U.S. Can Better Dispose of Castro by Helping the Moderates in Cuba

Following the shooting down of two small, unarmed civilian aircraft flown by the Cuban exile humanitarian group, Brothers to the Rescue, Fidel Castro’s government catapulted itself into the headlines and this year’s presidential election. With Republicans nipping at his heels, President Clinton announced new sanctions against the Cuban government and pledged to work with Congress to tighten the U.S. embargo under the Helms-Burton Bill that he had been expected to veto.

Why did the Cuban leadership authorize its military to destroy the two planes? What are the broader implications of its action for Cuba and the United States? And what are the policy options that the U.S. can pursue toward Latin America’s oldest dictatorship?

The most obvious explanation for the Cuban action is that Castro was fed up with earlier violations of Cuban airspace by Brothers to the Rescue aircraft, some of which had dropped leaflets inciting Cubans to rebel. Still, the downing of two unarmed civilian aircraft Feb. 24 not only violated international law, it has been a public relations disaster for Castro as well.

The incident clearly shows that Castro will still employ whatever force necessary to quash opposition to his rule. He has also compromised the armed forces and, by so doing, has made further contacts between the U.S. and Cuban military more difficult. And he has created the international tension necessary to rally his supporters at home.

By demonstrating that he is an unreformed authoritarian, Castro has also severely weakened the case for lifting the U.S. economic embargo--a case that rested on questionable assumptions and wishful thinking by many U.S. policy critics.

First, although it has not led to Castro’s ouster, neither has the embargo failed, as critics charge. Together with the “second embargo” caused by the loss of Soviet trade and subsidies, the embargo has been effective enough to oblige his regime to implement some economic reforms that it would not otherwise have undertaken.

Second, talk by some observers of Cuba’s economic recovery is premature. In 1996, the island will have to recover from last year’s disastrous sugar harvest, while layoffs of upward of 500,000 state workers may have to be implemented to further reduce the budget deficit. At an annual growth rate of 4%, Cuba would still have to wait until 2005 before 1989 economic levels are restored.

Third, unlike what many critics allege, Cuba’s economic liberalization remains limited. In contrast to Vietnam, where a flourishing domestic private sector is protected by a civil code, Castro and other hard-liners staunchly oppose the marketization of Cuba’s internal economy even as they open the island to foreign investors.

Only 210,000 Cubans are legally “self-employed,” but they cannot hire nonrelatives or work professionally in their academic specialties. Cuba’s new foreign investment law applies to exiles, yet its investment incentives and guarantees are denied to Cuba’s own citizens because Castro fears the rise of a new, independent middle class.

Finally, contrary to what critics believe, the embargo’s removal would serve as a disincentive to liberalization, because it would:

* Provide the U.S. investment and tourist dollars with which to ease Cuba’s economic crisis and repay European creditors, without the regime having to deepen its reforms.

* Revitalize Castro’s internal regime stature as he would be seen as having steered Cuba’s ship of state into safe waters.

* Weaken reformers inside the regime who would lose leverage as the economic crisis subsided.

On the other hand, Helms-Burton also is counterproductive. If signed by the president, the legislation would hurt Cuba economically by denying it assistance from international lending agencies and by punishing European, Canadian and other foreign firms investing in and trading with Cuba.

However, in addition to harming our relations with allies, Helms-Burton works to Castro’s political advantage. It will enable him to continue blaming the U.S. “blockade” for the island’s economic troubles that are largely of his own making.

It will hurt the Catholic and Protestant churches, dissident and human rights groups and other emerging civil society actors by heightening Cuba’s siege atmosphere. It will force Cubans to support the regime because the bill threatens to impoverish them due to its provision enabling Cuban exiles to file for compensation for confiscated properties in U.S. courts. And it will further compel civilian and military reformers to rally around Castro in the face of a palpable, external threat.

Rather than trying to topple or accommodate Castro, it would be better to end run him. Since October, this is something that the Clinton administration has partially attempted in implementing the second part of the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act known as Track II. Track II promotes telecommunications ties and information and people-to-people flows with Cuba in order to nurture civil society and hasten Cuba’s peaceful democratic transition.

But time is working against policymakers, particularly if the 1996 elections deepen the fault lines of our Cuba policy. The president and Congress need to agree on a new proactive policy that targets Cuba’s agents of change. While keeping the embargo in place, or at least its ban on U.S investments and credits, and on assistance from international lending institutions, this policy alternative would:

* Expand Track II initiatives that strengthen civil society--for example, by rescinding the ban on cash remittances by Cuban Americans--in order to promote the forces of “change from below.”

* Employ public diplomacy to provide inducements to the regime’s civilian and military reformers to push harder for “change from above” with or without Castro.

Thus, reformers need to be reassured that, along with outside civil society actors, they will play a central role in a Cuba after Castro.

Therefore, confidence-building measures should be directed to the military, Cuba’s most pivotal institution. We can begin by lifting the ban on U.S. military attaches having contact with their Cuban counterparts, inviting the Cuban military to send observers to hemispheric defense conferences and military exercises, and pledging the return of Guantanamo to a new democratically elected government in Cuba.

Whether Castro rebuffs or blocks these initiatives is immaterial. What is important is that civilian and military reformers recognize that it is Castro and not Washington that blocks real change in Cuba, that their destiny and that of the nation is not tied to the Cuban caudillo, and that they must act more boldly lest Cuba remain an anachronism in a post-communist world.