“Cuba is destroyed and the change will be long and difficult”

NICE, France.- I met Jaime Suchlicki at the beginning of this century when he opened the doors to me at the ICCAS (Center for Cuban and Cuban American Studies), also called Casa Bacardi, at the University of Miami, which he directed for several decades. The institution was located on Brescia Street in Coral Gables and for a long time was the epicenter of meetings, presentations, debates and other activities related to the Cuban exile in South Florida.

There I gave conferences (one of them on Cuban music in exile, in August 2003), I presented books by authors (Oscar Espinosa Chepe, Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina, Janisset Rivero, Eyda Machín), my own books (Catalejo in the distance o Critical vision of Humberto Calzada), I was in January 2004 presenting to the French journalists of Reporters Without Bordersthen directed by Robert Ménard (current mayor of Béziers, a southern city in France), I attended events organized by different organizations such as NACAE and Herencia de la Cultura Cubana, among them a memorable meeting with Waldo Balart and a conference by Emilio Cueto.

The Bacardi House, as we commonly called it because this company of Cuban origin was the one that contributed the largest amount of funds for its rehabilitation and start-up, stopped operating when Jaime Suchlicki resigned from directing it, after 50 years of service as a professor and researcher at the University of Miami. In reality, his departure in 2017 was the ideal pretext to end one of the most important centers of Cuban culture in South Florida. Although it was said that ICCAS was not going to close, the reality is that in this place, where for decades a feverish activity related to Cuba was carried out, today the doors remain closed to events like those I mentioned.

Jaime then returned to the Cuban Studies Institute outside the University of Miami and the work of publication, data collection and research remains alive, this time through this organization and its different collaborators. Their life, like that of many of the Jewish families who settled in Cuba from the beginning of the 20th century until Castroism forced them to continue their exodus, is also that of a successful young Republic in which everyone who came from other lands seeking prosperity and success.

―Can you tell us about your family origins and the way in which Cuba appears in the lives of your close relatives?

―I was born in 1939 in Old Havana. My father, Solomon Suchlicki, was a Jew originally from a town on the border between the empire of Russia and Poland. In 1921, fleeing the political situation after the triumph of the Bolsheviks in Russia and the economic instability of the region, he arrived in Spain, took the first boat he could and that is how he landed in Havana. It must be said that he immediately felt very welcome and found the island’s population friendly. So there he decided to settle down and start a new life.

Already living in Havana, where the first thing he dedicated himself to was street vending before having his own store, my father met Ana Greinstain, my mother, also from a Jewish family originally from Poland and who had settled in Buenos Aires. Aires (Argentina) and then in Cuba, in 1909, with the hope of one day reaching the United States. In the Cuban capital they met through friends from the Jewish colony they frequented and they got married. My mother, her sister and two maternal uncles were born in Cuba. One of these, Jaime Greinstain, became involved in the student struggles against Gerardo Machado and began to join the ranks of La Joven Cuba, a clandestine organization founded by Antonio Guitera Holmes.

In 1934, when Fulgencio Batista overthrew the democratic government of Ramón Grau San Martín, of which Guiteras was minister and which had been established after the fall of Machado, he became the military man with the greatest power on the Island and the person who really governed. . My uncle Jaime, who fought, as I said, from clandestinity under the name of Jaime Angulo Terry, was shot by order of Batista on April 11, 1935, in Santiago de Cuba, where he was captured. He thus became the first young revolutionary who ended up on a wall by his order and the first Cuban Jew to be shot. He was 19 years old! Of course, I did not know him because I was born later, but this tragic family episode marked my future life and is directly related to my implications in the fight against the Batista dictatorship and my first exile after the coup d’état of 1952.

―What were the first years of your life in Havana like?

―The first years I lived on Sol and Aguiar streets, in Old Havana, in front of the old Ministry of Public Works. My father, before setting up his own souvenir shop for tourists, was, as I already said, a traveling salesman. I did primary school at the Jewish school of the Centro Israelita in Havana and secondary and high school studies at the Havana Institute, later called José Martí, which occupied a block near Central Park.

My life was that of a young student who, when he reaches the age to enter the University, realizes that with the political instability engendered by the student struggles against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, nothing is going to be easy. That is why I tried to study Social Sciences at the University, in 1957, but as I immediately became involved in political struggles I had to go into exile in 1958, in New York.

―When the military coup of 1952 occurred, what state do you think the political situation in Cuba was in?

―This military coup has very deep roots in the history of Cuba. The institutions that were created with the establishment of the Republic after 1902 were not in accordance with the colonial history of the Island. In 1933, after the revolution against Gerardo Machado, there were profound political changes. The presidential tradition of general control of the State persisted. The professional Army remained outside politics until 1934, when a new military force was created, headed by Batista and supported by people in his close circle. And although the parties were independent, they did not manage to really dominate the Army, which acted quite independently.

Unfortunately, the Orthodox Party that became a key political force in the late 1940s loses its leader Eduardo Chibás and a vacuum is created that is difficult to fill. There were a series of factors that facilitated the coup d’état, among them popular disenchantment. It is the reason why when Batista delivers the coup, people do not take to the streets, except the students. Furthermore, the speech he used in 1952 predicted the arrival of order, the end of corruption and the holding of elections. None of this was accomplished, so the result was what happened next and that we still suffer from. All this occurred regardless of the fact that after World War II the Cuban economy was a flourishing sector with an outstanding national industry.

But already in 1953, during the centenary of José Martí’s birth, Cubans felt embarrassed when they realized that what was happening on the island was not what the apostle had dreamed of, but rather a militarized country, where he had there is room for repression and military gangsterism. The psychological impact of this blow was very profound. Until 1956, people believed that violent struggle was not necessary, since it was thought that the peaceful way was the correct one.

―Did you go into exile in 1958 and return to Cuba after the insurrectional triumph of 1959?

-As many. I returned in January 1959 hoping for change. I was 20 years old and they offered me a job at the Ministry of Labor. I remained on the Island until October 1960, because I realized that we had emerged from one dictatorship to fall into another. Since the first demonstrations against Batista, the group led by Fidel Castro stood out for being the most violent, even before armed struggle was seen as the only way to remove the coup plotters from power. I already saw him coming, but in 1959 and 1960 he still did not have absolute power.

This is how I arrived in Miami, just two years after the first exile and I have lived here since then. I have dedicated a large part of my life to fighting Castroism from all the platforms in which I have been able to demonstrate.

―What did you do when you arrived in Miami?

“I always say jokingly, but it’s no less serious: starve.” At first I shared an apartment with four friends because my parents had remained in Cuba in the hope that things would be fixed and that the Castro government would not last. I signed up as a volunteer and trained to participate in the Bay of Pigs landing, but everything was rushed and it was too late for me to really join.

The fact was that, with the disaster at the Bay of Pigs, I realized that we would have a dictatorship for a while and it was then that, in June 1961, my parents also decided to leave Cuba, as well as a half-brother on my father’s side who He was a doctor.

I enrolled at the University of Miami to study Social Sciences and History at the end of 1961. After three years I finished the bachelor and I obtained a scholarship to continue with a master’s degree in Latin American History for a year and a half at Texas Christian University. At that time I was already married to Carol, my American wife, and I was able to finish my doctorate at this institution.

In 1964 I returned to Miami to work in the History Department of the University of Miami, where I remained uninterruptedly for five decades and from where I have carried out all my academic activity, in addition to my research and have written my books.

―You were the creator of the Institute of Cuban Studies within the University of Miami. Can you summarize its beginnings and work over five decades?

―I organized the Institute, not specifically with the acronym ICCAS, in 1967 and since then it began to function as an academic platform to study the history of Cuba, exile and relations with the United States. It was always a prolific center in the publication of books, texts, the creation of databases, the organization of conferences, the production of film materials, among many activities such as symposiums and events related to Cuban history. The Cuban-American actor Andy García himself made a documentary on this topic sponsored by the Institute.

I also directed the Institute of Inter-American Studies, the chair of Latin American Studies, both at the University of Miami, since I specialized in Mexican history. I edited the North-South Magazine of this same institution, from 1991 to 1994; he Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairsfrom 1983 to 1997, and I was holder of the Emilio Bacardí Moreau Chair between 1999 and 2017.

ICCAS operated until 2017 when, due to disagreements with Julio Frenk, president of the University of Miami, I resigned. It was not a retirement as said, but rather a resignation. He did not want the Institute to change direction or political focus with the thaw initiated by the Obama administration with respect to relations with Cuba.

―Your books and research have set standards in political studies of Latin America in general. Could you tell us about this part of your work?

―To date I regularly collaborate with The New Herald y The Miami Heraldbut I have published numerous essays on Cuba’s relations with terrorism, with the Iran of the ayatollahs, on topics related to the embargo, working conditions on the Island, academic exchanges between the United States and Cuba, immigration issues, Russian presence on the Island, the Venezuelan issue, Havana’s ties with the European Union, the missile crisis and many more.

On the other hand, my book Brief History of Cuba It has been republished several times as it serves as a reference in many schools. I also published Cuban Communism (eleven editions already), Cuba: From Columbus to Castro, Mexico: From Montezuma to the Rise of the PAN (three editions), The Cuban Economy: Dependency and Development (with Antonio Jorge, in 1990), The Cuban Military: Status and Outlooks, Cuban Foreign Policy: The New Internationalism (along with Damián J. Fernández), The problems of succession in Cuba and many more. The first of all dates back to 1968 and is titled The Cuban Revolution: A Documentary Bibliography, 1952-1968published in 1968 by the Center for Advence International Studies.

I have contributed to many encyclopedias published, among others, by Oxford University, and carried out several investigations on the relations between the Soviet Union and Latin America, as well as Moscow’s penetration into the continent. I also obtained grants from the North American government to study the transition in Cuba alongside prominent Cubanologists such as Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Edward González, Antonio Jorge, Ernesto F. Betancourt, Jorge I. Domínguez, Carlos Alberto Montaner, among others.

Likewise, I organized several events such as the seminar “Transition or Succession in Cuba” (Panama, 2010), “Cuba Under Raul: Domestic and Foreign Policies” in Bucharest (Romania) and on this same topic in Madrid. I created the seminar “The experience of the Czech transition” in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and the organization People in Need, and others on similar topics in Buenos Aires, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Jamaica, Ecuador, Dominican Republic and different places in the United States such as Fort Lauderdale, Washington and, above all, at the ICCAS headquarters in Coral Gables.

―¿Have you returned to the Island?

―I have never returned since I left in 1960 almost 64 years ago. First of all, because I am not going to a place where there is a dictatorship and where free elections have never occurred for more than six decades. Second, because with my background they probably won’t let me get out of there ever again. Neither my wife Carol (born in Rhode Island) nor my three children born in Miami (Michael, Kevin and Joy) have ever been to Cuba. That has not been a reason to prevent everyone at home from speaking Spanish fluently.

―What do you think about the future of Cuba?

―I see the future of the Island as very complicated in the long term. Cuba is completely destroyed and the change will be long and difficult. In Miami there is a huge community, growing every day, eager for radical change. Although there is less interest in the issue of Cuba now than during the first three decades of exile, almost everyone who lives in South Florida wants drastic change to occur and the country to move towards a democratic system. How many generations of Cuban Americans are there already in Florida? At least three. Our contemporary history has been very regrettable and I believe that this long nightmare should end now.

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