Posts in President Carter
Alan Gross's Appeal in Cuba, and Then What?
Alan Gross will have his appeal to Cuba's Supreme Court on July 22nd. Will his conviction and 15 year sentence stand? And if it does, will Cuba's leaders feel pressure to step in to commute the sentence and release him?
A few weeks ago, I attended a talk offered by Bob Pastor, former National Security Advisor to President 
Jimmy Carter, who traveled with the former president this spring on his second trip to the island. Pastor said in on-the-record comments - and I'm paraphrasing here from notes I took - that Carter left Cuba with the impression that Raul Castro wants to find a way to release Gross. Many will say (and I agree), wait a minute, if he really wants to release Gross (whether because he believes Gross doesn't belong in prison, should be allowed to go home to cancer-stricken family members, or whether he even just wants the political stumbling block to U.S. engagement removed), he could do so right now.
Nonetheless, if Raul Castro has either his own, his brother's, or other Cuban government hardliners' pride on his mind (and in Cuba, the US government program that sent Gross to the island is seen as an illegal foreign intervention aiming to bring down the Cuban government), what will convince him it's time to step in?
Reading the Carter Tea Leaves
In reviewing the transcript of former President Carter’s press conference in Havana on Wednesday, he says many things we’ve all heard before: End the embargo. Remove Cuba from the U.S. State Department’s State Sponsors of Terrorism List. Restore basic freedoms in Cuba. What's refreshing though is that these comments emanate from one individual, who, as a former U.S President and recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, knows more than a bit about the intersection of foreign policy making and human rights.
Consistency is something often lacking in discussions about U.S.-Cuba policy, such that Carter's two-pronged message, calling on both the U.S. and Cuba to take affirmative steps to improve relations, carried with it the exotic flavor of equity. In calling for the repeal of the U.S. embargo and the end of restrictions on travel between the U.S. and Cuba for Americans and Cubans, Carter pointed out the hypocrisy of a U.S. policy that curtails the rights of its own citizens under the guise of punishing a rights-abusing regime.
“I believe we should immediately eliminate the trade embargo that the United States has imposed on the people of Cuba and also allow travel without any kind of restriction from the U.S. to Cuba and vice-versa…”
One does not have to agree with everything the former President said to appreciate the significance of a distinguished American statesman publicly calling for an end to the U.S. embargo and decrying Cuba’s lack of freedoms in a single breath.
Sen. Menendez Irked by Carter Visit, Wants Havana in Control of U.S.-Cuba Policy
For the past two days, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has met with a range of government officials and religious leaders in Havana. This morning, he spoke with a group Cuban human rights and pro-democracy activists including bloggers Yoani Sánchez and Claudia Cadelo, Elizardo Sánchez of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, Oswaldo Payá co-founder of the Varela Project, members of the Damas de Blanco, and 12 “Black Spring” prisoners who, upon their recent release from prison, have remained in Cuba.
In other words, Carter is doing his homework.
Of particular interest to many is his meeting this morning with members of the dissident community, something that puts him in sharp contrast with other high-level officials who visit Cuba and do not publicly meet or otherwise acknowledge Cuba's human rights and pro-democracy activists.
In spite of Carter's well-balanced agenda, critics are of course arguing that his visit brings legitimacy to the Cuban government. Yes, after more than fifty years of relatively stable communist rule in Cuba, some are still pulling their hair out over questions of legitimacy. However one defines legitimate, the Cuban government is a functioning actor in the international community whether you agree with their ideology or not. And beyond questions of legitimacy, to think that engagement equals endorsement is to reduce U.S. foreign policy to the simplicity of pre-school politics. “I don’t like you, so I’m not going to talk to you”. Our foreign policy making tool box is too well stocked to circumscribe our powers within such an immature and simplistic doctrine.
It is true that U.S. support, or the withholding thereof, can be decisive at moments of political upheaval abroad, such as during electoral disputes or times of open revolution, but Cuba is not experiencing such instability. While we may be outraged by the lack of basic freedoms in Cuba, refusing to engage with Havana on this and other issues will only provide fodder for Cuban propaganda that paints the U.S. as behemoth of the North. It's already been observed that Cuba's state-run media is reporting on Carter's trip in much more neutral language than is normally used in relation to the United States.
I won't rehash here all the reasons we should be engaging with Cuba, but in so far as we are interested in advancing the freedom of both the Cuban and American people, our dismal track record should be evidence enough that the status quo isn't working.
President Carter in Cuba: The Indefatigable Interlocutor We Need
Photo: Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter shakes the hands of eager schoolchildren during his historic trip to Cuba. (May 2002).
When former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, 86, touches down in Havana today he will confront a situation not totally unlike his last international diplomatic outing. Replace nuclear weapons with decades of distrust, add in a failing state–run economy and an American in a communist prison, and you have the backdrop against which the thirty-ninth President of the United States enters Cuba for a brief, but potentially powerful three-day visit.
Nine years ago when Carter first visited Cuba, it marked the first time an American president had set foot on the island since Fidel Castro took power. The visit was marked by a public address, broadcast over Cuban radio (and delivered in Spanish), in which President Carter called for the end of the U.S. embargo and lauded the Cuban pro-democracy initiative, the Varela Project.
Since then, and as most Cuba watchers know, significant changes have come to Cuba with many more still on the horizon. Under President Raul Castro’s watch, Cuba has essentially sworn off the state-led economy as it has precariously existed in Cuba since Fidel Castro took power. The government has pledged to lay off approximately 500,000 state workers, and has granted 171,000 private employment licenses. Next month’s Communist Party Congress, the first to be convened in 14 years, will focus on “the fundamental decisions on updating the Cuban economic model,” and will shed light on how the government plans to reconcile market-oriented reforms with political and social norms of Cuba's communist system.