RAUL VENTURES OFF THE ISLAND, COMMENTS ATTEMPT TO

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 HAVANA 000956

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/23/2013
TAGS: PREL PGOV ECON PHUM CU
SUBJECT: RAUL VENTURES OFF THE ISLAND, COMMENTS ATTEMPT TO
SET STAGE FOR U.S. CUBA POLICY CHANGE

REF: CARACAS 1725

HAVANA 00000956 001.2 OF 002


Classified By: COM Jonathan Farrar for reasons 1.5 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary: From December 13 to December 18, Raul
Castro traveled off the island for the first time since
taking over for brother Fidel in July of 2006. The first
part of the trip was an awkward stop in Caracas. The second
part was to attend regional summits in Costa do Sauipe Brazil
and to make an official visit to Brasilia to meet with
President Lula. Cuba scored a diplomatic triumph at the
summits by being brought into the Rio Group, but the focus of
the visit remained on relations with the U.S. as an angry
Raul suggested the exchange of Cuban political prisoners and
their families for five Cuban spies held in the U.S. In the
process, Raul revealed what is likely a major part of the
GOC's public diplomacy strategy for dealing with the Obama
administration. End Summary.


2. (C) For more than two years Raul Castro seemed content to
let subordinates represent Cuba in foreign travel, but that
ended this month with a trip that included stops in Venezuela
and Brazil. The Caracas part of the trip seemed hastily
conceived and was clearly Chavez' show (reftel). Indeed,
Chavez, announcement of Raul's visit seemed to take Cuban
officials by surprise at first, though they recovered and
carried it off relatively smoothly. Our
always-conspiratorial Cuban contacts speculate that Chavez
decided he could not allow Raul to make his first foreign
trip to Brazil, and therefore forced his ally's hand by
announcing a visit himself. Still heavily dependent on
Venezuelan largesse for economic survival, Raul was in no
position to argue. As reported in reftel the visit was big
on pomp and light on substance.


3. (C) In contrast to the Venezuela visit, the trip to Brazil
had been planned for some time. Colleagues at the Brazilian
Embassy in Havana had told us that Lula very much wanted Raul
to reciprocate for the two trips he had made to Cuba since
Fidel Castro fell ill. It had already been evident that Raul
and the GOC hoped to cultivate better relations with other
economic powers, especially Brazil, to counterbalance its
over-dependence on an unreliable Venezuela. The summits of
the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUL),The Union of South
American Nations (UNASUL),the Rio Group, and the group of
Latin American and Caribbean leaders (CALC) offered a good
opportunity for Raul to make an overseas splash and boost
bilateral ties with Brazil at the same time.


4. (C) Though it had already been announced at the Rio Group
meeting in Mexico, the formal acceptance of Cuba into the Rio
Group was a major diplomatic triumph for the GOC. Criticism
of the OAS and Mexican President Calderon's call for a
successor organization that does not include the U.S. or
Canada also fit Cuba's propaganda line. Bringing these
successes together with images of Raul conversing as an equal
with the most important leaders in the hemisphere, the
official Cuban press covered the Brazil summits extensively.
One of our contacts, who is closer to internal GOC politics,
speculated that Raul's performance in Brazil strengthened his
hand within the government even as some media were touting
the possible return to power of his brother Fidel.


5. (C) But if Raul's statements in Brazil were welcomed
within GOC circles, his comments about dissidents and
political prisoners generated anger among those groups. In a
press conference following meetings with Lula in Brasilia,
Castro was asked about the status of dissidents. He
responded testily by asking why the reporter he did not ask
about the $57 million (sic) appropriated by the U.S. Congress
to pay "agents" in Cuba. When a follow-up questioner asked
if this meant that Castro had discarded the possibility of
speaking with President Obama, he replied that any discussion
must be on the basis of absolute equality and that Cuba had
neither the intention nor the need to make gestures to
initiate a dialogue. He added that Cuba expected no gestures
from the U.S. either. However, apparently still annoyed by
the original question on dissidents, Raul then went on to say
that Cuba would free (political) prisoners and send them and
their families to the U.S. in return for the release of the 5
Cuban "heroes" held in prison in the United States for
espionage--that would be a gesture for a gesture.


6. (C) Cuban dissidents we have spoken with were annoyed by
Castro's reference to them as paid "agents" of the United

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States, but were more concerned about his proposal to swap
political prisoners for the five spies. This proposal has
been circulating since the visit of Vatican Secretary of
State Cardinal Bertone last spring, and many in the dissident
community fear that it may gain enough support as a
reasonable option that in the end it will come to pass. All
of those we have spoken too, and especially the Damas de
Blanco spouses and family members of political prisoners,
have told us that they know of no prisoner of conscience who
is willing to be swapped for the five spies and sent into
exile. Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Oscar Elias
Biscet made a special point to call his wife from prison to
make sure that the message got out that the prisoners of
conscience refuse to be swapped for the five spies. All
believe they have committed no crime and have no desire to
abandon Cuba forever. As Damas leader Laura Pollan put it in
an interview with the press "they are not bargaining chips."
Pollan and others have noted frequently that the number of 75
prisoners sentenced in the 2003 "Black Spring" is an exact
multiple of five, even though a total of 84 people were
arrested originally. In their view, the group of 75 (of whom
55 remain in prison) was simply a group of hostages kidnapped
by the GOC to be used later to buy back the five spies.


7. (C) COMMENT: As has been pointed out by Embassy Brasilia
in its messages reporting the summits, the effort to force
the U.S. to make specific changes to its Cuba policy will
surely grow in advance of the Summit of the Americas. Raul's
comments describe Cuba as an aggrieved party that has no
cause to take any steps on its own to improve relations with
the U.S. The push to swap political prisoners for the five
spies will probably be a key part of Cuba's public diplomacy
campaign to ensure that any change in U.S. policy does not
threaten regime interests. It is noteworthy that Raul
mentioned the swap, and implicitly the existence of political
prisoners the regime usually denies, even though the
questioner did not ask about prisoners. His somewhat
petulant comment about dispatching the prisoners and their
families to the U.S. in return for the five spies probably
mangled the desired talking points, but may have revealed the
GOC's intent more clearly.
FARRAR