The Future of 'Cubazuela'

The Future of 'Cubazuela'
The ties between Castro and Chávez have kept the island nation afloat.
What now?
By JOSÉ DE CÓRDOBA

Few people around the world are more keenly interested in the health of
cancer-stricken Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez than a pair of brothers
in Cuba: Fidel and Raúl Castro.

Since becoming president of Venezuela in 1999, Mr. Chávez has developed
an exceptionally close bond with Fidel Castro, who has served as the
Venezuelan's mentor, medical adviser and father figure. The personal
relationship between the old dictator and his younger autocratic pupil
has evolved into a web of economic and political ties that today bind
together the destinies of the two countries. It has given the poor,
almost bankrupt island enormous power over its far wealthier and more
populous oil-producing neighbor.

Cuba, ruled by the Castro brothers since 1959, has a lot to lose if Mr.
Chávez dies. Since 2007, Venezuela has provided the Communist island
nation about $10 billion a year in economic aid, mostly in the form of
cut-rate oil and inflated payments for thousands of Cuban doctors and
other professionals, according to the University of Miami's
Cuban-studies center. Total aid and investment from Venezuela now amount
to about 22% of Cuba's annual economic output, said Carmelo Mesa Lago, a
professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh.

If the relationship between Havana and Caracas were to end or falter,
many Cubans fear that the island's threadbare economy could be pushed
into depression, as in the early 1990s, when Cuba lost Soviet aid and
its economy plunged by about 40%. "It could lead to a social upheaval,"
said Riordan Roett, the head of Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins
University.

In February, after Mr. Chávez had spent two months in Cuba's best
hospital recovering from his fourth cancer surgery in 18 months, the
ailing president was flown back to Caracas in the middle of the night
and spirited off to a military hospital. His prognosis is a state
secret, but most analysts believe he is fighting a terminal disease.

If Mr. Chávez dies, Venezuelan law calls for new elections. The
country's political opposition has long railed against the aid to Cuba,
promising to spend Venezuela's oil money at home.

The elder Castro has for years been Mr. Chávez's top adviser on the art
of political survival, analysts say. The two countries have signed more
than 300 trade and economic cooperation deals, many of them involving
barter arrangements that appear to favor Cuba.

"Since when do poor countries run rich countries, small countries run
big countries and weak countries run powerful countries?" asked former
Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda. "It's as if Puerto Rico ran
the U.S. It's crazy."

The bond between the two countries is unprecedented in Latin American
history, said Carlos Alberto Montaner, a Cuban-born political analyst
based in Miami. In 2004, they even considered a formal merger, he said.
Venezuelan wags joke that their country's name should be changed to
"Cubazuela."
Earlier

In this WSJ documentary, reporter David Luhnow looks in-depth at
Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez, plans for a possible successor, and
whether his "21st century socialism" can outlive its founder. Photo: AP
(Originally published Dec. 22, 2012.)

The relationship began on the tarmac of Havana's airport in 1994. Mr.
Castro had exercised absolute power for 35 years. Mr. Chávez was a
skinny, unknown lieutenant colonel, a failed coup leader. He had just
been released from prison, pardoned after serving two years for rebellion.

Mr. Castro, angry at the Venezuelan president for giving an audience to
a Cuban exile leader, rolled out the red carpet for Mr. Chávez,
providing him with honors usually reserved for a head of state. During
the two-day visit, Mr. Castro was constantly at his side, staying up all
night for long conversations. The men bonded over their love of baseball
and windy monologues, resentment of American hegemony and a lust for
personal power. "Fidel saw that Chávez was a diamond in the rough, and
he started to polish him," says a former Chávez cabinet member.

Once elected president in 1998, Mr. Chávez became Mr. Castro's closest
ally. Mr. Chávez saw in Mr. Castro a father figure and a way to gain
revolutionary respectability. Former Venezuelan officials and analysts
say that Mr. Castro saw Mr. Chávez as a politically naive mark—a source
of largess who could help the savvy dictator continue his work of
challenging the U.S.

"It's a very cold political-strategic calculation," said Brian Latell, a
former CIA Cuba analyst and biographer of the Cuban leader. "But Fidel
is a great performer. Chávez could easily be convinced that he loves him."

Fidel Castro's interest in Venezuela, and its oil, predates Mr. Chávez
by 40 years. Just weeks after toppling Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista
on New Year's Day in 1959, Mr. Castro flew to Caracas on his first
foreign trip. He was given a rapturous welcome by tens of thousands of
Venezuelans, who a year earlier had overthrown their own dictator.

According to British historian Hugh Thomas, Mr. Castro met with
Venezuelan President Romulo Betancourt and asked the Venezuelan to help
him out with a $300 million loan and oil to finance Mr. Castro's planned
"game with the gringos." Mr. Betancourt declined and was quickly placed
at the top of the bearded revolutionary's enemies' list.

Mr. Castro was soon trying to overthrow Mr. Betancourt, backing
Venezuelan guerrillas in a bloody insurgency. In 1963, John McCone, then
CIA director, testified to Congress that there were at least 200
Venezuelans undergoing military training in Cuba, by far the largest
group of guerrillas from any Latin American country. Mr. Castro sent
some of his most able officers to help the insurgents, sponsoring at
least two small-scale guerrilla landings in Venezuela in 1967.

"I think Fidel was always thinking about the oil," said Mr. Latell.
"After all these decades, he got the payoff."

The relationship deepened in 2000 when Mr. Chávez, as president, invited
Mr. Castro to Venezuela to visit his dusty hometown of Sabaneta.
"Chávez, just think, in 100 years, Venezuelans will be making
pilgrimages to this house," Mr. Castro said as they viewed Mr. Chávez'
tumbledown childhood home, according to former interior minister Luis
Miquilena, who was on the trip.

During that trip, Mr. Chávez signed the first oil deal with Mr. Castro,
providing Cuba with 53,000 barrels per day of cut-rate oil, a sum that
has risen to 110,000 barrels today. In return, Cuba has sent some 40,000
doctors, dentists, sports trainers and other experts in fields ranging
from agriculture to telecommunications. The doctors, who provide free
health care in Venezuela's impoverished barrios, are enormously popular
and have helped to sustain Mr. Chávez's mass appeal.

But the relationship has proved costly. Many Venezuelans grew alarmed
when Mr. Chávez said in 1999 that Venezuela and Cuba were swimming
together toward "a sea of happiness." By 2002, Mr. Chávez' rhetoric of
class warfare and his determination to implant Cuban-style education and
agricultural policies had divided the country. In March, army generals
defied Mr. Chávez's order to fire on anti-Chávez demonstrators headed
toward the presidential palace and forced Mr. Chávez to resign.

Mr. Chávez was taken to a naval base on an island and seemed headed to
exile in Cuba. But Mr. Castro talked by phone to Mr. Chávez, urging him
"not to quit, not to resign," as Mr. Castro told a Spanish biographer.
He also cajoled fence-sitting Venezuelan generals to restore Mr. Chávez
to office. Backed by the army, Mr. Chávez made a triumphant return to
the presidential palace two days later. Mr. Chávez never forgot this
service.

"Chávez was wavering, cowering," said Mr. Latell. "Fidel helped to boost
him by getting on the phone with the Venezuelan military. Chávez owes
him an enormous debt of gratitude."

By most accounts, Mr. Chávez has handsomely paid off that debt.

A version of this article appeared March 2, 2013, on page C3 in the U.S.
edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Future of
'Cubazuela'.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323884304578328252463429328.html?mod=googlenews_wsj