Cuba-US Relations and Our Generation

Upon hearing of the agreement between Barack Obama and Raúl Castro, and the decision to re-establish diplomatic relations after more than half a century of setbacks, people of my generation might say: “We can testify to all of this history.” We’ve lived it from the beginning, its political developments, its choices in the midst of the Cold War, its persistence and survival in the face of what seemed impossible, its mistakes and its legacy that are already carved into Latin American history.

I remember Fidel Castro and all the excitement he caused in Latin America when he visited the U.S. in April 1959, four months after his triumphal entrance into Havana. He wasn’t there to ask for something, which was the usual thing for Latin American leaders to do, but to explain what he intended to do. He was convinced that he could make U.S. leaders understand his plans for profound change. And his statements are recorded for history in his interview with then Acting Secretary of State Christian Herter, along with other representatives of the Eisenhower administration, as well as in his speeches given at Harvard and Princeton. The tragedy for Cuba was believing that another direction was possible in this part of the world, without realizing that in the event of a Cold War, Cuba would fall within the U.S. sphere of influence. Five years previously, Guatemala had suffered a coup d’état to first prevent President Juan Jose Arévalo, then President Jacobo Arbenz, from pushing forward with improvements for its people.

Washington, or at least the CIA, didn’t understand, and prepared to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Just as his advisers clearly describe, when John Kennedy became president in January 1961, he saw that invasion plans were already underway. He didn’t have the courage to stop the invasion, and the world was to learn of that failure in April 1961. It was that event which led to the final split with the U.S., a country that could no longer be trusted. Then, in the midst of the Cold War, Castro looked to the Soviet Union. He accepted having the nuclear missiles in Cuba because he believed it was a way of defending his revolution. He was living in the U.S. at that time. I remember Kennedy’s speech with complete clarity, in which he said he had ordered a naval blockade and that conflict with the ships bringing the missiles to Cuba would be inevitable. War was avoided by a last-minute deal, according to which the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw the missiles, while the U.S. guaranteed it would never again try destabilizing the Cuban regime. That was the beginning of the long history that reached a conclusion in the past few days. It was certainly an anomaly that 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Cold War still existed in this part of the world.

People may have different opinions about Cuba and its history, but nobody can deny its significance. For many, the main thing was to show how this little country stood up against the world’s capitalist power to say, “no, that isn’t the way to equality.” For others, this history shows that a utopia isn’t enough to achieve equality and a better future for people; something more than enthusiasm and promises is needed.

A book published a few weeks ago, “Back Channel to Cuba,” shows how despite the circumstances, there were always secret negotiations between the governments of both countries. The ideological distance has been enormous but, regardless, every so often there were meetings and special envoys looking to resolve the crisis between both parties; some were even eager to create conditions that would have made the two countries’ relations acceptable and permanent. And once in a while, New York or Canada became a meeting place for authorized representatives to explore reconciliation. Of course, other countries, Spain included, also played a role in seeking rapprochement and restoring normality to relations between the U.S. and Cuba.

Why did none of that achieve anything as important as what Obama and Raúl Castro have now announced? On the one hand, it is because Washington needed to be sure the embargo produced no positive results, and that it was making the Cuban people suffer and leading to many to identify with such a cruel punishment. On the other hand, it is because Cuba was waiting for a dialogue in which respect for Cuban sovereignty would prevail. This is no minor subject to Cubans since, after gaining independence from Spain, their history was marked by a state of dependency on Washington that was like almost no other country on the continent; it was called the Platt Amendment.

And now what? In the face of the last chapter of these fifty or so years of broken diplomatic relations and embargo — or the first chapter of this new stage — Cuba’s challenge is obvious: the time has come to build a virtuous balance between state, market and society. From its political model, with more openness and greater freedoms, this Cuban government and the one that follows will need to create a dynamic in which the state dictates clear and stable rules, and leads and enters new areas. The government will need to create a market capable of growth, innovation and development, and a society in which opportunities and protection are real, wide-reaching and for all. No less important is the challenge of preserving all that has been achieved socially in recent years.

Cuba will need to learn to view the U.S. without prejudice or preconceptions, with all of its nuances, good and bad. But the U.S. will also have to learn to see modern Cuba, to forget about treating it as its own backyard and a place for all of its outbursts, to realize that revolution leaves important legacies with which to head into the future. Hence, here is a country that spends 10 percent of its gross domestic product on health care and ranks within the top 25 countries in the world for its health indicators. And it’s also a country which directs 12.8 percent of its GDP to education, creating a society with the highest standards of mass education on the entire continent.

Certainly the embargo is still in place because a law from Congress is needed to eliminate it, and such conditions to pass that law aren’t yet present. But the very application of U.S. laws depends on how gradually the American president decides to apply them. And in this respect, Obama’s decisions, modest at first, are now opening the door to a much more vital and fluid interaction between the two countries. The unavoidable question is: Who wins in this history?

Following the resumption of relations, calculations and analyses have been made which seem somewhat provisional. Yes, it’s certain that the fall in oil prices and the impact that this has on Venezuela means a change to any possible help with subsidized oil and other agreements that General Hugo Chávez promised in his day. But that isn’t the reason why Cuba has been entering into confidential dialogue with the White House since mid-2013. This matter has already been around for some time because the Cuban government and its diplomats have recognized that in the 21st century, its strategy is tied to what they privately call “a new relationship with the United States.” And the key to this relationship involves mutual respect.

As has been said, Obama has shown political courage, but also a sense of history and its inevitable course. Perhaps this is an important step not only for a bilateral relationship between the U.S. and Cuba, but also for a new policy between Washington and its neighbors south of the Rio Grande. Without a doubt, a new climate has already been created for the next Summit of the Americas in Panama.

Author Ricardo Lagos is Chile’s former president.