• Submitted by: manso
• Editorial Articles
• 10 / 31 / 2010

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When governments that do not get along decide to improve relations, they use a certain diplomatic language: confidence-building , thaw, rapprochement,détente, mutual interests. They focus on points of coincidence on the way to resolving points of divergence, as the US did with China and Vietnam.

"Concessions, " which also means "we win, you lose," is not a term to use in public if better relations between the US and Cuba are the goal.

The exchange of cultural groups between the US and Cuba, and the visit of some US school teams to the island, have been welcomed by citizens on both sides, but little progress has been made otherwise since the Obama administration took office. (Allowing family travel was an electoral tactic to seek votes from, among others, the Cuban American National Foundation.)

There could have been by now an agreement on direct mail, hurricane tracking, coral-reef management, or narco-trafficking.

There could have been a public announcement of cooperation in helping Haiti. None has materialized.

Cuba, of course, must do its part in negotiations, but the Cuban government has announced its interest in improving relations so clearly and repeatedly that it is not likely the principal obstacle to progress. The US, for its part, wants Cuba to make "concessions" before progress can be made. The target is never specified, and all change is deemed insufficient: it's the moving goalposts.

When Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev sat down to discuss disarmament, real progress was made. Told that Gorbachev had made more concessions than the Soviets had made in 25 years, Reagan's Secretary of State George Schultz responded: "Fine, let him keep making them. His proposals are the results of five years of pressure from us." The pressure on Cuba, however, has gone on for more than 50 years, without results.

Cuba does not pose a military, territorial, or security threat to the US. It does not attempt to overthrow the government of the US or sabotage its economy,while the US does attempt to do both of those to Cuba.

Cuba does pose a threat in the ideological realm, what both Fidel Castro and George W. Bush called the Battle of Ideas, but that is like the Marketplace of ideas on an international scale.

The US claims to be motivated by concerns about human and civil rights, a hugely hypocritical position that need not be detailed here. The fact is that the US assumes the right to determine what is best for other nations, like neoliberal economics and military training at Whinsec/School of the Americas. The concessions sought from Cuba mean that it should become more like Honduras or Colombia, and hold elections like in Mexico, where any party can win the presidency except the PRD.

Cuba does not, and realistically cannot, demand concessions from the US such as a redress of the historical injustices committed against Native Americans,health care for all citizens, an end to the now-permanent wars, or the prosecution of war criminals and criminals on Wall Street.

There is one thing that Cuba does want: an end to the blockade. From the US point of view, the trade-off is this: you dismantle the system you have built, and we will consider lifting the blockade. Given that the purpose of the blockade is precisely to dismantle Cuba's system, that is not much of a proposal, nor a basis for negotiations.

It's not hard to understand why the US government insists on concessions from Cuba. The blockade is already in place, and the US need not do anything while it waits for the expected concessions. A better question is why that approach is shared not only by the Executive and the Legislative branches but also by the media and political observers, including some who oppose the blockade.

They accept certain postulates and a given vocabulary: that the US defends civil and human rights, always to improve life in other nations, and that Cuba needs to meet high standards of behavior as defined by the US. By natural right, the US may impose sanctions on other countries as it sees fit, and countries like Cuba, lacking such authority, should comply with the same.

Although the concept rejects any notion of equality of states --the US does not make concessions- - a false balance is created between a unilateral blockade rejected by the rest of the world and the determination of the Cubans to go their own way. That the vast majority of Cubans oppose the blockade does not matter to the US.

The US is not likely to become socialist soon, nor will Cuba soon be capitalist. If there is a real will to improve relations, the first change should be in the way that the relations are conceptualized. Both countries should accept each other as they are, and negotiate on that basis, replacing the "superior/subordinate" model with one of two countries tied together by history and geography but separated by different concepts of social organization.

If, on the other hand, the blockade is to continue until one or the other changes from socialist to capitalist or vice versa, we'll long be hearing about how it's up to Cuba to lift the blockade and about how whatever it does is an insufficient concession, or no concession at all. If that remains the case,improved relations will not be achieved any time soon.

By: Tony Martinez

The Language of Concessions
La Alborada - October 28 [nuevas@...]


Source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/118689