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The Miami
Herald.
Defector: Cuban economy hopeless with Castro
By Juan O. Tamayo. [email protected]. Posted on Fri, Sep.
20, 2002
Cuba is suffering through its worst economic crisis since the collapse of
the Soviet Union, but significant improvements are impossible as long as
President Fidel Castro lives, a top defector said Thursday.
''We are all waiting for the physical disappearance of Fidel,'' said Alcibíades
Hidalgo, a former Cuban ambassador to the United Nations and personal secretary
to Castro's brother, armed forces chief Raul Castro.
Hidalgo, the highest-ranking defector to arrive in Miami in recent years,
said that the worst economic situation the island has faced since the early
1990s has seen a "significant worsening over the last few months.''
Tourism and prices for key Cuban exports such as nickel, sugar and tobacco
are all down, Hidalgo told a large audience at the University of Miami's
Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.
But no changes are possible until Fidel Castro leaves power because he rules
Cuba single-handedly, with little or no input from supposedly powerful
institutions like the Cuban Communist Party, said Hidalgo, who arrived last
month.
The only other people who hold real power are the senior military officers
who command the armed forces and the Interior Ministry, in charge of domestic
security, Hidalgo added.
Castro's death will cause ''an enormous commotion,'' he said, adding that he
would not rule out the possibility of a popular uprising.
''For me, Castroism without Fidel Castro will not exist,'' he said in
between sometimes unfriendly questions from audience who scolded him for
his past of Castro and wondered if he was a Cuban spy.
Hidalgo said he had no doubt that Castro has sheltered foreign terrorists,
such as of Spain's ETA Basque separatist movement, and produced chemical
weapons with assistance from the Soviet military.
But he has no evidence, he added, that Cuba has experimented with biological
weapons or established links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network.
''Maybe bin Laden would want nothing to do with an atheist Marxist,'' he joked.
Hidalgo said he was fired as ambassador to the United Nations and sent into
political oblivion in 1993 for complaining that too many spies were being
assigned to the Cuban diplomatic mission to the United Nations.
Asked about specific spy operations out of the United Nations, Hidalgo first
said he knew little about them, then added, "Besides, I am writing a
book.''
Czech president bringing Castro criticism to Miami
By Carol Rosenberg. [email protected]. Posted on Thu,
Sep. 19, 2002.
WASHINGTON - Just days before he arrives in Miami for meetings with former
Cuban political prisoners, Czech President Vaclav Havel said Thursday that he
s U.S. efforts to topple Saddam Hussein and disarm Iraq -- but would not
do the same for Fidel Castro and Cuba.
''Cuba is a country that does not seem to threaten the rest of the world
with nuclear or chemical or bacteriological weapons,'' Havel said in an
interview at Blair House in advance of his trip to South Florida this weekend. "Cuba
is, however, a country where flagrant violations of human rights are being
committed, and this should be repeatedly stated. This is what I plan to do in
strong when I am in Florida, only a short distance away from Cuba.''
Havel's comments may be at odds with the views of some Cuban exiles who wish
the United States would confront Castro and have characterized Cuba's bioweapons
capacity as an international scourge.
Still, he is likely to receive a warm greeting when he arrives Sunday in
Miami, the last stop on a farewell U.S. tour as he leaves the Czech presidency.
On Monday, he will deliver a major address at Florida International
University that is to be broadcast live to the island on Radio Martí.
Monday night, he will be the guest of honor at a $1,000-a-plate black-tie
dinner at the Biltmore Hotel, a fundraiser for the human-rights foundation that
Havel plans to run in retirement.
About 200 seats have been sold; capacity is 250.
TWO APPEARANCES
On Thursday, Havel promised that in Miami he would address the lack of free
speech and free expression in Cuba. But he also made clear he did not want to
get bogged down in the details of the dissident movement, lest it detract from
the larger message.
He declined to compare Cuba's Project Varela with Prague's similar Charter
77 movement.
''I do the cause of freedom in Cuba, certainly,'' he said. "But
I don't think I should become involved in some of the detailed aspects, because
I think that might dilute the general of principle that I show for that
cause.''
The Varela Project is a grass-roots movement that seeks a referendum on
democratic political reforms in Cuba.
SETTING THE STAGE
During communism, Czech dissidents united behind Charter 77's demand for
freedom of expression and association -- setting the stage for the 1989 ''Velvet
Revolution'' in which intellectuals and activists steered their Soviet satellite
to peaceful, democratic rule.
Havel was the first post-communist, democratically elected president of
Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic's first president.
''The man is a symbol, a person of the old Czechoslovakia, of the old
bourgeoisie, who stayed in Czechoslovakia,'' said FIU sociologist Marifeli Pérez-Stable,
who will appear with Havel at Monday's forum.
"By his actions and by his writings, he contributed to not only
bringing about an end to eastern European communism, but to imagining it when
nobody thought it was possible that it could happen.''
Twelve years ago, she said, when Havel became president, he probably
imagined communism would likewise fall in Cuba and that, by now, "he
could've gone to Havana and traveled around, the way he is doing here in the
United States.
But he can't do that. So he's coming to Miami, the closest community that he
can be to Cuba, the closest place where Cuba matters a lot.''
ACTION AGAINST EVIL
Havel expressed his for the Bush istration on Iraq.
''As a matter of principle, it's necessary to take action against deadly
evil, even using force if needed,'' he said.
But questioned separately on Cuba's four-decade-old communist regime, he
said: "I believe there is no universal model and you have to judge every
case on its merits.''
Many of the attendees at Monday's dinner will be South Floridians from the
Cuban and Jewish-American communities who ire Havel's opposition to Castro
and communism and outspoken of Israel.
''I really have a deep iration for this man,'' said Cuban writer and
intellectual Carlos Alberto Montaner, who will also appear with Havel at FIU.
"He's a very different kind of politician. His politics are based on
morality and ethics, not just a political calculus.''
For his part, Havel, who was jailed for four years by his country's
communist regime, described his visit to Miami as part of a personal commitment.
''From my own dissident experience, I know how important it is when
international is expressed for freedom fighters or the opposition
movement,'' he said. "I want to make my clear during the Miami
visit.'' | 
