policy makers have been misguided in counter terrorism strategies in the past by failing to calculate ideology and the internal rhetoric of transnational organizations.  The principal holds true with hostile states that what they say to their own people about us reveals their true intentions.  The Cuban government defines the United States as the enemy and will act accordingly in their own interest.  Hence, human rights and national security concerns should be the primary context for formulating our foreign policy. 

Nicholas Hanlon is a foreign affairs writer and researcher at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C.

[1] Román Orozco, Cuba Roja (Buenos Aires: Información y Revista S.A. Cambio 16 – Javier Vergara Editor S.A., 1993), p. 158.

[2] Sarah A. DeCosse,  CUBA’S REPRESSIVE MACHINERY Human Rights Forty Years After the Revolution, Copyright © June 1999 by Human Rights Watch

[3] Staff Report, The Growing Iran-Cuba Strategic Alliance Focus on Cuba; Cuba Transition Project, Issue 76 May 16, 2006

[4] "Cuba, Intelligence and Security." Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security. The Gale Group Inc. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2009