From "Our Man In Havana"
The two links below will give you contrasting views of the nature of WikiLeaks. The first sees it upholding a free press and honesty in government, the other, as a tool of corporate elites and intelligence agencies.
While making up my mind I’ve been following some of the leaked cables that relate to Cuba (appearing on the blog, “Along the Malecon,” http://alongthemalecon.blogspot.com/2010/12/us-govt-bets-on-non-traditional.html).
Coming from the US Interests Section (USINT) in Havana, which Washington maintains in place of an embassy, we get an unusually frank appraisal of Cuban dissidents.
In an April 2009 cable Jonathan Farrar, the section’s Chief of Mission (COM) says the future leaders of Cuba aren't likely to come from the country's traditional dissident groups:
“[I]t is the younger generation of ‘non-traditional dissidents,’ such as Yoani Sanchez (her link is below also), that is likely to have a greater long term impact on post-Castro Cuba. However, the most likely immediate successors to the Castro regime will probably come from within the middle ranks of the government itself.” (We’ll look at those “middle ranks” some other time.)
“... [T]here are few if any dissidents who have a political vision that could be applied to future governance. Though the dissidents will not acknowledge it, they are not widely known in Cuba outside the foreign diplomatic and press corps.”
“[I]t is worth asking what the Cuban political opposition is doing and the role it may play in the future. Two recent op-ed pieces in the international press that have infuriated dissident leaders argue that the answers are: not much and none."
"[P]art of the reason for the relative inaction of the opposition is that the GOC (Government of Cuba) is taking active steps to undermine it. 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.”
“Without some true epiphany among the opposition leadership and a lessening in official repression of its activities, the traditional dissident movement is not likely to supplant the Cuban government. The dissidents have, and will continue to perform, a key role in acting as the conscience of Cuba and deserve our support in that role. But we will need to look elsewhere, including within the government itself, to spot the most likely successors to the Castro regime.”
“[W]e see very little evidence that the mainline dissident organizations have much resonance among ordinary Cubans. Informal polls we have carried out among visa and refugee applicants have shown virtually no awareness of dissident personalities or agendas.
“[T]hey 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,’ we see little evidence of such support, at least from the admittedly limited vantage point we have in Havana.
"When we question opposition leaders about their programs, we do not see platforms designed to appeal to a broad cross section of Cuban society. Rather, the greatest effort is directed at obtaining enough resources to keep the principal organizers and their key supporters living from day to day. One political party organization told the COM quite openly and frankly that it needed resources to pay salaries and presented him with a budget in the hope that USINT would be able to cover it. 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.”
“[D]efense of human rights and demands for the release of political prisoners… are laudable goals that must be pressed forward, [but] as noted above, they have little resonance within Cuban society and do not offer a political alternative to the government of Cuba.”
“[W]hen the COM asked representatives of each group to explain how they would appeal to the Cuban public at large if there were open national elections tomorrow, none had a good answer, and it was apparent that they had not given a great deal of thought to that possibility.”
“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.”
“[T]he most likely immediate successors to the Castro regime will probably come from within the middle ranks of the government itself. We do not know yet who might eventually rise to leadership positions in place of the old guard from within the government. The recent purge of younger officials like former Vice President Lage and former Foreign Minister Perez Roque must have given pause to any in that cadre who had considered thinking out loud about the future. Still, we believe we must try to expand our contacts within Cuban society on leadership and democracy initiatives as broadly as possible.”
There was also this gem from 2007, showing just how much USINT’s contacts in the Cuban government know:
“Fidel's mind is now completely gone, and he is never going to be able to get back to work."
http://alongthemalecon.blogspot.com/2010/12/us-govt-bets-on-non-traditional.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/landau12172010.html
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22389
http://desdecuba.com/generationy/