PEOPLE OF WORLD INFLUENCE
Julia Sweig
Cuba Expert on Obama’s Détente With One-Time Foe: It’s About Time by Michael Coleman
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resident Barack Obama’s historic meeting with Raúl Castro in Panama last month didn’t produce a widely expected announcement that the U.S. would remove Cuba from its list of states that support terrorism. But three days later, on an otherwise slow April 14 news day, the White House did, indeed, proclaim it would strike Cuba from its inventory of international terror sponsors (only Sudan, Iran and Syria now remain on the list).
The de-listing removed a deep stain on the Latin American nation’s international reputation and helps smooth a path toward normalized diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba after more than 50 years of hostility. The official White House press release announcing the president’s executive action came in the middle of The Washington Diplomat’s interview with Julia Sweig, a respected expert on Cuban-American affairs, the author of the best-selling book “Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know” and a former director of Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Sweig told The Diplomat that the first formal meeting of Cuban and American presidents in over half a century during the Summit of the Americas in Panama was hugely symbolic and opened the door to a raft of expected changes in policy between the two nations, including the removal of Cuba from the terrorism list and the eventual opening of embassies in Washington and Havana. Obama’s executive action days after the summit cemented the importance of the meeting, she said. “It finally takes the issue off of the table, where it had clogged and poisoned the discussions for so many decades — at least the last two — and hurt America’s standing in Latin America so drastically,” Sweig said as she perused a White House email announcing the decision. “This is a major historic event.” The United States designated Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism in the 1980s in reaction to its backing of leftist insurgent groups in Latin America. Cuba has also har-
publicly with Castro — not only bodes well for Cuban-American relations, but for America’s reputation across Latin America. “Latin America — and I mean all of Latin America; there are no exceptions here — has repeated the same message to Washington going back at least to [former U.S. President] George W. Bush: That having embargoes and sanctions against Cuba, and this dyspeptic relationship, was an impediment to American credibility as a 21st-century partner in Latin America,” Sweig explained. “Now, the political will is there and I expect to see more in the next two years — much more,” predicted Sweig, who recently became a senior research fellow with the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin. The first major signs of a thaw in the longstanding deep freeze in Cuban-U.S. relations came in December when Obama made a speech calling for the reestablishment of diplomatic relations — a “new chapter” for the former Cold War adversaries, as he described it. The American president also announced several new executive decisions, including the easing of limits on remittances from the U.S. to Cuba and a relaxation of rules governing U.S. citizens’ travel to the Caribbean country. (Obama Latin America — and I mean all of Latin America; does not have the power, though, to end the 1962 trade embargo, there are no exceptions here — has repeated the same which only Congress can lift.) message to Washington going back at least to [former U.S. The removal of Cuba from the U.S. terrorist list also paves the way President] George W. Bush: That having embargoes and for Washington and Havana to reopen embassies in each other’s sanctions against Cuba, and this dyspeptic relationship, capitals, although the Obama administration has said that Cuba was an impediment to American credibility as a 21stfirst needs to let American diplocentury partner in Latin America. mats travel around the country freely and cannot keep tabs on — Julia Sweig, senior research fellow at the University of Texas in Austin Cubans who visit the U.S. Embassy. bored a number of dangerous U.S. fugitives, including “We will end an outdated approach that for decades Charlie Hill, who is accused in the 1971 murder of a New has failed to advance our interests,” Obama said in his Mexico policeman before fleeing to Cuba on an airliner December speech.“Neither the American nor the Cuban hijacked from the Albuquerque airport. people are well-served by a rigid policy that is rooted in But leaders from Latin America said the designation events that took place before most of us were born.” always had more to do with politics than facts — and Obama also suggested that time heals wounds, noting populist presidents from Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela and that the U.S. and Vietnam — a communist country like elsewhere held it up as an anachronistic symbol of Cuba that engaged in a fierce war against the U.S. — Yankee imperialism. today have enjoyed 20 years of normal relations. Sweig said the White House decision to take Cuba off “Through these changes, we intend to create more the terror list — as well as Obama’s willingness to meet opportunities for the American and Cuban people, and
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The Washington Diplomat
Photo: University of Texas, Austin
begin a new chapter among the nations of the Americas,” Obama said. Not everyone in Washington cheered news of the historic meeting or Cuba’s removal from the terror list.That includes many older members of Cuba’s exile community in Florida, a powerful voting bloc that still remembers fleeing the communist island when Fidel Castro took power. Rep. John Boehner, the Republican House majority leader from Ohio, said he was “disappointed” in the developments, while Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican of Cuban descent, accused the White House of acting “only for political reasons and not in accordance with the law.” “Since President Obama came into power, his administration’s policy toward the Castro regime has been: ask, and you shall receive,” said Ros-Lehtinen, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “But this unwise decision to remove Cuba from the list illustrates that the Obama administration is willing to concede to the demands of the Castro brothers in order to set up an embassy in Cuba. “Removing Cuba from the terrorist list does not help the Cuban people, as they are still left oppressed and without even basic human rights while emboldening its oppressors,” she said. But supporters of Obama’s rapprochement point out that the State Department terrorism designation deals with just that — terrorism, not human rights abuses, political prisoners or other issues that will be the subject of diplomatic talks.They also argue that half a century of isolation, not to mention various covert attempts at regime change, have failed to dislodge the Castros from May 2015