Flexing on Cuba?

Apr 06, 2009 Editorial

Cuba has long loomed inordinately large in the foreign policy calculations of the US – ever since a young radical named Fidel Castro seized power from the dictator Batista in 1959.

The latter had opened up the island state, just ninety miles from mainland America, into a playground of the rich and a lucrative market for US corporations. Castro’s rapid alignment with Moscow in the context of the Cold War (which was very “hot” then) was viewed as a veritable act of war that the new liberal US President, John Kennedy felt impelled by domestic politics (“soft on Reds”) to counteract.

The humiliating debacle of the US sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the standoff that almost brought about a nuclear war when the USSR attempted to station missiles in Cuba led to the US defining Cuba as a threat to its national security.

As part of its response, the US in 1962 imposed a blockade on trade, investment and travel between it and Cuba that in one form or another has remained in place.

Another response by Kennedy was to vow to “prevent another Cuba” in the Hemisphere and when he assessed the PPP regime in Guyana in power at that time to be “communist leaning” he engineered the removal of PPP from office through CIA agitation that spilled over into ethnic hostilities. And thus has the history of modern Cuba and Guyana been intertwined.

But a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since – notably the USSR and its perceived threat to the US collapsing ignominiously by 1990. In Guyana, the PPP was seen as not posing a threat any longer and the US, through the aegis of the Carter Centre and other institutions mid-wifed a return of democratic elections here – and the return of the PPP into office. The US policy towards Cuba however never did evolve to that degree.

There were, however significant differences between the two scenarios that may explain the disparate responses. Cuba, small as it was, continued to thumb its nose at the US and presented its political, economic and social systems as a more viable alternative to those of the US. It even presented the US embargo as the reason why conditions on the island were not better than they were.

There were also significant enclaves of Cuban émigrés in two key states – Florida and New Jersey – that brought pressure on successive US administrations to prevent a return to the status quo ante.

From the Presidency of Jimmy Carter in the seventies to that of the last Bush, there have been a back and forth in loosening the restrictions of travel and remittances to Cuba and then tightening them again – with the Democrats generally in favour of loosening. There have been several bills passed by both Congress and the Senate-some went as far as proposing an end to the embargo – but they were all stymied at the White House.

During the last US Presidential campaign, Mr. Obama had dubbed President Bush’s policy toward Cuba a “humanitarian and strategic blunder” and Obama promised changes, including a lifting of all travel restrictions for those with relatives in Cuba and an end to limits on remittances. It would appear that President Obama is about to make good on his promise and will do so ahead of his participation in the April 17-19, Fifth Summit of the Americas in T&T.

This shift, which just brings US policy back to where it was in the 1990’s under Clinton, may not satisfy the other members of the Summit that, in other fora, have voted overwhelmingly to support an end of the embargo.

President Obama, however, may wait for a signal from the regime in Cuba that they will themselves flex somewhat in their political authoritarianism before going further – which needs Congressional approval.

From all indications, there is broad bipartisan agreement for the embargo to be called off – but the dance of diplomatic flexing may have to continue for a while longer.

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Flexing on Cuba?

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