The more things Che-nge

The U.S. media and politics website, “Crooks and Liars” an audio recording of an interview between ABC News correspondent Lisa Howard and then Cuban Minister of Industry, Che Guevara, from the 24 March 1964 edition of “Issues and Answers”.

The “issue” that made this newsworthy 45 years ago was an agreement between the Cuban government and British Leyland Company to buy buses for Havana.   Though Crooks and Liars presents it simply as a “blast from the past,” triggered by renewed interest in Cuban-U.S. relations, Guevara was making statements that — absent the Marxist jargon — are still being made today.

At about 01:35 on the 24 minute recording, Guevara speaks of the problem caused by “foreign aid” to Latin America (and specifically to Cuba), pointing out that the U.S. is not the only market in the world.   Throughout the interview,  Che returns again and again to the point that if there was a “free market” and Latin American (and Asian and African) nations were equal partners, revolutions like the Cuban one would probably be based on local issues.

Howard asks specifically about the Alliance for Progress, which Guevara notes, ironically I think, that if the Alliance really did create equality in  Latin America, the United States would be faced with the problem of dealing with its own inequalities.  Rather pointedly, he says that the “American Way of Life”, the high living standard of the west, depends on exploitation of Latin (and African and Asian) people.

Interestingly enough, at 21:20 on the recording, Che speculates that Raul Castro would be the logical successor to Fidel.  I’ve thought for a long time that Cuban political development was locked into place by the U.S. blockade/embargo.  Had the U.S. and Cuba had normal relations, and not interfered with Cuba’s search for alternative markets, the political system would have been very different.  As it is, my prediction is that post-Raul, Cuba will adopt a “Institutional Revolutionary” system, like that which prevailed in Mexico… with the party and state services overlapping, and a relatively stable system in which — although the Revolutionary achievements are preserved — there is a slow erosion as the system ossifies.

I think the money line is at 22:50 when Che, asked about what the United States should do in Cuba (and, by extention, in Latin America):

Nothing, just leave us alone.