May Cuba Not Owe Its Democracy To America

May Cuba Not Owe Its Democracy To America / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar
Posted on August 14, 2015

"Those who believe that the Cuban government is democratic are the same
ones who claim that our principal problem lies in the dispute between
the governments of the United States and Cuba."

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 12 August 2015 – In 1950 Emilio Roig
de Leuchsenring presented to the Ninth Congress of History his
controversial essay Cuba Owes its Independence to the United States. In
it he laid out a little more than a century of facts and his nationalist
and anti-imperialist view attributing the victory over Spain to Cuban
troops.

Still discussed today is the weight of the American involvement in the
conflict and especially the motives for its intervention. It has been
another half century since that book came out and Cubans are no longer
fighting to obtain their independence as a nation, but to install a
system of democracy, and again our neighbor to the north makes laws,
approves budgets and undertakes actions, this time with the declared
intention to favor the future democracy on the island.

The Cuban government's first endorsement of the scope of these measures
is expressed every time it classifies as mercenaries, employees of the
empire and other similar labels any opponent, civil society activist or
independent journalist it sees.

Those who believe that the Cuban government is democratic are the same
ones who claim that our principal problem lies in the dispute between
the governments of the United States and Cuba. For those who differ from
the Communist Party line, the fundamental contradiction is the conflict
between the Party-State and the legitimate rights of citizens.

There is an unbridgeable gap between American interests, which demand
the return of confiscated property or compensation, and the demand for
freedom of association and expression, made unanimously by all
opposition political trends, whether social democrats, anarchists,
liberals or Christian Democratic.

The point of agreement is that, as long as the current leaders remain in
power, both things seem impossible, and that "common cause" has
promoted, on the one hand, logistical support to armed invasions, the
supply of military equipment, diplomatic pressure or trade embargoes,
and on the other, riots, sabotage and, more recently, peaceful and
political structures attempting to organize protests.

It is a fragile and uneven alliance and the first to want to break it is
the Cuban government. So the Communists had two paths: open political
space to opponents on the condition of "maintaining sovereignty," or
reforming the market to attract American capital. Faced with the
dilemma, they chose the second option.

Consequently, some leaders of the opposition environment feel betrayed
because they believed they had some sort of pact for democracy with the
US government. The main argument put forward is the continuation of
repressive acts against the Ladies in White and other peaceful activists
who support them with their actions, just days before the formalization
on the Havana Malecon of the restoration of relations between the two
governments.

For others it is about a sovereign decision by President Obama backed by
the idea that confrontation has not brought results. The concept of
changing methods without renouncing objectives, proclaimed publicly and
without nuance by the Americans, is a complete challenge for the Cuban
government, which sees itself forced to maintain its repressive and
confrontational methods to achieve its only objective: maintaining
itself in power.

The United States maintains diplomatic relations with countries where
there are not democratic regimes, which does not mean friendship or
support for a totalitarian model. Now, in the case of Cuba, it remains
to be seen if it will maintain, in the embassy, the internet rooms, the
communications courses, the refugee program, invitations to celebrate
Independence Day on the 4th of July, and all the contacts programmed by
the former United States Interests Sections, now belonging to the embassy.

There are more than a few who fear "being abandoned in the dark of the
night," left to the excesses of an intransigent government. The new
interests created between the old contenders are economic and everyone
will do their best to protect them. Perhaps the Americans will keep the
opponents at a distance to not annoy the Cuban leaders; perhaps the
repression will give way to please the investors, be they real or potential.

What will not arrive by this route is democracy, as real independence
will not come by way of American gunboats. The political system we
deserve must arise from our own efforts, independent of solidarity that
comes from outside.

Emilio Roig would not have written his famous book if a few miles from
Santiago de Cuba the American ships had returned home and those troops
had never landed. But history is the enemy of the subjunctive, and
similar conjectures lack any value.

Hopefully a historian will never have to clarify that Cuba owes its
democracy to the United States.

Source: May Cuba Not Owe Its Democracy To America / 14ymedio, Reinaldo
Escobar | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/may-cuba-not-owe-its-democracy-to-america-14ymedio-reinaldo-escobar/