Marifeli Perez-Stable

Published in The Miami Herald
December 18, 2008

On Jan. 20, 2009, Barack Obama will finally assume the U.S. presidency. On April 17-19, he’s scheduled to travel to Trinidad and Tobago for the Summit of the Americas. Though he’s sure to be warmly greeted, Obama can add to the warmth if he has ended all restrictions on Cuban-American travel and remittances before going. It’d be a clear signal that his administration doesn’t mean business as usual on Cuba.

Except symbolically, the island matters little in today’s world. After the Cold War, Washington again placed regime change at the center of Cuba policy. Two decades later, that policy has utterly failed. The regime sails on while the Cuban people bear the embargo’s brunt, even if its policies are largely responsible for their penury.

U.S. fugitives in Cuba

Obama should take the long view. In the mid-’90s, I was part of a group who met with Clinton officials to discuss (what else?) Cuba policy. At one point, Elliot Richardson (1920-1999) — U.S. attorney general until Nixon fired him for not dismissing the Watergate special prosecutor — pounded the table in exasperation and asked: “What the hell is our policy towards Cuba?”

For too long, Washington has seen some trees but not the forest. Not since the Ford and Carter administrations has a road map to normalize relations with Havana been laid out. Might Obama define a Cuba policy that sees the forest and looks beyond it? Our president-elect is nothing if not a visionary, but what lies ahead is dire, and Cuba is not a priority.

That’s why it’s fortunate that the Summit of the Americas comes so soon after the inauguration. Fulfilling his campaign promise — to allow unlimited family travel and remittances — is easy, plus the ball would then be in Havana’s court.

Cuba, for example, could release the remaining 55 prisoners of conscience from the Black Spring of 2003 when 75 peaceful opponents were imprisoned. An exchange of these prisoners for the so-called Five Heroes convicted of spying in the United States is most emphatically a nonstarter. The five could, however, be fittingly exchanged for U.S. fugitives living in Cuba.

On the road to sainthood

On Nov. 29, a 19th-century Cuban friar, José Olallo Valdés, was beatified in Camagüey with Raúl Castro in at- tendance. At the Mass, Camagüey Archbishop Juan García mentioned the need to ”make gestures of mercy toward the prisoners.” Conversations between government and church officials have been ongoing since recent hurricanes visited such devastation upon Cuba. By the way, protocol did not call for Castro’s presence, though having the first Cuban on the road to sainthood is no small matter.

”We can make demands without telling each other what to do within our borders,” Castro told Sean Penn in an interview before the U.S. election. That’s not an unreasonable statement. My point is not that Castro is a good guy or to deny the dictatorial nature of his rule but that we simply won’t get there — a Cuba that holds free elections and respects civil liberties — by following the policies currently in place.

By all accounts, ordinary Cubans greatly admire the president-elect. They’re also not blind: the ”racist empire” elected a young, African-American president while a mostly white gerontocracy reigns over a supposedly racism-free Cuba.

I’ll conclude with the December 2008 Cuba/U.S. Transition poll. Much ado has been made over the 55 percent opposition to the U.S. embargo expressed by a randomly selected sample of 800 Cuban Americans in Miami-Dade County. No one objected when the same question yielded high (albeit declining) rates of embargo support.

Most are anti-embargo

Today, anti-embargo respondents constitute the majority, even though around three-quarters have rated the embargo as not working very well or not at all since 1991. Demographics such as age and departure year from Cuba may be factors. Obama’s win may also have influenced responses.

Only 35 percent of Cuban Americans voted for Obama while the three Cuban-American Republicans were handily reelected to Congress. Still, Cuban-American Republicans, independents and Democrats seem ready to support a new Cuba policy.

Confrontation plays up Havana’s strong suit. Engagement may show how weak its hand really is. Which one is the real hard line?