February 24, 2008
Castro's Resignation A Ho-hum Event
Fidel Castro – a fading icon of old-style Marxist communism in Cuba – has bowed to the greater power of poor health and old-age infirmities.
He has officially resigned his nearly half-century dictatorship and handed power to his 76-year-old brother Raul who has been his shadow since the “Peoples Revolution” of 1959.
Public reaction in Havana – and “Little Havana” in Miami, Florida -- was ho-hum.
Havanistas and U.S. expatriates believe Fidel still will pull the strings on his puppet brother.
U.S. Senator Mel Martinez (R-Florida), who left Cuba as a boy, describes the shift in power as “the replacement of one dictator with another.”
Raul Castro
“This is no cause for celebration that some would believe,” declares Martinez. “Raul does not have the same relationship with the Cuban people as Fidel, and now is the time to challenge him.
“Perhaps the news will give strength to the dissident movement. Oppression in Cuba today is the worst it has been in years.”
Opportunity ?
The shakeup in Cuba undoubtedly will become involved in the United States presidential election.
Is there an opportunity to revise the decades old U.S. embargo against Cuba?
President Bush says he hopes the change "will be the beginning of a democratic transition for the people in Cuba."
“First step, of course, will be for people put in those prisons to be let out,” says Bush. “I have met with many of the families of prisoners there.
“It just breaks your heart to realize that people have been thrown in prison because they dared speak out.
“The international community should work with the Cuban people to begin building institutions necessary for democracy. Eventually, this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections there,” Bush declares.
Cold War Memories
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) says: “Our policy toward Cuba is a relic from the Cold War. It makes no sense, and is an embarrassment.”
Hindsight is 20-20 – but painful reminders of imminent war back then abound. Soviet missiles in Cuba aimed at the United States, President John F. Kennedy’s threat to bomb the sites, the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion failure, and subsequent U.S. trade embargo of Cuba.
Those were perilous times in 1960 when the Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev banged his shoe on his desk at a United Nations General Assembly – and Castro addressed the Assembly dressed in his military uniform.
The two embraced immediately after Castro’s inflammatory, anti-American speech – to demonstrate their solidarity.
Flash Back 1
Current events today hark back to 1959 when I -- and the mother of my children -- took advantage of a quickie tour of Cuba as dissident Castro was marching to Havana.
Our taxi driver guide, Koko, pointed out the soldiers and sandbagged machine guns around public buildings and homes of dignitaries.
“Don’t hang around,” said Koko, “because Castro is only two days up the road. When he gets here, blood will flow.”
We took his advice and cut short our visit the next day. The day after that, Castro rumbled into town and murdered any one remotely associated with democratic institutions.
Before the blood bath was over, Castro’s firing squads had executed 4,000 men, boys and community leaders of all sexes. One of every 18 Cubans were imprisoned for “political crimes’ – as defined by Castro.
Flash Back 2
Castro’s resignation last week also recalls a moonlight dinner -- years later -- in Washington, D.C., with Nellie and Lolo.
They were sisters who had escaped Cuba the night before Castro marched into Havana.
He quickly murdered all Cubans who had been affiliated with Fulencio Batista’s corrupt regime -- or key institutions such as banks, schools, law firms and hospitals.
Ration books for food were issued to control the population through the threat or starvation or scavenging garbage.
Neighborhoods were divided into blocks --with reliable communist “Captains” (spies) who reported any hints of democratic tendency.
Gunless Cubans
Today, Nellie and Lolo today are retired at Ocala, Florida, but still shiver when recalling Castro’s ruthless imposition of communism in Cuba.
They shared reminisces with us in 1976.
October 13, 1976
'If Only We Hadn't Given Up Our Guns!'
"Two things turned Cuba into a permanent communist state and prevent any effective opposition, " said Nellie and Lolo, two charming and intelligent refugees from Fidel Castro's totalitarian state.
"First, we gave up our personal guns."
"Then, the government issued food ration books."
"All other oppressions were secondary."
We were having a candle light dinner on the balcony of a Washington, D. C., apartment tower. To me, Cuban communism was an academic subject seemingly far away from that symbol of liberty - the National Capitol - gleaming pristine white in the night sky.
Yet, to the two sisters, memories of their former home land were a harrowing yesterday, a disturbing presence in their consciousness.
"At first we welcomed Castro," said Nellie who was then the only woman vice-president of the Cuban banks.
"When he gained control of the country we believed him when he said we should surrender our arms because we did not need guns now that we were a free country. In our joy of overthrowing Batista (Cuba's prior, corrupt dictator) we rushed to the police stations to give up our guns.
"Today the Cubans have no weapons to actively resist the much worse corruption of Castro, even if they had the will.
"Very soon after that, Castro confiscated all property and bank accounts, instantly reducing all Cubans to the same level of poverty and dependence upon the favor of the communist bureaucrats," said Nellie.
"Every one was given a book of food stamps without which you could not even eat. If you did not behave as the government officials wished, they would not issue you a new book, and you would have to beg food from friends or starve.
"It was a simple system that kept everyone in line. You lived from month to month and had no time or will to plan resistance to the loss of personal freedoms."
Even so, Nellie had some part in an organized, passive resistance group. She is tight lipped about her part in the anti-Castro movement, but recounts the unusual circumstances which prompted her flight from Cuba.
"One day X (name withheld) told us he had been questioned by the police and might be arrested," said Nellie. "He said that if he was picked up we should all start running because he didn't know how long he could with hold our names under torture.
Very soon, X was arrested. His relatives said later that he had been burned, cut, and had his eyes gouged out.
Nellie feared the worst but wavered whether to flee; and, if so whether to leave immediately or wait a few days to try and convert some possessions into cash.
Her judgment was immediate flight, but she had to wait an agonizing few hours until the middle of the night when the members of the neighborhood "watchers committee" would be asleep.
At 4 a.m. Nellie and her 79-year-old mother loaded two suitcases into their car and sped toward the U. S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay where Lolo lived with her American husband. The police arrived only an hour and a half after Nellie's departure.
Nellie managed to avoid all road blocks except the last one near Guantanamo. There, a peasant soldier was determined to turn her back.
Finally, after a three-hour detainment, Nellie convinced the soldier she was her sister, Lolo, and an American citizen by marriage. The soldier agreed to go with her to the gate of the U.S. base for identification.
It was desperate gamble that would bring certain arrest if some means of escape could not be found before discovery of her falsehood.
Just 30 yards from the Naval base gate the Cuban soldier ordered Nellie to stop the car so he could smoke a cigarette. While his head was lowered to a match, Nellie grabbed her mother by the arm and whispered, "Run!" Before the Cuban guard could unshoulder his sub-machine gun, Nellie and her mother were inside the base - trembling with fear, but safe.
Nellie remained on the base for three years as a political refugee, eventually learning to operate the Navy computer. When Lolo's husband died the family moved to Washington D. C.; and the former bank vice-president became a teller for the Naval Federal Credit Union.
"We have made new lives for ourselves," said Nellie and Lolo. We now are American citizens who love this country. Lolo's children speak, think and act like all other American children their age. We do not want to go back, but are sad for our former country. The best brains of Cuba have either fled, as we did, or have been killed or broken."
She pause to gaze at the gleaming white Capitol.
"If only we hadn't given up our guns."
Outlook Today
Time heals all wounds, and wounds all heels. The balance now is just about level.
Communism has proven to be a loser everywhere in the world. Family ties among Cubans and Cuban-Americans will prevail eventually – sooner than later.
Sooner is better.
The time is ready to reassert the historical friendship between Americans and Cubans.
Most folks in Miami converse readily in Spanish and send money to relatives back home.
Most folks in Havana listen to U.S. television, radio and read English-language magazines. Many set forth in leaky rowboats to try and set foot on Florida shores.
Both groups converse via the computer World Wide Web.
Never under estimate the power of self- interest.
PARTING SHOTS
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney pulled out of the race and explained to his wife, Ann: “Did you ever – in your wildest dreams – see me running for President?” She replied (no kidding): “You weren’t in my wildest dreams!”
Behind every successful man there is a woman with nothing to wear. This explains why Democrat candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton wears Bill’s old pantsuits.
House Republicans walked out “en masse” the other day to protest Democrats’ refusal to extend the nation’s domestic wiretapping rules. After a ‘photo op’ on the Capitol steps, Republicans returned to have lunch with Democrats.
That’s what we like: drooling donnybrooks.
By Lindsey Wilger Williams, retired newspaper publisher and syndicated columnist
