MIAMI — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says diplomacy with Cuba is doubtful following the indictment of Raul Castro and analysts say mixed messages coming from the White House make it hard to predict what will happen next.
Many Cuban democracy advocates say what they don’t want to see is the “Venezuelan model” of removing the ruler ― but leaving in place the ruling party.
Cuban democracy advocates like Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat, with the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, see a renewed hope that political change is possible on the island.
“It is a fact that Raul Castro right now is a fugitive from U.S. justice,” Gutiérrez-Boronat said. “These are historic times for Cuba and we are the closest we have been to freedom. I think after yesterday, we are even closer.”
Sebastian A. Arcos, the interim director of Florida International University’s Cuban Research Institute, said, “There will not be a transition as long as this regime is involved.”
But a key question remains: can there be political change in Cuba without U.S. military intervention?
“My opinion is no. And why? Because the regime is not going to give up, they are not going to flee, they are not going to be part of a dissembling of a regime that they have been putting together for the last 70 years,” Arcos said.
An April Miami Herald poll found that nearly 80% of Cuban Americans in South Florida supported some form of U.S. military intervention on the island.
But among the American public at large, a YouGov poll commissioned by the left-leaning Center for Economic Policy and Research and released in early May found that only 15% of the country supports going to war with Cuba.
It found that 64% of Americans oppose the idea and 21% aren’t sure. A March YouGov poll sponsored by The Economist found that 53% of Americans opposed military intervention in Cuba, while only 23% were in support.
Arcos said it is hard to know exactly what the U.S. plans to do next, in part because of President Donald Trump’s vacillating remarks.
Trump said other presidents looked at regime change in Cuba for 50 to 60 years, but said, “I think I will be the one to do it.”
But on Wednesday, as top US-officials announced the charges against Castro while a U-S aircraft carrier and its strike group of fighter jets and radar-jamming equipment enters the Caribbean - Trump said “there won’t be escalation.”
Arcos calls the messaging “confusing.”
“It’s confusing because he’s saying one thing one day and a different thing and it’s confusing. Either the United States is going to take over Cuba, meaning it’s going to do something militarily, or it’s not. It cannot be both at the same time.”
Gutiérrez-Boronat said “the U.S. now has many options on (the) table.”
“We can’t say what President Trump will do, but we can say that majority of this community and the majority of people in Cuba want his arrest because he’s committed many crimes, as will be demonstrated in this international tribunal in Chile,” he said.
Rubio says the U.S. is running out of patience with the Cuban leadership.
“At the end of the day, they need to make a decision,” Rubio said. “Their economic system doesn’t work, it’s broken, and you can’t fix it with the current political system that is in place.”
Rubio concluded, “Right now, there just doesn’t seem to be people over there in charge of the regime who are in any way open to changes.”
“There are other things that Cuban Americans and Cubans on the island want to have and that is a full transition to democracy, that begins with political changes, not with economic,” Arcos said. “The Cubans don’t want a repetition of Venezuela, which is stuck halfway between one regime and democracy.”
In Venezuela, the ouster of dictator Nicolas Maduro led to the rise of Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, a Maduro ally.
“And by the way, it’s not going to solve the main interest of President Trump in doing all this to guarantee the stability and the security of the Western Hemisphere, not as long as (the Cuban) regime is involved,” Arcos said.
Local 10 Digital Journalist Chris Gothner contributed to this report.
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