Caribbean leaders, among them President Bharrat Jagdeo, Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Patrick Manning of Trinidad and Tobago and Baldwin Spencer of Antigua and Barbuda, have been voicing, with Barack Obama’s victory, their hope that the United States will change its policy towards Cuba.
They are not the only ones who view Mr Obama’s triumph as the catalyst for improved US relations with Cuba, including the end to the 46-year-old embargo and the eventual readmission of the island state into the hemispheric community.
Bernardo Benes, a 73-year-old retired, Miami-based, Cuban American banker and former football team mate of Raúl Castro at the University of Havana, who negotiated the release of Cuban political prisoners in 1978 and the right of exiles in the US to visit relatives in Cuba, plans to be an interlocutor with President Castro to facilitate a possible dialogue with President-elect Obama.
Many other Cuban Americans want to see the Bush administration’s restrictions lifted on their ability to travel to Cuba and to send money to relatives still living there. Many others are ruing the lost opportunities for business with Cuba, which are going to Europeans and Latin Americans.
Dissidents in Cuba have told foreign journalists that they hope that Mr Obama will seek better ties with Cuba, which could lead to a relaxation of restrictions on their democratic right to express themselves. Even the Cuban government has congratulated Mr Obama on his election and Foreign Investment Minister Marta Lomas has reiterated that Havana is hoping for an easing of the embargo.
But although Mr Obama has indicated that he is committed to a new diplomacy and dialogue with those whose views differ from America’s, the policy of the incoming administration towards Cuba is still unclear. In his campaign, as we have previously noted, Mr Obama said that he would remove the restrictions on Cuban Americans travelling to Cuba and sending remittances to relatives. He also stated that he would be ready to talk with Raúl Castro. He however told the Cuban American National Foundation in Miami that he would maintain the embargo.
Now, even though Florida’s three Republican Cuban American members of Congress were re-elected on pledges to hold firm on the embargo, there is evidence to indicate that a growing number of Cuban Americans, especially from the younger generation, are no longer as obsessed as their elders with hating the Castros and all that they stand for.
The optimists hope that, having carried Florida, even winning in traditional Republican, anti-Castro, pro-isolation counties, Mr Obama might feel confident enough to go beyond his campaign platform and implement a sea change in US policy towards Cuba.
There are other factors that might support such a view. Last month, the European Union re-established cooperation with Cuba after a hiatus of five years because of a diplomatic row over political repression in Cuba. In addition, the announcement, also in October, of the discovery of possibly some 20 billion barrels of oil in Cuban waters in the Gulf of Mexico and the fact that Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras has already signed an agreement with Cuba to explore for oil, could cause pressure to be brought to bear by US petroleum interests on the Obama administration to open up to Cuba.
The big picture, from the US perspective, is that lifting the embargo would be a key component of America’s new face to the world through a new foreign policy aimed at dispelling perceptions of US bullying and ‘Yankee imperialism.’
Mr Obama has already signalled that he is ready to close the controversial prison camp at the US naval base at Guantánamo, which would be a significant step towards reasserting its moral standing in the world, rebuilding bridges with friendly nations, as well as establishing normal relations with Cuba.
A repeal of the embargo would also present serious challenges to the Cuban Communist Party and its control of the country. For decades, the Cuban government has been able to maintain a siege mentality and rally the country against the spectre of the common enemy, the USA. If the embargo were to be eased, more government-to-government and people-to-people contact would help to revive trade and investment links and favour the free flow of ideas. Change would be natural and inevitable.
In this respect, there could be at least two major outcomes: either the power of the state would be dramatically undermined or Raúl Castro would be encouraged to continue with his thus far modest economic and social reforms. In both cases, the human rights situation of the Cuban people should be improved, even as they should benefit economically. Ultimately, sooner or later, democratic change should come to Cuba.
However, Mr Obama, even as he prepares to take office, might not yet consider Cuba a top priority, preferring to spend his political capital on more pressing issues. But he could still progressively relax the embargo in exchange for concessions by the Cuban government, until he is ready to lift it completely. And it would be a bold move indeed if and when he decides to persuade the Democrat-controlled Congress to remove the ban on all Americans desirous of visiting and doing business in Cuba, and eliminate the embargo altogether.
