Wow!



"Wow!", was my immediate reaction when I heard the announcement by President Barack Obama that the United States was setting out to normalise its relations with Cuba after 50 years of being locked into what amounts to a Latin American version of the Cold War.

I met a young Cuban when I was on holiday recently and he was a charming, hard working chap who was inordinately proud of his country but scathing of its government for preventing people like him being able to travel freely and exercise basic human rights, such as freedom of speech, which many of us take for granted these days in most western countries.

So while President Obama is bound to face partisan opposition from the Republican Party in America I hope he presses ahead with his bold move, and that the initiative is met with similar commitment from the Communist Party in Cuba to introduce political reforms that will lead quickly to a modern, participative democracy and an end to the current one-party state. 

Obama hails 'new chapter' in US-Cuba ties

President Obama: "Today America chooses to cut loose the shackles of the past"

US President Barack Obama has hailed a "new chapter" in US relations with Cuba, announcing moves to normalise diplomatic and economic ties.

Mr Obama said the US' current approach was "outdated" and the changes were the "most significant" in US policy towards Cuba in 50 years.

Cuban President Raul Castro said he welcomed the shift in a TV address.

The move includes the release of US contractor Alan Gross and three Cubans held in the US.

Wednesday's announcement follows more than a year of secret talks in Canada and at the Vatican, directly involving the Pope.

Raul Castro: "We have agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations"

Mr Gross, facing the camera in a blue shirt, flew back from Cuba on a US government plane

Mr Obama and Mr Castro met a year ago at Nelson Mandela's funeral

The US is looking to open an embassy in Havana in the coming months, Mr Obama said.

The plans set out in a White House statement also include:
  • Reviewing the designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism 
  • Easing a travel ban for US citizens 
  • Easing financial restrictions 
  • Increasing telecommunications links 
  • Efforts to lift the 54-year-old trade embargo 
Mr Castro said the changes were something Cuba had been pressing for for a long time.

"Ever since my election... I have reiterated on many occasions our preparedness to hold a respectful dialogue with the government of the United States based on sovereign equality," he said.

President Castro urged Washington to lift a trade and economic embargo imposed on the communist-run island - a move that can only be made by Congress.

President Obama appealed to lawmakers to consider doing this, saying that the US policy of isolating Cuba had clearly failed.

US and Cuba

54 years since trade embargo imposed

$1.1 trillion cost to Cuban economy

Cost to US economy $1.2bn a year

US presidents since 1960: 11

Cuban presidents since 1960: 3

Source: US Chamber of Commerce, Cuba Foreign Ministry


Analysis: Vanessa Buschschluter, Latin America editor, BBC News online

The detention of Alan Gross had for years been a major hurdle on the path to closer ties between Cuba and the US.

His release allows the US to "cut loose the anchor of the past", as the Obama administration put it.

Washington had held out the prospect of full diplomatic ties within months, but ordinary Cubans are going to be more interested in the economic measures the US government has promised.

Raising remittances levels from $500 (£320) to $2,000 a quarter could make a real difference to the livings standards of those Cubans with relatives and friends living in the US.

And allowing telecom firms to improve internet services in Cuba would also make a tangible change to a country which has one of the lowest rates of internet penetration in the world.

But Cubans critical of the government have slammed the Obama administration for "swallowing the hook" and allowing Raul Castro to score a political victory on the back of Mr Gross's years in jail.

Mr Gross' arrest and imprisonment had undermined attempts to thaw diplomatic relations

Mr Gross' arrest and imprisonment had undermined attempts to thaw diplomatic relations between the two countries.

He arrived at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington from Cuba on Wednesday. Footage showed him disembarking from a US government plane onto the tarmac where he was met by a crowd.

The 65-year-old spent five years behind bars after being accused of subversion, while on a mission to bring internet services to Jewish community groups in Cuba.

The US and Cuba say he was freed on humanitarian grounds.

Havana has also freed an unnamed American intelligence officer who had been in jail in Cuba for nearly 20 years.

Three Cubans jailed in the US have arrived back in Cuba.

They are part of the so-called "Cuban Five" who US prosecutors said had sought to infiltrate US military bases and spied on Cuban exiles in Florida.

Two of them had recently been allowed to return to Cuba after finishing their sentences

Key dates

1959: Fidel Castro and his guerrilla army defeat the US-backed Cuban regime of Fulgencio Batista

1960-1961: Cuba nationalises US businesses without compensation; US breaks off diplomatic relations and imposes a trade embargo in response

2001: Five Cubans, dubbed the Cuban Five, are jailed in Miami for spying

2008: Raul Castro becomes Cuban president

2009: US citizen Alan Gross detained in Cuba accused of spying

2011: One of the Cuban Five, Rene Gonzalez, is freed by the US

Dec 2013: US President Barack Obama and Raul Castro shake hands at Nelson Mandela's funeral - the first such public gesture since 1959

Feb 2014: The second of the Cuban Five, Fernando Gonzalez, is freed after completing his sentence

17 December 2014: Alan Gross is released by Cuba

USAID (5 May 2014)


I'm not sure what this American contractor was doing to earn himself 15 years in prison, but it seems a lengthy sentence to impose on someone who, as well a doing a job of work, was presumably interested in the greater access to information that goes hand in hand with the world wide web.

Except that in certain counters across the world - Cuba, North Korea and China for example - access to the internet is strictly controlled by governments that are not too keen on their citizens being able to freely exchange information and ideas via the internet and social networking sites like Twitter or Facebook.

Now I doubt Alan Gross was naive about what he was doing and must have expected to get thrown out of the country, if he was caught.

But 15 years in a Cuban prison seems very heavy-handed if you ask me, and I speak as someone who would like to see a normalisation of relations with Cuba which would mean America lifting its sanctions regime. 
International aid and development has always been bound up with politics, but the question here is whether this latest two is worth 15 years of a man's life.

So the Cubans could show some imaginative diplomacy and do themselves a favour in the process by letting the poor chap return home.   

US contractor Alan Gross ends Cuba jail hunger strike

Alan Gross, who was arrested in Cuba in 2009, had been on hunger strike for a week

A US contractor who has been in jail in Cuba for more than four years has ended his week-long hunger strike.

In a statement released by his lawyer, Alan Gross said he suspended his fast because his mother, 91, had asked him to end it, but added that "there will be further protests to come".

Mr Gross, 64, began fasting on 2 April to protest against his treatment by both the Cuban and US governments.

He was jailed for 15 years for taking internet equipment to Cuba illegally.

"My protest fast is suspended as of today," Mr Gross said in the statement.

"There will be no cause for further intense protest when both governments show more concern for human beings and less malice and derision toward each other," he added.

He had stopped eating after his last solid meal a week ago "to object to mistruths, deceptions, and inaction by both governments".

The case of Mr Gross is seen as a major obstacle to better US-Cuban ties. The two countries have not had formal diplomatic relations since 1961.

Mr Gross was arrested in 2009 while working for a firm under contract with the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Cuba considers USAID's programmes as illegal attempts by the US to undermine the island nation's Communist government.

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