Direct Talks With Cuba Increasing, But Normal Relations Still Far Off
(AP)
The ground under U.S. policy toward Cuba took a significant shift today.
Mauricio Funes was inaugurated as President of El Salvador and, as announced previously, he immediately restored diplomatic relations with Havana. That left Washington as the odd man out, the only country in the Americas without normal relations with its Caribbean neighbor and long-time thorn in its side.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in San Salvador for Funes' assumption of power, was nevertheless very upbeat in remarks to the press. She described the Obama administration's May 22 offer to resume bilateral migration talks with Cuba as "part of our effort to forge a new way forward on Cuba that advances the interests of the United States, the Cuban people and our entire hemisphere," adding that the Administration was "very pleased" with the Cuba's acceptance of the offer.
Last month, Washington rolled back the travel restrictions imposed by former President Bush in May 2004, telling Cuban Americans they can visit their relatives on the island as frequently as they want. Strict limitations on the amount of money they could send to family in Cuba were also lifted.
Lexington Institute's Cuba expert Phil Peters says "the Administration did well to fulfill its campaign promise to engage in direct diplomacy with Cuba."
In fact, the U.S. also offered to discuss direct postal service, which would remove the awkward and delaying use of third countries to move mail between then two nations.
On Saturday, Havana said yes to those talks also and added a few proposals of its own: counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism cooperation, as well as assistance in hurricane preparedness, an area in which the island excels, as recognized by the United Nations.
"The agreed agenda is narrow, which I think is a good thing," says Peters. "They won't be burdened by high public expectations and they won't go straight to the more difficult bones of contention between the two countries."
Until they agreed this weekend to the U.S. proposal to resume the migration talks, unilaterally suspended by ex-President Bush in 2004, the Cubans were cool to the steps taken by Washington. Former President Fidel Castro, who always kept tight control over anything to do with U.S.-Cuba relations, reacted rather sharply in a blog post to U.S. suggestions that Havana reciprocate with changes in the areas of human rights, political prisoners and democracy. He described Cuba as the victim of the five decade-long U.S. economic and trade embargo (always referred to in Cuba as the Blockade) and noted that one doesn't ask the victim to make concessions to its victimizer.
However, Cuba has for decades suggested areas of possible cooperation and was represented at the twice-yearly migration meetings in alternating countries by parliament president Ricardo Alarcon, a close confidant of Fidel Castro and his long-time point man on U.S.-Cuban relations. Havana had reacted angrily when the talks were scuttled and so it should be no surprise that they've reacted positively to the offer to resume them.
"These talks allow the two sides to press issues of concern [for the United States, including human rights] in a face-to-face setting, and to present other issues that could be on the bilateral agenda," says Peters. "This is a good way to start, by building confidence through progress on relatively easy issues."
But there is another backdrop to this scenario and it is playing out in the Organization of American States, whose foreign ministers are gathered in Honduras for a meeting that has Cuba squarely on the agenda.
"The Latin American countries led by Argentina, Mexico and Brazil, in particular, have gotten together and said, 'Enough! 'Basta! Cuba should be part of the regional neighborhood; it should be treated like any other country,'" points out Peter Kornbluh, director of the National Security Archive's Cuba Documentation Project, who has played a large role in the campaign to declassify pertinent government documents.
Most of the OAS member countries are pushing to repudiate the organization's 1962 vote to expel Cuba from the regional body. That, Kornbluh points out is not the same as asking the island to rejoin the OAS. It's more like rewriting history.
And it's not without precedent. One declassified document obtained by Kornbluh, entitled "Normalization of Relations with Cuba" was written in 1975, when Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was being jammed by Latin American Foreign Ministers to lift the multilateral sanctions that the United States had forced the OAS to adopt in 1964.
The document, written by Kissinger's deputy, says Kornbluh is very specific. It says "that Cuba is an intrinsically trivial issue and it is of value to the United States to get it off the domestic and the international agenda." In other words, stresses Kornbluh, "It's created more of a problem than the country is actually worth."
That's as true today, say observers, as it was then, particularly if the Obama administration is serious about repairing and strengthening its relations with Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition, they say, the U.S. is in a much weaker position now than it was then due to the revelations of torture at the Guantanamo Naval Base and in Iraq and to the emergence of several Latin American regional organizations without Washington's participation, including the Rio Group that Cuba joined last December. Furthermore, the international rejection of the U.S. economic and trade embargo against the island is nearly unanimous internationally and total in Latin America.
Clinton, however, has made it clear that the U.S. is not in favor of just inviting Cuba to rejoin the OAS, something which the island has vehemently said it does not want to do. According to Clinton, Washington's effort to open a dialogue is not a free meal ticket.
"At the same time, we will continue to press the Cuban government to protect basic rights, release political prisoners, and move toward democratic reform," she told the press in El Salvador.
Still, any easing of tensions with Cuba has raised hackles in certain sectors of the Cuban American population. The offer to resume the migration talks, for example, drew a joint statement from Florida's Cuban-American Congressional representatives Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who sharply condemned the move as "another unilateral concession by the Obama administration to the dictatorship."
And Cuban-American Senator Bob Menendez is threatening to cut off OAS funding if Cuba were to rejoin the organization.
On the other hand, the Cuban American National Foundation, the long time voice of Miami's anti-Castro exile community is publicly advocating more engagement with Havana, especially on topics of mutual interest, such as migration.
"Every President from Kennedy to Clinton has held some type of talks, not face-to-face but talks with the Cubans and several presidents have actually engaged in secret diplomacy to change the framework of U.S.-Cuban relations," notes Kornbluh who has successfully obtained the declassification of numerous relevant government documents.
There are lessons to be learnt from these past contacts, he notes, No. 1 being, "Cuba's socialist system is not on the negotiating table."
Secondly, he says, "The idea that the United States can ask for a quid pro quo, a tit-for-tat, in its talks with Cuba has failed in the past. Kissinger tried it, Carter tried that and it just didn't work."
That aside, it's worth recalling Phil Peters' testimony last April before the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs. "I believe," he said, "that a shift toward a policy of engagement with Cuba would serve U.S. interests at a time when our influence in Cuba is low and Cuba is at a turning point in its history. If the administration and Congress were to ease or end travel restrictions, greater contact on the part of American citizens and American civil society would increase American influence in Cuba."
There is a mood among the Cuban population that favors such a shift in U.S. policy but as some foreign diplomats in Havana point out, certain sectors of the Cuban leadership may fear just that and any dialogue between the two countries could be a very delicate balancing act. However, a combination of factors may favor dialogue. The Cuban economy is still reeling from $10 billion in damages from the 2008 hurricane season, high prices on food imports, low prices on its main export nickel, dropping tourism and the global economic crisis. With the new hurricane season already here, unseasonably high temperatures and the local media warning of blackouts, the pressure is on the Cuban Government to find some relief for the pressing daily problems facing the country. An easing of tensions with the United States and the potential influx of American tourists could be just the ticket.
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Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and host of other so-called dictators knew in advance that a British-style capitalism (which is socialism for the rich) cannot work and eventually will implode on itself.
While I don't agree with Fidel putting people in prison for their political views, we've done far worse and it's understandable when you're trying to rid the country from this narcissist neo-liberal culture when it comes to economics that's so prevalant on Wall Street/City of London.
Russia went through the same phase of collapse when the U.S.S.R. could no longer control its satilite countries.
This is why that since then, no country has been willing to risk life and treasure to defend the 'paper-tiger' that Chavez likes to call the United States but is really the Anglo-Dutch Financial and Monetary System.
it's time for the United States to set an example and respect other national-members in the family of nations.
Posted by skyk-2009
For one I'm glad you've finally admitted that you leftists specialize in insulting and slandering people. For 2, no, I don't get tired of it, because when you stand up for the Truth, the personal attacks,lies, and false accusations from secular progressives like yourself are to be expected (Matthew 5:10-12).
God bless you and thank you!
What is FactCheck.org?
FactCheck.org is a propaganda tool of the left wing of The Annenberg Foundation.
Its full title is Annenberg Political Fact Check.
Who ran Annenberg Chicago Challenge?
Barack Hussein Obama was on the Board of Directors from 1995-2001, and was the Chairman from 1995-1999.
Who got $50,000,000 from Annenberg Chicago Challenge?
Annenberg, under Obama, gave $50,000,000 to Obama?s comrade, unrepentant Pentagon-bomber Bill Ayers.
[Obama and Ayers were also connected at The Woods Fund, which funded Obama's church, ACORN, the Arab American Action Network, Rashid Khalidi, etc. Stanley Kurtz has written extensively on Obama's revolutionary socialist connections.]
In other words, Obama AND Ayers AND EVERYONE AT FACTCHECK.ORG HAD THE SAME PAYMASTERS!
Looks like you're in a bind again, airboatboy
Link:
http://brianakira.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/what-is-factcheckorg/
Also airboatboy, don't you think its a little funny(ironic) that factcheck.org claims they have a copy of the certified birth certificate, yet nobody else has a copy of it and nobody else can see it?
Obama has spent close to a milion dollars in lawyers protecting his personal documents from being released. This is a fact. You can look it up and find gobs of sources to verify it. If Obama had nothing to hide, he would just release his birth certificate to the general public and be done with it, but insteand he's hired high profile lawyers to prevent his information from being viewed by the public, including his college transcripts.
The Audacity of Deception isn't working on everyone, and the American people are starting to wake up to it, and there's not a thing the far-left extremists out there can do about it.
Feel better? Have fun in church.
Posted by airboatboy
Airboatboy,
Since factcheck.org has something posted on its website about Obama's birth certificate, surely it must be true, and no further questions can be asked.
Gotcha ;)
Eligibility debate explodes on White House 'dialogue' site
74% of voters demand Obama release long-form birth certificate
The entire transparency portion of the White House website on "open government dialogue" has been overrun with citizens calling on Barack Obama to release his elusive "long-form" birth certificate to establish his constitutional eligibility to serve as president.
The link to this website, which again, was Obama's idea, is here:
http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/3764-4049
The principal message is that if the U.S. can somehow learn that it cannot tell the rest of the hemisphere how to run its own affairs, or what kind of social and political system each country shall be permitted by Washington, tensions in the region can be significantly reduced.
With the United States and the rest of the world in economic trouble, the U.S. model really ought to no longer be considered the only permissible option. Normal relations with China and Vietnam, not to speak of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states which are monarchies, show there's no rational reason why the US can't or have normal ties with its neighbor but 90 miles away.
Whatever its disagreements with the US, Havana has never tried to overthrow the US government, while the US remains to this day committed by law to the overthrow of the Cuban social and political system.
Washington must once and for all find a way to accept Cuba's right to be whatever it wants to be. If it can do that, and relations between our two countries are finally normalized, it will be better for both sides.