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Viewing cable 07HAVANA617, HOW TO SHATTER A CASTRO-PHILE'S ARGUMENTS

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Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin
07HAVANA617 2007-06-28 08:41 2011-08-24 01:00 UNCLASSIFIED US Interests Section Havana
VZCZCXRO8304
RR RUEHAG RUEHDF RUEHIK RUEHLZ RUEHROV
DE RUEHUB #0617/01 1790841
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 280841Z JUN 07
FM USINT HAVANA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1899
INFO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE
RUEHWH/WESTERN HEMISPHERIC AFFAIRS DIPL POSTS
RUEHROV/AMEMBASSY VATICAN 0118
RUEHSW/AMEMBASSY BERN 0138
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 0141
RUEHUNV/USMISSION UNVIE VIENNA
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK
RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC
RUCOGCA/COMNAVBASE GUANTANAMO BAY CU
RUMIAAA/USCINCSO MIAMI FL
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 HAVANA 000617 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PROP PREL ECON KDEM PHUM CU
SUBJECT: HOW TO SHATTER A CASTRO-PHILE'S ARGUMENTS 
 
HAVANA 00000617  001.3 OF 004 
 
 
1. USINT is pleased to send in this distillation of the best 
of our briefings and responses to questions about Cuba, 
usually from audiences that are opposed to U.S. policy 
towards Cuba.  These include foreign diplomats, U.S. 
university students and professors, U.S. congressmen and 
staff, U.S. journalists, U.S. trade delegations, U.S. 
think-tankers. 
 
Q.  The U.S. embargo (called "blockade" by the GOC and its 
close allies) has not brought down the Castro regime.  Why do 
you persist with this failed policy? 
 
A.  U.S. trade and other sanctions are the least we can do to 
respond, as we must, to a regime that has had a history of 
totalitarian rule, export of violence and subversion, and 
unremitting hostility to the United States.  It is true that 
the Castro regime has withstood the sanctions, but it is also 
true that the USG has been true to its principles by seeking 
to isolate a regime that is so alien to all that American 
democracy stands for.  We stood firm for 45 years until the 
USSR and the Iron Curtain collapsed.  The collapse of 
communist rule in Cuba has taken longer, but is just as 
inevitable. 
 
Q.  Didn't the U.S. Defense Department come out with a report 
saying that Cuba is not a threat to the United States? 
 
A.  Yes, although the report's drafter turned out to be Ana 
Belen Montes, a woman who was convicted for espionage on 
behalf of the Cuban regime.  Although Cuba may not pose a 
conventional military threat to the U.S., it clearly 
demonstrated, with Ana Belen Montes, that it is an 
intelligence threat.  The Cuban regime considers itself an 
enemy of the USG and is an instigator of anti-American 
activities all over the world, especially in Latin America. 
Its functionaries in Venezuela and Bolivia right now are 
helping leaders there assault those countries' democratic 
institutions.  Cuba is on the list of countries that support 
international terrorism; any intelligence it picks up from 
the USA, it can be expected to pass to other rogue states or 
groups that are enemies of the USA. 
 
 
Q.  But aren't we missing out on great trade opportunities? 
 
A.  Cuba is an impoverished Third World country with a GNP in 
the neighborhood of 35 billion dollars.  The Cuban exile 
community in the USA alone, with 15 percent of Cuba's 
population, has a larger GNP.  We can easily handle not 
trading with Castro's Cuba for however much longer it takes 
until it becomes a free society.  In the mean time, our laws 
permit sales of agricultural products to the tune of roughly 
400 million dollars per year. 
 
 
Q.  But won't the Spanish, other Europeans, Canadians and 
Asians have a leg up on us for new investment opportunities? 
 
A.  Investors in Cuba are buying into an apartheid system 
that pays virtual slave wages and provides no internationally 
recognized worker rights.  We are surprised that people who 
protested against apartheid in South Africa or against 
sweatshops in Mexico or Southeast Asia are not up in arms 
over working conditions in Cuba, where wages are 15 dollars a 
month.  Cuban citizens also have no right to stay in the 
hotels that the Europeans and Canadians invest in and 
frequent as tourists.  The question should be:  Why would 
democratic countries in Europe, and Canada, want to do 
business with a brutal totalitarian government like Cuba? 
Finally, when Cuba truly opens up its economy, we are 
confident that American businesses will take full advantage 
of the opportunity to work with enterprising Cubans. 
 
Q.  Isn't the embargo hurting the Cuban people? 
 
A.  The Cuban regime's state-run, inefficient economic system 
is preventing the Cuban people from prospering.  This is a 
deliberate policy, which keeps Cubans so busy scraping by to 
put food on the table that they have no time or energy left 
to protest.  The embargo aims to deny U.S. resources to the 
regime, but does not prevent Cuba from obtaining goods and 
services from other countries. 
 
 
HAVANA 00000617  002.3 OF 004 
 
 
 
Q.  If you end the embargo, won't the Cuban regime no longer 
be able to blame the USG for its problems? 
 
A.  If we ended the embargo, the Cuban regime would continue 
to blame the USG for its problems, either by presenting us a 
bill for cumulative damage to their economy or finding some 
other issue.  For example, they have completely invented a 
controversy involving five of their spies that were arrested 
in the United States and convicted by a U.S. court.  The fact 
that other members of that same spy network confessed and 
plea bargained has had no effect on the Cuban regime's 
propaganda campaign. 
 
Q.  If you relax the embargo's travel restrictions, wouldn't 
an influx of American tourists usher in democratic change? 
 
A.  Two million Canadian and European tourists per year have 
not ushered in democratic change.  They have put roughly two 
billion dollars in the pocket of the regime, helped 
perpetuate an apartheid tourist system, and also, in many 
cases, participated in sex tourism. 
 
Q.  But wasn't Cuba America's brothel and gambling casino 
before Castro replaced Batista in 1959? 
 
A.  There were certainly injustices and political grievances 
surrounding Batista's rule, but not many economic ones.  Cuba 
was, in the 1950s, a very popular destination for U.S. 
tourism and investment in many sectors.  It was one of the 
most prosperous countries in Latin America, in terms of GNP, 
cars and televisions per capita, and also social indicators. 
More Americans were living in or visiting Cuba than 
vice-versa; and immigrants from Italy and Spain were 
sreaming in by the thousands. 
 
Q.  Isn't it true that Castro's Cuba has set an example to 
the world in the areas of health and education? 
 
A.  By repeating this mantra, you are unwittingly duped into 
perpetuating "the big lie."  A lie, if repeated many hundreds 
of times, is still a lie.  The Cuban health system was the 
best in Latin America before Castro took over.  The regime 
invests heavily in the health system but in ways that are 
inefficient:  Cuba has more doctors per capita than Denmark, 
yet hospitals lack bedsheets and simple medications like 
aspirins.  Health care is politicized, forcing thousands of 
doctors overseas on "international missions" while Cubans 
back home are uncared for.  Doctors in Cuba spend half their 
time at political meetings, drawing them away from patient 
care.  Medicine is administered via an apartheid system:  The 
best facilities and doctors are reserved for foreigners, 
tourists and regime nomenklatura; facilities for ordinary 
Cubans are no better than in most other third world 
countries.  Ordinary Cubans, even if they have hard currency, 
are not allowed to buy medications at the best pharmacies, 
which are reserved for foreigners and nomenklatura. 
 
Q.  But what about education?  And that high literacy rate? 
 
A.  Cuba had levels of education and literacy among the top 
tier of Latin American countries in the 1950s.  The Castro 
regime's literacy campaign claimed to have raised the rate, 
but did so with a heavy ideological component.  Cubans are 
largely literate, although younger ones nowadays are 
struggling with basic reading and math skills.  Additionally, 
all through the grade levels they are force-fed propaganda 
and given grades and opportunities in accordance with their 
political loyalties (and their parents' political loyalties). 
 Because the Cuban regime restricts access to free 
information, including the internet, Cubans grow up with 
limited options for reading and use of computers.  They are 
among the most computer illiterate societies in Latin America. 
 
Q.  But back to health care, isn't it true that Cuba has a 
world-class low level of infant mortality? 
 
A.  Not necessarily.  One problem is with statistics.  Even 
UN and other international statistics are provided by the 
Cuban regime, which defines the truth in political terms. 
Additionally, Cuban obstetricians regularly insist on and 
administer abortions for most pregnancies where there is any 
suggestion of health risk for the newborns.  The high rate of 
 
HAVANA 00000617  003.3 OF 004 
 
 
abortions has the effect of skewing the numbers in a way that 
produces better statistics for infant mortality, as well as 
life expectancy. 
 
Q.  Hasn't Fidel Castro had broad popular support among the 
Cuban people? 
 
A.  It is impossible to measure how much support Fidel Castro 
has.  Obviously, he has never measured his popularity by free 
elections.  Public opinion polls are not possible because of 
the climate of fear that pervades Cuba.  Spying and reporting 
on the citizenry is one of the regime's most labor and 
resource-intensive activities, and is backed by brute force. 
Stating one's opposition to Castro's rule is a crime, 
punishable by many years of imprisonment.  Unable to vote at 
the ballot box, Cubans vote with their feet.  Emigration from 
Cuba is massive, and is the desire of most young Cubans. 
Their preferred destination is the USA, but they settle in 
many other countries too, including relatively poor ones in 
Latin America. 
 
Q.  But now that Fidel Castro is incapacitated, shouldn't we 
sit down and talk with Raul Castro?  Isn't he a more 
pragmatic, nicer guy? 
 
A.  Raul Castro has participated in every aspect of the Cuban 
regime's totalitarian rule, including mass murder of Cubans 
and kidnapping of American citizens.  We have many grievances 
to discuss with a Cuban government, but we do not accept that 
passing command from a dictator to his brother represents any 
kind of legitimacy worthy of a change in policy.  Raul Castro 
may be more pragmatic than Fidel Castro; but that's not 
saying much.  Raul Castro himself has stated that he has no 
intention to change the communist nature of the regime.  No, 
what's not needed is a US/Cuba meeting that legitimizes Raul 
Castro, but rather a full consultation between the regime and 
the Cuban people regarding the future of their country. 
 
Q.  But we talk to China, and they are a communist country 
that violates human rights. 
 
A.  The USG does not have a one-size-fits-all foreign policy. 
 Our relationship with China has a much different history and 
its own texture -- including considerable advocacy for human 
rights in China.  Regarding Cuba, no effort to embrace the 
regime, either by ourselves or any other country, has made a 
dent in its totalitarian nature. 
 
 
Q.  Isn't U.S. policy toward Cuba held hostage to right-wing 
exile Cubans in Miami? 
 
A.  That question is insulting to Cuban exiles, who have come 
to America under difficult circumstances and managed to 
succeed, in the aggregate, based on hard work, education, and 
other values that have brought about success to any immigrant 
group that has sought the American dream.  To the extent that 
Cuban Americans have elected leaders with a point of view 
about Cuba, that is the way our democratic system works, for 
Cubans, or for any other immigrant community.  Opinion polls 
show that Cuban exiles have a diversity of viewpoints on Cuba 
and on other political issues; they vote both Republican and 
Democrat.  They know and care more about Cuba than other 
Americans, so it is normal, and desirable, that they have an 
impact on U.S. policy.  In any case, their wish for democracy 
and freedom in Cuba is consistent with U.S. policy worldwide. 
 
Q.  Aren't Cuban dissidents who receive aid from Miami pawns 
of U.S. policy? 
 
A.  The Cuban democratic opposition is a home-grown response 
to lack of freedom on the island and grotesque abuses of 
human rights by the Cuban regime.  There are many components 
to this opposition:  Independent journalists, librarians, and 
teachers; political movements and parties; free labor 
leaders; human rights monitors; and The Ladies in White. 
This latter group is made up of relatives of Cuban political 
prisoners.  The U.S. is proud to provide assistance to these 
people, who in most cases have nowhere else to turn.  Who in 
their right mind would suggest a U.S. policy that turns our 
back on courageous people seeking freedom? 
 
Q.  How can the USG let Posada Carriles walk free?  Isn't 
 
HAVANA 00000617  004.3 OF 004 
 
 
that inconsistent with our counterterrorism policy? 
 
A.  In the recent legal proceedings regarding Luis Posada 
Carriles, the USG was on the side arguing for keeping Posada 
in jail.  A judge ruled differently, and the executive branch 
must abide by that decision.  However, Posada is not now a 
legal US resident and is subject to expulsion.  There are 
active legal cases regarding his connection to violent crimes 
that cannot be commented on because they are active cases. 
As of today, Posada Carriles has been accused of many crimes 
but not convicted of any of them. 
 
2.  We have deliberately made this message unclassified with 
the hope that it is circulated widely and used to rebut Cuban 
propaganda. 
PARMLY