President Obama’s speech on December 17, 2014 undoubtedly reinvented a new US-Cuba relations. As a proud activist of Cuba-Nigeria friendship, I enthusiastically reflected in this column that the historic speech was the “…the most far-reaching important bold foreign policy decision of President Obama..’ Secretary John Kerry was instructed ” ..to immediately begin discussions with Cuba to reestablish diplomatic relations that have been severed since January of 1961″. “Going forward, the United States will reestablish an embassy in Havana, and high-ranking officials will visit Cuba” Obama said. Less than a year, both President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro have given fillips to the new easing of relations. Recently there were firm disclosures to reopen respective embassies by July 20th. President Obama acknowledged the obvious; “the city of Miami is only 200 miles or so from Havana”. Yet since 1960, when America severed diplomatic relations, after the Cuban revolution, it was easier for Cubans and American citizens to visit Nigeria (thousands of kilometers away!) than for the citizens of the two countries to visit each other. President Barack Obama announced last Wednesday that the U.S. and Cuba have struck a deal to open embassies “in each other’s capitals and re-establish diplomatic relations for the first time in half a century.” “The progress we make today is another demonstration we don’t have to be imprisoned by the past,” Obama said. Obama emphasized that the U.S. and Cuba have some shared interests, such as strong anti-terrorism policies and disaster response. The statement from the Cuban government, also confirmed that Cuba is set to reopen its embassy on or after July 20 in the USA. “In making this decision, Cuba is encouraged by the reciprocal intention to develop respectful and cooperative relations between our two peoples and governments,” Cuban President Raúl Castro wrote Obama in a letter.
Both countries might be thinking outside the box of history but history hunts the new relations nonetheless. The two nations still have “very serious differences” with Obama citing the issues of “free-speech” and “civil liberties”. “We won’t hesitate to speak out when we see contradiction to those values,” The most thorny issue however is the genocidal age long economic embargo against Cuba. President Obama has urged the Congress to lift the notorious embargo with the ever reactionary conservative Republicans noisily moving against the wind of change.
Cuba has said it “decided to re-establish diplomatic relations with the United States in the full exercise of its sovereignty and with an invariable commitment with its ideals of independence and social justice, and of solidarity with the just causes of the world, while reaffirming each and every one of the principles for which our people have shed their blood and run every risk under the leadership of the historical Leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz”. Cuba has also said that the re-establishment of diplomatic relations and “..the opening of embassies completes the first stage of what will be a long and complex process towards the normalization of bilateral relations, in which it will be necessary to solve a number of issues derived from policies that were implemented in the past that are still in force and affect the Cuban nation and its people”. “There could be no normal relations between Cuba and the United States as long as the economic, commercial and financial blockade continues to be fully implemented, causing damage and scarcities to the Cuban people. The blockade is the main obstacle to the development of our economy; it is a violation of International Law and affects the interests of all countries, including those of the United States.”
In a Spoken autobiography; Fidel Castro: My Life.” (2006) the legendary Cuban revolutionary leader details the impact of half a century financial and economic embargo against Cuba thus; “Since 1960, the United States has been waging economic warfare against Cuba, and has kept the country, unilaterally and despite ever-increasing opposition by the United Nations, under a devastating trade embargo, strengthened in the nineties by the Helms-Burton Act and the Torricelli Amendment and strengthened once again by the Bush administration in May 2004. This embargo has obstructed the country’s normal development and helped aggravate its precarious financial and economic situation.
Time will tell if the new relations between Cuba and USA is a passing diplomatic fad or genuine reconciliation of two sovereigns. President Muhammadu Buhari in America this month has the singular responsibility to compliment Cuba and insist that the US Congress lift the inhuman 50 years economic embargo on Cuba. As President elect, Buhari in April received the Cuban Ambassador the Cuban Ambassador Carlos E. Trejo Sosa during which, the importance of continuing the development of the historical ties between the Cuban and Nigerian peoples was emphasized. The President Elect reportedly expressed his admiration for the leaders of the Cuban Revolution and their success.Fidel Castro once remarked ( and I agree with him) that Cubans “..are a Latin-African nation….African blood flows through our veins”! The historic sacrifices of the Cubans (embargo not withstanding!) for the liberation and development of Africa (by militarily confronting apartheid South Africa to courageous Ebola curtailment in West Africa) are well documented. Cuba free of criminal economic embargo of the USA is an enhanced asset to Africa.
Issa Aremu mni
