A shameful legacy
Why December 17, 2014 Cuba policy changes failed, and shouldn't be repeated
President Barack Obama's rapprochement with Cuba began in 2009 with the unilateral loosening of sanctions, it followed the same failed pattern of other Administrations, opposition leaders killed, increased repression, and hostile actions against U.S. interests abroad. This did not prompt a change in policy, but a doubling down. It did not help that secret negotiations on Washington's side were led by Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, who is a former fiction writer with no foreign policy experience. Senior U.S. diplomats at the State Department were kept in the dark. His counterpart on Havana's side was Raul Castro's son, Fidel's protege and senior Ministry of the Interior official, Colonel Alejandro Castro Espín. His colleagues in the New York Times profile describe the Deputy National Security Adviser as "having no poker face", leading the negotiations versus some of the most seasoned and manipulative intelligence officials in the world.
Ben Rhodes with Rodolfo Dávalos León, a Cuban oligarch living in South Florida. When protests erupted in Cuba in July 2021, Mr. Dávalos León tweeted: "If the revolution falls you will find me in Cuba, with my father, knee on ground, rifle in hand, defending the work of Fidel. Long live Cuba, long live Raul, & long live Fidel!"
Nine years ago, on December 17, 2014, this thaw was elevated and formalized when President Barack Obama, and Cuban dictator Raul Castro announced the intent to normalize diplomatic relations. Obama freed three Cuban spies the same day, including Gerardo Hernandez, who was serving two life sentences, one of which was for conspiracy to murder four members of the Brothers to the Rescue in return for aid worker Alan Gross, who had been abducted by Havana in 2009, and an unidentified Cuban intelligence agent. This was a great propaganda victory for the Castro regime.
Following Obama’s announcement the Cuban military expanded its control over the national economy during the 2014-2017 detente.
This was followed by an exodus of over 120,000 Cubans through Central America who entered the United States between 2014-2016, regine influence expanded with their client state Nicaragua becoming a full blown dictatorship under Daniel Ortega, and more hostile actions. In the midst of this on March 20, 2016 President Obama, with his family, arrived in Cuba for a state visit. On August 22, 2016 the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mohammad Javad Zarif visited Cuba, and said Iran wants to forge a “new path” in its relations with Cuba by tightening ties. Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Nikolay Pankov said on October 7, 2016 that Moscow was considering plans to return to Cuba where it had a military base in the past.
Calder Walton, of the Harvard Kennedy School, in his article "A US ambassador working for Cuba? Charges against former diplomat Victor Manuel Rocha spotlight Havana's importance in the world of spying" published in The Conversation on December 15, 2023 reviews the Russian and Chinese presence in Cuba.
"Putin’s government reopened a massive old Soviet signals intelligence facility in Cuba, near Havana. This facility had been the Soviet Union's largest foreign signals intelligence station in the world, with aerials and antennae pointed at Florida shores just 100 miles away. Soviet records reveal that Moscow obtained valuable information from U.S. military bases in Florida. Russia may well still be trying to try to eavesdrop on U.S. targets today from Cuba, although the U.S. government is doubtless alert to such efforts and is likely undertaking countermeasures. Cuban intelligence today is also collaborating with China, which reportedly plans to open its own eavesdropping station in Cuba. Beijing has significant influence over Cuba as its largest creditor and, following in Soviet footsteps, views the island as a valuable intelligence collection base and a “bridgehead” — the KGB’s old code name for Cuba — for influence in Latin America."
Beginning in November 2016, U.S. and Canadian diplomats stationed in Havana began suffering brain injuries, and on January 2, 2017, Raúl Castro presided over a military parade in which Cuban soldiers chanted: “Obama! Obama! With what fervor we’d like to confront your clumsiness, give you a cleansing with rebels and mortar, and make you a hat out of bullets to the head.”
This was a failed policy that did not understand what motivates Havana. The Communist regime in Cuba is anti-American and over the past 64 years it has sought to end the post-1945 U.S. led world order by seeking out alliances with regimes hostile to the United States, and coordinating efforts to undermine it. This is the strategic context that too many have ignored.
Proponents of constructive engagement with the Cuban dictatorship are asking policy makers to do three things: disregard the past, dismiss current actions by Havana, and get ready for their own country's taxpayers to foot the tab.
 |
| Richard Nixon met Fidel Castro in April 1959 and sought a detente with him in 1974 |
1. Disregard the past
Multilateral sanctions against Havana worked to contain communist expansion in the Western Hemisphere until Kissinger lifted them.
The Ford administration provided Havana with a number of inducements without expecting anything in return, believing that they could restore relations with the Castros. Initially, the United States supported the OAS resolution on July 29, 1975, which essentially put an end to the multilateral economic and diplomatic sanctions against Cuba. On August 19, President Ford went further loosening the US embargo, removing the sanctions against foreign aid to nations that conducted business with the regime in Cuba and enabling ships traveling to the island to refuel in the US. This was an initiative led by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Rather than the "easing of tensions" that was anticipated, the Ford Administration found itself looking foolish. Havana’s response was to send thousands of Cuban troops to Africa, first to Angola. Secretary Kissinger was so angered by the Cuban intervention in Angola, and the failure of detente that he entertained the idea of air strikes on Cuba. Multilateral sanctions were not reimposed and Communist Cuba's influence would expand in the region. Subsequent administrations ( Carter 1977, Clinton 1993 and 2000), Obama (2009-2017) attempted rapprochements with Havana, and endured the same cycle. Carter's opening coincided with plunging Central America into civil war, with the establishment of communist rule in Nicaragua with Daniel Ortega in 1979 and a mass exodus in 1980 which Fidel Castro personally seeded with murderers, rapists, and psychiatric patients. The Clinton Administration's normalization efforts coincided with massacres of Cubans, the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown, another exodus, the expansion of Cuban influence in Venezuela and the take over of Hugo Chavez in 1999.
2. Dismiss current actions by Havana
Lessons from Europe's constructive engagement
Although the European Union (EU) has and continues to pursue a policy of constructive engagement, and was Cuba’s top trading partner in the 1990s it did not curb its international outlaw behavior. Venezuela became Cuba's top trading partner in 2001, and was eclipsed by China in 2016 However, when Europe de-linked human rights considerations from economic engagement with Havana trade shot up. As of 2019, the EU was Cuba's top trading partner for both imports and exports. It was also Cuba’s top development partner and source of foreign investment. In 2019, a quarter of all tourists visiting Cuba, which relies on its tourism sector for income, were from the EU.This did not alter Havana's hostile posture towards Europe. Cubans are in Russian uniforms fighting to advance Moscow's objectives in the illegal war in Ukraine, and Havana is conducting military training in Belarus. Terrorists continue to be harbored in Cuba, and the Cuban dictatorship refuses to extradite them. Cuban diplomats have held high level meetings with Hamas in 2023, and Hezbollah maintains a base in Cuba. Cuba’s communist dictatorship and Iran’s Islamist regime are closely allied and coordinating efforts against Israel.
3. Get ready for taxpayers to foot the tab.
"One of the best-kept secrets of our 40-year-old trade embargo with Cuba is that it has saved millions of dollars for U.S. taxpayers. Due to the embargo, there are no U.S. banks in the ``Paris Club'', a consortium of Cuba creditors. (The Paris Club is currently owed between $10 and $15 billion in debt from Cuba.) Otherwise, U.S. banks now would be hitting U.S. taxpayers to cover their losses in Cuba. If the U.S. begins to subsidize trade with Cuba--estimated at $100 million a year--five years from now, U.S. taxpayers could be holding, or paying off a $500 million tab." - Senator George Allen, May 21, 2002, Hearing on U.S. Trade Policy with Cuba
Cuba scholar Jaime Suchlicki at the Cuban Studies Institute on April 10, 2023 published an important analysis titled “The Folly of Investing in Cuba” that outlines a number of pitfalls both economic and moral to doing business with the Castro dictatorship that is a must read.
Existing U.S. sanctions have protected American taxpayers from having to shell out billions of dollars to subsidize the Castro dictatorship.
Others have not had the benefit of this policy.
China canceled $6 billion dollars in Cuban debt in 2011, On November 1, 2013 the government of Mexico announced that it was ready to waive 70 percent of a debt worth nearly $500 million that Cuba owes it. The former president of Mexico Vicente Fox protested the move stating: “Let the Cubans get to work and generate their own money…They’re normally like chupacabras. The only thing they’re looking for is someone to give them money for free.” In December 2015 it was announced that Spain would forgive $1.7 billion that the Castro regime owes it. In December of 2013, Russia and Cuba quietly signed an agreement to write off $32 billion of Cuba's debt to the former superpower. Western governments pursued Cuban maritime debts seizing Cuban vessels and negotiating payment through Canadian courts.
The 2015 debt restructuring accord between Cuba and the Paris Club, according to Reuters, "forgave $8.5 billion of $11.1 billion, representing debt Cuba defaulted on in 1986, plus charges."
The Paris Club is made up of the following permanent members: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France,Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States. Thanks to existing U.S. sanctions, none of the $11.084 billion in debt has been left for U.S. taxpayers to pay off.
Carmelo Mesa-Lago is Distinguished Service Professor emeritus of economics and Latin American studies at the University of Pittsburgh, and in his work CUBA’S ECONOMY IN TIMES OF CRISIS: 2020–2022 AND PROSPECTS FOR 2023 provided the following table which lists debt forgiven, and remaining debt owed by the Cuban dictatorship.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment