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Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba   -Report Home Page
Released by the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs
May 6, 2004

Introduction

"The transition to freedom will present many challenges to the Cuban people and to America, and we will be prepared. America is not alone in calling for freedom inside of Cuba. Countries around the globe and the United Nations Human Rights Commission increasingly recognize the oppressive nature of the Castro regime, and have denounced its recent crackdowns. We will continue to build a strong international coalition to advance the cause of freedom inside of Cuba."

President George W. Bush
October 10, 2003

For more than four decades, Fidel Castro’s destructive policies at home and abroad have caused great hardship for the Cuban people. He has systematically undermined the democratic principles and fierce national pride of Cuba, destroyed its economy, subverted his neighbors, and launched bloody military expeditions around the world.

Under Castro, Cuba’s economic and social prospects remain bleak. Following the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of massive subsidies, the Cuban economy contracted by nearly 40 percent, compared to its level in 1989, and it has not recuperated all of that loss. Absent fundamental reforms, there is little prospect of rebuilding the country’s capital base.

The diversion of scarce resources to sustain the regime’s control has had a dramatic impact on the Cuban people’s welfare. Health and nutrition have deteriorated significantly. Chronically low levels of investment have produced a severe housing shortage and a serious deterioration of Cuba’s infrastructure. Ever increasing numbers of Cubans are involved in the black market and other illicit activities to survive in a dysfunctional economy.

Cubans continue to be denied fundamental freedoms. They cannot form independent, alternative political parties outside of the communist party, elect representatives of their own choosing, form free associations, or freely express themselves. They are denied recourse to an independent judiciary that could protect their rights. Absolute political control remains the paramount objective of the regime.

Cuba, tragically, remains the outcast in the Western Hemisphere’s democratic community of nations. Yet it has been the historical role of the United States to support the Cuban people’s aspirations to hasten the day when they can restore their country to a respected, peaceful, and constructive role in the international community.

Chapter 1 of this report thus identifies additional means by which the United States can help the Cuban people bring about an end to the Castro dictatorship, taking into account the various methods the regime has instituted in recent years to sustain itself in power. The strategy is multi-dimensional: adopting measures to empower Cuban civil society; breaking the regime’s information blockade of the Cuban people; reducing financial flows to the regime; undermining the regime’s “succession strategy” (i.e., from Fidel to Raul Castro) by increasing pressures on the ruling elite and its principal instruments of coercion/control; aggressively increasing public diplomacy efforts abroad to counter Cuban propaganda; and encouraging multilateral efforts to challenge the Cuban regime.

There is no way to predict exactly what form a transition in Cuba will take, but what is certain is that soon the Cuban people will be freed from Fidel Castro’s repressive rule. Clearly, the agents of change are the Cuban people, who are struggling to define Cuba’s future. Based on the experience of recent history, one can predict that when given the opportunity, the Cuban people will choose democracy and a market-based economy.

What follows in Chapters 2 through 6 is a survey of the areas in which the U.S. Government can assist a free Cuba in all facets of its reconstruction and renewal. This document proposes a wide range of actions that the U.S. Government might propose to a Cuban transition government. They are not intended to be a prescription for Cuba’s future.

The Cuban people will determine the transition and their specific assistance needs. It is likely that a Cuban government embarked upon a democratic transition will have aspirations and needs similar to those of other transition countries from former communist rule. As such, a free Cuba can be expected to seek assistance:

• To meet critical humanitarian and other important needs early in the transition essential to relieving social hardship and initiating the reactivation of the economy;

Cuba has the human and natural resources to become a free and prosperous nation. When it undertakes a transition to democracy, Cubans from all walks of life, from San Antonio to Maisi, can count on the United States and the international community to help them forge a peaceful future, free from repression and economic misery. Cuba will then take its rightful place in the democratic community of nations, befitting its long history of struggle for freedom.