Cubans eye U.S. election
Posted: Thursday, July 17, 2008 10:52 AM
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Havana, Cuba
By Mary Murray, NBC News Havana Bureau Chief
HAVANA – The U.S. election season is once again in full swing – here in Havana.
There’s so much political reporting here that you’d think Cubans plan on going to the U.S. polls.
A day rarely goes by without the state-controlled media running a story on the presidential candidates, analyzing their positions that go way beyond Cuba policy.
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| AP file |
| A Cuban man keeps up with the news in the Communist Workers weekly newspaper in Havana. |
Television pundits, radio commentaries and pages in the written press have probed a gamut of election issues – from each candidate’s proposed exit strategies in Iraq to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions to the impact of campaign financing on U.S. democracy.
Trading barbs
Even Fidel Castro, retired from public life but still packing a lot of punch, has gotten into the act. He’s written about a dozen editorials bashing both Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama.
In the case of the GOP frontrunner, barbs between McCain and Castro started last winter.
When asked his platform on Cuba, McCain said he did not expect to see any major political reforms on the island until after Fidel Castro dies, adding that he hoped that day was not far off.
"I hope he has the opportunity to meet Karl Marx very soon," said McCain, referring to the author of "The Communist Manifesto" who died over a century ago.
McCain has pledged a no-engagement policy and maintaining the 50-year economic embargo aimed at debilitating the communist island.
He also has taken aim at the power shift on the island, asserting that "Raúl Castro is worse in many respects than Fidel."
Those cutting remarks prompted Castro to write a five-part essay on the GOP frontrunner, calling him a "liar" and a "tool" of hardliners in South Florida’s Cuban community.
Charges of flip-flopping
Delving into McCain’s record, Cuban TV found an interview with the Arizona senator during the 2000 election where he argued against isolation.
"I’m not in favor of sticking my finger in the eye of Fidel Castro," said McCain in 2000. "In fact, I would favor a road map towards normalization of relations such as we presented to the Vietnamese and led to a normalization of relations between our two countries." McCain has taken a more hard-line approach in the current campaign and has criticized Obama for suggesting he would be willing to meet with Cuban leaders.
Cuban press has also reported on Obama’s flip-flopping. During his 2003 Senate campaign, he supported full normalization of relations with Havana. Now, running for president, Obama revamped his view.
He continues to call for greater engagement with Cuba and says would sit down with Cuban president Raúl Castro. "After eight years of the disastrous policies of George Bush, it is time to pursue direct diplomacy, with friend and foe alike, without preconditions," said Obama.
But, he now supports maintaining the trade embargo as a leverage to push for change: "Don’t be confused about this. I will maintain the embargo," Obama said recently during a campaign speech before an influential Cuban-American group in Miami. "It provides us with the leverage to present the regime with a clear choice: If you take significant steps toward democracy, beginning with the freeing of all political prisoners, we will take steps to begin normalizing relations."
Obama’s comments sparked a harsh response from Castro, who described the policy as a formula to create "hunger and suffering."
Still, Obama has also vowed to lift President Bush’s restrictions on family remittances and Cuban American travel now limited to once every three years.
Ironically, Castro took offense at that as well, describing it as "propaganda for consumerism and a way of life that is unsustainable."
Obama, charges Castro, is backsliding to safe ground – employing the same arguments previous U.S. administrations "have used to justify their crimes against our homeland."
Pro-Obama sentiment
While the Cuban government and official press carefully measure every statement issued by the campaigns and seem quick to criticize both candidates, average people seem to hold a completely partisan view.
"Obama will change the dynamic with Cuba," believes Jesús Lopez, 23, "and things will get better. Business will come here. No more anger."
Most important, said Lopez, "I’ll be able to see my big brother."
The young, black Cuban has an optimism that’s widely shared – seemingly based more on intuition than any insightful study. With some 35 percent of Cubans on the island of black or mixed race, people are openly intrigued by the idea of an Obama win.
That includes some of the Castro government’s fiercest opponents.
The "Ladies in White," a group of the wives and mothers of imprisoned dissidents, wrote Obama a letter, supporting his call to engage in direct talks with Raúl Castro to gain the "immediate and unconditional release" of some "200 prisoners of conscience held throughout the island."
Likewise, independent economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe wants Obama to beat McCain. "He would remove Washington’s absurd restrictions that affect the Cuban family," said Espinosa Chepe, referring to the economic embargo and restrictions on travel. "He is proposing a rational policy that will foster contacts between the two governments and Cuban society."
This would change the internal political climate, Espinosa Chepe, a former political prisoner, believes. "Castro attacked Obama because he is afraid of any détente that will eliminate his excuse for maintaining totalitarianism and repression in Cuba."
For the record, Felipe Perez Roque, Cuban foreign minister, recently stated that his government would be willing to meet Obama’s challenge to meet over a negotiating table.
But, Obama’s proposal to talk seems to be making other people in the Cuban hierarchy nervous. An editorial by one of Fidel Castro’s closest collaborators, Armando Hart, warned that opening the gates to U.S. visitors could backfire – by ideologically corrupting Cuban society.
Without a doubt, this nation sees a lot riding on the November outcome and is following the U.S. presidential election as closely as any paid pollster.
