While Cuba Is Still Sovereign
Cuba's state newspaper, Granma, used the above photo of Josefina Vidal to illustrate a massively long Q & A session with the island's brilliant and dogmatic chief diplomat on all things involving the United States. It candidly revealed her summary of where Cuba stands one year after the U. S. and Cuba last July officially resumed diplomatic ties with the reopening of embassies in Havana and Washington. During the past historic year, she was asked what has been achieved to date. She succinctly replied:
"The process of negotiations took place almost six months prior to the reestablishment last July of diplomatic relations, so the process began on Dec. 17, 2014 with the simultaneous television announcements by Presidents Castro and Obama. So, I prefer to talk about what has been achieved in the last 19 months. Priority aspects for Cuba included the return of the Five Heroes who were serving prison sentences in the U. S.; the removal of Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism; and renewing the Havana Club trademark registration in the United States. In the political diplomatic sphere I would highlight the creation of the Cuba-United States Bilateral Commission providing follow-ups to the post-reestablishment of diplomatic relations agenda. To date, three meetings have taken place in alternating venues, while a further two are scheduled to be held. It was important to have a mechanism of this type to just talk, to address unresolved issues that had been willfully neglected too long. With the Bilateral Commission, we have signed 11 major agreements, the last one involving the agreement to jointly fight drug and human trafficking."
Vidal was then asked what remains to be achieved. She calmly and, yes, expertly said:
"The dissuasive and punitive components of the blockade, and its intimidating extra-territorial effects, continue to have negative consequences for Cuba. We are still unable to make financial transfers, we are denied services of this kind and payments are withheld, while the U. S. continues to impose fines on banks and foreign financial entities that do business with our country. The blockade is an outdated policy that the world abhors and it must end. Thus far it has not been possible to normalize banking relations. All of this could be resolved if President Obama was brave enough to exploit his executive prerogatives. Thus far the U. S. has failed to issue a political statement or legal document explaining to world banks that operations with Cuba are legitimate, and that those banks or countries won't be sanctioned. So for a half-century Cuba has had to exist under an America blockade that would have doomed much larger and stronger nations. The U. S. took 56 years to recognize Cuba's legitimate government that had replaced a brutal regime backed by the Mafia and by the United States. But lifting the blockade has not been achieved. Returning the stolen Guantanamo Bay port has not been achieved. Lifting economic sanctions that would destroy most other nations has not been achieved. We are not naive. We are aware of the United States strategic objectives and we will not let our guard down. We will always remain alert. Meanwhile for the good, the bilateral process represents opportunities to advance for the first time toward resolving pending issues, not only of the past 56 years but also centuries ago."
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"The process of negotiations took place almost six months prior to the reestablishment last July of diplomatic relations, so the process began on Dec. 17, 2014 with the simultaneous television announcements by Presidents Castro and Obama. So, I prefer to talk about what has been achieved in the last 19 months. Priority aspects for Cuba included the return of the Five Heroes who were serving prison sentences in the U. S.; the removal of Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism; and renewing the Havana Club trademark registration in the United States. In the political diplomatic sphere I would highlight the creation of the Cuba-United States Bilateral Commission providing follow-ups to the post-reestablishment of diplomatic relations agenda. To date, three meetings have taken place in alternating venues, while a further two are scheduled to be held. It was important to have a mechanism of this type to just talk, to address unresolved issues that had been willfully neglected too long. With the Bilateral Commission, we have signed 11 major agreements, the last one involving the agreement to jointly fight drug and human trafficking."
Vidal was then asked what remains to be achieved. She calmly and, yes, expertly said:
"The dissuasive and punitive components of the blockade, and its intimidating extra-territorial effects, continue to have negative consequences for Cuba. We are still unable to make financial transfers, we are denied services of this kind and payments are withheld, while the U. S. continues to impose fines on banks and foreign financial entities that do business with our country. The blockade is an outdated policy that the world abhors and it must end. Thus far it has not been possible to normalize banking relations. All of this could be resolved if President Obama was brave enough to exploit his executive prerogatives. Thus far the U. S. has failed to issue a political statement or legal document explaining to world banks that operations with Cuba are legitimate, and that those banks or countries won't be sanctioned. So for a half-century Cuba has had to exist under an America blockade that would have doomed much larger and stronger nations. The U. S. took 56 years to recognize Cuba's legitimate government that had replaced a brutal regime backed by the Mafia and by the United States. But lifting the blockade has not been achieved. Returning the stolen Guantanamo Bay port has not been achieved. Lifting economic sanctions that would destroy most other nations has not been achieved. We are not naive. We are aware of the United States strategic objectives and we will not let our guard down. We will always remain alert. Meanwhile for the good, the bilateral process represents opportunities to advance for the first time toward resolving pending issues, not only of the past 56 years but also centuries ago."
Josefina Vidal made those comments in direct response to specific questions. She had no teleprompter and no notes. And she speaks for Cuba. She is formidably intelligent and the world's greatest expert on U.S.-Cuban relations. Yet, for 56 years the Batistianos and Mafiosi booted off the island by the Cuban Revolution in 1959 have dictated America's Cuban narrative and America's Cuban policy. Thus, propagandized Americans have been proselytized to discount Vidal's assessment of U.S.-Cuban relations in favor of the self-serving, undemocratic dictates of two generations of Batistianos and Mafiosi. That unending situation has and will continue to harm the image of the U. S. far more than it harms Cuba's.
I suggest that intimidated or unpatriotic Americans, those who deny or ignore Josefina Vidal's topical and significant comments depicted above, should try to explain away her sane assessments. Merely ignoring them is the cowardly way out. And remember, my own assessments of Cuba are in defense of America and democracy, not Cuba. I happen to think that 56 years of the Batistianos and Mafiosi dictating America's Cuban narrative and policy is 56 years too much as it defames democracy and the United States.
I noted in the above Vidal quotes that she, for perhaps the first time, was critical of U. S. President Obama. Referencing his refusal to stop the debilitating banking sanctions that indeed would have destroyed much larger nations long ago, she said, "All of this could be resolved if President Obama was brave enough to exploit his executive prerogatives." With that comment, Vidal is acknowledging that the Batistianos and Mafiosi greedily control the United States Congress on all issues regarding Cuba, but she is frustrated that Obama has not used his "executive prerogatives" even more than he has since December of 2014. Vidal is a student of Batistiano-U.S. history. Her comment seems to indicate that she thinks Obama is afraid to go further in his brave efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. Perhaps she is right there too.
The handshake graphic above reveals that Vidal is appreciative of Obama's efforts to be the first of the last eleven American presidents to have the guts and decency to even attempt to normalize relations with Cuba. The physical and political threats are enormous. But Vidal is abundantly aware of the timeline of the U.S.-Cuban relationship that includes salacious American right-wingers dictating the Spanish-American War in 1898 and dictating the U. S. backing of the fiendish Batista-Mafia dictatorship in 1952 and since 1959 dictating America's Cuban policy that yearly gets a resounding 191-to-2 denunciation in the United Nations. Through it all, Americans are supposed to be too cowardly and too stupid to even weight in on the topic.
But guess what!!
Unlike the biased and intimidated U. S. journalists, Sarah Marsh has the guts and integrity to tell you the truth about U.S.-Cuban relations. Of course, Sarah is British and the Brits didn't support the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba and then, when it was overthrown, let the Batistianos and Mafiosi dictate Cuban policy for the past 56 years. And, of course, Sarah works for Reuters, the great news agency based in Britain that, unlike the U. S. media, is not obligated to distort America's Cuban policy in favor of the Batistianos and Mafiosi. Therefore, Sarah Marsh, who is headquartered in Buenos Aires as a Reuters Latin American expert, actually has the freedom to tell the truth about U.S.-Cuban relations. HOW ABOUT THAT!! And she does so in an updated article analyzing the past year in which the U. S. and Cuba have restored embassies and diplomatic relations for the first time since 1961. For the reasons mentioned, Sarah Marsh is neither biased NOR intimidated when writing about Cuba, so you may want to check out her very latest article.
And lastly:
The U. S. does not have a diplomat or a politician or a journalist that can out-smart or out-maneuver the great Cuban patriot, Josefina Vidal. But she is David to their Goliath. She defends a small, vulnerable country while they are supported by the world's economic and military superpower. It is thus a lop-sided struggle. She alone just makes it less so. On a level playing field, her beloved Cuba would flourish.
And now a change of pace:
This magnificent photo is courtesy of Linda Bumpus and my favorite magazine, Birds & Blooms. That's a male bluebird on the left and his female companion on the right. Once together, they mate for life.
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