Change will occur in Cuba, but mainly from within -

Guillermo Martinez: Change will occur in Cuba, but mainly from within
Por Guillermo Martinez para El Sentinel Columnist
June 6, 2013

The sequence never changes.

Just as night follows day, in the days following a visit by a Hollywood
or Latin American star to Cuba, stories pop up demanding the United
States lift the embargo on the Caribbean island. They add that Americans
should be allowed to travel to Cuba at will and assert with certainty
that the Cubans who live in the island will benefit from the changes.

There is no room for discussion. This is dogma, much like the one held
by a majority of Cubans who live in exile who demand freedom of
expression, multi-party democratic elections as pre-conditions for
lifting the noose on the regime led by the Castro brothers for 54 years.

The truth is somewhere between these two contrasting points of view.

Those who ask the United States to lift the embargo never say why the
embargo was imposed in the first place. They forget that Cuba in the
early days of the revolution confiscated without pay all private
property, including hundreds of American companies worth billions of
dollars.

One would think it would be appropriate for those who clamor for
eliminating the embargo to ask as vehemently for the Castro brothers to
accept the repayment of the confiscated properties. If not for Cubans,
it should do so at least for Americans.

Travel to and from the island has grown in recent years. Cuban Americans
– for the most part – are allowed to visit the island to see their
relatives. But Cuban-American journalists have been barred from
traveling to the island to judge for themselves if things in Cuba are
really changing.

I was allowed to travel to Cuba twice in August and September 1978, when
the government wanted to release more than 3,600 political prisoners.
Since then I have applied for visas to travel to Cuba as a journalist
countless times. They never said no. But they never replied.

Exiles have mixed feelings on allowing those who arrived in recent years
to go visit their relatives. If I had been allowed to go to Cuba to
visit my ailing grandmother in the 1960s, I would have gone. Celia Cruz,
the famed Cuban singer, was not allowed to visit her dying mother. It is
unclear if she would have gone.

The vast majority of Cuba´s population has never known any other system
but Communism. If one goes to focus groups where one can see what those
who are arriving from Cuba recently believe, one would clearly
understand that those who live in the island today are interested only
in solving their daily problems, not in political dogma.

Our best chance of promoting a change in the island´s government resides
in helping the dissidents. We should help prize-winning blogger Yoani
Sánchez. We should back Berta Soler, the leader of the Ladies in White,
a group who peacefully marches after mass on Sundays asking that the
government free all political prisoners.

Change in Cuba will come from within. Cultural visits from Hollywood
celebrities will not help. They are just for show. Raúl Castro says he
is imposing changes in how the government rules, but these changes are
much too slow and don´t go far enough. He says Cuba must remain a
Socialist nation (like China or Vietnam) and that is not possible.

If the younger Castro really allows private enterprise to grow within
the island, Cuba will become a capitalist nation. It is much too close
to the United States to become a mixed breed. Capitalism, if given a
chance and on a level playing field, will prove its superiority quickly.

That will not happen, however, as the government pressures institutions
like the Catholic Church to be compliant to the regime´s wishes. Father
José Conrado, who many called the people´s priest, was forced into a
semi-sabbatical to write a book. His criticism of the regime was not
acceptable and the church hierarchy meekly submitted and transferred him
away from his parish.

Cuba is changing, but not as quickly as those in and out of the island
desire. Calls for an end to the embargo and free travel for Americans
won´t solve the problem. They would merely strengthen the government´s
hand into crafting a regime where some freedoms are granted and others
punished.

That is not acceptable.

Guillermo I. Martínez on Twitter at @g_martinez123, or email him at
Guimar123@gmail.com

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/fl-gmcol-oped0606-20130606,0,909389.column