[Marxism] [CubaNews] AP/Snow: Analysis: Obama changes could test Castros' grip

Sat Nov 8 15:58:19 MST 2008

Note that Hart is presented in the following typical Miami Herald article as
a sort of “hard-liner” fearing the results of allowing more family visits,
etc. But he is just a firm and flexible revolutionary who looks forward to
what he hopes is the coming challenge of relaxation of aspects of the
criminal embargo.

But will Obama go ahead with what were promised as US initiatives on travel,
and in other areas not now requiring congressional approval. Or will he
impose preconditions?  Such as the release of currently held prisoners held
for illegal acts associated with their political differences with the regime
– the grand total of 59 has been given in some reports. Since the Cuban
leaders have shown a thousand times they will not negotiate the sovereignty
of their country, hard won after endless violations by the US, this would be
a good way to paralyze any progress. 

Of course, the 59 are not a life-and-death issue in themselves, but, from
experience, I am pretty sure that the Cubans will not yield to foreign
demands on this question, presented as conditions for slightly softening an
immoral and inhuman blockade. Personally, I have come to understand and
identify with this firm defense of sovereignty.

This has links to the question of US relations with Iran. Will Obama go
ahead with his proposal of  “tough negotiations” with Iran or will he impose
Bush administration demands on Iran as preconditions? Does he represent
continuity with Bush administration foreign policy, or a change toward a
more rational policy that accepts, in part, a shifting relationship of
forces. 

I don’t claim to know the answers to these questions.  But I continue to be
an advocate of end to embargos and blockades and normalization of US ties
with Cuba and Iran, and an opponent of any demands for any surrender of
sovereignty by these countries as the price of  normalization.

Fred Feldman 

From: CubaNews at yahoogroups.com [mailto:CubaNews at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Walter Lippmann
Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2008 5:03 PM
To: CubaNews
Subject: [CubaNews] AP/Snow: Analysis: Obama changes could test Castros'
grip

Posted on Saturday, 11.08.08
Analysis: Obama changes could test Castros' grip
By ANITA SNOW
Associated Press Writer

http://www.miamiher
<http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/762724.html>
ald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/762724.html

HAVANA -- Cuba's communist leadership has long cast itself as David standing
up to the U.S. Goliath and the crippling force of America's punitive trade
and travel embargo.

Now they have a problem: If Barack Obama follows through on campaign
promises to ease restrictions on the island, he could chip away at the
Castro brothers' best case for staying in power.

And if a new Democrat-dominated Congress takes Obama's moves even further,
Cuban leaders may have a hard time maintaining their tight control over
Cuban society.

"They'd have to throw out the whole script about American imperialism," said
Phil Peters of the Lexington Institute, a Washington-area think tank.

Top Cuban ideologues are already worried.

"We have before us the immense challenge of how to face a new chapter in the
cultural struggle against the enemy," Armando Hart, 78-year-old patriarch of
Cuban communists, warned last week in Granma, the party newspaper.

If Cuban-Americans are allowed to visit more frequently and send more money
to the island, it could spark "a new chapter in the ideological war between
the Cuban revolution and imperialism," Hart wrote.

The U.S. government's Cuba policy has been frozen in time since 1962, when
it imposed the embargo with the aim of bringing down Fidel Castro's
government at a time when U.S.-backed exiles mounted the failed Bay of Pigs
invasion and Soviet missiles in Cuba pushed the world close to nuclear war.

Sporadic congressional efforts to end the embargo since then have failed,
largely due to the political influence of powerful Cuban exiles who insisted
on isolating Cuba and trying to strangle its economy to force Castro out.

But Castro, now 82, remained in power until he ceded the presidency to his
brother in February due to illness. And Raul Castro, 77, shows no sign of
making any fundamental changes.

The embargo is "a policy that hasn't worked in nearly 50 years," said Wayne
Smith, a former top U.S. diplomat to Havana and a Cuba fellow at John
Hopkins' Center for International Policy. "It's stupid, it's
counterproductive and there is no international support for it."

Obama has promised to lift limits that President George W. Bush tightened on
Cuban-Americans wanting to visit and send money to relatives. He also says
he's open to a dialogue with Raul Castro - something the Cuban president has
indicated he would welcome.

If Obama really wants to force the Castros to open up, he should push
Congress to eliminate the embargo altogether, and allow Americans to freely
travel to Cuba, said Smith. "Lifting travel and remittance restrictions on
Cuban-Americans just doesn't get to the heart of the problem."

So far, Obama has said he supports the embargo. But many hope his initially
modest moves will encourage the Democrat-controlled Congress to do something
bold.

"Today for the first time there is real political space for an incoming
administration to try something new on Cuba policy," said Jake Colvin, vice
president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which opposes all
unilateral sanctions.

When Obama visited Florida during his campaign he was hosted by the Cuban
American National Foundation, a longtime bastion of Republicans who shot
down any attempt to ease the embargo. Obama ended up carrying Florida,
winning even in counties that re-elected Republican representatives who have
been the most stalwart proponents of isolating Cuba.

Even these Cuban-Americans, while they still support the embargo, may sense
a shift in voters' attitudes. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and brothers Lincoln
and Mario Diaz-Balart de-emphasized Cuba in their campaigns, focusing on the
economy, health care and Iraq.

Obama is unlikely to ignore their views, but if he wants to force a change
in Cuba policy, he might not need their votes.

In Havana, dissident journalist Miriam Leiva says toppling the embargo could
be agonizing for communist leaders who have long used it to "justify their
errors and efficiencies, to repress and jail anyone of differing opinions."

But Cuban officials insist they want all U.S. restrictions toward the island
to end.

"We expect that the new president will change the policy toward Cuba after
nearly 50 years," Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told The Associated
Press after the U.N. General Assembly last month voted 185 to 3 (the U.S.,
Israel and Palau) with 2 abstentions (Micronesia and the Marshall Islands)
to repeal the embargo.

Many Cubans are hoping a new U.S. administration will encourage openings
that improve their lives.

In a congratulatory letter to Obama, government opponent Hector Palacio Ruiz
expressed hope the new administration would allow direct financial aid to
dissidents and "eliminate the obstacles that impede us from putting an end
to the tyranny that our people suffer."

Leiva argued in an essay that a freer flow of visitors to the island "could
favor the sharing of democratic ideas indispensable at this time, when
urgent change is required."
EDITORS: Anita Snow has been AP's Chief of Bureau in Havana since 1999.

=========================================
WALTER LIPPMANN
Los Angeles, California
Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
http://groups. <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/>
yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
"Cuba - Un Paraíso bajo el bloqueo"
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