Cuban democracy does not STOP AT formal representation.
Instead, it incorporates mechanisms and forms of direct democracy.

An exclusive interview with Ricardo Alarcón, President of the Cuban Parliament

By Pascual Serrano

Sixty-six year-old Ricardo Alarcón is without a doubt one of the most important figures in the Cuban administration, perhaps the most knowledgeable person on the island about US politics.

After having lived in New York for more than 14 years, he has been the president of the National Assembly since 1993, and the diplomat in charge of relations with the United States .

In this extensive and intensive interview he directly and openly answers more than twenty questions about Cuban democracy, living conditions on the island, relations with the United States , the international situation or the situation concerning the five Cubans who are locked up in US prisons.

The Cuban system is often the target of criticism by those who accuse it for its lack of political parties and elections such as those held in neo-liberal countries. How does the Cuban electoral system work and how is plurality guaranteed?

RA: Cuba is not the only country in the world where there are no parties or elections such as those held "in neo-liberal countries." It is also well known that said parties and elections suffer from a great lack of credibility among voters in those countries.

The Cuban electoral system responds to a completely different idea than that which characterizes the model that is still being called a 'representative democracy,' despite the fact that each day fewer and fewer people are represented by it. Like all organizations at the level of nation-state, our system also has a representative nature, but it does not stop at formal representation, or at appearances. Instead, it seeks direct participation from the people in representative instances. It goes out of its way to incorporate as much as possible mechanisms and forms of direct democracy in structures that are inevitably representative.

The system of people's power bases itself on electoral districts, the basis upon which all else is developed. That is where the process begins. In each district, open and public meetings are held, in which any neighbor can propose anyone as a candidate for a delegate's position. The law demands that in each district there be at least two candidates. From among them, on election day, one will be elected delegate by secret ballot. This person must receive more than 50% of the vote. Those representatives form the municipal assemblies, which will have primary responsibility for the ensuing stages of the electoral process. Prior to 1992 municipal assemblies elected the people who would represent each municipality in its respective provincial assembly, and in the National Assembly. Since that year the municipal assemblies nominate their candidates for election to become provincial delegates and national deputies, and present them to the voters at free elections with secret ballots. In order to win an election, the candidate must receive more than 50% of the vote. The law mandates that up to half of the provincial deputies and delegates may also be district delegates.

In our case, it is not the parties that select the candidates. Each voter has the ability to do so. The only requirement to become a candidate is to be proposed by someone and, of course, to accept the nomination. One needs no money or support from an electoral body (which in other countries are called 'parties'). It is absolutely forbidden to carry out any kind of campaign in any candidate's favor. Voter commissions are in charge of placing biographical data about each candidate in very accessible and commonly visited places in the community. Anyone can choose to become a candidate or be proposed as a candidate. I cannot think of greater plurality or more real representation than that. This probably explains the main reason why we have such a high voter turn-out in all our elections, despite the fact that voting is considered a voluntary action: voters know who their candidates are, they know how and why they are on the ballots and, above all, they know that they, the voters, really participate in the process.

Every two and a half years, since 1976, we have held such elections and the average rate of turnover (electing someone new to replace someone else) has exceeded 50% at the national level. On some occasions, it has been even higher (on a personal note, when I was elected as a deputy, for the first time, I was part of a group of delegates, 85% of the total number, who had never before served and I now preside over a parliament whose membership is 2/3 new).

Since that year, hundreds of thousands of Cubans have been proposed or elected and millions have participated directly in their nomination and election. It is a system that like all human endeavors can and should be perfected constantly. But I would dare to say that it possesses the most important quality: credibility and the support of the people who identify it as their process. I have millions of witnesses to that.

How is it justified that the Cuban president has been the same one since the year 1959?

RA: Well, I have to say that we have not had the same president since 1959. Fidel Castro has been our president since 1976, when the National Assembly elected him. The justification can be found in his personal merits, which are many, his undisputable leadership capacity and his exceptional dedication to work, which have motivated the Assembly to re-elect him since that date. First, he had to be proposed as a deputy by the Municipal Assembly of Santiago de Cuba and succeed in being elected as such, through a free election with secret ballots. Then he had to be proposed as a presidential candidate and elected into the National Assembly in the same manner.

There are different anti-Castro groups who argue that the US blockade against Cuba is a mistake, since it permits the Cuban government to use it as an excuse to prevent reforms. What is your opinion about that?

RA: This is foolish thinking that reflects repugnant cynicism. The blockade, or more accurately, economic war, is an abominable crime against all the Cuban people. It is not an excuse but rather an attempted genocide according to the UN Conventions. This was even acknowledged by the State Department in 1959 in documents now declassified in which one can read that the objective of that policy was "to cause hunger and desperation" among the Cuban people. Occasionally, when US journalists have asked me this question, I have answered: convince Washington to take away our "excuse" and lift the blockade. Let them dare to lift it, if only for a short time, perhaps a year.

The US president has announced restrictions on his country's citizens regarding travel to Cuba. This has coincided with the Cuban government's decision to facilitate the entry of Cuban-Americans who wish to visit Cuba. How does one interpret the contradiction in those criteria?

RA: Not only have restrictions been "announced" but various methods of control and pressure on airports are being imposed. Hundreds of US citizens have also been fined and threatened with legal action for having visited Cuba. This year, once again, both the House and the Senate of the US Congress approved legislation that would put an end to the application of those restrictions and, once again (it happened before) high-level leaders have "democratically" eliminated the wording that had been approved by a broad majority. For our part, we have followed and will continue to follow a policy of openness and outreach with the community of Cuban origin that lives in the US. Most of them are interested in a respectful and constructive relationship with their country of origin. The contrast between the two policies is very illustrating: Washington maintains the same policy for more than forty years and is bent on continuing an even stricter version of it. On the other hand, while that community was the source of all the mercenaries and terrorists who now attack us, Cuba -with maturity and responsibility- has developed dialogue and communications with those who emigrated. The contrast says a great deal about the confidence each person might have in his or her society, in its values. We open our doors to Cuban-Americans and to US citizens, and we are not worried about all those who might want to come. What is Mr. Bush afraid of?

Relations between Cuba and the European Union (EU) are going through a difficult moment right now. You have accused European governments of bowing to US interests. What reasons or benefits do you think motivate the EU governments to assume this stance?

RA: Washington has often commented its satisfaction with the support Europe has offered it with regards to US policy against Cuba. Since the Clinton era, when they subscribed the so-called "understanding," which in practice meant a European rejection of its own opposition to the Helms-Burton law and its support of US-led politics of subversion, all in exchange for nothing. The EU is simply acting as an echo for the propaganda and diplomatic machinery of the US with regards to Cuba. The reasons: subservience on the part of some and weakness or lack of coherence on the part of others. Benefits for Europe? None, of course. But we don't worry about that. In Europe there will be more and more questioning of this kind of support imposed by certain individuals whose names are not worth mentioning and who embody a sort of neo-fascism that has been domesticated by Washington.

The Cuban government has denounced the Bush administration's dark desire to destabilize the island, in order to justify a US intervention. What degree of credibility does a US plan to militarily intervene in Cuba have?

RA: Every time US leaders have been asked about the possibility of a military action against Cuba they have limited themselves to saying that there is no plan to attack now but that they have never excluded the possibility of such an action, in principle. Even General Powell, with his made up dove-like image, has been quite explicit about this. Mr. Bolton, the Deputy-secretary for arms control and other State Department officials have made repeated declarations -the latest just a few weeks ago- accusing Cuba of possessing and manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. What do these vulgar and irresponsible lies seek to achieve?

Likewise, the very same Bastista-supporting Mafia to whom Bush owes the theft of the 2000 elections (let us not forget this), demands that he do just that. Remember that the last weekend of February, millions of people all over the world demonstrated against the attack on Iraq, which was imminent at that time. The only exception was Miami. The only march in favor of the war was held in Miami. Several terrorist groups headed by Orlando Bosch, Bush's friend, the mastermind of the 1976 blowing up of a Cuban civilian airplane in flight, called for this march publicly. There was a large poster that read "Iraq now, Cuba next."

All of this must be seen in the context of the new unilateralism and "preventive wars," and Bush's threat to attack whenever and whoever. Cuba is among the countries that the US defines as "terrorist" and is the only one on the list that is 90 miles away and which is even inside its defensive military perimeter: to attack Cuba the US does not have to send large military forces around the planet. It need only press a button and the world would not even be the wiser until after the missiles had destroyed Havana.

We cannot play around with such real risks. That is why we are preparing ourselves. Our potential aggressor must know that he will never be able to occupy our territory. Here he will find a heightened Vietnam, to the highest degree. What we most want is that he realize this in time.

Cuban dissidents often accuse the island's administration of corruption. What level of corruption do you believe exists in Cuba?

RA: So-called 'Cuban dissidence' is synonymous with corruption. It has been invented, fabricated, organized, directed and paid for by the US government. Various official US documents that were declassified in the 1990s prove this. There are manifestations of corruption in Cuba, as we are a human society that inhabits the same planet as that of a system which constantly generates it. But in our country it does not exist either at the leadership level or among the principal administration; nor does it exist as a generalized phenomenon in society. Expressions of corruption that have appeared, against which we are constantly struggling, have been mostly concentrated at intermediate levels, and, with some frequency (but not excessively) associated with business activities that have to do with elements of the market economy that is now part of our reality. If capitalism were to be reestablished here, our 'accusers' would really revel in a sea of corruption.

What is the process that a Cuban who wants to leave the island and live elsewhere must go through?

RA: He or she must have a passport and visa for the country in question, and go through basic steps (like reserving a space on a plane and buying an airline ticket, for example). To establish residency in another country, there may be other requirements, like the completion of social service for some professionals or military service, in the case of the youth. These requirements could delay departure for a few months. There is a condition that has to do with paternal authority ( Patria Potestad ): minors who are traveling with only one of their parents need written authorization from the other parent.

There is evidently a rupture between island Cubans and those who live in Miami. Do you see any possibility of the two communities coming closer to each other, and what steps do you consider would be necessary?

RA: The first thing that must be done is to put an end to this falsehood that surrounds the topic of Cuban immigration to the US. We must understand once and for all that Cuban immigration to the US is one of the principal weapons Washington has used against the Revolution, to destabilize it internally and distort its image externally. Let us take a look at some data which comes from official US sources, like the US Census Bureau and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS):

- In the 1950s, prior to the Revolution, Cuba was in second place with regard to the number of legal immigrants to the US from the Western Hemisphere. Mexico was in first place.

- Today, there are at least seven countries before Cuba. I say at least because in order to know the exact number of immigrants one would have to count the so-called undocumented immigrants, of which there are several millions; not one of which is Cuban. There were undocumented Cubans in the US, and many of them before the triumph of the Revolution. That is why the Cuban Adjustment Act, which was conceived to privilege Batista supporters and to turn immigration into a destabilizing weapon, repeats in various places that it applies only to those Cubans who arrived in the US "on January 1, 1959, or after." That phrase is repeated in every paragraph of that monstrous piece of legislation.

- The policy of automatically admitting any Cuban who steps on US soil even if he or she is traveling without documents or uses force (which is illegal according to its immigration laws), is well known. Could you use your imagination to calculate how many Latin Americans might go to the US if the doors were opened to them and a law such as the Cuban Adjustment Act, which exists only for Cubans, were approved?

- The rhetoric of the Miami Mafia has gone on for years about the "millions" of Cubans who have "escaped" from Cuba and become established in the US. The truth, according to the latest census, is that there are not even a million Cubans in the US, even if we were to include their descendents and those who arrived before 1959, who were not so few. Most of them arrived in a comfortable fifty minute flight.

- Miami is the city from which the most flights go to Cuba. Five or six flights a day, depending on the season, land in various Cuban cities. These flights are full despite the fact that the US only allows Cuban-Americans to go. How many times do millions of other Latin American immigrants who barely survive in the US or Canada or Europe visit their countries of origin? Do you know of any undocumented person who leaves the North to spend a season with his or her family and return to a country where he or she lives illegally? Which rupture is more profound and definitive?

As far as Cubans are concerned, one of the things that would have to happen would be to de-politicize the subject; stop its manipulation. Washington must end the discriminatory restrictions that it imposes, such as not allowing travel to Cuba more than once a year, and other arbitrary restrictions on relations with Cuban families that are applied to no one else in the United States.

But, we should not forget those who are not Cuban. We should demand an end to the persecution and exploitation and discrimination of our brothers and sisters from Latin America who in the US cry out for their right to a dignified life. A good first step could be an Adjustment Act that would benefit all of them, that would legalize their status and that would also assure them the possibility of bringing their families over.

It does not seem that there are ill winds for Cuba with the current Latin American governments. Relations are good with Hugo Chavez, Kirchner, and Lula, etc. What could all this mean for the future of Cuba?

RA: What is important is to prove that neo-liberalism is going into an irreversible crisis in the whole continent. Popular movements are on the rise and there have been important victories. This will develop in each country according to its own characteristics, without following any particular model, and this will increase the possibilities of cooperation among our countries.

Cuba played an important role during the Cold War, with its support of armed liberation movements. Some of those movements continue today, as is the case with the FARC and ELN in Colombia, and other less rooted ones, like in Peru, and even some new ones, like the EZLN in Mexico. What is the official position of Cuba concerning those movements?

RA: We Cubans, who have had to fight so much against foreign intervention, will always be reluctant to opine about situations foreign to us. Different strategies correspond to each historical moment and each particular country. In the case of Colombia, because of the interest expressed by both the government and the FARC and ELN, we have tried, along with other countries, to contribute to obtain peace.

Let's take the US. During the whole period of the Cuban Revolution no US president has attempted to normalize relations with Havana or end the blockade. How does one explain this?

RA: Back in 1870, our founding father Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, warned that "the secret" of US policy was to "take control of Cuba." Jose Marti devoted a good part of his life to uncover this "secret." The military intervention of 1898 put the US in the place that had been occupied earlier by Spain. Cuba turned into a military protectorate threatened even with the risk of annexation. The first of January of 1959, we finally reached our independence. That same day a policy of aggression was initiated, which in essence has been carried out by all the leaders of a country whose oligarchy thought it owned the island. Today declassified documents are available which shed much light on the origin of the confrontation with the Revolution ("Foreign relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI, Cuba," Department of State, Washington, 1991). There are hundreds of pages that outline -discreetly, to protect their sources- what the Eisenhower administration did all through 1958 to support Batista and "block a Castro victory." Whoever doesn't know this history will be surprised to see that on Christmas Eve and until the final hours of that year, we were the party-poopers who forced the President and his principal collaborators to spend long and hard hours on us, when no one else was working. How to explain it? For them the US was losing something that belonged to it.

The first step to try to normalize relations is very simple: recognize that Cuba is not part of the US, nor does it belong to the US, and that is something many politicians there haven't yet figured out. It is common knowledge that they are not too good in history or geography.

Cuba is proud of its solid youth, students, artists and workers organizations, its unions. But how do they participate in Cuban politics and how does the government listen to them?

RA: Those organizations and others, like those for farmers, or of a professional or neighborhood sort, have a vital, organic participation in the governance of society. It is their responsibility to nominate candidates for national deputy and provincial delegate positions. They are not only heard but also intervene directly in decision making. I could offer some examples: the Tax Law was subjected to great scrutiny among workers' unions before being presented to the National Assembly, which resulted in important modifications to the original text; the Agricultural Cooperatives Law, which was presented by the National Association of Small Farmers, was discussed by hundreds of thousands of members in all the cooperatives. The final version of the project that was considered and approved by the Assembly came out of those discussions. But the best example is what we call "workers' parliaments," in which all of Cuban society participated to reflect openly and deeply about the general and concrete problems in our economy during the worst moments of the crisis (1993), an experience we have been using as a guiding rule in our legislative conduct. It is noteworthy that while Cuba was going through a critical situation and facing an intensification of foreign attacks (the Torricelli and the Helms-Burton laws, and other aggressive measures) and its democracy was growing in practice and in importance, the Western world was going in the opposite direction. What we practice here is what Kelsen defined as "a parliamentarization of society," while elsewhere measures that radically affect everyone are being adopted without as much as respecting the rituals of formal democracy and sometimes conspiring secretly against the people: the Multilateral Investment Agreement, the ALCA, and the "free trade" negotiations are just some examples of how far "the fiction of representation in representative democracy" has gone, another reference to the Austrian professor.

Cuba is also accused of lack of freedom of expression. What is the situation of the media in Cuba? Is Internet access restricted for Cubans?

RA: As far as freedom of expression is concerned, I just cited very concrete examples that establish the radical difference between Cubans who not only express themselves, but who make decisions about their fundamental problems, and those who under neo-liberalism 'enjoy' what someone as unsuspected as Thomas L. Friedman describes as a "fear of rapid change from an enemy you can't see, touch or feel... that your job, community or workplace can be changed at any moment by anonymous economic and technological forces." This which Friedman calls "the defining anxiety of globalization" is insurmountable proof of the absence of democracy. What then does 'freedom of expression' become under those conditions?

A discussion of the Cuban media could go on quite a bit. I have already pointed out its shortcomings to Cuban journalists on more than one occasion. There have been some notable advances in the digital media.

As far as Internet is concerned, I would recommend an excellent study by a Cuban-American professor, Nelson P. Valdes, about the battle that Cuba has had to wage in this area, in the face of US restrictions. Access is increasing and users as well, not in an elitist manner but in a democratic and participatory way. This is being multiplied in clubs and centers where those interested can also learn to use this medium. All Cuban students, even from early grades, are studying computer technology, and all schools, even the most humble one in a remote corner of the country, have computers.

The United Nations, particularly the Security Council, has been harshly criticized for its weakness in the face of the invasion of Iraq. What, in your opinion, is the role of the UN and what possible reforms might you consider necessary?

RA: The first victim of the so-called "war against terrorism" was the UN. Much earlier, Third World countries were demanding its democratization. That demand is even more urgent and necessary now, and could be summarized in the elimination of the Security Council veto; in putting an end to the excesses of power that this organ has allowed itself; and that the General Assembly fully assume its responsibilities, according to the Charter. Among these would be the fiscal responsibility and control it should have over the Security Council and other UN agencies. It would be necessary to fight very hard to bring about these indispensable changes. Obviously, those with veto power will not give it up easily. But it is within the realm of possibilities to strengthen the role of the General Assembly, because there we all have voice and vote and nobody can veto its decisions.

Despite the fact that it is still called communist, it is undeniable that China has moved towards a political economy very different from that of Cuba. What is your opinion on the Chinese political and economic system?

RA: The Chinese have their own political and economic system, which in turn shapes their socialism. The Chinese Revolution has obtained admirable achievements. One must remember the famous famines and misery and backwardness that afflicted the Chinese people in a not too distant past, as well as the incessant progress they have achieved in all those areas, in a historically short period of time. Of course, the economic policies will differ and it is natural that it be so. I don't believe in only one socialist model. But our political and economic relations with China are excellent.

"Forbes" magazine affirms that Cuban president Fidel Castro has a personal fortune of 110 million dollars. What do you think about that?

RA: That it is rubbish, just like the magazine is. The magazine's own website admits that it has no idea what the fortune of Fidel Castro is, and with that it limited itself to imputing to the president's personal fortune a sum that equals a percentage of the GNP. I think this is a very eloquent example of US methods of intoxicating information with regard to the Cuban president and Cuba.

Could you tell me what the salary of a Cuban minister is?

RA: Four hundred and fifty (450) pesos.

Do you have any disagreement with Fidel Castro?

RA: None, if you are referring to questions of principle. But let me tell you something that people who have dealt with him know very well: being a tireless conversationalist, he avidly seeks facts and opinions from others, which he compares with his own in exchanges of extraordinary fluidity and naturalness. Don't forget that we are talking about someone who is not at all common: he is a cultivated political leader who never stops working and learning; and he devotes himself entirely to what he does.

The Cuban government is accused of impeding Cubans' access to certain services or installations on the island, those reserved for foreign tourists. What do you think about that?

RA: This is a falsehood which seeks to confuse some people who are not Cuban. Fortunately, there are many witnesses who can confirm what I am about to say. Before 1959, most Cubans, either because they were poor or black, were denied access not only to services and installations but also to almost all the beaches in the country and some exclusive zones in the capital and other cities. It was the Revolution that eradicated that embarrassing discrimination, as Nicolás Guillén proclaimed in one of his most popular poems. Never before have so many humble Cubans, workers, employees, used installations and services (specifically hotels) that foreign tourists also use. The latter pay for their expenses in dollars or Euros while the Cubans do it in pesos. Every year tens of thousands of Cubans do this as part of a reward incentive from their job; they are chosen by their trade unions. If instead of letting these rewarded Cubans use available spaces in this manner, we allowed those Cubans who receive dollars from abroad to use the same services as the foreigners do, then we would really be going back to the old discrimination -already in the past- which excluded most Cubans for economic or racial reasons.

One topic that has the Cuban people and many people in other countries quite worried is the imprisonment of five Cubans in the US, accused of espionage. What was their function in the United States?

RA: They were fighting against terrorism. They were fulfilling a very delicate and heroic mission: infiltrating Miami terrorist groups to obtain information about their plans and in that way help Cuba prevent their crimes. Their accusers, the District Attorney's office from South Florida, acknowledged in writing that that was their mission. During the trial, that same District Attorney's office, both in writing and verbally, tried to prevent the presentation of testimonies or evidence on terrorist activities that they found and threatened several of the witnesses if they revealed facts about those activities.

The Court imposed an additional sanction that says literally: "The defendant is prohibited from associating with or visiting specific places where individuals or groups such as terrorists (.) are known to be or frequent." It is so vital for that government to protect its terrorists that it took the trouble of "incapacitating" someone who may well be locked up in a maximum-security prison for the rest of his life plus ten more years.

This "espionage" business is an example of the vices and of manipulation of the media in this process. What is known in Miami as "the press" accused them of being "spies," the same press which published a series of statements of this sort by individuals with long terrorist histories who are loose on the Miami streets. The prosecutors went even further and accused them of nothing less than trying to "destroy the United States" and compared the accused with those who attacked Pearl Harbor.

Yet, the Pentagon recognized in an official note that they had never threatened the security of the US and numerous witnesses, retired generals and admirals, and even high level officers who participated as government experts, declared under oath that there had been no spying.

What irregularities do you find in the legal process involving the Cuban Five ? Where is the process right now?

RA: The list of irregularities would be quite long. I will try to summarize as much as I can:

-They were denied something that is conceded every day to anyone who is accused, the right to hold the trial away from the tremendous prejudice and hostility of Miami. The petition by the Defense to have the trial moved to Fort Lauderdale was denied, even though it is only about half an hour away and within the same South Florida district.

-There has been manipulation of evidence and severe access restrictions to them by defense lawyers, who are still asking to see what is calculated as approximately 80% of the "evidence."

-Three of them were convicted of supposed espionage without the presentation of a single piece of evidence and despite the contradictory testimony of the military people and experts I mentioned earlier. It is difficult to find a precedent of someone being condemned for being a spy with no indication of at least some kind of secret document, material or information that had been obtained or attempted to be obtained.

-One of them was convicted of no less than premeditated murder and treachery, without any proof of his having committed the act (the shooting down of the planes that violated Cuban airspace on February 24, 1996), in which he had no participation whatsoever. To top it all off, the Prosecution acknowledged that it could not prove this accusation, that it was an "insurmountable obstacle," and asked permission to modify its accusation at the last minute, which was not allowed. Just the same, Gerardo was found guilty by the Miami jury.

-There have been countless violations of the norms regarding the treatment of detainees and prisoners. I'll just mention that they were kept in total isolation, in solitary confinement in the so-called "hole," from the day they were arrested and for 17 months. They have been sent back again on several occasions. The most recent of these isolations -for a month- occurred precisely when they were preparing their paperwork for the Appeals Court , so in that way they were denied indispensable communication with their lawyers.

There has been illegal conduct on the part of the government. Aside from the implications of what I have already mentioned, the Prosecution acted in a malicious and dishonest way with respect to the petition from the accused that the trial take place outside of Miami. On that occasion, which coincided with disturbances and violence around the kidnapping of Elian Gonzalez, the Prosecution judged that the trial against representatives of the Cuban Revolution could be fair and objective in Miami. A year after the end of the trial against the Cuban Five , the same Prosecution argued that it was "virtually impossible" to judge anything related to Cuba there when it, the Prosecution, was accused in an administrative case indirectly related to our country.

The case is now before the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, in Atlanta, where the parties have already presented the required documents. The defense has asked for an oral argument before that Court, which the Prosecution believes to be unnecessary.

From the point of view of the legal battle, everything is in the hands of the Atlanta Court. It is expected to make a pronouncement next year (2004).