CUBA
NEWS
U.S. and Cuba cooperate
on many issues
By Jorge Dominguez. Posted
on Sun, Feb. 29, 2004 in The
Miami Herald.
Despite high-decibel rhetoric between them,
U.S. and Cuban governments cooperate over
many issues to serve the public interest
of both countries and the political interests
of their presidents. Some cooperation began
in the 1960s, including the migration agreement
signed in 1965. Cooperative relations widened
and deepened during the Clinton administration
and even more under President Bush. This
cooperation is most evident in migration
and border-security concerns.
The two governments cooperate to ensure
safety at the border between Cuba and the
U.S. naval base at Guantánamo. That
has led to confidence-building measures,
including regular meetings between U.S.
and Cuban military commanders. The Bush
administration's decision to hold these
prisoners there deepened U.S.-Cuban military
cooperation. The United States seeks, and
Cuba willingly offers, cooperation to seal
the border to prevent Taliban and Al Qaeda
prisoner escapes from the U.S. base and
to stop cross-border infectious diseases.
In 1984, with thousands of recent arrivals
from the Mariel boatlift in federal penitentiaries,
President Reagan signed a migration agreement
designed to return to Cuba those Cubans
found excludable under the U.S. law. Since
then, every U.S. administration has fostered
this cooperation. The Bush administration
suspended bilateral migration talks in January
2004 because it wanted better cooperation
with the Castro government to enable U.S.
deportations of more Cuban excludables.
Since the Reagan presidency, U.S.-Cuban
migration agreements presume that most Cubans
do not have a legitimate fear of persecution
from the Castro government and do not, therefore,
qualify for U.S. refugee or political asylum
status. The administration argues this position
in U.S. courts.
The U.S. and Cuban coast guards also cooperate
routinely. In the Florida Straits, the U.S.
Coast Guard interdicts Cuban migrants lacking
proper U.S. documents and returns them to
Cuba. The Cuban Coast Guard permits these
operations. The coast guards cooperate from
time to time over drug-traffic interdiction,
and Cuba has offered to strengthen this
cooperation. When exile flotillas sail toward
Cuban waters to commemorate Castro government
atrocities, the two coast guards plan specific
operational details and surround the flotilla
to prevent incidents.
Exquisite treatment
The Bush administration, moreover, authorized
agricultural exports to Cuba. The United
States instantly became Cuba's principal
food supplier and one of its top import
partners. Cuba privileges U.S. exporters,
paying them in cash. No other Cuban trade
partner receives such exquisite treatment.
The U.S. government authorizes humanitarian
donations to recipients in Cuba. Most contributions
come from churches, other communities of
faith and charitable and civic groups; following
natural emergencies, some funds come from
the U.S. government. The United States is
Cuba's second largest source of donations.
The Cuban diaspora, principally from the
United States, remits about $1 billion per
year to friends and relatives in Cuba. This
sum greatly exceeds Cuba's earnings from
sugar exports. Last year, the Bush administration
liberalized the procedures for lawful Cuban-American
remittances.
The two governments cooperate because each
wants to control its borders, prevent undocumented
migration, interdict drug trafficking, promote
agricultural trade and govern security relations
between them.
Helms-Burton
What about U.S. economic sanctions? Every
six months since the enactment of the Helms-Burton
act in 1996, Presidents Clinton and Bush
suspended the statute's most important segment,
Title III, which addresses properties that
Cuba once expropriated. Both administrations
minimally enforced the statute's Title IV,
which seeks to deny visas to executives
of non-U.S. firms that traffic with Cuba.
Thus, Helms-Burton has been neutered.
Nor is the U.S. trade embargo the principal
explanation for Cuba's difficulties. Cuba
has a hard time importing goods and services
because its economy is grossly inefficient.
Cuba, however, is free to import from all
other countries. U.S. sanctions marginally
increase Cuba's financing and insurance
costs, reduce the choice in imported goods
and services and makes it more likely that
only second-tier international firms will
invest in Cuba.
Why, then, the hostile rhetoric between
national leaders and symbolic policies such
as restricting travel? Presidents Bush and
Castro benefit politically from such rhetoric.
Aggressive Bush administration rhetoric
makes it easier for Castro to sustain his
elite coalition. Whether or not most Cubans
believe that the homeland is in peril, elite
''softliners'' are held in check because
the U.S. rhetoric increases personal fear
about their fate.
Castro rhetoric
Aggressive Castro rhetoric and repression
of human-rights activists make it easier
for the Bush administration to sustain its
policies. The war of words and symbols consolidates
each president's political support where
it matters most: the few people in each
country for whom these issues matter more
than others. Yet this ag gressive rhetoric
does not prevent substantive cooperation.
And it inexpensively satisfies each president's
supporters on both sides of the Straits
of Florida. We should think more about U.S.-Cuban
cooperative relations, and not be blindsided
by the war of words.
Jorge Domínguez is a professor
and director of the Center for International
Affairs at Harvard University.
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