Stealing credibility from Cubans, not lending it

High-level U.S.-Cuba talks on migration did occur on Friday, and the five-hour talks were open and frank. State Department officials called for the release of detained U.S. contractor Alan Gross. The Cuban side listened, though without indicating how they would proceed. Cuban officials brought up their own demand for the release of the Cuban Five. Presumably, U.S. officials (in turn) did little but listen on that topic. Most of the discussion focused on implementation of the Cuba-U.S. Migration Accord.

But following the migration talks, U.S. officials met with Cuban opposition leaders, dissidents that Cuban officials angrily called “dozens of [U.S.] mercenaries” in denouncing the meeting. The Cuban Foreign Ministry said that the meeting showed that Washington’s real goal is to topple Havana’s government, not to move toward better relations. The meeting would be viewed as a provocation, Havana said, and contrary to the spirit of the migration discussions.

Indeed, the head of Havana’s North American delegation explicitly requested that U.S. officials not proceed with the meeting, but the State Department delegation went ahead with it. The result? Unfortunately, the only outcome is that Washington continues to look like a meddling Colossus of the North, and what could otherwise be seen as credible democratic groups within Cuba are again undermined into looking like pawns of some U.S. machine.

So why is Lula, President of Brazil, the photo on this post?

Lula has the ability to do things that the untrusted U.S. government does not, and to do so independently of Washington and with a credibility that has been built up through other bonds of trust between Brasilia and Havana. And today, fifty Cuban dissidents, most of them in prison, wrote to Lula to request that he intercede on their behalf in his meeting with Raúl and Fidel this Wednesday. Like many other leaders that visit the island, Lula has declined to meet with dissidents, but because of that (not just in spite of it) he is probably better placed to be an interlocutor that could discuss—without mistrust and historical misgivings—the situation of peaceful Cuban opposition members and other issues of human rights.

By the way, Cuban Assembly Speaker Ricardo Alarcón was a bit more positive about the overall outcome of the visit of U.S. officials to the island last week: he said that the meeting with dissidents still should not interrupt migration and other talks between the two nations. “I don’t think that it has to interrupt it, except if in his inclination for change Mr. Obama is going to do the same thing that Mr. Bush did previously,” the Speaker noted.

(Photo of Lula from the Latin American Herald Tribune, laht.com)