Our Woman in Havana

by Vicki Huddleston

  The more benign US policy of recent years had produced changes in Miami, just as it had in Cuba. Younger Cuban Americans and those who had arrived during the past twenty years wanted to travel to Cuba, send remittances to their families, and seek business opportunities on the island. Many young professionals would have liked to visit but were reluctant to do so over the objections of their parents. Still, they secretly yearned for reconciliation so they could explore their roots. This new tolerance in Miami, fostered by recent migrants, was creating a vibrant bond with the island. Thousands of Cubans visited relatives in Florida, returning with huge plastic-wrapped parcels containing radios, televisions, and all manner of appliances. And many in the diaspora visited their families in Cuba bearing gifts. In Miami, entrepreneurial Cuban Americans opened money transfer and mail order services, which allowed the diaspora to send remittances and gift packages, containing everything from toys to food, to their family and friends in Cuba. These activities were not entirely legal, but the Cuban American community in Miami—more than any law—determines what is and is not acceptable when it comes to Cuba. Older Cuban Americans, who generally demanded a punitive policy and disliked any contact with the island, seemed to understand that it was prudent to make exceptions for those in the diaspora who wished to maintain links with the island.

  Peter and I met with the diaspora in Miami because we knew that protecting the policy gains we had made was ultimately dependent on them. We explained our approach to Joe Garcia, the executive director of CANF, who had announced in January, “We are in the ninth year of Clinton’s Cuba policy.” Now, a few months later, both he and CANF’s president, Jorge Mas Santos, were interested in our argument that one year of Bush’s moderate policy had produced more change in Cuba than decades of hostility. I gave numerous interviews to the media, on Miami talk shows, and to Cuban American groups. But I did not meet with the feisty Ninoska Pérez Castellón, a founding member of the Cuban Liberty Council, or Congressman Lincoln Díaz-Balart, whose father had been the majority leader of Cuba’s senate before Castro’s revolution, because I knew that they simply wanted Castro gone and the return of the old political and social order in Cuba.

  As Miami debated Cuba policy and awaited the outcome of the latest policy review—this one ordered by President Bush—Castro continued to enjoy the visits of American VIPs, and in return he tolerated our efforts through the outreach program to empower civil society. Referring to the Cuban American community Castro declared, “For 43 years they’ve been saying the same thing, the use of cannons must be left to prehistoric times, and replaced by ideas.” But in truth, even with a more tolerant Castro and a more open-minded diaspora, there were fundamental differences that would be difficult, if not impossible, to bridge. Castro wanted a fiercely independent Cuba, in which he always had the last word, while Cuban Americans desired a Cuba fashioned in the image of their new country, the United States.

  In international fora, Castro always counted on his many allies to support Cuba against the United States. Since 1992, every UN member except the United States, Israel, and occasionally one other government, voted for a resolution condemning the United States embargo. Although this vote was an annual embarrassment, the US usually was able to retaliate by garnering sufficient votes to pass a resolution—by a narrow margin—that criticized human rights in Cuba. Castro fought hard to defeat the resolution, and counted on his closest allies, especially Mexico to support him at the United Nations.

  In March, 2002 a month prior to the UN vote on Cuba’s human rights, the new Mexican President Vicente Fox visited Cuba in the hope of repairing relations that had deteriorated under his predecessor, Ernesto Zedillo. In Havana, Richard Pascoe, the Mexican ambassador to Cuba, made every effort to keep politics out of the visit, but on his last day in Havana, Fox met with Cuba’s leading dissidents Hector Palacios, Oswaldo Payá, Raúl Rivero, Marta Beatriz Roque, and Elizardo Sánchez. Castro was furious, blaming Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda Gutman, whom he believed wanted to please the conservative Cuban diaspora and the US government, for betraying Cuba. Worse, from Castro’s point of view, the meeting would undoubtedly encourage other world leaders to meet with the dissidents, which might well have the effect of eroding their support for Cuba at the UN.

  Although both governments claimed the Fox visit had been “satisfactory,” the downward spiral of Cuban-Mexican relations had begun. Perhaps to garner praise for Fox’s visit with the dissidents, Mexican foreign minister Castañeda traveled to Miami to meet with Cuban Americans. During a press interview he assured the Cuban diaspora, “The doors of the Mexican embassy are open to all Cubans, and to Latin Americans, just as Mexico is.” The last part of the sentence seemed to be an attempt to diminish the impact of the first part, which could be considered as an invitation to Cubans to defect by seeking refuge in Mexico’s embassy in Havana.

  In a blatant attempt to create chaos in Cuba, over the next twenty-four hours Radio Martí repeatedly broadcast the first part of Castañeda’s remark, implying that the Mexican embassy would offer refuge to Cubans who wished to leave. Although Radio Martí was funded by the US government, it had become a tool of the most conservative elements of the Cuban diaspora. President Bush had appointed Salvador Lew as director of Radio Martí, and that had been a mistake. Lew was a historico (an older conservative Cuban American) whose antiquated management style and desire to curry favor with the hardline Cuban Liberty Council led him to put on the air fiery anti-Castro talk show hosts, such as the council’s Ninoska Pérez Castellón. Lew saw Castañeda’s ill-advised remark as an opportunity to attack Castro and promote his standing with Ninoska and the council.

  Right on cue, twenty-one young men hijacked a city bus and crashed it through the gates of the Mexican embassy in Havana. When they refused to leave, more young men gathered in front of the embassy, hoping to join those inside. Fearing that they were about to invade the embassy, Cuban police using steel bars and truncheons brutally broke up the crowd. A friend in the media told me that he had been hurt as the police waded into the fray, indiscriminately bashing anyone in their way. The following evening a Cuban state security squad entered the embassy and removed the invaders.

  Shortly after the Mexican embassy incident, I invited Ambassador Pascoe, a handsome man with white hair and intense blue eyes, for lunch at La Guarida, a popular family-run restaurant. I considered Pascoe a friend and I knew we would have a candid conversation.

  Once I had climbed the marble stairs to the fifth floor of the once-elegant but now run-down apartment building in which the restaurant was located, I was ready for a mojito, a delicious sugary rum drink. In the modest dining room, presided over by an ancient blue refrigerator that had appeared in one of Cuba’s best movies, Strawberries and Chocolate, Ricardo and I looked down on the street below where old men in well-used sleeveless undershirts sat on broken chairs and empty cartons playing a never-ending game of dominos. In time, the restaurant’s tremendous popularity would prompt the government to take it over, and the owners would make their way to Miami. Today a much larger version of La Guarida, with terrible food, remains a popular tourist site.

  I told Ricardo that I was relieved that those who had invaded the embassy had been removed without injury or fanfare. Ricardo was aware that I, like most of his diplomatic colleagues, might not approve of his decision to permit Cuban security forces to enter his embassy, so he explained that Cuban state security had quickly and peacefully cleared the premises, leaving behind no implanted listening devices. He stressed that the invaders had not requested political asylum. Had they done so, Ricardo would have been obliged to allow them to stay, at least until the UN High Commission on Refugees interviewed them to determine whether they were fleeing for their lives. I agreed with Ricardo that these were not refugees but rather unemployed or underemployed young men who longed for better lives outside Cuba.

  I had a good deal of sympathy for Ricardo’s situation because I had recently experienced a similar but les
s dramatic event. Early one Sunday morning two young men made it over the eight-foot iron fence that surrounds the US Interests Section. They told the security officer, David Durkin, that they wanted to escape Cuba because they had no future. Like the young men who crashed through the gates of the Mexican embassy, they didn’t know enough about international protocol to request political asylum. And I, like Ricardo, decided to forgo the formalities because if it became known that the US Interests Section was harboring Cubans, word would spread quickly throughout Havana, possibly inciting more incursions into our diplomatic mission and others. I called Reich and obtained his approval to remove the intruders. David, who was an exceptionally good security officer, convinced them that they had to leave. He hid them in the back of a van, drove all over Havana to ensure he wasn’t being followed by Cuban security, and eventually dropped them off safely in a distant barrio.

  Ricardo was convinced that the incident had been a provocation organized by Raúl Castro—who, he assumed, was worried that Fidel’s newly found tolerance toward dissent would weaken regime control. He speculated that Raúl also wanted to extract a measure of revenge for President Fox’s meeting with the dissidents. Ricardo doubted that Fidel had been consulted in creating the provocation. I disagreed; invading the Mexican embassy was an audacious act, the sort I associated with Fidel, not his brother. In any case, the incident delivered a reminder to young Cubans that state security was not a benign force. And it also contributed to the souring of Cuban-Mexican relations, which already were tenuous as a result of Fox’s meeting with the dissidents in Havana.

  When I was next in Miami I told Salvador Lew that that he should not have broadcast Castañeda’s remark because it almost resulted in another mass migration. Without any embarrassment whatsoever, he responded that he was simply broadcasting news about Cuba. This was nonsense. Like every Cuban and Cuban American, Salvador knew the history of the 1980 Mariel Boatlift, in which over 125,000 Cubans came to the United States. The crisis had begun when Cubans crashed a bus through the gates of the Peruvian embassy and the Peruvian government refused to allow Cuban state security to remove the asylum seekers. As news spread across Havana, hundreds more followed suit, storming the embassy grounds and breaking into embassies throughout the city, including the US Interests Section. Unable to contain the crisis, an angry and embarrassed Fidel Castro made lemonade out of lemons by announcing that anyone who wanted to leave Cuba could do so by gathering at the Port of Mariel. When President Jimmy Carter declined to prevent Cuban Americans from sailing to Cuba to retrieve their relatives, thousands of boats left Miami and the Keys. Upon reaching Mariel, they loaded up with desperate migrants that they brought back home with them. Castro also made sure that as many “undesirables” as possible—Cubans released from the island’s prisons and mental institutions—were packed into the rescue boats at gunpoint, so as to swamp Florida with a chaotic and violent mass migration.

  The final indignity for Castro was to lose the vote on the UN human rights resolution. The government of Mexico joined six other Latin American countries in voting for the resolution that urged Cuba to improve its human rights practices. These Latin American countries had endorsed what they considered a mild rebuke, hoping they could appease the United States and Uruguay, the resolution’s sponsor, without provoking Castro. But Fidel was not placated; he denounced the Eastern European and Latin American nations who had voted against him, and organized protests that featured large carton puppets—each about twelve feet high—depicting the leaders who had betrayed him.

  Castro was particularly annoyed with Vicente Fox. The Mexican president had met with the dissidents, his foreign minister’s statement had nearly caused another mass migration, and his government had voted for the UN resolution. Castro, determined on revenge, played on Cuban television a private conversation between he and Fox. On the tape Fox pleads with Fidel to leave a UN conference in Monterrey, Mexico, so that President Bush can attend. Fox’s advisers had been told by Bush’s staff that he would not attend the conference if Castro were present because Bush might be forced into a situation in which he had to shake hands with Castro. If the handshake occurred the conservative diaspora would never forgive him, and it might vent its anger by voting against his brother Jeb in his run for reelection as governor of Florida. Amazingly, the tape reveals that Castro peevishly agreed to accommodate Fox. The recorded conversation diminished both leaders, but especially Fox, who appeared to be, as Castro claimed, a “lapdog” of the United States.

  Notwithstanding the UN vote, relations between the United States and Cuba remained relatively good during the first five months of 2002, although negative rhetoric began to escalate, principally to satisfy the Cuban American community, which was continuing to push for a harder line. At the same time, Castro was becoming wary of our outreach program and the activities of the dissidents. This was not surprising because throughout his long rule, whenever tensions with the US had increased, Castro had reduced civil liberties. Still, he refrained from taking any significant action because he did not want to lose the VIP visits. From January through July, Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Arlen Specter (R-PA), plus a gaggle of US representatives, visited Fidel. Cantwell led a delegation of professional women, one of whom was a creator of costume jewelry. I offered her a stay at the residence if she would return to Havana and share her skills with Cuban artisans. She agreed, returning with a beautiful collection of semiprecious stones that had been donated by jewelers around the United States. But I was unprepared for the local artisans to ask that I hold a sale so that they could sell their beautiful work. I feared that I would have to refuse because I couldn’t circumvent the embargo. Then it occurred to me that I could host a jewelry sale for diplomats because they were exempt from the embargo. The Cuban artisans were delighted, and they sold every piece.

  American visitors kept flowing into Cuba. The most popular with my staff and the Cubans was the actor Kevin Costner. When I announced that he was coming to visit me at the Interests Section, every woman in the building turned out to welcome him. He had planned to screen his new movie Thirteen Days—about President John F. Kennedy’s handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis—in Moscow, Washington, DC, and Havana. After watching the film with Costner, Castro asked him to return the next evening to screen it for the Chinese premier, who was visiting Cuba. Costner cited a previous engagement and left for home, leaving a copy of the film with Fidel. He also left one with me to screen for my guests, who were disappointed that they wouldn’t meet the famous actor.

  I hoped Bush’s moderate policies would continue, and I looked forward to another year in Cuba, as Martinez had suggested. I thought we were doing well. Powell and I had deflected the crisis created by the incarceration of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, and Secretary Martinez had prevented attempts to curtail American travel—the unofficial détente was holding. Religious and cultural groups were working with their counterparts in Cuba, and our outreach program was distributing books and radios throughout the island and providing Internet access to Cubans in Havana. Castro continued to charm high-level American visitors, and Cubans were enjoying newfound freedoms. Fidel’s charm offensive was working—for him, for us and, most of all, for the Cuban people.

  CHAPTER 13

  MY LITTLE RADIOS

  I BEGAN DISTRIBUTING MY LITTLE AM/FM/SHORTWAVE RADIOS ABOUT one year after I arrived in Havana. Initially I had used these small radios as party favors at the annual American Fourth of July celebration. As the several hundred guests departed they received a transparent plastic bag tied with red, white, and blue ribbons, containing a compact radio along with a pamphlet featuring quotations from José Martí, Cuba’s national hero. The guests—which included Cuban artists and musicians as well as members of the diplomatic community—were delighted, and there was no protest from the Cuban government.

  A few months later, a USAID contractor sent many more radios and pamphlets, but I had no way to distribute them. I could n
ot include them with the books we provided to the independent libraries that were run by dissidents and the Catholic Church because the government would confiscate the radios and close the libraries. So, I began to randomly distribute radios to Cubans that I met during the course of my travels. During one such trip, my family and I were visiting Santa Clara, where Che Guevara defeated the last remnants of Fulgencio Batista’s army, paving the way to Havana. After touring the massive mausoleum dedicated to Che, we returned to the city center. On one of the small backstreets in a seemingly deserted neighborhood, I spotted a boy on a bicycle and gave him a radio. Before I could close the trunk and get back in the car, I was mobbed. Twenty or more kids suddenly appeared, all demanding radios. As I did my best to fairly distribute them to the unruly crowd, my Cuban state security minders watched closely from their white Lada parked nearby.

  My special assistant for the outreach program, Peter Corsell, helped me develop and execute a plan to distribute the radios. During the next two years we gave them to dissidents, to people we met while traveling around the island, and to other diplomats who wished to distribute them to their contacts. By the beginning of 2002 we were handing out several hundred radios per month. It was amazing to see how popular the radios were among ordinary Cubans, who were literally starved for accurate news and information. Of course, the dissident community also clamored for the radios. And it was their access to the subversive little devices that angered Fidel because it frustrated his efforts to keep them isolated and uninformed. The radios gave the dissidents information and connected them to one another. Radio Martí broadcast interviews with the dissidents, so the radios enabled them to keep their followers and sympathizers around the island informed of their activities as well as the government’s continued repression. Castro falsely claimed that the radios only received Radio Martí transmissions, but listeners were free to listen to whatever they wanted, whether international news, popular music or Cuban state radio. What Castro really disliked was that my little radios defeated his efforts to jam Radio Martí broadcasts. The fortunate owner of the little radio could change locations, finding a place where there was little or no interference. He also could tune into a myriad of international stations as well as frequent Cuban broadcasts that denounced the radio distribution itself.