The Cuban Embargo: an idea whose time has come and…. gone. Part IV. The end.
I asked in my previous article Part III why it is that the Cuban embargo seems to have no end. I also said I have a few ideas about why it is so. Some of the examples I present here are factual and documented. Others are my own interpretation of those facts, biased or otherwise. I know these interpretations will make me few new friends if any and probably many enemies instead, but as it has been said before: The truth shall make you free. Here we go.
Cuba’s first and final workable constitution after its (1902) independence was enacted in 1940 with much pomp and circumstance. It was practiced now and then, violated by some (Fulgencio Batista being the most egregious in 1952,) until 1959, only 19 years mind you, when Fidel Castro came to power. Up to that point in our history the United States and Cuba had a cozy economic and foreign policy relationship that did not take Mr. Castro too long to disregard and get rid of. Cuba-US relations ended then, but the United States substituted such productive arrangement with a metaphor called the embargo. In other words, the Cuban embargo is, and here is my first speculation and opinion, an attempt by the United States to ignore the reality of a Cuba unwilling to dance with music played by Washington and other US interests and replace the leash it had, either overtly through interventions or secretly through military support, in the destiny of that country since 1902.
If you disagree with my analysis consider this: As soon as the Organization of American States (OAS) in its recently finished General Assembly issued an invitation to Cuba to return to full membership in the regional body (an invitation that Cuba refused by the way) a number of members of our US Congress long associated with the pro-embargo policy and mostly, though not all, Republicans, asked for a suspension of all economic assistance to (all) the nations of the hemisphere for having invited Cuba back. In other words, extend the spirit of the embargo to twenty one countries and penalize them for daring to make that show of independence? Who are these congressional guys kidding?
But that metaphor is not unique to the United States. It is also part of our Cuban American psyche for different reasons. We have been fighting the Castro dictatorship from the beginning without success: fifty years and counting. We have used every energy imaginable, including the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, trying to depose Castro and his cohorts. After years of demonstrations, incarceration, exile and tragic and painful family separation the only instrument in hand we think, please read carefully, “we think,” is having some impact on Castro is the economic embargo. No one has explained to me to my satisfaction what mysterious effect on Fidel’s nefarious plans and activities the embargo is having or how much sleep he loses thinking about that effect. In our part III article we showed it was having none, but perhaps there are some weapons of mass destruction Mr. Castro was secretly working on that we have frozen and I don’t know about because we embargoed him. It has nothing to do with actually having an impact, does it? It is just there. Get rid of that metaphorical weapon and, what do we have left? No more metaphors.
If the embargo was intended to punish Castro but was not intended to punish the people of Cuba I don’t see it and I can prove it easily with a few numbers. Over seventy percent of the Cuban population, including two million or so children who now go obediently to schools in the island, were born after Mr. Castro took over and certainly after the embargo was made the law in this country. Do I have to add that these folks had no responsibility whatsoever in the coming of age of the bearded dictator or his fifty years of dictatorial abuses? Should the children of Cuba inherit the sins of their fathers? And, this is another side of the same coin, how many of us Cuban Americans who enjoy the fruits of the free enterprise system in these United States were accomplices of the Cuban tragedy either by action or inaction during the past five decades and are now embargo proponents but not embargo sufferers?
In the nineteen seventies, the United States became heavily involved in a nasty war in Southeast Asia in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. That was one of those moments in the history of this country when we tried to have things fixed and failed. It took many years and casualties to finish that war. A total of 70,000 American and many more Vietnamese lives were lost in that venture. By that time, the Cuban embargo was already in place in our books and getting old.
We eventually made peace with the Vietnamese and their Chinese backers, trading with both of them in large quantities these days. American presidents, prisoners of that war and regular citizens have traveled to those countries frequently and no one in his right mind would propose imposing an embargo on China or Vietnam today simply because we disagree with their political systems or their local human rights practices. What is the Cuban difference?
I am a student of the human condition. By education and profession I must deal with a lot of people and communicate with all of them. One of the most difficult expressions I have always found people to articulate is: “I am sorry.” The reason is simple. Behind those words lies the most basic notion: “I made a mistake.” Do you imagine any of the leaders and politicians who have staked their political lives and reputations on the imposition and justification of the Cuban embargo for the past forty seven years to come out now and say “I made a mistake?” And forget the “I am sorry” version of it. Sorry to whom? The end of their careers and livelihood would promptly follow. And what would they have to do if, having lifted the embargo by the United States the rotten Castro regime succumbs to a new era of free enterprise and free exchange of ideas they cannot stop? How are they going to justify their decades old position?
Tourism is probably the only economic activity that brings to Cuba dollars in cash mostly from Europeans and Canadians. The embargo does not allow Americans to visit Cuba and spend money there freely. In other words, we have a self- embargo against our own free movement that theoretically affects three hundred million people in the United States and no one has even tried to challenge in the courts. That measure is placing limits on the right to move of an entire nation by a law that does not do what it was supposed to do and no one has the guts to fix.
Once the embargo is lifted, airlines and cruise ship companies that now visit regularly other countries, particularly Cuba’s Caribbean neighbors, will obviously include stops in the many ports and tourist locations and facilities in Cuba and that will mean millions of dollars diverted to that nation. Is it safe to say that those countries and interests that will be affected by this diversion of dollars may find it hard to swallow it economically? Are they saying lift the embargo with the public side of their political mouths while saying keep it in place with the private side of their economic pockets?
Last, but no least, and this is what I believe is the main reason for the continuing presence of the embargo, lifting it may open the doors for an unexpected increase in the level of both legal and illegal immigration from Cuba (Remember the 1980 Mariel boat lift?) After all, we cannot keep our gates locked while relatives and friends of over two million Cubans living in the United States now may want to join them to enjoy the fruits of prosperity. The United States cannot afford to accept thousands upon thousands of Cubans living now in the island showing up suddenly in Miami asking for their piece of the pie while immigration to the United States is such a hot political potato.
Social and economic resources of the South Florida communities would be unable to support such a sudden and chaotic influx. And the Cuban economy, of course, would crash as well presenting Washington with the unpalatable situation of a rescued new friend that drowns. Growth is supposed to take place slowly under controlled conditions. As a result, the lifting of the embargo would have changed from punishing an old dictator to punishing a local and a foreign economy. The current attempt by the Obama and Castro administrations to restart immigration negotiations is perhaps the first serious attempt to place both countries in a pre “post-embargo” political and economic period. Time will only tell if I am right.
The embargo is like a rumba the United States and Cuba have been dancing for decades, both of us accusing the other of being out of step, but in reality neither willing to let go of each other afraid of the consequences. So no one wants to lift the embargo. Not really. It is broken, but no one wants to fix it. I said it before, that is not the American way.
And this is my point of view today. (Parts 1, II and III of this series or articles appear below.)
The Cuban Embargo: an idea whose time has come and…. gone. Part III
In my Part II of this series of articles about the US embargo on Cuba (Please see below) I made specific comments about the ambivalence and contradictions of the lofty principles of the law used to justify it. The United States is at the center of a culture that prides itself on fixing things when they don’t work. It is also a practical nation. While others write prose or poetry about the moon we also send a man there and bring him back alive. Our own legal system is evidence of that philosophical trait. We pride in a legacy founded on the British common law, a legal system based on new precedents, not the inflexible Napoleonic code.
If you have been around for the past few days you have witnessed the effort of our astronauts to fix the Hubble space telescope. It was not working as planned since it was launched in 1990, only nineteen years ago. We spent time and resources to fix what was not working. The Cuban embargo has been in effect for forty seven years, has accomplished none of the points intended by the law as we explained in our Part II yet it is still in effect. If the original intention has not being achieved then the time is long overdue to fix that which does not work. To persist is not only irrational but also contrary to our “fixing all that is broken” American philosophy.
So the question we pose is simple: Has the embargo accomplished its goals? Well, Castro is still in power directly or indirectly; countries are trading with Cuba without being punished by Washington; Mr. Castro has become the poster child of anti Americanism in Latin America and the number of leftist governments in Venezuela (Chavez), Bolivia (Morales) and Nicaragua (Ortega,) to mention only the most vociferous, is increasing, with Cuba now being considered for enjoying full membership in the same Organization of American States (OAS) from which it was expulsed dishonorably in the early nineteen sixties. I guess, the answer to my question about accomplishing its goals is no, nada. But wait, there is more coming.
If the answer is no, what are we waiting to change it? And, above all, why are so many people opposed to changing it? I think I have a few ideas that might help explain the why. And there are, in my opinion, many good reason why. And the history of our nations, Cuba and the USA, and our relationship with each other in the past century have a lot to do with those reasons and a good place to start looking for them.
The United States had the unusual historic opportunity to let its founding fathers, those who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, to become part of the first government administrations, both Federal and State. From Washington to Adams and Jefferson, Hamilton and the rest, just to mention a few, the dreamers of the American ideals had a chance to craft that vision. Today, when we have strong differences of opinion about what that vision is, a bunch of constitutional jurists that go by the name of U.S. Supreme justices make it clearer for us and their word is final, at least for the moment.
Cuba was not that lucky. Carlos Manuel de Cespedes (1819-1874,) Jose Marti (1853-1895,) and Antonio Maceo (1845-1896), unquestionably Cuba’s most famous independence leaders, died well before the nation became “independent” in 1902. Surely we can go back to read their words and their thoughts, but there is no judicial body today and there was none for quite a while to tell us what those thoughts and words meant in practice. There are many interpretations of their words and, like most interpretations, many of them are subject of different opinions.
I placed the “independent” adjective in quotes for several reasons: Cuba’s independence was granted by the United States after defeating Spain in the Spanish American War; Cuba’s first president, Don Tomas Estrada Palma, was a US Citizen and last, but certainly not least, Cuba was forced to sign an agreement at the time called the Plat Amendment that gave the United States a permanent Navy presence in Guantanamo Bay and, what was more onerous, a right to intervene politically and militarily in Cuba when conditions required such intervention. Twice between 1902 and 1934, when the Plat Amendment was finally ended by Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of his Good Neighbor policy to the Americas, did the United States intervene directly or indirectly in Cuba.
So Cuba’s history is laden with martyrdom of its independence leaders on one hand and a history of attempts of domination by the United States In Cuban internal affairs on the other. Castro has become fixated, obsessed is the word, with the martyrdom side of Cuban history. He not only sees himself a successor of those who died during the Cuban independence war, but has made a very effective public relations case in Cuba and elsewhere in the world that he is the new martyr in Cuban history and it is the United States, and not Spain, that is crucifying the new Messiah. To belief that this man is going to make everything possible to allow that impression to end is ludicrous as maintaining the embargo fits perfectly in his plans.
In our next article we will complete this series with an analysis of all the other elements that have embargoed the end of the embargo. And that is my point of view today.
The Cuban Embargo: an idea whose time has come and…. gone. Part II
In our previous article about the subject of the Cuban embargo (Please see Part I below) I proposed that lifting it, rather than helping to prop up the Castro regime, and there is no question that Cuba does not have a government, it has a Castro regime, would help create conditions for a positive change in the country.
Every Fall, when the nations of the world meet in General Assembly at the United Nations in New York, the perennial issue of the Cuban embargo comes to a non-binding vote of its members. Without exception, more and more nations have registered their opposition to the embargo and the most recent vote obtained only two votes in favor of the measure: the United States and Israel. The rest of the world is against it and its condemnation was adopted; but no cigar. No Cuban cigar that is.
Before I get into the points I am trying to bring forth about the ineffectiveness of the Cuban embargo I want to ask my readers one simple question: Do you know what the embargo law is? Chances are that most people don’t know how to describe exactly what that embargo we are arguing about looks like. It makes no sense talking about something we have not even the remote idea what it is. Let’s summarize the text of the law as it exists today after much biting and chewing by Congress. I have added and italicized my own point of view about their justifications so to speak:
“Law enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1994.... (the latest version:)
Findings by the US Government:
The Cuban regime under Fidel Castro violates the standard and internationally accepted freedom of speech, assembly, and press. (My Points: Does China practice “the standard and internationally accepted freedom of speech, assembly and press? Are all our trading partners examples of standard and internationally accepted freedom of speech assembly and press? And, what are those standards?) The military dominated country provides financial aid to narcotic traffickers at the expense of its own people. (How is this accomplished? Is this happening now?)
The fall of the Soviet Union has led to food and oil shortages showing the Communist system as a failure. Castro shows no signs of reforming the political system in a democratic direction as any political opposition is silenced through exile and imprisonment (is this the Cuban people’s fault? by persisting in that behavior Castro is assuring that he, and not us, is the one deciding to maintain his favorite 24/7 anti U.S. political tool: the embargo. Is he a member of our US. Congress?).
U.S. Policy Towards Cuba
The U.S. desires to see a transition towards democracy following the passing of Fidel Castro (Why do we have to wait until Castro passes?) so that economic growth can occur in a manner that is helpful for the Cuban people. To make sure that no military or technical aid comes from countries from the former Soviet Union. (Countries from the former Soviet Union, Russia for instance, are providing such aid these days) To be prepared to reduce sanctions in Cuba in order to help create positive change that would help the country's citizens. (Have we asked Cuba’s citizens what they want?)
Regarding International Trade with Cuba
All countries trading with Cuba should discontinue doing so as well as cancel any economic activity with the country. Any country trading with Cuba risks not being eligible for aid from the U.S. (How many countries have been sanctioned for violating this part of the law? Spain perhaps? Latin American nations?)
Supporting the Cuban People
The donation of food will not be restricted to individuals or organizations not associated with the government. Medical supplies and medicine will also be freely traded as long as the intention of the supplies is to help the Cuban people (Is this being done with fairness?)
Sanctions Imposed
Any vessel which has traded goods or services with Cuba cannot within 180 days dock at a U.S port. (This one has to be a practical joke someone added and we missed. Have we ever punished those countries?)
Currency traded from the U.S to Cuba will be limited in order to prevent the Cuban government from obtaining access to U.S currency. (Cuban Americans remit approximately 800 million dollars, yes US Currency, a year to relatives in Cuba through various means.)
Conditions for Restriction Cancellation
Once a democratic election is held under the watchful eye of the international community sanctions may be canceled. Opposition parties must be given a chance to organize and prepare for elections prior to the voting. Cuba must make the effort to move towards a free market economy. (This may take years. After a bloody invasion and permanence of hundreds of thousands of troops in Iraq we still have not achieved that result there.)
U.S. support following changes
The U.S. promises to allow international financial companies admittance into the country. Financial aid will be provided as the country changes to a more accepted economic system."
End of summary of the Embargo law. All have to add is a question: Comprende? Another more to the point, who are we kidding? I thought the Plat Amendment imposed by the United States on Cuba in 1902 when that nation became independent had been abolished in 1934.
I have concentrated on the logical aspects of the law and have refrained from trying to interpret for my readers the philosophical or economic principles that guide the United States in its position, but have provided some notes to indicate where I don’t think it is working these days as originally intended. I am sure you can read the text as well and reach your own conclusions and agree or disagree with me and may be able to figure out what it means for a nation of three hundred million people to define in such a narrow minded set of words how it will conduct its foreign policy towards an island of only eleven million people seventy percent of whom were born or were minors after Mr. Castro took over and cannot make any decision regarding their own present, never mind their future.
And that is my Point of View today. The final, Part III will appear in our next article. You are going to love that one. I promise.
"The Cuban Embargo: an idea whose time has come and…. gone. Part I."
By Paul V. Montesino, PhD., MBA.
President Barack Obama, as part of his presidential campaign in the Fall of 2008, promised that he would lift restrictions to Cuban Americans to travel and send remittances of money to relatives in Cuba. He stopped short, however, of lifting the actual economic embargo that has been the premier tool of US policy dealing with the Castro regime through ten presidencies in the United States starting February 7, 1962, yes, forty seven years ago. Speaking of lifting remittances and travel restrictions to a place where folks are already traveling in the thousands and sending money in the hundreds of millions is a no-brainer. It is like lifting prohibition in the nineteen twenties when everybody was drinking in speakeasies anyway. But more on this later on.
Talking about the Cuban embargo is not an easy or popular subject. It is still more difficult when you are of Cuban origin like I am. We avoid it as much as possible. Steer clear of politics and religion, they say. In our case we also have embargoed the embargo. There are always two sides of the fence. It is something akin to the third rail of politics multiplied by the years it has been in place: since the early sixties mind you. And usually a rail gets quite rusty after so long. If you don’t have any idea of what the third rail is like, try running in the subway trains at rush hour. People avoid it like the plague. It is there like a snake ready to jump at you if you are careless. It is also a cause without evident beneficiaries. There is no critical mass around to support a different point of view about the embargo and hope to win in the process. No immediate benefit, at least none worth the effort. It is one of those issues where you are damn if you do and damn if you don’t; the uncle secretly and disgracefully in jail or something like that.
There are as many ideas and opinions about the effectiveness of that embargo as there are opinions about how best to have an impact on Castro’s government that will result in a significant and positive change for the Cuban people, not for Castro himself-he is beyond change and redemption-but for the people of Cuba. After all, that was the original intention of the embargo. Mr. Castro is nearing the end of his life now and will never, of course, change his personal and historical stand; why should he? At the age of 81 or 82 most folks have settled on a definition of their lives and this man is no exception. He would rather die in the knowledge that somewhere on this planet someone will erect a sitting monument for him (only generals who die fighting in a war get to mount a horse on their monuments) because he opposed the United States and not because he changed his mind a few months before meeting his maker. If there is anyone who still believes that he is going to make a 180 degree shift in his beliefs, with or without the embargo, then that person is insane.
For my own credentials It is important that I precede the remaining of this article with a little bit of personal history. Now a U.S. citizen, I was born and raised in Cuba and came to the United States in 1962, thirty nine months after the beginning of the Cuban revolution and the same number of months after having finished my high school education precisely in the same Jesuit institution where Mr. Castro received his, a place of learning that he had no difficulty closing and kicking its teachers out. In all those months I never participated in any activity that supported that revolution, and there were many opportunities to do so in a society increasingly controlled by its government.
Whether it was on neighborhood committees, the militias, marches, standing guard at public buildings or any other volunteer work on behalf of the government, I was never involved and that refusal to participate is in my record. There is no one who can say otherwise, on the contrary, and if there were such a no one who claimed so I would be willing to place my lie detector test against that person’s. So when I speak of what I see in the embargo situation and its impact, that opinion is not clouded by any tinge of sympathy, implicitly or explicitly, or guilty conscious or unconscious feelings for that unworkable political system then or now.
It is also necessary to point out that since that moment when I left my country of birth I never went back, so I speak as a person who has not been there for nearly fifty years and cannot interpret or speak for those who have remained behind and have to deal with life in Castro’s “paradise” day in and day out. Their opinions, morally and intellectually, matter more than mine and I tip my hat for them. I am just a long distance observer. But let’s move on.
It is also important to note that the scope of the so-called embargo is a decision limited to the United States government alone. The rest of the world does not share in that definition of its commercial relationship with Cuba. Not all of them, of course, have commercial relations with the Castro government, but not because they don’t want to have those relations; it simply does not happen for practical trade reasons for them or for Cuba. The rest of the world can, and indeed some do, trade with Havana in one way or another. So for the Cuban government to say that the US embargo is the cause of all their economic problems is inaccurate and politically self serving meant to explain to its own beaten people why socialism does not work in the island and to embarrass the United States in front of the world for its “callous imperialist” posture towards little Cuba. It wins two big propaganda points for Mr. Castro and, knowing his dictatorial and manipulative character, that suits him well. Why should he let go of that 24/7 benefit?
In our next article, Part II, we will discuss in detail the reasons why we think not only travel and remittances must be allowed to be free from US Government restrictions but also why the Cuban embargo law has outlived its presence in the US political landscape and should be shredded. If at the end of this series you are not convinced that the embargo is a Castro controlled panacea for his regime and not the other way around then my powers to communicate my ideas are useless.
And that is my Point of View today.
Would you like to read this article in Spanish so you can practice both languages? Click Aquí.
