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Opposition Forces

The term “Gusano” (worm) was first applied by Fidel Castro to counter-revolutionaries. This pejorative label was pinned on them after they took part in the abortive counterrevolutionary landing operation on Playa Giron, the Bay of Pigs. A situation of a growing opposition, in which the Cuban people become increasingly willing to demonstrate and demand their rights until the present regime is forced to yield to popular pressure, is a fantasy that exists only in the minds of those living off the island. A rapid, near overnight collapse of the system into total chaos is a more likely scenario.

A consistent problem, and one that is becoming more acute as the eventual end of the Castro brothers' rule comes into sight, is the relationship between the on-island opposition and the exile community. 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 other immigrant groups that have sought the American dream.

Even though much of their resources continues to come from exile groups, opposition members of all stripes complain that the intention of the exiles is to undercut local opposition groups so that they can move into power when the Castros leave. The islanders accuse Miami and Madrid-based exiles of trying to orchestrate their activities from afar, and of misrepresenting their views to policy makers in Washington. Ironically, the "exile community" in many cases includes former dissidents who only just recently were able to get off the island. Their closeness to the remaining dissidents on the island does not appear to keep them in the latter's good graces. Instead, they are almost immediately lumped into the "them" that defines the exile community for the on-island opposition.

The Castro regime’s highly efficient secret services keep close control over public gatherings, are quick to quash any dissent, and closely monitor opposition groups. As a result, the Castro regime remains firmly in power and faces no serious internal threat to its power or stability or any signs of unrest resulting from the transfer of power to Raúl Castro. That could change, however, if Raúl Castro, lacking his brother’s charisma and stature, is unable to govern effectively in a post–Fidel Castro situation and is confronted by a power struggle. Currently, the only internal security threats are posed by street crime, organized crime, and illegal emigration. Although street crime has been rising, the crime rate is still lower than in other Latin American states, and the authorities have been making significant efforts to ensure that incidents do not adversely affect tourism.

As a communist dictatorship, the Castro regime has a long record of disrespect for human rights, such as its draconian crackdown on dissidents in March–April 2003. The harsh prison sentences ranging from six to 28 years that were meted out to 75 human rights activists, independent journalists, and opposition figures set back the regime’s efforts to win international and U.S. support for an end to economic and political sanctions. By the end of 2005, at least 333 Cuban political prisoners and detainees continued to be held in Cuba, according to the U.S. Department of State, but there were no known politically motivated killings or “disappearances.”

The Cuban exile population of South Florida constitutes the main focus of opposition - perhaps, indeed, the only opposition - to the Castro Cuban regime. The only realistic prospect of continuing resistance to that regime comes from South Florida and, more particularly, Dade County. There the highest concentration of the Cuban exile population resides. For all the current, far-flung interests of Cuba, for all the assurance that comes from an uninterrupted twenty years in power, and a changed international scene that inhibits any forceful move to curb the exercise of his power, Castro cannot afford to relax his vigilance on that exile community.

Castro may well feign indifference or even disdain for the gusanos. He may well enjoy the cat and mouse game he is playing with those who, at last, have decided to treat with him rather than continue to try to dislodge him by force. He may even see real advantages in participating in what has come to be known as the Dialogue. But he knows, and must always take into account, that if serious resistance is to be mounted against him from any quarter, it can only realistically come from the Cuban exile community and the bulk of this, a comparatively short distance from his shores, is to be found in South Florida and, principally, in Dade County. The concerns and apprehensions of this population that the watchful eye of Fidel Castro is constantly upon them are not misplaced.

Regardless of their present material position and the inexorable passing of time, those who have been dispossessed of their lands and property will not forgive and forget. Fidel Castro cannot, for a moment, allow himself to assume that they will. Through his agents he must maintain eternal vigilance over a community that constantly renews its hatred against e1 tirano, notwithstanding the passing years and the apparent futility of the struggle.

Several para-military groups continue to operate within the Cuban exile community. These groups conduct sporadic attacks on Cuba, in preparation for a concerted series of attacks that would help overthrow the Castro regime. Alpha-66 was formed after the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. The group claimed to have trained over 27,000 combatants since the early 1960s. Reportedly over 2,500 combatants are organized in units that conduct reconnaissance and infiltration missions into Cuba. In January 1992 Three Alpha-66 combatants were captured attempting to infiltrate Cuba. One was executed while the other two are serving life sentences. Comandos L was formed in 1962, and became much more active in the late 1980s under the leadership of Tony Cuesta. The group has carried out several covert mission in Cuba, which led to the arrest and execution of three of the groups members. Brigade 2506 was founded by veterans of the Bay of Pigs invasion, and continued to train combatants for operations against Cuba. PUND (Partido de Unidad Nacional Democratico) was founded in 1989. It has trained hundreds of combatants in a camp located in the western Everglades. Comandos F4 was formed in May 1994, with the goal of increasing the number of armed infiltrations into Cuba.

As Communism crumbled in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the Castro government, as the only Marxist-Leninist regime in a region of democratically elected governments, increasingly stood out in 1990 as an anachronism. The Castro regime began to crack down on the nascent human rights movement that had flowered since 1989, in defiance of the March 5, 1990, vote by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva calling for continued scrutiny of human rights in Cuba. By April 1990, while communist rule was collapsing in Eastern Europe, the regime had crushed the Cuban human rights movement led by dissident Gustavo Arcos Bergnes, president of the Havana-based Cuban Committee for Human Rights (Comite Cubano Pro Derechos Humanos-CCPDH).

The Cuban opposition in Cuba is small and divided into dozens of tiny groups, often with seemingly similar goals, but unable to coordinate their activities in any significant way. Although several opposition leaders have a great deal of personal courage, they remain largely isolated from the community as a whole. Genuine opposition groups are heavily infiltrated by state security. Several others are state security fronts. Others exist only on paper and their only activities consist of taking photographs of six to ten people in a room holding up CAMBIO [change] stickers and generating membership lists for the purpose of filing refugee cases.

The Government has very effectively used the tactic of short term detentions to prevent any attempts to hold meetings or demonstrations. People are typically detained on the way to an opposition activity and then released some hours later without charges. As a result, the Government has silenced dissenting voices without getting the type of international condemnation that earlier tactics of political trials and lengthy jail sentences of dissidents engendered.

There has been a concerted campaign to provoke discord within the opposition that has had a devastating effect on major dissident organizations. Unity projects have crumbled, accusations are levied back and forth that prominent opposition figures are working for state security, bitter disputes have arisen over tactics, and organizations have split over rival leadership claims.

Many opposition groups are prone to dominance by individuals with strong egos who do not work well together and are therefore easy targets for manipulation by the Cuban security services. Many opposition leaders have been approved for refugee status, and state security is able to dangle the "tarjeta blanca", an essential document for legal departure from the country, in front of many people to pressure them into informing on or sowing dissent among their colleagues within the opposition. Even though opposition members recognize these regime efforts at provocation, they still readily fall into mutual recriminations and bitter personal quarrels.

Much like the regime, the opposition is aging and few younger people are joining its ranks. Many of the leaders of the dissident movement are indeed comparatively old. They have little contact with younger Cubans and, to the extent they have a message that is getting out, it does not appeal to that segment of society. Their very valid focus on the plight of friends and relatives being held as prisoners of conscience, and on the government's failure to uphold basic human rights, does not address the interests of Cubans who are more concerned about having greater opportunities to travel freely and live comfortably.

Even youthful opposition groups that seemed promising have been decimated by emigration and their leaders, now well in their 30's, have not been able to renew their membership base. Many of the prominent figures that are critical of the government, such as the independent bloggers, state that they cannot relate to the traditional opposition. Frequently they see themselves as part of a cultural community that has no relation with the political opposition. When someone does something challenging artistically, the artist receives no support from the political opposition, and therefore feels no inclination to support dissident activities.

Whether or not the opposition organizations have agendas that can be made to appeal to a broad range of interests on the island, they must first begin to achieve some level of unity of purpose as an opposition, or at least stop spending so much energy trying to undercut one another. Despite claims that they represent "thousands of Cubans," there is little evidence of such support. Their greatest effort is directed at obtaining enough resources to keep the principal organizers and their key supporters living from day to day. With seeking resources as a primary concern, the next most important pursuit seems to be to limit or marginalize the activities of erstwhile allies, thus preserving power and access to scarce resources.

While the concept of unifying the opposition under one umbrella organization has a great deal of merit, organizers have not been able to overcome the challenge of keeping several very strong and uncompromising personalities working together. The splits that would be natural among the members of such a group are aggravated by active measures being taken by Cuban state security, which works to coopt certain members and infiltrate the organization with its own agents whose job it is to stoke any discord that exists.

There are no practically autonomous intermediary institutions in Cuban society. In Cuba, there is no Christian Church that can mobilize the masses as was the case in Poland or in the GDR. Despite one of the richest traditions of union activity, an independent labor movement such as Solidarnosc is not in prospect in Cuba. Despite a few well-publicized episodes, Cuban dissidents and intellectuals have been unable to come together into anything comparable to Charter 77, the Petofi Circle or the samizdat movement. Absent institutional sanctuaries and social spaces in which to evolve and camouflage political activity, the atomization that characterizes Stalinist forms of political control has been singularly effective in preventing the development of horizontal solidarities that normally precede the crystallization of organized forms of public protest.

A crack opened in the Cuban system in May 2002, when a petition with 11,000 signatures—part of an unusual dissident initiative known as the Varela Project—was submitted to the National Assembly of Popular Power (hereafter, National Assembly). Started by Oswaldo José Payá Sadinas, now Cuba’s most prominent dissident leader, the Varela Project called for a referendum on basic civil and political liberties and a new electoral law. In the following month, however, the government responded by initiating a drive to mobilize popular support for an amendment to the constitution, subsequently adopted unanimously by the National Assembly, declaring the socialist system to be “untouchable,” permanent, and “irrevocable. at least 41 of the 54 prisoners of conscience arrested in the Black Spring of 2003 were still being held as of 2009.

Younger individuals, including bloggers, musicians, and performing and plastic artists do not belong to identifiable organizations, though they are much better at taking "rebellious" stands with greater popular appeal. However, these individuals are still tightly controlled by the government, avoid the label of "dissident," and do not seem to aspire to any leadership role. The international fame gained by a few, such has blogger Yoanny Sanchez, fuels further jealousy among the traditional dissident organizations and prevents them from working with the incipient networks that the younger generations are beginning to form.

The conventional wisdom in Havana by 2010 was that the Government saw bloggers as its most serious challenge, and one that it has trouble containing in the way that it has dealt with traditional opposition groups. The "old guard" dissidents mostly have been isolated from the rest of the island. The Government doesn't pay much attention to their articles or manifestos because they have no island-wide resonance and limited international heft. For a while, ignoring the bloggers too seemed to work. But the bloggers' mushrooming international popularity and their ability to stay one tech-step ahead of the authorities are causing serious headaches in the regime.

In addition to the bloggers, others such as artists, musicians, journalists and academics have also begun to speak more openly about their frustrations with the current status quo. Some of Cuba's most famous actors and performers have come out openly with criticism against government restrictions, particularly on access to information. Even official newspapers have started allowing more pointed criticism of the government. The Catholic Church too gets away with not-too-subtle criticism in homilies and publications.

Civil society leaders in Cuba are nearly unanimous in their positive appraisals of efforts by Washington to improve relations with the GOC through direct talks on issues of mutual concern and the easing of restrictions on travel, remittances, and trade. Leaders hope that this process will continue and broaden, and that it might lead to greater government-to-government engagement on other issues. Opposition leaders believe that closer government-to-government relations will shore up reformers in the Government, currently stymied by the top-heavy leadership.

Many civil society leaders also urge a faster and broader approach to increasing links between the two countries. The bulk of civil society leaders support allowing unfettered travel to and from the United States and the majority supports unilaterally lifting the US embargo. Cuba's notoriously fractured civil society is united in support of better U.S.-Cuba relations, and cautiously optimistic about the future.

In fairness to the dissidents, being an anti-government activist in Cuba is enormously difficult, and any effort to move beyond small meetings in private homes would almost certainly be quickly and firmly repressed by the security services. That said, there is very little evidence that the mainline dissident organizations have much resonance among ordinary Cubans. There are few if any dissidents who have a political vision that could be applied to future governance. Unless the government relaxes its suppression of opposition organizations, and the dissidents themselves become more capable of cooperative behavior, it is unlikely that they will play any significant role in whatever government succeeds the Castro brothers.