In late December, President Obama announced that the United States would be normalizing relations with the Cuban government. In a prisoner exchange, three Cuban spies were released from U.S. custody, and the Cuban government released an American citizen incarcerated in Cuba as well as 53 political prisoners. This is the first significant shift in relations with the Castro-led Cuban government since the Eisenhower administration began the embargo in 1960. Although travel limitations have been eased in recent years, this move signals a potentially unprecedented loosening of both economic and travel restrictions. Political commentators foresee a new era in relations between Havana and Washington. The problem is, however, that very little has changed as far as Havana is concerned.
Like many people my age in Miami, my grandparents fled to the United States after the Castro regime took power. There is a very large and tight-knit Cuban community in South Florida. Although neither my parents nor I have ever been to Cuba, Cuban affairs have had an undeniable and significant influence on our lives, as well as the lives of almost everyone around us. It’s rare for the Cuban community in Miami to agree on much — besides the fact that churrasco is amazing — but it seems nearly everyone is up in arms about this new agreement. A large group of Cuban-Americans, especially the older generation that fled Cuba, tends to oppose ending the embargo for anything short of complete democratization and the ousting of the Castro regime. This has created tension between younger Cuban-Americans, who have historically been more open to compromise and negotiation, and their parents and grandparents, who experienced firsthand the horrors perpetrated by the Castro regime. I am not here to say which of these sides I believe to be correct — I do not wish to make enemies of one side of the table at every Christmas dinner. However, most of the Cuban-American community can agree that the deal between the Obama and Castro administrations was a mistake and does not do enough to help the Cuban people.
First and foremost, I take issue with the exchange of prisoners as a part of the deal. Any decision regarding the freedom or incarceration of people is a difficult one to make, but the fact that three people convicted of treason, one of whom was directly linked to the bombing of planes on a humanitarian mission, are now free to return to their country as heroes is not something that should be easily ignored or forgotten. Progress often requires compromise and reconciliation, but these people committed some of the highest federal crimes possible and should have to deal with the consequences. This exchange could signal to foreign governments that taking hostages is an effective means of ensuring the freedom of their convicted spies.
The larger issue, however, is the lack of any concessions being required of the Cuban government. This new arrangement undoubtedly helps the Cuban regime much more than the United States. It is an isolated authoritarian government that has survived mostly on subsidies from the USSR and later Venezuela, and still struggles with its own economic autonomy. Yet this opening of trade may breathe new life into the dying system without a single promise from the Cuban government to curb their violations of basic human rights. In the current system, all incoming capital goes through the Cuban government before reaching the citizens, and this new arrangement will only serve to help refill the government’s emptying coffers.
It would be unrealistic to ask the fifty-year-old Castro regime to suddenly or drastically change its nature, but the fact that this deal comes without the smallest promise of change from the Cuban government sets a disturbing precedent. The United States is essentially rewarding an authoritarian government for five decades of successfully resisting change. The U.S. cannot economically assist an authoritarian nation in the hope that this aid will cause it to change its policies — it should be the other way around. Economic assistance should be conditional to Cuba changing the way it treats its citizens. With the current deal in place, however, we can only sit back and hope that economic benefits slip through the cracks of the Castro regime and actually reach the Cuban citizens.
