Charting a new course on U.S. Cuba policy: A historic opportunity
A
message to the presidential candidates as they prepare for their
first debate
Click to read the ENCASA proposal
By Manuel Alberto Ramy
Similar
sayings could be used to replace the headline above. For example,
"The world goes around and around." Or "The chickens
come home to roost."
Moguls steal home while companies strike out
By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
From our offices in Manhattan, we look out on the tall, gleaming skyscrapers that are cathedrals of wealth and power — the Olympus ruled by the gods of finance, the temples of the mighty, the holy of holies…
A
message to the presidential candidates as they prepare for their
first debate
The
next President of the United States will have the unprecedented
opportunity to change a policy that for nearly half a century has
proven to be ineffective in improving the lives of the Cuban people
and in advancing the interests of the United States among its
neighbors.
The
laws and regulations that have been implemented in Washington over
past decades with the vain intent of isolating Cuba and changing its
government have clearly served only to preserve the status quo and
isolate the United States in its advocacy of hostile relations with
the island. At the United Nations, the U.S. embargo is almost
unanimously repudiated year after year in the General Assembly. For
the past several years only Israel, Palau, and the Marshall Islands
have joined the U.S. in voting to support the embargo on Cuba. Last
year’s vote was 184-4.
All
ten U.S. Presidents since, and including, Dwight Eisenhower have
sought to bring about changes in Cuba, ostensibly to improve the
economic and political lives of the Cuban people. They have all been
unsuccessful in doing so with a policy that limits diplomatic,
commercial, and personal contacts with the island and attempts to
strangle the Cuban economy into a better future. It is not surprising
that a policy based on the perverse logic that lack of contact will
induce change has been a total failure.
Not
only has it been a failure in attaining its stated objectives of
inducing changes in Cuba, but it is a policy that has placed the most
powerful and influential nation in the planet in the position of
acting as if it is threatened, or even bothered, by a nation the size
of Pennsylvania with a jaded military and a sputtering economy —
enough to forbid its citizens to travel there and to place severe and
unjust restrictions on those Cuban Americans who wish to visit and
help their family members in the island.
In
reality, of course, the U.S. is neither threatened nor bothered by
Cuba. Its policy towards the island is maintained neither by a sense
of what is good foreign policy nor by any threat to U.S. national
security. As everyone recognizes, it is a policy sustained
principally by domestic political concerns. The result of such
political pandering is a policy that is not only a failure, but is
unjust and harmful to the best interests of Cubans, Cuban Americans,
and all Americans. Assumptions about Cuban American voting behavior
and Florida electoral politics and the influence of some members of
the Cuban American community have kept such a policy in place.
As
members of that community, ENCASA calls upon the next President of
the United States to take the historic step of changing a policy that
is ineffective, unjust, and harmful to U.S. interests. The present
moment is unprecedented in providing the opportunity for the next
President to depart from a course that has kept ten of his
predecessors from making a meaningful difference in the history of
U.S.-Cuba relations:
1. The
Cuban American community is no longer monolithic (if it ever was) in
supporting the continuing isolation of Cuba. Opinion
polls and local electoral challenges in Miami reflect the importance
of newer generations and newer arrivals in bringing about a more
nuanced position regarding Cuba among Cuban Americans. The extreme
measures adopted in 2004 by the U.S. government severely limiting
contacts between Cuban Americans and their loved ones in Cuba served
to turn many Cuban Americans against a policy that has harmed the
Cuban family, leading them to oppose the continuing imposition of the
political will of a powerful minority within the community.
2. Changes
in Cuba since the replacement of Fidel Castro as President point to
an evolution of the Cuban political system in the direction of a
greater willingness to consider alternatives that were previously not
possible.
The tendency towards a greater pragmatism and away from
ideologically-based policies is likely to make the government in
Havana more amenable to engage in meaningful actions that will
improve the economic and political life of the Cuban people and
improve U.S.-Cuba relations.
We
therefore call upon the next President of the United States to take
advantage of these opportunities and initiate a historic course of
action:
1.
Immediately rescind the 2004 restrictions on Cuban American travel
and remittances to the island.
2. Permit
unrestricted travel by U.S. citizens to Cuba.
3. Signal to the Cuban government a willingness to enter into
conversations with the purpose of exploring ways to normalize
relations between the two countries for their mutual benefit and to
improve the lives of the Cuban people.
These
steps would be applauded by Cubans, Cuban Americans, Americans, and
Latin Americans as well — indeed, by the international community. To
adopt this course of action is to send a message that a U.S.
administration is willing to embark on a new approach to rectify a
counterproductive foreign policy that has been allowed too long to
languish in the sphere of domestic politics.
ENCASA/US-CUBA
is a national network of more than 400 scholars,
artists, writers, academics and professionals
affiliated with universities in more than 150 cities in 37 states,
the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. For more information, see
http://www.encasa-us-cuba.org/
ENCASA
stands for Emergency Network of Cuban American Scholars and Artists
for Change in U.S.-Cuba Policy.
