[Marxism] (NYT) Obama feels heat; absent Cuba center stage at summit

[Fred Feldman]

April 19, 2009
Rising Expectations on Cuba Follow Obama 
By GINGER THOMPSON and ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO 
A day after President Obama pledged a new future in Washington’s relations
with Cuba, Latin American leaders insisted at a summit meeting in Trinidad
that the future is now.

That message followed the president throughout the day on Saturday and even
upstaged a photo-op with Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada, when a
reporter asked Mr. Obama whether he was taking tips from Canada’s policy of
open engagement with Havana. “I take tips from Canada on a lot of things,”
he said with a smile, and kept walking.

And so it was that Cuba, the only country not invited to the fifth Summit of
the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, was a central focus of the meeting for
another day. An exchange of conciliatory overtures between President Obama
and President Raúl Castro of Cuba has started a buzz of speculation about
more substantive dialogue. And the crack in the door Mr. Obama had opened
for new engagement with Cuba felt more like unlocking a floodgate.

For the first time, some diplomats said, the question being asked was when —
not whether — the next move will be made. The meetings on Saturday made
clear, however, that there remains deep disagreement about which country
should make that move, and what it should be.

President Obama spent much of the day in the capital, Port of Spain, trying
to fend off the mounting pressure by saying that the ball was in Cuba’s
court. His aides outlined a series of steps that Cuba, the hemisphere’s last
remaining dictatorship, could do to demonstrate a willingness to open its
closed society, including releasing political prisoners, allowing United
States telecommunications companies to operate on the island and ending
government fees on money sent to Cubans by relatives living abroad.



“We will continue to evaluate and watch what happens,” said Robert Gibbs,
the White House spokesman. “We’re anxious to see what the Cuban government
is willing to step up to do.”

A senior administration official said, “Don’t expect big flashy meetings.”
Instead, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to
discuss diplomatic issues, “I think we are entering into a period of
testing, maybe a period of testing on both sides.”

But the hemisphere’s leaders continued to press the United States to do
more, expressing almost unanimous condemnation for its 47-year-old trade
embargo.

“If the objective is to see change in Cuba,” Mr. Harper of Canada said in an
interview, “it’s hard to see how a trade embargo would do anything other
than keep the economic system closed.” 

It is a debate the Obama administration, already grappling with a recession
and two wars, had hoped to pre-empt before the meeting even began. Days
before the president departed Washington for his first trip to the region,
the White House announced it would reverse Bush administration restrictions
on travel and remittances by Cuban-Americans to relatives in Cuba as a sign
that the United States was prepared to move relations with Cuba in a new
direction.

How fast the administration intended to move was unclear. However, Julia
Sweig, a Cuba expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the small but
significant shift in policy has set off a chain reaction of expectations
that the White House may have trouble controlling. “This is starting to feel
as if the ground is moving beneath our feet,” she said.

The Cuban-American community is no longer solidly supportive of the embargo.
American businesses are eager to increase trade with Cuba. Both houses of
Congress have introduced measures to end all restrictions on travel to Cuba
and ease parts of the embargo. And Latin American leaders have rallied
against the current United States policy as an anachronistic holdover from
the cold war. 

“Latin America has been opposed to the embargo for some time,” said Phil
Peters, a Cuba expert with the Lexington Institute. “But the unanimity and
the insistence with which they have spoken are different.”

Robert Pastor, who served as the Carter administration’s chief Latin America
adviser, said: “What’s required is for us to think about normalization with
Cuba more like we think about normalization with Vietnam. We never made
normalization with Vietnam dependent on them becoming a democratic, market
economy.”

Still, there were signs that domestic politics, both in the United States
and Cuba, could stand in the way of engagement. Opposition to improved
relations with Cuba may no longer have the monolithic hold it once did on
Cuban-Americans, but it remains a potent political force. 

Ninoska Pérez Castellón, a Miami radio host, criticized Latin-American
leaders for condemning the United States embargo, but not the Cuban
government’s repression against its own people.

Ramon Raúl Sánchez, the founder of the Democracy Movement, a Miami-based
exile group, echoed that sentiment. “We question the Cuban claim of respect
for sovereignty when it is willing to talk to the United States,” he said,
“but it is not willing to talk to its own people, who have asked to talk
about a variety of serious issues.”

And in Cuba, questions remain about the intent and ability of Raúl Castro to
make changes that his brother Fidel long resisted. “I do not believe that
Raúl Castro can move in, trying to sit down and talk to the United States,
as long as Fidel is alive,” said Andy S. Gomez, a senior fellow at the
Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami.

At the summit meeting, Latin America’s staunch opposition to the United
States’ policy toward Cuba made it difficult for President Obama to talk
about anything else. The most theatrical moments were staged by presidents
who have long been thorns in the United States’ side: Daniel Ortega of
Nicaragua, Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia.

But there was also pressure from the United States’ closest friends in the
region, aides to President Obama said, including offers from Brazil, Mexico
and the Organization of Caribbean Nations, to serve as intermediaries
between Cuba and the United States.

Bharrat Jagdeo, the president of Guyana, said he told Mr. Obama on Saturday
that he was pleased by the steps the United States had taken so far to
change relations with Cuba, but he pressed him to lift the embargo.

He said he did not know whether the United States or Cuba should make the
next move.

“I don’t know who is going to pick up the phone and call the other one,” he
said, “but I am convinced it is going to happen.”

Ginger Thompson reported from Washington, and Alexei Barrionuevo from Port
of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting
from Port of Spain, and Damien Cave from Miami.