Island that Dared (42 page)

The inspiration for all this activity was a gentleman by the name of Fidel Castro Ruz. Overkill? But then it turned out to be underkill …

At a Cuban restaurant near José Martí Park Merci and Eber joined me for a farewell meal, a ‘thank you’ for their hospitality. Soon they were reminiscing about their struggle to survive during the Special Period. Almost everyone lost weight, even some high government officials – but not all senior army officers … Eber insisted that the most gruesome of the teeming urban myths spawned by those years was not a myth. From personal experience he could confirm that just occasionally livers were
removed from fresh corpses in hospital mortuaries and sold as ‘pig’s’ livers. ‘But only from accident corpses, not anyone diseased.’ Merci furiously reproved her husband for shocking their foreign guest – and during the meat course! To soothe her I explained that I wasn’t as shocked as she might think I should be. Very rarely, in remote places, I have been really hungry, to the point of exhaustion. And a really hungry purchaser of a providentially supplied pig’s liver wouldn’t quibble about that trade
description
. I forbore to enquire about the precise nature of Eber’s ‘personal experience’.

After a certain number of neat rums and most of a bottle of Californian wine (Merci merely sipped) Eber revealed that what is generally known as the ‘the Ochoa case’ (though thirteen others were directly involved) had made his family’s migration easier.

‘We didn’t have to feel too much guilty about betraying the Revolution,’ said Eber. ‘We felt like it was dying,’ added Merci.

No one in Cuba would speak to me about Fidel’s insistence on executing one of his closest
compañeros
, and three other Pillars of State, after they had confessed to multiple misdeeds, which had brought shame on the
Revolution
but had not caused any deaths. In a few one-to-one situations, when I had dared to mention ‘Ochoa’ the reaction hurried me on to another topic.

Division General Arnaldo Ochoa, commander-designate of the Western Army, Hero of the Republic of Cuba, had joined the Sierra Maestra guerrillas as an eighteen-year-old, stood at Fidel’s side (literally) at the Bay of Pigs, gone on to distinguish himself in most of Cuba’s internationalist military campaigns and led the victorious troops in the crucial battle for Cuito Cuanavale in Angola. Among his closest friends were the twin brothers, General Patricio de la Guardia, head of the Special Forces in Angola, and Colonel Tony de la Guardia, head of the Convertible Currency (MC) Department in the Interior Ministry. The MC was a blockade-busting unit which ran trading companies (their Cuban origin concealed) in Panama’s free-trade zone and brought much hard currency to Havana’s treasury through innovative commercial enterprises. Colonel Tony also laundered smuggled ivory and diamonds in MC’s Havana office before exporting them to Panama, to be swapped for weapons to arm the Cuban troops in Angola. General Ochoa regularly imported sugar to Luanda, sold it on the black market, then illegally bought those diamonds and ivory to equip (and sometimes to feed) his men. Between them, Graham Greene and John Le Carré couldn’t make it up.

Eventually innovation was stretched too far – the MC allowed
Columbian
drug-dealers to use a military airstrip near Varadero for the
transshipment
of cocaine to Florida. Colonel Tony demanded a fee of $1,000 per kilo, not all of which went to the government’s coffers. From this evolved the scandal described by Richard Gott as ‘the Revolution’s most serious internal crisis in thirty years’. All the accused pleaded guilty. Yet many people, at home and abroad, scorned Fidel’s argument that only the deaths of Ochoa, Tony de la Guardia and two others could prevent that stain of corruption from spreading all over the island.

Several foreign statesmen and ‘famous names’, including Fidel’s old friend Gabriel Garcia Marquez, pleaded for leniency. The Pope instructed his Nuncio to seek a meeting and to emphasise that to commute the death sentences would enhance Cuba’s image. During a two-hour discussion Fidel explained that, contrary to popular belief, his powers were limited; it wasn’t for him to reverse the unanimous decision of the Council of State. The Nuncio retorted that El Chef had enough moral authority to persuade the Council to think again. Fidel then conceded that his moral authority did exceed his formal authority under the Constitution – but in fact he himself agreed with the sentences.

The interwoven Angola-Havana-Panama-Varadero-Havana-Angola plots and sub-plots and counter-plots are brilliantly unpicked and objectively analysed by both Leycester Coltman and Richard Gott. The non-
fidelista
Marifeli Perez-Stable deals with the episode more briefly and clumsily, under-exposing Ochoa’s wheeler-dealer career and thus presenting a partial account. The
fidelista
Isaac Saney skims over the whole crisis in two sentences, sounding uncomfortable and defensive. The chapter covering the Ochoa case in Castro’s
My Life
(the seven hundred and twenty-
four-page
result of two hundred hours of interviewing) shows Fidel at his most verbosely evasive and clarifies nothing.

Who knew what – and
when
– about MC’s three-year involvement with drug-dealers? In Leycester Coltman’s view (not all would agree) –

The hardline Cuban-Americans rejoiced. ‘Told you so! He’s always been in the drug shit!’ More rational anti-Castroites refused to jump to
conclusions;
Fidel’s integrity was widely recognised, even by many of his enemies. A spokesman for Miami’s Drug Enforcement Agency, John
Fernandez
, (quoted in
Time
, 10 July 1989), stressed that ‘There is no reason to believe that Fidel Castro or people in the presidential palace were in sympathy with the smugglers’.

For three decades the Revolution had been presenting itself as the medicine needed to purge Cuba of centuries of corruption. Richard Gott writes:

To this day speculation persists about
motive
… Had Fidel seen Ochoa, the de la Guardias and their group as capable of clearing the way for Cuban versions of
perestroika
and
glasnost
?

Merci remembered hearing about Ochoa’s approval of the Gorby reforms which Fidel abhorred. (In 1988 he saw exactly what was happening as Capitalism Rampant invaded the collapsing Soviet Union.) Said Eber, ‘Folks outside – and some inside – swear those four were killed to keep
el chef
in power. Looks to me he killed them to save the Revolution from capitalism. I hated those killings, round the world it made Cuba look bad. They showed Ochoa was right, we needed change. When we saw it not coming we left.’ As he reached for the rum bottle Merci restrained him and firmly announced that we must move, the bus journey home would take an hour. Before curling up on my sofa-bed (I had stymied the boys’ being ejected from their room) I packed my rucksack in readiness for an early flight to Italy via Gatwick.

On 1 August 2006 I was at home in Ireland. Early that morning I switched on the World Service and heard jubilant cheering and chanting, car horns honking, toy bugles blowing, rattles clattering, raucous singing, whoops of glee. Vaguely I assumed the end of some big football match.

The BBC reporter who explained this tumult couldn’t quite suppress his disgust. Thousands of Miami Cubans were thronging the streets of Little Havana celebrating the previous evening’s announcement that Fidel was undergoing emergency surgery and had temporarily handed power to his brother Raúl, his designated successor since 1959. Momentarily, I felt physically nauseated, as did millions who saw this spectacle on television. Even my detailed knowledge of the hard-liners’ vicious activities had not prepared me for such a public display of hatred. The cheering and
flag-waving
and dancing in the streets continued all night and into the next day, causing traffic gridlock. All age groups participated. Some wore
T-shirts
emblazoned with the skull and crossbones, the skull bearded … Many believed Fidel was already dead, the rest were confident he couldn’t possibly recover.

The news itself was sad but unsurprising, the Miami reaction shocking and unCuban. Immediately after J.F. Kennedy’s death, when Fidel and the French journalist, Jean Daniel, were listening together to broadcasts from Dallas, a radio reporter talked excitedly of Jackie Kennedy’s blood-stained stockings and Fidel was angered. ‘What sort of mind is this? There is a difference in our civilisations after all. Are you like this in Europe? For us Latin Americans, death is a sacred matter. Not only does it mark the close of hostilities, it also imposes decency, dignity, respect …’

Juanita, Fidel’s younger émigré sister, hadn’t spoken to either Fidel or Raúl for forty years. Now she unexpectedly went public. ‘These
demonstrations
were unnecessary. They don’t offer the world a good image of our cause, our country and the exile community as a whole. I don’t hate anybody and I’m taking the first step by talking about it and expressing concern over the future of Cuba. The hate exists on both sides. It’s time we stop the hate and start to love one another.’ While Fidel was addressing the General Assembly of the UN in October 1979, Juanita had denounced him on a US radio station as ‘a brutal despot’. But hearing of his illness
she belatedly realised that family ties should prevail over political
disagreements
.

USA
Today
reported – ‘Many Cubans on the island thought the Miami celebrations were in poor taste. A Havana waitress who wouldn’t give her name said, “We aren’t going to celebrate someone’s illness”.’

On 30 July, the eve of Fidel’s collapse, Phillip Hart had a full-page article in the
Sunday Telegraph,
its lead-in eerily serendipitous: ‘As his eightieth birthday looms, Cuba is at long last breaking one of its biggest taboos – discussing the prospect of El Comandante’s death and what happens next.’ Phillip Hart got off to a confidence-shaking start by naming Bayamo as ‘the scene of an attack that he led on an army barracks on July 26, 1953’. There followed lots of nonsense (oft repeated during the months ahead) about ‘keeping the succession in the family’. And the free cataract operations provided in Cuba for thousands of penniless Latin American peasants were described as ‘a lucrative business for the regime’.

Carlos Valegciaga, Fidel’s secretary, read his letter to the nation on TV on the evening of 31 July. Having reviewed his recent hectic journeys to and fro across Latin America the octogenarian admitted:

From the international media came a spate of speculative ‘What Next?’ articles and interviews, mostly based on the assumption that Fidel had been running a one-man dictatorship until 31 July and therefore chaos was to be expected when he died. On 2 August a BBC reporter sounded surprised – ‘On the streets of Havana there has been a remarkable sense of calm, almost nonchalance, in the face of the dramatic news. People have been going to work as normal. Shops remain open. Cinemas are full.’ On the same date the US Coast Guard also sounded surprised – ‘We are on alert but so far have seen no sign of mass migration from the island.’

Amos Rojas, of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, addressed those who were talking of joining Cuba’s dissidents, the moment Fidel’s death was announced, to resist ‘the remnants of the regime’. ‘Don’t attempt to leave,’ said Mr Rojas. ‘If there’s a problem on the island the Coast Guard will blockade it and we’re not going to let people go from here.’

For the
Independent
(3 August), David Usborne reported, ‘A common theme of all the Cuban exile groups is that whatever plan the regime might have for engineering a seamless succession to brother Raúl … cannot be allowed to happen.’

John Harris, who had recently been in Havana making a ‘Newsnight’ film on Cuba’s health service, wrote on the
Guardian
website: (1 August)

On 2 August Ricardo Alarcon, President of the National Assembly, described Miami’s street parties as ‘vomit-provoking acts led by
mercenaries
and terrorists’.

On the same date Senator Robert Bennett, after a meeting with Bush II, quoted one of his President’s more profound comments – ‘I think all of us can say we had no idea this was coming. We’ll have to wait and see.’

A defence official explained that because of tropical storm Chris (a teenaged hurricane) navy ships were not yet moving closer to Cuba. But a large number of vessels, from destroyers to frigates, were in range and ready to respond if the situation changed. Next morning the Houses’s three Cuban-American members, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the brothers Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, met with the National Security Council before flying to Miami.

Rupert Cornwell, then the
Independent
’s man in Washington, wrote (3 August):

As though Cuba’s jailing of dissidents were analogous to Stalin’s
death-camps
Rupert Cornwell concluded:

For the
Sunday Herald
(6 August) Elizabeth Mistry interviewed Caleb McCarry ‘whose job description includes overseeing the post-Castro scenario on the island’. His mention of British government support surprised the journalist. In November 2005 he had met Lord Triesman of Tottenham, the Foreign Office minister responsible for Latin America and the Caribbean, and found him ‘very receptive. An undemocratic Cuba is a destabilising force in the region and we believe a democratic Cuba could once again be part of the international system. Britain shares a common
goal of seeing Cuba become a democracy and shares our message that all democracies should be working together to support democracy in Cuba.’ This contradicted the Foreign and Commonwealth office’s stated position which prefers ‘constructive engagement rather than isolation’. Accordingly Robert Miller, director of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, submitted a request under the UK Freedom of Information Act ‘to determine the breadth and content of the discussion between our government and Caleb McCarry’. Yet again the Act didn’t work. Robert Miller told the
Sunday Herald,
‘Over two hundred MPs have signed an early day motion criticising the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba and I think the British people should be asking why our government is talking to a guy whose sole remit is regime change in another country.’ The F.C.O. refused to respond to the
Sunday Herald’s
enquiries about Lord Triesman’s meeting with McCarry.

On Sunday 6 August, in Havana Cathedral, Cardinal Jaime Ortega led the congregation in prayers that ‘God accompany President Fidel Castro in his illness and illuminate those who have provisionally received the responsibilities of government’. Across the Straits, in Little Havana’s Peter and Paul Catholic church, an usher said, ‘We pray for Cuba and Cubans but not for its leader. The church asks us to pray even for our enemies but I don’t do it.’

People asked me, ‘Are you going back now to see the changes?’ Very few seemed to know that change had been happening for more than a decade – since the early ’90s when Carlos Lage was chosen as (in effect) prime minister. For years Fidel had been shrewdly grooming a team (in our terms a Cabinet) of able and widely experienced younger men who would now be running the country under Raúl. I saw no reason to change my plans. Instead, I began to keep a sporadic ‘Cuba Diary’ as scraps of news and comment came to my attention.

In February 2004 the Mississippi Consortium for International Development engaged Oswaldo Paya to co-ordinate several courses to ‘develop leadership’ for the soon-to-be-free (they hoped) Cuba. The MCID operates in several countries where the US wages ideological warfare: Angola, Nigeria, South Africa, Romania, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, the Ukraine. In Iraq this institution secured a five million dollar-contract for guiding the University of Mosul as it ‘developed leadership’ for Iraq and
the Middle East generally. Two MCID representatives, travelling as tourists under the names Careen Bishop and Patricia Jernigan, have been visiting Cuba since 2002.