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Relations With Cuba: Why Not Constructive Engagement With Castro?
| Article
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20128 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1992 |
2,018 Words |
| Author
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Wayne S. Smith
Wayne S. Smith is adjunct professor of Latin American studies
at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
and the former chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana
(1979-1982). |
Representatives of the Bush administration tell us that the United States should not enter into any king of dialogue or process of easing tensions with Cuba until it has established a market economy and held democratic elections. Those are worthy long-term objectives. Our policy should indeed be designed to encourage Cuba toward an open economic and political system. But stating long-term objectives as preconditions to the first step would seem to be putting the cart before the horse. It is not a sound policy and not one we have followed elsewhere.
When, for example, President Bush was recently defending our very extensive relationship with the Peoples Republic of China, a country which hasn't held and doesn't intent to hold democratic elections and whose human rights record makes Castro look like Snow White, he insisted that one was not likely to improve those conditions by trying to isolate the other country. Rather, he said, it was better to remain engaged with the offending country so as to influence it in the desired direction.
This was the same argument Ronald Reagan made with respect to the Republic of South Africa. It is called constructive engagement, and while one might argue that Reagan was all too ready to whitewash almost anything the south African government did (just as one wonders if there is anything the Chinese could do that would offend Bush), it is difficult to argue that the policy of constructive engagement did not produce positive results in South Africa and that it is the wrong way to go in China.
Double Standard
But if such an approach would be counterproductive in China, why is it not expected be so in Cuba as well? Or, stated conversely, if we are prepared to follow a policy of constructive engagement with China, South Africa, and several other governments far less savory (Assad in Syria, for example, is a butcher, yet we give him economic assistance), why are we not prepared to try that approach with Cuba?
Those on the other side of the issue usually begin their argument by saying that lifting the U.S. embargo now would simply provide Castro economic bail out before we have seen any significant changes on his side. Essentially, this is a matter of setting up a straw man, for those who advocate a policy of constructive engagement do not call for a lifting of the embargo at this time. Certainly I do not. I think it is probably true that, in theory, lifting the embargo would deny Castro his last
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