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 Editorials | Issues | October 2007 
Plans for Post-Castro Cuba Presented
 Luisa Yanez - McClatchy Newspapers
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 |  | It's yet unclear if the end of Castro will mean the end of the communist dictatorship in Cuba, a la Eastern Europe following the Berlin Wall collapse.
- Jaime Suchlicki |  | |
Miami — In a new Cuba, the Communist Party is banned. The wrongs of Fidel Castro's almost 50-year regime will be set right with Nuremberg-style trials. And as the island's future is carved out, Miami exiles would have a spot at the political table.
Those are among the mandates issued by Unidad Cubana, a group that largely promotes the conservative ideals of South Florida's "historical exile" — the long-time Cubans whose lives were derailed by Castro's rise to power.
"This is a plan for democratic action for our country," popular Radio Mambi host Armando Perez-Roura told hundreds of exiles who packed into Manuel Artime Community Center in the heart of Miami's Little Havana on a recent rainy night.
Dubbed "The Declaration from Miami," the guide for a free Cuba is the first to emerge since an ailing Castro handed power to his brother Raul last year. It cautions that its goal is to prevent "last-minute" mistakes when — not if — Cuba's government collapses.
First and foremost, the declaration denounces any idea that a monarchy-like succession from Fidel to Raul would be tolerated by exiles as a green light to negotiate with Raul's government. "That will not be allowed," Perez-Roura said.
Raul Castro said recently he was willing to meet with Cubans who have left the island — a strategy the Cuban government has employed before, courting liberals and some moderates open to dialogue with Havana.
The declaration's other proposed legal and constitutional reforms include:
• That Cuba's democratic 1940 Constitution, considered the island's most ambitious, be re-adopted.
• That all political prisoners be immediately released.
• That no Cubans on the island be removed from their current homes — a position that addresses Castro's claims that returning exiles would want to reclaim their property by force.
• The formation of tribunals to bring to justice military commanders, interior ministry officers and others responsible for the "Cuban national tragedy."
• Establishment of an electoral process for municipal, provincial and national elections leading up to a presidential election.
• Rebirth of political parties that favor a multiparty democratic system.
• Ban of the Communist Party.
Some Cuba watchers say those steps echo a United States plan for when Castro dies, but it's anyone's guess if such a plan would work in Cuba.
Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami, said Unidad Cubana's suggestions might be premature.
It's yet unclear if the end of Castro will mean the end of the communist dictatorship in Cuba, a la Eastern Europe following the Berlin Wall collapse, he said.
"There are several models Cuba may follow," Suchlicki said. "If Cuba is like a typical Eastern European country, it calls for a total collapse of the ruling party in place. But if the Cuba model is more like Vietnam or China, where the end of communism will be gradual, then that may take some time."
Suchlicki said Castro already has passed power to his brother and the Cuban military is firmly in place. That's more akin to the transition model from father to son in communist North Korea, he said.
Closing the door to the Communist Party doesn't always work, he said.
"Some Eastern European countries banned the Communist Party, but ... (the party) just reinvents itself as some other type of social democrats."
Other exiles praised Unidad Cubana's mandate, as they prepare their own position papers.
Huber Matos, once a guerrilla leader for Castro who was later jailed by Castro's government for 20 years, said the decade-old umbrella group Accord for Democracy has also recently been meeting with leaders from Hungary and Poland. The group is trying to anticipate what may be next for the island. They have incorporated their findings into their long-standing "plan for a new Cuba" paper, he said.
Matos, head of Cuba Independent and Democratic, said the umbrella group is working closely with organized dissidents inside the island and military officials.
"Those two groups will be the key to bringing about real change in Cuba," Matos said. "They know that Marxism and Lenism have failed and that Cuba is a disaster and something needs to be done." |
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