By David Cruz
Correspondent
He’d been effectively out of office for more than a decade, but as the most powerful symbol of the Revolution — good and bad — Fidel Castro cast a long shadow over this island of 11 million people. But his death this weekend at 90 — while celebrated by exiles here — will do little to change the new status quo between the U.S. and Cuba. Congressman Albio Sires, whose family left Cuba 50 years ago, still remembers the military searching his house to make sure the family took nothing with them when they left to the U.S.
“Well, I look at it like this. Fidel Castro is dead, but the dictatorship is still there,” he said. “And our battle is not finished until we get rid of the dictatorship that he established on the island.”
Sires, a former mayor of West New York, has maintained all along that the Obama administration’s heralded outreach to Raul Castro’s Cuba was a one-sided deal that sends millions in economic activity to Havana and asked for little in return.
“I think that President Obama may have been well intended but I think he gave the house away,” he added. “I think he gave too many concessions and not enough concession from the Cuban government for all the things that he gave the island.”
Like restored diplomatic relations, increased trade, improved communications, freer travel (with direct flights to the island beginning today out of JFK), all in exchange for the release of a few dozen dissidents and international expressions of approval. Nothing on the release of what could be hundreds of dissidents, no return of fugitives and no restoration of press and other freedoms. Sen. Bob Menendez has been the loudest critic of the Obama deal.
“I will support any president, regardless of the party, if I believe that their position on any given issue is right, and I will be a fervent opponent when I believe they are wrong and that’s what I did with President Clinton, President Bush and President Obama,” said the senator.
But, politics — given as it is to creating strange bedfellows — could present a new opportunity for anti-Castro forces looking to harden lines again. West New York Mayor Felix Roque says President-Elect Donald Trump could be a key ally in this effort.
“I’m a Democrat; I have a lot of respect. He’s an alumni of my military school and one of the mottos in my military school is Tojoures Pret, means ‘always ready,’ so I know he’s going to be ready and he’ll help us make a change on Cuba,” he said. “He could be a little tougher with the regime. They understand strength. They don’t understand negotiations through weakness and that’s so far what we have done.”
Menendez agreed. “Yes, I could particularly work with him if, in fact, we are going to particularly look at stopping the commercial aspects of President Obama’s decisions because in Cuba there are only two monopolies that you can do business with — one is headed by Raul Castro’s son and the other by Raul’s son-in-law, both high-ranking officials of the Cuban military and intelligence apparatus.”
Castro’s death is a historic milestone for Cuba and for its people, but the road ahead is as uncertain as ever, maybe even more so.