Cuba USA

Cuba-United States: has the thawing begun?

By: Esteban Morales Domínguez

Source: Bloqueo contra Cuba

Translation: Network in Defense of Humanity

A certain rapprochement seems to have begun between Cuba and the United States. I hope it is. There is enough experience to know what to do so the potential advances does not come to anything.

It was during the James Carter administration when the process of approaching advanced most between both countries towards a normalization of relations or a certain normal “coexistence”.

Reviewing these experiences the reasons that definitely prevented “normal “relations between both countries should be considered.

I think the most important that finally led to a break were the following:

a. In truth talks were held and there was a lot of negotiation but the United States part never accepted for Cuba to negotiate with the United States in equal conditions.

b. At all times the United States part tried to impose its agenda on Cuba. The meetings became a real wrestling match.

c. The asymmetry between both countries became evident; for the United States always acting like the large power that was allowed all; everything that Cuba could not do.

d. The United States always managed negotiations from an East-West perspective taking Cuba out if the hemispheric context and taking it out of the framework of its contradictions with the USSR.

e. By not treating the problems with Cuba on the basis of a strict bilateral consideration there are always obstacles that implicate for Cuba demands that could not be answered satisfactorily for the United

States. These were the demands that Cuba take out its troops from Africa, relations with the USSR and revolutionary activism of Cuba on an international level.

f. Finally it is possible to observed, among other issues, how negotiations on the part of the United States never unrolled in a framework of ethics and sincerity but more like traps, deception and diplomatic tricks on the part of the United States that do not promote mutual understanding Of course, both internal and external conditions that the Carter administration negotiated with Cuba during 1977-80 were quite complex and difficult for the administration:

a.. The United States was going through a large economic crisis.

b.. The sectors of the Cuban American extreme right wing were obstructing any rapprochement, in spite of the dialogue of Cuba with the Cuban community.

c.. Within the administration the position of Carter confronted the pressures of Brzezinski although he was able to count on Cyrus Vance.

d.. The intent of Carter to appear like a strong president clashed with the need to be able to isolate the Cuban international activism clashed with the right wing; the absence of presidential credentials of a president who know foreign policy and, therefore, his high degree of dependence on the Secretary of the National Security Council.

e.. Questioning the aggressive policy of the United States towards Cuba depended on limited sectors of US society and even within the administration in which the idea was did not receive total acceptance.

However, today the situation is very different. The African problem is no longer present, nor Cuban revolutionary activism, nor relationswith the USSR.

Also the political environment is another. The many contacts between both society these years, among them: the scientific-academic, religious, political exchange, including congresspersons; a weakening of the extreme right wing; the “people-people” exchange, but above all the circulation of information on the reality of both countries have created, on their own, an involuntary process of successive approximations that leads to a level of understanding of Cuba in the United States and vice versa that prevents a blind manner of dealing

with political issues between both countries.

It is about a long historical period of more than 50 years in which, regardless, both countries have begun to approach far beyond the intents to keep Cuba under a policy of transnational blockade and isolation. This has gradually eroded the policy of the US blockade that, for many, is a failure of the attempt to subvert Cuba.

As a fundamental question, in addition to the survival of Cuba, all the events have varied the coordinates that previously evaluated the policy towards Cuba.

Today, the United States policy of blockade against Cuba is discredited and internal US reality has few followers than before.

This is sufficient reason that many feel the policy should change. Since this is a dominant political environment within international and internal reality in the US by which the Obama administration is forced to move in. As an advantage for Obama, very few defend the current policy towards Cuba and there are many who would like to see it change.

As a result of these changes the Obama administrations faces situations totally unprecedented in relation of its policy towards Cuba. Never have so many signals appeared that indicate a need and consensus to change the policy nor has the intention of change had so many defenders, even among those who defended it previously.

For this reason Obama should not fear paying the costs for a policy that so many consider unacceptable in terms that many understand the United States interests with Cuba.

Also, a series of phenomena appear that strengthen the factors previously explained:

a... The hemispheric scenario of the policy of the United States towards Cuba has changed noticeably. No longer are Latin America and the Caribbean the back patio of US policy; the hemispheric attitude

towards Cuba has changed considerably; the prestige of Cuba has risen as never before; the correlation of political forces have varied in favor of hemispheric changes that questions, as never before, the power of the United States; the inter American system is crumbling, the OAS one, and other institutions, that sustain the leadership of the United States in the hemisphere.

b... The United States has gradually become isolated from the new institutions that have appeared in the hemisphere. And even the United States should ask why.

c... On a worldwide level a policy of blockade is no longer accepted and this is combined to the process of approaching Cuba, both economically and politically, even by those who historically have been the main allies of the United States.

d... While the United States has been left stuck in the same policy

towards Cuba there has been a movement of approaching the Island that

has resulted in the fact that many attempts to isolate Cuba as

resulted that the United States is now isolated..

Reasons have begun for several years a process by which the United

States is increasingly paying the cost of not changing its policy

towards Cuba. Some can be mentioned:

a.... The United States is confronting a dominating attitude of the

hemisphere that is beginning to send signals varying its dealings with

Cuba or its hemispheric relations will suffer irreparable results.

b.... The allies of the United State have abandoned it in dealing with

Cuba. Consequently the principles to maintain the Helms-Burton have

crumbled.

c.... Cuba, with its world presence in the fight against illiteracy,

blindness and lately against Ebola in Africa reveals that the United

States is falling behind in collaboration to overcome problems that it

should attend forming alliances beyond its political affinities.

d.... The United States has been increasingly isolated in the

integrationist Latin American and Caribbean process by not sending out

intelligent signals by trying to solve its own policies, against the

interest of the majority of Latin American and Caribbean countries.

e.... The United States does not change its vision of fightingterrorism and that also keeps it from making broader and more solid
coalitions. There are many reasons today that force the United States
to follow a different policy towards Cuba that would allow it to
assume advantages that could lead to a new relationship.

It seems, by some declarations of its Secretary of State and recent
ones made by the ambassador to the United Nations, the Obama
administration has adopted a certain language of rapprochement that
could bring new elements in view in addition to the collaborative
attitude in the fight against Ebola.

We hope that it is a serious intention of the administrations that
tends to “break the ice” and that this declared medical collaboration
begun with Cuba leads to other approaches. That, I am sure would be
beneficial to both countries.

Cuba, for its part, has given examples more than sufficient to be
willing to sit down at a table of negotiation with the United States.
For Cuba it must be in equality of conditions.
None will move blindly in the road to an approach. There is a large
experience accumulated that should be taken advantage of, with the
intention to serve both in the design of a critical route to follow in
the current situation.

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Cuba USA