COMMENTARY Cuban regime change may take more time and effort than expected — meaning Cuban exile leaders like Congressman Carlos Gimenez shouldn't alienate potential partners like Jamaica.
I’ve covered Cuba now for the past 36 years. That also means, by default, I’ve covered Cuba’s exiles in Miami for just as long.
And if I’ve learned anything in those 36 years, it’s that much of Cuba’s exile leadership seems to have learned very little about diplomacy.
So now — as a U.S. oil blockade pins Cuba’s repressive and incompetent regime against the Havana seawall — those of us who hope its comandantes will start packing their own exile bags fear that el exilio may once again be poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Case in point: the social-media sucker punch thrown at Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness last week by Republican Miami Congressman and Cuban exile honcho Carlos Gimenez.
READ MORE: Cuban exiles want the world on their side, not Cuba's. Try persuasion, not petulance
At the meeting of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in St. Kitts and Nevis, Holness offered a reasonable advisory on the crisis in Cuba.
Holness asserted, hardly shockingly, that Cuba’s unmistakable and growing “humanitarian suffering serves no one,” especially not neighboring Jamaica.
But he didn't blame that suffering solely on U.S. economic sanctions — as so many of his leftist colleagues so often and so tiresomely do while they ignore Cuba’s disastrous Marxist policies.
In fact, Holness stressed that “Jamaica stands firmly for democracy, human rights … and open-market based economies.” He decried any system where “the will of the people” is trampled by the whim of the party.
Gimenez's social media sucker punch at Holness was the latest in a long line of exile command outbursts that only estrange the world outside Miami.
Everyone in the CARICOM room, even the Che Guevara Kool-Aid drinkers, surely knew Holness was reminding them that Cuba’s regime keeps those liberties behind bars along with its more than 1,000 political prisoners. They surely realized Holness considers the regime kaput.
At the same time, Holness appreciates that too apocalyptic a regime collapse in Cuba could lead to “further deterioration of [the Cuban people’s] circumstances.” So he urged “responsible statecraft” — a transition on the island that prioritizes “de-escalation, reform and stability.”
'You don't threaten friends'
As someone who has repeatedly criticized the Latin American and Caribbean left for coddling left-wing tyranny, I heard the conservative Jamaican Prime Minister reproving, not approving, Cuba's regime.
Even so, Holness’ responsible statesmanship was too measured for Gimenez. So the Congressman launched petulant demagoguery.
On X, Gimenez “harshly” condemned Holness’ address and accused him of “[covering] up for the moribund dictatorship in Cuba.”
“Jamaica,” he shouted, “will face the consequences!”
Said Holness: “You don’t threaten friends” that way.
Indeed, Gimenez’s gratuitous rebuke was just the latest in a long line of outbursts that for decades have alienated Miami’s Cuban exile command from people, movements and countries that might otherwise be persuaded to its side.
Like 1990, when it revoked Miami’s official welcome to South African anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, because he’d thanked then Cuban dictator Fidel Castro for supporting him during his 27 years in prison. The snub sparked a costly, three-year-long Black boycott of Miami — and helped dampen international backing of the anti-Castro cause just as Cuba was losing its economic patron, the Soviet Union.
Or 2000 and the exiles’ furious attempt to keep 6-year-old Elián González from being rightfully returned to his father in Cuba. It ended up making Castro — Castro! — look like the rule-of-law guy in the eyes of the world.
Or years later, the unabashed defense of fellow exile Luis Posada Carriles, whom the FBI and CIA had linked to terrorist acts including the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner in Venezuela that killed 73 people, and Havana hotel bombings in 1997. Posada died a free man in 2018.
Now, Gimenez’s unwarranted blast comes at another moment when the Cuban exile campaign should avoid estranging the world outside Miami.
True, the Cuban dictatorship has never looked weaker, more hemmed in and ready to fall. But as Venezuela and now Iran show us, bringing down authoritarian regimes is hard — and takes more time than expected.
Even the Trump administration appears to have acknowledged that: it's opting to negotiate with Cuba’s regime — which is already pondering economic liberalization in order to survive — rather than obliterate it.
The regime’s overhaul and/or exit as a result may well require not just the U.S. tightening the screws, but mediators like Jamaica helping to loosen the dictatorship’s grip.
If so, exile leaders like Gimenez might try being diplomats instead of demagogues.
