The diplomatic battle over Cuba's possible return to the O.A.S. is a labyrinth of paradoxes. Venezuela and its allies (Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Honduras) want the island to return to that institution, from which it was expelled in 1962 because of its ties to Marxism-Leninism.

The United States and Canada oppose the idea because the Democratic Charter, signed in 2001 by all the member states including Chávez's Venezuela, demands that the member nations enjoy political plurality and free elections, and that human rights be respected, a very different picture from the Stalinist reality of truncheon-and-terror that exists in Cuba.

Amid these conflicting forces, in a less-than-laudable role, is the overextended Chilean José Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the O.A.S., who one day says one thing and the next day says the opposite. He will not go into history as a model of intellectual integrity but as the man who liquidated Parmenides' principle of identity: in Insulza's novel philosophy, something can be and not be, at the same time. Cuba can be a dictatorship, as he acknowledges, and belong to an institution that rejects dictatorships, as the O.A.S. bylaws command. Why does he do this? According to the cynics, because he owes his job to Hugo Chávez. According to his friends, because, with Cuba inside the O.A.S., it would be easier to foster democratic changes inside the island.

For its part, the Castro brothers' government has no interest in rejoining the O.A.S. Down the years, Fidel, the consummate insulter, has called it "the ministry of colonies," "the Americans' brothel," "the stench pit" and other nice things. The latest broadside came recently; on May 11, Fidel described the O.A.S. as "rotten" and denied it the right to judge the Cuban reality from an ethical perspective.

We mustn't forget that Fidel Castro made his debut in public life in April 1948, while studying law, as a member of a delegation of young radicals from various countries who gathered in Colombia at the invitation and expense of Juan Domingo Perón, president of Argentina, who had organized an "international anti-imperialist congress" in Bogotá to protest against the creation of the O.A.S. in that city. Sixty-five years have gone by and Fidel Castro, a man of "culillos," or fixed ideas, a barricaded Peter Pan who neither ages nor learns, continues to hate the O.A.S.

In any case, this battle, which has a certain cost for Chavism, will not benefit the government of Cuba, which perceives the conflict as a kind of humiliation. Besides, all this happens at the worst time for the Castros, amid an acute economic crisis from which they foolishly try to emerge by dint of more controls and more repression, despite half a century of negative experiences with those methods and at a time of total frustration within the cadres and militants in the Communist Party. Facing a total absence of the "structural reforms" promised by Raúl Castro, the demoralized rank-and-filers know that both the system and the government are beyond salvation (mid- or long-range) because they are incapable of regenerating themselves.

This state of general disheartenment was revealed by a secret survey done by the Communist Party at the University of Havana in late 2008. In a universe of 30,000 people, presumably all sympathizers, only 8 percent of the professors and administrators, and barely 22 percent of the students, wholeheartedly supported the government. A huge majority wanted to put an end, as soon as possible, to that old and discredited fiasco. Needless to say, the survey was one of the reasons for the expulsion of Juan Vela from his post as Minister of Higher Education. Vela likely had authorized it in the belief that the predictable results would serve as a wake-up call to the government's immobility. He probably never expected the results to be so crushing.

The greatest paradox, however, is the relationship perceived in Cuba between Fidel Castro's survival and Raúl's growing delegitimization as Fidel's heir. The longer Fidel lives, wrapped in his stubborn and frozen Stalinism, the weaker and more repudiated will Raúl arrive for "the grand exequies" and the fewer chances he will have to organize the transfer of authority within the communist institutions when he also decides to die. He has spent almost three years in power and the situation, far from improving, has worsened sharply. During his entire life, Fidel shaped the life of his brother Raúl as he saw fit. Now, he's digging him a grave deep and ignoble.

Labels: Cuba