Here’s an essay contributed by Paul Hare, the British Ambassador in
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April
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- “Dialogue is not foreign policy”
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25 comments:
oh really? the Brits and the rest of the EU have been "on the field" for decades in Cuba and what "plays" have they made?
chingon
the 'plays' to be made is engaging with country.
We should continue to call out cuba for more poltiical freedom, but treat it like rest of the world. Cuba is much better in many ways than Vietnam, saudia arabia, and even 'democratically elected' places.
If I were born poor, I would much rather be born in Cuba than Hati, Jamica, or D. Republic, or even Peru.
rather have health care and education and rhetorical support from government without political rights, than born in shanty town in Peru, D. Republic, where I'm no person to the corrput state, and spit on by all. (with no electricity or water or school).
Anonymous 10:45AM,
The question that remains is now that Cuba has been able to provide for the basic necessities isn't it time to go to the next level of recognition of human dignity? (It is fine, to teach someone to read but at one time you have to let them read what they want) Maybe it is impossible to do both things for everybody: take care of basic biological needs and allow for individual freedoms. I like to think that both are achievable goals. Do you think that both goals are achievable in Cuba by and for Cubans?
Vecino de NF
yes, once the americans end all those aggressive policies and let the cubans breath. i think someone said you can't advance with a knife at your throat. why do the americans not want the cubans to advance by
keeping all these threats in place?
Anonymous 11:17AM (10:45AM I presume),
Is your thesis that if the US agrees to whatever the Cuban government deems necessary for normal relations, the Cuban government would relax its limitations on civil liberties on its own? If that's the case, could you please provide a list of what the Cuban government wants, and your estimate of how long after the US agrees to the Cuban government requests we could expect the relaxation of civil liberties restrictions in Cuba?
Thanks!
Vecino de NF
"all these countries continue to criticize Cuba for repressive policies"
When was the last time the Brazilian government criticized Cuban human rights practices?
Walter, Vecino and others:
forget about achieving human rights in cuba - no one in the US seems overly concerned with the lack thereof in places like saudi arabia, egypt, china or vietnam to name just a few.
instead US foreign policy should protect the interests of the 300 mio americans, not the about 100k hard line extremists among 'cuban'-american voters, i.e. less than 1 per mille of US population.
if those guys don't want to travel to or trade with cuba, that's perfectly ok, just don't.
but it's time we stop this circus where messrs diaz-balart, bacardi et al are able to tell citizens of the most free country of the planet where they can or cannot travel or do business that's so totalitarian.
anon 201 you are right. the united states maintains very close relations with terrible countries that have as much if more human rights abuses than cuba. it doesn't seem to bother them at all, they don't embargo them or make all sorts of demands. what makes cuba so special for such bad treatment.
and it can not be that cuba is communist. the united states does not seem to mind doing business with china -- dont they own a lot of american debt, it seems america does a lot of business
and vietnam is still communist. is there still an embargo against that country? im not sure. also i think americans can travel to vietnam without any problem. i know they are still one party, and do all the things cuba is accused of.
i guess its just the cuban americans who can't forgive.
Anonymous 2:01PM (I guess not 11:17 AM),
I am assuming that you are not Anonymous 11:17AM because you did not answer my questions.
Anxiously awaiting constructive replies!
Vecino de NF
Phil Peters,
Two very simple questions really:
1) do you disclose your relationship with Sherritt before you testify before the Congress?
2) who paid for your visit to Cuba with Senator Lugar's staff member?
chingon
Anonymous 2:24PM,
You said "i guess its just the cuban americans who can't forgive."
How do you explain all the remittances, aid packages, paid trips, etc. that the Cuban Americans keep paying for their relatives and friends in Cuba, many of who chose to align themselves with the Cuban government and turn their back on their gusano relatives and friends? My only explanation would be that the Cuban Americans have been willing to forgive for quite awhile on an individual basis but not to forget what brought them to this country. It is unreasonable to expect that they support a government that chooses to insult them, and treat them like refuse either directly or through its surrogates and fellow travelers.
Just an observation because I do not have a dog in this fight! My only interest is to get a response to my questions in the third posting.
Vecino de NF
while it is welcome that some of you in the anti-US chorus admit to the fact that the Castro regime abuses the human rights of the Cuban people, still I do not believe that because the US has different policies towards different countries that gives the regime a free pass to assault and jail peaceful dissidents.
chingon
Vecino, I will try to answer your question. Yes, when the US verifiably ends its support of regime change in Cuba and gets rid of all the associated policies (CAA, Helms-Burton, Libertad Act, etc.), there will be no justifiable reason to have many of the policies that you and I find troublesome. I am talking specifically about Law 88 (dealing with foreign contacts in connection with subversive activities), talking about the regulations against satellites, talking about some migration and travel policies, etc. Cuba would be smart to make this clear. The wild card is the exile community, which will continue to have segments that support terrorism and subversion against Cuba from abroad. Some restrictive policies will need to remain in place until the US gets serious about reigning those groups in.
All this does not mean Cuba has to change its Constitution, its socialist economy or its mass-based Parlimentary election system. It also does not mean that policies intended to prioritize univeral acces to public services over individual consumption by the wealthy, do not also have a valid place in a socialist system.
chingon -- why did you not answer the question? no one said cuba should not end human rights abuses, they are wrong. and they certainly are condemned. and the united states says the embargo and the other policies are in place, in part, to force cuba to change these policies.
but the question was why does the united states treat cuba so differently than they do other countries that have far worse abuses?
vecino -- the cuban americans send money to help their families i suppose. but does that mean they forgive? that was my point.
i think leftside answered your question. why did you not answer my question as to why the united states treats Cuba so differently
I believe that with all countries of the Western Hemisphere (excepting Cuba of course) signing the Inter-American Democratic Charter, a precedent has been set as to what is acceptable in this part of the world. Cuba willingly sets itself apart from every other government in the region and that is why it deserves separate treatment.
chingon
so geography is the deciding factor. the human rights abuses, the terrible governments elsewhere are of no concern? there's been lots of aggreements signed or not signed, i think the US has not signed some important international documents relating to land mines and international courts.
that's a really poor reason to have cuba treated so badly. you'd rather punish them than try and help them.
any dictatorship is repulsive, but you have to start somewhere...
does the Inter-American Democratic Charter say that anyone who doesn't sign it can be embargoed, threatened with regime change, subjected to acts of terrorism, and forced to change governments, including deciding who or who will not be allowed to be part of it? this is what you mean by separate treatment, obviously.
hmmm, I guess that means ALL the other countries that signed the document treat Cuba the same. NO? oh, just the United States does that. Well that's democratic now isn't it.
so the United States is the arbitrator of what this document means. sorry, not arbitrator, dictator. this is how you justify the hostility the United States shows towards Cuba.
does chingon mean idiot in spanish?
for once try and be honest with your hatred.
i'll be poking in once in a while keeping an eye on the wormlies.
anonimo
Anonymous 5:53PM,
I did not know you were asking me a question. (It's hard to keep track of questions without a handle. I encourage you to sign your postings).
I think that Cuban Americans forgive past grievances on an individual basis but they are not willing to forgive perceived attacks by the "system". We tend to forget that the vast majority that left in the 1960s and early 1970s was stripped of their property (one suitcase per person, nothing more at the time they left Cuba), their nationality ( passports were stamped "apátrida" and they were barred from returning to Cuba), and contacts with their relatives in Cuba were severely limited by political measures (members or candidates to the Communist Party or the Communist Youth were barred from contacting their relatives and friends above until much later) not to mention being fired from their jobs for requesting an exit permit, forced to work as agricultural laborers, forced to give all their possessions to the government at the time of leaving, insulted by neighbors, ostrascized by society, etc. All these happened before the Mariel boatlift. The Mariel boatlift participants were subject to physical agression, insults, etc. So of course do not expect these individuals to have warm feelings toward the Cuban government. They have a justifiable right to feel the way they do about the current government.
Having said this mouthful, it has become clear that blood is thicker than politics, and many have adopted a policy of "My communist relative is a good communist. The other communists are the bad ones" (This is a verbatim translation of an opinion heard more than once from Cubans outside of Cuba). Also the monies and emotional investments in keeping the family connections with their relatives in Cuba have not been trivial. These people need to be accorded some respect even when one disagrees with their opinions. Instead there has been a continous effort to denigrate them as exemplified in the moniker gusano (worm) used by the Cuban government and by some others. To ask them to forget and to forgive without recognizing their grievances is asking them to be superhuman.
To the question why does the United States treats Cuba so differently I must answer because history makes the here and now complicated. Castro chose to antagonize the United States in 1959, and one action led to another reaction, and pretty soon all you had was a free for all. Latin American countries had nationalized American properties in the past (Mexico nationalized oil in the 1940s, Bolivia nationalized tin also in the 1940s) so nationalization of American property was not the real reason. It was the way is was carried out by a government that had no constitutional basis: Castro chose to do it in a very antagonistic manner involving the Soviet Union in the process (US oil companies were ordered to refine Soviet oil.)
I personally think that Castro understood that he couldn't implement his personalistic rule without confronting the US. This would create a siege mentality that suited his purposes exactly. The US obliged him by applying tactics that it had used in the past. Here was a communist country where you could redo a Guatemala coup, and if that didn't work you could try to redo WWII Europe (remember the CIA at the time was run by former OSSers that cut their teeth running Resistance groups in Nazi occupied Europe, and who had pulled a very succesful operation against Arbenz in Guatemala). So one thing led to another, and for every tit there was a tat. US supported counter-revolutionaries in Cuba. Cuba supported guerrilla movements that would target US interests both in the US and around the world. Put on top of that the frustration that comes with having to back down in a nuclear stalemate, and you have all the ill will on both sides augmented by bureaucratic processes. Overtime the support for violent methods has been replaced by support for political methods, but both sides are still interested in the demise of each other's political system.
The good news is that right now we have an opportunity to walk away from the past. But for that you need two to tango. The Cuban government must show that they are going to stop making counter-revolutionaries whether in Cuba or abroad. The easiest way to do that is to decriminalize dissent. They can argue that the Cuban people are truly revolutionary and that they can tolerate dissent the same way that they tolerated religious expression during the Pope's visit. I am personally agnostic on this change in attitude. The current hierarchy is not tolerant by nature. (Some have said that the only difference between their intolerance and that found north of the Florida strait is that the ones in Cuba control a country through a totalitarian system while the ones abroad have to compete in the public arena and are subject to legal restraints.)
So in the meantime we wait, and try to see which way the wind blows.
Hope that this answers your questions. Leftside answered mine pretty well although I do not share his assesment.
Vecino de NF
OT - The masters of the universe in Washington have determined that Cuba remains a "State Sponsor of Terrorism," despite offering absolutely no proof to back that conclusion. This is an outrage and missed opportunity. Removal would have been a very good step for the US to take right now. It would signal the de-politicization of the "global war on terror" and showed Cuba that real change is being offered. Instead, a political decision was made that Cuba will be a terrorist government until it caves into wholly unrelated US demands.
One positive twist is that this years report actually mentions some counter facts usually kelp out of previous reports. They mention that the ETA and FARC members in Cuba are there because they were asked to take them in by the affected Governments of Spain and Colombia (a small detail). And they mention that Cuba supports ZERO armed movements abroad and that Fidel called on FARC to release prisoners unconditionally and stop abusive treatment of non-combatants alltogether. This semblence of truth telling is a good sign that things are easing in the State Department a bit, but clearly not enough.
cuba is a country of 11 million people. the united states is the worlds greatest superpower of more than 300 million. it is not even.
the united states has hostile policies towards cuba; not the other way around.
vecino you admitted, correctly, that the american government was responsible for the overthrown of a democratically elected government in Guatemala in 1954. they tried the same with cuba; fidel and the cubans were prepared.
so instead of a direct invasion (besides bay of pigs) the US terrorized and legislated policies that are more suited to 15th century politics.
you can spin history to your point of view, its almost impossible not to. it's funny how facts can be so manipulated.
the united states refused to sell oil to cuba. soviets offered to sell oil to cuba. cuba agreed. the american refineries in cuba refused to refine the oil, on the backing of the US government. the cuban govt rightfully nationalized them. if the oil companies respected cuban law it would have been different.
the united states refused to sell arms to cuba; forced other countries not to either. the soviets agreed to sell arms to cuba. cuba accepted
the united states cut off the sugar quota in the hopes of destroying the cuban economy. the soviets agreed to buy sugar. cuba accepted. and as soon as they did the americans said "ha, see the cubans are commies"
you make it sound like the americans were hardly involved in cuba and that fidel just wanted to pick a fight with them to justify his revolution. that is not the historic truth. it is a historic fantasy, like the one american brought freedom to cuba in 1898. it's like saying the american revolution wasn't directed at the british, they just wanted to find someone to pick on.
and speaking of the american revolution, thousands of loyalists lost their land, homes everything. without compensation.
the mexican revoluton of 1910 caused as much if not more anti-americanism, loss of american property through nationalization. how did the americans react? by soon accepting the revolution and carrying on a relationship with mexico. why? because mexico wasn't a pipsqueak little ingrate of a country that cuba was, and there was no way in hell the americans were going to allow cuba to get away with that. it's a domestic issue, america has always desired to possess cuba, back 150 years, got the chance in 1898 and then made things so bad they were kicked out.
revolutions cause terrible suffering on an individual level. the cuban revolution has been no worse or no better. there are winners and losers. the losers all still live close to cuba, and have had a disproponate influence over what should be a foreign policy matter, instead its been hijacked.
the legitimacy of any revolution is determined by the strength of the counter revolution. and the americans have been punishing this small, insignificant country for 50 years. enough.
I don't think you can say Cuba has been able to provide for the basic necessities. That is true of Argentina, Uruguay or Costa Rica, but in Cuba people have to do all kinds of things, from prostitution to asking their relatives abroad for much needed hard cash in order to take care of those necessities. Of course, you can say the same about many other countries in the region, but none is mentioned as an example of anything. A lot of myths about Cuba.
and that's a big myth. cuba does it's best to provide the basic necessities under the constraints of the embargo and the great depression they have been experiencing.
none of the other countries you mentioned have to live under an embargo by the worlds largest superpower, or have the social programs to the extent cuba does.
of course people send money to cuba relatives and cubans certainly have to do many things to survive. but it the governments honest attempts to make sure the population doesn't starve, has housing, education and health care that is the point.
Anonymous 4/29/09 9:56AM,
You sound an awful lot like someone who used to sign with "anonimo" but since you didn't sign your post, I'll use the blog reference to adress you.
We strongly disagree about the chronology of the early years of the Cuban revolution. I believe that the Castro government initiated a series of actions that antagonized US interests first in Cuba, and then elsewhere. The approach to the Soviet block was initiated way before the US decided to take any actions against the Cuban government. But your chronology fits well the rationalization that Cuba was pushed into the arms of the Soviet Union by hostile US actions. We happen to disagree.
Your comments on the Cuban community living in the US makes you sound like you wish for a "Final Solution" that would get rid of it. But even if that would come to pass, I suspect that Cuba-USA relations would not be normalized because both of our analyses lead to the concluation that the tensions between both governments have to do with more basic antagonisms not with the wishes and desires of any particular group of Cubans.
Vecino de NF
chingon --
why haven't you responded to my post 705 p.m. or do you just post crap then run away when confronted by a serious response?
anonimo
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