The Government of the still US President Joe Biden announced, among other measures, the withdrawal of Cuba from the list of States sponsoring terrorism, less than a week after being relieved by another Government of Donald Trump, who included it in 2021. At the same time At the same time, the island announced that it will release 553 “prisoners for various reasons.” What do these measures mean and what impact will they have at this point?
Just “a gesture”?
Analyst John S. Kavulich, president of the US-Cuba Economic and Trade Council, speaks of “political malpractice”. “Any benefits obtained by the Biden-Harris administration are not worth it,” he says in his newsletter, as it increases the “negative attention on Cuba” at the doors of the Trump-Vance administration. And American companies will not change their operational relationship with Cuba because they know “the fragility of the relations” between both countries, he warns.
“The impact can be great and it can be zero,” agrees Cuban economist Mauricio de Miranda, professor at the Javeriana University in Cali, Colombia, and co-director of the think tank CubaxCuba. The next US administration can reverse the decision and implement “absolutely nothing” of what it means. It has been “taken at the wrong time” and keeps the Cuban people in the middle of a “game of ping pong” between the Governments of Cuba and the United States, he states.
Cuba thus signals its willingness to negotiate quid pro quo“you give me something and I give you something,” observes German political scientist Bert Hoffmann, director of the Berlin office of the GIGA Institute for Regional Studies in Hamburg. But, despite the fact that Biden’s team claims that it coordinated with the incoming administration, it is expected to maintain a “hard line” with Cuba. In that case, everything would be “a gesture, and gestures are relevant, but they don’t change much” beyond the release of political prisoners in progress, he notes.
Political prisoners released “without guarantees”
“Disappointed” and “frustrated,” says Laritza Diversent, executive director of the NGO Cubalex.which offers legal advice in Cuba, from exile in the United States.
“It is good news that people who are deprived of their liberty, suffering inside prisons in Cuba, are released, especially if they were imprisoned unjustly,” he concedes.
However, the Cuban Government still does not recognize that it will release “political prisoners,” he says. And neither of the two governments clearly reported who they would be, nor by what criteria 553 people would have been chosen, out of more than 1,000 political prisoners registered by various NGOs.
Although the international community has normalized it, “this is not normal, and even less so if the Government releases, but does not commit to eliminating repression,” criticizes Diversent. There are no guarantees that those released will not be deprived of liberty again, that this “revolving door” of repression will not continue to rotate.
The political negotiation of the freedom of people, also sold as “humanitarian”, is a “macabre practice”, which has spread with nuances to Nicaragua and Venezuela, the Cuban jurist disapproves. And these are processes without the participation of the victims or his relatives, his freedom is negotiated without taking them into account, he denounces.
“Political prisoners have become currency. And for the Cuban Government, in a “round deal,” without the negotiators demanding obligations from them. But these releases “are not an act of kindness, but rather an obligation of the State, especially when it has been shown that most of the processes were arbitrary and without guarantees of due process,” says the director of Cubalex.
No transparency
Today Cuba gradually began “releases” (which legally are not the same as releases). But, for the moment, information about those released arrives in dribs and drabs through social networks or personal communication with family members.
And all that senior US officials announced to the press, on condition of anonymity, is that “dozens” of people considered unjustly detained will be released even at the end of the Biden administration, at noon on January 20 itself. Among them would be people who participated in the anti-government protests of July 11, 2021 (11J), the largest in decades in Cuba.
So the lack of transparency about the negotiations by both Governments deprives civil society organizations inside and outside the island of information to support those released in their physical, psychological and social rehabilitation, claims the director of Cubalex. Furthermore, “they forget that many of these people may be forced into exile,” he adds.
What could and what should happen
In the still unlikely case of the US measure – which is not yet effective– if maintained, it could alleviate the financial sanctions that weigh on the island, since the inclusion in the list of States that sponsor terrorism works as another “embargo on top of the embargo,” clarifies Cuban economist Tamarys Bahamonde, from the Center for Latin American Studies ( CLALS) from American University.
Another long-term effect could be seen in the return of European tourism to the island, if those who visit are no longer restricted from obtaining the ESTA (or electronic permit to travel to the US). Although for that the airlines that stopped flying to Cuba due to lack of demand would have to return, observes Ricardo Torres, another Cuban economist at the American University in Washington.
There are even analysts who point out that, if the serious crisis that the island is experiencing is alleviated, emigration to the US could be reduced, an effect that could be valued by the Trump Government, indicates Bahamonde. But, for that, Cuba also needs “domestic transformations,” he clarifies.
For now, everything seems to depend on what the incoming North American Government does or fails to do. And, on that side, regardless of the just demands for political freedoms from the Cuban Government, the “politicization” of the list of State sponsors of terrorism, in which Cuba has been included and excluded, respectively, in the last two weeks, should cease. of the last two US administrations, Torres highlights.
On the Cuban side, “what should happen is for the Government to sit down and dialogue with the people, to understand that the people are its main interlocutor, and not the US Government,” insists his colleague De Miranda. “Many things would be resolved if measures were taken in Cuba – both political and economic policy – towards the democratization of our society, regardless of what the United States does. When that happens, we will truly be an independent country, not before”.
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