Our Democracy Is More Meaningful Than Any Other: Fernando González Llort

Fernando González Llort, Nitheesh Narayanan

On September 12, 1998, five Cuban Intelligence officers, renowned as the Cuban Five: Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González were arrested in Miami, US on 25 counts, including charges of false identification and conspiracy to commit espionage. It took 16 years of legal, diplomatic and political fight for their release from U.S. prisons and their return to Cuba in 2014. There were worldwide protests and gatherings in demand of the release of Cuban five throughout the one and half decade. They remained brave and committed to the cause of Cuban revolution and never succumbed to the threats and orders of US imperialism to betray the socialist Cuba. One of them, Fernando González Llort, Hero of the Republic of Cuba, Member of Cuban parliament and also president of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with Peoples (ICAP) talks to Nitheesh Narayanan, Editor of the Student Struggle on the survival of Cuba.

Nitheesh Narayanan (NN): It has been 60 years since the Cuban Revolution. How do you read that revolution after looking at the experiences of Six decades of a socialist nation-building?

Fernando González Llort (FGL): I see a revolution that is still the same. It is the same spirit of our revolutionary movement in our country, there are revolutionary characteristics among new generations, and similar to the generations came before. I see a revolution that is trying to reinvent itself, changes- whatever needs to be- by keeping the same concepts and the same original spirit, trying to update our economic model to make us more efficient and make it sustainable to the future, and building our socialism. The socialism- that is the goal of the Cuban people- as the only social system that guarantees our sovereignty and our freedom.

NN: There have been socialist experiments in different countries of the world over the period. What are the be the most peculiar characters of socialism or the socialist changes that are taking place in Cuba?

FGL: Each country has its own history, its own traditions, its own culture, and its own ideas and processes. So I don’t think there is a single socialist model that is to be applied everywhere alike. Every country has to find a way to carry out the transformations they perceive that they need. In Cuba, we have a strong sense of identity emerges from the ways in which our “Cubanhood” came to be in the struggle for independence against Spain. So, it’s a very patriotic sense of defending our identity, our nationhood, and we believe that our socialism is built with the human being as the centre above the tensions of the state and their society.

NN: The generation that led or witnessed the Cuban revolution has almost gone. Now, there is a generation in Cuba which do not hold a direct experience with the historic revolution. There is a generation change in Cuba. How do you see this generation change and the capacity of the new generation to carry forward the ideals of the Cuban revolution?

FGL: It is indeed a new generation that in power from the first time since the triumph of the revolution. The current president of the country (Miguel Díaz-Cane) is not one of the members of the historical leadership of the revolution. It is the new generation but is prepared to continue the same process that was started by Fidel and carried by Raul who is still the general secretary of the communist party. As a new generation has become the leaders of the state and the institutions of the state, a process of continuation is taking place. There is a very dynamic government now in Cuba. They go throughout the country making sure that things are done the way they could admire, seeing the production is in the right track and economic system works properly. It is the new generation with the same revolutionary spirit, very intelligent and a clear awareness of the conditions in Cuba and the world, and they are doing a great job. That’s what I have to say about the generation change.

NN: The international situation has changed especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Cuba in Soviet time and after is different as it was the case with other parts of the world too. What were the challenges? How did you face it?

FGL: The fall of the soviet union was very hard and created a very difficult situation in Cuba. We called, in Cuba, that a special period. The economic situation was very difficult. The gross domestic product of Cuba fell by 35%. We lost 85% of our trade. I will say those were the most difficult years for the Cuban people since the triumph of the revolution. Nevertheless, we resisted and with that now we are here. We are stronger than we were before. We learned a lot from those difficult situations and we are now more resilient and more capable of facing any difficulties that come to our ways. We have that experience. We have now an economy that is very different from the economy we had back then. The economy now we have is more divergent in terms of the sectors of the economy. We have a state sector as the main sector of the economy which drives the Cuban economy forward. But we also have a cooperative sector. And we have the private sector also. We have the market and the laws of the market influence the economy. But, Still planning is the most prominent tool to direct the economy of Cuba. So, it’s a more diverse way of conducting the economy. It’s a more diverse society too, in terms of thinking or with the patriotic and committed views with the revolution. Less homogeneous than it was back when the Soviet Union or the Socialist camp we were part of it existed. So it’s a more diverse, less homogeneous society but the unity of the people is still the same. The unity of the people around the social project we are building, the cohesion of the society in support of the government and the revolution.

NN: Fidel used to stress on the battle of ideas and the unity of the people. There was a regular attempt to make people conscious about the developments in and around Cuba. We have seen Fidel delivering longs speeches to the public. What is the role of the battle of ideas in political practice?

FGL: Battle of Idea is still on. We live in a world where we are influenced by western ways of looking at things and cultural models they try to impose upon others because they own the means of communication. If you look at the television anywhere in the world, Most of the programmes you watch on TV, or the movie you watch or the music you listen to is mostly produced in western cultures, in centres of power like the United States or Europe, mostly the united states. So they have the means of communication to impose their agenda and their ways of looking at the world. So the battle of ideas is very important. It is trying to create an educated individual who can live in a world like ours and has the capacity to recognize and resist the hegemonic presence and influence of the imperialist world. The battle of ideas, in my opinion, is creating, educating and forming that is being able to live at the midst of all those influences which you cannot avoid with the means of communication that are there now. But being able to say I have projects and concepts of life that are different from what is proposed and imposed by capitalism and the western model of life.

NN: One of the major campaigns against Cuba by the United States and allies is on the question of democracy. They call Cuba as the anti-democratic country. How do you respond to it?

FGL: I lived long enough in the united states to understand the way they organise political living or political life in the country has nothing to do with democracy. So they cannot tell me anything about that. I believe that, and I saw it that there is no democracy when you need millions of dollars to get elected to any post. You want to run for the mayor of the city you need a lot of money, If you want to run for the governor of state you need millions of dollars, If you want to run for the congress you need millions of dollars, If you want to run for the post of president you need millions and millions of dollars. So there is no democracy there. There is no democracy when you need to pay back those who gave you the money to run elections. And who gave you the money? It is not people of streets giving one or two dollars. It is big companies, big commercial companies giving money to the individuals to get elected. So who is he/she going to accountable to? They are not going to be accountable to the people. He or she is going to pay back to those companies with the laws he passes in the congress or she passes in congress or the city council. I lived there and I saw it happening every day. So let us not talk about that variety of democracy.

In Cuba, we have a very democratic system. I challenge the United States government or any other developed country or any other country in the world to do what we did in Cuba when passing the new constitution. The whole of society became a constituent assembly. The project was debated throughout the country. A million Cubans participated in meetings in which more than a million opinions were given regarding the project. People responded on how to modify the constitution, how to enact it and about what they have disagreements with etc. If they do that in united states, the president of the united states will not be the president in the next week. So, I challenge them to do that and see who is more democratic.

NN: What is the current situation?

FGL: Economic war is imposed and the Cuban economy is going through a hard time. It is growing but it is growing very slowly. We need a faster scale of growth for the country to develop. The main obstacle to our growth and economic development is the blockade imposed by the United States. Its been imposed since 1962. So its 58 years of blockade. But now the current administration has taken that blockade to another level with the new and harsher measures. With the application of Title III of the Helms Burton Act that allows American citizens to sue in U.S. courts against any alien who “traffics” U.S. property that was nationalised in Cuba in the 1960s, in a legitimate process, as recognised by the Supreme Court of the United States, carried out by the Cuban government in full compliance with national law and International Law. The land on which property is built used to belong to US citizens and that is confiscated by the Cuban government. First of all, this was not confiscation, there was the nationalisation of those properties. Nationalisation that is based on international law. All the countries properties nationalised were compensated by the Cuban government. The United States government never allowed Cuba to compensate an American company that has been nationalised in Cuba. Why? Because they were preparing the bay of pigs invasion and they thought the issue will be solved when the bay of pigs invasion successes, though it never happened, they lost. So now the companies that were supposedly compensated by the Cuban government and never accepted the compensation are supposedly able according to the Helms-Burton Act to sue the Cuban government or Cuban companies or foreign companies that are investing in Cuba. The whole purpose is to scare off the investors, the potential investors in the Cuban economy. They know that Cuba needs foreign investors. They are trying to scare off the potential investors. They are trying to deny Cuba any source of income to develop the economy. They are trying to prevent Cuba from getting the oil sent from Venezuela. They are persecuting every single financial transaction Cuba does with any country in the world. It is an economic war against Cuba. They are in an attempt to deny Cuba any single resource to develop the country. But we are not going to succumb. We are going to resist them and we are going to keep our cause high. In that effort, I’m confident that a lot of people around the world stand in solidarity with Cuba.

NN: What is the idea of internationalism upheld by Cuba?

FGL: Well, Cuba has a corporation with more than 60 countries in the world. Cuba has extended its human resources to various parts of the world. Doctors, nurses and the Cuban teachers are serving throughout the world. Cuba is not in the same condition it was forty years ago. But still, the same solidarity projects It initiated continue to sustain. I will say, Africa is the continent in which more Cubans are working in services like health services, or as teachers or as engineers. Many countries in Latin America has also benefitted from Cubans. There is a School, Cuba international school where people from around the world can go and become doctors at no cost. Cuba is as internationalists as it was always been. If you read the concept of revolution and what a revolution is, that was given by Fidel back in 2001, he defines what a revolution is and he says in between many other ideas, that internationalism and being in solidarity is part of being a revolutionary.

NN: More personal, but definitely a political question too. How could you survive the fifty years of imprisonment?

FGL: All we have to do is with the history of our country. We are the people who resist because we are the people who understand that we are attacked by the most powerful country in the world. I never took it personally, I knew it was not United states against me or any other brothers in Cuba, but it was the United States against Cuba. So looking at it from a historical perspective, I understood I could gain distance from the emotional situation, even though it was painful. I understood it was part of a historical confrontation between the United States and Cuba. It helped me to cop up with the pain and the situation I was going through. It knew it was not against me, it was against Cuba. As I saw it like that, the most important thing was not what happened to me, but what happened to Cuba. So it helped me to go through the situation.

NN: You have been a prisoner in the US and you have seen the prisons in Cuba also. How do you differentiate the way prisons operates in both countries?

FGL: The concepts by which the Cuban prisons are run are very different. The material condition of a prisoner in Cuba is different because we don’t have the resources to build a two hundred million dollar prison as the United States does. But I have seen prisons in Cuba, I have visited and talked to the inmates and the concepts by which the prisoners organise and the ways they are being treated as human beings are totally different. I have seen the place where women are held and I have seen how they are treated without any violation of the basic human rights. If a women prisoner is pregnant they get a separate apartment inside the prison to take care of the delivery and the newly born child. Baby is with the mother from the first day. All the facilities will be provided in prison. In the United States, the women will be taken to the hospital and the newly born baby will be handed over to the family members, separating from the mother. The mother will be back to prison the next day. This is inhuman.

NN: How do you see the way forward for Cuba?

FGL: I see the way forward as a way which will be a result of the effort of our people. We are making a great effort and I’m sure we are going to be victorious, we are going to develop our country further, we are going to resist as long as it is needed. We call upon the people around the world to be in solidarity with us against all the imperialist attempt to destabilise us.

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Nitheesh Narayanan is the editor of Student Struggle, a Central Secretariat member of SFI and a PhD scholar at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

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