In a groundbreaking speech delivered in a historic Havana theater Tuesday morning, President Barack Obama said: "I am here to bury the last remnants of the Cold War in the Americas. I am here to extend a hand of friendship to the Cuban people." The last time a U.S. president visited Havana was when Calvin Coolidge appeared at the same theater 88 years ago.
That was a time when Cuba was directly under the thumb of the U.S. via the Platt Amendment, imposed on the island after the Spanish-American-Cuban War of 1898. The only remnant of that amendment, which was rescinded in 1934, is the forced leasing of land at Guantánamo Bay where the United States maintains a naval base and, since 2002, a military prison for suspected terrorists.
"Now, I want to be clear,” Obama said, in a speech dotted with a handful of phrases in Spanish, “the differences between our governments over these many years are real, and they are important. I'm sure President Castro would say the same thing," a reference to Cuban President Raúl Castro, who was in the audience:
I know, because I've heard him address those differences at length. But before I discuss those issues, we also need to recognize how much we share. Because in many ways, the United States and Cuba are like two brothers who’ve been estranged for many years, even as we share the same blood. [...]
For all of our differences, the Cuban and American people share common values in their own lives. A sense of patriotism and a sense of pride -- a lot of pride. A profound love of family. A passion for our children, a commitment to their education. And that's why I believe our grandchildren will look back on this period of isolation as an aberration, as just one chapter in a longer story of family and of friendship.
But we cannot, and should not, ignore the very real differences that we have -- about how we organize our governments, our economies, and our societies. Cuba has a one-party system; the United States is a multi-party democracy. Cuba has a socialist economic model; the United States is an open market. Cuba has emphasized the role and rights of the state; the United States is founded upon the rights of the individual.
Among the differences, of course, is the 54-year-old U.S. embargo of the Castro regime. Obama told the handpicked crowd of 1,000 that it would be tough convincing Congress to drop the embargo, imposed in the hopes that it would force changes in how the communist government led by Fidel Castro ran things or would squeeze Cubans so much that it would spur them to overthrow the Castro government, something U.S. military actions and numerous assassination attempts on Castro were unable to achieve.
Obama noted that critics have challenged getting rid of the embargo. The key reason why he supports ending it, he said, is because it isn’t working. “A policy of isolation designed for the Cold War made little sense in the 21st century,” Obama said. “The embargo was only hurting the Cuban people instead of helping them. And I've always believed in what Martin Luther King, Jr. called “the fierce urgency of now”—we should not fear change, we should embrace it.”
“Creo en el pueblo cubano,” Obama said, Spanish for “I believe in the Cuban people.”
While embracing change via ending the embargo, Obama also said Cuba should release imprisoned dissidents, implement free elections and free up business entrepreneurs.
“Many suggested that I came here to Cuba to tear something down, but I am appealing to the young people to lift something up,” Obama declared. “We have a clear example of what the Cuban people can build, it’s called Miami. Being self-employed is not about becoming more like America, it’s about being more like yourself. What changes come will depend on the Cuban people, we will not impose our political or economic system upon you … But having removed the shadow from our relationship, I must speak honestly about the things we believe,” he said.
The Guardian reported:
After the speech, Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry met a group of dissidents, including Rodiles, at the US embassy, where he said that there are still “deep differences” with the Cuban government on issues of freedom and democracy.
Praising the activists for their “extraordinary courage,” Obama said: “My hope is that by listening and hearing from them that we can continue to refine our policy in such a way that ultimately the Cuban people are able to live freely and prosperously.”
While endorsing changes in Cuba and the end of the embargo, getting Congress to endorse that particular change will be a hard slog, unlikely to happen in an election year with a stubborn Republican majority intent on keeping any major Obama initiative from being achieved. On the other hand, Obama is not without Republican allies who also believe the embargo has been a failure. One of the people aboard Air Force One with the presidential delegation for the trip to Havana was Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, who has visited Cuba nine times since the early 2000s. Fifteen months ago, Flake noted upon return from one of those trips:
“The funny thing about freedom is that when people experience a little more of it, they don’t want to give it up, and they want more than they have,” Flake said, arguing that relaxing restrictions in Cuba will help democracy grow. “That has been the case with travel and will continue to be the case in Cuba.” [...]
“For those who say this is a concession somehow to the Cuban regime … I think that that is a wrong way to look at it. That is simply wrong,” said Flake [...] “The policy that we’ve had in place for the past 50 years has done more in my view … to keep the Castro regimes in power than anything we could’ve done.”
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Denise Oliver-Velez has a story up on the president’s Cuban speech here.