Marifeli Pérez-Stable: Tackling `perpetual antagonism'

[Mika]

Tackling `perpetual antagonism'
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/other-views/story/1036013.html

BY MARIFELI PEREZ-STABLE
MARIFELIPEREZ-STABLE.COM

''It's like we invited you over for dinner, you walked in and the people that invited you were half drunk and throwing bottles at each other.'' That's Bill Clinton's description of the U.S.-Cuba relationship to The Economist early in his second term.

Amid the 1962 Missile Crisis, John F. Kennedy had placed all options on the table to get the offensive weapons out of Cuba. Still, he worried that the United States' ''fixation on the subject of Cuba'' might give the allies pause. Europeans, after all, then lived with Soviet medium-range ballistic missiles at their doorstep and thought that we were slightly demented on this subject.

Détente in the mid-1970s prompted the Ford administration to open talks with Havana. At the outset, Henry Kissinger instructed U.S. emissaries to mind their tone: ``It is better to deal straight with Castro. Behave chivalrously; do it like a big guy, not like a shyster.''

''The United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba,'' President Obama told the recent Summit of the Americas. ``I know that there's a longer journey that must be traveled to overcome decades of mistrust.''

Building the trust needed to ease tensions after such hostility won't be easy. Only the United States and Cuba are burdened by inordinately bruised feelings. The above citations all recognize the subjective undercurrents to the 50-year enmity. Washington -- like Madrid earlier -- expected Cuba to remain the ''ever-faithful isle.'' Havana, in turn, flaunted Cuban sovereignty and refused to buckle.

Democracy is best

In the early 1990s, the United States tightened the embargo in the near certainty that Cuba's domino would soon fall. The Cuban Democracy Act (1992) and the Helms-Burton Law (1996) again made the goal of regime change the centerpiece of U.S. policy. Under Bush II, Washington both carried a big stick and spoke harshly while Havana sailed on.

As a result, both governments are trapped in a rhetorical vicious cycle. Washington frames the new beginning in terms of the Cuban people's freedom while Havana reiterates that the United States must respect Cuban sovereignty.

I agree with Obama that democracy best serves the Cuban people. Yet, how much progress has the United States wrought toward that ''North Star'' (Obama's imagery) since the early 1990s? The administration's challenge lies in couching the new beginning in words that won't abort a fledgling dialogue that is in the U.S. national interest.

I agree with Havana that Cuban sovereignty must be respected. Nonetheless, is everything nonnegotiable? The charges on remittances, for example, were levied in response to Bush's Draconian policies. Why not roll them back now that all strictures on family remittances and travel are gone?

History offers some lessons. In the mid-1970s, the United States and Cuba set aside preconditions: Washington, that Cuba sever all military ties to the then-Soviet Union; Havana, that the United States lift the embargo.

Under President Carter, Havana released 3,000 political prisoners without compromising national sovereignty.

Sovereignty does matter

Fidel Castro has pooh-poohed U.S. overtures. Cuba's president, however, has not. On April 29, while saying that Cuba need not make any gestures, Raúl Castro noted: ``We recently expressed in Venezuela that we'll discuss everything, everything, everything, our issues but also theirs on an equal footing.''

Sovereignty, of course, isn't just a national matter. Citizens are also entitled to be sovereign and to exercise their rights. Cuba would, in fact, be in a stronger position if its citizens were free. National sovereignty would also be better served if most of the food consumed by ordinary Cubans were produced on the island, instead of depending on U.S. imports. Sovereignty is, indeed, a many-splendored thing.

In March 1975, a State Department memorandum stated: 'If there is benefit to us in an end to the state of `perpetual antagonism,' it lies in getting Cuba off the domestic and inter-American agendas, in extracting the symbolism from an intrinsically trivial issue.''

These words are as true today as then. Let's hope that the Obama administration finds a way to put Cuba in its place in a way that advances U.S. interests. Maybe, just maybe, Havana might find it harder to impose the will of a few on the dreams of a better future held by most Cubans.

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Marifeli Pérez-Stable is vice president for democratic governance at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, D.C., and a professor at Florida International University.

Interesting statement in the US State Dept memorandum in March 1975. Note the "If".

[Judi Lynn]

1. Very interesting point you make, consider that memorandum from 1975

was issued during Gerald Ford's Presidency!

'If there is benefit to us in an end to the state of `perpetual antagonism,' it lies in getting Cuba off the domestic and inter-American agendas, in extracting the symbolism from an intrinsically trivial issue.''

Really makes you think, doesn't it? Apparently he wasn't into corruption to the same degree as the others after him, as it seems he didn't give two hoots about the Miami reactionaries' support.