Havana Cuba.- By reversing several of the sanctions against the Cuban regime adopted during the Trump administration, President Joe Biden has failed to satisfy either the Castro hierarchs or the most radical of his opponents.
Some consider that the Biden’s measures they are limited in scope, insufficient, and formulated in a hostile tone. The others consider them concessions extracted through the blackmail of the mass exodus, concessions that Castroism does not deserve, and even less so now, when it shows its most repressive side. They consider that throwing a life preserver at the regime when its suffocation is greatest means a betrayal of those who fight for democracy in Cuba.
In a certain way, according to their way of understanding things, both sides have reasons to disagree with Biden’s measures.
The bosses of Castro’s continuity will never be satisfied, unless they unconditionally lift the embargo that they call “blockade” -something that is not within the reach of the North American president, but rather depends on Congress-, grant them unlimited credits, flow the dollars of tourists and allow them to act at will, according to what they understand by sovereignty, that is, without being criticized or complained about for the lack of freedoms and violations of Human Rights. And yet, eternally in need of a powerful enemy to pose as victims, they would always have grievances against the United States and blame it for all their blunders and failures.
The most radical anti-Castroists perceive these concessions for nothing, like those made by Obama, as an undeserved reward for the dictatorship, but worse, because they come at an inopportune moment, less than 48 hours after the approval of a draconian Penal Code that criminalizes all dissent and promises to continue adding political prisoners to the more than a thousand existing at this time, including the several hundred young people imprisoned during the social outbreak of July 11 and 12, 2021.
Biden’s new measures, especially with regard to remittances, will somewhat mitigate the situation of humanitarian crisis in Cuba. And with the restoration of the Parole Program for Family Reunification, the permission for flights beyond Havana and the future resumption of the consular services of the US Embassy in Cuba, the ties of Cubans with their relatives residing in Cuba will improve. the United States.
But those measures, which will not stop the exodus but will give it another nuance, will benefit the Castro bosses more than the long-suffering Cuban population.
The dollars that, for remittances, trips and support to the private sector –which is not independent, but a concoction of henchmen, piñata aspirants and unprofitable and bankrupt state companies conveniently disguised as MSMEs– at the end of the road, will end up to the coffers of the regime. And that money will contribute to prolong the survival of the dictatorship, just when in bankruptcy, it seemed to enter the terminal phase.
According to the reasoning of the most radical, the greater repressive coercion added to a very slight improvement in living conditions – read a little more food – and the 20,000 annual visas to emigrate, would remove the possibility of a new popular outburst, which force of so much hunger, it would seem imminent at this time.
The regime will manage to get rid of thousands of malcontents and disaffected, it will build silver bridges for them to flee and thus it will have fewer people to repress and imprison. And in the not too long term, those who leave will become senders of remittances for their relatives in Cuba. Although they are not even remotely one of the very few that from now on, thanks to the most generous of Biden’s measures, they will no longer have limitations to send more than three thousand dollars to Cuba every three months.
These new measures are very unlikely to contribute to “empowering the Cuban people to create a future free of repression and economic suffering,” as Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, put it a few days ago.
That was not achieved by the Obama thaw, which caused that after Fidel Castro became alarmed and put the spoon in, the bosses imposed new limitations on private entrepreneurship and increased repression against opponents. And neither did Donald Trump with his economic sanctions aimed at suffocating the Castro regime.
The United States does not find a way to succeed in its policies towards Cuba. It has always been like this. Since 1898, when Cuba achieved independence thanks to its intervention by the United States in the war against Spain, supporting the mambises, who had not won the war, as Castro’s historiography affirms. Cuba was independent, but with the Platt Amendment, and that left Cubans with a nationalist self-consciousness and a feeling of frustration that eventually led to the shipwreck of the republic with Fidel Castro’s revolution.
There are still many who blame Eisenhower for Fidel Castro turning to the Soviets and John F. Kennedy for not intervening in Cuba to support the 2501 brigade and overthrow Castroism. But if he had, he would be blamed today for causing a bloodbath.
Trump was criticized for the harshness of his measures against Castroism. Carter, Clinton, Obama and now Biden are reproached, in the best of cases, for their lack of realism, the wishful thinkingnaivety in their dealings with the dictatorship.
The pending task for the North American governments is to find a policy towards Cuba that is intelligent and pragmatic, where forceful measures and diplomacy that leads to a engagement effective leading to transition. But it is known, the history of these 63 years shows, that it is not an easy task.
As long as the Cuban people are held hostage by the Castro regime, it is difficult for them to fully benefit from any policy adopted by the US government. The benefits will always be administered at your convenience – which will not coincide with that of the town – by the olive green captors. And what about the affectations, if that is precisely what the blackmail lies in.
OPINION ARTICLE
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