Inevitable Changes in the US and Cuba
Published in La Prensa
(Panama) on 27 December 2014
by Oswaldo Álvarez Paz (link to original)
(Panama) on 27 December 2014
by Oswaldo Álvarez Paz (link to original)
Translated from
by Stephen Routledge.
Edited by Bora Mici.
The highlight of the week was the news generated by the declarations, at an international level, by the presidents of the United States and Cuba.
I have no reservations about their merits. Any agreement to put an end to an overly protracted conflict over time can be described as a positive one. However, there are some issues that are not clear for the general public, although the protagonists must have achieved something beyond what we know.
For now, the Cuban people, including those in exile, should benefit from the normalization of diplomatic relations, but on the basis of truth. The "embargo" is not responsible for the failure of the Communist revolution. A system that impoverished the nation to unimaginable limits has been destroyed, but it continues on the basis of fear, violence and repression. The Castro government will now have the challenge, without giving up its understated "principles,” of opening the way to freedom and democratic life.
With this negotiation, the United States loses nothing. Cuba stopped being a threat many years ago, although it maintains control over a bankrupt and devastated Venezuela that no longer serves as a key financier. With the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the devaluation of Venezuela’s support, the Castros pragmatically look to the United States and Canada, on the one hand, and the European Union on the other.
They are right to do so. We wait to find out what agreements the dictatorship accepts in order to guarantee its survival.
But I reject the words of President Barack Obama when he speaks of correcting the "mistakes" of more than 50 years of that regime. It is an insane notion. He is ignoring contemporary history and the records of his predecessors, such as Kennedy and Johnson.
He is forgetting the missile crisis, the Soviet bases on the island, the guerrilla and terrorist adventures of Cuba in Africa, Venezuela, Colombia and Bolivia, to name but a few. That has ended. The weak Havana-Caracas axis remains, teetering on the brink thanks to the corrupt inefficiency of the Venezuelan regime. The poor old thing.
I have no reservations about their merits. Any agreement to put an end to an overly protracted conflict over time can be described as a positive one. However, there are some issues that are not clear for the general public, although the protagonists must have achieved something beyond what we know.
For now, the Cuban people, including those in exile, should benefit from the normalization of diplomatic relations, but on the basis of truth. The "embargo" is not responsible for the failure of the Communist revolution. A system that impoverished the nation to unimaginable limits has been destroyed, but it continues on the basis of fear, violence and repression. The Castro government will now have the challenge, without giving up its understated "principles,” of opening the way to freedom and democratic life.
With this negotiation, the United States loses nothing. Cuba stopped being a threat many years ago, although it maintains control over a bankrupt and devastated Venezuela that no longer serves as a key financier. With the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the devaluation of Venezuela’s support, the Castros pragmatically look to the United States and Canada, on the one hand, and the European Union on the other.
They are right to do so. We wait to find out what agreements the dictatorship accepts in order to guarantee its survival.
But I reject the words of President Barack Obama when he speaks of correcting the "mistakes" of more than 50 years of that regime. It is an insane notion. He is ignoring contemporary history and the records of his predecessors, such as Kennedy and Johnson.
He is forgetting the missile crisis, the Soviet bases on the island, the guerrilla and terrorist adventures of Cuba in Africa, Venezuela, Colombia and Bolivia, to name but a few. That has ended. The weak Havana-Caracas axis remains, teetering on the brink thanks to the corrupt inefficiency of the Venezuelan regime. The poor old thing.
No “mistakes”? Let’s start with the attempted invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. That was a whopper. And how about the foolish assassination attempts on Castro? The whole embargo and the way it was handled wasn’t such a great idea. The prison at Guantanamo Bay? Worse than foolish. How about how the rest of Latin America had turned away from American leadership due to our Cuba policy? Don’t get me wrong, Cuban leadership under the Castro dictatorship has been a disaster and a humiliation for the Cuban people, but “better to light a candle than to curse the darkness”.