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NEWS
Americas
Cubans Begin to
Just Say No
By Mary Anastasia O'Grady
27 October 2006
The Wall Street Journal
Did Brazilian President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva misspeak last week
when he said that it's a pity that Fidel Castro did not democratize the
island while "he was still alive"? Or did he inadvertently blurt out a
secret that only friends of the Cuban regime are supposed to know?
Lula has corrected himself. But the rumor mills are in overdrive since
the utterance of those four little words, in part because the last time
Cubans were shown proof of life was more than a month ago and the
patient looked pretty bad.
Whenever the old man finally passes away, a public statement is likely
to be delayed until Fidel's little brother Raul, who as of now is only
the "temporary" despot, feels sure he has the upper hand. As we go to
press, that effort appears to be a work in progress.
At this time the military seems to be loyal to Raul. Nevertheless, the
dictator in waiting has at least two reasons to be worried. The first is
Hugo Chavez, who pours an estimated $2 billion into the Cuban economy
annually and seems to believe that he is the rightful revolutionary
successor to Fidel. Rumor has it that attitude is not going down too
well with Raul or his men. As Brian Latell, former CIA analyst and
author of "After Fidel" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pointed out this
week: "It may also be reasonable to speculate that Raul and his military
commanders feel contempt for the mercurial and often bizarre Venezuelan,
who rose no higher than lieutenant colonel in the decidedly less
professional and accomplished Venezuelan military."
Fold into this mix the tension that already exists between elements of
the regime that see themselves as ideologically pure and loyal to Fidel
and Raul's army, which seems to enjoy making money -- as Mr. Latell
describes so well in his book -- and all kinds of complications arise.
Yet Hugo and the fidelistas might be the least of Raul's troubles. Less
noticed by the international press but at least as threatening are the
island's dissidents, who are once again stirring things up, this time
with their "non-cooperation campaign." While conventional wisdom
discounts the movement as weak, disorganized and easily infiltrated,
every action of the government suggests that popular resistance to the
regime is spreading, even after a brutal wave of repression was
unleashed more than a year ago.
It is also worth noting that Lula, a left-wing president of a country
that has traditionally supported the Cuban dictatorship, has publicly
lamented Castro's failure to democratize. That doesn't bode well for
continued international support for the island slave plantation.
Non-cooperation is a strategy aimed at whittling away at the most
fundamental tool of every totalitarian regime: fear. The system can
survive only if each Cuban believes he is greatly outnumbered by lovers
of the revolution and that in speaking out, he is doomed. This is why
the regime risked so much bad press to crush the dissidents in March of
2003 in a brutal island-wide crackdown. Intense, debilitating fear must
be kept alive if the regime is to survive.
Opponents of the regime also understand the power of fear and it is why
they are hopeful about the non-cooperation campaign, which provides a
passive way for Cubans to quietly discover solidarity. Rather than
calling on citizens to actively rebel against the government,
"non-cooperation" asks them simply to refuse to participate in the
oppression.
The concept of non-cooperation was born in response to the government's
practice of mobilizing neighbors to attack dissidents. This tactic,
known as "acts of repudiation" is a longstanding totalitarian weapon. On
Nov. 8 of last year Eliecer Consuegra Rivas, an activist in the eastern
part of the country, graphically described how the regime was attempting
to gin up hatred: "We, the human-rights activists, are being threatened
before the public eye by representatives of the regime who claim we are
going to poison the water, that we throw rocks, that we are terrorists,
even that they will cut off our heads; they are threatening us with
death.
"I would like to tell the people of Antilla that the municipal
authorities are planning to collect signatures at the workplace in order
to apply a label of 'dangerousness' to us and imprison us for our
political stance," Mr. Consuegra said. "We encourage all workers to not
accept this villainy and fallacy." The petition effort failed and
non-cooperation was born.
A few months later the dissident movement's highly revered Jorge Luis
Antunez (pictured nearby) began echoing the call for non-cooperation
from his prison cell in Camaguey. Mr. Antunez is a Cuban hero. During
his 16 years in the gulag he has been beaten, isolated for weeks at a
time -- once for 47 days -- in tiny, filthy, rat-infested spaces with no
windows or ventilation, and has consistently been denied medical care.
(Harry Belafonte where are you?)
In January, Mr. Antunez was allowed to make a phone call, using the
moment to publicly endorse non-cooperation. On Aug. 4 he repeated his
message: "We invite you not to cooperate with the repression and . . .
to join those who defend your human rights, justice, and struggle for a
free, pluralistic and prosperous society," Mr. Antunez told his Cuban
brethren.
For speaking out, Mr. Antunez was thrown back in isolation. But it's
likely he judges his gamble worth it. The idea is spreading and reports
from the island say that local participation in repudiation squads is
down. The government now has to bus thugs into neighborhoods where it
organizes attacks.
The non-cooperation campaign is also aimed at the Cuban worker. With low
pay and poor conditions, laborers have never been highly motivated. The
campaign strives to link this reality to the politics of resistance. It
could be generating results: Since the spring the regime has been
complaining, in the state newspaper Granma, about inefficient workers,
and in September Raul gave a speech at a labor convention exhorting the
country's work force to improve productivity and discipline.
You won't learn much about this from the foreign media with bureaus in
Havana or from correspondents or academics who visit Cuba. The quid pro
quo for getting an island visa is good behavior toward the regime, and
that means ignoring the groundswell of grumbling in politics and
economics. Raul, on the other hand, is well-informed, which is probably
why Fidel's "status" remains under wraps.
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