The Crackdown in Cuba

Theresa Bond

From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2003

Summary:  On the very day U.S. forces entered Iraq last March, Fidel Castro launched a major crackdown on Cuban dissidents; 75 have since been imprisoned. Just why he chose to crush the reformers remains uncertain, but one thing is clear: his country may be crumbling, but the commandante's grip on power remains as tight as ever.

Theresa Bond is the pseudonym for a respected political analyst specializing in closed societies.

Judging by the reaction of the official press, Havana was most wounded by several high-profile defections from the international pro-Cuba camp. These included the Portuguese writer and Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago and the Uruguayan political writer Eduardo Galeano. Their unprecedented criticism prompted Castro to have the Cuban artistic community sign a message "To Friends Far Away," denouncing the supposed "campaign preparing the terrain for a military aggression of the United States against Cuba." Among the signatories were the ballet grande dame Alicia Alonso; the composer Chucho Valdes; the singer Omara Portuondo, of the Buena Vista Social Club; and Eusebio Leal, the chief renovator of Old Havana.

Cuban civil society may have been shaken by the onslaught, but it has not disappeared. Independent journalists continue to file stories about their jailed colleagues and about the dire reality in the country. While Raúl Rivero writes poetry from his solitary prison cell, his impressive collection of articles circulates on cds and audio cassettes. His colleague Manuel Vázquez Portal has managed to smuggle his own diary out of Boniato Prison in Santiago de Cuba, where he is serving an 18-year sentence. The efforts of Marcelo López Bañobre, who publicized the cases of inmates on death row, have become internationally recognized. Following the Argentine example, wives of prisoners now stage silent marches every week demanding the release of their companions, and families of the imprisoned say they have received immense support from friends, neighbors, and even strangers.

In the face of the recent crackdown, however, it may prove difficult for the opposition to recapture its prior assertiveness and defiance. Ordinary Cubans may not be prepared to go into the streets to demand their freedom. For the last 44 years, Cubans' first instinct when unhappy with their country has been simply to leave, legally or on makeshift rafts. The successive waves of emigration have created a huge Cuban diaspora, totaling one-tenth of the island's 11 million population, and have skimmed the country of the kind of people who, in other communist states, have acted as the agents of reform; rather than changing their country, many Cubans have changed countries instead, voting with their feet. Castro understands this fact: that on his island of many shortages, there is no shortage of people willing to leave. He plays the migration card very wisely, using it as a security valve for discontent and to blackmail Washington, which fears a wave of boat people.

It is hard to blame the Cubans who dream about leaving this communist relic. But even daring to dream can be dangerous. In the 1980s, Boniato Prison was home for two years to an inmate who was once foolish enough to recount to his buddies in the city park his dream from the previous night -- of escaping Cuba. The man was jailed for this indiscretion and became known as El Soñador de Boniato, "the Dreamer of Boniato." Now Boniato has become the temporary residence of six of Cuba's 75 most courageous citizens, many of whom once dreamed they could change their country from within. Whether or not they will succeed remains uncertain. But Cuba needs more such dreamers.