To discuss America’s Southern Front with us today, we are joined by a distinguished panel of experts. Our guests today are:
Humberto Fontova, the author of Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant.
Steve Johnson, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation whose area of expertise includes Latin American and Cuban affairs.
Philip Peters, the vice president of the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va. He is an analyst of U.S. policy toward Cuba and advisor to the Cuba Working Group in the House of Representatives. He has testified before Congressional committees and the U.S. International Trade Commission and served as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on U.S.-Cuba Relations.
and
Jaime Suchlicki, the Emilio Bacardi Moreau Distinguished Professor of History and International Studies and Director of The Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami. He directs the Cuba Transition Project sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development. He is the author of a dozen books on Cuba and Latin America, including Cuba: From Columbus to Castro.
FP: Jaime Suchlicki, Humberto Fontova, Steve Johnson, and Philip Peters, welcome to Frontpage Symposium.
Mr. Fontova, let me begin with you. Could you kindly draw for us a general picture of the Castro offensive in South America? How serious is it and what threat does it pose to U.S. security interests?
Fontova: Castro is sitting prettier right now than he has since 1990, when his Soviet patrons collapsed. Given today's price of oil, Castro's monthly subsidies from his understudy, Hugo Chavez, equal what he used to get from the Soviets. It took Castro 46 years, but he finally managed his "master plan against the gringos." To wit: Castro's very first overseas trip, just a few weeks after he grabbed power in 1959, was to Venezuela, where he met with Venezuelan president, Romulo Betancourt and proposed his "master plan against the gringos." (by the way, the word "gringo" was unheard of in Cuba. No Cubans used it. Castro, as usual, was playing to his gallery of the day.)
Basically this "master plan" involved massive loans, financial aid and shipments of free oil to Castro from Venezuela so he could carry out his anti-American jihad without fear of economic strangulation from the "Gringos." Betancourt balked and no sooner had Castro returned home empty handed than he was planning subversion in Venezuela, including assassination attempts against Betancourt and sneaking in guerrilla bands. These guerrillas were trained primarily by Che Guevara, so naturally they were completely routed and stomped out in short order.
It took Hugo Chavez to finally enlist with Castro's plan. In 2004 Cuba got 1.3 billion in essentially free oil from Venezuela. By mid 2005, 160,000 barrels of oil were flowing from Venezuela to Cuba daily. This is much more oil than Cuba's refineries can process, because most of this oil is resold to Central American nations by Cuba, which pockets the handsome profit. Here's the second half of the "master plan against the gringo's" that Castro had originally proposed to Romulo Betancourt.
The mainstream media naturally ignored this, but just last month the Ecuadoran government captured a group of rebels who admitted they were trained and equipped in Venezuela. Colombian president Alvaro Uribe has to be painstakingly circumspect in his public pronouncements, but he knows good and well who is arming, supplying and providing safe haven for Colombia's FARC guerrillas. "Thanks to Castro" boasted Colombia's FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) commander "Tiro-Fijo" in a 2001 interview, "we are now a powerful army, not a hit and run band." The conduit for this type of aid and sanctuary is, of course, Venezuela.
Johnson: The Cuban revolution probably had its genesis in Fidel Castro's childhood resentments and mad genius. Taking over Cuba as if it were a neighbor's sugar cane plantation responded to violent impulses that were hardly restrained in his arms-length upbringing and his deep emotional need to be in control. Interest in revolution without borders occurred later, after the young law student had a chance to travel. In 1948, he met with youths in Colombia to organize an "anti-imperialist" counter-event to the 9th Conference of American States held in Bogota. At that moment, populist politician Jorge Gaitan was assassinated, igniting violence that left part of the city in ashes and killed thousands. Castro reportedly took up a rifle and joined street mobs, shouting to acquaintances that the army would join them any minute in overthrowing the government. It didn't happen and he flew home despondent.
Later as Cuba's Maximum Leader, he would revisit such adventures as Humberto Fontova recounted--traveling to Venezuela to seek President Betancourt's collaboration in challenging the United States, cementing ties with the Soviet Union and inviting the Red Army to install nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba, supporting Marxist rebels in Angola, aiding revolutionaries from El Salvador and Nicaragua and training their recruits. After the Soviet collapse in 1991, Castro had to retreat and conserve resources just to maintain the regime. Now, thanks to President Chavez's oil shipments, he has regained some freedom to support revolutionaries in other countries.
However, it's not the same as before. Fidel is almost 80. His illness and treatment, whatever those might be, has made him tremble and talk incoherently. For nearly a half century he has acted out the role of a larger-than-life commander. Now frail and forgetful under his olive green uniform, he is no longer convincing. More and more, he needs others like Hugo Chavez to be mouthpieces. Calling President Bush a "Nazi" and Mexico's President Fox "a lapdog" of the imperialist north is vintage Fidel. So too is the increasingly hardline stance of Evo Morales in Bolivia.
Despite his need for surrogates and seclusion, Fidel is still in control. Thousands of his advisers form a shadow government in Caracas to ensure that Chavez doesn't flub his chance at dictatorship the way Nicaragua's Sandinista comandantes or El Salvador's guerrillas once did. Fortunately for him, U.S.-backed democratic and market reforms in the region have barely gone beyond elections and free trade, disappointing those who hoped they would deliver greater prosperity. And at a time when the United States is preoccupied in the Middle East, few U.S. policymakers are interested in advancing these reforms in Latin America--although more comprehensive ties and greater restructuring is needed and wanted.
Democracy is unraveling in Bolivia and Ecuador, and is under assault in Nicaragua and Mexico where the Venezuelan government has sent activist ambassadors to aid the campaigns of leftist politicians. Meanwhile, renewed turmoil in the region will cost the United States in lost trade, security woes, rising drug and arms trafficking, and floodtides of migrants fleeing closed societies patterned on the ramblings of an island-bound sociopath.
Peters: From the perspective of U.S. policy and strategy, I think it's important to examine the void into which Cuba and Venezuela are rushing in so many Latin American countries. This void is real and durable, and while it may not threaten the survival of
democratic governance, it is almost guaranteed to shape it in ways we do not like.
Ever since the 1980's we have been celebrating the wave of democracy that has swept the Americas. As indeed we should - it's good that the generals are in the barracks, and it's good that regular elections are the norm.
But millions in Latin America have cast ballots and seen no change in their state of near-permanent underprivilege. (Chile is the exception, with real success in democratization plus economic transformation that has reduced poverty.) Causes include an education deficit, barriers to social and economic mobility that are often rooted in racial and class-based discrimination, bureaucracies that create huge barriers to legal entrepreneurial activity, and failure to ensure property rights for poor people, which blocks participation is capitalism. On top of that, there are elites that are interested in their own enterprise but not in free markets, upper classes that frequently don´t pay taxes, and governments that fail to extend social services to the whole population. Not to mention corruption.
It is little wonder, then, that there are huge openings for demagoguery in Latin America´s democratic political discourse. The prime example is Bolivia today, where Evo Morales recently won the presidency, who ran for office on a combination of classic Bolivian blame-the-other-guy rhetoric and terrible economic prescriptions that will be, to say the least, counterproductive.
Then there´s Venezuela. Last week, Senator Bill Frist described pre-Chavez Venezuela as a place where "...Venezuela's traditional political parties, citizen's organizations and national leaders mismanaged the country. They squandered oil revenues and presided over a corrupt bureaucracy while doing little to meet the needs of the nation's poor and disadvantaged. In so doing, they provided a good environment for the rise of a charismatic, authoritarian populist ostensibly committed to helping the needy."
So now we have Chavez, allied with Cuba, jumping into the void.
From the point of view of our foreign policy, there are a few implications.
1. There is a big opening for Cuba and Venezuela to provide doctors, teachers, oil, and other forms of aid, financed mainly by Venezuelan oil revenues – and as in any aid program, there will be political benefits for the donor. This aid will also highlight ways in which many Latin Americans do not see eye to eye with many Americans. First, they have few qualms about the collaboration. Uribe in Colombia, for example, has welcomed thousands of Cuban teachers, last week thanked Cuba for hosting peace talks between his government and Colombian guerrillas, and recently signed a long-term energy pact with Venezuela that includes big investment projects. Second, people in countries with poor systems of delivery of social services are likely to admire Cuba´s health care system because of its universal reach. They could care less about its deficiencies. They are happy to have a Cuban doctor in a place where no doctor has been before.
2. We are in for a period (already underway) in which there is an opening for left-of-center politicians (including many with mainstream ideas, not Evo Morales´ brand of populist extremism) to gain ground in Latin America; they will move away from the last decade´s "Washington consensus" economic policies and they will be critical of U.S. foreign policy.
3. If we don´t like #1 and #2, the only antidote is to engage in the serious long-term work of making democratic capitalism work in Latin America. That is, we have to close the void. If we are serious, we would expect results in generations, not years. And we will have to ruffle the feathers of many Latin American elites.
Suchlicki: United States foreign policy seems remarkably consistent in being continuously focused on Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. The foreign policy team led by Dr. Condoleezza Rice is characterized, as have been most important US foreign policy appointments since World War II, by expertise in European affairs. Like Kissinger, Brzezinski, Haig, Baker, Christopher, Albright, and Powell before her, the new US Secretary of State, brings to the post vast experience and interest in both Europe and the West.
Despite concerns over drugs and immigration, our floundering free trade initiatives, the periodically unsettling news from Venezuela and the problem of Cuba, the United States has focused less attention on the Western Hemisphere. Latin America has been during the recent past, an area of low priority for a United States that has been primarily preoccupied with Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and China.
Yet Latin America remains important for the United States. The US has significant economic stakes in the area that not only include large loans (both public and private) and investments, but also two-way trade of major proportions. Latin America is a source of many raw materials important to the United States as well.
Depending on global developments and changes in the US access to important resources abroad, especially in the Middle East, Latin America may become even more essential to the United States in the future.
It is in both the security, as well as economic, interest of the United States to conserve not only its own vital resources, but also to develop and maintain access to as wide a range of alternative resources of raw materials in foreign countries as is possible. In this respect, access to Latin America resources becomes especially important, if only because of their geographic proximity and the greater ability of the United States to protect routes of access in the Western Hemisphere. Note the growth of oil purchases from Mexico and Canada now delivered overland and therefore not subject to the perils of sea transit in time of conflict.
A scenario of growing US differences with Latin America- which may include repudiation of debt owed to the US, hostile environment for investments, and redirection of trade-will significantly affect Latin America’s economic development as well as impact the United States adversely. Even if US business and the US economy could absorb their losses in Latin America, the political consequences for Latin America would likely be such as to exert a significant effect upon US security interests. The United States is not able to ignore so large a region, which is situated in such close geographic proximity, and with a vast population.
On the other hand, any US retrenchment or retreat from economic involvement in Latin America would generate enormous political and economic instability, intensifying the risk of violence and civil wars. In turn, such developments could easily result in pressures for US political and military intervention and could (and would) increase the cost of US defense requirements. The political influence of the United States is inseparable from its economic relations in Latin America, and any loss of one would undoubtedly result in loss of the other.
Increasing anti-Americanism in Latin America might well generate domestic reactions in the United States that could either revive isolationist attitudes on the one hand, or lead to demands for a forceful reassertion of the earlier “big stick” policy (US predominance) in the region, on the other. In either case, such public attitudes would not only have a major impact on domestic politics, but would give rise to important repercussions in US foreign policy as well.
The fact that adverse changes are taking place in an area where the United States has predominated for a long time casts doubt on the ability of the US to maintain its position in its own “backyard” but, also damages the image of US power in the world. Doubts about the viability of US power is causing some states to re-examine their relationship with the United States and encourages others to challenge US policies.
The US has an interest in preventing and reversing political conditions that could a) generate hostility toward the US and its economic and political interests; b) divide the region into antagonistic groups c) give rise to violence and armed conflict; and d) work to the detriment of the US or the Hemisphere.
What’s to be done? For starters:
- Develop policies and strategies to focus sustained attention on the problems of Latin America.
- Redirect foreign aid programs to the region to deal with grassroot development, social and economic issues.
- Direct public diplomacy programs to the region.
- Support electoral candidates favorable to US interests.
- Establish a major center in the US to train and support democratic candidates in the region.
- Open offices in select countries to train future political leaders.
- Strengthen covert intelligence capabilities. Covert actions should be used when critical to the security of the US, when significant chances and success exist, and when diplomatic, propaganda, or other efforts have little prospect of success.
- The quality, motivation, and language capabilities of US diplomats and other personnel being sent to Latin America should be improved.
- Cultural and exchange programs should be strengthened and expanded.
- Consideration should be given to the establishment in the US or Puerto Rico of “the University of the Americas,” a specialized technical, business, and diplomatic school to train Latin Americans.
Fontova: As Chesterton said about Christianity: "It wasn't tried and found wanting--it was found wanting and never tried." The same applies for capitalism in much of Latin American, as Mr Peters mentioned. Even in nations considered to have "right-wing" governments, their "capitalism" just doesn't translate for their middle and lower classes into what it means in the U.S. Call their version "crony capitalism," or whatever. It's still a form of socialism.
Ironically, of all Latin America, it was in pre-Castro Cuba where a version of U.S. style capitalism best flourished. In 1848, while a Spanish crown colony, Cuba was already doing more business with the U.S. than with Spain. I'll quote a UNESCO report from 1957: "One feature of the Cuban social structure is a large middle class. Cuban workers are more unionized (proportional to the population)than U.S. workers... the average wage for an 8 hour day in Cuba 1957 is higher than for workers in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany. Cuban labor receives 66.6 per cent of gross national income. In the U.S. the figure is 68 per cent. 44 per cent of Cubans were covered by Social legislation, that's a higher percentage then in the U.S. at the time."
That vaunted Cuban "health-care" also merits some clarification. In 1957 Cuba was 13th from the top with the lowest infant-mortality in the world. It's now (and this is if you believe the Castro's regime's figures,) 24th from the top. So relative to the rest of the world, health-care in Cuba has worsened since the glorious revolution. Cuba always had a high proportion of doctors, in the 1950's twice as many as a percentage of population than in the U.S. Now Castro's "doctor diplomacy" is reaping him a propaganda windfall among poor Latin Americans. And heck, who can blame them? Interestingly, Paraguay was recently forced to expel a large number of its Cuban "doctors" for much the same reason The Bush administration was forced to expel over 14 Cuban U.N. "diplomats" the last couple of years.
Chile looks good nowadays, but I predict they'll start electing more socialists and in a decade or so Chile's economy will start floundering and revert to its pre-Pinochet mode. Call me a pessimist--it's hard to be anything else while studying the regions' history. I mean, see what I wrote about pre-Castro Cuba above? Well-- look what happened to Cuba! "Fidel esta es tu casa!" Cubans (but no one in my family, I'm proud to report) acclaimed him.
Heck, we already tried the Alliance for Progress. And threw billions of U.S. taxpayers dollars down a rat hole. Regarding traditional foreign aid, I say the region needs a period of "benign neglect," to quote D. P. Moyniham regarding another group whose leaders constantly clamored for hand-outs. Opening our markets to Latin American agricultural products would work better than ten Marshall Plans for the region. It wasn't much mentioned (Chavez and Che) stealing the headlines, but that was a major complaint of Latin American leaders at the Summit of the Americas in Mar De Plata Argentina last month--access to the U.S. market. Regarding free-trade, "we talk a good one," they claim. But when it comes right down to it, many of their farm products can't penetrate our borders--except cocaine, of course. Just ask Evo Morales, who, by the way, strikes me as more a Lula than a Chavez, by which I mean more practical, despite his campaign bombast.
Johnson: My colleagues have all made valid points. I'd just like to comment on a couple. Phil Peters worked in the Reagan Administration and, no doubt remembers the Central American Peace Scholarships and other Reagan-era initiatives designed to acquaint Central Americans with U.S. culture and democracy. They were an answer to Cuban and Soviet programs that turned uneducated youths into guerrillas or sent poor students to Patrice Lumumba University in Russia. President Reagan understood the need to fill vacuums and to compete in communication strategies. He had long-range vision and goals.
When Reagan left office, U.S. policymakers drifted from his ideas. Today, many of our foreign aid programs are big-ticket, wasteful, and don't show our flag very well. Meanwhile, doctor and teacher diplomacy actually makes friends and money for Castro. Friends because they tap into what Latin America's majority poor think they need, and money because Castro uses his own slave labor which he sells at higher cost to host governments.
While the United States can't dispatch foreign aid workers on $25 a month salaries, we might take a page out of Castro's playbook and revive programs that stress better person-to-person contact and cost less than, say, a big agrarian reform project using foreign NGOs. Sadly, funding for the Central American scholarship program dried up long ago and U.S.-foreign exchanges are two-thirds of what they were in the 1990s. Meanwhile, former mainstream politicians in Bolivia say that Cuba has ramped up trips to Havana for mayors and other local officials ever since Evo Morales became a political phenomenon in 2002. For the last three years, the United States has done very little of this kind of public diplomacy.
As for trade, I believe we levy a 40 percent tariff on cane sugar coming in from the Caribbean. I've also heard that cane sugar makes pretty good ethanol. Ethanol, in combination with other fuels, could help ease U.S. dependency on Venezuelan oil. While Hugo Chavez practically gives away petroleum to Cuba, he sells it at about a 40 percent discount to friendly states in the Caribbean. We might ask, what our tariff on cane sugar actually actually does to advance U.S. long-range strategic interests. The answer is that it, uh-well, helps Congress satisfy a few constituent demands. Fine--except that we are (needlessly) propping up a small industry at the expense of driving former allies into the hands of unfriendly regimes.
I like Professor Suchlicki's list. But the United States already has a number of institutions that could provide more effective engagement, like the National Endowment for Democracy, the Peace Corps, the Agency for International Development, and now the Millennium Challenge Corporation. They all do a pretty good job. But they could do much better if our policymakers had long-term goals and did not let isolated constituent interests trump them. As Phil says, promoting democratic capitalism in Latin America is generational. To be successful, we must establish priorities and adopt realistic measures to determine when milestones are met.
To finish this symposium, click here.