The Cubans detained after the 9/11 protests are the bargaining chip of the Havana government in its rapprochement with Washington. facing a new thaw that has not quite come to fruition and the generalized crisis that the country is facing, the release of political prisoners with the mediation of the Vatican and their welcome in Spain is the only thing that can accelerate the rapprochement between the United States and the Island.
“The difficulty is that Cuba is giving in less and less and the international political context is not the same as it was twenty years ago,” he explained to 14ymedio a source close to the negotiation who requested anonymity. The aspiration of the regime, he assures, is to repeat the strategy used with the 75 opponents arrested in 2003, in the so-called Black Spring, who were released several years later and pressured, for the most part, to leave the Island.
However, the success of the regime depends on the speed of the process, and it faces two very patient negotiators: the Catholic Church, which purposely delays any decision, and the US Government, which must gauge the weight of Cuban-Americans in Florida before taking any steps.
“When Biden won the elections in 2020, his Administration – and especially the followers of former President Barack Obama, very influential in the State Department – understood that the plan for rapprochement with Cuba could not be the same as that of the last government. Democrat. If that plan had been successful, which included remittances, contacts between businessmen, more benefits for the Island, the Cuban regime would have been oxygenated. But then the protests of July 11 came,” recalls the source.
“Had that plan been successful, which included remittances, contacts between businessmen, more benefits for the Island, the Cuban regime would have been oxygenated. But then came the protests of July 11”
The demonstrations stopped the thaw, annulled during the Government of Donald Trump, and relations with Havana stagnated, increasingly severe and repressive with those who went out to march.
Pope Francis saw the plans that led to the restoration of diplomatic relations between Havana and Washington in 2014 being scuttled. “Furthermore, with the death of Cardinal Jaime Ortega, whose opinion was of interest to the whole world, and the absence of strong leadership and capacity for dialogue in the Cuban Episcopal Conference, the Pope has had to resort to other mediators, such as the cardinal of Boston, Sean Patrick O’Malley, or Beniamino Stella. Both have recently visited Havana and have discussed with the government, in confidence, the issue of the release of prisoners,” he said.
The Cuban government is interested in having the Vatican once again “bless” this new rapprochement with the US, and it has the support of a good number of US politicians and businessmen.
In his battle for the approval of Francis – a pontiff whose sympathy for the regime de la Isla is no secret – the Cuban authorities have launched a campaign to “sanctify” himself Félix Varela, a Catholic priest and one of the founding fathers of the nation. “That’s why an improvised meeting with stella at the University of Havana”, denounces the source, “which had the purpose of overshadowing, with the presence of President Díaz-Canel, the meeting of the cardinal with the Catholic world of culture, in the building of the old seminary of San Carlos “.
The interview that Stella gave to the press after her visit, with the skill of a diplomat, was her way of revealing to public opinion that the issue of prisoners had been on the table, she says. “The interest of Díaz-Canel and the hierarchs of the regime in Stella’s visit was clear: they wanted to politically cajole the Church and, once again, the Pope.”
However, the “slowness” of the Church to officially convert Varela into the first Cuban saint – this process usually takes decades – is not in the best interest of the Government of Havana, which has barely a year and a half before he returns to change the entire international scene and the United States once again hold elections. In addition, Varela’s canonization will not be enough to win the sympathy of the United States and speed up the dialogue.
“They need a spectacular gesture, so to speak: the release of the prisoners,” settles the source. The experts agree. According to Ric Herrero, executive director of the Cuba Study Group – a Washington-based organization that defends the policy of rapprochement with the Island – “the Biden Administration is not paying much attention to Cuba. It is almost entirely occupied with the war in Ukraine and in deteriorating relations with China”.
“Spain wants to play a role in the negotiation because there are many Spanish businessmen with interests in Cuba. Although many have gone bankrupt doing business with Havana, the ‘big ones’, like Meliá and Iberostar, always fall on their feet.”
In Herrero’s opinion, Havana needs to carry out a concrete action that puts it back in the focus of US priorities. The release of the 9/11 prisoners could mark this milestone that redefines the importance of Cuban affairs in the White House, explained to the American news network nbc.
Another strategy implemented between the social and political sectors of both countries, interested in rapprochement, has been the increase in cultural relations. The visit to Havana of the singer Tonya Boyd-Cannon last January and, shortly after, that of the filmmaker Dawn Porter, had the support of the Cuban Ministry of Culture. The well-known jazz player Ted Nash also performed in the island’s capital with the mediation of state institutions.
An anonymous official from the US State Department interviewed by NBC also pointed out that cultural programs aimed at Cuba are “an integral and lasting part of diplomatic activities” of the US, “designed to ‘connect’ directly with the people Cuban”.
However, the “biggest obstacle” to the normalization of relations, as he exposed last January The charge d’affaires of the US Embassy in Havana, Benjamin Ziff, continues to be the prisoner of the almost 800 protesters imprisoned in the 2021 and 2022 protests on the island.
The Vatican and the US are not the only ones working to achieve the release of the prisoners. As happened with the dissidents in 2003, “Spain has offered to take in prisoners who wish to leave the national territory,” says the source interviewed by 14ymedio.
“Spain wants to play a role in the negotiation because there are many Spanish businessmen with interests in Cuba. Although many have been ruined doing business with Havana, the ‘big ones’, like Meliá and Iberostar, always fall on their feet. The directors of those companies They have already lost hope that the Cuban dictatorship will collapse thanks to the pressure of tourism promoted by them, and now they just want to be there and that the transition finds them working.”
But the “salvation” of the Government of Cuba, clarifies the source, is not Spain or China, not even Russia -despite the visit of Russian officials to the island- but the United States. “It is necessary to state publicly that the Cuban dictatorship is desperate for this contact with Washington. If in 2024 an Administration that is tougher with Cuba wins the US elections, like the one a candidate like Ron DeSantis, the current Governor of Florida, would have, or if there is a demonstration of public discontent similar to 9/11, everything will collapse for them.”
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