CUBA-US: New Thaw in Relations?

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Jan 21 2002 (IPS) - Military cooperation, the first commercial transaction in four decades and a veritable invasion of Cuba by US political and business leaders have marked the traditionally turbulent relations between the United States and Cuba at the start of this new year.

Some analysts have even begun to talk about the possibility of a new thaw in the lingering Cold War hostility between the two countries.

Others, less optimistic, recall a similar but short-lived scenario that preceded the 1996 shooting down by the Cuban air force of two small airplanes piloted by civilian members of a Cuban exile group in Florida, Brothers to the Rescue, which had violated Cuban airspace.

The crisis triggered by the shoot-down cut short the detente and the growing hopes among sectors in both countries that the economic sanctions Washington put in place against Cuba in 1960 might be lifted.

Cuba’s Defence Minister, General Raúl Castro, said Saturday that a climate of mutual respect and cooperation could be observed in relations between the two countries, although he admitted that US-Cuban ties were “unpredictable.”

The defence minister, President Fidel Castro’s brother and one of his closest associates since the January 1959 triumph of the Cuban revolution, visited the area along the edge of the Guantanamo navy base, a US enclave located 970 kms southeast of Havana.

Over the past 10 days, the base has received more than 100 prisoners taken captive by the United States in its war on Afghanistan. According to Raúl Castro, Cuba not only has no problems with the transfer of prisoners to Guantanamo, but is willing to provide medical and health assistance if necessary.

Raúl Castro added that after several decades marked by tension along the perimeter of the US military enclave, the 1990s saw a warming of relations in the zone, including regular communications between US and Cuban officials.

The new climate of cooperation could extend to the fight against drugs and terrorism, in which Cuba only disagrees with the United States regarding methods, said the defence minister. “We are prepared to cooperate as far as possible,” he added.

The stance taken by the government regarding the housing of prisoners captured in Afghanistan at the naval base surprised many Cubans, who are accustomed to the Castro administration’s staunch opposition to any use given the base – leased to Washington in perpetuity in 1903 – by the United States.

Havana’s latest gesture came on top of its offer of medical aid for the victims of the Sep 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

In another development without precedent in over four decades, the government of George W. Bush offered Cuba humanitarian aid after Hurricane Michelle tore through this Caribbean island nation on Nov 4.

Although Castro politely declined the offer of aid, he did ask the Bush administration to approve a one-off sale by US companies of food items to restore Cuba’s emergency reserves, which were used to assist those left homeless by the storm.

So far, four freighters have arrived in Cuba with shipments of frozen chicken, corn, wheat, soybeans and rice, as part of the first commercial transaction between the two countries since 1963, estimated at 30 million dollars.

Trade opportunities between Cuba and the United States will be discussed next weekend at the southeastern Mexican resort city of Cancun, in a meeting that will be attended by around one dozen Cuban ministers and other high-level officials, according to US sources.

We are at a moment in our history in which we can make great progress towards a normalisation of ties, US Democratic congressman William Delahunt said this month in Havana.

Delahunt visited Havana as part of a delegation of US legislators. After meeting with Fidel Castro on Jan 6, the lawmaker stressed the president’s willingness to open up and to accept new opportunities.

The congressman had visited Cuba several times in the past, and had already met with Castro.

We could soon see dramatic changes in relations between our two countries, despite the Sep 11 attacks and the events that have marked the over 40 years that have passed since the Cuban revolution, former US diplomat Sally Grooms Cowal said on Jan 8.

Other members of the delegation were Republican lawmaker Jo Ann Emerson and Democratic legislators Hilda Solis, Collin Peterson, William Clay, Victor Snyder and Stephen Lynch.

Senators Arlen Specter and Lincoln Chafee also visited Cuba this month, as did a group of around 500 US business representatives and their families. Both the senators and the entrepreneurs were received by President Castro.

Sources with the New York-based US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council estimate that 160,000 US nationals visited Cuba in 2001, although the Cuban Foreign Ministry puts that figure at around 68,000, including 90 delegations, 10 of which were made up of members of the US Congress and 15 of which were comprised of representatives of the US business community.

Havana also reportedly asked for assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) to clarify the murder of a Cuban couple from Miami who were vacationing in Cuba.

A US government source said Cuban authorities were trying to confirm the involvement of Osmani Placencia – the murdered couple’s Cuban-American son – in the trafficking of people to southern Florida.