[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Wayne Smith: Cuba Shaping Up as Iraq II

[Al Kagan]

FYI, from the former Chief of the US Interests Section in Havana.

>Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 07:02:12 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Ann Sparanese <sparanese at yahoo.com>
>Subject: [SRRTAC-L:13968] Wayne Smith: Cuba Shaping Up as Iraq II
>To: SRRT Action Council <srrtac-l at ala.org>
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>Note the paragraphs on the dissidents. This is not the
>first time that both Paya and Sanchez have spoken out
>against foreign funding of dissidents. Wayne Smith is
>a former Chief of the US Interests Section in Havana
>and NOT a leftist of any stripe.
>
>Ann Sparanese
>
>***
>
>Cuba shaping up as Iraq II
>By WAYNE S. SMITH
>ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION
>Published on: 05/27/04
>
>The path by which the Bush administration led us into
>the
>nightmarish Iraqi quagmire is strewn with arrogance,
>flawed
>assumptions, faulty intelligence and downright lies.
>It
>seems determined to make the same mistakes all over
>again
>with Cuba.
>
>The administration listened all too trustingly to a
>small
>group of Iraqi exiles. We see the result. A disaster.
>
>Now the administration is listening to another tiny
>knot of
>hard-line exiles in Miami. Just a little more economic
>pressure and Fidel Castro will be gone, the latter are
>saying. The Bush administration will then have a great
>victory. As Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega
>assured Congress on Oct. 2 of last year: "The
>president is
>determined to see the end of the Castro regime and the
>dismantling of the apparatus that has kept him in
>office
>for so long."
>
>On May 6, President Bush announced new measures to
>achieve
>that goal and supposedly assist the Cuban people after
>the Castro regime is no more. As one reads over the
>recommendations (all 500 pages of them), one has the
>sense
>that in the minds of the authors at least, the U.S.
>occupation of Cuba has already begun.
>
>A U.S. "Transition Coordinator" is to be appointed to
>run
>the show, as Paul Bremer has run it in Iraq. He'll
>oversee
>economic reconstruction, setting up the right kind of
>schools, making sure the trains run on time and all
>such
>matters. We can be sure that contracts for Bechtel and
>Halliburton are already planned.
>
>Just as the administration ignored the United Nations
>Security Council and trampled international
>conventions
>(such as the Geneva Convention) in pursuing its
>misadventure in Iraq, so too is it following that
>pattern
>in Cuba. One of its principal instruments for putting
>an
>end to the Castro regime, it says, is aid to the
>internal
>dissidents. When one government assists organized
>groups in
>another country in efforts to oust their government,
>that
>is blatant intervention in the second country's
>internal
>affairs, and in this case a clear violation of the
>Charter
>of the Organization of American States, even if the
>means
>remain peaceful.
>
>And who can be sure they will? Already, U.S. Rep.
>Lincoln
>Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), one of the exiles from whom the
>administration is taking its cues, is urging that
>consideration be given to assassinating Castro, and
>other
>Florida politicians are calling for use of force.
>
>What do the dissidents inside Cuba, those the new
>measures
>are supposed to assist, think of this? Well, their
>principal leaders have denounced the new measures and
>made
>it clear they want nothing to do with them.
>
>Oswaldo Paya, the chairman of the Varela Project, a
>free
>speech/human rights initiative, says they are
>"unhelpful
>and unwelcome." Elizardo Sanchez, head of the National
>Commission for Human Rights, describes them as
>"counterproductive meddling." And Manuel Cuesta Morua,
>leader of a coalition of social democratic forces,
>insists:
>"The United States has absolutely no right to define
>the
>how, what or when, or the pace and timing of the
>democratic
>transition in Cuba."
>
>When measures are denounced by those they are supposed
>to
>support, it is a sure sign that they aren't likely to
>work.
>And what has been the reaction of other Cubans - those
>who
>aren't dissidents? More than a million demonstrated
>against
>the new measures a few days ago.
>
>Perhaps the demonstrations weren't spontaneous. Few
>things
>in Cuba are. But on the other hand, put yourself in
>the
>place of the average Cuban looking at those pictures
>of the
>Iraqi prisoners being abused by American soldiers.
>Would
>you be enthusiastic over the idea of a Bush-appointed
>"transition coordinator" for Cuba? Probably not.
>Cubans
>want change, yes, but not an American-run transition.
>Our
>reputation for nation-building isn't very high at the
>moment.
>
>It is also clear that the great majority of the
>Cuban-American community also oppose the measures. No
>wonder. They are the ones who will suffer most. Now
>they
>will only be able to visit their families in Cuba
>every
>three years, rather than once a year. The range of
>relatives to whom they can send money is also reduced.
>And
>for what? Does anyone think such restrictions will
>bring
>down the Castro government? Not likely.
>
>Finally, the administration is going to have military
>aircraft transmit radio and television programming to
>Cuba
>from international airspace. That will be expensive
>and
>also violates the International Communications
>Convention.
>Nor will it have any significant effect. Radio Marti
>has
>been broadcasting for some 20 years with only
>occasional
>jamming. It has not changed Cuban public opinion one
>iota
>in all that time.
>
>For all its bluster, the administration's revamped
>Cuba
>policy is even more clearly foredoomed than the Iraqi
>policy. The latter is fast losing support across the
>United
>States. The Cuba policy retains only that of a tiny
>group
>of hard-line exiles in Florida. The will of the
>majority at
>some point soon will prevail.
>
>. Wayne S. Smith is a senior fellow at the Center for
>International Policy in Washington and an adjunct
>professor
>at Johns Hopkins University.
>
>[]
>
>Find this article at:
>http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0504/27smith.html
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu