Dr. Javier Corrales, an associate professor
in Political Science at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts,
was interviewed on Wednesday, February 27 by Jorge Traverso,
a journalist with Radio Oriental of Montevideo.
Among the topics discussed were the presidential primary
elections in the United States and the possible repercussions
in the wake of the resignation of Fidel Castro in Cuba.
"This is a very exciting election,
particularly because there are -- from the Democratic Party
-- two options that are in themselves, huge historic changes:
a female candidate and an Afro-descendant candidate,"
observed Dr. Corrales during his radio interview, speaking in Spanish from Washington, DC.
Regarding the possible repercussions that
the new situation in Cuba following the resignation of Fidel
Castro could have on the elections in the United States,
Corrales observed that this topic, as well as US policy
regarding Cuba overall, was in fact raised during the debate
between Clinton and Obama in Texas. “The main problem
for the United States is that there is little incentive
for the US to open up to Cuba. The market in Cuba is very
small and the political risks of intervening are great so
there is a tendency not to make any great policy changes,
because, as I have stated, the risk factor could be very
high and the possible economic return is minimal. Cuba is
a totally impoverished country. Compared to the thousands
of investment opportunities available to US firms throughout
the world, Cuba is not an important country like, for example,
China, nor is it like Vietnam that has a booming economy
that in turn generates pressures from the business sector to open up to those economies. These pressures do exist
with Cuba, but to a much lesser degree and therefore there
are obstacles in the United States regarding any economic
opening to Cuba."
Corrales added that there will not be any
moves towards democracy in Cuba in the near future. “Cuba
has actually fallen backwards, especially after Raúl
Castro named a Council of State made up of “historicos”,
that is, long time party veterans. The vice-presidents he
named have an average age of 70. He has, in fact, replaced
younger people with older ones. Many of these veterans are
hard-liners, they were the die-hards even before the Cuban
Revolution. During the era of Perestroyka when Russia was
opening up, these were the people who most strongly opposed
what Gorbachev was doing. Another thing we are seeing is
the rise of the Cuban military. I would say that this week
Cuba has changed from a two-headed regime in which two brothers
governed, to a kind of semi-military junta, a civilian-military
junta, due to the presence of important generals who have
gained high positions. This, I wish to stress, has not been
seen in Latin America in almost 20 years. We saw something
like it in Haiti in the 1990s, but the emergence of a military-civilian
junta, something that Latin America has struggled against,
is the direction in which Cuba is now heading. And now,
oddly enough, exactly because the average age of the junta
is 70, they are very old, anything that takes place now
is of a provisional nature. Biologically that can’t
go on very long. One would have imagined that if we had
a transition to younger people, we would be saying that
the change we are seeing was for the long term. But in view
of the fact that they are well up in years and who knows
what the state of their health is, uncertainty in Cuba,
at least for the medium term, is going to continue."
AUDIO FILE: COMPLETE INTERVIEW (IN SPANISH)
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