Cuba in the Western Hemisphere: What Has Changed?

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.7.2.0142
• Published date: 01 December 2015
• Date: 01 December 2015
• Pages: 142-163
• Author: Carlos Oliva Campos,Gary Prevost
• Subject Matter: Seventh Summit of the Americas,Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of America (ALBA-TCP),Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC)

InternatIonal Journal of Cuban StudIeS 7.2 WInter 2015

AcAdemic ArticlesACADEMIC ARTICLES

CUBA IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE:

WHAT HAS CHANGED?

Carlos Oliva Campos

University of Havana, Cuba

Gary Prevost

St. John’s University, USA and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, South Africa

Abstract

On 17 December 2014, the presidents of Cuba and the US, Raúl Castro and Barack

Obama, announced simultaneously to the world the decision of an exchange of

prisoners releasing the three Cuban intelligence operatives still in jail in American

prisons – Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and Antonio Guerrero – and the

subcontractor Alan Gross, imprisoned in the island. Together with Gross, a CIA agent

of Cuban origin was also released, and an agreement was reached to set free certain

opponents of the Cuban government. The unexpected news was the decision to

re-establish the bilateral diplomatic relations broken for more than 50 years. This

article places the re-establishment of full diplomatic relations between Cuba and

the US in the context of changing political relations in the Western Hemisphere

culminating in Cuba’s historic participation in the seventh Summit of the Americas in

Panama in April 2015. The authors argue that growing independent-minded thinking

of key Latin American countries and their progressive leaders was a key factor in

explaining Obama’s overture to Cuba in the absence of any fundamental concessions

from the Cuban side.

Keywords: Seventh Summit of the Americas, Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples

of America (ALBA-TCP), Community of Latin American and Caribbean States

(CELAC).

CUBA IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE: WHAT HAS CHANGED? 143

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Introduction

On 17 December 2014, the presidents of Cuba and the US, Raúl Castro and

Barack Obama, announced simultaneously to the world the decision of an

exchange of prisoners releasing the three Cuban intelligence operatives still in

jail in American prisons – Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and Antonio

Guerrero – and the subcontractor Alan Gross, imprisoned in the island. Together

with Gross, a CIA agent of Cuban origin was also released, and an agreement

was reached to set free certain opponents of the Cuban government. The unex-

pected news that exceeded the expectations of millions of people around the

world was the decision to re-establish the bilateral diplomatic relations broken

for more than 50 years. We are referring to a historical bilateral conflict centred

on the denial of the right of Cuba to be sovereign and independent, based on

geopolitical criteria and security reasons of the US, which occurred with the tri-

umph of the Revolution in January 1959. This was an event that carried the

contradictions to extremes because of the socialist definition of the Cuban pro-

cess and the inclusion of the former Soviet Union in the conflict between the two

countries. It is a history of revolutionary Cuba that includes the failed invasion

of the Bay of Pigs; the execution of terrorist acts by the CIA and anti-Cuban

organisations established in the south of Florida that have caused thousands of

victims being dead and wounded; the greatest nuclear war threat ever lived by

humanity in October 1962 and an economic, financial and trade blockade that

has caused billions of dollars of losses to the Cuban economy.1

The potential change in relations between the US and Cuba must be under-

stood in the context of how Cuba’s relations with Latin America have evolved

over the course of the last 25 years since the demise of the socialist bloc.2 In

2009, a milestone was reached when Cuba and El Salvador, following the elec-

tion of Mauricio Funes to the Salvadorian presidency, re-established full diplo-

matic relations. It meant that for the first time since soon after the Cuban

Revolution in 1959, Cuba had full diplomatic relations with all the countries of

Latin America and the Caribbean. It will be argued in this article that the range

of Cuba’s diplomatic relations in the hemisphere has played an important role in

the decision by the Obama administration to be the final country in the region

to restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba. As will be discussed later, the

unfolding of the Summits of the Americas process has apparently been at least

partially responsible for the change in US policy. At both the 2009 summit in

Trinidad and the 2012 summit in Colombia, Latin American leaders strongly

urged the Obama administration to end its decade-long embargo on the island