Washington
(CNN)President
Joe Biden has directed his administration to examine remittances to Cuba in the wake of protests on the island
to determine ways for those residing in the US to send money to the country, a
senior administration official told CNN.
“At President Biden’s
direction, the United States is actively pursuing measures that will both
support the Cuban people and hold the Cuban regime accountable,” the
official said.
The “Remittance Working
Group” will work to “identify the most effective way to get
remittances directly into the hands of the Cuban people,” the official
said.
Biden had said last week he
believed that under the current circumstances, remittances — the practice of
Americans transferring money to their Cuban relatives — would end up in the
hands of the regime. But since then he’s faced pressure to show solidarity with
protesters.
Cuba’s government controls the
financial sector on the island and all communications. Getting around the
government to send money or improve internet access is a challenge other US
administrations have tried and failed to overcome.
But the issue has taken on
increased urgency in recent days alongside the largest protests on the island in
decades. Thousands of Cubans took to the streets across the nation
this month to protest chronic shortages of basic goods, curbs on civil
liberties and the government’s handling of a worsening coronavirus outbreak,
marking the most significant unrest in decades.
The State Department also is
reviewing its plans to bolster staffing at the US Embassy in Havana “to
facilitate diplomatic, consular and civil society engagement, and an
appropriate security posture,” the official said.
The White House is exploring
whether to sanction “Cuban officials responsible for violence, repression
and human rights violations against peaceful protesters in Cuba,” the
official said. The US will “intensify diplomatic engagement with regional
and international partners to support the aspirations of the Cuban
people.”
Last week, Biden said he was
looking into the potential for restoring internet access to Cuba. The official
said Monday that the US would “work closely with the private sector and
the US Congress to identify viable options to make the internet more accessible
to the Cuban people.”
Under the Obama administration,
Cuba oversaw the reopening of embassies and relaxing of many restrictions long
in place since the embargo. But the Trump administration enacted some of the
toughest economic measures against Cuba in decades, reinstated travel
restrictions and — before leaving office — named Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism.
The
greatest threat to U.S. national interests in Cuba is the possibility, however
slim, that U.S. policy there will succeed.
Sixty-two
years ago this month, the Eisenhower administration concluded that Fidel Castro’s revolutionary
regime was incompatible with the national interests of the United States.
Washington has been actively trying to destabilize it ever since. Even during
the two-year hiatus from 2014 to 2016 when President Obama began normalizing
relations, the U.S. government spent millions of dollars on “democracy
promotion” programs to bolster the Cuban opposition.
But
fostering misery and chaos in Cuba in pursuit of regime change is not cost-free
for Washington. Although the Cuban government is not on the verge of collapse,
the economic situation on the island is desperate — as bad it has been since
the deep depression of the “Special Period” in the 1990s following the collapse
of the Soviet Union. The recent anti-government demonstrations in Havana and a
dozen other cities, some of which involved violence and looting, are a reminder
that many Cubans are deeply discontented with the economic and political status
quo. The possibility of further social unrest is real.
In
Washington, the protests have given new life to the pipedream that the Cuban
regime is on its last legs, prompting calls from various quarters for the Biden
administration to administer the coup de grâce. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) called on Biden to
“challenge” the Cuban regime by appealing to the Cuban military to overthrow
it. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) warned of a “horrific bloodbath” unless Biden
toughens his policy toward the island.
The last
time the Cuban economy was in such bad shape, regime collapse seemed imminent.
An August 1993, a CIA National Intelligence Estimate predicted “a
better than even chance that Fidel Castro’s government will fall within the
next few years.” But this was no cause for celebration, as the intelligence
report explained: “If Cuban authorities lose control, massive, panicky illegal
emigration toward the United States will occur,” it warned. “There would also
be pressure for US or international military intervention, especially if a
large number of exiles became involved on the island.”
The CIA’s
dire warning led Rick Nuccio to sound the alarm in a memo to his boss,
Assistant Secretary of State Alec Watson. “The fundamental security threat
facing the United States in Cuba is a societal crisis that leads to widespread
violence. Such a development is the most likely to produce either significant
outflows of refugees, or active involvement of U.S. forces and/or Cuban
Americans in Cuba.” Another of Watson’s advisers, Phil Peters, tried to jolt
the administration into action, writing, “Given the situation on the island, I
would argue that policy continuity, or even marginal change, is not the
low-risk option. It’s positively scary.”
Nuccio
and Peters had different ideas about what ought to be done; Nuccio wanted to
focus on building Cuban civil society to promote a peaceful transition to
democracy, whereas Peters favored relaxing some sanctions and engaging with the
Cuban government. Other State Department officials argued for turning up the
heat to accelerate regime collapse.
President
Bill Clinton, however, was more focused on politics in Miami than on
developments in Havana, so months went by without any coordinated U.S. policy
response to the deepening crisis on the island. By the summer of 1994, it was
too late. A riot on the Havana waterfront, not unlike some of the
demonstrations last weekend, was followed by the “rafters” migration
crisis.
Echoes of
these dangers can be heard today. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez has called for U.S. intervention
in response to the protests on the island, while Cuban American demonstrators blocked the Palmetto Expressway
demanding an end to the Cuban regime. (They were not arrested, despite
violating Gov. DeSantis’ new anti-riot law). Social media spread proposals to
open a “humanitarian corridor” into Cuba, even though the
Cuban government is already accepting humanitarian assistance. At sea, the U.S. Coast Guard is intercepting a growing number
of Cubans trying to reach the United States in small boats and rafts.
Another
cost of the sanctions President Trump imposed on Cuba — sanctions Biden has
left in place — is a deterioration in counter-narcotics cooperation. Until 1998, Cuban
air space and territorial waters were a blind spot that traffickers could
exploit to evade the U.S. Coast Guard. But a Clinton era agreement establishing
cooperation was so effective that traffickers shifted to routes through Mexico.
For the
past decade the U.S. Southern Command, in its annual Posture Statement, has cited transnational crime,
especially drug trafficking, as one of the top threats to U.S. security in the
Hemisphere. Yet the Trump administration halted consultations between the Coast
Guard and Cuban Border Guards, and U.S. sanctions have left the Cubans without
the fuel they need to patrol their coasts.
The steps
President Biden could take to reduce the danger of worse social unrest in Cuba
and to safeguard U.S. security interests would not require any radical new
initiatives. The United States and Cuba already have bilateral cooperation
agreements on law enforcement, narcotics interdiction, and migration. Biden
simply has to reactivate them and hold up Washington’s end of the bargain,
especially the U.S. obligation to give Cubans a minimum of 20,000 immigrant
visas annually so Cubans have a safe, legal way to emigrate rather than risking
their lives at sea.
Cuban
Americans have been able to send remittances to family on the island ever since
Jimmy Carter was in the White House — until Donald Trump cut them off as one of his final acts in office.
President Biden could restore the ability to send remittances with a stroke of
the pen, sending urgently needed relief to millions of Cuban families.
The rapid
spread of COVID in Cuba is a natural disaster worse than
the hurricanes that periodically ravage the island. Previous U.S. presidents,
including George W. Bush, who could not be accused of being soft on Cuban
communism, have offered Cuba humanitarian aid in the face of such disasters —
aid channeled both through non-governmental organizations and to the government
directly.
There is
no reason President Biden’s pledge to combat COVID globally should exclude
Cuba. “This is about our responsibility,” he said in June, “our humanitarian obligation to
save as many lives as we can — and our responsibility to our values.” Four U.S.
Catholic bishops recently called upon
international governments to provide Cuba with the medical supplies they need
to cope with COVID, calling it “a moral imperative.” Private humanitarian
relief efforts to have been heroic but inadequate. Rather than spending
millions to subvert the Cuban government, USAID should be spending the money to
help vaccinate the Cuban people.
President Obama made the point succinctly on December 17, 2014 when he announced his decision to shift from a policy of regime change to one of engagement: “It does not serve America’s interests, or the Cuban people, to try to push Cuba toward collapse,” he argued. “Even if that worked – and it hasn’t for 50 years – we know from hard-earned experience that countries are more likely to enjoy lasting transformation if their people are not subjected to chaos.”
The Cuba Study Group: A non-profit, non-partisan organization comprised of business and community leaders of Cuban descent who share a common interest and vision of a free Cuba. Washington DC
We call on the #Biden administration to restore support for the Cuban people by prioritizing policies that focus on reinstating travel, reauthorizing remittances, re-opening consular services in #Havana, collaborating on COVID-19 solutions, and supporting #Cuba‘s private sector.
“CUBANS HAVE always been resourceful,” says Ana, the owner of a
private farm-to-table restaurant near Havana. “But now we need to be magicians
and acrobats.” The communist island is facing its worst shortage of food since
the 1990s. Finding ingredients was never easy in a place which imports around
70% of its food. Over the past year it has become nearly impossible. When
grocery shops are empty, as is so often the case, Ana tries the internet or the
black market, only to find that prices are prohibitively high. Farmers no
longer want to sell produce to her, she says, as they need to eat it
themselves.
“CUBANS HAVE always been resourceful,” says
Ana, the owner of a private farm-to-table restaurant near Havana. “But now we
need to be magicians and acrobats.” The communist island is facing its worst
shortage of food since the 1990s. Finding ingredients was never easy in a place
which imports around 70% of its food. Over the past year it has become nearly
impossible. When grocery shops are empty, as is so often the case, Ana tries
the internet or the black market, only to find that prices are prohibitively
high. Farmers no longer want to sell produce to her, she says, as they need to
eat it themselves.
The
government blames the shortage of food mostly on sanctions imposed by the
United States—sanctions which, on June 24th, the UN General Assembly voted to condemn, as it has done nearly every year
since 1992. But since 2001 the sanctions have exempted food. Indeed, the United
States is the largest exporter of food to Cuba, though last year those imports
were at their lowest level since 2002.
Some
external factors have affected the food supply. The jump in global food prices,
which in the year to May surged by 40%, the largest increase in a decade, has
made imports more expensive. But the main problem is the government’s lack of
hard currency. Tourism, normally 10% of GDP, has atrophied because of the pandemic: whereas 4.2m people visited in
2019, just over 1m did last year, nearly all in the first three months of the
year. Remittances have also suffered. Before covid-19, commercial airlines
would operate as many as ten flights a day between Miami and Havana, all packed
with cash-toting mulas. But now only a handful of flights go to Havana
each week. In addition, this year’s harvest of sugar—one of Cuba’s main
exports—was the worst in more than a century, as a result of drought (the
dollar shortage also sapped supplies of fertiliser and petrol).
The government is trying desperately to eke out
dollars and skimp on imported goods. Cubans can no longer buy greenbacks from
state-operated exchanges at the airport. State-owned bakeries are replacing a
fifth of the imported wheat flour they use in bread with substitutes made from
home-grown corn, pumpkin or yucca, much to the dismay of consumers, who have
complained that bread now tastes like soggy corn. The sale of biscuits has been
limited in certain cities to cut back even more on imports of flour.
Since February, in a desperate attempt to collect
hard currency, the government has required that foreigners pay for their
seven-day mandatory stay in a state-owned quarantine hotel in dollars (since
June, this has even applied to some Cubans). To earn more from its diaspora,
the state also operates e-commerce sites through which Cubans abroad can pay in
dollars or euros for food and gifts to be delivered to people on the island.
Indeed many Cubans abroad are trying to help their
family members stave off hunger by sending their own care packages. But even
these have become harder and more costly to post. Goods from the United States
that once took two weeks to deliver can now take up to four months to arrive,
as shortages of fuel and trucks in Cuba make the final leg of the delivery
trickier.
Bungled policy responses have made things worse. On
June 10th the Cuban central bank announced that, from June 21st, Cubans would
not be able to deposit dollars into their bank accounts for an undisclosed
amount of time. This is despite the fact that, in order to buy goods in
state-owned shops, Cubans need to have a prepaid card loaded with dollars. They
will now have to exchange their dollars for euros or other currencies, which
involves a fee. Emilio Morales, the head of the Havana Consulting Group in
Miami, thinks this was a way to scare people into depositing more before the
deadline.
Rather than stabilise the economy, the policy is
likely to do the reverse. Some exchange houses in Miami soon ran out of euros.
Cuban banks were overwhelmed by queues of panicking people trying to deposit
the dollars they needed to buy groceries. “Cuba has 11m hostages and is
expecting Cuban exiles to pay their ransom,” says Mr Morales. Ricardo Cabrisas,
the deputy prime minister, was recently in Paris negotiating another extension
on the roughly $3.5bn of loans owed to foreign governments—the island has been
in arrears since 2019. An ultimatum from creditors may help explain the
government’s desire to hoover up greenbacks.
Despite making some attempts to liberalise the economy, the government is bafflingly poor at boosting agricultural production or wooing foreign investors. Firms producing food in Cuba earn only pesos, which have little value internationally, but must buy almost all their inputs abroad in a foreign currency. The government requires farmers to sell their harvest to the state at uncompetitive prices and imposes draconian rules on livestock management. Up until last month it was illegal to slaughter a cow before it had reached an advanced age, as determined by the state. Now farmers may kill them either to sell the meat or to eat it themselves. But before they do so, they must jump through a series of hoops, including certifying that the cow has produced at least 520 litres of milk a year. They are also not allowed to let their herd shrink overall, and so can only slaughter one cow for every three calves they add to it—a tall order in the long run, mathematically. As it is, Cuba is having trouble maintaining its existing cattle herd: last year, in the province of Las Tunas alone, more than 7,000 cows died from dehydration. Farmers have to complete paperwork and wait a week for approval, too. “The process of applying to eat a cow is enough to make you lose your appetite,” says a farmer in Bahía Honda.
Rural transportionZafra of 2016-20127
Cubans are no strangers to difficult times. Eliecer
Jiménez Almeida, a Cuban filmmaker in Miami, was a child during the “special
period” of hardship after the fall of the Soviet Union, and remembers how his
grandmother sold her gold teeth in exchange for soap, just so that he and his
siblings could take a bath. For him and for many Cubans, the question is not
how many more of the same indignities their people can endure, but how much
longer.
Discontent was slightly less likely when Fidel Castro was in power. He had charisma and mystique that neither his brother and successor, Raúl, nor Cuba’s current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, can replicate. What is more, the Cuban diaspora is larger and wealthier and the internet has shown Cubans that many of their economic difficulties are created by their leaders, not the United States. The best way to stave off popular discontent would be to implement more and bigger economic reforms, at a faster pace, starting with farms and small businesses. It is a measure of Cubans’ disillusionment that the old revolutionary cry of “Hasta la victoria siempre” (On to victory, always) has largely been supplanted by the longsuffering “¿Hasta cuándo?” (How much longer?) ■
White
House Press Secretary Jen Psaki made headlines on March 9, when she said that Cuba was “not currently among
President Biden’s top priorities.” The second half of her answer got less
attention, though it was equally significant: “…but we are committed to making
human rights a core pillar of our U.S. policy.” Shortly thereafter, a senior
official reaffirmed her comment, saying that the president would “make human
rights a fundamental pillar of his foreign policy,” not just in Cuba but across
the Americas.
This is
no surprise. Biden has been an advocate for human rights throughout his
political career, and this position on Cuba echoes what he said during the campaign. But
human rights policies don’t happen in a vacuum; they are one component of a
broader bilateral relationship and their effectiveness depends upon that
context.
Biden acknowledged as much when he criticized
President Trump for imposing tougher economic sanctions against Cuba, arguing
they had “inflicted harm on the Cuban people and done nothing to advance
democracy and human rights.” That was also the central argument President
Barack Obama advanced for his 2014 policy of normalizing
relations with Havana—that sixty years of trying to promote democracy through
coercive diplomacy simply had not worked.
Cuban
leaders have always rejected foreign demands that they reform their politics.
To them, such demands are an infringement on Cuba’s sovereignty. When
U.S.-Cuban relations deteriorate and Washington tightens the embargo, the Cuban
government reacts like most governments under attack by foreign enemies. A siege mentality takes hold and internal dissent
is regarded as akin to treason — a reaction exacerbated by Washington’s
material support for some dissidents, which puts all dissidents under suspicion
of being Fifth Columnists.
But the
history of Havana’s relations with both the United States and the European
Union also shows that when relations are warming, Cuban leaders have acted
unilaterally to improve human rights in order to reinforce the positive
momentum. President Jimmy Carter put human rights at the center of his foreign
policy, and, when he opened a dialogue with Havana, Fidel Castro released more
than 2,000 political prisoners, many jailed since the early 1960s. Castro’s negotiator told U.S. officials the
gesture was explicitly a response to Carter’s concern about human rights and
his willingness to improve relations.
In
President Bill Clinton’s second term, he took steps to reduce tensions by
relaxing the embargo on travel and on cultural, educational, and scientific
exchanges. In Cuba, the government’s repression of dissidents eased noticeably,
prompting the senior U.S. diplomat in Havana, Vicki Huddleston, to describe it
as a “Cuban Spring” — an opening that closed again when
President George W. Bush returned to a policy of hostility.
When
President Raúl Castro was trying to negotiate a new economic cooperation
agreement with the European Union in 2010, he responded positively to requests from Cardinal
Jaime Ortega of the Cuban Catholic Church and Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel
Angel Moratinos to release 52 political prisoners jailed since 2003 for
allegedly collaborating with the Bush administration’s regime change policy.
As part
of Castro’s agreement with President Obama to begin normalizing relations, Castro released 53 prisoners that were of
interest to the United States because of their anti-regime political activity.
He also kept a promise to accelerate the expansion of Internet access on the
island, which fostered the emergence of independent blogs and news services
that increased the Cuban public’s access to information unfiltered by state
media. Cuban private businesses flourished during this period, something the
Obama administration regarded as an important vehicle for
expanding economic freedom on the island and freeing Cubans from dependence on
a state salary.
The
lesson for the Biden administration as it conducts its review of Cuba policy is
two-fold. First, not only does heightened coercion not produce human rights
gains in Cuba, it makes the situation worse. Second, a policy of engagement
that improves bilateral relations overall creates an atmosphere in which human
rights progress is more likely — not guaranteed, but more likely.
By no
means does engagement mean abandoning the U.S. commitment to human rights.
Administration officials can and should continue to emphasize the centrality of
human rights to the president’s overall foreign policy, underscoring that
engagement will advance faster and farther if the human rights situation on the
island improves.
A policy
of engagement will enable Washington to resume the bilateral dialogue with
Havana on human rights that President Obama began and President Trump
abandoned. It will also make it possible for the United States to coordinate
with our European allies, who have an ongoing consultation with Cuba on human
rights issues under the terms of the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement the
European Union signed with Cuba in 2016.
No one
should expect these conversations to be easy, but they provide a forum in which
the United States can directly raise issues of concern, ranging from prison
conditions, the harassment of dissidents, and the demonization of independent
media, to the conditions under which Cuban medical personnel serve abroad and
the discriminatory treatment of Cuban Americans visiting the
island.
In 1975,
the United States, the Soviet Union, and the countries of Europe signed the Helsinki Accords aimed at reducing Cold War
tensions. Critics argued that the agreement rewarded the Soviet Union because
it recognized the political status quo in Europe. But the accord’s real
significance turned out to be the human rights provisions. Though
unenforceable, they created an ongoing opportunity for human rights discussion
and debate among the signatories, and they legitimized the demands of human
rights advocates inside individual countries. In short, détente created the
conditions that made human rights progress possible. That’s a precedent the
Biden administration should keep in mind as it formulates a new policy toward Cuba.
The French philosophe and
essayist Michel Montaigne often used the phrase “What do I know?” to express
the subjective limits of knowledge. What can any individual really know about
the world? About others who inhabit it? I pose this question to myself often.
It’s part of the job description for being a critical sociologist. I scratch my
head in puzzlement each time that I gather data to analyze my compatriots in
South Florida. What do I really know about Cuban Americans? Many will jump to
answer, “You know nothing. You are clueless,” and they might be right. But you
would think that after nearly thirty years of writing about and studying Cubans
in the United States I would know something about what makes our “moral
community” tick. But when faced with the question Que sais-je?,
which translates into a very Cuban, “Qué sé yo?” I have to admit that many of
the moving parts of the community remain a riddle wrapped in an enigma inside
a pastelito.
Take, for example, the resurgence of
pro-embargo sentiments among South Florida Cuban American. It’s a grim turn
even if not totally surprising given the Jarabe de Trump that many have savored
in recent years.
What is driving this macabre enthusiasm
to endorse an archaic, cold war policy designed in 1962 to isolate Cuba and
bring about regime change because, as stated in Kennedy’s infamous Proclamation 3447,
the country is “incompatible with the principles and objectives of the
Inter-American system; and, in light of the subversive offensive of Sino-Soviet
Communism with which the Government of Cuba is publicly aligned?” Seriously?
There is still support for a policy designed to “protect” the Americas from the
threat of “Sino-Soviet Communism?” Directed at Cuba? Does this policy remain a
vital element in the foreign policy of the United States? The world has
changed so much but we seem to have changed so little.
Maybe there is more behind this seeming
callous attitude of “que se jodan” exhibited by my fellow denizen of the Cuban
diaspora than sheer opportunism. After all, we are not all YouTube mavens
making a nice living peddling fear and disinformation. Most of us care about our
friends and relatives on the island. About half of us send money when we can
afford it and sending food via Katapulk is
becoming a thing. Many on the island depend on us, if not for survival, for support,
especially during this horrific pandemic period.
Maybe championing the embargo, in the
minds of those who do, is part of a larger plan. Maybe supporters see in the
embargo a part of a broader strategy to improve the lives of Cubans throughout
the island. Qué sé yo?
I want to understand why so many of us
insist on supporting a foreign policy implemented to punish and isolate when we
know that change in this globalized world is brought about by contact and
negotiation. Why do people support the embargo? Why do they support lifting the
embargo?
With the help of the colleagues at OnCuba News, I floated a questionnaire on their platform and various social media streams (FB, Twitter) to try to understand why Cuban Americans either support or oppose the nearly sixty-year-old sanction. This is not a scientific sample, but the 361 responses (as of May 19) allow us to create broad categories to describe the types of reasons shaping opinions.
To be honest, I harbor no illusions that the Cuban American vox populi will raise in an exilic chorus supporting the end to the embargo. I see no sign that we are willing, as a community to come to terms with our Big Lie. To recognize that the embargo, as a policy to motivate change in Cuba, has been a resounding failure and has not met the expectations of its supporters. It is a zombie policy which should have been killed by years of evidence verifying its failure but stays alive, eating the brains of Cuban Americans. Supporting the embargo is evidence that our community has been successfully recruited to brutalize the Cuban people by assisting the U.S. in its feeble attempt to project American power. I worry about the history we are helping to shape.
The only hope that I hold for seeing
the lifting of the embargo in my lifetime is for the U.S. government to act in
its best interest. In this unique case, the best interests of the United States
are aligned with the best interests of Cuba, its people and government.
Accepting this might not be easy for
those who have developed an identity based on opposition to the Cuban
government, but it is the reality we face. Let’s give in to a moment of
clarity. We cannot, with any credibility, demand changes in others when we, as
a community, remain so unwilling, or unable, to change.
If President
Biden wants to support human rights in Cuba and empower the Cuban people, he
can start by alleviating the food crisis by ending Trump’s prohibition on
remittances and restoring the right of U.S. residents to travel.
While
President Joe Biden dithers about when or whether to keep his
campaign promise to roll back Donald Trump’s economic sanctions on Cuba, people
on the island are going hungry. Cuba imports 70 percent of its food and its
foreign exchange earnings have plummeted due to the cut-off of remittances by
Trump and the closure of the tourism industry by COVID-19. Increases in world
market prices for food have aggravated an already
precarious situation, producing severe shortages and a looming humanitarian
crisis.
Hunger
has been a weapon in Washington’s arsenal against Cuba ever since Dwight D.
Eisenhower sat in the White House. In January 1960, Ike suggested blockading the island, arguing,
“If they (the Cuban people) are hungry, they will throw Castro out.”
In April 1960, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs
Lester D. Mallory proposed, “Every possible means
should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba…to bring
about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”
Even
though the United States no longer prohibits the sale of food to Cuba, by
intensifying economic sanctions, Washington impedes Cuba’s ability to earn
enough money to buy adequate food supplies from anywhere.
President
John F. Kennedy imposed the most comprehensive economic embargo that the United States has ever imposed
on any country, including prohibitions on both food and medicine sales. The
core of that embargo has remained in place ever since.
From 1975
to 1992, Cuba could buy goods from the subsidiaries of U.S. companies in third
countries. Ninety percent of the $700 million in goods Cuba
bought annually was food and medicine. President George H. W. Bush, with
presidential candidate Bill Clinton’s support, signed the 1992 Cuban Democracy
Act, cutting off those sales just as the Cuban economy collapsed due to the
loss of Soviet aid. Cubans went hungry then, too. “Food shortages and
distribution problems have caused malnutrition and disease,” the CIA reported in August 1993.
The Trump
administration’s campaign of “maximum pressure” was designed to block
Cuba’s sources of foreign exchange earnings by limiting U.S. travel,
remittances, and Cuba’s earnings from the export of medical services. The goal,
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told European diplomats, was to
“starve” the island to bring down the regime. So far, President Biden
has left all these sanctions in place.
Even
though the United States no longer prohibits the sale of food to Cuba, by intensifying economic
sanctions, Washington impedes Cuba’s ability to earn enough money to buy
adequate food supplies from anywhere. Moreover, by exacerbating food shortages,
forcing Cubans to stand in line for hours in the midst of the
pandemic, U.S. policy also impedes Cuba’s ability to control the spread of
COVID.
The
international community regards using food as an instrument of coercion to be a
violation of international humanitarian law. In 2018, the UN Security Council
voted unanimously to approve Resolution 2417, which condemns the deliberate
deprivation of food “in conflict situations” as a threat to
international peace and security. Resolution 2417 focuses on armed conflicts,
but the underlying principle is no less applicable to conflicts in which one
country has the ability to impose food insecurity on another, even without the
use of armed force.
The
international community has also made clear what it thinks of the U.S. embargo.
Since 1992, the United Nations General Assembly has annually voted
overwhelmingly for a resolution calling on the United States to lift
the embargo because of its “adverse effects…on the Cuban people.” In
2019, the vote was 187 in favor, three against (the United States, Israel, and
Brazil).
The Biden
administration has yet to complete its review of Cuba policy, but officials,
when asked, never fail to say that it will center on democracy, human rights,
and “empowering the Cuban people.” In his confirmation hearing, Brian Nichols, Biden’s
nominee to be Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs,
declared, “We should be focusing our efforts on what is best for the Cuban
people.”
No long,
drawn out policy review is needed to recognize that there is a food crisis in
Cuba due in part to U.S. policies, and that helping alleviate it is a moral
obligation—an extension of the responsibility to protect.
On Cuban
Independence Day, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken addressed the Cuban people directly,
assuring them, “We recognize the challenges many of you face in your daily
lives,” and pledged, “We will support those improving the lives of
families and workers.”
Fine
sentiments, but their sincerity is belied by the Trump-era sanctions that the
Biden administration has done nothing to change, sanctions that make the daily
lives of Cuban families harder. Having enough to eat is a basic human right,
too, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt affirmed when he included “Freedom
from Want” among his “Four Freedoms.” Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, which the United States signed, includes adequate food as a right.
If
President Biden wants to support human rights in Cuba and empower the Cuban
people, he can start by alleviating the food crisis by ending Trump’s
prohibition on remittances and restoring the right of U.S. residents to travel.
Remittances put money directly into the pockets of Cuban families. Restoring
the right to travel will help Cuba’s ailing private sector recover post-COVID.
The resulting inflow of foreign exchange currency will enable the government to
import more food, especially for marginalized populations—single mothers, the
elderly, and the poor—who have no direct access to hard currency.
There is
no excuse for delay. No long, drawn out policy review is needed to recognize
that there is a food crisis in Cuba due in part to U.S. policies, and that
helping alleviate it is a moral obligation—an extension of the responsibility to protect. Moreover, these are
actions Biden promised he would take during the presidential
campaign. Every day he delays is another day that Cubans go hungry.
As
President Joe Biden considers what to do about Cuba, he should resist the
seductive delusion embraced by so many of his predecessors that just a little
more U.S. pressure will bend Cuba’s communist regime to Washington’s will.
Sixty years of history is evidence to the contrary.
This
delusion has a long pedigree. As relations deteriorated in 1960, U.S.
Ambassador Philip Bonsal made a pitch for one last attempt at reconciliation.
The terse reply from his boss, Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Mann: “Our best bet is to wait for a successor
regime.”
Washington
has been waiting ever since. For decades, successive U.S. presidents have
convinced themselves that Cuba is on the brink of collapse and tougher sanctions
can push it over. Dwight Eisenhower thought that cutting off U.S. imports of
Cuban sugar would roll back the revolution before the end of his term in
office. John F. Kennedy thought the Bay
of Pigs and the CIA’s secret war would do the trick. Lyndon Johnson hoped
to strangle the Castro regime by recruiting Latin America and most of Europe to
join the U.S. embargo. Richard Nixon turned a blind eye to terrorist attacks by
Cuban exile groups, and Ronald Reagan ratcheted up economic sanctions and put
Cuba on the terrorism list—all to no avail.
Despite
repeated failures, Washington officials keep convincing themselves that the
policy of pressure will work if we just keep at it. When the Soviet Union
disintegrated, they were certain that Cuba would be the next communist domino. In
August 1993, the CIA
concluded, “There is a better than even chance that Fidel Castro’s
government will fall within the next few years.” The obvious implication: there
was no point in seeking reconciliation with an adversary about to collapse.
When the
Cuban regime survived that depression, the rationale shifted: Fidel Castro was
the linchpin holding the system together; when he died, the regime would die
with him. In 2006, Fidel fell ill and transferred power to his brother Raúl
Castro, leading Thomas
Shannon, assistant secretary of state in George W. Bush’s administration,
to predict the regime’s imminent end. “Authoritarian regimes are like
helicopters. There are single fail point mechanisms,” he explained. “When an
authoritarian leader disappears from an authoritarian regime, the authoritarian
regime flounders…. That’s what we’re seeing at this moment.”
But the
transition from Fidel to Raúl went smoothly, necessitating the invention of yet
another rationale for U.S. policy—Venezuela. Cuba was supposedly so dependent
on cheap oil from Venezuela that when the inept regime of Nicolás Maduro
collapsed (as it surely would under U.S. pressure), the loss of oil would
cripple the Cuban economy and bring down the regime. Yet despite a fifty
percent decline in oil shipments over the past decade, the Cuban regime is
still standing.
Barack
Obama was the only president to say out loud what everyone else in the world
has known for years—the policy of hostility is an emperor with no clothes. In
announcing his new policy of engagement on December 17, 2014, Obama called
the old policy, “an outdated approach that, for decades, has failed to advance
our interests.”
Supporters of U.S. sanctions are never at a loss for creativity, however.
They denounced Obama’s policy for failing to bring democracy to Cuba in the two
years before President Donald Trump repudiated it, while celebrating the
resumption of sanctions that have failed for sixty years. Their rationale: Cuba
is (again) on the brink of collapse. Supposedly, the economic impact of the
Covid-19 pandemic and the retirement of Raúl Castro (who turned out to be a much more
effective leader than U.S. pundits predicted) are the one-two punch that will
finally knock out communism in Cuba. If the past is any guide, the odds on this
are not good.
President Joe Biden supported Obama’s opening to Cuba and promised during the 2020 campaign to resume engagement. But early signals from administration officials indicate that an internal debate is underway between those who favor returning to Obama’s policy, and those who would continue the policy of pressure, leaving many of Trump’s sanctions in place. There may be domestic political gains to be had by maintaining the status quo, but no one should pretend it will produce anything positive as foreign policy. Meanwhile, the Cuban people are the ones suffering its effects, not the Cuban government.
An effective Cuba policy requires a realist mindset that recognizes, once and
for all, Washington’s inability to impose its will on Cuba. Policymakers need
to give up the illusion that sanctions will produce victory, and get about the
hard work of engaging with a regime that we may not like, but that is not going
away any time soon.
For decades now, the U.S. government has carried out
democracy projects aimed at undermining Cuba’s socialist government. One deal
that has always intrigued me was the $15.5 million, three-year contract awarded
to Creative Associates International in October 2008. The fact that Creative
Associates ran the program from a secret
base in Costa Rica added to the allure.
In 2014, the Associated Press scooped everyone with revelations that Creative
Associates had set up a secret
Cuban Twitter. USAID protested
the story. Still, the AP report triggered a flurry of interest and an
Office of Inspector General investigation
soon followed.
But ZunZuneo was only the tip of the iceberg, making up $1.7 million of the
$5.3 million in projects that Creative Associates funded. A review of 22
Creative Associates reports from 2008 to 2012 provides fresh insight into the
NGO’s sprawling program and illustrates its dogged efforts to recruit young
people and members of Cuba’s counterculture.
“Travelers” and “consultants” from at least 10 different countries in the
Americas and Europe took part in the program. Projects and people were
identified by code. USAID sent in supplies using via diplomatic mail service,
coordinating closely with the embassy staff.
Download the Creative Associates documents here.
Some of the details I found interesting are below:
Edited by Mervyn J. Bain and Chris Walker – Contributions by Mervyn J. Bain; Jeffrey DeLaurentis; H. Michael Erisman; Liliana Fernández Mollinedo; Adrian Hearn; Rafael Hernández; John M. Kirk; Peter Kornbluh; William LeoGrande; Robert L. Muse; Isaac Saney; Paolo Spadoni; Josefina Vidal and Chris Walker
Cuban
International Relations at 60 brings together the perspectives of leading
experts and the personal accounts of two ambassadors to examine Cuba’s global
engagement and foreign policy since January 1959 by focusing on the island’s
key international relationships and issues. Thisbook’s first section focuseson
Havana’s complex relationship with Washington and its second section
concentrates on Cuba’s other key relationships with consideration also being
given to Cuba’s external trade and investment sectors and the possibility of
the island becoming a future petro-power. Throughout this study due attention
is given to the role of history and Cuban nationalism in the formation of the
island’s unique foreign policy. This book’s examination and reflection on Cuba
as an actor on the international arena for the 60 years of the revolutionary
period highlights the multifaceted and complex reasons for the island’s global
engagement. It concludes that Cuba’s global presence since January 1959 has
been remarkable for a Caribbean island, is unparalleled, and is likely to
continue for the foreseeable future. Scholars of international relations, Latin
American studies, and political science n will find this book particularly
interesting.
Lexington Books
Pages: 306 • Trim: 6 x 9
978-1-7936-3018-6 • Hardback •
May 2021 • $110.00 • (£85.00)
Introduction: Reflections on Cuba’s Global
Connections (1959-2019)
Mervyn J. Bain and Chris Walker.
Part I: Cuban – U.S. Relations
Chapter 1 The Process of Rapprochement
Between Cuba and the United States: Lessons Learnt. Remarks at the “The Cuban
Revolution at 60” conference. Dalhousie University, Halifax, October 31, 2019. Josefina Vidal
Chapter 2 US-Cuban Relations: Personal
Reflections. Remarks by Ambassador (ret.) Jeffrey DeLaurentis. Saturday,
November 2, 2019 Jeffrey DeLaurentis
Chapter 3 Coercive Diplomacy or
Constructive Engagement: Sixty Years of US Policy Toward Cuba. William LeoGrande
Chapter 4 The President has the
Constitutional Power to Terminate the Embargo.
Robert L. Muse
Chapter 5 [Re]Searching for the ‘Havana
Syndrome’. Peter Kornbluh
Chapter 6 From Eisenhower to Trump: A
Historical Summary of the US-Cuba Conflict (1959-2020). Liliana Fernández Mollinedo
Part II: Cuba on the Global Stage
Chapter 7 Cuba is Africa, Africa is Cuba. Isaac Saney
Chapter 8 Cuba-Canada Relations: Challenges
and Prospects. John Kirk
Chapter 9 Cuba-China Relations and the
Construction of Socialism. Adrian H.
Hearn and Rafael Hernández
Chapter 10 Cuba-European Union Relations. A
Complex and Multifaceted Relationship. Liliana
Fernández Mollinedo and Mervyn J. Bain
Chapter 11 Havana and Moscow; Now, the
Future and the Shadow of the Past. Mervyn
J. Bain
Chapter 12 Havana and Caracas:
Counter-Hegemonic Cooperation and the Battle for Sovereignty. Chris Walker
Chapter 13 Cuba’s Struggling External
Sector: Internal Challenges and Outside Factors. Paolo Spadoni
Chapter 14 Cuba as a Petropower? Foreign
Relations Implications. H. Michael Erisman
Conclusions: Reflections on Cuba’s Global
Connections. Mervyn J. Bain and Chris
Walker
