Men and women who travel to Cuba and make contact with the Government, or who talk with some Cuban officials abroad, question how Castro can remain in power against the intense hostility that he faces on the island, as much from official as from private sources. One finds many Cuban officials, both in and out of Cuba, who with assurances of confidentiality will speak out against Fidel Castro. They are ready to denounce Castro's blunders and the confidence he has in his totalitarian regime. Judging by what they say, it seems Castro is rejected by the official establishment as strongly as, or even more than, by the people.

It is not easy to accept the sincerity of these officials, despite hearing such commentary quite frequently. Most Cubans living abroad believe that the officials who criticize Castro are in fact spies, agents provocateurs, seeking to inflitrate anti-Castro movements. There are ample reasons to think that way. There have been many cases in these thirty and some years in which Castroist intelligence has planted agents among the émigrés and the exiles. Castro's agents have even infiltrated the CIA, the American Central Intelligence Agency, while Castro attempts to make the agency the scapegoat of all his failures. Others regard such open antagonism to Castro from the Cuban officials as political posturing, as they start to absolve themselves from blame for the imminent disaster that threatens the Cuban people. After the regime falls, they can claim they were long-standing opponents of Castro, even while they were working within the ranks, even the high levels, of the Government. We think both appraisals of what motivates these Cuban officials offer points worthy of attention. Nevertheless, neither is satisfactory.

We believe that being part of a Government does not entail, necessarily, an uncritical or absolute adherence to the person leading it. Besides, the vision and political creed that a man has in entering and becoming part of a Government, and his opinions on the one leading it, are not necessarily the same after having shared official responsibilities. Once inside the exclusive circles of power, the perspective one has of leaders and policies changes radically. It is no longer that of the outside observer. History abounds with instances of governments toppled by the officials who ran it or by the forces that backed it. The privileged classes, in and out of the Government, produced the decisive forces that overthrew Louis XVI and Nicholas II in the French and Russian revolutions of 1789 and 1917. In Cuba, the independence wars of 1868 and 1895 were supported by the twin pillars of the aristocracy's money and intellect. The ousting of Machado on August 12, 1933 and of Batista on January 1st., 1959, were accelerated by the middle bourgeoisie, the intellectuals, the professionals, and the students, all of whom were more privileged than dispossessed. Of course, in these cases, social and economic conditions existed that motivated the privileged classes to revolt; in most instances, they were then joined by the people.

To those who do not believe that hostility against Castro exists in the official ranks, we must remind them that in these thirty and some years there have been innumerable disagreements, rebellions and desertions of Castroist officials, even at the highest levels of the Government, civilians as much as military and members of the security forces. In many cases, those who opposed Castro escaped from Cuba to foreign lands. Of those who did not escape, the generals Arnaldo Ochoa and Tony La Guardia are perhaps the most famous, though hardly most important. Their case ended in execution and led to the imprisonment of José Abrantes, at that time Fidel Castro's bosom friend and for many years his Ministry of the Interior. Abrantes' death in prison was suspected to be an assassination.

The Abrantes case is not unique. Suicides, instances of public disgrace and humiliation, citizens stripped of their very identity: over the past thirty-six years this has been the fate of those who felt they had a secure position of trust with Castro. Many naively believed that Castro would recognize his errors, even without acknowledging them publicly, or thought that he would extend friendship to those who supported him or would feel gratitude for services rendered. Their naive judgements of Castro led them to death. It led innumerable others to prison.

With such widespread discontent, at times even in high official spheres, why has the nomenklatura not already expelled Castro from power? They pose this question to themselves, as do many of us who have witnessed an animosity toward Fidel Castro growing stronger every day, pressing ever closer around him.

We would like to answer that question fully. But with incomplete, though prolific, information we know that any answer we may offer is only a part of the truth. It is an incomplete answer, and as such tentative and reserved.

Let us first reiterate something we said many years ago during an interview on Radio Martí: Havana is the capital of fear. But fear is subject to the law of diminishing returns. A point arrives beyond which more fear does not further paralyze the will. Rather, just the opposite occurs. Increased efforts to arouse fear instead induce action. Robespierre's fall on July 27, 1794, the Ninth of Thermidor in the calendar of the French Revolution, takes place at the zenith of Robespieerian terror. It was precisely their growing anguish that drove members of the Convention to decree first, the arrest and then, the death of Maximilian Robespierre. On July 26th, he was the most feared man in France. On July 27th, he was sentenced to death, and on the 28th he was guillotined by the same revolution he had led. History often records a 26th of July, followed by a 27th and then a 28th. We believe Cuba is following this path.

And the time could well be now. The 1995-96 sugar harvest looks to be even worse than last year's. Fidel Castro always needs someone to blame for his own failures, so we expect there to be purges in the government. Whether those who fall lose only their positions only time will tell.

We will wrap out our answer to this question in our next broadcast: why has the nomenklatura not already expelled Castro from power?

From Washington, spoken to you by Emilio-Adolfo Rivero.

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New Cuba Coalition
P. O. Box 14077
Washington, D. C. 20044-4077
Dr. Emilio-Adolfo Rivero — President
Ernesto Díaz-Rodríguez — Vice President
e-mail: cuba@idt.net