Cuba-U.S. Diplomacy Advances

But Cuban-exiles Still Rule
Sunday, March 1st, 2015

      This Getty Images/Yahoo.com photo and the two that follow were taken yesterday -- Saturday, February 28th -- in Cuba, the day after the second round of diplomatic meetings were held in Washington aimed at normalizing relations between Cuba and the United States. This is a Cuban farmer working his impressive potato field. Money-strapped Cuba -- which provides free education, health care, shelter, and food to its people -- spends more than $2 billion a year to import food and blames much of its shortfall on the U. S. embargo that has existed since the early 1960s, or shortly after the Cuban Revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Cuba needs more access to farm equipment, fertilizers, pesticides, etc. In the next couple of months, anticipating an easing of the embargo, New York governor Andrew Cuomo and at least three other American governors will visit Cuba in hopes of increasing trade with the poor but potentially wealthy island. All U. S. ports, including those in Florida, desire business with Cuba, as do all farm bureaus and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. But a few Cuban-exiles dictate a different path. This potato farm is just outside the town of Gabriel. Cuba is trying really hard to increase food production.

     This is a produce salesman in Havana shown waiting for customers yesterday, the last day of March in the year 2015. He has lived all his life on the island and all his life he has been under the umbrella of the embargo, which severely harms Cubans on the island and powerfully helps Cuban exiles in the U. S. with a litany of special laws that support the unpopular and undemocratic dichotomy -- harming this man because he stayed on the island while special U. S. laws also would greatly benefit him if he defected. His aged countenance and his determined eyes reflect the fact that he knows all about such things as...Batista, Castro, the U. S. exiles, and the embargo.

     This photo was also taken yesterday, February 28th, as Cubans on the island mulled how their lives would change if the diplomatic sessions that have now taken place in both Havana and Washington come to fruition. These two waitresses are shown waiting for customers at a roadside restaurant on the edge of Havana. There are some people...in fact, a lot of people...who believe it is indecent for a foreign nation, especially one that caters to Cuban exiles, to punish these two young Cuban women all their lives...and the same sentiments could be directed at the potato farmer and the produce salesman depicted earlier. But that is not the way the world works in 2015 despite all the lessons learned from the multitude of vile imperialist-backed dictatorships that roiled Cuba and many other Caribbean and Latin American nations beginning in the 1950s. Cuba's potato farmer, the produce salesman, and these waitresses should not be eternally punished because they have not been enticed to leave the island by U. S. exile-fueled laws that punish them while powerfully benefiting only Cuban exiles. Sane and decent people, someday, might realize that this is not the way revolutions or democracies were meant to work. 

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     This Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images photo shows this week's {Friday's} second round of diplomatic meetings in Washington between the U. S. and Cuba aimed at normalizing relations between the two nations. The first round was a two-day event in Havana on January 22nd and 23rd. In both sessions the two primary participants at center-stage were Roberta Jacobson of the USA and Josefina Vidal of Cuba.

      Vidal and Jacobson are two decent human beings who also happen to be excellent diplomats. Left to their own devices as prime representatives of their countries, they would assure that these steps towards normalizing relations would be a done deal. But U.S.-Cuban relations are not quite that simple. Vidal, as a top decision-maker in Cuba, has the advantage over Jacobson, who must strictly adhere to her two bosses -- President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry. So, Jacobson's diplomatic parameters are far more rigid than Vidal's because the Cuban can make off-the-cuff responses while Jacobson must abide by a strict format. Nevertheless some progress was actually made in Washington on Friday, February 27th.

            Jacobson and Vidal actually like and respect each other. They converse amicably even when they meet in hallways. Both agreed Friday's session "made progress" toward a prime objective -- opening U. S. and Cuban embassies in Washington and Havana for the first time in half-a-century. After Friday's session, Jacobson said: "I think we did make progress on a number of issues today. Some of them, quite honestly, are close to resolution. I do think we can get them done in time for the Summit of the Americas." The Summit of the Americas will be held in Panama on April 10th and 11th. Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro will be there. President Obama is very, very, very tired of attending such international gatherings and being embarrassed by the universal condemnation of America's Cuban policy. Thus, as both Jacobson and Vidal realize, prior to April 10th President Obama wants to show the other nations in the "Americas" that the U. S. is trying to normalize relations with Cuba. After Friday's diplomacy in Washington, Vidal said: "Removing Cuba from the U. S. State Department's Sponsor of Terrorism list is very important to us." Yet, to the surprise of many, Vidal added, "But the terror listing is not a pre-condition to re-opening embassies." That latter comment surprised me because, heretofore, removal from the terror list was where Vidal had drawn a red line. It's still a line but she erased the red. She is, after all, a negotiator. Jacobson assured her that the U. S. is moving ahead with President Obama's plans to remove Cuba from the tiny terror list, which incredibly includes only three other nations. Thus, accepting Jacobson's assurance, Vidal indicated she is willing to allow President Obama to open his embassy in Havana so he can show the Summit of the Americas in April in Panama that the United States is indeed seriously progressing towards normal relations with Cuba.

        In addition to Vidal's advantage over Jacobson because she is a Cuban decision-maker, Vidal has another advantage: Every Caribbean nation, every Latin American nation, and every member of the United Nations supports her four core points, which are {1} removing Cuba from the Sponsors of Terrorism list; {2} ending or greatly relaxing the embargo against Cuba; {3} beginning the process of returning Guantanamo Bay to its rightful owner, Cuba; and {4} ending or greatly relaxing America's dozens of lushly funded programs designed to create and support dissidents on the island who otherwise would practically be non-existent. Vidal is an absolutely brilliant diplomat. She will bend but not break. If the U. S. is not willing to negotiate the four points listed above, she will reluctantly accept another half-century of antagonism with a neighbor that happens to be the world's economic and military superpower. In Havana and in Washington, where she lived from 1999 till 2003 as the head of the Cuban Interests Section, Vidal has made this non-negotiable point: "Cuba, since 1959, has been a sovereign nation, not a colony dominated by Spain, America, or any other foreign power. We will stay sovereign, complete with a do-or-die attitude to back up that resolve. Independent Cuba cannot be pressured into doing anything. We negotiate as sovereign countries or we don't negotiate. Both my friend Roberta and I study the polls. The world supports us. The majority of Americans support us. The majority of Cuban-Americans in Miami oppose things like the embargo and keeping Cuba on the terror list. Therefore, allowing only a few Cuban-American extremists to dictate America's Cuban policy is our problem but please understand it is also America's problem too. What does that, for example, say about America's democracy? If Roberta or if President Obama or if Secretary Kerry can name one independent nation that supports the U. S. policy regarding Cuba, then they should name that country...if they can do that."

   The Center for Democracy In The Americas is based in Washington and is a powerful democracy-loving organization that strongly supports the efforts of Josefina Vidal in her negotiations with her American counterpart Roberta Jacobson. The CDA founder and Executive Director, Sarah Stephens, each Friday writes the "Cuba Central" update posted on the informative CDA website. That is where Americans should go for the best, fairest, and most unbiased news related to U.S.-Cuban relations. Unfortunately, Americans, since 1959, depend too heavily on the intimidated, biased or incompetent U. S. media for their news related to Cuba, thus Americans do not factor in such things as the top Miami Cuban-American journalist, Emilio Milian, being car-bombed for trying to fairly report Cuban news or the top columnist for the Miami Herald, Jim DeFede, being fired for his column that excoriated Miami members of the U. S. Congress -- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers -- for their astounding support of the most famed anti-Cuban Cuban-American terrorists running free in Miami. The CDA website on Friday, February 27th explained yet again why and how a few Cuban-American extremists in the U. S. Congress have far more to say about U.S.-Cuban relations than the combined opinions of President Obama, top diplomat Jacobson, Secretary of State Kerry and 315 million Americans combined. The CDA website, referencing Friday's diplomatic session in Washington, pointed out and named the Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress who had fired off their obligatory scathing/warning letters to Obama and Kerry prior to the diplomatic session in Washington. Earlier the CDA had reported on the scathing/warning letters fired off by Cuban-Americans in Congress to the President of Panama for inviting Cuba's President to the Summit of the America's in April, the Summit in which President Obama badly wants to display U. S. decency towards Cuba. Good luck, Mr. President!!

    The fair-minded Reuters news agency used this photo of Union City's Cuban-American U. S. Senator Robert Menendez on Thursday, the day before the diplomatic session in Washington. He was holding a news conference to demand that the U. S. keep Cuba on the very short Sponsors of Terrorism list. Friday's Center For Democracy In The Americas website blasted Menendez for that news conference and the Menendez, Ros-Lehtinen, etc., letters to President Obama and Secretary Kerry. Of course, neither the mainstream U. S. media nor the American public are supposed to have either the guts or the integrity to challenge Cuban-exile extremists regardless of what they do or say when it comes to Cuba, an island that very reasonably does not want a return of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship that the Cuban Revolution expelled, all the way to Miami and Union City, way back in 1959. Menendez, as always, expects to win. if so, democracy loses.

        This recent AP photo of Josefina Vidal, I think, depicts the stoic determination of a brilliant woman as she represents Cuba in diplomatic negotiations with the United States aimed at normalizing relations between the two neighboring countries. Vidal understands that she has the support of the Cuban people as well as the support of Americans, Cuban-Americans, all the Caribbean nations, all the Latin American nations, and all of the 183 independent countries that belong to the United Nations. She also realizes that democracy-loving organizations such as the Washington-based Center For Democracy In The Americas strongly supports her. Sadly, she also realizes in her heart of hearts that all that universal support is useless when it comes to normalizing relations between her country and the United States. She knows that a handful of Cuban-Americans and their easily acquired sycophants have firm grips around America's Cuban policy. For example, she understands that keeping Cuba on America's Sponsors of Terrorism list since the 1980s enables Cuban exiles to score major points -- revenge against Cuba, stifling Cuba's chances to have normal international banking, and it allows Cuba to be successfully sued for actual U. S. dollars in Miami courtrooms in which Cuba is not even represented. Thus, Vidal should perhaps be forgiven for wondering if those state and federal courtrooms in Miami will ever allow Cuban families to sue Miami residents for such things as the bombing of Cubana Flight 455, which killed 73 innocent souls including two dozen teenage Cuban athletes. And Thus, no matter what is written or pundited in regards to the ongoing diplomatic relations between her island and the northern superpower, Josefina Vidal will end up the loser. That's too bad. But that's in keeping with what Americans have been told since 1959: The bad Cubans are still on the island and all the good Cubans are in Miami or Union City, or at least trying to get there." That, of course, is not so but very little about what Americans know about Cuba has any relationship to either truth or fairness. And so, that's why Cuba says a lot more about the United States than it says about Cuba. Josefina Vidal vs. Robert Menendez is a David-vs.-Goliath fight that Josefina Vidal cannot win. The fact that she is still trying to win speaks volumes about her and her island. And, yes, that opinion is from a conservative Republican democracy-loving American in the USA. In regards to U.S.-Cuban relations, there is no single American that Josefina Vidal could not out-negotiate one-on-one. However, 315 million-to-one odds are a bit lopsided, even for her. And that, in essence, is where things stand.

         This Getty Images photo shows the U. S. Interests Section building in Havana that President Obama wants to convert into the U. S. Embassy in Cuba. The brown 7-story structure is in a strategic spot overlooking the famed Malecon seawall. Josefina Vidal also wants this to become the U. S. embassy in Cuba. She, however, wants some assurance that it will not also be a hotbed for cultivating dissent on the island. The Cuban exile-directed U. S. Congress routinely passes bills providing millions and millions of tax dollars to support Cuban dissident movements, including 32 recent such bills according to respected investigative reporter Tracy Eaton. President Obama wants Congress to fund restoration of this U. S. Interests Section building that has deteriorated sharply over the years. For example, the roof leaks badly.

This Getty Images photo shows the famed, refurbished Hotel Nacional in Havana. 

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