CUBA: CUBAN DISSIDENTS SEES CASTRO'S FAILING HEALTH AS OPPORTUNITY FOR CHANGE IN COMMUNIST CUBA

Record ID: 1502946

  • Title: CUBA: CUBAN DISSIDENTS SEES CASTRO'S FAILING HEALTH AS OPPORTUNITY FOR CHANGE IN COMMUNIST CUBA
  • Date: 7th August 2006
  • Summary: HAVANA, CUBA (FILE - MARCH 31, 2004) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF EXTERIOR OF CUBAN PRISON BUILDINGS INTERIOR OF GUARD LOCKING GATE
  • Embargoed: 21st August 2006 09:48
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Cuba
  • Country: Cuba
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVACR55I57PCDRT5W1SX94I981BY
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: The news earlier this week that Cuban President Fidel Castro had stepped down temporarily for the first time after 50 years of ruling the communist country on America's doorstep pitched millions of Cubans into uncertainty.

    The left-wing firebrand, who has thumbed his nose at the U.S. government for over four decades from 90 miles off-shore, is still beloved by many in the island nation of 11 million. But Castro also has his detractors, both at home and abroad, and many of them see his failing health as an opportunity to bring about change in this communist country.

    One voice which has long called for more freedom in his homeland is that of leading dissident Oswaldo Paya. Paya, who was awarded the prestigious Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought from the European Union in 2002, said in a recent interview (filmed two weeks before Castro fell ill) that Cubans are sick of their freedoms being limited, and of being forced by low wages to turn to black market activities to feed themselves and their families.

    "What is the perspective that is being opened to the Cuban people - to continue contemplating a privileged caste while the Cubans have to resort to crime. In many cases they have been forced to turn to crime to feed themselves every day, where they can't enter and leave the country freely, where they have to talk on a corner and look all around to see if they're being listened to. That is the future for this people, and Cubans don't want to live like that any more," he said.

    Paya is also behind the Varela Project, which was launched in 1998 as a way to circulate a citizen's proposal of law looking for political reform and more freedoms, as well as amnesty for political prisoners. Across the road from his Havana home, somebody has painted a slogan on the wall declaring: "In a besieged garrison, dissidence is treason." He believes the government had the slogan painted to intimidate himself and his family.

    But Paya feels the time has come to embrace an alternative to the long-standing Cuban system.

    "Our motto is not Socialism or Death, it's Freedom and Life. Therefore our call is that the moment has arrived to support a peaceful Cuban alternative that has arisen within Cuba, not because of the way some programme has been outlined, but because of all that the raising of a process which is what the people want represents - dialogue, reconciliation, liberalisation, rights," he said.

    Paya is not alone. Other dissident voices have been raised over the years of Castro's rule, among them the Ladies in White, an organisation of wives and relatives of jailed dissidents that formed to protest their imprisonment. The Cuban government has consistently rallied its supporters to break up protests by these women, who walk the streets in white clothing to symbolise peace.

    But despite the government's best efforts, these voices have not been silenced, and others are being added as many see Castro's ailing health as a chance to implement the change they've long been calling for.

    Dissident and emigrant Manuel Vazques Portal explained there is another opposition movement that is operating in a much less public manner, and that represents a young Cuban intelligencia ready to help bring about change from within.

    "There is an opposition, an underground dissidence, that is playing another role, but it is going to play a role of confluence, of achieving change from within, without confrontation, with power, and this underground dissidence is among the young intellectuals, in Cuban intelligence, not in military intelligence, but rather in general intelligence, and I think this is going to play a role. But I think that the dissidence that's known and open really has no strength, has no organisation, and I don't think they have the ability as statesmen to take power," he said.

    Consistent arrests of dissidents over the years seems only to have cemented this opposition rather than destroy it. Critics say Castro has subjected Cuba's 11 million people to collectivized poverty in a police state, with people forming lines every day outside foreign embassies to request visas, but then requiring government permission to leave the island, and losing all their belongings if they go for good.

    Those who have chosen to leave play a huge part in maintaining their relatives at home who struggle to make ends meet and rely heavily on what they are sent from abroad. But according to Jaime Suchlicki of the University of Miami, although these exiles are helping on an economic level those they left behind, those that return are likely to find themselves at odds with the people they left behind.

    "The exile community can play a significant role in economic development in trying to help Cuba move toward an open society as long as the Cuban community does not try to get involved in the politics of Cuba . I think if the exiles return, they are going to clash with the forces of nationalism in Cuba, with the ethnic composition of the Cuban people," he said.

    But while the news of Castro's illness sparked wild celebrations in the Cuban exile district of Miami, where many view Castro as a brutal dictator whose demise could usher in a new democratic era for their homeland, they may find such an attitude to be firmly at odds with the relatives they left at home.

    According to Portal, the family bonds will help unite those in Miami with those who remained on the island, but this may not translate to a political unity.

    "These Cuban people, that receive a (financial) delivery from their brother, the person they trust is their brother, maybe not the political figure that represents exiles. I mean, yes, there really is a hope of unification, but through personal, sentimental, family relationships. On the level of the structure of government there will always be caution," he said.

    It's clear that the dissident movement but within and outside of Cuba has survived the years of violence, repression and exile, and may well be ready to take advantage of a moment of transition in order to effect changes.

    Castro, whose health has been an issue since he fainted during a speech in 2001, gave the reins of the ruling Communist Party, the post of commander in chief of the armed forces and president of the executive council of state to his brother Raul Castro on Monday (July 31).

    He said he was delegating power to his brother, who firmly commands Cuba's 50,000-member armed forces which in turn control the police, because Cuba was "under threat from the U.S. government."

    But another threat to the long-standing regime clearly lies in the dissident voices that are still being heard, now louder than ever, despite the government's attempts to silence them forever.
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