First, for the Cuba-watchers in Miami and Washington: no, this was not a European Union conference. It was organized by the Maison America-Latina, an educational center for Latin American students in Europe that also offers Spanish and Portuguese classes, films from the Hispanic world, and other cultural events. Entitled "Cuba at the Crossroads: After Fidel, What Transition?" the day-long conference brought together an interesting mix of academics and activists, and featured the Cuban Ambassador to Belgium and the European Union.
Due to apparent ill health, former CIA agent and current Havana resident Philip Agee, author of the 1975 expose "Inside the Company: CIA Diary," was a no show. But the sponsor's staff and guest speakers - including Jean-Jacques Kourliandsky of the Paris-based Institut des Relations Internationales et Strategiques (IRIS) - covered a good bit of ground relevant to the conference's title question.
Cuban Ambassador Elio Rodriguez took issue with the notion of "transition," and answered the question "After Fidel, What Transition?" with a simple - official - word: "none." For the Cuban Ambassador, reducing the future of a country of 11 million people to the longevity of Fidel Castro is simplistic. Obviously, none of the other speakers had a crystal ball answer, but all pointed to the preponderant role of the United States in whatever transpires in the immediate post-Castro era.
In a presentation entitled "The Bush Plan," the audience was first given a historical sketch of the long - and often sad - story of US-Cuban relations, starting with a great 1809 quote from Thomas Jefferson: "Cuba... would allow US domination of the Gulf of Mexico," nicely prefiguring the 1898 Platt Amendment and establishment of the US base in Guantanamo, and at least four military interventions in the first half of the 20th century (that is, before Castro's revolution). We all know about the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. But how many Americans are aware of the "Bin Laden of the Western Hemisphere" (the aging anti-Castrite, Luis Posada Carriles, wanted in Cuba and Venezuela for the 1976 bombing of an airliner off Barbados, killing 73 people), at large in the US? The centerpiece of the Bush Administration's Cuba "transition" plans, the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, with its home in the State Department, was given a boost by President Bush on October 24, 2007 when he announced the launch of a Freedom Fund for Cuba. "Succession," in these quarters, is a no-no; "transition" translates into regime change.
Ambassador Rodriguez preferred to concentrate on Cuba's efforts to normalize relations with the EU. Though a member of the ACP (Africa-Caribbean-Pacific) process, Cuba has still not succeeded in obtaining a bilateral treaty with the EU, and is the only Latin American country to lack one. Individual EU states, especially Spain, maintain trade ties (and are a major source of tourists), and 35% of Cuba's trade is with Europe. Cuba remains frustrated that European concerns over democracy and human rights keep sanctions in place. Rodriguez pointed to the irony of human rights paragons China, Vietnam, and the Gulf States - all of which enjoy healthy relations with Europe.
Kourliandsky sees some hope for progress toward normalization of relations between Cuba and the US, especially should a Democrat enter the Oval Office in 2009. Democratic support in the Hispanic community is from the majority Mexican-American community, and even in the Republican Miami Cuban community, Bush Administration restrictions on family visitation and remittances have angered Cuban Americans. In the US business community, lobbyists see Kennedy-era sanctions as increasingly anachronistic. Kourliandsky and Rodriguez both underlined the irony of the US trade in pharmaceuticals and wheat, where the US, despite sanctions, has a leading place in the Cuban market - on a strictly cash basis. A nice return on investment for campaign contributions - agribusiness and big pharma figure prominently in the Bush contributor hall of fame.
So maybe that's the transition plan: just as the US was not terribly bothered to see Mao's Communism evolve into the current "capicomm" China, maybe Cuban generals - already in charge of the island's booming tourist industry - can "evolve" to an accommodation with capital from the North. The main danger is to avoid the admonition of Jeb Bush: "After its success in Iraq, Washington should finish with the regime of Castro.''