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 HAVANA 00000956 002.2 OF 002 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