Hundreds thousands partake during a May Day demonstration Thursday May 1, 2003 in Havana, Cuba. The banner bakground reads: 'Peace is what we need and want.' (AP Photo/Jose Goitia)
Posted on 05/02/2003 12:15:23 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
HAVANA - Fidel Castro accused the United States of wanting to attack Cuba, speaking at a May Day celebration on Thursday that aimed to defend the island's socialist system against criticism from abroad.
"In Miami and Washington they are now discussing where, how and when Cuba will be attacked," the Cuban president told a crowd of hundreds of thousands gathered for the celebration in Havana's Plaza of the Revolution.
"I want to convey a message to the world and the American people: We do not want the blood of Cubans and Americans to be shed in a war," he said.
The crowd responded with cries of "Whatever it takes, Fidel!" while waving handheld Cuban flags. One group hoisted an effigy of President Bush that read, "Bush: Don't mess with Cuba."
Castro spoke for less than two hours - brief for the 76-year-old president. He said U.S. officials "provoke and encourage" attacks like the recent hijackings of Cuban planes and boats.
There was no immediate response from the U.S. State Department. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said recently that "there are no plans for military action against Cuba."
May Day events were also held elsewhere in the world and some turned violent:
_In Germany, youths set cars alight and pelted police with stones, bottles and fireworks Thursday in a Berlin neighborhood famed for its May Day clashes after some 5,000 protesters staged a peaceful march in support of a variety of leftist causes. Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse troublemakers.
_In Venezuela, gunshots rang out at a rally against the government of President Hugo Chavez in Caracas, leaving one dead and one wounded, officials said. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse demonstrators angered by the shooting. The Opposition is seeking a referendum on Chavez's rule, accusing the leader of attempting to amass too much power.
_In Moscow, diverse Russian political forces marched in competing rallies. About 15,000 people gathered at the Communist Party's march, calling for the government's resignation. During the Cold War, tens of thousands of Russians flooded Red Square on May 1 in rallies meant to demonstrate loyalty to the communist state and solidarity with workers abroad.
_In Asia, thousands of people in Indonesia, South Korea (news - web sites) and the Philippines celebrated May Day by protesting for higher wages, shorter work weeks and political change.
The gathering in Cuba came two weeks after the firing-squad executions of three men convicted of terrorism for trying to hijack a Cuban ferry full of passengers to the United States. No one was hurt in the hijacking - one of at least four over a few weeks.
The Bush administration - along with other governments and international human rights groups - condemned the quick trial and execution of the men.
Castro said the executions were necessary to halt the hijackings and stem a growing migration crisis.
But he said he respected the opinions of Pope John Paul (news - web sites) II and some of his longtime supporters, including the New York Rev. Lucius Walker Jr., who have asked him to abolish the death penalty. The Cuban leader said he would consider their arguments.
"Cuba, you are a world leader in human rights and respect for human life," Walker told the crowd earlier in the morning. "The death penalty demeans that."
Walker, pastor of Salvation Baptist Church in Brooklyn, and executive director of New York-based Pastors for Peace is among Cuba's best-known American supporters.
"The day will come when we can accede to the wishes for the abolition of this penalty so nobly expressed here by Reverend Lucius Walker," Castro said. "A wave of hijackings had been unleashed and was already in full development - it had to be stopped."
Cuba also faces stern criticism for sending 75 dissidents to prison on charges of collaborating with U.S. diplomats to destabilize the socialist regime. It was the island's harshest crackdown on opponents in decades, drawing condemnation even from leftist intellectuals traditionally sympathetic to Cuba.
Castro said he was disheartened with "those friends of Cuba" - such as Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes - who have "attacked Cuba unjustly."
He warned they would "suffer infinite sorrow" if Cuba were attacked and "they realized their declarations were shamelessly manipulated by the aggressors to justify a military attack."
An opposition-led Labor Day march gathers at the end of the route shortly before clashes began with supporters of President Hugo Chavez in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, May 1, 2003. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez demonstrate in favor of the government in a Labor Day march in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, May 1, 2003. The sign at bottom reads 'With Chavez and the revolution.'(AP Photo/Leslie Mazoch)
He finished the week executing three men for hijacking a motorboat in Havana harbor. It was no accident, or sheer coincidence. It was the culmination of a deliberately planned operation aimed at setting the stage for Mr. Castro's grand finale, his Goetterdaemmerung: a conflict with the U.S.
Sen. Christopher Dodd, Connecticut Democrat, is disappointed once again by Mr. Castro's antics. In 1996, Sen. Dodd had bottled up a House-Senate conference final approval of the Helms-Burton Law. On Feb. 24 that year, Mr. Castro downed two American civilian planes of the organization Brothers to the Rescue, killing the four crewmen. Three of them were American citizens and Vietnam veterans. Mr. Dodd gave up his blocking of the legislation and the law was enacted. President Clinton signed it.
Why did Mr. Castro ensure approval of Helms-Burton? For two reasons:
(1) That same day, the Cuban dissidents, under the banner of Concilio Cubano, had convoked an assembly of more than 300 organizations.
(2) And he needed to prolong the role of the U.S. as the enemy of his regime, so he could wrap himself in nationalism before Cubans, and anti-Americanism internationally.
Afterward, the Elian Gonzalez crisis offered Mr. Castro a golden opportunity to isolate the Cuban-American community from mainstream America and reawaken the revolutionary appeal of his regime to younger Cubans. This while modest economic reforms, in particular legalization of dollar circulation, and development of tourism, attenuated the economic hardships resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union. But this also required a softening of repression, and the dissidence continued to grow, challenging his monopoly of power.
Mr. Castro's high-ranking spy at the Pentagon, Ana Belen Montes, the top Cuban analyst at the Defense Information Agency, had managed to sell to the Southern Command and the CIA the idea of a succession by his younger brother Raul. This was advanced, and accepted under President Clinton, as the formula most likely to satisfy basic U.S. security needs in a post-Castro Cuba: no mass migration, no civil war requiring a U.S. intervention, and cooperation in drug interdiction. The fact that it ignored completely the interests and possible behavior of the Cuban people, seemed irrelevant to its advocates.
Mr. Castro's wildest dreams of prolonging his regime beyond his departure from Earth all of a sudden became feasible with the cooperation of Gens. John Sheehan, Charles Wilhelm, Edward Atkeson and Barry McCaffrey. Pentagon policy institutes started promoting the rationale for such a solution, and all these retired generals started visiting Cuba and a Cuban military policy institute was even established to organize and facilitate such cooperative efforts. Mr. Castro's charisma overtook American generals as if they were Hollywood stars.
But, three events changed the situation: George W. Bush was elected president, al Qaeda launched the September 11, 2001, attack and the United States shed the passive policy against the third-rate powers and terrorist organizations that emerged during the Cold War. Under the banner of fighting the axis of evil, the U.S. dismantled Taliban rule in Afghanistan, rejected Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization and now has crushed Saddam Hussein and Ba'ath Party rule in Iraq.
Ana Belen Montes was arrested and sentenced to 25 years in prison without parole. Russia withdrew its electronic monitoring base in Lourdes after a meeting between Mr. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Economically, tourism has lost its momentum, low sugar prices continue to make Cuba lose money with that crop, forcing the closing of half of the sugar mills and displacing more than 100,000 workers. Mr. Castro made a bold gamble of diverting $250 million from paying old debts to buy U.S. agricultural products for cash. The goal was to wet the appetite of farm states' congressional delegations to approve amendments allowing private financing of such purchases and allow American tourists to visit Cuba to earn several hundred million dollars. These amendments were blocked by President Bush's threat to veto the appropriations bill where they were inserted.
Mr. Castro's ally Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, who is shipping oil to Cuba without payment, is now in serious trouble and may have his mandate revoked by the end of this year. The European Commission's moves to admit Cuba into the Cotonu Agreement, giving Cuba access to a $13.5 billion pool of financial assistance and preferred markets for certain exports, required an unattainable unanimity.
Meanwhile the Varela Project, proposing a referendum on opening Cuban society, was sneaked into the Cuban legislature and obtained worldwide recognition by the Europeans granting to its promoter, Oswaldo Paya, the Sahjarov Prize. An assembly to promote civil society, gathering several hundred dissident organizations, was started by dissident economist Martha Beatriz Roque. More than 200 independent libraries distributed all classes of unapproved materials.
In addition, the U.S. announced a policy of expanding support for the Cuban dissidents, which is implemented aggressively by the new head of the U.S. Interest Section. And, the firm and determined attitude of President Bush in ignoring the United Nations in the case of Iraq persuaded Mr. Castro that he faces a serious challenge to his political control inside Cuba, including evident disaffection within his repressive apparatus.
The desertion of four members of the Coastal Patrol, who took their boat into Key West last month, must have infuriated Mr. Castro and scared him witless, since it revealed serious cracks in his repressive apparatus.
The repression of the dissidents and the resort to firing squads indicates the desperation of Mr. Castro's predicament. It is the culmination of a response that started last year when, after Jimmy Carter's public appeal for support of the Varela Project, Mr. Castro convoked mass demonstrations in support of his one-party rule and forced through the legislature a constitutional reform making Marxism irrevocable.
He decided to make a last stand. Economic success requires concessions that undermine his political control. No more reforms, no more concessions. Rule by fear and repression.
The pathetic collapse of his friend Saddam Hussein may have convinced Mr. Castro his regime is also unlikely to survive this crisis. He realizes that many around him are willing to accept reforms such as the Varela Project. That is why he purged the legislature, with 60 percent of its 609 members not nominated for re-election.
The possibility of provoking the U.S. to attack him by creating another immigration crisis - which he can claim is out of his hands to prevent - is an idea surfing within his head and occasionally leaking through his mouth. In an article in the Mexican daily Reforma, even a writer sympathetic to him, like Carlos Fuentes, expressed the suspicion that Mr. Castro may be preparing to go down in flames, causing the death of millions of Cubans.
After all, in June 1958, he wrote to his secretary, Celia Sanchez, that "he felt his destiny was to end in a war against the United States." The time may have come. [End]
oErnesto Betancourt represented Fidel Castro in Washington during the insurrection against Fulgencio Batista, was the first director of Radio Marti and is the author of "Revolutionary Strategy: A Handbook for Practitioners."
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