CUBA-USA/FILE-RELATIONS Cuba and the United States restore relations after half-century of hostility

Record ID: 134573

  • Title: CUBA-USA/FILE-RELATIONS Cuba and the United States restore relations after half-century of hostility
  • Date: 17th July 2015
  • Summary: HAVANA, CUBA (MAY 28, 2015) (REUTERS) PEOPLE CROSSING THE STREET
  • Embargoed: 1st August 2015 13:00
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  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA6EKYMLGKGVV2UUA4FM2TX9PLW
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    The restoration of formal diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States draws to a close a historical era marked by struggle, enmity and survival.
    Days before the formal normalisation of bilateral ties, Cuban President Raul Castro said the island nation was prepared to break with the contentious past and peacefully coexist with the United States. The two countries began secret negotiations on restoring ties in mid-2013, leading to the historic announcement on Dec. 17, 2014, when Castro and U.S. President Barack Obama said they had swapped prisoners and would seek to normalise relations.
    The previous deep freeze in U.S.-Cuba ties dated to Jan. 1, 1959, when rebels led by brothers Fidel and Raul Castro toppled the U.S.-backed government of Fulgencio Batista. The Castros halted the long-time U.S.-friendly business climate in Cuba and drew ever closer to the Soviet Union.
    According to Washington-based Cuba expert, Julia Sweig, the turning of the page is a natural extension of the Castros' revolution.
    "Having not capitulated, not made concessions, resisted all of the American attempts to undermine, overthrow, sabotage, destabilise for 50 years and now while the Castros are still in power to be able to declare, 'We now have accomplished normalisation of relations, on terms that are satisfactory to the defence of our own sovereignty,' that is a message that is wholly in line with Fidel Castro's long-standing position," Sweig, a senior research fellow with the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Policy at the University of Texas, Austin, told Reuters.
    While Washington's economic embargo on the island island nation still stands for now, the recent developments in many ways draw the curtain on a political saga that has spanned the Cold War and survived U.S. hostility, CIA assassination attempts and the demise of the Soviet Union.
    Hailed by his admirers as a hero, reviled by his critics as a dictator, revolutionary leader Fidel Castro made headlines for more than four decades as the fiery, charismatic leader of the Caribbean's biggest island.
    Castro first won international fame by leading a guerrilla campaign that with popular support ousted right-wing Cuban dictator General Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959.
    Turning his back on his origins as the son of a wealthy sugar planter, he launched a political, social and economic revolution that transformed the Caribbean island from a backward playground for U.S. tourists into a Third World power. He was aided in creating the first communist administration in the western hemisphere by his close friend, revolutionary icon, and Argentine native, Ernesto "Che" Guevara.
    Castro's belligerently anti-U.S. stance made him the target of a series of attempts by Washington to remove him. These included an abortive invasion attempt at Cuba's southern Bay of Pigs in 1961 by more than 1,000 Cuban exiles trained and financed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
    Shortly after the Bay of Pigs fiasco Havana and Moscow signed a pact agreeing to secretly install Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuban soil. The world was brought to the brink of nuclear war when Washington discovered their existence. The tension did not subside until Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to dismantle the missile sites.
    Castro continued to foster close relations with Moscow that were to last for three decades. Havana also built up the biggest army in the Western Hemisphere outside the U.S. He boosted Cuba's role as a world player by sending Soviet-armed Cuban "internationalist" troops to defend left-wing governments in Ethiopia, Namibia and Angola. And he also backed left-wing revolutionaries all over Latin America.
    During the 1980's, after years of economic struggle, Cuba began to enjoy reasonable prosperity, largely due to trade agreements with the Soviet Bloc. By the end of the decade however, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was moving Soviet republics towards a market economy and in 1989 he visited Havana in an attempt to persuade Castro to accept change. Castro insisted Cuba should follow old style communist doctrine and isolated himself from the bloodless revolution which resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
    With the loss of his old trading partners and the continuance of U.S. trade embargo, Cuba's economy almost immediately went into a steep decline. Food and consumer goods shortages became acute and rationing of food and fuel was introduced during what was known as the "special period".
    In the summer of 1994, when Cuba was suffering its worst post-Soviet economic crisis, more than 30,000 Cubans took to the sea in boats and rickety rafts heading for the southern tip of Florida. Most were picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard and ended up in the United States but many lost their lives in the shark-infested waters.
    Shortly afterwards, the U.S. Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act in order to further deter foreign trade and investment with Cuba. The law allowed U.S. nationals to seek compensation from companies that profited from private assets expropriated by the Cuban government after the revolution and deny visas to the managers and principal shareholders of those companies.
    The deepening of the gulf between the two neighbours was the backdrop of a major family drama that became a stand-in for bilateral tensions.
    In June 2000, a bitter seven-month custody battle ended with six-year-old Elian Gonzalez returning home to Cuba. Elian was rescued at sea off the U.S. coast after surviving a boat wreck that killed his mother and ten other would-be migrants from Cuba. Elian's return was seen as a major political victory for Castro who blamed U.S. immigration legislation for encouraging Cuban migrants.
    In 2002, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter became the highest ranking U.S. official to visit Cuba during Castro's regime. Carter, while criticising the lack of political freedoms in Cuba, added his voice to growing pressure on Washington to ease its trade embargo.
    But the embargo remained in place and in May 2004 the White House under President George W. Bush announced further travel and economic restrictions and increased support for Cuban dissidents. Castro responded by leading hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in a massive protest march in Havana.
    At the march, Bush was referred to as a "fascist" and his image was likened to German dictator Adolf Hitler's face on posters.
    "I will be in the first line to die fighting in defence of my country," Castro said at the time.
    Castro continued to be a global icon for leftist leaders, and kept close ties with his protege, the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
    Yet health continued to plague Castro in the new millennium as he fainted during speeches and finally began to accept a transfer of power.
    Castro's health finally gave out in June 2006 when a serious intestinal ailment forced him to hand provisional power over to his younger brother, Raul Castro.
    The younger Castro formally took power in 2008 as his older brother's roles continued to be scaled back in the communist party.
    "I really didn't think I'd ever see this moment, but the they have been working a long time, and I just got a surprise. After August 7, I will be out of work, I learned after speaking to the national assembly." he said about stepping down.
    Upon taking the reins of the government, the younger Castro has proven less bellicose toward America than his brother. He has also given more autonomy to state-run companies, slashed state payrolls and subsidies and reduced the state's role in agriculture and retail in favour of a growing "non-state sector".
    "Raul Castro inherited the presidency in 2008 from his brother Fidel, and has undertaken inexorable policies to transform the Cuban economy, to rewrite the social contract, to make it possible for the legacy of the revolution to be sustained. And sustaining the most important legacies of the revolution, education, social welfare, health care, a capacity to have an autonomous foreign policy meant settling this long-term enmity with Washington," said Sweig, who is also the author of, "Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know."
    When Obama announced the move to normalise relations last December, he said it was time to "cut loose the shackles of the past."
    In a speech at the White House, Obama said the thaw in relations after a five-decade freeze was made after he determined the "rigid" and outdated policy of the past failed to have an impact on Cuba.
    "Today, the United States of America is changing its relationship with the people of Cuba and the most significant changes in our policy in more than 50 years. We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests. And instead we will begin to normalise relations between our two countries," he said.
    Speaking the same day in Cuba, Raul Castro embraced the new openness.
    "As a result of a dialogue at the highest levels, including a telephone conversation yesterday with President Barack Obama, we've been able to reach solutions in several areas of interest for both nations," he said.
    During the same month of the joint announcements, the dissident Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, which keeps track of activists in the different opposition groups, counted a total of 114 political prisoners on the island, although the number included 12 on parole after being released plus several others who had since been freed.
    In the ensuing months, high level talks took place leading up to the 2015 Summit of the Americas in Panama City.
    Then at the summit itself, U.S. President Barack Obama met Cuban President Raul Castro and the two men agreed to push ahead on improving relations. Describing their private meeting as "historic," Obama said the two countries could end the antagonism of the Cold War era, although he said he would continue to pressure the regime on democracy and human rights.
    At their 80-minute meeting in Panama, Obama and Castro sat side by side in polished, wooden chairs in a small conference room. The mood was cordial but businesslike. Both wore dark suits and each nodded and smiled at some of the comments made by the other in brief statements to reporters before they began their talks.
    Castro said at the time he would continue to take steps toward normalising relations with Washington, and was open to discussing human rights and other issues.
    Days after the meeting, Obama told Congress he intended to remove Cuba from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, clearing the way for restoring diplomatic relations.
    That event occurred in May, 2015, and was announced by the State Department.
    "I am sure many have seen but just to point out that we issued this morning a statement about the rescission of Cuba's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. It is effective today, May 29, 2015. And, this reflects our assessment after undertaking the review that was requested by the president, our assessment that Cuba meets the statuary criteria for rescission," U.S. State Department Spokesman Jeff Rathke announced from Washington.
    According to Sweig, a Cuba with a normal relationship with the United States is primed to continue what the younger Castro has already begun to set in motion.
    "Being able to take the United States off the table as a domestic political actor (in Cuba), remove what had been for so long the perception of the United States as a national security threat to Cuba will help that reform dynamic (under Raul Castro) consolidate, solidify and advance on the island," she told Reuters.
    With diplomatic ties restored, the two countries separated by 90 miles (145 km) of sea will now begin the more difficult and lengthy task of normalising overall relations.
    Castro said completely normal relations with the United States would be impossible as long as Washington maintains its economic embargo against the island.
    Obama, a Democrat, has eased parts of the U.S. embargo but would need the Republican-controlled Congress to lift it completely.
    Castro also said normalization would require the return to Cuban sovereignty of the U.S. naval base at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay, although American officials have said Guantanamo is not a topic of discussion in talks with Cuba.
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