The Tribune

With CHARLIE HARPER

BAHAMIANS pretty much understand the US only seriously engages in the Caribbean once in a while, and usually in a posture reactive to a rapidly deteriorating security situation. Well-known examples of American military intervention over many decades are to be found in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Grenada and Cuba.

In this month of July, dramatic and tragic events in Cuba and Haiti have brought the Caribbean region into Washington’s focus, but there is little likelihood either situation will lead to American military intervention or policy change.

Since we sit in The Bahamas roughly between Cuba and the US, one would think that relations between these two neighbours would define significant aspects of our foreign policy.

But since there has only been episodic and very rarely significant change over the past 60 years in the American view of Cuba and its imposition of an economically and socially strict regime of various sanctions on Cuba, relations between our near neighbours have been mostly static.

Under President Barack Obama, there was a genuine interest in Washington in moving away from the punitive response to repressive Cuban Communist government and in the direction of greater engagement. Several rules and restrictions were lifted or lightened, and hope flickered for a while that the overall relationship between the US and Cuba could enter a new, mutually more beneficial stage.

When Donald Trump took office as President in January 2017, that all changed. He clearly saw the Cuba issue solely in terms of its domestic political impact. From that perspective, for Trump and virtually all Republicans – and a significant number of Democrats – that only meant one thing.

Tighten the screws on Cuba and satisfy the politically powerful Cuban émigré community in South Florida. While Obama’s efforts were appreciated by some Cubans in the US, the smart political play for an American leader is still to maintain the hardline, steadfast approach to Cuba’s leadership.

Trump won Florida in 2016 and again in 2020, and his support among Cubans in South Florida is credited with helping to tilt this crucial swing state in his direction. Republicans now hold the governorship and both Senate seats in the state, which is increasingly Red.

As American politicians follow the politically rewarding path on Cuba, the welfare of the ordinary Cuban becomes collateral damage.

There was no evidence Trump cared about that. It isn’t clear to many observers whether Joe Biden cares much about it either. Indeed, informal briefings from the White House for certain reporters indicated Cuba was not a high priority at all.

A senior administration official said “we are combating a pandemic and dealing with a breaking down of democracy in a whole host of countries. That is the environment we are in. When it comes down to Cuba, we’ll do what’s in the national security interest of the United States.”

If you were hoping a new American administration would revive Obama-era policies toward Cuba, remarks like that are not encouraging.

Protests in the streets of several Cuban cities this month have compelled the American administration to respond. Senators like Florida’s Republican Marco Rubio and New Jersey’s Democratic Robert Menendez have both urged Biden to punish the Cuban regime. Leftist politicians such as Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who had been pushing hard for a return to or even expansion of Obama-style détente policies, found it difficult to raise too many objections.

The Cuban unrest, reportedly among the most widespread since the Castros took power over six decades ago, was apparently ignited by power outages and food shortages. The Cuban government has continued to respond with a heavy hand against demonstrators and occasionally cut off Internet service.

Biden has responded with familiar vitriol against the Cuban regime. He lambasted the country’s Communist government for human rights violations, arbitrary judicial practices and acts of terror against its own population. There wasn’t much new in his remarks.

Liberalizing the US. relationship with Cuba is not on the cards anytime soon.

And in June, the US found itself once more virtually alone at the United Nations, as the General Assembly voted almost unanimously — as it does annually — against the continuation of the American-led economic embargo.

In Haiti, meantime, the assassination three weeks ago of President Jovenel Moise compelled the White House to pay attention to our region for a second time. Grudgingly, it did so.

But the tragic events in Port au Prince also briefly revived a debate in the US over the costs and benefits of sending American troops to Haiti to stabilize the situation. Such a deployment seems unlikely.

The situation in Haiti now, as not infrequently in the past, recalls an off-hand remark attributed to former US Secretary of State Colin Powell. In discussing the confused situation in Iraq following the brawny, showy American and Allied invasion of that nation in 2003, Powell lamented the fact that having once toppled Iraq’s dictatorial ruler in the name of spreading the gospel of democracy to that country, the US would be obliged to stick around and try to nurture a form of government largely unknown in the region.

While the military operation was a success, the post-war situation during eight years of US and allied military occupation of Iraq was corrupt, chaotic and in no visible way laid the founding for a democratic successor state to the cruel autocracy of former leader Saddam Hussein.

Remarking on the inevitability of American responsibility for Iraq’s security and government after militarily displacing its former ruler, Powell said “If you break it, you bought it.”

Previous American interventions in Haiti have followed a similar trajectory. The US military on more than one occasion has “broken” a heinous and corrupt Haitian government only to find itself burdened with onerous security responsibilities and facing a set of social and economic fissures it had no reasonable hope of healing.

We are likely to hear and read of continuing protests, violence and disorder in both Cuba and Haiti. There is some concern about large numbers of refugees from both nations heading for the US and winding up here instead. In 1994, waves of Haitians especially threatened to overwhelm our ability to treat them humanely prior to repatriation.

It’s hard to be certain what is going to happen on that. But it does seem pretty certain American presidential attention isn’t going to linger very long on the Caribbean unless events in our neighbourhood escalate much more than they have so far.

THE SHOW MUST GO ON - BUT CAN IT?

GRANTED, the coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc all around the world. As this public health crisis shows some but still not convincing signs of receding, the 2020 Olympic Games are wobbling at the starting gate.

The Olympics? The world’s greatest athletic pageant is this morning hanging by a thread only 24 hours before the dazzling opening ceremony is set to inaugurate an event already postponed by COVID for a full year.

If the Games do happen, they will be essentially a made-for-TV event. No foreign fans are permitted. There will be no local attendance in Tokyo-area venues. Support for continuing with plans to stage the games has seriously waned among the Japanese people, who fear COVID outbreaks.

Athletes and their entourages are confined to a quasi-bubble, under threat of deportation. Government minders are trying to track all visitors’ movements.

“The mindset of the government and organisers of these games is the Olympics can be pushed through by force and that everyone should obey the order. It is that mindset that has invited this mess,” the Asahi newspaper commented in a recent editorial. International Olympic Committee and Japanese officials “should learn that their absurdity has deepened the public distrust in the Olympics.”

It seems every hour there is an announcement that more athletes or trainers or staff have tested positive for the virus and have been sent home. Nearly 70,000 officials, media and other participants have nonetheless arrived in Japan in limited but highly visible fashion.

Sir Durward Knowles and Cecil Cooke won The Bahamas’ first of six overall Olympic gold medals in the Star class sailing competition in 1964 – in Tokyo. Our athletes have won medals in seven straight Olympics.

What a shame that as the Games return to the scene of our first golden triumph, such chaos and confusion are the rulers.