Finally, after more than five decades, there is at last a thaw in relations between the United States and Cuba, a bastion of Communism just 120 kilometres off the coast of Florida. In a startling development on Wednesday, Havana and Washington jointly announced that both countries are to resume diplomatic relations while some travel restrictions between the two nations are to be eased.
Firstly, the breakthrough seems to have been brokered by Pope Francis, who has delivered the biggest coup in Vatican diplomacy in years by getting US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro to talk in a series of top-secret phone calls. In addition, Canada, which, ever since the days of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, has enjoyed warm relations with the Caribbean Communist cadres, worked to facilitate the groundwork that led to Wednesday’s historic breakthrough.
The first immediate sign of thaw was a prisoner swap of an American held in Havana for three Cuban spies held in the US. Under the new deal, Cuban Americans can now remit $2,000 (Dh7,356) every three months back to the island — a huge and princely sum for ordinary Cubans whose average monthly wage is $10 but who enjoy free health care, housing and education.
Rules over Cuban-Americans visiting the island are also to be relaxed, though whether many of the older generation in Little Havana in Miami will have any inclination to visit their former homeland as long as the Castro brothers hold power remains to be seen. Certainly, the rapprochement will cause fury within the community — there are no guarantees that political freedoms will follow, the Castros are still in power and the assets and land nationalised by the Communists when they came to power remain firmly under state control.
The reality is that this deal is a solid first step in normalising relations. It was inevitable. What is also inevitable is that the economic blockade on Cuba needs to be lifted. Fidel Castro and his brother have dealt with 10 separate US presidents. The embargo has failed to shake Cuban’s belief in the system, but more US money in Havana will certainly undermine the island’s Communism.
