Havana Shakedown

Today the Miami Herald provided the following free advice:
U.S. best served by avoiding confrontation with Castro
OUR OPINION: STEER CLEAR OF CONFRONTATION WITH CUBA

Like a slum lord who doesn't want to openly evict unwanted tenants, Cuba's dictator is turning up the heat on the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. In the last week, the Cuban regime has cut off electricity. It's also restricting water supply. The moves are only the latest in a bizarre harassment campaign escalating for months.

These are troubling signs of how far Fidel Castro will go to counter any source that might infect ordinary Cubans with ideas about human rights, democracy and free thinking. And there's no telling when, if ever, the campaign will stop. The United States needs to steel itself. Castro is spoiling for a confrontation. We shouldn't give it to him or close the Interests Section in Havana.

Tony Soprano has nothing on Fidel Castro. Late last year, a top diplomat in the U.S. Interests Section entered his Havana home to find it covered in excrement. It was payback for allowing Cuban dissidents access to the Internet. Other diplomats have had tires slashed and utilities cut. Czech, Spanish and Polish envoys have been targeted, too. Castro wants only foreign diplomats who protest no human-rights violations and ask ''How high?'' when he says ``Jump.''

Perhaps this explains the contradictory stance of the EU Council yesterday. While EU foreign ministers deplored increases in political prisoners and repression in Cuba, they refused to reinstate sanctions that had been lifted last year. Had sanctions been renewed, EU diplomats could have faced a new round of nasty harassment in Havana.

The U.S. Interests Section, meanwhile, has fired up generators and its desalinization plant. It's also working around other imposed difficulties to get gas and diesel fuel. The processing of the 20,000 annual immigrant visas for Cubans has not been affected, so far. Those visas and support for dissidents provide Cubans a lifeline of hope that the U.S. government should sustain.

It would make no sense for Castro to close the U.S. Interests Section and disrupt those visas, a key escape valve for dissidents and disaffected Cubans. But rationality has never been this dictator's strong suit. His sole aim is to stay in power by acting like a thug, and he has no intention of changing his style.

If anything, Castro is emboldened by the support of protégés Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales. Like China's Mao Zedong and the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin, Castro may be growing more paranoid and harsher as he ages. None of this bodes well for the United States or Cuba's people.

Source: Miami Herald