Cuba and the U.S.: Seeing if They Can Befriend One Another
Published in Diario DeCuyo
(Argentina) on 4-20-2008
by EDGARDO MENDOZA (link to original)
The relationship between Cuba and the United States is destined to change and in the future it shall be pure confrontation. Since January 1, 1959, when Fidel Castro came to power, all has been forgotten by various countries, except constructive acts. Before this date, the United States considered Cuba as a type of colony where they did what was most convenient for them. They had great investments in agriculture, in the sugar industry, and also in gaming, prostitution, and drug trafficking. Fidel nationalized some companies, confiscated others, closed the casinos, and tried to reeducate those who exercised the oldest profession in the world.
The American response did not wait. In various opportunities they intended to assassinate the Commander, they supported all types of government opposition, and ended with applying a commercial embargo that lasted decades and asphyxiated the Cuban economy. Such pressure brought Fidel to align himself with the Soviet Union, at that time the biggest enemy of the United States. The price to pay was that the Cubans had to adopt the model of society of their new friends that consisted of the existence of a political game lacking in individual freedoms, control over the press, and an economy closed to any private initiative.
All of these measures caused many Cubans to depart into exile and install themselves primarily in the state of Florida and especially in the city of Miami. Already there are 650,000 there and they continue arriving even with the risk of crossing on very precarious rafts the hundred kilometers that separate the beaches of the island with the preferred place to start a new life.
Now they are starting to produce certain changes. Raul Castro, brother of Fidel who is the new strong man, has taken certain measures that are very timid but that should stop producing eventful changes. Since the first of April, the Cubans that possess sufficient money can freely buy a reproduction apparatus for videos or DVD, as well as a television that they consider more useful. This is going to permit seeing movies or news that until now were reserved from them. This shall begin to break the monopoly of press that the government exercises. Besides, now it is possible to buy a computer and have access to the internet although many sites continue to be censored. More important still is that some officials have declared that they shall turn in idle lands to the peasant farmers in order to cultivate them in private form, they shall eliminate unproductive cooperatives, and they are thinking of accepting foreign investments for better development of the countryside.
In Florida changes are also observed. Not all the 650,000 exiles think in the same manner nor are they so closed to a possible dialogue with those that exercise power on the island. Some thousands of them are very intransigent, especially those that emigrated in the beginning. People that arrived with money and initial capital were permitted to develop companies having realized a very good economic situation. It is them that control the principal means of communication from Miami where a much accentuated anticastro propaganda is transmitted. But those that arrived later, above all after 1990, are people that have to work hard to exist and that even at the cost of many sacrifices send money to their families that stayed in Cuba. They are those that hardly having a few days of vacation are passed on the island.
Many of the immigrants don’t support the commercial embargo and see with very sad eyes its resurgence by methods that Bush took since 2004. The sending of money was limited to only 1200 dollars per year, the sending of packages with merchandise was restrained, and the number of trips that can be made departing from the United States. The discontentment has produced part of the exiles that have American citizenship to stop supporting the Republican Party that is the champion of enmity with Cuba. There are those who are supporting the Democrats that, a thing never seen, are presenting candidates in all the offices with the possibility of gaining some of them. In November there will be presidential elections in the United States, and there are many possibilities that impose themselves on the candidate of the Democratic Party.
Perhaps, between the will for change by some and the desire for dialogue by others, this situation of so much confrontation and hostility of the last 49 years can be weakened.
The American response did not wait. In various opportunities they intended to assassinate the Commander, they supported all types of government opposition, and ended with applying a commercial embargo that lasted decades and asphyxiated the Cuban economy. Such pressure brought Fidel to align himself with the Soviet Union, at that time the biggest enemy of the United States. The price to pay was that the Cubans had to adopt the model of society of their new friends that consisted of the existence of a political game lacking in individual freedoms, control over the press, and an economy closed to any private initiative.
All of these measures caused many Cubans to depart into exile and install themselves primarily in the state of Florida and especially in the city of Miami. Already there are 650,000 there and they continue arriving even with the risk of crossing on very precarious rafts the hundred kilometers that separate the beaches of the island with the preferred place to start a new life.
Now they are starting to produce certain changes. Raul Castro, brother of Fidel who is the new strong man, has taken certain measures that are very timid but that should stop producing eventful changes. Since the first of April, the Cubans that possess sufficient money can freely buy a reproduction apparatus for videos or DVD, as well as a television that they consider more useful. This is going to permit seeing movies or news that until now were reserved from them. This shall begin to break the monopoly of press that the government exercises. Besides, now it is possible to buy a computer and have access to the internet although many sites continue to be censored. More important still is that some officials have declared that they shall turn in idle lands to the peasant farmers in order to cultivate them in private form, they shall eliminate unproductive cooperatives, and they are thinking of accepting foreign investments for better development of the countryside.
In Florida changes are also observed. Not all the 650,000 exiles think in the same manner nor are they so closed to a possible dialogue with those that exercise power on the island. Some thousands of them are very intransigent, especially those that emigrated in the beginning. People that arrived with money and initial capital were permitted to develop companies having realized a very good economic situation. It is them that control the principal means of communication from Miami where a much accentuated anticastro propaganda is transmitted. But those that arrived later, above all after 1990, are people that have to work hard to exist and that even at the cost of many sacrifices send money to their families that stayed in Cuba. They are those that hardly having a few days of vacation are passed on the island.
Many of the immigrants don’t support the commercial embargo and see with very sad eyes its resurgence by methods that Bush took since 2004. The sending of money was limited to only 1200 dollars per year, the sending of packages with merchandise was restrained, and the number of trips that can be made departing from the United States. The discontentment has produced part of the exiles that have American citizenship to stop supporting the Republican Party that is the champion of enmity with Cuba. There are those who are supporting the Democrats that, a thing never seen, are presenting candidates in all the offices with the possibility of gaining some of them. In November there will be presidential elections in the United States, and there are many possibilities that impose themselves on the candidate of the Democratic Party.
Perhaps, between the will for change by some and the desire for dialogue by others, this situation of so much confrontation and hostility of the last 49 years can be weakened.