By JAMES BRUNO
In the hit 1992 movie A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson’s
fictional Colonel Jessup famously declares: “I eat breakfast 300 yards
from 4,000 Cubans who are trained to kill me.” The Cuban officers I met
never gave me that impression. As the State Department’s former
representative to negotiations with Cuba’s military, I can tell you that
our discussions were typically convivial and constructive. And today,
President Barack Obama’s initiative to normalize relations with Havana
has presented the United States with a truly mind-boggling prospect: Our
most reliable partner on that long-isolated island is probably going to
be the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias, Cuba’s military establishment.
And soon they’re going to be making a lot of money.
The
Communist Party of Cuba may constitute the country’s political
leadership, but it is seen increasingly as an anachronism by the
population, and after Fidel Castro, 88, and Raúl Castro, 83, pass from
the scene, the party may too. Cuba’s legislature, the National Assembly
of People’s Power, is a rubber stamp appendage of the party and likewise
held in low popular esteem. Civilian agencies have proven inept and
sclerotic in managing government programs. The powerful Ministry of
Interior is widely feared as the blunt instrument of oppression, but it
too is likely to be swept aside eventually by the tide of change. And
more than a half-century of authoritarian single-party rule has stunted
civil society and held the Catholic Church in check.
This leaves the FAR. Under Raúl Castro’s leadership from 1959
until he succeeded brother Fidel as president in 2006, the now
60,000-strong military has been widely considered to be Cuba’s best
managed and stablest official entity. Furthermore, it has never been
called upon to fire on or suppress Cuban citizens, even during the
so-called Maleconazo protests in 1994, and most observers believe the
FAR would refuse any orders to do so.
For years our discussions
with the FAR have focused on cooperating on practical matters: avoiding
tensions along Guantánamo Naval Base’s 17-mile perimeter, collaborating
on firefighting and working out arrangements for the return of Cuban
citizens who were picked up at sea while trying to escape their country.
In contrast with our stiff exchanges with the North Koreans at
Panmunjom, these monthly encounters tend to be productive, constructive
and amiable.
Now they could be historic. And for the FAR,
profitable. Indeed, Americans flocking to Cuba in years ahead will
likely be shoring up the Cuban military’s bottom line. Today, senior FAR
officers are in charge of sugar production, tourism, import-export,
information technology and communications, civil aviation and cigar
production. It is estimated that at least 60 percent of Cuba’s economy and 40 percent of foreign exchange revenues are in the hands of the military and that 20 percent
of workers are employed by the FAR’s holding company, GAESA. Tourists
sipping a mojito at Varadero beach, flying by commuter to lush resorts
in the Cuban keys, visiting historic attractions, enjoying the cuisine
at a five-star hotel or lighting up a Cohiba after one of those meals
are unconsciously contributing to the coffers of the Fuerzas Armadas
Revolucionarias and the communist government to the tune of several
billion dollars a year. Some of this hard-currency infusion has fed
corruption within the FAR. Nonetheless, when the U.S. embargo is
eventually lifted, American companies interested in investing in Cuba
will need to partner with enterprises under the control of the Cuban
military. It follows, therefore, that the U.S. government will need to
broadly engage with the FAR on economic and trade as well as political
and military matters. Former CIA Cuba analyst Brian Latell believes the pragmatic-oriented FAR will be easier to deal with than the old-guard civilian leaders.
The FAR is the most demographically representative Cuban institution
as well, traditionally a vehicle for rural poor and black young men and
women to advance themselves. During my time on “the Line,” the
Afro-Cuban colonel commanding the Border Defense Brigade (the spearhead
of Col. Jessup’s perceived nemesis) was one such soldier. Though
difficult to gauge, the FAR appear generally to be held in respect by
Cubans. No other institution will be able to force through policies that
a unified and disciplined military command will not support. The Cuban
military therefore is the 800-pound gorilla in Havana, an institution
Washington will need to work with well past the Castro era. “The
generals will either dominate a praetorian successor regime after Fidel
Castro dies or is incapacitated, or, like the militaries in the former
communist countries of Eastern Europe, be the willing accomplices in the
demise of Marxism,” according to Latell.
Cuba’s falling-out with
Moscow following the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of that
country’s subsidies impelled then-defense minister Raúl Castro to
replace the FAR’s Soviet-style centralized planning and command system
with Western-style management and accounting methods. He sent some of
the FAR’s brightest officers to Europe and Latin America for training in
capitalist business practices, creating a new cadre of “technocrat
soldiers” to manage the FAR’s growing military production enterprises.
After assuming the presidency in 2006, Raúl further expanded the
military’s role in both the political and economic spheres. The Council
of Ministers executive committee is dominated by military men, while
eight of the government’s 27 ministries are led by active duty or
retired FAR officers. Half of the Communist Party’s Politburo comprises
individuals with military background.
The end of Soviet subsidies
also led the FAR to expand into non-military-related economic
activities in order to help pay for defense outlays as well as to fund
the civilian side of government. It has focused its efforts on three key
sectors: agriculture, manufacturing and tourism. Many high-ranking
active and retired FAR officers subsequently have turned into
“entrepreneur soldiers,” i.e., olive-drab businessmen in charge of
large, hard-currency-earning industries, all controlled by GAESA, headed
by Raúl’s son-in-law, Luis Alberto Rodríguez, an Army brigadier who
speaks English with an impeccable upper-class British accent.
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