Reactions to the announcement of a return to the Obama-era "thaw" policy towards Cuba continue to prompt reactions by representatives of Cuba’s civil society both on and off the island.
DIARIO DE CUBA contacted several representatives of dissident and human rights organizations, and heard the opinions of academics to get their assessments of the policy announced on Monday.
According to Manuel Cuesta Morúa, a social democrat politician and vice-president of the Council for a Democratic Transition in Cuba, one of the island's best known dissidents, although the measures "are important," the challenge is "how to effectively implement them."
"At a time when repression is intensifying, actions and messages communicating that Cuban democrats have the support of governments and institutions that are friends of democracy in Cuba are essential," he says.
Cuesta Morúa does not rule out that the decision to make the announcement came in response to the migratory blackmail launched by Havana last November, when tens of thousands of Cubans began to fly to Nicaragua, which exempted them from visas, to travel from there to the southern border of the U.S.
"115,000 Cubans entering the United States in just five months is a powerful immigration bomb. I believe, though, that these measures were planned before the immigration wave. Biden had made it clear in his campaign for the White House that he would return to Obama's policy, in some way. It may seem like an emergency response to a crisis, but I don't think so. Now, this does not mean that immigration blackmail has not been wielded by the Cuban regime, as it is a policy that has been in place since the 1980s," he points out.
Cuesta Morúa is optimistic about the aid to independent civil society proposed by the White House. "There is a very dense, tight-knit and horizontal network that would make possible the entry of direct resources without mediation by the government. It would only be necessary to enable Cubans to access it, and guarantee that. I understand that a platform based in Canada was exploring an option that would move the military away from the money?s ports of entry. There is a way.
"I believe that this would make it possible to multiply the sources to send resources to civil society. At a time when the criminalization of aid to Cuban democrats, independent journalists and human rights activists is being codified, it is essential to expand and free up the capacity to send legitimate aid," he stressed.
Political scientist and historian Armando Chaguaceda indicated that the measures announced by Washington "respond to humanitarian demands having broad support on and off the island: migration and remittances. But the timing (after the approval of the Penal Code and before the Summit of the Americas) was terrible," he noted in a thread on his Twitter profile.
"The humanitarian aspect is laudable. But the absence of other measures (more support for independent businesspeople and activists on the island; placing Cuba in the framework of a global democratic agenda and not as a bilateral dispute) reveals a President Biden who is not very creative, poorly advised, and oblivious to timing," he stated.
"In this there are also other (co-)responsible parties: the agendas of anti-embargo lobbyists, and the anti-Castro establishment in the US, which have placed profits and posturing ahead of a broad, coherent and effective strategy to tackle the multiple crises that have worsened from 2020 to 2022 in Cuba."
"There is the crisis that will not be solved, regardless of the migration and the remittances, because it is rooted in a model that only knows how to exercise repression. So, it will be on that impoverished population and those committed activists where we must place our focus and hearts, while giving them all possible support, from now on," he concluded.
Juan Antonio Blanco, a PhD in History, political analyst, former diplomat at the United Nations and Executive Director of the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FHRC), agreed with a statement by Cuban-American Senator Bob Menendez, who said about the measures: "this announcement runs the risk of sending the wrong message, to the wrong people, at the wrong time and for all the wrong reasons."
Blanco told us that Washington's decision "has to do with the migratory wave, but, above all, with the idea that by giving resources to the Cuban dictatorship, the situation in Cuba will improve a little, and the country will be more stable, thus stemming migratory flows. This idea was propagated by Cuban Intelligence and promoted by its star spy, Ana Belén Montes, in the 90s"
"In Cuba there is no private sector, because there is no free market, but rather people with a license to earn an income without the state paying them for what they do," he stressed.
Blanco recalled that in December 2020 the League of Independent Farmworkers and the Federation of Rural Women (FLAMUR) sent an open letter to Miguel Díaz-Canel proposing five measures to avert a famine in Cuba.
"This missive was ignored, its signatories were repressed, and six months later the country exploded, on July 11. Who will those entrepreneurs be for whom the Biden Administration wants to lift the embargo’s restrictions, opening the way to billions of dollars? Will it be for the new oligarchy, which is taking steps, together with Venezuela, to privatize state enterprises and put them in its own name? Will the Biden Administration end up financing the impending Cuban piñata?" he wondered.
Yaxys Cires, a Christian Democrat, Strategy Director at the Cuban Human Rights Observatory (OCDH), and coordinator of the Cuba Humanista platform, told DIARIO DE CUBA that "the Biden Administration may have received pressure from several fronts to take these measures: the Cuban government, with its migratory challenge; the lobbies, and, recently, from the leftist governments in the region, López Obrador chief among them, who are boycotting the Summit of the Americas so that the United States will invite the region’s anti-democratic regimes."
Agreeing with Chaguaceda, he believes that "it is strange, to say the least, that these measures came out now, when the regime is at its most repressive, with more than 1,000 political prisoners in jails, and a few hours after having approved a Penal Code more ‘liberticidal’ than the current one, which could end up jailing even those who receive financing from abroad to help their countrymen exercise their rights," he stressed.
"Some of these measures, the humanitarian ones, had been lodged with the U.S. Administration by Cuban democratic actors for more than a year, when the worsening of the humanitarian situation began, but there was no response. The fact that they are announced in the current repressive context and, presumably, in response to pressure dynamics, makes it difficult for these democratic sectors to be protagonists in something that could favor a sector of the population."
Regarding the possibility that Washington's policy of aid to independent civil society will be effective, he said: "The Cuban banking and financial system is controlled by the State and, with it, by GAESA, but they also control most of the economy, starting with the retail and wholesale markets. It is positive that ways are being sought for remittances to reach citizens directly, and also to lower the costs of sending them, and for them to be received in hard currency."
"I don't like to mix the issue of remittances with that of entrepreneurs, because, although many have started their businesses with financial support from their families abroad, when this is done as part of a State program, mechanisms of transparency and control are required so as to prevent the beneficiaries from being parties tied to the regime, and to keep the profits from passing through State hands. Has the U.S. Administration already considered those mechanisms?" he asks.
Regarding one of the complaints voiced by the opposition in Cuba after the beginning of the "thaw," and now being repeated, he says: "It seems that, once again, measures are being taken unilaterally, without the Cuban regime making verifiable political, economic and social changes. In fact, the new Penal Code is the opposite, and will allow the Cuban Government to maintain its blackmail mechanism, such as having political prisoners at all times as a bargaining chip. As far as we know, there is not even a commitment by the regime to deliver remittances in dollars, or to suspend its power to decide which Cubans enter or leave their own country."
Regarding the possibility that these measures will contribute to achieving democracy in Cuba, Cires reiterated his skepticism.
"Those that are humanitarian are good for the people, although they do not solve the root problem, which is the failure of the socialist system. The one that has to do with academic and cultural exchanges, I think, favors some elites, and probably a unique way of interpreting culture. And the one that has to do with the support for entrepreneurs can be positive if it is guaranteed, through effective mechanisms, that this assistance is not controlled by the Communist Party and its front men."
"Is there any demand for free elections, political changes and respect for human rights? Nothing indicates that any of these measures will favor a democratic change on the island, taking into account previous experiences," he concluded.