Latin America went unmentioned in tonight's Presidential debate. Here is why that was a mistake.

Revisiting recent Latin American history and U.S. policy

President Donald Trump and Vice President Joe Biden debate.

Regardless who wins in November, the international environment will continue to present challenges to U.S. national security. We heard about China, Russia and North Korea, but nothing was said about an important region neighboring the United States, or the presence of the above mentioned countries in the region. In Latin America, there are three countries with incredibly problematic records on human rights that have translated into massive and systematic human rights violations, economic downturns, mass exoduses of refugees, and engagement with outlaw regimes hostile to America: Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. They were not mentioned in tonight's debate, and that is a pity. Latin America was relegated without much detail to a question

It is important to examine the historical record.

In January of 1958 the United States was pressuring Batista to restore Constitutional guarantees in exchange for the sale of arms. On March 14, 1958 the State Department in a telegram to the U.S. Embassy in Cuba  requested that the export license for 1,950 M-1 rifles for the Cuban Army awaiting shipment be suspended. This was done because State felt that the Cuban government had failed to "create conditions for fair elections." 

On March 17, 1958 Fidel Castro's candidate for provisional president Manuel Urrutia, along with a delegation of other supporters in exile of the future Cuban dictator's July 26th movement, met with officials at the State Department. They lobbied the U.S. government and argued that arms shipments to Cuba were for hemispheric defense, and they claimed that Batista using them against Cuban nationals was in violation of the conditions agreed to between the two countries.  Months later the U.S. Ambassador to Cuba was pressuring Batista to abandon the country.

The Castro regime took power in 1959, and its objective from the beginning was to consolidate a Marxist Leninist dictatorship in Cuba, and export armed guerillas to overthrow democracies, such as Romulo Betancourt's social democracy in Venezuela in the early 1960s, and replace those governments with communist regimes. 

Dictator Fidel Castro and Vice President Richard Nixon meet in 1959

Containment worked as a policy in the 1960s and 1970s, but when that bipartisan consensus broke down in the mid 1970s, first with President Ford's National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger beginning in 1974 pursued secret negotiations to normalize relations with Cuba, but the Castro dictatorship intervened again in Africa in 1976 in Angola and later in Ethiopia.  This angered Kissinger, who ended the efforts to normalize relations during the Ford Administration.

Ford lost to Jimmy Carter in the 1976 Presidential election, and the approach to Cuba changed.

On April 27, 1977 representatives of the Carter Administration and the Castro regime sat down and personally negotiated an international fishery agreement. This was the first time since 1958 that any officials of the United States government sat down with representatives of the Castro regime to formally negotiate an agreement.  

Former President Carter in an interview with Robert Fulghum on December 19, 1996 quoted on page 310 of the book Conversations with Carter said: "When I had only been in office two months in 1977, I opened up all travel for American citizens to go to Cuba and vice versa. And we opened up an entry section, which is just one step short of a full embassy in both Havana and Washington. And those offices, by the way, are still open."

Within the Carter administration there were from the beginning low expectations on the limits of what normalizing relations would achieve. The Secretary of the Treasury, W. Micheal Blumenthal, in a August 12, 1977 memorandum to the president titled "Subject: Next Steps on Normalization of U.S. Cuba Relations" addressed Castro regime priorities and the tendency to "overestimate" US leverage:

"I do not believe that our lifting the trade embargo completely, let alone relaxing it partially, would be sufficient to deflect Cuba from pursuits which it considers central to its own national interests, presumably including its involvement in Africa."

Also on August 12, 1977, U.S. Senator Frank Church sent a memorandum to President Carter detailing the conversation he had with Fidel Castro and resulting U.S. policy recommendations for Cuba which included: relaxing restrictions on financial transactions with Cuba in order to make it easier for a tourist to pay a hotel bill. Meeting with Fidel Castro during the United Nations General Assembly later that fall (Clinton would shake hands with Fidel Castro there in 2000). Look for ways to cooperate on controlling the international drug traffic. Explore ways to ease the embargo on trade.

Robert A. Pastor, of The Carter Center in July 1992 in the report "The Carter Administration and Latin America: A Test of Principle" summed the outcome of the Carter policy on Cuba:

In November 1977 there were 400 Cuban military advisers in Ethiopia; by April 1978 there were 17,000 Cuban troops there serving under a Soviet general. The line had been crossed. Carter's hopes for a major improvement in relations with Cuba were dashed, and he said so publicly: "There is no possibility that we would see any substantial improvement in our relationship with Cuba as long as he's [Castro] committed to this military intrusion policy in the internal affairs of African people.

However, according to Pastor in the same article the Castro regime sought to sweeten the pot using political prisoners as political leverage. Unlike  the small, and debated, number of political prisoners released in the recent negotiations with the Castro by the Obama's administration the Carter administration achieved the release of thousands:

"Rhetoric aside, Castro might have thought he could change Carter's mind on normalization if he changed his policy on political prisoners. In the summer of 1978, Castro informed U.S. officials that he was prepared to release as many as 3,900 political prisoners to the United States. (He released about 3,600; 1,000 immigrated to the United States.) During the next year he also released all U.S. prisoners - both political and criminal - and people with dual citizenship. This represented a reversal from a position he had taken in an interview with Barbara Walters one year before. Castro also tried to do the impossible: to transform the Cuban-American community from his enemy to his lobbyist. He invited a group to Havana in November 1978 and left them believing they had persuaded him to release the prisoners." 

Concretely in addition to opening up the interests sections in Havana and Washington D.C. and ending the travel ban the negotiations between the Carter administration and the Castro regime, according to Pastor achieved some additional concrete agreements:

"The U.S. Coast Guard and its Cuban counterpart coordinated their search-and-rescue and anti-drug efforts, and Cuba lifted its 17-year ban on the use of Cuban water and air space by the U.S. Coast Guard. 46 But Cuba's military cooperation with the U.S.S.R. in Africa was an insurmountable obstacle to normalization, and as it expanded, it also began to affect American relations with the Soviet Union."

At the same time as this process was underway the Castro regime also played a crucial role in the Sandinista victory in Nicaragua while the Carter Administration imposed sanctions on the Somoza regime when it refused to pursue democratic reforms. According to Robert Pastor:

Somoza pretended the sanctions had no effect on him. He doubled the size of the National Guard and evidently believed he was secure. However, by May 1979, with Cuban President Fidel Castro's help, the three Sandinista factions had united and established a secure and ample arms flow from Cuba through Panama and Costa Rica. The United States tried to end all arms transfers to both sides. It urged Torrijos and Costa Rican President Rodrigo Carazo to cooperate; both pretended not to be involved. Public opinion in both countries viewed Somoza as the threat to their nations' security and the Sandinistas as the solution to the crisis. The United States did not know the magnitude of the arms flows nor did it have conclusive evidence of the involvement of Costa Rica, Panama, or Cuba. 

Towards the end of the Carter Administration the discovery of a Soviet ground forces brigade operating on Cuban territory and the ineptness in handling the Mariel boatlift crisis spelled not only the end of the policy but was also a contributing factor to the defeat of President Carter during his 1980 re-election bid.  The Cuba policy set out by President Carter in the 1970s was proven a disaster at the time. 

Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista rebels in 1979 financed and backed by the Cubans, took power and a civil war erupted in El Salvador in 1979 with efforts of Cuban backed guerillas to overthrow the existing government. Central America became a blood bath. A communist beach head was established in Central America.

Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981 and re-imposed the Cuba travel ban, toughened economic sanctions undoing Jimmy Carter's detente with Fidel Castro, in 1982 placed the Castro regime on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and started Radio Marti to break through the communist monopoly with uncensored information for Cubans on the island. 

On March 1, 1982 the Castro regime was placed on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. less than three months after the US State Department confirmed that the Castro regime was using a narcotics ring to funnel both arms and cash to the Colombian M19 terrorist group then battling to overthrow Colombia’s democratic government.  

 With Cuba Ronald Reagan backed the creation of a Radio Free Cuba to break Castro regime's information monopoly over the Cuban people beginning in 1981. In a 1983 address, President Reagan explained the importance of getting the truth to oppressed peoples:

The Soviets are terrified of the truth. They understand well and they dread the meaning of St. John's words: "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." The truth is mankind's best hope for a better world. That's why in times like this, few assets are more important than the Voice of America and Radio Liberty, our primary means of getting the truth to the Russian people.[...]  We've repeatedly urged the Congress to support our long-term modernization program and our proposal for a new radio station, Radio Marti, for broadcasting to Cuba. The sums involved are modest, but for whatever reason this critical program has not been enacted. Today I'm appealing to the Congress: Help us get the truth through. Help us strengthen our international broadcasting effort by supporting increased funding for the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and by authorizing the establishment of Radio Marti.

When it finally went on the air in 1985 Radio Marti marked a before and after inside Cuba. At the time President Reagan hoped that Radio Marti would ''help defuse the war hysteria on which much of current Cuban Government policy is predicated.'' The Castro regime's response was to end an immigration agreement and suspend the visits to Cuba by Cubans living in the United States.The Hoover Institution in 1989 listed it as one of a 100 conservative victories.  

The Reagan Administration also named former Cuban political prisoner Armando Valladares Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and made human rights in Cuba a priority there. The end result was that for the first and last time Amnesty International, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN Human Rights Commission were able to visit Cuban political prisoners.

Dr. Ricardo Bofill co-founded the Cuban Committee for Human Rights in 1976, dedicated his entire life to and suffered years in Cuban prisons for defending human rights. Reagan invited him to the White House in 1988.

Dr. Ricardo Bofill meets President Reagan in The White House in 1988

 

Ronald Reagan was an unapologetic anti-communist who empowered dissidents and engaged in acts of solidarity to underline their importance.  Lastly, President Reagan went to Russia in the midst of Perestroika and Glasnost which meant improving human rights standards and greater freedoms along with dissidents empowered. 

This policy reversed Castroism's gains in Grenada and in Central America. The collapse of the Soviet empire between 1989 through the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 put the Castro regime into a crisis. However in the midst of this collapse, the remaining communist parties from around the world gathered in Brazil at the Sao Paulo Forum and planned their comeback.


Clinton resurrects Carter's Cuba policy with deadly results
Carter's  détente policy would reassert itself first during the Clinton Administration beginning in 1994 when President Bill Clinton authorized the U.S. military to have permanent contacts and joint exercises with the Castro regime's military.

The Clinton administration stopped calling Cubans refugees declaring them migrants. The General Accounting Office (GAO) explained this change "for over 30 years, fleeing Cubans had been welcomed to the United States; however, the U.S. government reversed this policy on August 19, 1994, when President Clinton announced that Cuban rafters interdicted at sea would no longer be brought to the United States."  Wet foot, dry foot" was a massive set back for Cuban refugees. At the same time a  1995 agreement with the Castro regime empowered them to control who would arrive in the United States by registering Cubans for a lottery and up to 20,000 "immigrants" would be eligible to enter the United States annually. This is a large part of what has led to South Florida being filled with regime oppressors and who knows how many spies. This, not the Cuban Adjustment Act, is what needs to be ended. 

This normalization effort peaked when Bill Clinton shook hands with Fidel Castro in 2000 and opened cash and carry trade with the dictatorship loosening sanctions.  This was done in spite of tightened sanction in 1996 following the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down. This new period of engagement coincided with the rise of Hugo Chavez and reversals of the democratic gains made in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Fidel Castro greets Hugo Chavez in Cuba on December 13, 1994

George W. Bush cools relations without rejecting Clinton normalization advances
During the George W. Bush Administration the cash and carry trade continued as did the joint military exercises. Even though in 2003 in the aftermath of the Black Cuban spring in which 75 dissidents were jailed following show trials the Bush administration responded by tightening sanctions limiting travel by Cuban exiles to Cuba and remittances. In 2006 the Sandinistas return to power in Nicaragua with the old dictator Daniel Ortega now winning a democratic election with 38% of the vote. Despite all of this, under the Bush Administration, the United States became the fifth leading trade partner with the Castro regime in 2008.

Obama's back to the future retread of Carter era Cuba policies

The December 17, 2014 announcement by President Obama broke new ground in U.S.-Cuba relations only one area, when compared to President Carter, releasing Gerardo Hernandez, a Cuban spy and terrorist, convicted of murder conspiracy of three U.S. citizens and a resident. Not only did President Obama commute the sentence but tried to rewrite history calling an act of international terrorism, the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down, a tragedy.  Freeing unrepentant killers is not a good policy for promoting human rights.

More extreme machete attack in 2015

Six months after the announcement of normalizing relations on May 24, 2015, Sirley Ávila León was the victim of a brutal machete attack that cost her her left hand and also left her right upper arm nearly severed and knees slashed, leaving her crippled. She was denied adequate medical care and was told quietly by medical doctors that if she wanted to get better she would need to leave Cuba. The regime had been embarrassed by a campaign she organized to keep a school open. She arrived in Miami on March 8, 2016 unable to bend her legs, or use her remaining had.Thanks to a team of medical doctors treating her, by September 2016 Sirley had regained the use of her hand, and was able to walk short distances.

Negative international trends for human rights in Cuba under Obama Cuba policy.  

Human rights worsened in Cuba as the dictatorship was legitimized internationally by the Obama Administration's Cuba policy, and March 2016 state visit that led to Cuban dissidents and human rights defenders becoming more isolated.  

The Obama administration's Cuba policy of engagement and detente with the Castro regime in the past served to empower other anti-democratic actors in the region with the aide of the Cuban intelligence service and military. Latin American democrats in the region, despite some positive signs, should remain vigilant. These are dangerous times. It is important to recall that the long term policy goals first enunciated by Fidel Castro on July 26, 1959 continue into the present: "We promise to continue making Cuba the example that can convert the cordillera of the Andes into the Sierra Maestra of the American continent." This vision was reaffirmed by Fidel Castro at the VII Cuban Communist Party Conference shortly before his death in 2016: 

"Lenin’s work insulted after 70 years of revolution. What a historical lesson! We can say that it should not take another 70 years before another event like the Russian Revolution occurs, so that humanity has another example of a great social revolution that meant a huge step in the fight against colonialism and its inseparable companion: imperialism."

With or without sanctions Castro regime's hostility will continue
With or without sanctions the confrontation with the United States will continue as long as the government of the United States is a democracy. Furthermore, the propaganda of the regime in Cuba and its allies in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and elsewhere is that the United States is an imperial power. 

Opening up to the United States economically as it has with other countries will present a new line of argument to justify its continued totalitarian control: the threat of economic domination by the imperialists. 

This can already be seen in the arrests of Western businessmen and the confiscation of their assets with preferences to companies from ideologically friendly countries such as communist China, Vietnam, Venezuela, Brazil, etc. The increased hard currency that the Castro regime is getting its hands on will go towards reinforcing the dictatorship's repressive apparatus at home and expanding its power and influence abroad at the expense of U.S. and regional interests.

Nicaragua: A deteriorating situation
Ominous signs in Nicaragua for Central America with the purchase of 50 new T-72B1 battle tanks at a cost of 80 million dollars in 2016 sent a message to the domestic opposition that has been demonstrated with the Ortega regime.

Ortega's dictatorship shut down independent media and violently crushed non-violent protests in Nicaragua beginning on April 18, 2018 murdering dozens, torturing and arbitrarily detaining many more but failed to silence Nicaraguans, who have continued to protest against the Sandinista dictatorship.

Cuba and Nicaragua then vs Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela now

When one looks at different flash points in Latin America over the past sixty one years, the Castro regime has systematically played a negative role.