The ‘Cubanization’ of Latin American policy by the U.S.

HAVANA – The appointment of ultra-right Cuban-American lobbyist Mauricio Claver-Carone as senior director of the National Security Council’s Western Hemisphere Affairs can be interpreted as the consolidation of a return to the “Cubanization” of U.S. policy towards Latin America. 

That’s how this policy was labeled during the George W. Bush administration. In other words, hostility towards Cuba became a central aspect of U.S. policy towards the region. Playing a key role in the design and application of this policy was a group made up of people of Cuban origin, and representatives of its most conservative sectors. 

Although the overthrown of the Cuban revolutionary government has been present from the beginning and has never ceased to be an important part of the U.S. policy towards Latin America, the role of the Cubans was more operational until 1980. They were soldiers, political figures or CIA agents in various roles, but their ability to influence the process was more limited.

The creation of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) during the government of Ronald Reagan changed the ‘nature’ of the Cuban counterrevolution. From mere ‘instruments’ of U.S. policy towards Cuba, they became part of its elaboration and of the mechanisms in charge of influencing governmental decisions to implement it. The launching of Radio and TV Martí, as well as the approval of the Torricelli and Helms-Burton laws during the governments of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, respectively, were the most significant successes of this group.

The Reagan and Bush counterrevolutionary policies towards Central America marked a qualitative change in the participation of Cubans in U.S. policy towards Latin America.

Beyond the involvement of Cuban agents in the illegal support operations against the Nicaraguan contras, origin of the Iran-Contra scandal, they soon appeared as government officials, as was the case of Otto Reich, head of the Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America, who was responsible for spreading false propaganda, even within the United States itself. Although Congress’ accusations led to the dismantling of this office, Reich was never prosecuted and Reagan appointed him ambassador to Venezuela, where he played a key role in the release of terrorist Orlando Bosch.

Although CANF fell into disgrace during the George W. Bush administration, President Bush surrounded himself with some of its former members and other figures of the Cuban-American right who helped articulate his policy toward Latin America.

Reich himself was appointed Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere in the Department of State. It was not approved by Congress, but Bush appointed him as his special envoy for the region. Reich is blamed for encouraging the failed coup against Hugo Chávez in 2002.

Although Barack Obama’s administration did not establish organic links with the Cuban-American right and changed the U.S. policy toward Cuba, it could not avoid the presence of many of these persons in the government bureaucracy, especially in positions that had to do with Latin American policy. It’s not by happenstance that the U.S. ambassador during the 2009 coup d’état in Honduras was a Cuban-American, Hugo Llorens, who had been formerly appointed by George W. Bush and linked to these hard-right groups.

Congress also played a key role in favor of the hard-right policy. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s role as chairperson on the Foreign Relations Committee in 2010, turned that body into a unifying center and support mechanism for the most extremist groups of the Latin American right.

“I am committed to doing everything in my power to isolate the enemies of the United States and strengthen our allies and I will not apologize for doing so,” Ros-Lehtinen said on the day she was appointed to this position. Perhaps it was done in remembrance of her active role in support of the Honduran coup a few months earlier.

The logic by which these groups live can be attributed to the former Secretary of State under Reagan, Alexander Haig, who said that Cuba was the “source” of the problems of the United States in the region and his intention was “to turn it into a parking lot.” This idea was repeated by Otto Reich when he praised Claver-Carone’s appointment: “We have a person who understands the causes and not only the symptoms of the problems of Latin America, and that is Cuba.”

Add to Claver-Carone’s appointment that of Carlos Trujillo as ambassador to the OAS; Eliot Pedrosa to the Inter-American Development Bank; and Tomás Regalado, a former mayor of the City of Miami, who was charged with Radio and TV Martí.

And all of them closely linked to Senator Marco Rubio, to whom President Donald Trump has given an open letter to “Cubanize”, once again, U.S. policy towards Latin America.