Cuba

on the World Today

I DID it with captains and lieutenants,” said General Fulgencio Batista, describing how he recently made himself dictator of Cuba in seventy-seven minutes. He was wrong. No doubt junior military officers proved helpful, but the success of his power grab was really due to the unpopularity of the Prio government and Batista’s willingness to strip his countrymen of their constitutional rights and civil liberties.

Most North Americans who visit Cuba are tourists who spend a few days in Havana. Although the tourist bureaus and Habaneras are convinced of the contrary, Havana is not Cuba. There are five other provinces on this tropical island, easily reached by planes, trains, cars, and buses, and well worth a visit. Habaneras refer to them rather patronizingly as the Interior, and never go there themselves, although they think nothing of a little junket to New York, Baris, or Hollywood.

The Interior, however, is the heart and wealth of Cuba. In rich red soil — so fertile that fence posts burst into pink blossoms — grow millions of acres of pale-green sugar cane, darker green tobacco, spiky sisal, coffee, pineapples, bananas, and other tropical fruits, many of them exported to markets in our country. Tiny, thatch-roofed bohios hung with scarlet bougainvillaea or pots of purple orchids dot the broad meadows, and magnificent royal palms rise to enormous heights, paralleling the tall chimneys of the big sugar mills. Here life is regulated by the crops. The people are easygoing, hospitable, independent, and intensely patriotic.

When word of Batista’s coup d’état reached the towns and cities of the Interior, the people were outraged. In Matanzas, whose deep harbor often shelters our biggest flattops during naval maneuvers. as well as in the seaport of Santiago, military garrisons declared themselves loyal to constitutional government and stood ready to fight for it.

In the fruit and cattle center of CamagUey, famous for its pirate history and busy intercontinental airport, citizens sprang into action against the modern piracy of Batista. Led by the chief of police, they ransacked his political headquarters, destroying pamphlets and photographs showing him as a candidate for the office of Bresident. Later the chief of police resigned from his position rather than serve under the man who had tricked the people into believing he would accept the results of free elections, only to snatch the power and make himself dictator and chief of state.

Far from supporting the boy from Bancs, soldiers and civilians all over the Oriente sent word to Bresident Brio that they, their arms, and their mountains were at his disposal if he would come and lead the fight against Batista.

Good timing

General Batista timed his revolution very neatly. Excusing himself from a political meeting in Matanzas just after midnight on March 10, he drove back to Havana (sixty miles) and used the predawn quiet to advance quickly toward his goal. By the time tourists had returned to their hotels after watching the gay promenade of com parsa dancers, and Habaneras were abandoning the sidewalk cafes to continue ardent discussions of politics as they strolled homeward, the Republic of Cuba was no more.

From Army headquarters at Camp Columbia (delivered into his hands by cooperative junior officers, while their superiors remained loyal to the constitution) the General broadcast that he was now chief of state and that constitutional guarantees would be abolished for forty-five days. Simultaneously he took over all communications and command of the Army, Navy, and Air Corps, and withheld the news of what was happening from Cubans as well as from the outside world “to avoid alarm.”

This well-executed attack must have been planned long in advance. Although Batista was a member of the Cuban Senate, elected in absentia while he was living across the Gulf of Mexico in Daytona Beach, he never attended a session. Granted a praetorian guard of twelve soldiers by Bresident Brio (Batista, lives in constant fear of being shot by the avengers of Cubans killed during his former dictatorship) he returned to Cuba and retired to “Kuquine,” his fortresslike farm near Havana, rarely leaving it except to visit friends in near-by Camp Columbia.

It is possible that Batista was sincere when he announced his candidacy for President in the June elections, although it may have been a ruse to cover his real designs. Running against him were Carlos Hevia (backed by President Prio, who under Cuban law could not succeed himself) and Roberto Agra monte, leader of the Orthodox or People’s Party. Soon it was being rumored among the domino players and coffee drinkers of the sidewalk cafés that both these candidates were rolling up more voting strength than Batista.

The chance of being defeated in a free election was bound to be distasteful to a man who had been both dictator and president of his country. Batista’s avowed reasons for turning Cuba into a police state, where Congress was not allowed to convene and meetings of more than four people were proscribed, sounded suspiciously like the double talk of an impatient politician. He claimed that he feared Cuba was “heading toward a savage dictatorship” and that President Prio was planning a “phony revolution” to keep himself in power. By taking the dictatorial short cut to power himself, however, the General ensured his return to the presidency.

The President locked out

Just why President Prio showed so little lighting spirit is not clear. Well aware that his own regime was becoming more unpopular (daily accusations of graft and political banditry filled the papers), he must yet have known that the Cubans could be roused to fight for their constitutional rights. Moreover, he could count on the support of senior Army officers, well-trained cadets at Managua, at least two frigates of the Navy, the majority of the Air Corps, and troops from the Interior.

News of Batista’s coup reached him at his country home and he hurried back to Havana, arriving at the Presidential Palace about six o’clock in the morning. Here friends and a delegation of university students urged him to make a stand against Batista. Telling the students to go back to the campus, where he would soon join them with arms to organize the resistance, he went to the Capitol. Finding it surrounded by troops loyal to Batista, he hurried off to the garrison of Matanzas, there to discover that his friend Colonel Helena was unable to help him, because he was already a prisoner of the younger officers.

Returning to Havana, President Prio sought sanctuary in the Mexican Embassy and apparently made no further attempts to rally the opposition before he and his family took off by plane for political exile in Mexico City.

Some Cubans were greatly cheered by Batista’s return to power. Batista restored the Army to the position of importance it had enjoyed under his former regime and doubled the pay of the men. Political friends were given posts in the dictator’s cabinet, and the association of big sugar planters (representing some $600 million of capital from the Cnited States plus that of Cuban investors) pledged their support to the new prime minister. “A firm hand is just what Cuba needs,” some said.

The head of Cuban labor unions called a general strike in protest on the morning of March 10. But on the evening of the same day he quickly about-faced and visited Batista to offer the coöperation of his workers.

The Comimmists

Cuban Communists, formerly friends and supporters of Batista (their part y acquired legal status during his earlier regime and supported him for President in 1940 and his candidate for President in 1944), seem to have played no part in his return to power.

The furor in April over customs inspection of the suspiciously heavy (150 pounds) luggage of two Russian couriers from the Russian Embassy in Mexico who landed at the Havana airport, the subsequent blast from Moscow, and the withdrawal of twenty-one Russian officials from Cuba may mean that Batista is no longer playing ball with his old friends. On the other hand, the Communist daily Hoy, openly critical of Batista, is still published, although printers and distributors of other anti-Batista literature have been

“Diseciplined democrocy”

Installed once more in the handsome Presidential Palace, General Batista immediately increased the guards from seventy to two hundred and fifty, thereby suggesting that he was not entirely at ease. Congressmen were assured of their pay but machine gunners prevented them from assembling. The elections scheduled for June were indefinitely postponed, and the police surrounded the University of Havana, allowing no students to enter the campus unless they presented blentity cards. Members of the armed forces who had shown themselves loyal to the constitution were thrown into prison.

To those who remembered the “disciplined democracy” of his former dictatorship, Batista’s official pronouncements brought little eomlort. His promise that “ the only blood that will be spilled will be that of those that oppose us” raised echoes of the days when he called himself a “man of peace” only lo have his rugged treatment of opponents bring the retort , “ peace — of the cemeteries.”

His avowal that there would be “not a single measure against the press” was followed by an imitation to cooperate and assurances that there would be no censorship. This sounded familiar, and many writers recalled only too well his substitute for censorship. Any criticism of him or his tactics had been promptly punished with the dreaded Palmacristi treatment—the critic being forced at the point of a gun to swallow a quart of crude castor oil mixed with waste motor oil.

Cuba libre

Rallying around Roberto Agrnmonte, Cuba’s People’s Party has quietly begun to plan opposition to Batista. The first move was the refusal of People’s Party Congressmen to accept their salaries until they are allowed to meet. Before the I nited States recognized the new regime, a strong appeal against Batista’s usurpation of constitutional power was filed by the People’s Party with the Cuban Supreme Court, the Organization of American States, and the United Nations.

Another traditionally strong force against high-handed dictators is the Federation of University Students (known as the FEU), who are uniting the anti-Batista Cubans into a National Civic Front. ‘These are the students who went on strike, refusing to return to classes until constitutional privileges had been restored. On April 6, two days after Batista’s cabinet had met and adopted a new constitutional law by which a Consultative Council was substituted for the elected Congress, and all political parties were dissolved and constitutional rights suspended — the university students staged a symbolic burying of the Cuban constitution at the Bineon Marliano, a plaza dedicated to José Martí, the Abraham Lincoln of Cuba.

Liberty-loving Cubans hoped that the United States would withhold immediate recognition of the Batista government, thereby encouraging the dictator to make good his word to his people. It was a natural thing to expect of us, for we have looked with approval on Cuba’s uneven but gradual progress toward stable, democratic government.

But the Coiled Slates is virtually bound by Resolution 35 of the Bogotá, Charter (1948), which sets forth that “continuity of diplomatic relations is desirable” and that “establishment or maintenance of diplomatic relations does not imply any judgment on the domestic policy” of any American government. In view of long-standing Latin American suspicions that our past recognition policies had been used as a means of interfering in the internal politics of various republics, our acceptance of the Article 35 principle practically commits us to recognizing any de facto government.

When the United States, seeking to avoid future accusations of dollar diplomacy or Yankee imperialism, recommended to the Bogota conference the recognition of all de facto governments. Cuba pointed out that this policy would give aid and comfort to existing dictatorships and might even encourage power-greedy politicos in other countries to overturn democratic governments. The Cuban delegates little realized how soon this would happen in their own republic.

If we had withheld recognition from Batista, our action would have gone counter to the precedents set in our recognition of the Venezuelan, Peruvian, Colombian, Bolivian, and Haitian regimes established by revolution since 1948. And in addition the old charge of “ Yanqui intervention” would have been revived all through Latin America.