SUMMARY
The White House actions to restore educational and cultural travel to Cuba and to liberalize remittances, while welcome, should serve as an impetus to further improve U.S.-Cuba relations, urged participants at a Center for International Policy (CIP) conference on January 25.
“Restoration of the travel programs initiated by President Clinton in 1999 is just the first step,” said Wayne S. Smith, director of CIP’s Cuba program and conference host. “We must build on it if we are to move toward a policy that serves U.S. interests, as present policy clearly does not.” While the current Congress is unlikely to lift the embargo, there are actions independent of congressional approval that should be taken immediately, he said. These include removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and eliminating programs designed to destabilize the Cuban government. He also recommended that the President veto any funding for Radio and TV Marti.
Contributing to this theme were Philip Brenner, professor of international relations at American University; Robert L. Muse of Muse and Associates, an expert on U.S. laws regulating Cuba travel; Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson (USA, ret.), visiting professor of government and public policy at the College of William and Mary; John Spicer Nichols, emeritus professor of communications at Penn State University; and Arturo Lopez-Levy, writer and lecturer at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.
“LIKE A FULL MOON ON WEREWOLVES”
Dr. Smith began by pointing out that exactly 50 years ago, in January 1961, the United States broke relations with Cuba. Sixteen years later, in 1977, the two countries opened Interests Sections in each other’s capitals and began to talk. While the world and Cuba have changed in the last half-century, the United States is the only country that does not have normalized relations with Cuba, despite our diplomatic ties to many countries with unsavory policies. President Obama has done little to mend the relationship, and these new regulations were long in coming. “Cuba seems to have the same effect on U.S. administrations as the full moon once had on werewolves,” said Dr. Smith.
The effects of U.S. intransigence toward Cuba extend to our hemispheric relations, undercutting U.S. credentials for leadership, as Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva explicitly warned in 2009.
NEW TRAVEL REGULATIONS
The conference called on the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to apply a broad interpretation of the new travel regulations, allowing the greatest number of Americans to visit Cuba. The first speaker, Philip Brenner, welcomed the new regulations yet lamented how little had changed since the Clinton Administration’s policy. Significantly, though, colleges and universities may now use general licenses to conduct short-term courses in Cuba, open to any student enrolled in a credit-granting degree program. Adjunct and part-time faculty may teach these courses, which can employ Cuban scholars. Specific licenses are available for other educational trips to Cuba, including seminars, conferences and workshops for Cubans. Before 2004, when academic licenses were curtailed, approximately 300 U.S. academic institutions participated in programs in Cuba, compared to just 19 colleges last year. Some specifics of the new regulations remain unclear, such as whether or not general licenses will be available for the following: a one-credit course during a winter or spring break; a graduate student doing field research in advance of registering for a research course; high school seniors taking part in an accredited course; a doctor traveling alone to study tropical medicine without earning academic credit; or similarly a teacher going to learn Afro-Cuban drumming.
Regrettably, these regulations do not allow for true exchanges, said Brenner. Travel is still one-way. Cuban scholars will continue to face onerous conditions to apply for visas from the State Department, and Cuban students cannot receive scholarships to study in the United States. A glaring omission in these regulations is any acknowledgement of a U.S. citizen’s right to academic travel. The new regulations maintain the long-sought goal to change Cuba by distancing Cubans from their government. Instead, the goal should be to serve the interests of U.S. students and the American people to learn about each other and their cultures. Unsurprisingly, the Cubans view the new regulations as unfriendly.
From the audience, John McAuliff, of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development, agreed that the new regulations fail to recognize that it is vital for American students and citizens to know about Cuba, and likewise, for Cuban citizens to know about the United States. The general license, he added, should also allow U.S. medical schools to send doctors to Cuba to offer specialty training to Cubans.
The new people-to-people regulations are no less general than those Clinton put forth in 1999, so it will take time and deduction to find out how broadly they will be applied, said the next speaker, Robert Muse. “It will depend on Obama’s enthusiasm for this.” He will have to “make accommodations with congressional Republicans on foreign policy that Clinton had no incentive to pursue.” The Clinton regulations allowed a variety of U.S. institutions to create trips on a broad array of themes; if Obama follows suit, tens of thousands of Americans may travel to Cuba, limited only by available hotel rooms. On the other hand, pressure from pro-embargo congressional activists could cause the OFAC to burden licensing requirements with unrealistic and undermining language, such as insisting on “direct demanding engagement” with Cubans, as enforced by the Bush administration.
Demands for such impossible licensing requirements are likely, Muse continued, given that Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) has called the new regulations “simply outrageous” and demanded limits to the policy so as not to “enrich the Castro regime.” By announcing the new policy’s purpose as “to reach out to the Cuban people in support of their desire to freely determine their country’s future,” the White House opened the door for hardliners to tie people-to-people travel to regime change. If this happens, the Cuban government will react with hostility and refuse to grant visas, thus preventing the new policy from getting off the ground.
In response to comments from the audience, both Brenner and Muse agreed it is best for now to have a broadly defined people-to-people policy. The more it is defined the narrower it will be, so it would be better to let practice determine the details of the regulations. The strategy should be to apply for licenses and, said Muse, assume that “in the next year or two, there will be a need for passionate activity to make the regulations meet their promise.”
A discussion of challenging the legality of the travel ban raised efforts such as the unsuccessful lawsuit Muse and Wayne Smith brought in 2007 over academic travel. At one time Smith encouraged civil disobedience acts, but stopped when such acts incurred hefty fines with little due process. Now, according to an audience member, individuals often challenge the law with very little pushback, perhaps because relatively few do it. John McAuliff noted that it’s been three years since OFAC pursued any individuals traveling illegally to Cuba.
The general license for religious trips creates a big loophole in U.S. Cuba travel policy, both Muse and McAuliff believe. Since 80% of Americans belong to an organized religion, just about anyone can go, said McAuliff. All they have to do is organize a group around their church, synagogue, or mosque. Muse went further in suggesting that given constitutional limits on the government deciding on the validity of a religious belief, anyone might self-designate himself part of a religious faith for the purpose of traveling to Cuba.
STATE’S TERRORISM LIST
Colonel Wilkerson pointed out that many of the disadvantages of including Cuba on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism are well-known, from the economic constraints placed on Cuba to the diversion of U.S. law enforcement and counterterrorism personnel from real threats such as al-Qa’ida. Since the U.S. list originated in the Export Administration Act of 1979, Wilkerson said, a serious sovereignty issue exists for Cuba. Wilkerson highlighted the United States’ hypocrisy in keeping Cuba on the list and demanded it be removed immediately. He quoted a January 12 article in the Los Angeles Times by Julia E. Sweig and Peter Kornbluh: “Cuba landed on the list in the early 1980s for the support it provided to insurgencies in Central America. There is no longer evidence of support for political violence or terrorism that merits Cuba remaining on the list. In the State Department’s own words last year, Cuba remains on the list primarily because it is ‘critical of the U.S. approach to combating international terrorism.’ If disagreeing with American foreign policy is a criterion for inclusion, dozens of countries, including close allies of the United States in Latin America, would seem eligible.”
Wilkerson noted that in his experience as chief of staff at the State Department, countries were frequently listed for no other reason than political purposes, often stemming from Congressional pressure. Such politically motivated listings damage U.S. credibility and reputation, doing more harm than good, said Wilkerson. For example, the United States is considering removing an actual terrorist group trying to destabilize the regime in Iran, while insisting on including Cuba on the list of state sponsors. Wilkerson recalled meeting with Chinese diplomats who scoffed at U.S. comments about China’s record on human rights when the United States itself behaved like such a hypocrite. A challenge for those trying to change U.S. policy toward Cuba is that Cuba, unlike Iran, does not generate much attention in the United States, so the government can get away with it.
Alarmingly, according to Wilkerson, a group of moderates—including Generals Anthony Zinni and James Jones (who just stepped down as National Security Advisor to President Obama), as well as Ambassador Mitchell Reiss—has joined a group of Washington neoconservatives to have the Mujahiden-e Khalq (MeK), a bloody-minded terrorist group, delisted so it can be used to help overthrow Iran’s regime. This effort could prove successful because it can be presented as a national security issue and thus resonate with Americans. But how does this go over abroad? It makes the United States look like the ultimate hypocrite by pursuing policies that demonstrate it has little interest in the truth or in human rights but is driven entirely by selfish special interests. For this pragmatic reason alone, we must get Cuba off the list to balance the scales and restore a reasonable policy not reeking of hypocrisy, insisted Wilkerson. Increasingly, he concluded, the international community—looking at the U.S.’s steadfast and unquestioning support for Israel, its steadfast maintenance of the embargo against Cuba, and its steadfast inclusion of Cuba on the state sponsors’ list, as well as other special interest-driven foreign policies—has begun to back away from U.S. leadership and started to create and shape policies irrespective of U.S. views.
Attorney Robert Muse went on to explain the important practical consequences for a country on the terrorism list. The economic sanctions are less meaningful for Cuba because the U.S. embargo already prohibits trade; however, a listed country loses its claim to sovereign immunity in U.S. courts and is therefore subject to suits that would otherwise be dismissed. Court judgments resulting from such suits have long-term implications for U.S.-Cuba relations.
To date nearly a billion dollars in judgments, gathering compound interest at 12% a year, have been levied in South Florida against Cuba by elected Cuban-American judges, said Muse. While bogus and without basis under U.S. law, the judgments have succeeded in emptying the New York bank accounts of the Government of Cuba that had been frozen since the early 1960s. It has also opened the possibility that any Cuban government property entering the U.S. will be seized. (This includes Cubana Airlines planes, ships, cigars, bank accounts set up to pay for U.S. exports, trademarks, etc.) The claims would block bilateral trade and could preclude a normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations.
Removing Cuba from the list would not affect the final judgments, Muse said, but would make any judgments not concluded disappear.
THE MARTIS
“Radio and TV Marti are no longer big deals, as they were twenty years ago,” said John Spicer Nichols, the next speaker, but they have become symbols of the irrationality of U.S. policy and should be eliminated. Today the Miami-based U.S. government stations get very little media attention and are not players in the internal Cuban political dialogue. In fact, while few Cubans listen to Radio Marti, the broadcast version of TV Marti is not even seen on the island. Nevertheless, they have cost U.S. taxpayers roughly $1 billion and, said Nichols, devolved into a “rat’s nest of exile politics” whose contracting methods are outside U.S. government standards, attracting constant scandals. The money has been spent mostly in South Florida.
Additionally, the stations violate international telecommunications regulations and undermine U.S. credibility because they fail to meet minimum journalistic standards of accuracy and fairness. Cuban audiences, who are well informed about international and U.S. domestic affairs, find the content sophomoric and unappealing.
The radio and TV stations (established in 1985 and 1990 respectively) represent the most recent of a long line of efforts by the U.S. government to inject its version of the Cuban domestic reality into the island using often bizarre communications technologies (e.g. blimp, airplane, submarine), said Nichols. These efforts were based on erroneous assumptions that the Cuban people were uninformed and that U.S. propaganda would surely lead to internal political change. “It has not worked,” said Nichols. “There is no hard evidence that foreign propaganda via advanced communications technologies leads to regime change or other prescribed political outcome.” Yet the current U.S. government initiative to establish broadband connections and expand Internet service to the island is based on the illusion that social media will bring democracy to Cuba. And, unfortunately, USAID contractor Alan Gross, caught smuggling high-tech communications gear in support of that regime-change strategy, remains detained in Cuba. Paradoxically, Nichols noted, the most effective way to increase communications would be through American travelers and tourists, which the hardliner Cuban-Americans behind these strategies are strongly against.
DESTABILIZING PROGRAMS
The final speaker, Arturo Lopez-Levy, pointed out that the Helms-Burton Act set up the USAID programs to destabilize the Cuban government. Helms-Burton was not a pro-democracy, or a pro-human rights program, but a regime change policy in violation of international law. The act selectively espoused human rights, calling for elections without first establishing a context in which they could peacefully happen. Normally elections come at the final stage of a human rights process, not at the beginning. Nor did the act call for a review of the impact of sanctions on the civilian population, as is expected in such a process. The act’s “goal was purely regime change by imposition,” said Lopez-Levy. This was clearly expressed by former assistant secretary of state Roger Noriega who recognized that the goal of these programs under the Bush administration was to seed “chaos” and “instability” to provoke a regime change.
“The USAID program was created as a policy tool by the Cuban American right for the Cuban American right,” he continued. Unlike most of the 72 USAID programs worldwide, the Cuba program has no development component and does not include improving Cuban living standards as a goal. It lacks criteria to evaluate its effect, as two reports from the Government Accountability Office noted. Furthermore, it takes a hostile view of the state, assuming that anything that hurts the state improves human rights. Unlike other USAID programs, the Cuba program does not bring the host governments into the process.
The program’s regime change focus limits the possibility of actual civil-society building and human rights improvement through a gradualist approach, in cooperation with legitimate and independent Cuban civil society organizations. These organizations reject the violations of Cuban sovereignty embedded in the Helms-Burton Act.
Comparing the USAID programs in Vietnam with those in Cuba illustrates how the United States is missing an opportunity to play a constructive role in Cuba’s future. While Vietnam’s one party government is similar to Cuba’s, Lopez-Levy said, USAID’s website shows how differently the two countries are regarded: USAID programs in Vietnam are legitimate and contribute to the country’s development, whereas USAID-Cuba manifestly does not.
If Alan Gross went to Cuba to distribute communications gear in the Jewish community, he never sought permission of the Jewish leaders. This is standard procedure in international development assistance. Perhaps he did not request such consent because the leaders of the Cuban Jewish community, the Cuban bishops, and the National Council of Churches have all made it clear that they do not like and will not cooperate with such Helms-Burton programs. While the religious groups have said they favor freedom and a market economy, they do not want to do this by means of Helms-Burton strategies.
USAID-Cuba-sponsored conferences in other countries, such as one organized by CADAL (Centro para la Aperatura y el Desarrollo de America Latina) in Argentina, equate “democracy promotion” with defense of the embargo, said Lopez-Levy, and send speakers abroad on the USAID payroll to support this view.
The same can be said about the Creighton University report on property claims, sponsored by USAID. While recognizing that Cuban American claims do not classify as “American” under international law, the report recommended that an exception be made. In both cases the interest is not democracy promotion in Cuba but rather promoting the agenda of the Cuban American right.
Only 17% of funds allocated under the act for Cuban democracy promotion reach Cuba; the rest is spent in South Florida or elsewhere and is poorly accounted for, leading to charges of massive corruption at the Center for a Free Cuba and other places.
President Obama has a clear opening for exchanges between the United States and Cuba, and he has taken important, yet limited, steps. “But it’s essential the U.S. does not mix these exchanges with regime change programs,” Lopez-Levy insisted.
WHAT NEXT?
A discussion of next steps prompted conference participant John McAuliff to summarize the key tasks at hand:
1) Demand that Cuba be removed from the list of state terrorism sponsors. This has immense consequences, legally and psychologically, both here and in Cuba.
2) Assure the new travel policies are fully implemented with the broadest possible scope.
3) Encourage as many Americans as possible to travel to Cuba so as to effectively end the travel restrictions. Urge universities and religious group to organize programs and trips and get others to organize trips directly. The goal should be 100,000 American travelers in the next year. “Travelers to Cuba create a dynamic for reform there that will create a dynamic for reform here,” McAuliff said.
Wayne Smith concluded the conference by citing the unjustifiable imprisonment of the so-called Cuban Five, another highly charged issue whose resolution would further help improve U.S.-Cuba relations. “This situation calls for its own conference, which CIP will organize in the near future,” he announced.
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The Center for International Policy wishes to express its appreciation to the Christopher Reynolds Foundation and the Ford Foundation for their generous support, without which neither the conference on January 25 nor this report would have been possible. |
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