Read Online Cuba by Stephen Coonts - Free Book Online Page B

declared
    economic warfare on Cuba. Then the cruelest
    twist of the knifethe Soviet Union collapsed in
    1990-91 and Cuba was cut adrift.
    Ah, he should have been wiser, should have realized that the
    United States would be the winning horse.
    The Spanish grandees had bled Cuba for
    centuries, worked the people as slaves, then as peons.
    After the Americans ran the Spanish off,
    American corporations put their men in the manor
    houses and life continued as before. The people were still slaves
    to the cane crop, living in abject poverty, unable
    to escape the company towns and the company stores.
    A few things did change under the Americans. The
    is-
    land became America’s red light district, the
    home of the vice that was illegal on the American
    mainland: gambling, prostitution, drugs, and, during
    Prohibition, alcohol. Poor Catholic
    families sent their daughters to the cities to whore
    for the Yanquis.
    The capitalists bled Cuba until there was no
    blood left they would keep exploiting people the world
    over until there were no more people. Or no more
    capitalists. Until then, the capitalists would have
    all the money. He should have realized that fundamental
    truth.
    He had grown up hating the United States,
    hating Yanquis who drank and gambled and whored the
    nights away in Havana. He hated their
    diplomats, then- base at Guantanamo Bay,
    their smugness, their money … he despised them and
    all their works, which was unfortunate, because America was
    a fact of life, like shit, A man could not escape
    it because it smelled bad.
    God had never given him the opportunity to destroy
    the Yanquis, because if He had …
    Fidel Castro was intensely, totally Cuban.
    He personified the resentment the Cuban people felt
    because they had spent their lives begging for the scraps that
    fell from the rich men’s table. Resentment was a vile
    emotion, like hatred and envy.
    Wellea”he was dying. Weeks, they said. A few
    weeks, more or less. The cancer was eating him
    alive.
    The painkillers were doing their jobat least he could
    sit up, think rationally, smoke the forbidden cigars,
    plan for Cuba’s future.
    Cuba had a future, even if he didn’t.
    Of course, the United States would play a
    prominent role in that future. With the great devil
    Fidel dead, all things were possible. The
    economic embargo would probably perish with him, a
    new
    presidente
    could bring … what?
    He thought about that question as he puffed gingerly on the
    cigar, letting the smoke trickle out between his lips.
    For years Americans had paraded through the govern-
    ment offices in Havana talking about what might be
    after the economic embargo was lifted by their
    government. Always they had an angle, wanted a
    special dispensation from the Cuban government… and were
    willing to pay for it, of course. Pay handsomely.
    Now. Paper promises … He had enjoyed
    taking their money.
    He had made no plans for a successor, had
    anointed no one. Some people thought his brother, Raul,
    might take over after him, but Raul was
    impotente,
    a lightweight.
    He would have to have his say now, while he was very much
    alive.
    But what should the future of Cuba be?
    The pain in his bowels doubled him up. He curled
    up in the bed, groaning, holding tightly to the cigar.
    After a minute or so the pain eased somewhat and he
    puffed at the cigar, which was still smoldering.
    Whoever came after him was going to have to make his peace
    with the United States. They were going to have to be
    selective about America’s gifts, rejecting the
    bad while learning to profit from the good things, the
    gifts America had to give to the world.
    That had been his worst failinghe himself had never
    learned how to safely handle the American
    elephant, make the beast do his bidding. His
    successors would have to for the sake of the Cuban people.
    Cuba would never be anything if it remained a long,
    narrow sugarcane field and way point for cocaine
    smugglers. If that was all there was,