What Cubans Want

Reading about Castro's failing health I start to wonder about some of things popping in the reports. Predictably, there is a sort of glee from the Cuban-American community and from their conservative supporters. I suppose, given the particular history of that community, this sort of thing is to be expected. What bothers me though is that there is already an office of the US State Department ready to help Cuba move towards "democracy" (however Rice's State Department defines that word).

The US government talks about how it is ready to "facilitate" a transition to democracy in Cuba. Several things bother me:

a) The US is not doing so hot with the "facilitating" in Iraq right now.

b) Cuba is an independent country that has not asked for this kind of "help" (no, the Cuban-Americans cannot speak for Cubans, any more than I can speak for Germans or Irishmen or Scots, or Englishmen - those are not my countries any more).

c) In practice, "democracy" has meant "unfettered market access for US companies" all too often in the language of the Bush adminstration.

I fear that what will happen is that Chalabi-esque elements of the Cuban ex-pat community will attempt to basically set themselves up as a new ruling class in Cuba and force all kinds of free-market reforms on Cubans. There are some things that Castro has gotten right, these things include decent health care and literacy programs. I imagine these sorts of things will be dismantled and Cuba will set up as a banana-republic client-state without the actual Cubans having any real say.

The people of Cuba should decide their nation's fate post-Castro. I fear that State Dept. meddling will be more of a hindrance than anything else.

Tags: Cuba, US Government, Fidel Castro, Democracy.