[Peace-discuss] Diplomatic Relations With Cuba & Sanctions For Venezuela

[David Johnson via Peace-discuss]

Diplomatic Relations With Cuba & Sanctions For Venezuela

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By The Real News,
<http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Item
id=74&jumival=12889> www.therealnews.com
January 3rd, 2015

Transcript

SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm
Sharmini Peries, coming to you from Baltimore.

If you're thinking that the United States is finally wising up and coming to
its senses about its policy towards Latin America with the much-hailed
normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations last week, you should stop, think
again. Normalization of relations with Cuba last week was accompanied by
President Obama signing a sanctions bill against Venezuela, Cuba's closest
ally in the hemisphere. The sanctions bill was passed in the House on the
10th, Senate on the 8th, and on December 18 signed by President Obama.

Here to explain all of this is Alex Main. Alex Main is coming to us from
Washington, D.C. He's a senior associate for international policy at the
Center of Economic Policy and Research.

Thank you so much for joining us, Alex.

ALEXANDER MAIN, SENIOR ASSOC. FOR INTERNATIONAL POLICY, CEPR: Thank you,
Sharmini.

PERIES: Alex, explain these sanctions against Venezuela. Why were these
sanctions passed by both houses and then signed by the president?

MAIN: Well, it was kind of a big surprise for those watching Latin America
policy carefully. I think the media in general didn't really report this,
and certainly the news was eclipsed by the news of progress on the Cuba
front. But this was something that had been in the works for a while, since
March of this year, actually, when you had a small group of representatives
and senators in the U.S. Congress, all of which are from the Cuban-American
delegation and are very avid supporters of the embargo against Cuba, they
introduced legislation enforcing sanctions against Venezuelan authorities,
alleged to be involved in human rights abuses, though specifically targeting
protesters in the antigovernment protests that took place in Venezuela
between March and April of this year.

And at the time that they were pushing for these sanctions initially, the
Obama administration was very reluctant to back them. They were actually
passed initially in the House. They got to the floor of the Senate and they
were blocked there. They were held up by various individual senators. And
the Obama administration, through State Department spokespeople and so on,
made it clear that they felt that these sanctions would be
counterproductive. And also they noted that the rest of the region was
opposed to sanctions, just like these, just as the rest of the region has
been opposed to the U.S. embargo policy towards Cuba. So there was really no
movement on the legislation.

And then, suddenly, in late November you had Antony Blinken, who was
appointed by the Obama administration to be the number-two diplomat at the
State Department, who during his confirmation hearing in the Senate told two
of the Cuban-American senators who'd introduced sanctions legislation-Bob
Menendez, a Democrat of New Jersey, and Marco Rubio, a Republican from
Florida-that they would now support this sanctions legislation.

And at the time, people wondered why, and a few people did begin to
speculate that it might have to do with the beginning of a change in Cuba
policy and that this might be a way of sort of the Obama administration
providing a tradeoff to these representatives, in other words, softening its
policy towards Cuba, while it hardened its policy towards Venezuela. And I
think that's exactly what's occurred. And it's very unfortunate.

I think Venezuela is seen, certainly by this group of legislators that form
a very small minority of the Congress but that hold very powerful positions
on committees, Venezuela is seen as a bigger threat these days than Cuba,
due to its rather large regional influence. And so they are now focusing
more and more. They were very pleased to see see this legislation go
through. And it made, I think, this opening towards Cuba slightly more
palatable to these members of Congress.

PERIES: Alex, so what is the reaction to the sanctions in Venezuela? One
would think that the opposition in Venezuela is in favor of these sanctions.

MAIN: It is supported by some of the opposition. It's supported by what's
sort of called the extremist or radical opposition, those who actually
promoted the violent protests that took place back in March-February, March
of this year. These protests, of course, involved a lot of violence that was
carried out directly by protesters, and it's something that the U.S.
corporate media, of course, didn't cover very well at all. They were also
supported by radical factions in the Cuban-American community, those that
have been involved in essentially backing terrorist actions against Cuba for
decades now. And so these are the same people that are very closely aligned
to the U.S. members of Congress who were promoting this legislation.

PERIES: Alex, how much of this has to do with isolating Venezuela? With the
falling oil prices, both Iran, Russia, other countries that have sanctions
against them, are all going to be affected by the falling oil prices. How
much of this is about squeezing Venezuela?

MAIN: [snip] Well, I do. And, I mean, this is a matter of speculation, but
there is a lot of circumstantial evidence, for one thing, that the U.S. has
been involved in encouraging Saudi Arabia and other Arabian countries to up
their production for geostrategic reasons in order to undermine Russia. I
think the focus has been on Russia. Of course, it also affects Venezuela.

And the record of this administration and the past one is that when they
sense that times are a bit tough in Venezuela, as they are at the moment,
they tend to do everything, really, that they can to sort of destabilize
things. And one way to destabilize things is to encourage the more radical
sectors of the opposition, those that promote violent protests like those of
February, protests that have an official objective of removing the
government from power, and not through elections, but rather through simply
destabilizing the country, I think that's-when there are moments when
Venezuela appears to be weak, that's when the administration tends to make
more aggressive moves. And I think that's also what we're seeing now.

So I think it's really a combination of factors, I think, partly to placate
these Cuban-American legislators who are so outraged about the changes in
Cuba policy, but they were behind-one of their big pieces of legislation
this year was this sanctions legislation, and the Obama administration's
given them that. And at the same time, they, I think, some of the actors
within the Obama administration, believe that by having sanctions they will
succeed in further isolating Venezuela, further promoting the more violent
sectors of the opposition, in a context where the government, they think,
could be more easily destabilized.

PERIES: Right. Alex, I thank you so much for coming to The Real News and
being such a wonderful guest. Thanks a lot.

 

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