Our Man in Havana? Will John Paul II Help Liberate Another Communist Country or Secure Life Support for Castro's Regime?

(Washington, D.C.): Conventional wisdom has it that in the course of Pope John
Paul II’s five-day visit to Cuba, the Pontiff will attempt to buy lasting improvements in religious
freedom for the Cuban people from Fidel Castro. The price he is expected to pay for what — if
history is any guide — will likely be, at best, ephemeral changes in the Communist regime’s
repression of the Catholic Church is the weight of his moral authority to the newly resurgent
effort to end the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba.

This scenario almost certainly underestimates the Holy Father, the antipathy he feels for
communism and his appreciation that religious freedom is inextricably linked to a people’s ability
to exercise other liberties. If so, the Papal visit to Cuba may be the beginning of the end of that
nation’s decades long nightmare — not because the American embargo will be lifted anytime soon
but because the Pope will sow the seeds of liberation on that long-suffering island.

John Paul, Anti-Communist

In their 1996 book, His Holiness: John Paul II and the History of Our Time, Carl
Bernstein and
Marco Politi describe the pivotal role Pope John Paul II played in effecting the liberation of his
native Poland and all of Central and Eastern Europe from Soviet hegemony. Working closely
with President Ronald Reagan, his National Security Advisor William Clark and his Director of
Central Intelligence, William J. Casey (for whom the Casey Institute is named), the Pontiff helped
inspire and encourage the victims of communist totalitarianism to throw off their shackles.

As Bernstein and Politi observed:

Castro’s Unchanging Agenda: No Relief In Sight

Unfortunately, Castro remains as determined to “neglect and negate” his people’s
“irrepressible
longing for freedom and the truth” and to “exclude [their] transcendent relationship with God” as
were any of his now-deposed comrades and former partners in international communism. In an
illuminating article entitled “The Party Goes On” published in the Winter 1997 edition of “Cuba
Brief,” Prof. Jaime Suchlicki, editor of the Journal of Interamerican Studies and World
Affairs,
describes the Cuban Communists’ Fifth Party Congress held in October 1997:

“Those who expected major changes, or even minor initiatives, were sadly
disappointed….Once more, as he has done for the past four decades, Castro showed that in
Cuba, politics dictates economic decisions…Fearing that any economic opening might
lead
to political change, Castro rejected both. ‘We will do what is necessary,’ he said,
‘without renouncing our principles. We don’t like capitalism and we will not abandon
our Socialist system.‘”

“The final party document and Castro’s long speech to the Congress showed a determination
to stay the course….He showed determination and confidence that, despite the collapse of
communism in Eastern Europe and Cuba’s current difficulties, his hard line would be
vindicated. Immediately following the Party Congress, Castro held a meeting in Havana
of
Communist parties from all over the world to reassert the supremacy of Communist
ideology and to plan for a ‘comeback’ when capitalism fails. ‘Neoliberalism and
globalization create consumer societies like the U.S. throughout the world,’ he emphasized,
‘and this is not a model for anyone.'”

“To reinforce his [ascendant] power, Raul [Castro, Fidel’s younger brother and heir
apparent] promoted an old-guard Communist, Raul Valdes Vivo, as the new party
ideologue in charge of education. Valdes Vivo is a former leader of the old pro-Soviet
Partido Socialista Popular, Cuba’s Communist Party before the Castro revolution, and Raul
Castro’s political ‘godfather.'”

“The Party Congress and Fidel’s statements showed one more time that there are no
indications that Castro truly intends to open up Cuba’s political or economic system. History
reveals examples of strong, even autocratic, political leaders who have softened their positions
and their beliefs with age. Based on his statements and actions, there is no evidence that this is
the case with Castro. On the contrary, as he has aged, Castro has become more
intransigent and difficult. ‘There is an idea that socialism is declining and the time is
right to exact a price from Cuba,’ a defiant Castro said recently. ‘No price will be
exacted here.’” (Emphasis added throughout.)

What the U.S. Has at Stake

As the Center for Security Policy and its Casey Institute have noted repeatedly through the
years,⁽¹⁾ the United States has much riding on the liberation
of Cuba. Not only do the American
people feel a natural and deep-seated solidarity with Cubans yearning for political and religious
freedom and economic opportunity long denied them by Castro’s communist totalitarianism.
They also have a very real stake in suspending two activities pursued by the Castro regime that
are highly inimical to the well-being and security of this Nation.

The first of these involves the construction of two dangerous nuclear power plants at Juragua,
Cuba, some 180 miles upwind from the U.S. mainland.⁽²⁾
Congressional committees, the General
Accounting Office and various media have confirmed defectors’ reports that these facilities are
fatally — and irretrievably — flawed. Thanks, among other things, to serious defects in their
design, materials and construction, the Juragua reactors are assessed to be virtually certain to
experience catastrophic failures if allowed to come on-line.

According to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
depending
upon the time of year such a Chernobyl-like disaster occurred, hazardous levels of radiation could
be wafted up the Eastern Seaboard of the United States as far as Washington, D.C. or across the
southeastern part of the U.S., possibly extending as far west as Texas within four days of an
accident. With cavalier disregard for the dangers involved — to both the Cuban and American
peoples — the Castro regime and its Russian partners have recently reaffirmed their determination
to complete these facilities.

Secondly, Fidel’s regime is facilitating the wholesale invasion of Americans’ privacy and the
collection of sensitive military, diplomatic and economic data through vast electronic and signals
intelligence complexes operated by his own security services and by the Russians. These
complexes near Lourdes, Cuba have recently received an upgrade estimated to have cost some
$85 million — perhaps reflecting the increased importance the Kremlin has attached to their
collection activities following significant declines in Soviet-era space-based intelligence
capabilities.⁽³⁾

Thanks to these facilities, every long-distance U.S. phone call, fax or e-mail made east of the
Mississippi can be intercepted by the Russians and/or Cubans and exploited at will for
commercial, strategic or other advantage. (A similar facility based in Vietnam gives the Russians
comparable coverage for the western part of the United States.) They also present the Cuban
regime and its friends in the Kremlin with potent instruments for waging information warfare
against the United States.

Taken together with other, less visible threats posed by Castro’s regime (e.g., its continuing
commitment to subversion of democracy in the Western hemisphere through support for
communist and other terrorist cells in Latin America and its pursuit of chemical and biological
weapons of mass destruction), the Juragua reactors and Lourdes intelligence complexes represent
a real and growing danger to vital U.S. interests.

The Bottom Line

For these reasons, the United States must continue to pursue policies designed to
terminate
Castro’s communist tyranny as soon as possible — not simply seek to “moderate” it. If the U.S.
embargo has, regrettably, not proven decisive in accomplishing that task before now, it is clear
that lifting the embargo at this point will only serve to perpetuate the regime by providing it the
life support it desperately needs. Castro clearly intends to follow the model of his allies in
Vietnam⁽⁴⁾ and China — exploiting whatever Western
investment and other resources his
government can secure without ceding control over either the economy or political power.

Consequently, the Pope must use his mission to Cuba for the purpose of bringing about the
only
hope for real religious freedom on that island: an end to the Castro regime, once and for all. The
U.S. government should once again be working with the Pontiff to bring down this communist
dictatorship and neither should pursue policies — however well intentioned — that would give it
further breathing space and renewed opportunities to deny “man’s irrepressible longing for
freedom and the truth” and his “transcendent relationship with God.”

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1. See, for example: Clinton Legacy Watch # 12: Will
Jorge Mas Canosa’s Memory Be
Defiled By A New Push For Normalization With Cuba? ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-D_179″>No. 97-D 179, 25 November 1997);
Castro’s ‘Hail Mary’ Pass: Without Life-Support — Debt Relief And Help On
Reactors — The
End Is At Hand (No. 95-D 83, 27 October
1995); and Will Clinton’s Cuba Initiative Amount
To One Step Back, Two Forward For Castro? ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=94-D_85″>No. 94-D 85, 22 August 1994).

2. For more on this subject, see ‘Show Me’: The Allies
Must Demonstrate Their Commitment
to Changing Cuba By Halting the Cuban ‘Chernobyl-In-The-Making’ ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-C_03″>No. 97-C 03, 6 January
1997); ‘Happy’ Anniversary: Is There Another Chernobyl In Our Future — And Our
Back
Yard? (No. 96-D 40, 25 April 1996);
Cuban Chernobyl: Congress Must Send A Message to
Moscow, Allies — Not In Our Back Yard! (No.
95-D 40, 26 June 1995); and A ‘Ticking’
Anniversary Present: Will Russia Give Us A Chernobyl Ninety Miles Off the U.S.
Shore? (No.
92-D 41, 23 April 1992).

3. For more on this subject, see Guess Who Else Was
Listening To Newt Gingrich’s Phone
Call — And To Those Of Millions Of Other Americans Every Day? ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-C_09″>No. 97-C 9, 16 January
1997).

4. In this connection, see Rep. Chris Smith’s excellent op.ed. article
entitled “No Progress, No
Reward for Vietnam” which appeared in yesterday’s Asian Wall Street Journal.