Friday, October 26, 2007

U.S.-Cuban relations

The Cuban government showed about half of President Bush’s recent speech and provided extensive excerpts, which is unprecedented.

Some experts wondered whether the decision to air and print the speech was part of interim President Raul Castro's campaign to open the Cuban news media to criticism. Castro, in office since his brother Fidel fell ill 15 months ago, has allowed the media to run articles critical of the system, and also has convened neighborhood meetings to air complaints.

"I am not surprised, because there have been changes in the media which are definitely part of Raul Castro's decisions," Rafael Hernandez, editor of the political magazine Issues, said by phone from Havana. "The changes in the press are something that should have happened sooner."

Hernandez said the Cuban leadership also probably decided to run the speech so Cubans could see Bush and judge for themselves.

"I think U.S. policy is like any horror-movie monster," Hernandez said.

What a strange combination. On the one hand, Raul has widely been viewed as more pragmatic than Fidel, and therefore more open to the idea of criticism, albeit tightly controlled (as the article notes, for example, the government did not allow the airing of the names of political prisoners). This could therefore signal some type of real change, the extent of which is impossible to guess.

On the other hand, Bush’s speech and his policy in general are so poorly thought out (one part of the speech suggested radical change in Cuba, in exchange for which we’d allow religious groups to give them some computers and internet access) that the Cuban government can safely broadcast it. In other word, U.S. policy is so off the deep end that it doesn’t even require much censoring.

8 comments:

Anonymous,  8:25 AM  

Bush wasn't talking to Cuba. His audience is the Miami exiled.

Greg Weeks 8:38 AM  

True, but not relevant to my post, except perhaps to add that messages to the exiles are so over the top that they require no censoring in Cuba.

Anonymous,  9:57 AM  

Doesn't anyone in the White House realize how far off the deep end they are with our Cuba policy? Don't get me wrong...I hate Castro just as much as the exiles. But this kind of rhetoric only makes Raul stronger and reinforces his will to remain in power. Short of sending in the Marines (which is NEVER going to happen in the western hemisphere again), the best way to defeat Castro is to bring them into the world economy, as has been done with Vietnam, China, Russia, etc. Why are the Cuban communists considered any different from the Vietnamese communists? The Cuban exiles have had their brains fried from too many years in the Miami Beach sunshine.

Anonymous,  10:00 AM  

And why do we still call these people "Cuban exiles" after 50 years in Florida? They are Americans....that's it. How many of them are going to actually head back to Havana after Castro dies, leaving their businesses, families, country clubs, and lives behind in Coral Gables?

Justin Delacour 12:18 PM  

Short of sending in the Marines (which is NEVER going to happen in the western hemisphere again)...

And just how do you know that it will NEVER happen again, mike a? It just happened in Haiti three years ago.

Greg Weeks 12:26 PM  

As far as U.S. use of military force, the word "never" is a mistake.

Anonymous,  2:37 AM  

speaking of haiti, (and i know this is offtopic so fell free to delete or ignore)

What exactly were the circumstances behind the intervention in haiti? i know there has been some amount of publicity in recent months about the amount of money funneled through IRI & various NGOs in haiti as was the case in venezuela around the time of coup, and that Aristide claims he was "kidnapped" by the US.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

Boli-Nica 5:22 PM  

"And why do we still call these people "Cuban exiles" after 50 years in Florida? They are Americans....that's it. How many of them are going to actually head back to Havana after Castro dies, leaving their businesses, families, country clubs, and lives behind in Coral Gables?"


what is called "el exilio historico", is those who came in the first couple of waves of exiles. The old folks, whose obituaries you can read each day in the paper.
There is also a huge number of former political prisoners who filtered out in the 60's and 70's.
Lastly there is a very large group of Cubans who came in large groups during the Mariel boatlift and during the "special period" in the 90's and who continue to arrive daily.

  © Blogger templates The Professional Template by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP