Progreso Weekly columnist Jesús Arboleya.
From Havana: A reaction to the Cuba Study Group’s proposals on Cuba
The Cuba Study Group (CSG), the organization that perhaps best represents the so-called ‘moderate’ trend in the Cuban-American community, has just published its proposals to President Joe Biden regarding the policy he should adopt towards Cuba.
Its importance lies in the fact that this organization brings together prominent businessmen and political activists of Cuban origin who participated and influenced Barack Obama’s policy towards the Island, which they can recover in the new Democratic administration.
One merit of the CSG document is that it spells out the proposed actions in great detail and covers such a broad agenda that it leaves few issues unmentioned. The manifest objective of the CSG is to advance the full normalization of relations between the two countries until eliminating the obstacles that prevent it today — things such as the economic blockade and other disputed issues, as well as guaranteeing the resilience of this policy in the face of U.S. elections.
Although they also make recommendations to the Cuban government, the CSG discards the idea of conditioning U.S. actions on Cuba based on certain demands and places the initiative in the hands of the United States. It is worth recognizing that what the CSG proposes to achieve may be the best possibility for coexistence between the two countries where a high level of antagonism currently prevails.
Although the CSG assures us that its proposals do not aspire to promote regime change in Cuba, it is difficult to assume that this is not the real interest of the majority of its members. In fact, this is how the document itself states it: “The United States should continue to highlight Cuba’s democratic failings and support actors across the spectrum of Cuban society who work to ensure that greater economic and civic freedoms are guaranteed on the island.”
Was it not Cuban ‘conservatives’ who, as the document states, falsely and maliciously insisted that this be the way for Obama’s policy of rapprochement. The then president, including the CSG itself, formulated that to mean that it was “another method to achieve the same ends,” when they tried to justify the first steps of this policy.
It is not worth pretending to deny that CSG’s proposals are inspired by opposition to the Cuban socialist regime and that it will try to use American influence, as well as its own, to achieve the goal of overthrowing or transforming it beyond recognition. However, the main value of the document lies in the possibility of a respectful dialogue between two very opposite political and philosophical poles.
Although it would not be fair to discard the feelings of its members towards Cuba, the truth is that we are in the presence of a proposal elaborated by U.S. political activists in order to satisfy the interests of the U.S. This is how the document states it when it argues that rapprochement with Cuba is the best way for the United States “to advance its national interests, reassert its regional leadership, reduce resistance to reform within the Cuban government, and promote a freer, more prosperous future for the Cuban people.”
Taking this premise into account, however, it is worth analyzing the possible virtues of the CSG’s proposals for the better development of relations between the two countries and their possible advantages for the Cuban people, compared to the tremendous hostility shown by Washington’s policy thus far.
According to what they tell us, it would be a win for the Cuban people if what the CSG proposes for the country is met putting [Cuba] in a position to “enter the 21st century.” It’s a questionable proposal, if we take into account the history of U.S. policy towards Cuba, and the prestige lost based on their achievements on values such as democracy and human rights within the United States itself. It appears that we’re not living in the same century.
However, it is also true that, both in content and form, the regime change project for Cuba advocated by the CSG is indeed very different from the one advocated by the extreme right. While the right sponsors economic asphyxia, violence and the promotion of social chaos in the country, the CSG conceives it as an inevitable result of the complexities that the Cuban socialist system has to face based on its internal reality and the international environment in which it has to develop in. Without a doubt, they are more believers in the innate virtues of capitalism than the troglodytes on the right.
Although it advocates for more speed in their implementation and more concessions to private capital, the economic proposals of the CSG for Cuba are not very different from the reforms that the country is currently undergoing. They also open space for the exercise of a more active diplomacy between both nations and would allow a broader dialogue between Cuba and the Cuban-American community, which is also part of the Cuban strategy towards their emigration.
One of the contributions of the CSG is that it places the Cuban-American community as a possible factor in the improvement of relations with the United States, if the Democrats consider influencing this electorate in that sense.
Precisely one of the strengths of the Cuban-American right regarding the Cuba issue is that it has practically acted without opposition in the community’s political concert. Whether in their campaigns or even when they have been elected, Democratic Party politicians, in most cases, have also assumed the anti-Cuban discourse of Republicans, supposedly so as not to upset their voters despite the fact that all research shows that most support relations between the two countries.
Beyond false assessments, one of the reasons that can explain this behavior is that the machinery of the extreme right controls the political life of the enclave and this means access to a not inconsiderable booty of government funds, from which all Cuban-American politicians benefit, no matter which party they belong to.
Due to its economic power and political influence, the CSG can be a factor that modifies this balance if it considers intervening in local politics with the support of the government and the Democratic Party, as can be inferred from the document. Ultimately, the CSG is the only visible alternative to place the issue of improving relations with Cuba on the Miami electoral agenda and confront the dominance of the extreme right within this community. That’s another reason to gauge the importance of the document just published.
The CSG is also right in alerting the U.S. government for the need to act as quickly as possible in order to advance this policy, as well as to take advantage of the four years ahead to consolidate it. Hopefully it has enough influence to create a machinery whose first signals are not very encouraging.
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