Cuba is going through some big changes. If Raul Castro follows through on announced plans, 500,000 government employees will have to find work in the private sector soon. They are to be absorbed, the government hopes, by new small businesses that will be permitted, albeit with government regulation. On the other hand, the government has no intention of moving simultaneously to a more pluralist political system. Still, things are changing with Cubans, and it is clear that for many of them, including some in the party, more openness and competitive politics would be healthy.
However, many of these same Cubans will also tell you that they resent the continuation of the embargo/blockade and had hoped for more from the Obama administration. Even some of the steps that would allow teachers and students to visit Cuba more regularly are threatened with roll back because of the increased power of the most militant anti-Castro elements in the U.S. congress. In the House, the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee is in the hands of Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and its Western Hemisphere subcommittee in now chaired Rep. Connie Mack. Not even most of their own Republican members want to continue isolating Cuba, but few representatives of either party want to hand their opponents a juicy stick to hit them with. But Ros-Lehtinen and Mack now have a grandstand and some additional ability to attach riders to bills as a strategy to reverse the timid new policies of Obama.
The next edition of CPLA is probably going to have to significantly revise the sections on Cuba. I tried to write the sections in a way that did not whitewash democratic shortcomings but also did not play into the dominant stereotype of Cuba as some kind of totalitarian dungeon. If you have comments, I'd welcome them.
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