The formal reopening of embassies in each other’s capitals, marking a formal resumption of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States will have been generally welcomed around the world. And although, in the heat of the initial canvassing for the presidential prize, the Florida Republican Senator Marcio Rubio has vowed to, in his words, “roll back” Obama’s Cuba policy, most Americans will recognize that, if elected, there will be little or no basis for his keeping of this vow.
There will have been, in recent months, a general welcoming in this hemisphere of President Obama’s initiative, helped along, as has been revealed in the last many weeks, by a number of informal and formal initiatives by various countries and diplomatic sources, not least by the Vatican led by Pope Francis. But it must be concluded that the open-mindedness of President Obama, with his clearly strong sense of the need for the United States to remove what many other countries have long recognized as unnecessary residues of the Cold War, has been a significant key to the present state of things.
In that sense, as we observe other initiatives being taken by the President in various parts of the globe, it will be recognized that they too, will become a part of the general diplomatic stance of the country in the present and forthcoming international environment.
And it will be important, given the political back and forth in the domestic plays of the American political system, that other countries, including those of the hemisphere, act in such a manner as to make it difficult for American presidential political contenders, on gaining office, to reverse diplomatic conclusions initiated by the US but which have also been strongly underpinned by significant countries in the international sphere.
The President’s initiative in responding to signals emanating from Cuba and other states, reflects his intention on assuming office to pursue a more responsive diplomacy within the hemisphere itself, and therefore to take cognisance of hemispheric perspectives on the normalization of Cuban-American relations which are bound to have a positive impact on general hemispheric relations.
It is true that, from a Caricom perspective, states long ago decided to proceed to engage with Cuba, though fears have persisted in some countries of the impacts of American responses to their own initiatives. But it cannot be doubted that the present Obama initiative will now be able to result in a removal of a longstanding inclination to hesitation in some Caricom countries, born of a sense that the diplomatic machinery United States has been long monitoring their actions, and reporting on the extent to which they accord with the American perspective of Cuban isolation.
Yet, in that context, it is well to now remind ourselves that the initial 1972 four-country – Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago – insistence on diplomatic recognition, in the midst of what was still then the Cold War, stands out as a significant and critical initiative.
It would seem that a Caricom perspective on relations with Cuba will not only continue to maintain the present relationship which emphasizes a variety of aspects of Cuban assistance to our countries, but will now shift to a perspective of our joint presence in wider Caribbean relations where the countries pursue the issue of their relationships in a hemisphere that is itself changing.
But as time proceeds that task will be pursued within a framework in which the Cuban economy extends itself into the hemisphere as part of a process of a fundamental reorganization and redirection of its own domestic economy, this implying a variety of not simply broad regional relations, but of mutually beneficial country-to-country economic relations.
Already, it is being suggested that the countries of the northern part of the Caribbean ‒ Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Bahamas in particular, will have a particular interest in maximizing cooperation in a certain number of spheres – tourism to take one example ‒ that will draw them into persistent joint action with Cuba more tightly than the present relations of the Caricom system. And to this is added the prospect that international investors will have a deep interest in many spheres of economic activity which have dominated Caricom economies during the Cold War, but which will now have Cuba as another, and significant, prospect.
As the prospect of Cuban participation in a variety of spheres of action within the wider Caricom advances, it will certainly become apparent that a more intense institutional presence in Caricom affairs, particularly in the sphere of economic relations, will become necessary. So a further more formal and institutionalised relationship of Cuba as a partner or member-state in Caricom may need to be anticipated.
One thing is certain, and it is that if there is any anticipation that Cuba might decide that it should, like Haiti and the Dominican Republic, seek a formal place in the Community, a reorientation of thinking on the nature of the Community itself needs to start from now.
