Raul Castro became president of Cuba on July 31, 2006, taking over from his brother Fidel who had headed the Cuban government since the 1959 revolution. Raul fought alongside Fidel, Argentine revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and other rebels in the ultimately successful effort to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Both before and since Fidel stepped down, there has been a great deal of speculation as to what changes might take place in Cuba under his successor. While Cuba remains a communist country without free elections and with limits on freedom of the press, some new initiatives have attracted attention, including a possible new openness and interest in Cuban citizens’ ideas for reform.
Much U.S. press attention focuses on Cuba’s human rights situation and political prisoners, with occasional acknowledgment of the country’s achievements in health care, literacy, and other social and health indicators. While the U.S. government has continually criticized the Castro government over human rights, Batista had taken power in a coup d’etat, and his regime employed widespread violence and repression. Under Batista, Cuba became notorious for its connections to American organized crime as it emerged as an infamous haven for gambling and prostitution.
Beginning in 1962, the U.S. has employed an economic blockade against Cuba in an attempt to pressure the Cuban government to enact reforms and transition to a democratic form of government. The blockade has been overwhelmingly condemned year after year by the international community in resolutions passed by the UN General Assembly, and in various other fora, such as a 2010 resolution passed by the Rio Group of Latin American and Caribbean nations. In 2009, prior to his ouster in a coup, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya led a successful effort to have Cuba readmitted to the Organization of American States (the U.S. had led a campaign to have Cuba’s membership suspended in 1962). The Cuban government continued to voice its opposition to the OAS, however, with Raul Castro saying months earlier that “The North Sea will merge with the South Seas and a serpent will be born from an eagle’s egg before Cuba joins the OAS,” and that the OAS should “disappear.”[1]
Cuba has diplomatic relations with countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, with even countries commonly referred to as “U.S. allies” in the major media, such as Mexico and Colombia, maintaining friendly relations. U.S.-Cuban relations since the revolution, on the other hand, have been marked by numerous incidents of U.S. aggression against the Cuban government, including numerous attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, and U.S. support and sponsorship of Cuban exile terrorists including Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles. U.S.-Cuban relations reached their lowest point during the Cuban Missile Crisis, considered to be the closest the U.S. and the Soviet Union ever came to nuclear war. The U.S. continues to single out Cuba for special sanctions by claiming it is a state-sponsor of terror (Iran, Sudan, and Syria are the only other countries under this designation), a move that has been strongly criticized by Cuba experts and former U.S. government officials, among others, as lacking justification.[2]
Economic and Political Background
Cuba has a state-run, centrally-planned economy, although there is significant foreign trade and investment as well. The Cuban economy declined sharply following the collapse of the Soviet Union, its largest trading partner, in 1991, but Cuba has recently benefited significantly from business partnerships with Latin American countries, especially Venezuela, with which Cuba exchanges health care in return for discounted oil.
Critics condemn the Cuban system, where most people are employed by the state at low salaries, for offering few opportunities for entrepreneurship or personal advancement. Due to the many controls, Cuba has a significant black market.
While U.S. media attention frequently describes Cuba’s economic troubles, the impact of the U.S. blockade on Cuba is rarely mentioned. The Cuban government claimed in 2006 that the embargo had cost Cuba over 86.1 billion dollars in total damages so far.
The Cuban government provides free health care, education, and transportation for its citizens, and Cuban doctors treat many non-Cuban patients both inside Cuba (where health care is considered by many to be of comparable quality but much cheaper than in many developed economies) and overseas. Cuba frequently sends doctors to help with relief efforts following natural disasters, such as the recent earthquakes in Haiti (2010) and Pakistan (2005). In 2006, UNESCO rewarded Cuba for its successful literacy programs.
On the other hand, Cuba is also infamous for its restrictions on freedom of the press, and for restricting information. Internet access is tightly controlled, for example, and home internet usage must be authorized by the government.
The Cuban government previously was also condemned for its treatment of homosexuals, but now the Cuban government operates the National Center for Sex Education, headed by Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela, which promotes tolerance of the LGBT community. Sex-reassignment surgery and hormone therapy is also free in Cuba.
Key recent developments:
Raul Castro’s government has encouraged a new openness regarding the failings of the Cuban system, soliciting criticisms of policy from Cuban citizens, in order to plan how to improve it.[3] Raul has also experimented with other reforms and ideas, such as allowing workers to “moonlight” at second jobs, and the creation of various worker-run cooperatives.[4]
Despite initially expressing an interest in softening the U.S. stance towards Cuba, the Obama administration has implemented few changes. While the administration did ease restrictions on Cuban-American travel and the sending of remittances to Cuba, the U.S. government still bans U.S. citizens from traveling to Cuba – even for educational purposes — and the trade embargo remains in place.
Cuba-U.S. relations have also been hurt in recent years by the U.S. government’s refusal to extradite Cuban-Venezuelan terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, whom Venezuelan authorities had imprisoned for alleged his role in blowing up a Cuban airliner in 1976, killing 73 people, including the entire Cuban fencing team. Posada, who has also admitted to bombings that killed a tourist in Cuba,[5] escaped from prison in Venezuela and in 2005 turned up in the U.S., where he was subsequently detained on immigration violations. In April 2007, he was released on bail; he still awaits trial.
The Cuban government’s recent arrest of a Development Alternatives, Inc. contractor, Alan P. Gross, for alleged espionage,[6] the death of a Cuban dissident and prisoner of conscience, Orlando Zapata, following a three-month hunger strike, and the continued U.S. imprisonment of five Cubans who gathered intelligence on violent, U.S.-based Cuban exile groups, are all current points of tension between the U.S. and Cuba.
Resources:
Books:
The Cuba Reader: History, Culture, Politics
Aviva Chomsky, Barry Carr and Pamela Maria Smorkaloff (Editors). Duke University Press: 2004
Cuba: A New History
By Richard Gott. Yale University Press: 2005.
My Life
By Fidel Castro. Allen Lane: 2007
Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana
By Ann Louise Bardach. Vintage Books: 2003.
[1] Patricia Grogg, “LATIN AMERICA: Cuba Wants Integration Without OAS.” Inter-Press Service. June 4, 2009. Accessed April 24, 2010.
[2] Center for International Policy, “CIP Analysts Look at Obama’s First Year.” Americas Program, January 27, 2010. Accessed April 24, 2010.
[3] Nick Miroff, “Cubans Warily Test Their New Freedom To Criticize.” National Public Radio, November 10, 2009. Accessed April 24, 2010.
[4] EFE, “Cuba Experiments with Worker-Run Barbershops.” April 14, 2010. Accessed April 24, 2010.
[5] Ann Louise Bardach and Larry Rohter, “A Bomber’s Tale: Part I Taking Aim At Castro.” The New York Times, July 12, 1998. Accessed April 24, 2010.
[6] Associated Press, “US funding of Cuba democracy work draws scrutiny.” April 8, 2010. Accessed April 24, 2010.
