Time for an evolution in U.S. policy on Cuba

Time for an evolution in U.S. policy on Cuba

By Katrina vanden Heuvel, Tuesday, June 10, 2:00 PM



The sad irony of U.S.-Cuban relations is that Cuba, under the leadership

of 83-year-old Raúl Castro, is changing rapidly, and the United States,

despite President Obama's promises of a "new beginning," remains largely

frozen in a self-destructive Cold War policy.



The fifty-plus year-old embargo of Cuba continues. The administration

still lists Cuba as a "state sponsor of terrorism." The United States

continues to sponsor covert activities — this time a U.S. Agency for

International Development attempt to generate "smart mobs" through a

secret text-messaging program — to help destabilize the regime. Ten

presidents after the embargo began, U.S. policy remains dedicated to folly.



Meanwhile the world, the hemisphere and Cuba have changed. If anything,

the embargo isolates the United States, not Cuba. Washington's

relationship with the region is deteriorating, corroded by its policy

toward Cuba. With few exceptions, the left-leaning governments that

govern across Latin America have normal relations with Cuba and scorn

the U.S. attempt to isolate the little island. At the last Summit of the

Americas in 2012, the presidents of Brazil and of Colombia, one of the

few remaining U.S. allies, joined several other countries in announcing

they would skip the next summit in 2015 if Cuba is not invited. And well

they should, as the summits become increasingly irrelevant, with

regional trading and political ties developing with the United States,

not Cuba, on the sidelines.



My recent trip to Cuba, as part of the nation's first educational

exchange trip to that country, reaffirmed what Josefina Vidal, head of

the North American Division of Cuba's Foreign Ministry, told our

delegation in a wide ranging 90-minute conversation: "The U.S. is facing

the risk of becoming irrelevant in the future of Cuba."



The conservative Republican head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Tom

Donahue, while visiting Cuba last month, reiterated the chamber's call

to lifting the embargo in his speech at the University of Havana.

Donahue understands that the major victims of the U.S. blockade are U.S.

businesses.



Cuba has just passed a new law facilitating foreign investment. A new

rush is on. A Brazilian firm captured the major project of modernizing

the port at Mariel. A Chinese company is building 34 wind turbines. And

another Chinese company sells the new cars that are starting to be seen

on the streets. A British developer has just initialed a deal to build a

"luxury golf resort." The European Union has opened a formal dialogue

with Cuba on trade, investment and human rights.



The pace of change in Cuba is accelerating — and is visible on the

ground. Paladares (private restaurants), tapas bars and even night clubs

are sprouting up in private homes. When Obama rightly eased restrictions

on the travel and remittances of Cuban Americans, visitors bearing gifts

flooded the island.



Remarkable changes in sex education and official attitudes are apparent,

with the state going from imprisoning homosexuals to launching campaigns

against sexual violence, considering legalizing same-sex marriage,

subsidizing sex-change operations and banning discrimination based on

sexuality at the workplace. Castro's daughter, Mariela Castro, the

charismatic head of Cuba's National Center for Sexual Education, has

become a renowned figure both in Cuba and across the world for her work

in this area. Despite her government's restrictions on political speech,

Castro is an outspoken advocate for more open sexual discourse. When we

met with her at the center, she expressed frustration at continuing

official resistance to legalizing gay marriage and spoke of herself as a

fighter — fighting for a new way of thinking about sexuality and

supported by a growing Cuban grassroots network of activists.



Of course, Cuba faces severe challenges. The regime still keeps a heavy

hand on the press and social media and, as I learned in conversations

with a leading Cuban journalist, the recent Twitter scandal has made

reform-minded Cuban journalists' fight to modernize the country's

social-media infrastructure more difficult. Human rights are still

constricted. The regime knows it has to change but hopes to maintain

core advances (particularly in health care and education) that are the

signatures of the revolution.



With foreign investment, expanding private enterprises and increasing

tourism comes greater inequality and increasing tension. Yet, as veteran

journalist Marc Frank explains in his fascinating new book, "Cuban

Revelations: Behind the Scenes in Havana," there is a "grey zone" — a

significant segment of Cubans whom Castro is trying to win over with his

efforts to modernize the economy.



Amidst all of these changes, the United States is fighting yesterday's

war. At present, Cubans are freer to travel to the United States than

Americans are to go to Cuba. What fears or fantasies support that idiocy?



U.S. policy is frozen in large part because bureaucratic inertia is

reinforced by the hold anti-Castro zealots have on our policy — most

notably Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who represents Miami's Little

Havana neighborhood, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Robert

Menendez (D-N.J.). But these zealots are growing ever more isolated.

Recently, nearly four dozen former government officials, diplomats,

retired military officers, wealthy Cuban emigres and business leaders

warned in an open letter to the president that the United States is

"increasingly isolated internationally in its Cuba policy," and called

on the administration to act on its own to ease travel for all Americans

and allow increased trade and financial exchanges. Even Hillary Clinton

— who has a hawkish track record on Cuba — claims in her new book that

she urged Obama to ease or lift the embargo, although she seems content

with the minor reforms that were made



Obama has said he needn't wait for the Congress, he has a "phone and

pen" to take executive actions. He could act now to negotiate with the

Cubans the long-overdue trade of the Cuban Five (now three) jailed for

espionage in the United States for USAID contractor Alan Gross, jailed

in Cuba nearly five years ago for distributing communications equipment

to Jewish groups. Obama could open up exchanges and travel for all

Americans, while loosening financial restrictions.



In discussions with our delegation, former Cuban foreign minister

Ricardo Alarcon noted that the fact the White House is prepared to

negotiate with the Taliban but not its neighbor raises questions about

how "rational" U.S. policy is. Sustaining a policy that has failed for

over 50 years and 10 presidents, an embargo that has isolated the United

States in its own hemisphere, a blockade that damages U.S. businesses

and restrictions that constrict the rights of Americans — no, that

doesn't sound rational.



The experts suggest there is a window of time for the president to act —

after the midterm elections and before the middle of 2015. The promised

"new beginning" would be better late than never.



Source: Katrina vanden Heuvel: U.S. policy toward Cuba is frozen in the

past - The Washington Post -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/katrina-vanden-heuvel-us-policy-toward-cuba-is-frozen-in-the-past/2014/06/09/f9606fd0-f017-11e3-9ebc-2ee6f81ed217_story.html