Although Cuba is often caricatured as a straightforward dictatorship, there’s a lot more democracy at the community level and an extraordinary level of workplace labour organisation. The old guard have been trying to win over the post-revolutionary generation, but they’re now up against the sparkles of consumer capitalism. After the 1959 revolution, the US embargoed Cuba, forcing them to rely on the USSR’s to buy their staple crop - sugar. When the Soviet Union collapsed the economy was forced to hustle for the tourist dollar. As a result, Cubans have faced growing inequalities between those with access to hard currency through tourism or family abroad, and those depending on meagre state salaries and the black economy. Cuba’s tourism boom has brought the population into contact with the high spending west and their consumer lifestyles.

Extensive migration from Cuba has followed. Other Latinos wanting to get in on the American dream face a heavily armed Mexican border but in a cynical attempt to undermine the island’s economy, Cubans who flee to the US are given a leg-up and, since 1959, been treated better than any other migrants. Within one year they get residency, grants for education and healthcare and access to a large ex-pat network. After thousands of Cubans tried to cross the Florida Straits in the 1990s in flimsy rafts, in 1996 the US granted 20,000 visas a year for Cubans - more than the number granted for the rest of the world.

Ironically, as a result of 40 years separate development and having been spared the CIA-sponsored military dictatorships inflicted on the rest of South America, Cuba has a highly literate and educated population and a diversified economy – just ripe for a bit of exploitation!

Exiled Cuban-Americans, and their multi-million dollar pals in companies like Bacardi, who lost the lot in ‘59 now see the chance to get their land, businesses and control back.

Dubya Bush’s Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba 2004 report states clearly that US Inc wants to bring Cuba back under its control. They will support a ‘democratic’ transition in Cuba if corporations get a free rein and if Fidel, Raul and other members of the government are barred from participating in elections! The Commission has recently pointed out that they are urgently working “to ensure that the Castro regime’s succession strategy does not succeed,” and that their work, “demonstrates that we are actively working for change in Cuba, not simply waiting for change.” The Department of State has emphasized that the plan includes measures that will remain secret “for reasons of national security” and to assure its “effective implementation”. So it’s time to expect the usual sabotage, subterfuge and CIA shenanigans.

MIAMI VICE

Although the country doesn’t have enough oil to make it a member of the ‘Axis of Evil’, Cuba has been identified as one of the seven countries which sponsor international terrorism. But perhaps the White House should have looked a little closer to home to find some international terrorists. There is a long history of CIA involvement in Cuba (They tried to kill Fidel with a cigar etc). In the 1980s, Mexican, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan embassies were attacked because of their links to Cuba and a Cuban-friendly Chilean ambassador was murdered in 1976. In the same year Cuban-exiled Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles orchestrated the bombing of a Cubana plane killing 73, which was to be just one of over 50 bombings they were involved in during Posada’s time on the CIA pay-roll. More recently, companies which have tried to open economic relations with Cuba have had their offices bombed, including Shell, Air France, Japan Airlines and Air Canada.

These attacks go largely unreported by a Miami press which is controlled by the very same Cuban exiles who collaborate in the intimidation. One radio station set up as an alternative to the usual far right anti-Castro rants and calling for normalised relations with Cuba was bombed twice, employees beaten up and death threats made to sponsors of the station. Until 2000, Miami City employees had to sign a pledge that they had never been a member of the Communist Party. In the space of just three years there were more than 100 politically motivated attacks. A car bomb blew the legs off a news director for condemning exile violence, and the culprits of this and other similar bombings not only walk free but are referred to by the mayor of Miami as ‘freedom fighters’. And it’s the same people who helped to fund the illegal invasion of Nicaragua during the Contra War in the 1980s. One of the organisers of the Contra force was the Cuban American National Foundation, which helped to run clandestine operations, directed by the White House and CIA.

Miami is primarily run by a pro-Batista* cartel that set up in Miami in similar style of gangsterismo as 1950s Havana - running protection rackets, drug cartels and illegal gambling. These far right anti-Castro Cuban exiles may be the minority in Miami, but they own and run the media, government and business contracts - and make a fortune in the process. Judges are bribed and corrupt prosecutors will do what they can not to prosecute, even when confronted with overwhelming evidence. Vote rigging, embezzlement of funds and larceny are par for the course. It is these people who want to get their hands on power in Cuba.

The autonomous development of Cuba has been under threat since the revolution. US Inc. has never wavered in its opposition to this socialist thorn in its side. Forty years of communist rule have led to, by European standards, an authoritarian regime and yet side-by-side with the Latin American norm - a peasant economy dominated by a US-affiliated elite - it stands out as a triumph. Will Cuba stand by the progressive ideals of 1959 or bend its knee to a weak puppet democracy? With Venezuela, Bolivia and to certain extent Brazil bucking the US line the result of the battle is not a foregone conclusion.

For a delve into Miami’s danger world, a tabloidesque gossip about Castro’s personal life and the Havana/Miami vendetta read “Cuba Confidential: The extraordinary tragedy of Cuba its Revolution and its exiles” by Ann Louise Bardoch, Penguin Books 2002.

* (the dictator overthrown by the Cuban Revolution)

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