Huber Matos and the Coming Cuban Revolution

...The democratic outlook of the new organization was underlined by the choice of Caracas, the capital of Latin America's leading democracy, as the site of the founding congress...

...But the relevant question remains: In the event of a Soviet attempt to suppress a Cuban uprising, what should our policy be...

...He was frequently beaten and in one instance, in 1973, had several ribs broken and his left shoulder severely damaged when he was set upon by a dozen men carrying lengths of cable...

...But with the emergence of Matos as the leader of a Cuban "third force" in the spirit of the AD's founder Romulo Betancourt (who sent personal greetings to the congress), it may not be able to avoid the issue much longer...

...He is hardly the first Cuban exile leader to have accused Castro of imposing a ruthless and economically unworkable totalitarian system in Cuba and of making the country a Soviet colony which now serves Moscow's imperialist interests...

...When he visited New York in December 1979, he noted that there was already a widespread "spontaneous" resistance to the regime which had taken the form of industrial sabotage, stealing from the state, draft evasion, pervasive negligence, and lack of discipline...

...Events over the past year have tended to confirm Matos' analysis...

...CID will also set up its headquarters in Caracas...

...It is now clear that this was a very high price indeed, since the effect was to free Castro at home so that he could engage in foreign adventures...

...He spent most of this time in solitary confinement, including a full year in an underground concrete box...

...But given Cuba's immense value to Moscow and a world balance of forces that makes intervention feasible, it is hard to imagine that the Soviets would stand by if the survival of the Castro regime were threatened by anti-Communist forces...

...Castro's second error may be even more costly to his regime in the long run...

...The new organization did not endorse a particular ideology, but its declaration was social democratic in spirit, emphasizing political pluralism, social equality, and a mixed economy with a strong private sector and free trade unions...

...But a continuation of Castro's African wars must eventually have serious political consequences...

...Estimates of the number of Cuban soldiers killed in Angola over the last five years run as high as 3,000, which relative to the size of the population exceeds the number of American combat deaths in Vietnam...

...The fact that we have not addressed this question may reflect the extent to which many Americans believe Castro's propaganda about the popularity and stability of his regime...

...Just two weeks before the congress was to have opened, a lower military tribunal in Venezuela acquitted Orlando Bosch and three other Cubans who had been charged with blowing up a Cuban airliner off Barbados in 1976...

...Castro had hoped to stage a confrontation between the Peruvians and the refugees as a way of forcing a number of Latin embassies in Havana to stop providing asylum to Cubans wishing to leave the country...

...These efforts resulted in the founding of a new organization, Cuba Independiente y Democratica (CID), at a congress held in Caracas, Venezuela, over the weekend of October 17-19...

...Castro himself, in a speech before the National Assembly last December 27, warned that "objective difficulties and errors" by the regime had allowed "the counter-revolution" to- make gains within Cuba, particularly among students and intellectuals...

...Until now, the Socialist International has not criticized Castro's dictatorship...

...In order to avoid large public displays of grief that could turn into political demonstrations, the Cuban authorities have staggered the announcement of casualties...

...But when Matos says that Castro has betrayed the Cuban revolution, his words carry unique moral authority...

...But the Peruvians did not turn the refugees away, and the spectacle of thousands of Cubans storming the embassy shouting "Libertad...

...He maintains that there are 12,000-not 3,000 -Soviet troops in Cuba and that they constitute the chief obstacle to a new Cuban revolution...

...Cuba's military involvement in Africa has compounded Castro's problems...

...Matos' strategy is based first of all on the belief that the anti-Castro movement must have an unmistakable democratic orientation...

...The alignment of the new movement with Latin American democracy was evidenced by the presence at the meeting of representatives of Venezuela's governing Social Christian party (COPEI), the socialist Democratic Action party (AD), and the trade unions...

...Matos and other opponents of Castro frequently make the point that Moscow can't "roll tanks across the ocean...

...Exile-based groups operating clandestinely on the island report that they have had considerable success recruiting disillusioned African war veterans who face bleak economic prospects within Cuba...

...He has travelled widely, visiting Cuban communities in the United States, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Spain...

...A former school teacher, Matos joined the revolution against the Batista dictatorship and became, according to the Caracas Daily Journal, "the bravest of the guerrillas and their most effective leader...

...Venezuela's decision to allow the congress to be held on its soil was particularly significant in that its relations with Cuba have recently been strained...

...Matos is convinced, in fact, that the primary purpose of these Soviet troops is to enforce the Brezhnev Doctrine in Cuba...

...S ince his release from prison a year ago, Matos has busily sought to build a political movement for the liberation of Cuba...

...The main reason for this is Matos himself, who commands immense respect in the Cuban exile community and throughout Latin America...

...He also expects the United States to deter the Soviets-the only instance in which he is prepared to look to the United States for support...

...proved to be an enormous political embarrassment for Castro...

...He appears today, in the words of one Venezuelan journalist, as "the model of austere rectitude," a singularly dignified figure who remains a fervent revolutionary...

...But this is ultimately a political and not a logistical question, and it should be addressed in Washington before we are overtaken by events...

...This was his decision to allow Huber Matos, one of the leaders of the Cuban revolution, to leave the country after completing a 20-year prison sentence...

...The Costa Rican government also sent a representative...

...The Venezuelans responded by saying that Castro was hardly in a position to question a court decision in a democracy, and as if to emphasize that they wouldn't be intimidated, they let the Matos congress proceed on schedule...

...The centrality in the Cuban struggle of the plantados, whom Matos views as the moral heroes of the democratic resistance and the heart of the Cuban nation, was highlighted by the appearance at the congress of Vladimir Bukovsky, the former Soviet prisoner who speaks on behalf of a similar struggle in his own country...

...Castro may have calculated that the 60-year-old Matos was a broken man who would live out the rest of his life in seclusion with his family and who, in any event, could do less harm to the regime from exile than as a martyred prisoner and a symbol of unyielding resistance to Communist rule...

...On October 21, 1959, two days after his resignation, Matos was arrested and charged with treason...

...We must be clear about our principles," he told the Caracas meeting, "so that everyone will understand that if our struggle succeeds, it will result in nothing but a democratic state...

...If he is correct, then we will not be able indefinitely to evade the issue of whether we will permit a Hungary or a Czechoslovakia to occur 90 miles from our shores...

...Despite numerous appeals for his release and several offers for an exchange of prisoners (the Bolivian government offered to exchange Regis Debray for Matos in 1968), Matos served every day of his 20year sentence...

...Last year's debate over the Soviet brigade in Cuba focused almost exclusively on whether or not the Soviet forces posed a security threat to this country...

...Remarkably, however, this issue has hardly been discussed here...

...The AD's support is particularly important in that the party has been divided over the Cuban issue...

...The meeting was scarcely noticed in the United States, but it aroused intense interest in Caracas and in other Latin Carl Gershman is Vice Chairman of Social Democrats, USA, and Resident Scholar at Freedom House...

...The leftist course of the Socialist International in Latin America, with which the AD is affiliated, has been supported by former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez...

...The role of the movement in exile, he feels, is to provide support for those inside and to promote the "ideological reorientation" of the Cuban people...

...If Matos is to be believed, it is only a matter of time before the crisis within Cuba comes to a head...

...Though the case still had to go before a higher military court, Castro summarily withdrew his ambassador from Caracas and harshly attacked the Venezuelan judicial system...

...Matos emerged from this ordeal spiritually unscathed...

...These casualties should continue to mount since the Cubans show no signs of being able to subdue Jonas Savimbi's UNITA movement which now operates in Angola as a regular fighting force...

...A defeat in Africa could be fatal to the regime...

...He has already set up a radio station in an unnamed Latin American country and will be broadcasting daily into Cuba...

...Castro himself was the chief prosecutor at the trial, delivering a seven-hour harangue that was broadcast over the state radio...

...He has urged the governments of Latin America to make clear to Moscow their vigorous opposition to the use of Soviet troops to suppress an uprising in Cuba...

...The Venezuelan secret service (DISIP) provided tight security throughout the meeting...

...capitals...

...Ever since Matos left Cuba a year ago he has spoken of the deep discontents on the island which make an uprising inevitable if not necessarily imminent...

...Our tacit acceptance of this state of affairs may have been the price we paid to get the Soviets to withdraw their missiles from Cuba in 1962...

...Matos is well aware that the struggle to liberate Cuba must ultimately be waged from inside the country...

...But here, too, Castro seems to have misplayed his hand...

...The first was his decision last April to remove the guards around the Peruvian Embassy in Havana, a move that led 10,000 Cubans to seek political asylum in the embassy compound...

...It also suggests that despite Castro's challenge to the status quo throughout Central America and the Caribbean, we are not prepared to challenge Moscow's intention to enforce the status quo in Cuba...

...Matos cannot be blamed for not having an answer to this problem, since deterring the use of Soviet force in Cuba is ultimately an American responsibility...

...He especially emphasized the discontents among Cubans under 25, who make up more than half the present Cuban population and have no sentimental attachment to a revolution that was made before most of them were born...

...He will also concentrate on publicizing the cases of some 200 plantados, Cuban prisoners who, like himself, have refused "re-education" and are subjected to torture and systematic abuse...

...The declaration also stressed the need for Cuba to gain political independence and to revive its historic and cultural links with Latin America...

...The affair at the Peruvian Embassy and the subsequent exodus from the island of over 125,000 Cubans suggested the magnitude of the dissatisfaction with Castro's rule...

...Not surprisingly, there is growing dissension within the army...

...Following the overthrow of Batista, he was put in charge of Camaguey province but resigned his post when it had become clear that Castro intended to impose a Communist dictatorship upon Cuba...

...Matos claims that the regime's distrust of the army is such that the Soviet troops stationed on the island now strictly control the supply of weapons and ammunition to the home forces...

...At its Congress in Madrid last November, the International actually voted down an amendment calling for political democracy in Cuba...