A Purge With a Purpose
By Ann Louise Bardach
''Propaganda,'' Fidel Castro instructed a comrade in a letter written in 1954, ''is the very soul of our struggle.'' What, then, was Mr. Castro, champion spinmeister, thinking last week when he tossed some 75 Cuban writers and dissidents into prison for up to 28 years, after a grim procession of quickie show trials worthy of Stalin? Or on Friday, when he summarily executed three men who had hijacked a passenger ferry on April 2?
Certainly, it would seem, his timing could hardly have been worse: Cuba has been lobbying to keep its place on the United Nations Human Rights Commission, and that commission has been preparing its annual list of violator countries -- Cuba is certain to make the grade, once again.
Fidel Castro is many things -- belligerent, Machiavellian, prideful -- but he is not stupid. Nor would he have thought, as some human-rights groups assume, that these recent actions would go unnoticed with the world focused on Iraq. It seems more likely that this purge was intended to make a statement, and even to win Mr. Castro some advantage.
The Cuban government, of course, claims the jailings were a response to Bush administration policy. It cited meetings held with dissidents at the residence of James Cason, chief of the United States Interests Section in Havana, which it calls ''subversion by a foreign power.''
However, while Washington has hardened its views, Cuban exile groups in Florida have moderated theirs. According to several recent polls, a majority of Cuban exiles in South Florida now say they favor negotiations with Havana. The most influential exile group, the Cuban American National Foundation, is for the first time advocating a more pragmatic policy of limited engagement.
Why would this worry Cuba's maximum leader? The overwhelming majority of Cuban dissidents has long claimed that the only beneficiary of the United States embargo is Fidel Castro himself. Elizardo Sánchez, perhaps the most prominent human rights advocate, has said that ''the more American citizens in the streets of Cuban cities, the better for the cause of a more open society.'' For a long time I found this difficult to believe, but with each passing year the argument has grown more credible.
Indeed, whenever it looked as if Cuba was on the path to rejoining the world, Mr. Castro has done something to derail its progress. Recall that he relentlessly battled Mikhail Gorbachev over perestroika and glasnost. Mr. Castro warned that these changes would be the Soviet Union's downfall -- evidently missing the point. In a new, flattering documentary about Cuba's leader by Oliver Stone, ''Comandante,'' Mr. Castro dismisses Mr. Gorbachev as a man ''who destroyed his country.''
Or consider what happened in 1996, after the Clinton administration and Cuba had settled on migration and drug interdiction accords. Mr. Castro (after months of warnings) shot down two planes operated by the exile group Brothers to the Rescue, killing four people. The result was the signing of the Helms-Burton Act, which tightened the embargo. Did Mr. Castro know that Congress would react this way? Of course he did.
In 1980 President Jimmy Carter opened the United States Interests Sections, the de facto embassies in Havana and Washington. Mr. Castro responded by sending 125,000 refugees into Florida in the Mariel boatlift. Likewise, in the mid-70's Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and his aide for Latin America, William Rogers, conducted secret negotiations with the Cubans over ending the embargo. Just as they believed they were closing in on a deal, Mr. Castro sent troops into Angola, scuttling the talks.
The changing attitudes of the exile community may not be Mr. Castro's only worry of the moment. He has obsessively watched the events in Iraq, and many people who have talked to him recently say he is concerned that the policy of ''regime change'' has become the Bush administration's preferred diplomatic tool. On Thursday the American ambassador to the Dominican Republic even told reporters that events in Iraq were a ''very good example for Cuba.''
There is also concern over Washington's decision to transport hundreds of Qaeda terrorists halfway around the globe to the military base at Guantánamo Bay. Although Mr. Castro has not publicly protested this peculiar relocation, some of his aides say he views it as part of a larger American agenda: to beef up the United States military presence on the island.
Another motivating factor might be the dictator's sustained rage over the arrests in 2001 of five Cuban spies known as the Wasp Network. Although all were regarded by American law enforcement as low-level operatives, they have been given harsh sentences ranging from 20 years to life. Their release has become an obsession for Mr. Castro, who may now believe he has some cards to play to effect a prisoner exchange.
In the end, who are the beneficiaries of the Castro crackdown? Once again, only the hard-liners in Havana -- and in Miami. The Cuba Liberty Council, which sits at the far right end of exile opinion, has long dismissed many of the newly arrested dissidents as being pawns of the Cuban government. Yet now, in reaction to the arrests, the council has asked that all American travel to Cuba be suspended, seamlessly playing into Mr. Castro's hand.
''Is it so bad to be a dictator?'' Fidel Castro muses aloud to Oliver Stone toward the end of the new documentary. Somehow, the filmmaker never gets around to offering the only legitimate answer -- a resounding ''yes.''
