| | |  Americas & Beyond | May 2009 
US Signals Willingness to Talks With Cuba
 Ginger Thompson - New York Times
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| | Anti-Castro Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles attends a ceremony to recognize opponents of the Castro government in Miami, Florida May 22, 2009. Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative, is accused and wanted by Cuba and Venezuela for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. Posada Carriles was arrested in the United States in 2005 on immigration charges, but was released in May 2007 after a federal judge in Texas dropped the indictment. (Reuters/Carlos Barria) | |
Washington — The Obama administration signaled Friday a willingness to reopen a channel with Cuba that was closed under President George W. Bush by proposing high-level meetings on migration between the countries.
The gesture comes as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is trying to fend off pressure from her Latin American counterparts to make an even bolder break from past policies by endorsing a proposal that would reintegrate Cuba into the Organization of American States.
A State Department spokesman, Ian C. Kelly, said, “We intend to use the renewal of talks to reaffirm both sides’ commitment to safe, legal and orderly migration; to review recent trends in illegal Cuban migration to the United States; and to improve operational relations with Cuba on migration issues.”
The high-level meetings became a biannual fixture in the mid-1990s after Cuba and the United States signed accords aimed at stemming massive waves of Cubans who were abandoning the island by boat. But President George W. Bush ended the meetings in 2004 — and effectively shut down most avenues of regular communication with Havana — after accusing Cuba of ignoring a variety of delicate issues, including exit visas, the treatment of Cubans repatriated to the island and the surveillance of dissidents.
Two months ago, President Obama lifted restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba for Cuban-Americans with relatives on the island. Even before the administration disclosed its latest initiative, outlined in a letter delivered to Cuban officials on Friday, it was clear that the reaction at home and abroad could pose significant political challenges.
Sarah Stephens, an expert on Cuba policy, praised the move, saying, “It is a signal not just to Cuba but also to the region that we’re leaving behind our policy of isolation and moving in the direction of engagement.”
Three members of Florida’s congressional delegation — Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, all of whom are Republicans — issued a joint statement denouncing the administration for proposing reopening talks with Cuba.
They said Mr. Bush had suspended the meetings because the Cuban government refused to give exit visas to Cubans who had received permission to enter the United States.
“The Obama administration should first insist that the Castro dictatorship complies with the accord before renewing talks,” the lawmakers wrote. “Regrettably, this constitutes another unilateral concession by the Obama administration to the dictatorship.”
Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, said, “The administration is missing opportunities to make real change in Cuba.”
With a meeting of the Organization of American States scheduled in Honduras for June 2, a confrontation was already brewing between the Obama administration and most Latin American governments over Cuba.
A majority of the organization’s members is expected to support lifting a provision that was used to expel Cuba from the organization in 1962, citing its alliance with “the Communist bloc” that broke “the unity and solidarity of the hemisphere.”
Aware of the domestic political problems that any change in relations with Cuba could create, the Obama administration is trying to draw firm limits to any engagement. Senator Menendez, who is chairman of the committee that approves foreign assistance programs, has said he will withhold American financing to the O.A.S. — which amounts to about 60 percent of its budget — if it invites Cuba to rejoin.
Administration officials reiterated this week a long-term American determination to keep Cuba out of the organization until it demonstrated a willingness to adopt the democratic principles that are a part of the organization’s charter. Cuba must be willing to “take the concrete steps necessary” to comply with the charter’s principles, Mrs. Clinton told a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“If Cuba is not willing to abide by its terms,” she said, “I cannot foresee how Cuba can be a part of the O.A.S., and I certainly would not be supporting in any way such an effort to admit it.”
José Miguel Insulza, the organization’s secretary general, said in an interview that the proposal to lift the 1962 provision was not aimed at immediately readmitting Cuba. In fact, he noted that Cuban officials had spoken strongly against rejoining the organization, which it disparages as a tool of the United States.
Mr. Insulza said that the provision banning Cuba was forged during the cold war, in an international context that no longer existed. Today, Cuba is the sole Communist government in the hemisphere, and yet it has diplomatic relations with every nation in the region except the United States. The United States’ effort to isolate Cuba for nearly five decades has not produced free and fair elections. It is time, Mr. Insulza said, to try a new way.
Before the Summit of the Americas in April, Mr. Obama lifted the restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba, hoping to appease calls from the region for an end to the American embargo.
Mr. Obama told his Latin American counterparts that his administration had demonstrated its willingness to move away from past American policies, and that the next move was up to Cuba. Latin American leaders, however, made clear that they wanted the United States to do more.
“I think the region is ready to close the old chapter and start a new chapter with Cuba,” said Flavio Darío Espinal, a former ambassador to the United States from the Dominican Republic. “There has never before been this kind of confluence of opinions. But the key thing is going to be finding a way to break the ice.”
Many polls have shown a majority of Cuban Americans support some form of diplomatic engagement with Cuba, but there remain powerful political figures, including Senator Menendez, who will not tolerate significant changes in American policy without significant changes in Cuba.
Mark Landler contributed reporting. |
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