The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

CUBAN Ambassador to the Bahamas Ernesto Soberon Guzman yesterday touted the American government’s decision to ease trade and travel restrictions against Cuba as a surprising and historic first step in normalising diplomatic relations.

Mr Guzman said the decision represented a long-awaited “common sense” approach given repeated calls from the United Nations to end the severe economic restrictions over the past few decades.

He added that the move opened the door for bilateral talks on difficult topics such as differing views on human rights, democracy and sovereignty, as well as much needed conversations concerning climate change and drug trafficking.

“I think that it is a surprise for everybody around the world,” he said, “it is an historic day and it’s a good first step and the President Raul Castro said it is just the beginning. Finally the Cuban Five are back in Cuba like Fidel said in 2001. Finally Mr Alan Gross is back in the US, finally also we announce that we will establish diplomatic relations that were broken in 1961.”

Mr Guzman added: “There still remains some difficult topics like the embargo, now we have to work together to lift the embargo. As the President Raul Castro said we are open and ready to establish bilateral discussions regarding all those difficult topics to which we have substantial differences, human rights, democracy, and on the basis of mutual respect and integrity. We are a free country like the United States, so we are open like before to move forward and have bilateral conversation.”

In a major policy shift, the US government announced yesterday that the country’s 53-year-long isolation of Cuba has failed to accomplish their bid to promote democracy and stable governance.

A statement from the Office of the Press Secretary read: “At times, longstanding US policy towards Cuba has isolated the United States from regional and international partners, constrained our ability to influence outcomes throughout the Western Hemisphere, and impaired the use of the full range of tools available to the United States to promote positive change in Cuba. Though this policy has been rooted in the best of intentions, it has had little effect – today, as in 1961, Cuba is governed by the Castros and the Communist party.”

“We cannot keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. It does not serve America’s interests, or the Cuban people, to try to push Cuba toward collapse. We know from hard-learned experience that it is better to encourage and support reform than to impose policies that will render a country a failed state. With our actions today, we are calling on Cuba to unleash the potential of 11 million Cubans by ending unnecessary restrictions on their political, social, and economic activities.”

Yesterday, Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell welcomed the decision as a good move for the hemisphere, region, and Inter-American system. He said while concerns that an opening of Cuba’s tourism product to the US would challenge the Bahamas’ market share were valid, the Bahamas had its own distinct product.

“The Bahamas has voted every year to end the embargo at the United Nations, and so what has happened now is consistent with what our foreign policy has been towards Cuba,” Mr Mitchell said.

“In your neighbourhood you should always have good relations with your neighbours, you should have good talking relations with them even if you don’t agree with them ideologically.”

He said: “This is why we find what the US has now done is a welcome development because every country in the hemisphere, the 33 other countries in the hemisphere, all have diplomatic relations with Cuba and all have a speaking relationship. The only hold out was the US.”