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Deepak Bhojwani
July has been a momentous month for US diplomacy. After tying up the Iran nuclear deal, US Secretary of State John Kerry on July 20, addressed the press alongside Cuban ForeignMinister Bruno Rodríguez who opened the Cuban Embassy in Washington DC. Relations with both the bêtes noire of US policy are on the mend.
The press conference was punctuated by assertions of national doctrine. Rodríguez maintained the US had ended its 54-year self-imposed isolation in the region, though the “blockade” of Cuba subsists. He reiterated Cuba’s determination to steer its own destiny. He acknowledged that internal change was inevitable and indeed underway. Kerry admitted the failure of the Cuba policy of the US. He hinted this step would enable the US to undertake course correction, not just with Cuba, but with other Latin American regimes such as Venezuela, another diplomatic headache for the US.
The same day embassies in Havana received a diplomatic note from the US Embassy “operating as a permanent diplomatic mission”. Kerry is expected to formally inaugurate the embassy next month. These events, set in motion by the historic telephone call and joint announcement by Presidents Obama and Raúl Castro on December 17, 2014, will enable normal diplomatic transactions. The Obama administration is determined to break with the past.Self-imposed shackles have hobbled US policy in the hemisphere since 1960, when Fidel Castro refused to accept the prescriptions of the Eisenhower-Nixon administration for revolutionary Cuba. Subsequent events worsened the standoff, accentuating political embarrassment for the US and economic turmoil for Cuba. Both countries have shown sincerity. Cuba has hosted peace talks between Colombia and the FARC guerrilla group for three years. It carried sufficient credibility in the región for the US State Department to remove it from a list of countries alleged to be supporting terrorism. Recently, Obama also loosened restrictions on travel to the island, which relies primarily on tourism for essential foreign exchange. Release of agents jailed as spies by both sides was another step in the right direction.
These gestures do not imply full normalisation with Cuba, any more than is the case with Iran. Hard-line US Congressmen, some of Latin-American origin, have sworn to block the nomination of a US Ambassador to Cuba, and funding to increase the number of US diplomats there. Even more difficult will be the process to extricate Cuba from US laws that imposed the embargo. Sanctions date back to 1960, when President Eisenhower restricted dealings with Cuba under the 1917 “Trading with the EnemyAct.” The Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 legislated measures to prevail till Cuba moves towards “democratisation and greater respect for human rights”. The Helms-Burton Act of 1996 imposed further restrictions on US citizens doing business in or with Cuba, and on public or prívate assistance to any success or government until certain claims against the Cuban government were met. In 1999, President Clinton prohibited foreign subsidiaries of US companies from trading with Cuba.
The sanctions also restricted dealings between Cuba and other countries. A vigilant Office of Foreign Assets Control, Washington, has barred even embassies in Havana — including the Indian — from access to dollar accounts and remittances. Ships leaving Cuba cannot dock at a US port for at least six months. Such restrictions have strangled Cuban tourism and business. Things began changing with Raúl Castro's economic reforms a few years ago. Today, companies from Europe, Asia, especially China, Russia and Latin America are lining up to invest in Cuba's Special Economic Zone, in the Mariel port near Havana. The port itself is managed by a Singapore-led consortium. Cuba's offshore holds promising hydrocarbon reserves. India’s ONGC began exploring in 2007, but gave up in 2014, daunted partly by the US embargo. Although the embargo will probably not be lifted in the near future, few (even in the US) can deny that the process of normalisation is irreversible. The second, even third-generation Cuban-American community, mainly in Florida, is no longer considered “in exile”. It serves as a lightning rod for politicians who describe the Cuban communist regime in cold war terminology.
It is difficult to predict how events will unfold across the Florida Straits. A responsible Cuban administration could well convince residual US sceptics that normal economic and comercial relations are in US interest. Raúl Castro has proclaimed he will definitely hand over the Presidency in 2018. Fifty-five- year-old First Vice-President Miguel Díaz Canel, the first post-revolution party functionary to hold this rank, looks likely to succeed him. He is an acknowledged reformer. A flood of American tourists, over a million in the first semester this year, bodes well for a gradual demystification of the Cuban reality. Even if the US and Cuban establishments agree to disagree on several issues of global import, cooperation will cement the ties and reduce the level of suspicion.
US diplomacy in LatinAmerica and the Caribbean will gain weight with a lowering of anti-US Cuban rhetoric. Relations with members of the Cuban-Venezuelan founded Bolivarian Alliance for theAmericas will benefit from a more benign Cuban attitude. Ironically, even as Cuba welcomes a US Ambassador, when confirmed by the US Congress, US embassies in Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela have been without ambassadors for years. India's relations with Cuba have been cordial, even close, though economic exchanges have been scanty. Reciprocal visits, by Vice-President M H Ansari and First Vice-President Miguel Díaz Canel in 2013 and 2015, respectively, reaffirmed the historic connection but could not ensure the donation of 25 buses to Cuba that were to be supplied by Tata Motors. The tender had to be scrapped since the US embargo prohibits the export to Cuba of products with more than 10 per cent US content. The normalisation of US-Cuba relations will help India consolidate its economic relationship with a vital Latin American country.
The writer was Indian Ambassador to Cuba in 2011-12
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