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BARACK Obama hadn’t yet been born when, 55 years ago next month, his nation’s government mounted an attempt to invade Cuba barely two years after guerillas under the command of Fidel Castro and his comrades toppled the US-sponsored dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.
He was still in his nappies when the Cuban Missile Crisis came close to triggering a nuclear conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. That was the period when Washington tightened the sanctions it had already imposed on the island into an all-embracing economic embargo that has remained in place ever since.
The thaw has been a long time coming. At a joint press conference in Havana with his Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro, President Obama said that the embargo, which had harmed both sides, would be lifted sooner or later — although he couldn’t say exactly when, given it requires a congressional vote. Inevitably, it also depends on the policy choices of Obama’s successor in the White House.
The US-Cuba thaw has been a long time coming.
His administration has, however, punched substantial holes in the economic barrier, and regression is unlikely in the normal course of events. Obama’s historic trip to Havana — a relatively short flight for Air Force One but a giant leap in relations between the estranged neighbours — is a triumph for common sense.
One suspects the broad smile that has barely left the visiting dignitary’s visage since he landed at Jose Marti airport on Sunday partly reflects genuine excitement of the touristic variety, but Obama is also aware his journey will be viewed for a long time to come as a crucial component of his presidential legacy.
The US has been at pains to point out that regime change is not part of its agenda for the island, and Obama insists that any changes in Cuba’s trajectory must be based on the wishes of its people. Those are fine sentiments, no doubt, but US interference in Latin American politics is not exactly a thing of the past. In the short term, though, perhaps the bigger risk for Cuba lies in the burgeoning economic relations with a nation where predatory capitalism remains the established norm.
The yearning of Cubans for foreign investment is hardly surprising, given the economic exigencies the country has stoically endured over the decades. And there is certainly scope for productive and mutually beneficial joint ventures. It is vitally important, however, not to lose sight of the hugely exploitative relationship between the two countries that was instrumental in paving the way for the 1959 revolution.
It was chiefly the nationalisation of US-owned assets that initially sparked Washington’s hostility towards Havana. The Cold War component of the conflict was in large part a consequence of this attitude, as Cuba turned to the USSR and China for support, thereby becoming a twin thorn in the flank of the North American giant.
That the US resisted the temptation to invade after the Bay of Pigs fiasco is due in part to the assurance Nikita Khrushchev managed to extract from John F. Kennedy when they negotiated an end to the missile crisis, although the CIA remained dedicated to the task of assassinating Fidel Castro for at least a decade thereafter.
Another intriguing aspect of the aftermath of the missile crisis was an apparent attempt by the Kennedy administration to woo Fidel Castro after he was visibly miffed by Khrushchev’s withdrawal of nuclear warheads without consultations. JFK apparently sent a secret message through a French journalist. The journalist was in a meeting with Castro on Nov 22, 1963, when news arrived of the presidential assassination in Dallas. A persistent school of thought has held out ever since that JFK paid for his life for his refusal to shore up the Bay of Pigs invaders by deploying the US Air Force.
More than a decade later, a possible thaw under Jimmy Carter appears to have been thwarted by Cuba’s refusal to back away from its military support for Angola in its fight against South African troops and mercenaries. Down the road, Havana was among a newly liberated Nelson Mandela’s first ports of call. We couldn’t have done it without you, he told Fidel Castro, referring to the defeat of apartheid.
It was Cuba’s role as an anti-imperialist bulwark in Latin America, though, that particularly galled successive US administrations. For many years it stood alone. And it kept on standing when regional allies such as Salvador Allende in Chile and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua were neutralised, so to speak. Eventually, the new millennium brought what has been called a pink tide, spearheaded by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.
The region has changed, though, and Obama in Havana is a reflection of that change. Only time will tell what the future holds. Raul Castro, meanwhile, responded adroitly to charges of human rights violations. Whatever Cuba’s shortcomings on this score, they cannot even begin to be compared with the abuses perpetrated on a US-occupied sliver of Cuban territory known as Guantanamo Bay.
Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2016
