Thirty years ago, two remarkable revolutionary figures were struggling for existence in the Caribbean region. It was an era when the democratic ideals of the wartime and postwar period were challenging military dictators and oligarchical, tradition-based societies.
One of these individuals, Romulo Betancourt, was eluding the grasp of the Perez Jiminez dictatorship in Venezuela, a state that had known the rule of strongmen throughout most of its century and a half of existence. On January 23, 1958, with the help of progressive military officers, the regime in Caracas was overthrown and parliamentary democracy rapidly introduced. Betancourt was elected president, served a five-year term, and then permanently left office, living modestly thereafter as a leader of the social democratic political party and as a symbol of limited, constitutional government until his death in 1981. His legacy has been six free elections, four peaceful transitions of the party in power, a military subordinate to civilian authority, an independent judiciary, freedom of the press and assembly, human rights, and the rule of law.
Betancourt's spirit lives on in Latin America today. Brazil's President Jose Sarney told the UN General Assembly in September 1985 that Latin America's extraordinary effort to create a democratic order is the most stunning and moving political fact of recent years. There is, in fact, a trend running in that direction. It stems from that legacy of the democratic path breakers of the 1950s and 1960s, like Betancourt, who demonstrate that freedom and self-government flourish after all on Latin American soil.
The other chief revolutionary figure in the Caribbean 30 years ago was Fidel Castro in Cuba. When Fulgencio Batista fled, he left behind a political vacuum. Almost all Cubans cheered his departure. Few Cubans and even fewer foreigners knew what was coming.
On January 1, 1959, Cuba lay at the feet of the revolutionary liberator whose own hallmark had been violence but who had pledged to restore democracy. He himself was still at the other end of the long island, in Santiago, where, prophetically, he told a crowd that night that they would not lack weapons, that there would be plenty of weapons, although he did not explain for what purpose the weapons would be needed. Prophetically, too, he told the women in the crowd that they would make fine soldiers. They did not know, nor did his countrymen know, that six months earlier he had pledged to lead a longer, larger war against the United States, a war that the said would be his "true destiny." This was not hyperbole. It offers a key insight into the subsequent development of Cuba and U.S.-Cuban relations.
Since January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro has been the only leader Cuba has known, making his the third longest reign in Latin American history. There have, indeed, been plenty of weapons, weapons that self-styled Cuban "internationalists" have since carried to other countries and to other continents. If Venezuela is a model of sorts for the remainder of Latin America, Cuba has been a model of another kind.
The power of the gun
The differences between the two models are multiple and fundamental. One of the most significant differences is the fact that Cuba has
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