Cuba – A Land Suffering From Too Much Politics

By Volodymyr Kish

My wife and I just got back from a wonderful week’s vacation in Cuba, in Varadero to be exact. As vacations in the sun go, Cuba is one of the best value propositions you can find. You can laze on some of the finest beaches in the tropics for as low as $600 a head which includes flight, accommodations, as well as all meals and drinks included.

Over the past decade, Cuba has become one the most popular destinations for Canadians seeking to escape the rigours of Canadian winters. In fact, Canadians constitute the largest number of foreign visitors to Cuba, with some 600,000 travelling there annually. The reason Canadians hold top spot of course, is the fact that the US continues its half-century long irrational vendetta against the Cuban government and Fidel Castro, in particular. The Americans continue to exert a tight economic blockade against Cuba and forbid their citizens and businesses from having any contact with one of their closest neighbours.

The American policy is but the latest abuse that Cuba has suffered over the past five hundred years of its history since it was first discovered by Christopher Columbus. For four hundred years, the Spaniards exploited and oppressed the island and its native denizens shamelessly. At the end of the 1800s, the locals finally, after a series of unsuccessful uprisings, were poised to overthrow their Spanish masters, when the Americans decided to intervene.

The Americans had long cast covetous eyes on Cuba, and in 1898 found, though some say created, an opportunity to intervene. On February 15, 1898, the US warship Maine mysteriously exploded and sank in Havana Harbour. The Americans blamed the Spanish and declared war on Spain. US troops were quickly dispatched to Cuba and had little trouble in routing the Spanish military forces there that had been severely weakened by Cuban insurgents over the previous decade. The Americans then took direct control of Cuba, imposing a constitution and policies clearly conducive to American economic exploitation.

Although nominally the Cubans were allowed to elect their own Constituent Assembly and President from 1902 onwards, Americans effectively retained control of the island. Although there was significant American investment into Cuba resulting in rapid economic growth, the benefits went mostly to American investors and a small elite of Cuban functionaries who had no compunction in exploiting their fellow citizens.

Tourism, especially from the US, grew exponentially, stimulated by the rapid growth of resorts and casinos, most of which came under the control of the American Mafia. The economic inequities created, unsurprisingly, resulted in widespread popular discontent and the growth of a revolutionary insurgency movement led by a number of leaders, the most well known of which were Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. In 1959, they succeeded in overthrowing the corrupt regime of President Fulgencio Batista.

At the time of his victory, Castro, though a fairly hard-line and ruthless revolutionary of socialist bent, was not a Communist, though many Americans who had a limited understanding of Cuba and its history had branded him so. In fact, for several years after his victory he made numerous attempts to find a political understanding with the US only to be rebuffed by the Cold War hard liners in the American administration. Frustrated and needing economic support, Castro threw in his lot with the Soviets, and Cuba became a Communist country in 1965.

Since then, the US has waged a relentless campaign to bring down Castro and the Cuban government, despite the fact that most of the rest of the world has in recent decades normalized relations with this island country. In fact, many political experts maintain that this single minded vendetta against the Cubans is actually prolonging Castro and his regime’s continuing hold on power. They claim that opening up travel and ties with Cuba would greatly accelerate its transformation into a more democratic and free enterprise state.

Even the existing Cuban government has come to realize that centralized Soviet-styled economy coupled with a one-party state is untenable, and are beginning to make moves to encourage private enterprise and liberalize their heavy-handed autocratic rule. I saw many signs of this during my week in Cuba.

This would be an opportune time for the Americans to start engaging in real dialogue with the Cubans aimed at normalizing relations between the two states. The inflexible, petty and irrational persecution of Cuba by the Americans is highly counter-productive.