From Punta del Este to Port of Spain

By
Manuel E. Yepe                                                     Read Spanish Version

A
CubaNews translation by Will Reissner. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

Some
days ago Carlos Lechuga, one of the shining lights of Cuban
journalism and diplomacy, died in Havana at the age of 91. He was
already an acclaimed journalist when he joined the clandestine ranks
of the July 26th Revolutionary Movement led by Fidel Castro and he
remained very active in his country’s international relations until
his final breath.

Among
the highpoints of his popularity and well-earned prestige were his
having been the journalist who announced, in front of the television
cameras, that the tyrant Fulgencio Batista had fled and that the
people’s uprising had triumphed, as well as his having been the
Cuban ambassador to the Organization of American States when the
island was expelled from that forum in 1962 at Washington’s demand.

That
U.S. action, which was the culmination of a long period of maneuvers
aimed at isolating Cuba in the international arena, is considered,
paradoxically, a triumph for Cuban diplomacy which, after that, was
able to spread its wings with greater freedom and brilliance.

The
arbitrary expulsion of Cuba from the hemispheric organization, which
was completely under Washington’s thumb, ended up isolating the
superpower itself, not just on the continent, but also on a global
level, even damaging it in its ties with its strategic allies.

The
disgraceful maneuver was carried out in Punta del Este, Uruguay,
which is where the White House convened the then 21 members of the
OAS on January 22, 1962.

Barely
ten months earlier there had been the failure of the invasion of Cuba
at the Bay of Pigs, an invasion organized by the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency using Cuban mercenaries recruited among
ex-collaborators of the Batista tyranny and other émigré
counterrevolutionaries. The defeat on the sands of Playa Girón was
humiliating for the United States government, which was accustomed to
ruling unchallenged in the hemisphere.

A
January 18, 1962, report by journalist Guillermo Almacauri,
distributed by the Spanish news agency EFE, told a story that
included the following several paragraphs:

“Diplomats
from 21 republics in the Western Hemisphere will meet next Monday to
address the situation in Cuba.

“The
Organization of American States, which until very recently prided
itself on the fact that all its decisions had always been reached
unanimously, has had differences regarding the Cuban question. When
its 21 delegates met in Washington on December 4 to decide to hold
the conference in Punta del Este, two countries, Cuba and Mexico,
voted against and six abstained: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia,
Uruguay, and Ecuador.

“Only
two big countries, Venezuela and Colombia, and the small republics of
Central America, voted with the United States in favor of the
conference, which has been called to consider the possible imposition
of collective sanctions against Cuba.

“Brazil…
seems disposed to maintain its position of coexistence… To varying
degrees Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Mexico are
opposed to imposing collective sanctions against Cuba and uphold the
principle of nonintervention and self-determination. The other 13
republics, led by the United States, are all in favor not only of
imposing sanctions, but also of giving Cuba an ultimatum to change
its posture if it does not want to be expelled from the Organization
of American States…”

Despite
these clear indications of reluctance, Washington relied on its
typical methods to win the approval and subsequent implementation of
the agreements to collectively break off relations with Cuba by all
the countries that then made up the OAS, with the sole exception of
Mexico, whose government at that time bravely resisted the onslaught.

Canada
and the countries of the Anglophone Caribbean were not part of the
OAS at that time.

Forty-seven
years later, the nations that today are a part of what some years ago
was dubbed “the Yankee ministry of colonies,” are involved in one
way or another in a process of recovering their sovereignty and many
have governments brought to power by popular will as a result of
their independence-minded pronouncements.

This
is the context in which the Fifth Hemispheric Summit of the Americas
will take place from April 17 to 19 in Port of Spain, the capital of
Trinidad and Tobago.

The
setting gets complicated because there is a new president in the
United States who is committed to a program of changes that gives him
great authority among his country’s citizens and institutions, but
whose viability cannot be guaranteed because it conflicts with
corporate interests and those of the military complex who have
traditionally established the limits in the superpower’s policies.

The
specter of an absent Cuba will haunt the chamber in which the
Hemispheric Summit takes place.

My
friend, Professor Carlos Lechuga Hevia, would have so enjoyed
speculating on the happenings and results of this conclave!

Manuel
E. Yepe Menéndez is a lawyer, economist and journalist. He works as
a professor at the Higher Institute of International Relations in
Havana.