Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Speaking of the United States...

Secretary Clinton’s statement that “the Castros do not want to see an end to the embargo and do not want to see normalization with the United States” reminded me of a recent interview of Juan Antonio Blanco, a former professor and member of the staff of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba. The interview, in Spanish on YouTube, is here and here, and in the second part he addresses the same question as Secretary Clinton:

Blanco: I remember that I had some pretty heated discussions precisely because when I arrived at the Central Committee I began to make proposals that in my opinion could improve the relationship with the United States. Some of them had to do with this question – we’re going to look at the real human right problems that we have in the country, we’re going to discuss it, we’re going to try to give it some kind of solution. I saw that some of my bosses hadn’t been paying much attention until one day when there was a big argument, an argument that got ugly. One of them called me outside to the parking lot of the Central Committee and said to me, look, you’re new, but we know that Fidel Castro isn’t interested in solving the problem of the relationship [with the United States]. He wants to contain the conflict within certain parameters so it doesn’t get out of control, but he isn’t interested in really solving this problem.”

Interviewer: So you think he has lived off this hostility with the United States?

Blanco: Absolutely.

[Translation mine.]

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

another reason to end the embargo, call the cuban's bluff and stop the excuses. but american policy isn't interested in achieving that.
if fidel has lived off the hostility, if america wants to end the regime, it's not difficult to take the next logical step