Cuba Places Conditions on Its Rapprochement with the United States

[unhappycamper]

http://watchingamerica.com/WA/2015/02/18/cuba-places-conditions-on-its-rapprochement-with-the-united-states/

Cuba Places Conditions on Its Rapprochement with the United States
Published in La Nación (Argentina) on 5 February 2015 by Emilio Cardenas [link to original]
Translated from Spanish by Stephen Routledge. Edited by Emily France.
Posted on February 18, 2015.

Cuba announced that it is placing strong conditions on the restoration of diplomatic relations with the United States. Before doing so, the island’s government hopes that, among other things, the United States will: first, give back Guantanamo Bay; second, lift the trade embargo that is still in place; and third, repay Cuba for the damages caused by the embargo that was in place for many years with hundreds of millions of dollars in purported compensation, without mentioning a word about the compensation entitlements corresponding to the Cuban confiscation of properties belonging to U.S. companies and citizens.

This, in return for reconciliation. For Raul Castro, without these three conditions becoming a reality, the normalization of relations with North America simply "does not make sense.”

It seems clear, at least for now, that Cuba won’t have too much difficulty in stipulating the normalization of relations announced by the governments of both countries on Dec. 17 of last year. But the truth is that we have yet to see just how rigid the apparent conditioning effectively is, because if Venezuela’s poor economic situation suddenly becomes complicated and its important subsidies to the island’s government are reduced, it is possible that these conditions could be relaxed.

Made after several bilateral meetings between Cuba and the United States, the announcement – which aimed to agree to the normalization process – is currently leading to a good dose of skepticism in relation to Cuba’s goodwill about progressing this issue. It suggests that, either way, the road ahead will not be traveled quickly but rather in slow steps.