Last month, I argued President Barack Obama’s engagement policy with Cuba obscured the Cuban people’s demands for human rights within the island. Last Sunday, the communist island’s commitment to repress dissidents was projected once again, despite the fact that a U.S. president was scheduled to set foot on the island for the first time since 1928. Hours before Obama landed in José Martí International Airport for his historic visit in Cuba, more than 50 dissidents were arrested by Cuban authorities after marching to demand improved human rights in the island. The members of the dissident group, known as the “Ladies in White,” reportedly marched at a suburb called Miramar after Mass — a routine that is all but too common for the dissident group.
A month ago, I would’ve argued the occurrence of these type of events is an example of how Obama’s engagement with Havana is indifferent toward human rights. But this has slowly become a cliché argument made by critics of the normalization of relations that skews the truth of the president’s intentions. Today, I realize Obama’s strategy, while it does not lead to a direct resolution of the human rights crisis in Cuba, does deserve more credit. The current policy of rapprochement, despite the lack of any tangible progress on human rights, is worthy of praise by Cubans and non-Cubans alike.
The reason I reconsidered my criticism against Obama’s policy of rapprochement is straightforward. One must recognize that Obama has not given up on human rights in order to pursue normalization between Washington and Havana. Instead, he is pursuing normalization as a path to improving human rights. It’s clear that the United States fighting for a free Cuba before normalizing relations with the island would be highly controversial and, frankly, unrealistic. Diplomacy requires a mediated, responsible and cooperative attitude from all parties involved; it doesn’t call for a superpower to forcibly implement policies aimed at improving human rights to an embargoed island.
Although controversial, the United States’ policy of normalization with Cuba isn’t new: in fact, it’s almost identical to the United States’ policy toward China since President Richard Nixon’s trip to Beijing in 1972. At first glance, one might see U.S.-Cuba relations as an unprecedented political occurrence — a common mistake many opponents make. But it’s a situation the United States has historically found itself in several occasions.
Drawing a picture of the situation is simple. The United States has had an embargo against Cuba since 1960, imposed by the Eisenhower administration as soon as the new Castro regime began nationalizing privately-owned enterprises and promoting a socialist program. Since then, and until recently, the embargo got increasingly worse for the island. These economic pressures on the island were widely believed to be a punishment for its communist regime — a punishment that would eventually get so unbearable it would weaken and discredit the communists out of power. Yet a half-century later, barely any progress has been made in achieving this goal.
After a policy fails to show any credible results after such a long time, discarding it and trying alternative methods to rid the island of its failed socialist agenda should be a no-brainer. Yet many regard isolating the island and economically depriving the Cubans of certain economic opportunities as proper and just.
"I think it's a real mistake. I think the president ought to be pushing for a free Cuba,” Sen.Ted Cruz (R-TX) said. It’s interesting how conservatives alike criticize Obama’s policies of rapprochement with the communist island, yet some commentators praise Nixon’s defiant and bold move to normalize relations with China. Not only is this perplexing and ridiculous; it’s hypocritical. Pushing for a free Cuba has been the sole purpose of isolating the island and its outdated economy, but it hasn’t worked. The fact that a new strategy is needed shouldn’t surprise people. History, however, shows us that Obama’s policy toward the island is not a new strategy — it’s one which has been used and has effectively produced results.
Critics of Obama’s policy of rapprochement also fail to propose any alternative methods through which the United States government can push for a free Cuba without engaging with a Castro regime. Isolation and economic pressures only seem to perpetuate the island’s conditions. The United States, if it truly wishes to help the Cuban people, cannot sit around until Cuba cleanses itself from an authoritarian regime. Obama has taken the correct approach and the initiative to address the island’s poor conditions through diplomacy. Coercion and bigotry towards the Cuban island in hopes of freeing it seems to be an outlandishly ridiculous proposal.
Obama’s failure to directly condemn the Cuban government’s repression of certain human rights, combined with his commitment to soften the island’s economic pressures, also keeps drawing resentment from many Cuban expatriates. As the son, grandson and nephew of Cuban expatriates, this is something to which I am constantly exposed. Family dinners, parties and other reunions somehow end up with sorrowful and nostalgic recollections of a Cuba in which people enjoyed certain fundamental liberties, a Cuba before Fidel Castro rose to power, before an extremely socialist regime stripped my family of their freedom and hard-earned property.
But those who reminisce about a Cuba that once was should recognize that, today, the prospects to free the island from decades of communist oppression are the best they have been in over 50 years. Although I have previously highlighted the lack of progress in human rights within this entire process of normalization, I recognize that the current policy that Obama has chosen to implement is a realistic and viable path to a different, improved and freer Cuba.
Carlos Lopez is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at c.lopez@cavalierdaily.com.
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