Cuba and the United States - It takes two to rumba

Illustration by David Simonds

Raúl Castro’s reaction to a small American olive branch may be even more cautious than Barack Obama’s offering of it

So far the story has followed the script. Barack Obama’s administration on April 13th announced a loosening of the half-century old American economic embargo against Cuba, fulfilling a campaign promise. Officials said that all restrictions on visits and remittances to the island by Cuban-Americans will be scrapped, and that American firms would be allowed to provide telecoms services to Cubans, including telephone roaming and fibre-optic broadband connections with the United States (if Cuba agrees). The embargo itself will remain, at least until the American Congress decides otherwise.

The measures thus amount to a change of tactics, rather than a fundamental policy shift. The administration hopes that additional material support to the Cuban people, and connecting them with the outside world, will help them to push for democracy. The changes are symbolically important. They may blunt, but not silence, calls from Latin American leaders at a Summit of the Americas to be attended by Mr Obama in Trinidad between April 17th and 19th for the United States to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba. 

The American Congress may go on to lift the ban on travel to Cuba by other Americans, and perhaps liberalise some trade. But there is a battle in Congress over the issue. For those who favour change, “the key issue is to understand that the embargo is not an instrument for [the] democratisation” of Cuba, argues Robert Pastor, who was in charge of relations with Latin America in the Carter administration. Others say the embargo should remain until Cuba frees its political prisoners.

In his new role as a blogger, Fidel Castro said that while he did not question Mr Obama’s sincerity, the measures did nothing to dismantle the “genocidal” embargo. And he scorned Brazil and other allies who have called for Cuba’s readmission to the Organisation of American States, saying that his country had no desire to rejoin the body from which it was suspended, at the United States’s behest, in 1962.

Raúl Castro, who replaced his elder brother as Cuba’s president last year, has said he wants “dialogue” with Mr Obama. The two governments have co-operated in the past about migration and drugs and could do so again. But on the main issue that divides them—Cuba’s communist system and its suppression of human rights—they remain as far apart as ever.

On taking over, Raúl Castro raised the hopes of long-suffering Cubans when he first promised “changes of structure and concept” in the centrally-planned economy and then pledged to “improve people’s spiritual and material lives”. But his first year in office disappointed. He took timid steps to turn over more land to private farming, and gave more leeway to some small businesses, such as private taxi drivers. But Cubans have seen little or no improvement in their daily grind.

After several years of growth, due largely to subsidies from Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela, the economy has been battered by hurricanes, lack of credit and a plunge in the price of nickel, its main currency earner (apart from tourism). Workers are being sent home, workplace snacks and meals cut and even the traditional perk of beer, rum and (government-issue) cake for weddings and a free hotel room for the honeymoon was recently eliminated.

But Raúl has consolidated his power. Most dramatically, he shuffled the cabinet last month, purging Carlos Lage, who for the past 15 years had been de facto prime minister and economic supremo. Along with him went Felipe Pérez Roque, the foreign minister. Mr Lage (57), and Mr Pérez (44) symbolised for outsiders and some Cubans a hope of reform and of the transition to a Cuba without the Castro brothers.

That made them dangerous. In classic Stalinist fashion, they apologised for “errors”. Not only had they succumbed to “the nectar of power” and ambition, but also “the enemy outside built up their hopes with them,” Fidel said of the two men, whom he had promoted. His statement meant that he, rather than Raúl, took the blame for sackings which were unpopular with younger party members, says Mr Pastor, who visited Cuba last month.

Their fall from grace came as a shock to Cuba-watchers and has prompted conspiracy theories. The latest official version—leaked this month to foreign journalists without corroborating evidence—rings true. It centres on their ties to Conrado Hernández, a Spanish-Cuban businessman arrested earlier this year on suspicion of spying. Mr Hernández was a close personal friend of Mr Lage. Together with Mr Pérez and their families, they would meet at Mr Hernández’s ranch for roast pig, rum and dominoes. Talk, spiced with irreverent jokes, would turn (as it does in many Cuban homes) to how the Castro brothers were slowing needed reforms. These conversations were secretly recorded by Mr Hernández—and by Cuban intelligence.

In all, Raúl Castro’s purge swept away eleven ministers, including most of the economic team. Their replacements are Raúl’s people, including several generals from the armed forces which he led for half a century. They will be charged with implementing a new law on “perfecting businesses”. This requires all state firms to act autonomously and adopt capitalist management and accounting, but without privatisation or adoption of other market mechanisms. This system was pioneered by the defence ministry in the late 1980s but faces bureaucratic resistance.

Although Fidel Castro has recently appeared to be in better health (he was close to death following repeated abdominal surgery in 2006, according to unofficial reports), the cabinet shuffle has ended his habit of running a parallel government from his own office. One of those sacked, Otto Rivero, ran “The Battle of Ideas”, a Fidel-era operation with a big budget for construction and other projects. These and other special projects, such as Havana’s biotechnology complex and computer-science university, have been transferred to relevant ministries. “There is just one government now,” a Cuban analyst said. “It is more collegiate and Raúl personally chairs every meeting. The point is not that the Fidelistas are out and Raulistas are in, but that there is a new way of doing business.”

This sets the stage for a long-overdue Communist Party Congress (the first since 1997) later this year. Such gatherings do not decide policy, they ratify it. That policy is continued one-party rule and a state-run economy that will be tweaked, rather than radically reformed. Future leaders will be drawn from the ranks of middle-aged provincial party secretaries and rising military officers, party insiders say. There will be no stars under Raúl Castro, no individual young leaders on whom outsiders can pin their hopes. This is the scenario that Mr Obama’s measures are intended to influence—and change. But on their own, they look unlikely to do so.

Apr 16th 2009 | HAVANA
From The Economist print edition