Note to my Friends: I want to take a little space here to share with you my personal observations and general economic, political, and cultural views of what was going on in Cuba during my early trips to the country. I think the background info will aid our understanding: JWJ
Havana, Cuba: June 1994: Cuba is located only ninety miles south of the USA and has about twenty-five hundred miles of coastline and 280 beaches. The beauty of Cuba is startling, and it’s no wonder at all that it was the undisputed playground of the eastern United States before 1959. Visitors who walk the streets of downtown Havana today can still view the old, abandoned restaurants and nightclubs, with their rusted neon and metal signs that used to light up the Cuban nights.
But Communism stripped the playground of its grandeur. Cuba is now a dismal, old woman, worn, wrinkled, abandoned, and sad. But I believe the day the embargo is lifted and US money can once again freely flow into Cuba, we’ll witness a spectacular cultural and economic resurrection, and the grand lady will once again come to life in far greater splendor.
My previous visits took place at perhaps the period of greatest need in the history of Cuba. General Fidel Castro and his people had enjoyed the favor of the Soviet Union and other nonaligned Communist countries that were willing to trade with them and supply their needs. Even though the USA placed an “embargo” on Cuba, yet Cuba essentially viewed it more as just an inconvenience for them and the countries wanting to side with the US. For example, Canada and Mexico never stopped diplomatic relations or trade activities for even one day with Cuba. Many parts of the world still needed the sugar, fruit, tobacco, coffee, and cement Cuba produced.
But in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cuban people experienced a new level of hardship. No longer could they count on receiving subsidies from former Communist strongholds. The areas of education, wages, and health care, in particular, began to suffer. The standard of living began dropping to a level not previously experienced. Up to that point, Castro had totally controlled the economy by making it a crime for the people to hold any US currency. After the USSR collapsed, he had to change that policy and begin encouraging people in America to send US dollars to help their families in Cuba. That currency, once in Cuba, was spent on government-regulated services and goods and eventually made its way into the government coffers. With that newly injected money, Castro was able to go on the world market with US dollars and purchase what he needed. But by doing so, he also lost total control of the economy. Now the people could conduct business dealings and hold US currency, which encouraged a reintroduction of a type of free-market entrepreneurialism.
Another economic step Castro took was to openly invite and promote foreign investment. On my trip to Cuba in June of 1994, I saw some beautiful beachfront resorts being built in Matanzas with investment money from Holland and Germany.
I remembered thinking at the time, just from an economic and philosophical standpoint, that if the USA would radically review its approach to Cuban policy and encourage rather than discourage investment and cash flow going into Cuba, the structure there would experience such a shot of free enterprise that it would sweep the country, and thousands upon thousands of new entrepreneurs would absolutely inundate the centralized Marxist system. The evidence clearly shows that once the door to free enterprise has opened, even a slight bit, whether in China or the old Soviet Union, the strengths and benefits of a free-market system have driven it to spread and expand.
But in 1993, things were very difficult in Cuba. Hospitals and clinics were trying to survive by utilizing half-used bottles of cough medicine and dull, bent syringe needles. I’ll never forget the tears in the eyes of the doctors in Havana when I showed up and gave them wound dressing kits, suture, fresh needles and syringes, IV-starting kits, heart medication, glucose test strips, and other desperately needed medical supplies.
Politically, things became even more strained between Cuba and the US around 1995 and 1996. Boat people increasingly tried to make the ninety-mile trip from Cuba to Florida, straining immigration policies and infuriating Cuban officials.
Also, in 1996, Cuban military jets shot down two US civilian airplanes. The Cuban government claimed that Cuban Americans from Florida had, in a move of provocation, violated Cuban airspace. The Cuban Americans claimed the planes were flying over international waters. The result of the emotionally volatile episode was that Washington passed a controversial law designed to punish international firms pursuing business with Cuba.
At that time there were over 11 million people in Cuba, with almost 2.5 million living in Havana. Way over half the population were younger than thirty years old. Among other implications, that meant few people knew or remembered what Cuba was like before Castro became dictator.
Columbus sailed to Cuba in 1492. At that time, the island was inhabited by the indigenous Taino people. In 1511, the Spanish took over the island and wiped out the Taino people. In 1762, the British took over Havana and then returned it to Spain in a swap for Florida.
West African tribes began selling their enemies to slave traders, who took many captives to Cuba to work in the sugarcane fields. By the nineteenth century, sugar became the basis for the island’s economy.
During the Ten Years’ War, the Cubans tried to overthrow the Spanish and claim independence. Over two hundred thousand Cubans were killed in those skirmishes between 1868 and 1878. Then José Marti, a man who is still honored today as a great national hero, led a revolt in 1895, which brought international attention to the inhumane treatment the Cuban people were suffering under the Spanish. In 1898, the US became involved in the Spanish-American War, and following the US occupation of Cuba in 1902, Cuba gained independence.
However, the US had injected into Cuba’s constitution an amendment that would allow the US to reenter Cuba for occupation reasons if government instability once again occurred. Instability did recur, prompting US involvement again from 1906 through 1909 and once more in 1912. In 1934, the US repealed the amendment to Cuba’s constitution in exchange for the right to hold the southern part of Guantánamo Bay as a US military base until the year 2033.
Cuba’s popular independence lasted for less than twenty years. In 1952, Fulgencio Batista successfully initiated a military coup and established an extremely corrupt dictatorship. A young guerrilla rebel named Fidel Castro rallied a revolution among the people in 1953, which toppled Batista on December 31, 1958. At the age of thirty-three, Castro took over with strong support from the USA. He even traveled to Washington DC and spoke before the United States Congress and pledged democracy and free elections for the people of Cuba. It was going to be a bright, new era for Cuba starting in 1959.
Before long, however, economic pressures in Cuba and the need to control the wildfires of counterrevolution forced Castro to look beyond his borders for help. He found answers to both problems by accepting economic support from the Soviet Union and adopting the alluring philosophy of Communism and its dictatorial style of governing. Communism always justifies radical measures of mass murder to suppress and control opposition, so it didn’t take a lot of persuasion from Russia to convince Castro of the merits of brutal force to handle an unruly citizenry. Arms and military advisors were soon on Cuban soil making sure Castro and his new dictatorship remained in uncontested control.
In exchange for economic aid and military stabilization, the Soviets only demanded the use of Cuba as a military bastion for Communist aggressors. Nikita Khrushchev could never have imagined a more ideal goad to the security system of the US than setting up a nuclear outpost only ninety miles off Florida’s coastline.
Meanwhile, with readily available Soviet advisors, Castro got busy nationalizing all industry, banking services, and agriculture. Rural cooperatives styled after the Communist models in Europe and Asia took over the sugarcane industry and all other aspects of the economy. Inhumane prisons and firing squads muffled the voices of any protestors.
Such activities brought harsh countermeasures from the US. Among other measures, the trade embargo was put in place October 19, 1960, in an effort to starve out the Castro regime. That action only cultivated a tighter alliance between Cuba and the Soviets, China, Libya, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, North Korea, and even Central American countries like Nicaragua, Honduras, and Panama.
In 1991, the whole worldwide Communist misadventure began to unravel. The utopian, Marxist-Leninist philosophy these governments had embraced finally reached its natural conclusion. An economic system based on redistribution of wealth eventually uses up all the previously accumulated wealth, and there simply is no more wealth to redistribute. The Communists also discovered that the czars they had successfully overthrown had only been replaced by crueler, greedier, and more hideous leaders called the politburo. The Marxist-Leninists had failed miserably to factor the concept of economic growth into their system.
When worldwide Communism and especially the Soviet experiment stubbed its toe, they could no longer manipulate satellite outpost countries through endless subsidies. Cuba felt the effects immediately. By the time I first visited Havana in 1993, the national economic picture was very bleak, indeed. Power outages were frequent because there was no fuel to keep the power generators running. And the need for medical supplies and pharmaceuticals was critical.