Cubans loved these little radios, which were universally seen both as a symbol of freedom and a quiet form of opposition to the Cuban government. Castro blamed the US embargo for all of the island’s scarcities and to some degree he was right, the embargo reinforced Castro’s efforts to restrict access to communications devices that would have given Cubans greater access to news and information. They could only purchase radios, computers, cell phones, and other communications equipment in “dollar stores,” that dealt exclusively in US dollars not in Cuban pesos, even then the selection was severely limited. Most Cubans didn’t have the resources to buy a new radio, and could only lament that their cheap Chinese radios had limited range and only picked up local frequencies. According to my friend Ana Maria González, when older radios that were initially capable of accessing signals from beyond Cuba’s shores were taken in for repairs, they were “fixed” so that they could no longer access stations broadcasting from off the island.
Castro had become increasingly unhappy with our radio distribution program. He began by complaining to visiting American VIPs, some of whom agreed with him. Wayne Smith, a former head of the US Interests Section, said, “I think it’s a terrible idea. Passing out these radios can only look like subverting Cuban internal affairs and trying to undermine the government.” I replied that in Africa, US assistance programs distributed radios, and both the people and the government were delighted. When I continued to ignore Fidel’s warnings he went on the offensive, condemning me for handing out the radios and claiming that the Interests Section was a “nest of spies,” where American diplomats busily concocted “subversive” actions and carried out “electronic surveillance.” He announced that he would hold a tribuna abierta (open court) on the eastern side of Havana Bay in the town of Alamar to protest my actions, specifically the radio distribution. This was a serious rebuke. Fidel had publicly criticized me soon after my arrival in Havana, but this was the first time he had rallied thousands of people to join him in denouncing me. I knew that the residents of Alamar, a large housing project initially built for athletes competing in the Pan American Games, had no choice but to attend the rally.
I could have remained home, but I decided that I would attend the tribuna abierta. This would break all manner of unspoken protocols and undoubtedly horrify Fidel and Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque, both of whom were expected to speak. But I decided that if I were going to be judged then I would be present. On Saturday, April 5, 2002, at about 9:00 a.m., Consul General Teddy Taylor, Human Rights Officer Victor Vockerot, and I headed to Alamar in my official car, a white sedan with diplomatic license plate “010” that identified the car as belong to the chief of the Interests Section. It could not have been more obvious: I was coming to face my accusers.
There was no place to park; bicycles, cars, and buses were lined up for miles on both sides of the road. There was only one option, which was to park in an area reserved for Castro’s and other official vehicles. I couldn’t imagine retreating for lack of a parking space, so I maneuvered the car into an open space among the official black sedans and white Ladas. As Teddy, Victor, and I quickly walked away we could hear the loudspeaker repeatedly addressing whomever had left a white sedan in the reserved parking area: “¡Por favor, regresen!” (Please return!). But we kept walking.
As we moved deeper into the crowd, I wondered how long we could escape Cuban state security. Victor and I might blend in, but Teddy, an African American who was well over six feet tall and looked like a former boxing champion, stood out; he was considerably bigger than most Cubans. Still, for perhaps an hour we mingled with the crowd, chatting with those around us. Then we were silently encircled and cordoned off by plainclothes police officers. Amid the crowd of some twenty to thirty thousand people, we three became an island unto ourselves. No one would have dared approach us; everyone recognized that we were in some kind of trouble. I wondered if Cuban state security would demand that we return to our car and leave the rally. But they said nothing to us or anyone else, and seldom even looked our way. Our guards were there to keep the crowd away from us and make sure we behaved.
In the midst of the crowd I could hardly see the stage, but I could hear Foreign Minister Pérez Roque telling the crowd that he was ready to punish me and the Interests Section. He complained about our push to sanction Cuba for human rights violations at the UN, our assistance to dissidents, illegal distribution of propaganda—perhaps books for libraries—and electronic espionage. If that weren’t sufficient, he accused the United States of attempting to subvert the Cuban political system through our radio distribution. Although most Cubans would have loved to receive one of my little radios, Pérez Roque claimed, “In this country, we are the ones in charge,” adding, “[we] won’t let others conspire and subvert the order.” Then he warned that he would not allow any little games of conspiracies. I, however, felt perfectly safe with Teddy and Victor at my side.
The big surprise of the day was that Fidel didn’t speak. After Pérez Roque’s harsh critique, I imagined that Fidel would outdo him by pointing me out to the crowd and claiming that I had attended the tribuna abierta in order to sabotage it. I began to worry that the three of us might become targets of a spontaneous acto de repudio (act of repudiation). I will never know why Fidel remained silent, but I suspect that he didn’t want to give the international media a great story. Imagine the headline: “American Diplomat Openly Defies Castro,” daring him to respond to her defiant distribution of portable radios. He likely calculated that it was better to ignore our presence than to provide thirty thousand Cubans with an egregious example of open defiance.
Because we were not subjected to the traditional hours-long oration from Fidel, we arrived back at the Interests Section by noon, where we found one of my favorite dissidents, Felix Bonne. He, like Teddy, was a big man, unlikely to be intimidated by Castro or anyone else. To my surprise he knew that we had been among the crowd at the tribuna. (Rumors travel fast in Havana.) I was delighted when he praised my courage in confronting Castro: “You reminded me of a battlefield colonel leading her troops.” His flattery was a preface to what he really wanted to communicate, which was to warn me that I must be careful not to push the Cuban government too far. He said that the very existence of the human rights movement would be jeopardized if Castro forced the closure of the US Interests Section; we would no longer be able to witness and report on the suppression of dissent. Without witnesses Castro would become more aggressive in silencing the opposition. Felix said that he and his comrades would have no voice to the outside world if my challenges to the regime resulted in my departure. I knew he was right, but it would be very difficult to stop distributing my little radios.
A few days later the Dallas Morning News reported, “Cuban and American officials accused each other of violating international standards Monday in a fiery display of in-your-face diplomacy.” I responded that Pérez Roque’s assertion that distribution of the radios was a violation of Cuban sovereignty and the Vienna Convention, was false. “It is legal—and not counter to the Vienna Convention,” I claimed. More importantly we are trying to bring the world to Cuba’s doorstep so that Cubans can make choices about their lives and their futures. Another official at the Interests Section—I assume Gonzalo Gallegos, the head of public affairs—said, “It is ironic that the Cuban regime, which prides itself on waging a battle of ideas, is so concerned about a few radios coming into the hands of average Cuban citizens.” A Cuban official immediately responded, “Our diplomats meet with your people to try to normalize relations. We are not trying to subvert internal order. But that’s exactly what your people are trying to do here.” I thought that if a few thousand radios could create all of this controversy, supposedly undermining the foundations of the Cuban Revolution, we should simply end the embargo and flood the country with free radios!
Pérez Roque’s charge was utter nonsense, so I was surprised that some observers believed him. I explained to Mary Murray, the MSNBC bureau chief
, that USAID distributed wind-up radios in isolated regions of the world that had no electricity. After Cuba, when I was ambassador to Mali, the USAID director and I started a program in which we distributed “suitcase” radio stations to villages in the northern Sahel and the Sahara Desert; everything that was needed to broadcast was packaged into two suitcases. The villagers were ecstatic because they not only had access to news but were able to announce events and even call for assistance if someone were injured or ill. To this day I know of no government that bans radios. Most authoritarian regimes stick to censoring content rather than preventing their citizens from owning a radio or other communication device.
The question was, what to do now? I didn’t want to completely back down, but I knew that it would be folly to continue robustly handing out radios in the face of Castro’s and Pérez Roque’s threats. I told Peter Corsell, who was even more aggressive than I was in distributing the radios, to slow down. So I was startled one morning when I saw him piling cartons of radios into his car. He explained that Marta Beatriz Roque, one of Cuba’s most outspoken dissidents, was planning to distribute them to members of her group. I was worried. It was clear that we were giving the dissidents a vital tool in their efforts to oppose the government. Yet, if we continued to push the envelope, the outreach program could wreck our newly minted détente and I might be asked to leave the country. Nor did I want to be responsible for Marta or other dissidents being jailed. I told Peter to make certain that Marta understood the risks, although it was clear that she, like Castro, saw the radios as a potent weapon in the dissidents’ struggle to be heard. I also urged Peter to be even more discreet. After all, Cuban guards who stood watch outside his apartment had undoubtedly watched him pack his car; hopefully they didn’t know that radios were in the boxes.
I ultimately couldn’t bring myself to curtail support for the dissidents. My not-so-subtle solution was only to provide dissidents with radios when I invited them to the residence. Yet since there were many dissidents outside Havana, I decided to bring the radios to them personally. Elizardo Sánchez, who ran a human rights group, provided me with a list of names and locations of dissidents who lived throughout the island. I began by meeting with allies of Oswaldo Payá in a small town outside Matanzas, a port city to the east. They were collecting signatures for Payá’s Project Varela, a petition they hoped would trigger a referendum on the Cuban Constitution. Knowing that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wouldn’t approve my travel if I indicated that I would be visiting dissidents, I sought and obtained permission for the human rights officer Victor Vockerodt and I to visit Communist Party officials in Matanzas. (All our travel outside of Havana had to be approved seventy-two hours in advance, in the form of a detailed travel plan, so state security could prepare to monitor our activities.)
After meeting with the regional party hierarchy, we did not return on the main highway as I had indicated in the approved plan. Rather, we set out to find the small rural town where Payá’s partisans lived. Arriving late, having lost our way on the backcountry dirt roads, we found six men patiently waiting for us and the radios. They told us that none of their members had been arrested for circulating the petition, but one member had narrowly escaped having the signatures he had collected from towns around the area confiscated. In their small town, some citizens who had signed the petition had been threatened with jail or losing their jobs if they didn’t remove their names. But they bravely refused to back down.
It was a strange town, almost a hotbed of resistance. It attracted dissidents and those who had been blacklisted from jobs in tourism after attempting to flee to the United States. It made sense that those who had been cast out by the system might choose to live in close proximity to one another. The Cuban government built towns in the countryside that were exclusively for retired military, security, and police forces. I was amused to imagine that scattered throughout the countryside were a few towns that catered to dissidents as well as the many that were home to loyal military retirees. It also made me realize that we knew very little about rural Cuba.
Castro hoped to derail Payá’s Project Varela without attracting attention from the media or international human rights groups. If successful, his cat and mouse game would defeat the initiative by making it impossible to collect signatures and deliver the petitions to Cuba’s National Assembly. Castro could have quickly ended Project Varela by jailing the organizers, but he evidently did not want to risk curtailing American travel, which would be the most obvious form of retaliation. Even more worrisome was the possibility that negative publicity would lead former president Jimmy Carter to cancel his upcoming visit to Cuba.
Me and one of my little radios that so annoyed Fidel.
(Photo credit: Associated Press)
Not even the pouring rain could dampen Fidel’s wrath.
(Photo credit: Reuters)
Alexandra’s painting that I feared Fidel might covet.
(Photo courtesy of author)
The eagle that flew off the USS Maine Monument and was given to the US ambassador as a symbol of friendship—how long before those bonds between our countries will be restored?
(Photo courtesy of author)
Revolución is Independence! Not all Cubans believe that.
(Photo courtesy of author)
Long Live the Revolución!
(Photo courtesy of author)
Victory at the Bay of Pigs—Fidel claimed it was the first military victory against US imperialism in the hemisphere.
(Photo courtesy of author)
Country or Death! Some take it literally and lose their lives attempting to cross the Florida Straits in flimsy crafts and without provisions.
(Photo courtesy of author)
The cardboard Fidel who was both loved and feared.
(Photo courtesy of author)
Granma, the overloaded yacht that broughi Fidel and his rebels back to Cuba.
(Photo courtesy of author)
Havana and me—my only absolutely clear victory in my ongoing competition with Fidel.
(Photo credit: Reuters)
We wished the men good luck, left our radios and books, and started back to Havana. It wasn’t long before I saw a woman trudging along the side of a dirt road. I stopped and offered her a ride. Once she was settled in the car, I handed her a radio. When I glanced back, tears were running down her cheeks. When I asked why she was crying, she replied, “Now, I have a birthday present for my son.” After dropping her off and finding our way onto a paved road, we picked up two young women to whom I also gave a couple of radios. One asked, “Can I have two more?” The girls explained that they wanted radios for their brothers were imprisoned in the large gray building we had passed a mile back. They had been sentenced to twenty years for killing a neighbor’s pig.
I had now been in Cuba almost three years. The longer I stayed, the more I liked the country and the people, and the sorrier I felt for those who were forced to live under the omnipresent and pervasive control of the Castro regime. There was no doubt in my mind that Cubans were deprived of essential freedoms, but I didn’t think that our policy of isolation was an effective way to bring about change. I believed that the best way to promote change in Cuba was by empowering the Cuban people. Helping to keep them poor and isolated only helped Castro to maintain control. Yet everything we did to enable the Cuban people to seek change depended on the regime’s forbearance. If we were too aggressive, Castro would smash our endeavors by throwing me or my officers out of the country or by jailing the dissidents. But I was finding it increasingly difficult to assess the costs and benefits of my actions, like the radio distribution program. Sometimes I wanted to aggressively confront the oppressive power of the Cuban state, yet I knew that this was dangerous, and I was already treading near the edge of Castro’s patience.
Having successfully delivered radios to supporters of Project Varela, I decided to take a six-day tour of the island, which is shaped like a shark jumping out of the sea. I planned tha
t Victor and I would drive from Havana, at the base of the shark’s head, down its spine to the second-largest city, Santiago de Cuba, located on the shark’s tail. During our travels, we met with government officials, average citizens, and dissidents, leaving behind radios and books with everyone but the officials. Our first stop was the large city of Camaguey in central Cuba, where we visited three Protestant churches. I left several cartons of radios with a young, dynamic pastor of a large Baptist church. He was delighted, until the next morning when he showed up sheepishly at our hotel to ask that we take the radios back. He apologized profusely, but did not explain his decision. It was clear he had been warned not to keep them.
The next day we reached the small village of El Cobre where Cuba’s patron saint, the Virgin of Charity, is enshrined in a basilica that overlooks the bay surrounding Santiago de Cuba. She is known as the Mambisa Virgin because she was venerated by Cuba’s independence fighters—called Mambises—who fought alongside Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders. Jewels and small favors left by the humble and the mighty were displayed in a glass container. Ernest Hemingway gave his Nobel Prize for the story of a Cuban fisherman, The Old Man and the Sea, to the virgin. Hemingway loved Cuba, where he lived until shortly before his death in a beautiful home called Finca Vigía (Lookout House) on a hill outside Havana. We didn’t leave any radios with the virgin but we did drop off a few in El Cobre.
Our Woman in Havana Page 20