The Thaw Turns To A Freeze Again Whatever Happened To "detente" With Cuba?

The Thaw Turns To A Freeze Again Whatever Happened To "detente" With Cuba?

The causes of the Sharp turnaround in U.S.-Cuban relations lie deeper than the Angola episode they have to do with Washington 's view of the world as a chessboard with only a very few players allowed to participate  and with America 's inability to accept the presence in our hemisphere of a nation not dependent on the U.S. for anything. Stephen Kinzerofthe Boston Phoenix reviews the current sitiuition:

The fïrst sign the American public had that U.S.-Cuban relations might improve was the visit to Havana of Senator George McGovern in May of 1975. More significant than the visit itself were two "signs" that clearly made the McGovern visit an important symbol of Cuba's continuing desire to re-establish a cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship with her giant neighbor.

First was the Cuban decision to allow a large number of American journalists, including representatives of major periodicals and networks, to accompany McGovern. Second was the extraordinary reception McGovern received trom Prime Minister Castro. The two were together during almost all of McGovern's visit and had several wide-ranging discussions that far exceeded, both in length and in form, what was required by diplomatic protocol.

McGovern reported that Castro's only prerequisite for direct negotiations with the U.S. was a dropping of the unilateral trade embargo which this country maintains agairtst Cuba. Castro indicated lo McGovern that even if sanctions were lifted only on food and medicine, the Cubans would be satisfied enough to proceed to negotiations. McGovern himself endorsed this proposal "very strongly," and added that he and Castro had agreed that with Nixon out of the White House, progress could be made.

Castro also told McGovern that Cuba was willing to consider the question of "compensating" American companies whose holdings in Cuba were nationalized after Castro came to power. Claims by the companies totaling $1.8 billion have long been considered an obstacle to renewed trade between the two countries.

Castro and McGovern also agreed that an exchange of baseball and/or basketball teams between Cuba and the U.S. would be an ideal next step.

Significantly, the State Department let it be known that it welcomed the "conciliatory comments Castro made to McGovern.

The pace of what then seemed to be a U.S.-Cuban detente quickened after McGovern visit. The State Department reported in June that it had received more than 100 inquires from U.S. businesses wishing to trade with Cuba. In July it was announced that world-renowned Cuban ballerina Alicia Alonso, a friend of Castro, would visit the U.S. Later that month, the U.S. joined 15 other Western hemisphere neighbors in voting to end the Organizatipn of American States (OAS) embargo against Cuba and "allow" each nation to decide for itself how to deal with Cuba.

In August,, the Cubans returned $2 million that had been extorted from Southern Airlines by a hijacker who later landed in Cuba. Senator John Sparkman, a conservative Alabama Democrat involved in the transaction, called for a "staged removal" of the U.S. embargo.

The first official response of the U.S. to these overtures was a modification of some of the terms of the embargo. The administration ended its prohibition against giving aid to nations that trade with Cuba ; agreed to allow refueling and docking lights to ships carrying flags of nations trading with Cuba; and agreed to support legislation repealing the prohibition against food credit sales to nations trading with Cuba.

But the State Department refused to characterize the move as a conciliatory gesture, and said that further steps would depend on the Cuban attitude.

During the summer, U.S. auto manufacturers, taking advantage of a decision allowing their foreign subsidiaries to trade with Cuba, signed an agreement to sell several thousand vehicles to Cuba in a pact totaling $I.2 million.

The State Department also quietly eased travel restrictions on Cuba diplomats in the U.S. This move led, among other things, to several private visits to Boston last year by Cuban diplomats.

In September, Secretary Kissinger admitted that the  policy of "reciprocal steps" was making progress. In October, American cellist Christine Walevska became the first American artist to perform in Cuba since the Revolution. Later that month, the Commerce Department released a study showing that the embargo was coming "costly"  for the U.S., and " that its effectiveness was diminishing because steadily increasing Sugar prices were improving Cuba 's trade position. Among Cuba's main trading partners are Canada, France, Britain, and Japan.

"PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM "

So it was just six months ago that the momentum towards a genuine rapprochement between Cuba and the U.S. seemed greater than ever before. The process that began in 1973 with the anti-hijacking agreement, and accelerated in 1974 and 1975, seemed about to culminate in a breakthrough that would at last end the unnatural enmity between the world's mightiest power and a small neighboring state which wants only to be treated as independent and sovereign.

But there is a fundamental contradiction between U.S. foreign policy and Cuban foreign policy. Cuba-watchers caught up in the excitement of last year's developments may have been too optimistic in their hope that this contradiction could be overlooked in the interest of coexistence and mutual advantage.

For Henry Kissinger, the third world is an arena in which the great powers vie for worldwide hegemony. The developing nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America are viewed only as pawns in a game they may not participate in and are not even expected to understand.

But to the Cubans, the world looks different. The developing world they see is divided between nations struggling for independence and the economic and political forces which conspire to prevent their development.

Perhaps no people on earth take so seriously the Marxist ideal of proletarian internationalism or, as Castro has taken to calling it, "the unity of progressive forces." Castro feels a deep responsibility to the nations that have not yet had the kind of transformaron that Cuba has had. He feels that his country must help other struggles, which he views as analogous to the one he led in the Sierra Maestra in the 1950s.

  "Although economic relations with the United States may be useful to our country," he said in December, "these relations will never be re-established on the basis of giving up one single iota of our principies."

Perhaps it was inevitable that a nation with such strong "principles" would have difficulty dealing with the United States. Eyebrows were raised when Cuba turned up as the only non-Arab sponsor of the anti-Zionism resolution at the U.S.- though anyone familiar with Cuban foreign policy could not have been surprised, especially after the warm reception Yasir Arafat was given in Havana in 1974.

Kissinger himself spoke up last fall when Cuba hosted an international conference in support of Puerto Rican independence. Kissinger, of course, considers Puerto Rico a part of the United States, and accused Cuba of "meddling" in the domestic affairs of the U.S.

The curtain finally came down when Cuba sent an estimated 12,000 combat troops to Angola to help repel a South African invasion. Cuba has worked with the MPLA for more than a decade (during which the U.S. was supporting Portuguese colonialism in Africa), and when MPLA leader Dr. Agostina Neto was faced with the prospect of the South African invasion from the south and the CIA-backed forces of the FNLA/UNIT A coalition pushing from the north, he turned to his Cuban allies for help. This, in effect, placed Cuban troops in direct conflict with troops supported by the U.S.

The reaction was swift. Kissinger launched a verbal attack on Cuba unmatched in ferocity even by the "exporting revolution" speeches of the '60s. President Ford told a group of Cuban exiles in Florida just before that state's Presidential primary that Castro was an "international outlaw." Both men charged that the Soviet Union had ordered Cuban troops to Angola, although Kissinger is reliably reported to realize privately that Cuba maintains an independent foreign policy and sent the troops in without any Soviet request.

Castro, a patient man, waxes philosophical. After President Ford "warned" Cuba that her presence in Angola would prevent any improvement in U.S.-Cuban relations, Castro said: "It is odd that the President of the United States, Mr. Ford, should threaten us with that. Before, when we did have relations, they cut them off; when there was a sugar quota, they cut it off; when there was trade between the United States and Cuba, they cut it off; but now they have nothing else to cut off, and now they cut off hope.

"This could be called 'the hope embargo' on the part of the President of the United States. He has actually embargoed that which no longer exists."

1976, the Boston Phoenix, Reprintcd by permission.