Thursday 15 January
2009, San José, Costa
Rica
US-CUBA:
Obama Urged to Take Bold
Steps Toward
Normalization
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jan 14 (IPS)
- A broad spectrum of
groups and individuals
is urging
President-elect Barack
Obama to go beyond his
campaign pledge to lift
curbs on travel and
remittances to their
homeland by Cuban
Americans and launch a
much broader process of
normalization with
Havana.
Several analysts
contacted by IPS said
they were encouraged by
Tuesday's testimony by
Secretary of
State-designate Hillary
Clinton, who took a more
hawkish position on Cuba
during her own
presidential campaign
last spring, when she
was asked about Obama's
plans.
"The President-elect is
committed to lifting
family travel
restrictions and the
remittance restriction,"
she said.
"...We hope that the
regime in Cuba -- both
Fidel and (President)
Raul Castro -- will see
this new administration
as an opportunity to
change some of their
typical approaches, let
those political
prisoners out, be
willing to, you know,
open up the economy, and
lift some of the
oppressive strictures on
the people of Cuba, and
I think that there would
be an opportunity that
could be perhaps
exploited."
In response to written
questions, Clinton also
disclosed that the
incoming administration
planned to conduct a
"review" of U.S. policy
toward Havana that,
among other issues,
would include
consideration of
increasing U.S.
agricultural sales to
the island, bilateral
cooperation on energy
and the environment, and
whether or not Cuba
should be dropped from
the State Department's
State Sponsors of
Terrorism List where it
was first placed in
1982.
"Senator Clinton not
only made clear that the
Obama administration
would honor its
commitment to restore
Cuban-American family
travel and financial
support," said Sarah
Stephens, whose
organization, Center for
Democracy in the
Americas (CDA) last week
published a 100-page
report on how the two
countries can normalize
their relations in nine
key areas, "but she also
left the door open to
significant additional
opportunities to engage
down the road."
What with the worst
financial crisis since
the Great Depression and
nearly 200,000 U.S.
troops deployed to wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan,
Cuba is unlikely to rank
at the top of the new
administration's
foreign-policy agenda.
But as a symbol of
Obama's oft-stated
willingness to engage --
rather than isolate --
traditional foreign
adversaries, Cuba, which
has been treated by
Washington as an enemy
state virtually since
the elder Castro entered
Havana 50 years and two
weeks ago, could serve
as a major touchstone,
particularly for the
rest of Latin America.
"Obama can't change the
tone in U.S.-Latin
America relations while
continuing the same
basic policy toward
Cuba," said Dan
Erickson, a specialist
with the Inter-American
Dialogue (IAD) think
tank and author of a new
book on the history of
U.S.-Cuban relations,
'The Cuba Wars'.
"Ultimately, Cuba by
itself is not that
important to U.S. Latin
America policy, but it
has become an obstacle
to better relations with
other key Latin America
countries, like Brazil
and Venezuela, that have
repeatedly called for
the U.S. to open up to
Cuba," he said.
Erickson noted that
Brazilian President Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva
last month "took the
trouble of holding a
whole Latin American
summit for the purpose
of inviting Cuba, since
it has been excluded [by
the U.S.] from the
Organization of American
States (OAS)."
In her testimony,
Clinton said the new
administration would
"return to a policy of
vigorous engagement
throughout Latin
America," and stressed
Brazil's importance, in
particular, as a partner
Washington needed to
actively engage.
During the presidential
campaign, Obama took the
most forthcoming
position on normalizing
ties with Havana of any
of the major candidates,
although his pledge to
repeal unpopular
restrictions imposed by
President George W. Bush
on the freedom of Cuban
Americans to travel to
their homeland and send
money to their family
members there was
carefully coordinated
with the views of the
Cuban-American National
Federation (CANF), a key
lobby group that remains
strongly anti-Castro and
continues to support the
47-year-old U.S. trade
embargo.
Indeed, in an appearance
before CANF last spring,
Obama promised to
maintain the embargo
against Havana as
"leverage" -- a word
repeated by Clinton in
her written testimony --
to promote political and
economic change in Cuba.
At the same time,
however, he stressed
that he would "pursue
diplomacy" with Havana
"without
pre-conditions", and
that, "if (Cuba) take(s)
significant steps toward
democracy, beginning
with the freeing of all
political prisoners, we
will take steps to begin
normalising relations."
In his trip to Brasilia
last month, Raul Castro
offered to send some 200
prisoners cited by
Washington and their
families to the United
States in return for
five Cubans who were
convicted of espionage
here and suggested
further that his
government was prepared
to "make a gesture for a
gesture". He
subsequently said Cuba
was "willing to talk
with Mr. Obama, wherever
and whenever he decides,
but under absolute
equality of conditions,
as equal to equal."
The growing number of
advocates for lifting
the embargo, from the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
(USCC) to the Washington
Office on Latin America
(WOLA), believe the
moment is riper than
ever to pursue that goal
in earnest.
"Domestically, Obama
owes far less to
hard-line
Cuban-Americans than did
President Bush,"
according to Erickson.
"He won Florida without
requiring a majority of
the Cuban-American vote
and, in the end, he
didn't even need Florida
to win the election.
That gives him greater
scope of movement."
"The political centre of
gravity has shifted
since the campaign, and
there's much more
political space to
repeal the ban on travel
to Cuba for all
Americans and to engage
in new and creative ways
with the Cuban
government," Stephens
told IPS. "I expect
Obama to seize these
historic opportunities
and not shrink from
them."
Indeed, since the Nov. 4
election, a number of
organizations have
called for effectively
dismantling the embargo.
Two weeks after Obama's
victory, a blue-ribbon
inter-American
commission convened by
the Brookings
Institution -- a number
of whose associates are
expected to get senior
posts in the new
administration -- called
for Cuba's immediate
removal from the
terrorism list; the
lifting of all curbs on
travel to the island, an
end to restrictions on
humanitarian aid, and
the re-integration of
Havana into regional and
global institutions,
like the OAS and the
World Bank from which
Washington has excluded
it.
Two weeks later, the
National Foreign Trade
Council (NFTC) released
a letter to Obama signed
by the heads of
virtually all of the
biggest U.S. business
associations, including
the USCC and the
National Retail
Federation, calling for
the "complete removal of
all trade and travel
restrictions on Cuba".
"We recognize that
change may not come all
at once, but it must
start somewhere, and it
must begin soon," it
said.
The NFTC also released a
report on specific steps
Obama could take to ease
travel and trade
restrictions without
seeking legislation from
Congress, some of which
were also cited in the
new CDA report released
last week. It identified
nine areas -- among
them, search and rescue,
anti-drug trafficking
and other law
enforcement activities,
health, energy
exploration, and civil
defence in dealing with
natural disasters --
where significantly
enhanced cooperation
would benefit both
countries.
Last week, Freedom
House, a strongly
anti-Communist group
that receives
substantial government
funding, called publicly
for the first time for
ending all restrictions
on remittances and
travel to and from Cuba. |
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