Alejandro de la Fuente, Director of the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, brings us up to date on the situation in Cuba, looking at human rights, the economy and the staggering flow of Cubans from the island.
June Carolyn Erlick:
Welcome to Faculty Voices. Alejandro de la Fuente, our guest today, is Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. He's also the director of the Afro Latino American Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. Welcome, Alejandro.
Alejandro de la Fuente:
Thank you, June. It's good to be with you.
June Carolyn Erlick:
Today, we're going to be talking about a subject we've talked about before, which is Cuba. But a lot has happened since the last time we talked. First of all, I'd like to ask you about the recent Summit of the Americas. Cuba's been known for a long time for disparaging international organizations such as the OAS, and yet it seemed extremely interested in attending Summit of the Americas, but was not invited by the US president Joe Biden. Why the insistence on going to the summit? What difference do you think the support of other countries for Cuba made?
Alejandro de la Fuente:
It's a good question. I think on the one hand, Cuba would have been interested and is interested in trying to have a conversation with the current administration of President Biden that would somehow lead to a process of what they would define as normalization. That would basically go back to the moment of the Obama administration, to go back to that moment of opening and hope that of course got foreclosed with the election of Donald Trump but that, in fact, was not used by Cuban authorities because the tragedy of this is that once the Obama administration created opportunities to move forward on a number of fronts in the bilateral agenda, Cuban authorities got cold feet. They got really concerned that they were not going to be able to maintain control of the process. They tried to slow down the process as much as possible. The Cuban foreign affairs minister characterized Obama's visit to Cuba as an attack on Cuba. But they eventually realized that they had missed that opportunity.
Alejandro de la Fuente:
Four years or five years later, I think they have a clearer sense that they actually need desperately to have a different working arrangement with the United States that will make it easier for Americans to travel to the island, that will make it easier for Americans to spend money in the island, to perhaps invest in the island, to go back to the moment that Obama had created. When they realized that this was not likely to happen, that they were not going to be invited, although the administration had not quite said this officially, okay? There was some ambivalence around this until the very last minute. They then proactively took a stance. President said that he would not attend anyways, that he was not interested, that they would not come. They tried to turn that into a platform to complain against US imperialism and heavy handed tactics in the region.
Alejandro de la Fuente:
Then they tried to mobilize some of their friends in Latin America, like López Obrador or some of the sympathetic governments to try to insert at least some protests at the summit. I'm not sure how productive that was, to be frank. I think it's debatable whether it is productive or not to invite or to isolate a government like the Cuban government at an event like this. I think that's a legitimate point for debate and discussion. I think the administration had very good reasons to do so. I think there were equally good reasons to argue against making the opposite decision, which is that further isolation probably does advance US policy interests.
June Carolyn Erlick:
What would you have done?
Alejandro de la Fuente:
In general, I'm in favor of keeping the channels of communication open. In general, I would prefer engagement rather than isolation. But on the other hand, I do understand the steps that the Cuban government has taken during the last year, particularly on the human rights front and on the front of repression, make it very difficult politically for Biden administration to take additional steps. Again, I would rather see more engagement than isolation. I totally understand why the administration is not inclined to do that, and they also have domestic policy considerations, domestic political considerations as well. In other words, the Cuban government has not made things easier on that front for the Biden administration. If anything, the steps they have taken, especially since July last year, invite further confrontation and polarization.
June Carolyn Erlick:
Could you talk a bit about that situation since July? What's happening with human rights?
Alejandro de la Fuente:
Unfortunately, the spontaneous popular demonstrations that took place last summer in Cuba, which were an invitation to really examine carefully the domestic situation, an invitation that activists, artists, people with very different sets of ideas and agendas had articulated explicitly numerous times to Cuban authorities. That kind of invitation was not heeded by Cuban authorities. They responded with a call to arms. The president, Diaz-Canel, basically said something to the effect that the order of combat has been given. Basically, these people would have to be pushed back into their homes and into their spaces. These demonstrations were met with repression. After that, the state detained a large number of people. We're talking around a thousand people were detained. Many of them have been tried. They've been accused of very serious crimes, even though many of them simply marched on the streets and sometimes chanted slogans against the government. They've been given sentences between 10 and 20 or 25 years, which is absolutely mind boggling. They have managed to contain popular discontent through repression.
Alejandro de la Fuente:
Now repression works. I think people forget how effective repression can be because sending somebody to jail for 20 years basically destroys a life. For what? For chanting slogans, for saying things against the government in the streets? This turn towards open repression has not only made it clear that the calculation is that control is the number one priority. How this looks internationally is disconcerting at best, and that they are willing to pay that price. It is probably not a coincidence that as the Cuban government has turned towards increasingly open repression, it has become also increasingly isolated internationally. It's aligned itself with a group of countries globally that one would not want to be in their company otherwise. Countries like North Korea, Iran, Russia, Venezuela. It's a terrible development because I think there was an opportunity, in fact, to approach this differently and with much more creativity.
June Carolyn Erlick:
Would you say that that new spirit of solidarity, I think Carolina Barrero, a Cuban art historian told the LA times that these demonstrations represented a involvement, not just of elites and artists, but of common folk. Is that dead? Are ordinary people just afraid? What's happening with a level of dissent in civil organization.
Alejandro de la Fuente:
I think the ordinary people, ordinary Cubans got the memo, which is not a particularly subtle one, which is that almost any expression of open dissent will lead to harsh consequences of different kinds. There are people who, for instance, have posted things in their social media and they've lost their jobs. They lose opportunities, which is why in 2022, more Cubans have arrived illegally in the United States than in the Mariel boatlift of 1980. We have had another Mariel this year and this one is over land, mostly through the Mexican border. The island is running away. Cubans are running away. In any way they can, they're leaving, trying to put their lives together somewhere else. The Cuban government made a deal with one of their allies, in this case Nicaragua, allowing Cubans to travel there without a visa. Those getting a ticket from Havana to Managua today is extremely difficult and expensive. Not because anybody wants to go to Managua, but because everybody wants to get into Central America so that they can walk to the United States.
Alejandro de la Fuente:
This has put an enormous pressure and the Cuban government has actually done everything they can to facilitate people leaving. But this is a human tragedy. You ask me about how ordinary Cubans are coping with this. I think many of them, their answer has been trying to get out of the island and trying to simply leave. It's tragic because there was a moment in which it looked like there were other possibilities. There was a small entrepreneurial sector that appeared to be growing without surrendering some of the original dreams of social justice that the civil revolutionary process once embodied 60 or 70 years ago. So ordinary Cubans are coping the best they can. It's very hard. Daily life is very hard. There are shortages of every kind. Blackouts are happening almost on a daily basis. Food is hard to come by. Cuban strived in July last year to voice their discontent about this, and they were met with state repression. So they're leaving. They're leaving in any way they can.
June Carolyn Erlick:
Why are the shortages getting worse?
Alejandro de la Fuente:
It's a combination of things, really. I think on the one hand, the pandemic didn't help. But the government has failed dramatically on the economic front. And there's no other way to say this. Any other government on Earth would have to acknowledge this and would have to pay a political price for this. The sugar harvest of 2022 is at the level of the second half of the 19th century. The last time Cuba produced so little sugar was in the 1870s. 1870s. You heard that right. This is not due to the American embargo. This is not due to the pandemic. This is due to the fact that there is very little incentive to work, that state enterprises are massively, massively inefficient and that Cuba is not even able these days to produce sugar, which used to be something that the island was a world leader of sugar production in the past. We're talking less than half a million tons.
Alejandro de la Fuente:
So you have an idea, in the 1980s, Cuba produced about 8 million tons per year. So now he's producing less than half a million tons. The trend has been downward during the last few years in sugar, but production of other items like coffee has also collapsed. This is not due to the pandemic. Now on top of that, and this is related to the pandemic, the recovery of the tourist economy has been very slow, especially compared to other tourist markets in the region like the Dominican Republic, in part, because Cuba has been in the news in rather negative ways for the last year. I think that's probably having some impact. Cuba also lost the Russian market, which was an important market with this crazy war, this crazy invasion of Ukraine. So that's not helping either. So once you put all these things together, you have a fairly dire economic situation, in fact,.
June Carolyn Erlick:
I understand that there recently have been some US Cuban related rule changes that will allow US citizens to travel on group educational tours and to attend professional meetings and conferences, and that also lift the limits on family remittances and to allow US citizens to send funds to non-family members on the island. Do you think this is going to make any difference at all in the lives of ordinary Cubans?
Alejandro de la Fuente:
Yes, it will. It will make a difference, and it could make a very important difference if Cuban authorities create conditions to make those flows as normal as possible. By that, I mean, the whole question of sending remittances is now hindered by the fact that there are regulations that basically ban some of Cuba's military organizations from controlling and benefiting. There's a need to create alternative mechanisms that will make those flows easier. But I do think that these are steps that can have a favorable impact on the lives of ordinary Cubans.
Alejandro de la Fuente:
Take into account that when American citizens were traveling in larger numbers to Cuba back in 2016 or so, Americans did not go as tourists. Many of them did not stay in the hotels that are controlled by military corporations in the island. They stayed in people's homes, Airbnb model. So their money was going actually in many cases to ordinary Cubans, and they were living in neighborhoods. They were not going to these tourist enclaves like Veradero, to which very few Cubans go. So they were not only injecting money into the pockets of ordinary Cuban, but they were living in the areas where ordinary Cubans live. They were in the same neighborhoods, in the houses, talking to people, supporting their businesses, their various initiatives, ventures. They had an impact. They had quite an impact on the lives of ordinary Cubans in many different ways.
Alejandro de la Fuente:
That was actually a fairly good model because it was something that was much more democratic. Those funds were reaching out to larger numbers of ordinary Cubans than the typical model of the state-related corporation that controls the hotels and the tourist packages. So this was American tourists who were not technically tourists, and because they were not technically tourists, they were actually kind of entering Cuba life in a different way and having quite an impact.
June Carolyn Erlick:
So do you think these new regulations in a short run can help the Cuban economy?
Alejandro de la Fuente:
Yes. I think they will help the Cuban economy, but I don't think they can save the Cuban economy. I think they can contribute. They can help. They won't hurt. But the Cuban economy needs serious structural transformations. This is something that Cuba-based economists have been saying for decades, and people who do not listen in the government and also in American academia, which there are many people who are not willing to listen to our Cuba-based colleagues when they don't say what they want to hear. The Cuba-based economies have been calling for these transformations for years, if not decades. They have been trying to convey to the government that these transformations are needed.
June Carolyn Erlick:
What sort of transformations are we talking about? And is it economic resistance or political resistance?
Alejandro de la Fuente:
I think the key word is control. I think the key word is always control. A key economic transformation has been to basically liberalize agricultural production and the distribution of agricultural products, to eliminate the state monopoly that now controls the acquisition and distribution of most agricultural products and that is massively inefficient. Doesn't pay what it should pay, pays late, and then loses some portion of the produce in the distribution chains, which are also very inefficient. Now this is not something out of a CIA playbook. This is something that Cuba-based economists, many of them had positions at the University of Havana's school of economics until all of them were one way or the other expelled from there at various points. Some of them have visited us at Harvard and have worked with us. This is something that they have been demanding for years.
Alejandro de la Fuente:
It hasn't happened probably because government authorities are terrified of losing control, of not having control. If we're going to talk about economic prosperity in Cuba, most reasonable economists would agree on this, these transformations are unavoidable. Therefore, whatever the US does in terms of facilitating this or facilitating that will help, but it's not going to solve the problem. This is a Cuban problem.
June Carolyn Erlick:
Looking back at, again, the Summit of the Americas and the countries such as Mexico, which decided to sympathize with Cuba. In the past, when countries like Mexico have played a key part in being left to sympathizing, but non US players, I'm thinking about the Nicaragua revolution in particular, do you think Mexico or other countries in Latin America, which are now in the leftest realm might play a constructive role in Cuba, both politically and economically?
Alejandro de la Fuente:
I am somewhat skeptical of that. First, because I'm not even sure, June, that labels like left now actually have the sort of descriptive and analytical value that they once had, is Venezuela a leftist government? I will have serious arguments against that. Is the Chilean government a leftist government? I think so. It's an elected government. It's a democratic left. President Boric has voiced sympathy, is one of the voices that was heard about Cuban participation at the summit. At the same time, he acknowledged in unequivocal terms that he could not condone the human rights violations that are happening in Cuba.
Alejandro de la Fuente:
So if we're going to use a term or a label like left to put somebody like Maduro and Boric under the same umbrella, I think we are not doing justice to somebody like Boric. His respect I have, among other things, because he ran his campaign, mobilized the population, put forward an agenda, got the popular support needed, and now will try to do his work.
Alejandro de la Fuente:
So what to do with this administration's so-called left, which are in fact, authoritarian regimes that frequently promote certain forms of state capitalism rather than the old socialist model. It's a different ecology. It's a different landscape. The role that Mexico could play and did play in the 1960s, '70s, in the '80s during the Nicaraguan revolution that you referenced before. I think it's a fairly different situation now. Nicaragua is a great example. Compare Daniel Ortega of 1979 under Daniel Ortega of 2022. You want a greater contrast?
June Carolyn Erlick:
You talked about that you're a collaborationist. Do you have any collaborations on individual bases going forward in Cuba for the next year?
Alejandro de la Fuente:
Oh, yes, of course. Yes. We maintain a fairly active agenda of exchanges and collaboration with numerous Cuban colleagues in a variety of fields. I will continue to promote those exchanges and those collaborations going forward. One thing to understand is that the notion that collaboration with Cuba doesn't mean anymore collaborating with Cuban official institutions, among other things, because Cuban's scholars and knowledge producers are all over the world, literally. In part, because many of them decided to leave at various points to continue their careers. But in part also because many of them lost their jobs at official institutions in Cuba and have been forced to continue their intellectual work elsewhere. But I certainly continue working with Cuba-based scholars, artists, activists. My own take on this is that one has to be respectful of people's various views about these complex questions. I don't believe in any kind of purity test to work with anybody on this thing.
Alejandro de la Fuente:
I do believe, however, in excellence. That is a criterion that we do apply to our exchanges. But we will continue this kind of work. I'm very excited that Tania Bruguera was appointed this year in the theater and dance program as a senior lecturer on performance art. We're going to have next year through the scholars at risk program, a very talented former faculty member at the law school at the University of Havana, Julio Antonio Fernández Estrada, one of the important voices of dissent, of enlightened and academically sound dissent that have come out of Cuba in the last few years. Unfortunately, Fernández Estrada lost his job at the University of Havana, which is a tragedy, but I'm very happy that he's going to be spending the year with us.
June Carolyn Erlick:
Well, I'm glad to hear that there are collaborations going forward. Do you have any things that you would like to comment on before we wrap up?
Alejandro de la Fuente:
As you can surely hear from my answers, I am not very optimistic about this moment. I think that what's been happening within Cuba is fairly tragic, but I do hope that there will be opportunities, that there will be the political will to create the spaces that Cuban civil society is demanding. One thing that I have repeated ad nauseum in the last year is that every civil society organization, every movement, has one central demand. And that central demand is dialogue. Dialogue, not confrontation, not civil war, not invasion. Dialogue. Shouldn't be so hard to promote that dialogue. If there is anything we can do from our space to facilitate and support that, we will do it.
June Carolyn Erlick:
Thank you, Alejandro. You've been listening to Alejandro de la Fuente. He's the Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard university. He's also the director of the Afro Latin American Research Institute at Harvard's Hutchins Center for African and African American research. Thank you, Alejandro.
Alejandro de la Fuente:
Pleasure, June.