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WORD COUNT
578
JULY 1, 2009
U.S.
POLICY TOWARD CUBA IS SADLY OUTDATED – by Roger Burbach
U.S.-Cuba
relations are once again front and center as the just ended meeting of
the Organization of American States (OAS) in Tegucigalpa, Honduras,
demonstrated.
Cuba,
expelled from the OAS in 1962 at the height of the Cold War, was not be
present at the gathering but the United States faced a virtually united
front of Latin American nations demanding that Cuba be readmitted.
Chilean Jose Miguel Insulza, the secretary general of the organization,
declared, “I want to be clear: I want Cuba back in the Inter-American
system…Cuba is a member of the OAS. Its flag is there.”
The Obama
Administration is still sending contradictory signals about what it is
up to. On April 20, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who leads the
U.S. delegation to Tegucigalpa, told the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, “Any effort to admit Cuba into the OAS is really in Cuba’s
hands,” referring to past U.S. demands that Cuba change its political
system.
Two days
later, however, the United States proposed reopening discussions on
immigration issues that had been suspended early in the Bush
Administration. Cuba responded positively to this overture, saying it
also wants to talk about regular postal services and to discuss drug
interdiction and disaster relief along with immigration concerns. Even
before this announcement, Fidel Castro, the retired leader who still
exerts considerable influence in the government now headed by his
brother, Raul, stated Cuba is willing to dialogue on “narcotrafficking,
organized crime, human trafficking, and to expand other forms of
cooperation such as fighting epidemics and natural catastrophes.”
But the
main stumbling bloc to admittance to the OAS and the normalization of
trade relations remains Washington’s inisistance that Cuba transform its
government. Raul has made clear that there will be no such change, while
Fidel declares, “cooperation can exist between peoples with different
political conceptions.”
Washington
needs to get over its dogmatic assertion that Cuba has a represessive
and non-representative government that puts it beyond the pale as
compared to other communist countries, like Vietnam and China, or
authoritarian Middle Eastern regimes like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The
United States has had normal diplomatic and economic relations with
those nations for years.
Cuba today
is hardly a police state. People speak their minds freely in the streets
as any visitor to the island can attest. And the country has vibrant
social movements that are able to press for their rights. Just this past
May 16, marchers in Havana took to the streets to celebrate the national
day against homophobia. Mariela Castro, Raul’s daughter, participated in
the demonstration, saying, “being gay is not a problem, the problem is
homophobia,” adding, “There is a movement in the consciousness of the
people that includes government functionaries and leaders.”
In the
economy, market reforms and experimentation are taking place, especially
in agriculture and the selling of food stuffs. Last year, legislation
was passed permitting anyone to solicit the government for 10 hectares
of idle land that can be held and farmed for an indefinite period of
time. Over 80,000 people have petitioned for land and are in the process
of getting it. The new farmers have the right to work the land
independently and sell their produce on the open market. The tendency is
for them to join a cooperative because of the availability of
regularized inputs, not because the state is trying to deny them access,
but because the coops have more purchasing clout.
American
policy toward Cuba is still stuck in the past.
--
Roger
Burbach is Director of the Center for the Study of the Americas based in
Berkeley. He has written extensively on Latin America and is working on
a new book on the radical left in the Americas.
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