Financial Times Editorial - Engaging Cuba
Financial Times Editorial - Engaging Cuba
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: August 2 2006 03:00 | Last updated: August 2 2006 03:00
The stomach operation that on Monday forced Fidel Castro to step down temporarily from power has usefully focused attention on the Cuban leader's mortality and the inevitability of a transition to a post-Castro Cuba, even if this is not imminent.
The US and European Union must think carefully about how they respond to the Cuban government's own emerging plans to handle these changes and take care not to inflame tensions, especially among exile groups who - judging by the scenes of wild celebration on Monday night in Miami - harbour hopes of radical and immediate change.
Cuba's political system is undemocratic and centralised at the moment around one man. But its Communist party nevertheless enjoys a degree of legitimacy that, for example, its counterparts in the eastern Europe of the 1980s never did.
The Cuban army, moreover, under the leadership of Raúl Castro, the president's 75-year-old brother and his temporary successor, has been a stable institution in revolutionary Cuba that has often been able to co-operate with its neighbours in controlling the flows of drugs and illegal migrants in the Caribbean.
The transitional arrangements announced on Monday include a greater role for younger Communist leaders who have been more sympathetic in the past to a more market-oriented and less dogmatic approach to economic management.
Moreover, Cuba's economy is more resilient today than at any time since the collapse of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1990s. Cuba's alliance with the Venezuela of Hugo Chávez has given Mr Castro a windfall of subsidised oil, easing petrol shortages. Cuban sugar and nickel exports are strong. Imports have doubled in the past 18 months, with Cubans importing consumer goods from China.
In these circumstances, the US and the European Union should encourage democratic reform but they should prepare now to start engaging the Cuban authorities once Mr Castro leaves the scene.
It is, above all, time for the US to reconsider the economic embargo. Doggedly defended by successive administrations and an act of faith for many Cuban exile groups, the more than four decades-old policy has consistently failed to achieve its objectives.
Greater trade, investment and people contacts between the US and Cuba would help, not hinder, the cause for democratic reform. The US should take the same approach to trading with Cuba as it does with countries such as China and Vietnam.
Above all, the administration must do all it can to discourage adventurism by exile groups. There is no immediate magic democratic and market-based alternative waiting to emerge. Encouraging radical change could dangerously destabilise not just Cuba but the whole of the western Caribbean.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: August 2 2006 03:00 | Last updated: August 2 2006 03:00
The stomach operation that on Monday forced Fidel Castro to step down temporarily from power has usefully focused attention on the Cuban leader's mortality and the inevitability of a transition to a post-Castro Cuba, even if this is not imminent.
The US and European Union must think carefully about how they respond to the Cuban government's own emerging plans to handle these changes and take care not to inflame tensions, especially among exile groups who - judging by the scenes of wild celebration on Monday night in Miami - harbour hopes of radical and immediate change.
Cuba's political system is undemocratic and centralised at the moment around one man. But its Communist party nevertheless enjoys a degree of legitimacy that, for example, its counterparts in the eastern Europe of the 1980s never did.
The Cuban army, moreover, under the leadership of Raúl Castro, the president's 75-year-old brother and his temporary successor, has been a stable institution in revolutionary Cuba that has often been able to co-operate with its neighbours in controlling the flows of drugs and illegal migrants in the Caribbean.
The transitional arrangements announced on Monday include a greater role for younger Communist leaders who have been more sympathetic in the past to a more market-oriented and less dogmatic approach to economic management.
Moreover, Cuba's economy is more resilient today than at any time since the collapse of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1990s. Cuba's alliance with the Venezuela of Hugo Chávez has given Mr Castro a windfall of subsidised oil, easing petrol shortages. Cuban sugar and nickel exports are strong. Imports have doubled in the past 18 months, with Cubans importing consumer goods from China.
In these circumstances, the US and the European Union should encourage democratic reform but they should prepare now to start engaging the Cuban authorities once Mr Castro leaves the scene.
It is, above all, time for the US to reconsider the economic embargo. Doggedly defended by successive administrations and an act of faith for many Cuban exile groups, the more than four decades-old policy has consistently failed to achieve its objectives.
Greater trade, investment and people contacts between the US and Cuba would help, not hinder, the cause for democratic reform. The US should take the same approach to trading with Cuba as it does with countries such as China and Vietnam.
Above all, the administration must do all it can to discourage adventurism by exile groups. There is no immediate magic democratic and market-based alternative waiting to emerge. Encouraging radical change could dangerously destabilise not just Cuba but the whole of the western Caribbean.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 11:09 AM
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