Booker T. Washington High School

Model United Nations Club

Country Briefing: Cuba

 Cuba is one of the largest Caribbean islands with a population of over 11 million people.  Per capita GNP is around $1250, a figure significantly reduced from the Cold War era.  It is the only Communist state left in the Americas, and has long suffered the effects of American economic sanctions.

 History: Cuba had long been settled before Columbus reached the era.  However, the modern state is descended from a Spanish colony founded here as a result of Colombus’ voyages.  Its early economy was founded on sugar plantations and mills worked almost exclusively by slave labor.  In fact, Cuba was one of the last countries to stop importing slaves, in the second half of the nineteenth century.  Its population is a mix of people of Spanish, African and Caribbean ancestry.  Government was by a royal governor or viceroy until the Spanish-American War of 1898, when the US drove out royal forces and imposed a friendly republic.  Various coalitions of landowners, soldiers and urban elites controlled Cuba for several decades, all closely tied to Washington.  By the 1950s, Cuba was a major vacation spot for Americans, and the capital, Havana, had become an exotic playground of casinos and estates.  Trouble brewed in the countryside, and a revolution finally toppled the last dictator, Battista, in 1957-58.  The revolution was led by a young man named Fidel Castro, who soon declared his revolution allied to the Soviet bloc.  The US reacted negatively, sponsoring a counter-revolutionary invasion of Cuban exiles in 1961 (the Bay of Pigs incident).  Castro sought Soviet aid in response, ultimately receiving jets, tanks and

nuclear missiles.  This led to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war.  The missiles were since withdrawn, but the US became an implacable foe of Castro’s Cuba as a result.  For the next 27 years, Cuba developed under Soviet protection, fueled by generous amounts of foreign aid.  Castro built a statist economy – one where most businesses and the farm sector were controlled by the government.  This helped him to promote economic equity and a good social services network, with some of the best standards in literacy and public health in the region. This changed in 1989, when Soviet aid was cut off.  Since then, Castro has pursued a “zero option” of surviving without foreign aid under conditions of US economic pressure.  Under the terms of the Helms-Burton Act, it is illegal for American businesses to trade with Cuba, and extremely difficult to travel between the countries.  Health care and public services have declined as a result, and many question the survival of the Castro regime.  Meanwhile, a powerful Cuban-American community in Miami continues to plot its return to the island.  Some observers give communism in Cuba only a few more years.  Still, Castro is a wily and resilient leader, who has shown resourcefulness under pressure.  He may yet find leeway in the current setting.

 Diplomatic Agenda: Cuba is in a tough position.  The Cubans face the threat of total diplomatic isolation.  If the United States can apply enough pressure, Cuba can be condemned for human rights abuses, lose its remaining trading partners, and be forced into surrender.  Cuba needs to find allies, deflect criticism, and discomfit the United States.  In other words, it needs to be a troublemaker.  It has a few options.  In the realm of security, Cuba has the ability to form a strategic alliance with the Chavez government in Venezuela, up to and including sending troops in to help train the Venezuelan armed forces.  An alliance with Venezuela might help the economy, as Venezuela can supply much-needed oil.  On the human rights front, Cuba is vulnerable to criticism, as it regularly arrests political opponents, censors the press and even executes political prisoners.  But there is an option there: many Cubans desire to emigrate to the United States.  Twice in the last twenty-five years, Cuba has opened its borders to allow refugees to flee.  On both occasions, these refugees stormed US shores, embarrassing Washington and forcing upon them a humanitarian disaster.  Castro could use the “refugee weapon” again.  By law, the US is required to take all Cuban refugees, a policy criticized by other states like Haiti, whose refugees are classified as “economic migrants” and not given special treatment.  This strikes some as a racist policy.  In the environmental front, Cuba is in a position to criticize the US for its polluting economy and its decision not to follow the Kyoto protocols, which call on states to lower their carbon emissions.  Most of all, Cuba can paint itself as the one country in the region not yet under the thumb of the United States.  At every turn, Cuba should be prepared to denounce American imperialism, and encourage others to resist as well.  By the same token, Cuba can also refrain from doing these things – in exchange for US concessions.

Secret agenda: Cuba is increasingly serving as a transshipment point for drug traffickers and for international terror groups operating in the region.  They provide important sources of revenue and allow Cuba to make still more trouble for the United States.  Note that this is not so much secret as it is difficult to prove…