MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — As Cuba prepares to mark the 100th birthday of its late leader Fidel Castro, the communist island is reckoning with the pending total collapse of its state-run economy amid America’s maximum pressure campaign, leading some to wonder about Castro’s ultimate legacy.
“That legacy of Fidel is gone,” said Local 10 Cuba analyst Dr. Andy Gomez. “In terms of today’s Cuba, what we’re looking at is a bunch of gangsters as a mafia at the very top living off the Cuban government and sacrificing the Cuban people.”
Gomez was referencing the military-run conglamerate gaesa founded by Castro’s brother Raul, which Gomez described as corrupt.
“When the Soviet Union fell apart, the ideology of the revolution started to disappear, so the legacy of Fidel is the only thing that Raul Castro is holding onto,” said Gomez. “You hear in the streets, they don’t chant Raul Castro, they still shout Fidel. It is not yet a failed state because the military is still very much in support of Raul Castro. Once Raul Castro is gone, then all bets are off.”
In May, the U.S. indicted Raul Castro for his role in the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootdown that killed four people.
In the vacuum of an in-country capture of the aging leader, paired with concerns from some in America’s Cuban American community about the absence of political change, Gomez said Cuba poses a tough foreign policy challenge for U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“Because of its geographical location, Cuba becomes a very key part of our national security strategy,” said Gomez. “That is the reason why GITMO (Guantanamo Bay detention camp) needs to remain under the United States control. There’s nothing in Cuba that the United States can benefit from, sadly to say. In Venezuela, of course, there is oil and a lot of minerals, but there’s nothing in Cuba that we can benefit from, and as a Cuban American, it is very difficult for me to say that, but we have to be very open-minded and understand it.”
In a video posted on social media by the U.S. State Department, Rubio reiterated his belief that a prosperous and U.S. aligned Cuba is in America’s national interest.
“Before this administration ends, we will be on an irreversible path towards a much different future,” Rubio said in the video.
Gomez said he has known for a while that a goal like Rubio’s would not be easy to attain.
“People in South Florida, the expectations have been great,” he said. “You just cannot sanction the Cuban government as we have, punish the Cuban people and expect that the Cuban people are going to revolt against a regime that has been in place for almost 68 years.”
Gomez responded to Rubio’s comments, and the secretary’s timeline.
“I was surprised that Secretary Rubio used those words, that it might take two years,” said Gomez. “I think could have been a little bit more, if you will, diplomatic. But it doesn’t surprise me personally. Cuba is not easy unless we take the last option, which is a military strike to try to bring down the regime.”
Gomez said he believes the Cuban government will continue to fight back.
“The regime continues to dig in, they continue to introduce, as we have seen in the last couple of months, economic reforms that are a little bit too late, and they don’t have the infrastructure in Cuba, the government, to be able to implement them,” he said. “The one thing I know is that something’s got to give inside Cuba. The Cuban people cannot continue to live under the circumstances that they’re living today, but I still don’t see them revolting against the Cuban government. Their consequences, as you know, are very dire. You end up in jail for years for basically just protesting.”
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