[Peace-discuss] The NEW YORK TIMES U.S. to Restore Full Relations With Cuba -UPDATE

[David Johnson via Peace-discuss]

The NEW YORK TIMES

U.S. to Restore Full Relations With Cuba, Erasing a Last Trace of Cold War
Hostility

Slide Show | A Decades-Long Thaw in U.S.-Cuba Relations A look at Cuba’s
fraught relationship with the United States since its 1959 revolution.

*	 

By PETER BAKER

December 17, 2014

WASHINGTON —
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/i
ndex.html?inline=nyt-per> President Obama on Wednesday ordered the
restoration of full diplomatic relations with
<http://www.nytimes.com/info/cuba?inline=nyt-geo> Cuba and the opening of an
embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half-century as he vowed
to “cut loose the shackles of the past” and sweep aside one of the last
vestiges of the Cold War.

The surprise announcement came at the end of 18 months of secret talks that
produced a prisoner swap negotiated with the help of
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/francis_i/inde
x.html?inline=nyt-per> Pope Francis and concluded by a telephone call
between Mr. Obama and President
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/raul_castro/in
dex.html?inline=nyt-per> Raúl Castro. The historic deal broke an enduring
stalemate between two countries divided by just 90 miles of water but oceans
of mistrust and hostility dating from the days of Theodore Roosevelt’s
<http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/july-1-1898-the-battle-of-san-
juan-hill/> charge up San Juan Hill and the nuclear brinkmanship of the
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/cuban_missil
e_crisis/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> Cuban missile crisis.

“We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our
interests, and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two
countries,” Mr. Obama said in a nationally televised statement from the
White House. The deal, he added, will “begin a new chapter among the nations
of the Americas” and move beyond a “rigid policy that is rooted in events
that took place before most of us were born.”

In doing so, Mr. Obama ventured into diplomatic territory where the last 10
presidents refused to go, and Republicans, along with a senior Democrat,
quickly characterized the rapprochement with the Castro family as
appeasement of the hemisphere’s leading dictatorship. Republican lawmakers
who will take control of the Senate as well as the House next month made
clear they would resist lifting the 54-year-old trade embargo.

Video | Obama on Change to U.S.-Cuba Relations The president outlined the
steps the United States would take to “end an outdated approach” and begin
to normalize relations with Cuba.

“This entire policy shift announced today is based on an illusion, on a lie,
the lie and the illusion that more commerce and access to money and goods
will translate to political freedom for the Cuban people,” said Senator
Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida and son of Cuban immigrants. “All
this is going to do is give the Castro regime, which controls every aspect
of Cuban life, the opportunity to manipulate these changes to perpetuate
itself in power.”

For good or ill, the move represented a dramatic turning point in relations
with an island that for generations has captivated and vexed its giant
northern neighbor. From the 18th century, when successive presidents coveted
it, Cuba loomed large in the American imagination long before Fidel Castro
stormed from the mountains and seized power in 1959.

Mr. Castro’s alliance with the Soviet Union made Cuba a geopolitical flash
point in a global struggle of ideology and power. President Dwight D.
Eisenhower imposed the first trade embargo in 1960 and broke off diplomatic
relations in January 1961, just weeks before leaving office and seven months
before Mr. Obama was born. Under President John F. Kennedy, the
<http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/The-Bay-of-Pigs.aspx> failed
Bay of Pigs operation aimed at toppling Mr. Castro
<http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1961/04/20/issue.html> in
April 1961 and the
<http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/10/29/issue.htmlc> 13-day
showdown over Soviet missiles installed in Cuba the following year cemented
its status as a ground zero in the Cold War.

But the relationship remained frozen in time long after the fall of the
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/b/berlin_wall/
index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet
Union, a thorn in the side of multiple presidents who waited for Mr.
Castro’s demise and experienced false hope when he passed power to
<https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/world/americas/raul-castro-to-step-down-
as-cubas-president-in-2018.html> his brother, Raúl. Even as the United
States built relations with Communist nations like China and Vietnam, Cuba
remained one of just a few nations, along with Iran and North Korea, that
had no formal ties with Washington.

Students celebrated in Havana after news that Washington had released three
Cuban spies in a prisoner exchange.

Roberto Morejon / Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mr. Obama has long expressed hope of transforming relations with Cuba and
relaxed some travel restrictions in 2011. But further moves remained
untenable as long as Cuba held Alan P. Gross, an American government
contractor arrested in 2009 and sentenced to 15 years in a Cuban prison for
trying to deliver satellite telephone equipment capable of cloaking
connections to the Internet.

After winning re-election, Mr. Obama resolved to make Cuba a priority for
his second term and authorized secret negotiations led by two aides,
Benjamin J. Rhodes and Ricardo Zúñiga, who conducted nine meetings with
Cuban counterparts starting in June 2013, most of them in Canada, which has
ties with Havana.

Pope Francis encouraged the talks with letters to Mr. Obama and Mr. Castro
and had the Vatican host a meeting in October to finalize the terms of the
deal. Mr. Obama spoke with Mr. Castro by telephone on Tuesday to seal the
agreement in a call that lasted more than 45 minutes, the first direct
substantive contact between the leaders of the two countries in more than 50
years.

On Wednesday morning, Mr. Gross walked out of a Cuban prison and boarded an
American military plane that flew him to Washington, accompanied by his
wife, Judy. While eating a corned beef sandwich on rye bread with mustard
during the flight, Mr. Gross received a call from Mr. Obama. “He’s back
where he belongs, in America with his family, home for
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/hanukkah/ind
ex.html?inline=nyt-classifier> Hanukkah,” Mr. Obama said later.

 
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/17/world/americas/10000000333254
9.mobile.html> 

 
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/17/world/americas/10000000333254
9.mobile.html> Description:
http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/12/17/world/americas/cuba-sanctions-1418
850627701/cuba-sanctions-1418850627701-mediumThreeByTwo225.jpg

 
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/17/world/americas/10000000333254
9.mobile.html> Graphic | How America’s Relationship With Cuba Will
ChangeWhich travel and trade restrictions will be eased or eliminated.

 

For its part, the United States sent back three imprisoned Cuban spies who
were caught in 1998 and had become a cause célèbre for the Havana
government. They were swapped for Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, a Cuban who had
worked as an agent for American intelligence and had been in a Cuban prison
for nearly 20 years, according to a senior American official. Mr. Gross was
not technically part of the swap, officials said, but was released
separately on “humanitarian grounds,” a distinction critics found
unpersuasive.

The United States will ease restrictions on remittances, travel and banking,
while Cuba will allow more Internet access and release 53 Cubans identified
as political prisoners by the United States. Although the embargo will
remain in place, the president called for an “honest and serious debate
about lifting” it, which would require an act of Congress.

Mr. Castro spoke simultaneously on Cuban television, taking to the airwaves
with no introduction and announcing that he had spoken by telephone with Mr.
Obama on Tuesday.

“We have been able to make headway in the solution of some topics of mutual
interest for both nations,” he declared, emphasizing the release of the
three Cubans. “President Obama’s decision deserves the respect and
acknowledgment of our people.”

Pope Francis played a vital role in the rapprochement.

Franco Origlia / Getty Images

Only afterward did Mr. Castro mention the reopening of diplomatic relations.
“This in no way means that the heart of the matter has been resolved,” he
said. “The economic, commercial and financial blockade, which causes
enormous human and economic damages to our country, must cease.” But, he
added, “the progress made in our exchanges proves that it is possible to
find solutions to many problems.”

Mr. Obama is gambling that restoring ties with Cuba may no longer be
politically unthinkable with the generational shift among Cuban-Americans,
where many younger children of exiles are open to change. Nearly six in 10
Americans support re-establishing relations with Cuba, according to a
<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/17/world/americas/17first-draft
-polling.html> New York Times poll conducted in October. Mr. Obama’s move
had the support of the Catholic Church, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Human
Rights Watch and major agricultural interests.

At a news conference in Washington, Mr. Gross said he supported Mr. Obama’s
move toward normalizing relations with Cuba, adding that his own ordeal and
the injustice with which Cuban people had been treated were “a consequence
of two governments’ mutually belligerent policies.”

“Five and a half decades of history show us that such belligerence inhibits
better judgment,” he said. “Two wrongs never make a right. This is a
game-changer, which I fully support.”

Video | Obama on Cuba’s Release of Alan Gross President Obama discussed the
release of the contractor, Alan P. Gross, who had been held in Cuba for five
years, as well as the release of an intelligence agent held for nearly 20
years.

But leading Republicans, including Speaker John A. Boehner and the incoming
Senate majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, did not. In addition to Mr.
Rubio, two other Republican potential candidates for president joined in the
criticism. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas called it a “very, very bad deal,”
while former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida said it “undermines the quest for a
free and democratic Cuba.”

A leading Democrat agreed. “It is a fallacy that Cuba will reform just
because the American president believes that if he extends his hand in
peace, that the Castro brothers suddenly will unclench their fists,” said
Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the outgoing chairman of the Foreign
Relations Committee and a Cuban-American.

While the United States has no embassy in Havana, there is a bare-bones
facility called an interests section that can be upgraded, currently led by
a diplomat,  <http://usun.state.gov/leadership/c46330.htm> Jeffrey
DeLaurentis, who will become the chargé d’affaires pending the nomination
and confirmation of an ambassador.

Mr. Obama has instructed Secretary of State John Kerry to begin the process
of removing Cuba from the list of states that sponsor terrorism, and the
president announced that he would attend a regional Summit of the Americas
next spring that Mr. Castro is also to attend. Mr. Obama will send an
assistant secretary of state to Havana next month to talk about migration,
and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker may lead a commercial mission.

Mr. Obama’s decision will ease travel restrictions for family visits, public
performances, and professional, educational and religious activities, among
other things, but ordinary tourism will still be banned under the law. Mr.
Obama will also allow greater banking ties, making it possible to use credit
and debit cards in Cuba, and American travelers will be allowed to import up
to $400 worth of goods from Cuba, including up to $100 in tobacco and
alcohol products.

“These 50 years have shown that isolation has not worked,” Mr. Obama said.
“It’s time for a new approach.”

He added that he shared the commitment to freedom for Cuba. “The question is
how we uphold that commitment,” he said. “I do not believe we can keep doing
the same thing for over five decades and expect a different result.”

 

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