A Plain-talking Cuban

With Omnipotent Power

       Rodrigo Malmierca is Cuba's Trade and Foreign Investments Minister. On the island he is a decision-maker, not a figurehead with a title. Thus, his official comments Monday on the eve of this week's Summit of the Americas in Panama should be heeded because his timing was not coincidental and his authority signals that his words should be heeded. First off, he made it plain that "the historic rapproachment with the United States, while it has progressed, will depend on actions not yet taken by the United States." Malmierca was talking about two areas that the U. S. needs to more seriously confront: {1} Removing Cuba from the U. S. State Department's Sponsors of Terrorism List; and {2} frankly discussing with Cuba the return of the Cuban port Guantanamo Bay to Cuba. If President Obama is "unable or unwilling" to address those two areas, Cuba is not ready to jump "headfirst" into normalizing relations with its superpower neighbor. On Monday, Malmierca also said that Cuba must be allowed to have access to the dollar currency in trade relations. He said, "President Obama has now taken steps in the right direction but the measures he ordered are incomplete and insufficient, and do not change the essence of the unilateral measures taken by the U. S. government against Cuba. Beyond traditional goods like rum and tobacco, there are others of excellent quality that can be included in this possible exchange, such as biotechnology products." Malmierca said trade relations with the United States will be "welcomed" but the U. S. will not be accorded "special privileges." He believes the billion-dollar upgrade of the deep-water Mariel Port, 28 miles southwest of Havana, will provide Cuba with a "regional shipping hub that can handle over a million containers each year." Mexico and China are among the countries already investing in the Industrial Park that is a part of the Mariel Port while Cuba has also received about 300 other international offers. Malmierca says, "Cuba's survival as a sovereign nation is a fact. Prosperity is more problematic but it is possible in the near future, with or without U. S. support."

   When Rodrigo Malmierca speaks, Cuba's most astute friends and foes listen. He is a guiding force in the last years of the Castro rule on the island and he will be an important factor in post-Castro Cuba. He believed in the Revolution and he believes the transition to a post-Castro Cuba should forever bear "the revolutionary stamp." Malmierca was born in Havana 58 years ago. He graduated from the University of Havana in 1980. He is married with two children. He speaks fluent Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese. He has been Cuba's well respected ambassador to Belguim, the European Union, and Luxembourg. He was also Cuba's representative at the UN from 2002 to 2009. Since then he has been a key to the island's economic and political survival. In the next decade, Rodrigo Malmierca will be one of Cuba's most powerful forces. Some important Americans expect him to one day be Cuba's Ambassador to the United States but most important Cubans believe he will be more valuable as a top leader and decision-maker at home on the island in the tumultuous years that loom so ominously on the Cuban horizon.

       President Barack Obama has been very bold in trying to deal with the codified excesses of the ultra-powerful, self-serving Cuban lobby that dictates America's Cuban policy from its entrenched position in the United States Congress. However, he needs to be much bolder. President Obama very badly wants a U. S. embassy in Havana and he hopes, this week at the Summit of the Americas in Panama, the leaders of the other 34 nations will treat him kindly because of his attempts to normalize relations with Cuba, something strongly desired by all of America's Caribbean and Latin American neighbors. Yet, as Rodrigo Malmierca opined in speaking for Cuba Monday, it is apparent that Cuba itself will oppose the President's overtures if he doesn't manage to remove Cuba from the terrorism list, if he doesn't reduce financial restrictions on trade, and if he doesn't at least talk seriously about the U. S. occupation of Cuba's Guantanamo Bay.

A U.S.-Cuba Reboot? Uh, not likely.   

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