The Summit’s Cuba Sour
16 Apr
Long before the demands of holding two jobs (being the presidential candidate of the Socialist Party in Chile, and acting as the secretary general of the Organization of American States) got to be too much, Jose Miguel Insulza always made sure that everyone knew about his negotiating skills — Urbi et Orbi.
However, in recent months, and with the Summit of the Americas coming up, Insulza added Cuba to his wish list. Repeatedly, Insulza has expressed his deep desire to facilitate any future “conversations” between the U.S. and Cuba, and has promised to play an important role in “returning Cuba to the OAS.”
There is only one problem.
Cuba does not want to “return to the OAS,” which Insulza has known since Cuba’s president Raul Castro told him so in Salvador de Bahia in December of 2008.
Around the hemisphere, Insulza’s ‘one man show’ is viewed with a certain degree of suspicion. Brazil and Venezuela, each with their own agendas and reasons, also are pressuring the US to end its embargo on Cuba.
An embargo that is worth over 2 billion dollars in annual exports from the US, mostly by selling agricultural products to the island. Cuba, on the other hand, does not sell anything to the US, and must endure “renting” out Guantanamo.
Hard facts that are not mentioned as the fight (albeit a very diplomatic one, of course) over who is in charge of the ‘Cuban affaire’ unfolds behind the scenes.
The new US administration needs a place where it can show its goodwill, and its intention to at least evaluate the embargo, without treating it as a political issue, and the Summit provides just such an opportunity. In addition, the Summit allows the US to address the current pressure by Latin American countries, and the almost natural support from the Caribbean nations towards Cuba.
Nevertheless, the Obama administration’s choice of the Summit of the Americas as its main tool to engage with Cuba is a strange one. The Summit was established in 1994 to create a FTAA, but today, with so many bilateral free trade agreements in place, it does not have much of a reason to exist.
The disproportionate importance given to the Summit may stem from a more general confusion.
Strictly speaking, the more appropriate forum should be the Organization of American States, where Cuba remains a member (although it was suspended in 1962, nearly forty years before the OAS adopted an Inter-American Democratic Charter pledging that all states in the Americas would be democratic). In contrast, the Summit is is a purely commercial and financial endeavour where the Organization of American States and its 34 member states function under the umbrella of the ‘inter-American system’ (which includes the Inter-American Development Bank, the Pan-American Health Organization, and similar organizations). The Summit, however, already has too many mandates, many of which it cannot address.
Besides the powerful commercial and financial lobby that eyes a potential market of more than 11 million Cubans close to Florida and Texas, two major issues are in play: the relevance of the OAS (and its current 10 million dollar deficit), and the question whether a bilateral issue can be treated on a multilateral basis.
The OAS recently intervened in another bilateral dispute, after Ecuador accused Colombia of sending military forces across their joint border and violating its sovereignty. Until now, the mediation of the OAS (and Secretary-General Insulza) has been a failure. The two countries have achieved more in private talks that anything through the OAS. This shouldn’t be a surprise, since the OAS Mission to Support the Peace Process in Colombia (MAPP/OAS), is funded by Plan Colombia.
A 2005 report by Human Rights Watch has the following to say about the MAPP/OAS:
In practice, however, the OAS Mission has played a highly questionable role, serving primarily as a rubber stamp for the actions taken by the Colombian government. Throughout, the OAS Mission has been silent about the problems with the process, and as a result, has helped to give the process a veneer of international legitimacy.
Until now, conflicting versions about the real intentions of Cuba has been fulled by the fact that Insulza claims that Raul Castro told him that Cuba wanted to return to the OAS, while the Cubans consistently refutes it.
Just as the Summit is set to begin, Fidel Castro made that more than abundantly clear:
Insulza says that to enter the OAS, Cuba first has to be accepted by the institution. He knows that we do not want to even hear the infamous name of this institution. It [the OAS] has never provided any service to our people, and it is the embodiment of betrayal. If you add up all the aggressive actions of which it was an accomplice, they reach hundreds of thousands of lives, and tens of years of accumulated blood. Their meeting [the Summit] will be a battleground that will embarrass many governments. Do not say, however, that Cuba throws the first stone. We are even offended by the assumption that we are eager to join the OAS. That train passed a long time ago, and Insulza has not found out yet.
Whatever has been promised by this self-proclaimed “point man” at the OAS, we just have to wait and see if Madame Secretary Clinton will listen to the Cubans, or to the swan song of the OAS (an institution that is mostly funded by the US to the tune of over 50 million dollars annually).
