– Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –
The U.S. case for isolating Cuba and keeping it out of international meetings such as this week’s Summit of the Americas sounds simple: the country doesn’t have democratically elected leaders, it holds political prisoners, it violates human rights and its citizens can’t travel freely. All perfectly true.
But if the logic used for isolating Cuba were applied consistently, neither China nor Saudi Arabia, for example, should have taken part in the London G20 summit. The U.S. State Department estimates China has “tens of thousands” of political prisoners and describes it as “an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party … is the paramount source of power.”
That has made little difference to the close relationship of mutual dependence between the U.S. and China, the largest creditor of the United States. During U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s February visit to China, pragmatism triumphed over human rights concerns as she urged the Chinese to keep buying U.S. treasury bonds.
In comparison to China’s “tens of thousands,” the State Department’s latest human rights report quotes a Cuban human rights group as saying the government there held at least 205 political prisoners at the end of 2008, down from 240 at the end of 2007.
The Saudi monarchy, according to the State Department report, denies its citizens the right to change the government peacefully, holds political prisoners, curbs free speech, restricts religious freedom, tolerates violence against women, and sanctions corporal punishment. The list goes on and includes lack of due process in the judicial system.
If the logic applied to Cuba were consistent, U.S. citizens should be banned from traveling to North Korea, an “absolute dictatorship” where the State Department noted extrajudicial killings, disappearances, arbitrary detentions, and political prisoners. Instead, the only country to which the U.S. government restricts travel by its citizens is Cuba.
In advance of making his first appearance at a Hemispheric summit this week, U.S. President Barack Obama eased restrictions his predecessor, George W. Bush, had imposed to make it more difficult for Cuban-Americans with relatives on the island to travel and send money there. Obama also allowed U.S. telecommunications companies to bid for Cuban licenses.
These are small steps that fall far short of lifting the 47-year-old U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, a Cold War measure that demonstrably failed in its aim to bring down the communist government of Fidel Castro, who defied 10 successive U.S. presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, before he formally handed power to his brother Raul last February due to a long illness.
HAVANA-WASHINGTON THAW?
Raul Castro, who is 77 and was Cuba’s defense minister for almost five decades, has since made several key changes in the leadership. They included firing foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque, one of a group of young officials whose dedication to Fidel Castro was so fierce they earned the nickname “tropical Taliban.” He was replaced by Bruno Rodriguez, a less doctrinaire foreign service veteran.
Some Cuba watchers saw this change as a move to facilitate efforts to thaw relations between Havana and Washington. How far and how fast Obama will go is certain to be a topic at the summit in Trinidad and Tobago where Cuba is the only country in all the Americas not invited.
Advocates of lifting the embargo, a policy change that would finally bring the United States in line with the rest of the world, see light at the end of the long tunnel. “This is the beginning of the end of the worst, least successful foreign policy experiment in the history of the United States,” in the words of David Rothkopf, head of a consultancy who blogs at Foreign Policy magazine.
Wishful thinking? Lifting the embargo would require repealing legislation — including the controversial 1996 Helms-Burton law - that penalizes companies doing business with Cuba. In one of its more bizarre interpretations, U.S. pressure resulted in Mexico City’s Sheraton hotel expelling a 16-strong Cuban delegation attending an energy conference there a few years ago.
The beginning-of-the-end school of thought points to legislation now pending - The Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act - which would allow all Americans, not only Cuban-Americans with family on the island, to visit. If that act were passed, a study for the International Monetary Fund estimates that up to 3.5 million Americans could visit annually.
Cuba is not on the official agenda of the Trinidad summit (the fifth in a series that began in Miami in 1994) but Venezuela’s left-wing, anti-American president, Hugo Chavez, is certain to bring it up, along with a demand that the 34-member Organization of American States readmit Cuba. Its membership was suspended in 1962.
The guideline that only democratically-elected leaders can take part in summit meetings dates from the 1994 gathering - and even then, the logic was flawed. The Miami meeting’s participants included then Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, a leader of dubious democratic credentials whose acts in office included dissolving Congress and closing the country’s courts.
He then won elections boycotted by the opposition. This month, a Peruvian court sentenced Fujimori to 25 years in jail for human rights abuses and involvement in two military massacres during a campaign against left-wing guerrillas.
Obama campaigned for president on a platform of “change we can believe in.” His moves on Cuba will provide a good indicator of how much of a change agent he really is.
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I hope the US eventually gets its head out of the Cold-War hole it’s stuck in with regards to relations with Cuba. This isolation, trade embargo policy has not worked for 50 years! No reason to continue something that DOES NOT WORK. The only reason seems to have been, and continue to be POLITICAL. Let’s look at China before Nixon started the process of opening it up. Yes, it’s still communist now, but it’s slowly changing. It will never be a western-style democracy, but I believe China will eventually find its own balance between people’s rights and a strong central government. And there is no question the China of today is much more improved than the China of 30 or 40 years ago. Why not try same approach to Cuba? Open things up, start some trade. They will not become a democracy overnight, but things will slowly improve. For crying out loud the Cold-War is OVER. So time for the US to end a Cold-War era embargo. It won’t just help Cuba…it’ll give US businesses a whole new bunch of customers right in their backyard!
I you want to know why the US is now seriously talking to Cuba the answer is very simple:
20bn barrel oil discovery puts Cuba in the big league
The Guardian, Saturday 18 October 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct /18/cuban-oil
Go read for yourself.
This would put Cuba in the top 20. It would make Cuba independent. They US now is looking at getting a piece if the Cuban pie. Or, should I say the international oil companies that own the US government are looking at getting a piece of the Cuban pie.
why not put an embargo on the USA.. bunch of bullies who think that everyone in the world should be their slaves. Their capitalist structure is crumbling, yet they still want everyone else to do the same as they do. They elect some thieves and thugs who can steal all they want to and make war on some strange reasons but everything is fine.. 10% of the US population is in jail, heath care is for the rich unless you want to be robbed by some insurance companies. Kids at school are more preoccupied by the spring break than learning something meaningful. A LOT of Americans don’t know anything outside of their state. Yet those same people are judging Cuba as being a menace and old a grudge against it for having seized the properties of some of the worst mafia gang in the world. Mr Dupont never shed a tear for loosing his ranch in Cuba, he has plenty of others. And the story goes on, General Food still pay the least possible for his coffee and fruits, keeping the people in poverty all over Latin America. So, who is the bad guy ?
There you go ER Johnson, that tough approach has worked for us perfectly in the middle east. In 2001 we had a few dozen people willing to fly planes into our buildings now we have millions in the middle east.
Wouldn’t a government be more willing to want to side with us if we’re nice to them and be less likely to allow our enemies to have missiles on their land if we’re in good relations? Is that asking for too much common sense out of this government? Probably so
China and Saudi Arabia are not 90 miles from the United States, have not sought to point nuclear weapons at us with a flight time of less than 5 minutes with a regime that is STILL in power. Easing the economic morass of Cuba will do little to change the power. Whatever the US can do to foment a revolution (and let’s do something a bit better than Kennedy a la Bay of Pigs) is the best kind of policy we can have.
Change our policy? Absolutely — crank it up and make it more difficult on Castro.
I just wanna make sure I’m hearing Frank Castle correctly, cuz I know he doesn’t wanna be hypocritical. We should cut off all economic relations with China/India/Saudi Arabia/Egypt, why not Mexico they have a ton of murderers who side with the drug cartels in their government, far worse than Cuba.
With the way your republicans spent from 2000-2006 would you have preferred that Bush and his cronies had up’d your income taxes 10,20,30% or were you happy with him sending Hank Paulsen over to get on his knees and beg the Chinese for money?
Ron Paul baby, no one who can look themselves in the mirror and says they’re a fiscal conservative would ever vote Republican (I know Paul ran as one, but we all know he isn’t one).
It’s clear to anyone with any knowledge of Cuba and with any common sense that the only reason Fidel and now his brother stayed in power is that they could blame economic mismanagement and misery on the gringos and their embargo. Had it been lifted, the whole house of cards would have collapsed decades ago. It’s a pity that Obama does not push for the boycott to be lifted. Rolling back Bush’s idiotic family travel restrictions doesn’t require a lot of guts.
Why would allowing more money into a country run by a cadre of brutal thugs would undermine it. you realize that a generous estimate is that the government would get around 20% of the remittances sent to relatives? You realize that any money made from growth of tourism will go to finance the government and not to the people?
The people suffer from the embargo, but they won’t benefit much from it’s demise, the thugs will however. I doubt the top tiers of the Cuban government want for anything despite the embargo, they would simply get richer and the common people would simply work harder to serve new tourists and still be poor and oppressed.
I know the popular fantasy is that trade will make the lives of the people better in such regimes, but the reality is far sadder. The thugs get richer and look stronger for “standing up” to the Americans.
It’s just part of the cycle, Dems make us look weak, our enemies act on it, the GOP gets back in power again, acts like a cowboy…rinse repeat. The sad part is the Dems never see themselves as complicit in this cycle. Oh well as a wise man once said blame is better to give than receive.
frank castle,
I mostly agree with you about the unilateral doormat the Dem Administration more and more looks like. But I beg to see the difference.
Castro is no Ahmadinejad or al-Qaeda. Not even Kim. No nuke and rocketry ambitions, at least since the missile crisis of 1962. And since the USSR is gone there’s no threat of Communism spreading from Cuba to the rest of the Hemisphere. If anything, allowing the travel will only undermine the Communist grip on the economy and population.
Oh well, now instead of being unilateral cowboys the new policy is to be unilateral doormats. Lets just talk to everyone, give in to their demands and ask nothing in return, that surely will make us respected. Oh I forgot to get respect apparently we have to just forgive and forget and everything will be fine. I love the attitude that since our policy is inconsistent then let’s just go whole hog and deal with any government no matter how they treat their people. I guess if we deal with any bad regimes we have to deal with all of them.
Also if things are so great in Cuba why do they need the embargo dropped, they seem to have everything we don’t have, well minus freedom or accountability in government.
Dropping the embargo will surely show that the US really has no spine to stick to principles. Lets legitimize a brutal dictatorship and give them more money, because I’m sure the Cuban government would allow the people to enjoy all the benefits of the embargo dropping.
It’s great that now we have Democrats in power we go back to being doormats and more European like (i.e. stick head in ground pretend everything will be great if we talk to people, even people who view this as weakness). I mean talking has solved all the troubles in history. I mean Chamberlin and Hitler talked and worked everything out right?
if Washington was to embrace Havana and engage the people, the message of harmony would sweep through all of her relationships. a fresh global perspective would be perceived with positive regard by many nations; nations who would wish to reach deeper levels of understanding and relation with her.
‘if Cuba and the US can nurture and respect their political and cultural sensitivities, maybe our nation can move forward in our differences and gain from our divergent perspectives.’
the beauty and mystery of the world is captured in her cultural diversity and is difficult at times to comprehend unless one perceives the mystery with appreciation and the innocence of a child.
I visited Cuba last month. The price of the U.S. embargo is still being paid by the people of Cuba. Visiting the country is like a trip back to 1955. Sadly, in parts because of U.S. policies, generations of people don’t stand much of a chance to achieve their dreams. They live in poor conditions. But of course, american people don’t care about that. U.S. seems only interested by it’s own security. There is nothing left to fear from Cuba. The deeper the ties with your neighboors, the harder you make it for them to wish you harm. It’s time to move on!
Great post Desik, I dunno why we hold these idiot old grudges. Is this like our version of disciplining our little Western Hemisphere children?
To Dennis, our US gov’t spreads missiles all over the place. Remember when we were giving them to Sadam and Osama? Your hero Reagan was responsible for most of that, but hey as long as we’re “fighting communist russians” it doesn’t matter how many monsters hellbent on genocide we supply with killing machines.
You neocons should love Obama, at least those of you who still blindly think Bush was a good president. We already had pullout plans from Iraq when Bush was prez, so if you’re against that you should’ve said it months ago before Obama was inaugurated. Plus Obama just sent 17,000 more troops to kill Afghani’s when Taliban is taking over sections of Pakistan. So he’s sending over even more troops than Bush, you should love that, tons more US soldiers in the line of fire.
@ Max, Dennis and Co
The US is hardly confronting and punishing dictatorships, its working in close partnership with China a regime that rolled tanks over schoolkid protestors not so long ago and its quite happy to do business with a whole range of other pretty despicable tinpot regimes without losing much sleep at night and part of the reason for this is that trade tends to help build bridges and trust between nations whereas beyond pleasing hardass constituencies punitive economic sanctions rarely achieve their intended goals and usually make matters worse.
If you guys genuinely think the events of the past must dictate what current US policy on Cuba should be then I suggest you take a long hard look at your President to see just how far US policies and attitudes have changed in the last half a century.
Its high time the US normalised relations with Cuba and stopped pandering to rednecks and groups with a vested interest in selectively using the past as the way forward.
Let’s not be facetious here. The case for or against lifting sanctions is only about interests, not consistency or principles. Cuba is far too insignificant on its own to threaten the US, but far too close to the mainland for the US to allow any outside power to dominate it (think missile crisis). So long as the Cuban regime is not allied with America, the US will have issues with whoever runs Cuba. It’s what comes from being the small and fiesty neighbour of a Great Power, and it would’ve been true with any Great Power and any small depenency just outside its borders.
Flawed logic indeed but from Debusmann.
Only Cuba allowed the paranoid Soviets to bring missiles into their country with the specific aim of targeting the USA.
Apart from the geography there were other good reasons as well which should be applied equally to all the dictatorships mentioned above.
Of course, your new weak-kneed prez, should rather target these pariah states instead of getting buddy-buddy with Cuba.
But he’s more comfortable making empty “gospel style” speeches than confronting dictatorships.
This essay was utter nonsense. The goal was to prevent Cuba from becoming the staging ground for communist expansion in our hemisphere. The policy succeeded.
For the same reasons we allegedly invaded Iraq (after you get past the first four or five excuses W and his cronies came up with), we should be occupying China and Saudi Arabia and others.
Inconsistent barely begins to describe our foreign policy.
What is consistent is that countries that suck up our manufacturing jobs and supply us with cheap plastic lead-tainted goods, as well as countries that sell fossil fuels, are exempt from being held accountable for human rights’ abuses and other atrocities.
It’s all about what makes money for Wall Street and our major investors — middle class and working class be damned.
The bottom line is whats better for business , stability and long term prosperity in the Americas, the US continuing to trade insults with Cuba or trading goods and services with the island?
Does the USA have completely free education right through to university level for all it people? Cuba does.
Does the USA have completely free health care for all its people? Cuba does.
Does the USA have its doctors and other health staff, its teachers and engineers working in the poorest countries of the world in anything like the numbers of that Cubans are?
Does the USA train doctors from such countries at a whole dedicated School of Medicene?
Did the USA reject the offer of help from Cuba at the time of the manmade Katrina disaster?
Does the USA hold hostages in its prisons and not allow visits by their wives? Yes it does - FREE the Miami FIVE!