President George W. Bush’s address on Cuba policy at the State Department on October 24 was his first since Raul Castro’s accession to power fifteen months ago. The president used powerful, and at times evocative, language in reaffirming his administration’s commitment to maintaining the economic embargo until a genuine democratic transition begins on the island. He welcomed several supportive members of congress --conservative Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats-- and introduced family members of imprisoned Cuban journalists and democracy activists. Bush was adamant that the United States not acquiesce in a dynastic succession, insisting that “life will not improve for Cubans by exchanging one dictator for another.”

      He seemed, moreover, to move policy into a more activist mode than had been the case since Fidel Castro yielded power in July 2006. By many accounts, actions in support of Cuban dissidents have been more cautious since then. The administration has also generally eschewed confrontational language, perhaps in the belief that the new regime’s grip on power was tenuous and out of concern that instability on the island would provoke another mass seaborne migration to Florida.

     But to whatever extent such considerations may have inhibited policy, they now appear to have been superseded. The president said, “the operative word in our dealing with Cuba is not stability. . . (it) is freedom. . . Now is the time to support the democratic movements growing on the island. Now is the time to stand with the Cuban people as they stand up for their liberty.” If he meant that new or more assertive policies are in the works to support the democratic opposition, he provided no details.

     But in other, potentially more significant ways, the president ventured beyond the standard rhetoric and policy prescriptions of recent years. For the first time, perhaps in the entire history of American relations with the Castro brothers’ regime, a president made public overtures to Cuban military and security personnel. Seeking to enlist at least some of them as agents of democratic change, Bush said that Cuba “must find a way to reconcile and forgive those who have been part of the system, but who do not have blood on their hands. They are victims too.”

     Remarkably, substantial segments of the speech were excerpted in Granma, Cuba’s communist party daily. The preceding conciliatory commentary was deleted, but another, equally potent one was printed on page two of the Cuban newspaper. It was a both a plea and a promise to the Castro brothers’ nomenclatura.

      “You may have once believed in the revolution. Now you can see its failure. When Cubans rise up to demand their liberty . . . you’ve got to make a choice. Will you defend a disgraced and dying order by using force against your own people? . . . There is a place for you in the free Cuba.”

     It is difficult to understand why Cuban authorities took the unprecedented step of quoting a sitting American president. I cannot recall another comparable example since relations were severed in 1961. And much of the verbiage that was aired by the Cuban media was highly critical, even incantatory, directed at different Cuban audiences, including schoolchildren and the country’s discontented youth.

     Perhaps the new regime is so confident of its strength and popularity that it does not fear how the president’s remarks will be received. Alternatively, reformers who appear to be ascendant in the current leadership may have wanted to add the president’s words to the increasingly dynamic mix of issues the regime has encouraged the populace to debate and discuss. Many pragmatists no doubt agree with President Bush that “life will not improve for Cubans under their present system of government.” By allowing that conclusion to be aired in Cuba’s controlled media, they may have signaled their concurrence.

     The president also cited many items from the long list of pre-conditions for normalizing relations that are specified in the 1996 Cuba Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act (Helms-Burton). But one of the most prominent of them was not mentioned in any form. Section 205 (a) (3) of Helms-Burton demands the dissolution of Cuba’s most powerful organs of internal repression: the Department of State Security in the Ministry of Interior, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, and the Rapid Response Brigades that often inflict violence on dissidents. The omission of this previously crucial requirement for a “transition” government may have been no more than a drafter’s or editor’s oversight. But its absence is consistent with the speech’s central theme of willingness to reconcile with members of Cuba’s uniformed services.

     Other straws in the wind suggest that a certain new level of bilateral security cooperation has already been instituted. The State Department’s two most recent annual reports on international terrorism, issued by the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, reveal that Cuba has assured the United States that “it will no longer provide safe haven to new U.S. fugitives who may enter Cuba.”

     Last year, the Cuban government made good on that commitment by repatriating an American who landed a stolen plane in Cuba. The 2006 State Department report, issued in April 2007, indicates that after several meetings between U.S. diplomats in Havana and Cuban officials, the man was returned last October for prosecution. The report concludes that this “was the first instance in which the Cuban government permitted the return of a fugitive from U.S. justice.”

      It is not clear whether this new Cuban policy results from a unilateral decision to seek greater bilateral security cooperation or from a process of mutual concessions. So far, the administration has not commented beyond the cursory wording included in the two annual counter terrorism reports.

 

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