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Conversations with Ignacio Ramonet

“All the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean vote at the United Nations in favor of lifting economic sanctions against Cuba”
Salim Lamrani
Cet article est une traduction de :
Conversations avec Ignacio Ramonet [fr]
Autre(s) traduction(s) de cet article :
Conversaciones con Ignacio Ramonet [es]

Texte intégral

1Doctor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, Professor of communication theory for nearly thirty years at the University of Paris VII, cinema semiologist and journalist, Ignacio Ramonet is one of the foremost specialists in Latin America, which he has visited many times. His extensive knowledge of continental issues has made him one of the most sought-after speakers around the world. Several higher education institutions, such as the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, the University of Córdoba in Argentina, the University of Havana in Cuba or the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic have awarded him the title of Doctor Honoris Causa for his numerous works.

2Director of the monthly Le Monde diplomatique from 1990 to 2008 in its French version, Ignacio Ramonet is now the head of the Spanish edition of the newspaper. He has conducted numerous interviews with political leaders in Latin America. In particular, he met former Cuban President Fidel Castro on several occasions and these exchanges led to the publication of the reference book Fidel Castro: My Life, since translated into more than twenty languages. He also met former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and published a book titled Hugo Chávez, My First Life. He is the author of some 20 books published in several languages.

3The French Senate awarded him the Gold Medal “for his action in favor of the rapprochement between France and Latin America”. He also received the FAO Prize of the United Nations “for having sensitized society to the problem of hunger in the world”. New York City, for its part, presented him with the honor of Proclamation for his work in favor of Latin communities.

4During these conversations, Ignacio Ramonet evokes to the conflicting relations between Cuba and the United States and offers a wise look at the hostile policy imposed by Washington. He recalls that the international community, including the main allies of the White House, has been asking for several decades for the lifting of the economic sanctions which hit the Cuban population and which have increased under the Trump administration, in the midst of the global Covid pandemic. 19. Finally, he mentions the measures that the new Biden administration can take in order to return to a more constructive policy in relations between the two countries.

5Salim Lamrani: Ignacio Ramonet, how do you explain the persistence of the conflict between Cuba and the United States thirty years after the fall of the Soviet Union? What do you think are the real reasons behind the White House’s hostile policy towards Cuba?

6Ignacio Ramonet: This is a very relevant question that many people have to ask themselves. How is it that the United States, after sixty years, with very different presidents succeeding one another, maintains such strong hostility towards Cuba? Yet the Cuban Revolution took place in 1959 and the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991. At the same time, the United States made peace with Vietnam, where they waged a war that cost them many thousands of lives, a war that lasted more than fifteen years. They also made peace with the People’s Republic of China, which they had not recognized for a very long time. This hostility does not appear to be abating, as it was believed that with the coming to power of Joe Biden the last sanctions imposed by Donald Trump would be removed very quickly.

7I think one of the answers – there are others – is that Cuba has become for the United States throughout these sixty years a real question of domestic politics. In Florida there is a community of over a million Cubans, who are deeply rooted in this important state, as we saw in the last American election. Florida has nearly 30 voters and is one of the states with the most. This community is very strong. In the first years after the triumph of the Revolution, all the great entrepreneurs, all the great fortunes, all the great landowners settled in Miami. At the time, Florida was a small state. Miami was a small seaside town. It was the equivalent of Saint-Tropez, it wasn’t even Nice. Today, it has grown to be the largest cruise port in the world and one of the most important commercial ports in the world. Miami is now an extremely populated city, economically very dynamic and it is very largely controlled by the Cubans. The mayor and the main authorities are Cuban or of Cuban origin. Florida also sends parliamentarians to both the Senate and the House of Representatives. So, this is a very national issue. This community is doing everything to ensure that its demands cannot be forgotten, despite the passage of time. It keeps the wound in American-Cuban relations open.

8The only President who has moved – more than any other – in a direction of policy change is Obama. Hillary Clinton was the secretary of state. The principle was simple: a policy that has not worked for sixty years will never work. Obama had said on several occasions that he was seeking the same goal of ending the Cuban Revolution, but in a different way. The tactic is said to be the “bear kiss” tactic. In other words, by sending tourists and doing business with Cuba, as was the case with Vietnam, the system will eventually change its nature.

9SL: What is the position of Latin America in general on relations between Washington and Havana?

10IR: All of Latin America is almost unanimous in denouncing the U.S. embargo against the island. From time to time there may be a president who momentarily deviates from the general line, but this is exceptional. Cuba has excellent diplomatic relations with all the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. Cuba has not practiced a policy of exporting its revolution for a long time. Moreover, on this subject, Fidel Castro said that it had never been the case. But there was a time when there were guerrillas, very ideological military dictatorships, and countries extremely hostile to Cuba. Today, that remains an exception. This was the case during the puppet government of Mrs. Añez in Bolivia, resulting from a coup, which decided to dismiss the Cuban doctors present in the country. But as a rule, all the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean vote at the United Nations in favor of lifting economic sanctions against Cuba.

11SL: What is the position of the European Union on the conflict between the United States and Cuba?

12IR: The European Union has had a fluctuating policy. It should be remembered that the embryo of the European Union is made up of the countries which were the losers of the Second World War, like Germany and Italy, and of the countries which lost their colonial empire, like France, Belgium or the Netherlands. It is in a way a club of hamstrung nations who, finding themselves confined to their metropolitan territories, decide to unite to regain a sense of greatness.

13As far as foreign policy is concerned, the tradition within the European Union is that questions which concern the former colonial empire of such or such country are left in priority to the principal concerned. For example, if it is the Maghreb, France will have a say. If it is Libya, priority will be given to Italy. For the former Belgian Congo, Brussels will have its say. When it comes to Latin America, Spain also has some sort of priority. This is obviously not an authoritarian device or something unanimous, but the opinion of the old power is considered important.

14As for Cuba, which was the last Spanish colony until 1898, Spanish opinion is important and it fluctuates with different governments. As long as the right has ruled Spain with Aznar and Rajoy, the European Union’s Common Position has largely been aligned with that of the United States. In recent times, especially since Pedro Sánchez was President of the Spanish government, the European Union has distanced itself from the United States. It must be said that the main European investors in Cuba are Spanish companies in the tourism and banking sectors. Spain, in the end, whatever its government, has too many economic interests in Cuba to be able to accept Washington’s policy, and in particular Donald Trump’s decision to activate Title III of the Helms-Burton Act which concerns Spanish and European interests directly. The whole of Europe has joined forces with Spanish, French and Italian investors who have interests in the island. The Helms-Burton Act was passed in 1996 under the Clinton administration, but Title III was never applied.

15SL: You have met Fidel Castro on several occasions and you have published a book called Fidel Castro, My Life, drawn from the long conversations you had together. What is your view on the political leader and his management of the conflictual relationship with the United States?

16IR: Fidel Castro made relations with the United States a priority issue for obvious reasons that have to do with both history and geography. Of all the international relations that Cuba can have, the connection with the United States is the most important. The United States effectively occupied Cuba when the country gained independence. They succeeded Spain economically and Cuba became a neo-colony, meaning that all important strategic and economic sectors were controlled by American companies and capital. During the sixty-year period between independence and the Cuban Revolution, Washington manipulated Cuban politics through puppet rulers under its command. Added to this is geographic proximity. It should be remembered that in 1959, at the triumph of the Revolution, there were six or seven ferries which made a daily connection between Miami and Havana – it is a relatively short trip, barely two hours – and arrived at the island loaded with cars and tourists.

17The Cuban Revolution called into question the dominance of the United States and Cuba obtained what one might call its second independence. Structurally, the relationship with the United States has always been very important. It has become more so as the United States has become Cuba’s main adversary. And this is not just any adversary since we are talking about the world’s leading economic, military and technological power.

18Fidel Castro’s main objective was to be interested in U.S. politics. He was a very great scholar of American domestic politics. He knew the composition of the Senate, the House of Representatives, the various elected officials and was aware of the internal debates of the country. He had traveled several times to the United States during his time in the political opposition before 1959. Subsequently, he had met Vice President Richard Nixon under the Eisenhower administration, after the Revolution. There was always a great interest in listening to him talk about the United States because he made brilliant analyzes.

19SL: What do you think of the fact that the United States has once again placed Cuba on the list of countries supporting international terrorism?

20IR: If it weren’t extremely serious, it would be a laughing matter. Of all the neighbors of the United States, including even Canada, the only country that poses no problem is Cuba. Cuba condemns terrorism, whatever it is, in principle. Cuba is one of the nations that has suffered the most from terrorism with dozens of terrorist attacks. Commandos were sent from Florida. I myself did a report in Miami about 30 years ago about them. I lived with commandos of former Cuban mercenaries returning from Cuba where they had just carried out attacks. They had explained to me on a raised map how and where they had detonated bombs. We were already in the 1980s and not in the 1960s or 1970s. There were bombs in schools, in department stores and a civilian plane was even detonated in mid-flight in 1976, which cost the life to 73 people.

21Cuba is one of the countries with the most victims of terrorist attacks in the world, with nearly 3,500 dead and thousands of casualties, caused by commandos from Miami, with at least the tolerance or the passivity of the American authorities. There were terrorist attacks until the end of the 1990s, especially in hotels to scare off tourism. We remember the victims, including an Italian. Cuba is a country that has suffered terrorism and condemns it in all its forms. According to the American authorities themselves, Cuba has never organized an attack on American territory. Calling Cuba a country supporting international terrorism therefore makes no sense.

22The basis for this accusation is as follows. At the request of the Colombian government, a strong ally of the United States, the FARC – the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - and the ELN – the National Liberation Army – Cuba has accepted that negotiations take place on its territory in a prospect of peace. Colombia broke off negotiations with the ELN last year. As a result, the ELN delegates could no longer return to Colombia because they were now being pursued there and remained in Cuban territory. Washington uses this state of affairs to accuse Cuba of harboring terrorists. According to all diplomatic traditions, it is obvious that Havana could not help but keep in its territory people whom it had welcomed for negotiations. It was President Duque’s government that broke them down, making it impossible for delegates to return to their country with a minimum of security. Washington’s accusation is therefore baseless.

23On the contrary, what Cuba exports are doctors and teachers. It has just developed a number of vaccines against Covid-19 that it will make available to the world. In addition, Havana guarantees that there is no drug trafficking through its territory. Cuba is therefore a vector of peace and health, and not of terrorism.

24SL: How did Cuba deal with the Covid-19 health crisis in a context marked by increased economic sanctions imposed by the Trump administration?

25IR: It is particularly cruel of the United States to have maintained economic sanctions over the past year, as Cuba has had to close its borders for health reasons, as have most countries in the world, and had to do without one of its main sources of income, which is tourism. Cuba’s objective economic difficulties have increased substantially.

26However, during this period, Cuba has taken a whole series of preventive measures that have led to results that are objectively among the best in the world, as recognized by the World Health Organization. In Cuba, there is very little infection and there have been very few deaths. It is probably the nation with the fewest deaths from Covid-19 in America. To date, there have been no deaths among health workers in Cuba from the disease. On the contrary, Cuba has sent medical brigades to some 50 countries, including European countries such as Italy and Andorra. Thus, this island which is under economic sanctions is obtaining among the best results in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. Cuba has also developed several vaccines, two of which are in phase three of development. In April 2021, generalized vaccination began for Havana and Santiago, the two largest cities in the country, for a total of four million people out of a population of 11 million. Cuba is a very organized country. It is a recognized global medical power.

27In short, Cuba is facing a lot of economic difficulties, supply and food problems, as the authorities recognize, because the country has been deprived of one of its main resources. At the same time, the island has achieved great results in the fight against Covid-19.

28SL: What do you think the Biden administration should do in its dealings with Havana? How do you see the future of relations between the two countries?

29IR: In my opinion, and many international observers agree, there are three steps the Biden administration can take very quickly to change the nature of relations with Cuba. The underlying hostility will not go away overnight, but some decisions can be taken quickly. The Biden administration controls both the Senate and the House of Representatives, although on a subject like Cuba there will be no unanimity in the United States and elected officials are not bound by voting discipline. It is true that elected Democrats may not respond positively to President Biden’s demands. For example, one of the most hostile elected officials to the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba is Democrat Senator Bob Menéndez.

30The first administrative step President Biden can take is to remove Cuba from the list of countries supporting terrorism. Donald Trump placed Cuba on this list the day before he left the White House. It was thought that President Biden would reverse this decision very quickly, because it is absurd, as all chanceries in the world recognize.

31The second measure concerns the restoration of freedom of travel for the citizens of the United States. Today, it is true that there is the Covid-19 pandemic and that no one is traveling anymore. Nevertheless, a very important vaccination campaign is developing in the United States and it will probably be one of the best vaccinated countries in the world. This is an operation that Joe Biden will carry out and will be one of his successes. There will therefore be the possibility of resuming travel, in particular for the Cuban community in the United States but also for American citizens. The freedom to transfer money to Cuba should also be restored. Cuban expatriates are concerned about the plight of their families and want to send money. In the final weeks of his tenure, the Trump administration had taken steps to make these remittances nearly impossible, by cutting Western Union services which had a monopoly in the sector.

32The third administrative step the Biden administration can take is to restore consular services in Havana. The current situation is absurd and I believe that many people ignore the reality. The American consulate in the Cuban capital has been relocated to Mexico City and Guyana. Thus, if a Cuban wishes to apply for a visa to visit his family in Miami, he must travel to Mexico or Guyana and wait there for his application to be accepted or rejected. Imagine what that implies in terms of travel and subsistence costs. This is utter nonsense. Trump had taken this step only to annoy Cubans and their families who live in the United States, and not the Cuban government or the island authorities. Cubans are therefore obliged to make a sort of Stations of the Cross in order to carry out the usual consular procedures. Joe Biden can therefore quickly restore consular services and put an end to this administrative torture that the United States is imposing on Cuban families.

33SL: The United States conditions the lifting of economic sanctions on the human rights situation. What is your opinion in this regard?

34IR: The issue of human rights has been under discussion for a very long time in many countries, and the reading is not always the same. If by human rights, we talk about saving lives, Cuba has saved more lives than any other country in America, including the United States and Canada, simply because the island has the lowest rate of infant mortality on the continent. A child born in Cuba is much more likely to be healthy in Cuba than in any other country in the Americas. Here is a first objective fact relating to human rights.

35In addition, it is enough to walk in any part of Cuba to realize that there are no homeless people, that there are no children or senior citizens. who sleep in the streets. Social services take care of vulnerable people.

36There are multiple examples. In terms of Covid-19, Cuba is the country with the fewest deaths in all of America. Women have had the right to abort for more than fifty years in Cuba, while on the rest of the continent they have to fight for this right. The recent success in Argentina in this area has served as a reminder that in most Latin American countries women do not have the right to abortion, regardless of the situation and how they became pregnant.

37The main criticism made by the United States concerns political freedoms and the presence of a single party. Cuba responds to this by recalling that it is their choice and that the Constitution was voted by the people and that it guarantees a unique way of choosing elected officials. It can be discussed and it is quite legitimate.

38On the other hand, it should be remembered that the United States supports and has supported dictatorships around the world, where there are no elections and where none of the human rights just mentioned are respected. They don’t have a problem with that. It is therefore very surprising that the United States says that the human rights situation in Cuba is a problem for them, when Washington has supported all the dictatorships and all the coups throughout the 20th century in Latin America. and elsewhere. The United States remains Saudi Arabia’s main ally and we know what that country does with its opponents, especially when they risk entering consular services. We saw this with the opposition journalist Jamal Khashoggi when he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. He was cut into small pieces and was never found. This has never stopped the United States from having the best relations with Saudi Arabia. We could cite dozens of such examples.

39SL: You have first-hand knowledge of Cuban reality because you go there frequently. How do you see Cuban society today?

40IR: Cuba has just experienced a great political event as in April 2021 the 8th Congress of the Communist Party was held in Cuba, which is the single party that has governed the island for sixty years. It was a very important Congress that confirmed the withdrawal of Raúl Castro, then First Secretary of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba. We have seen the departure of the historic generation that made the Revolution. President Díaz-Canel is now in power and represents the generation which is in its fifties and which did not participate in the Cuban Revolution. This is the generation of continuity. So, this is a symbolically important moment.

41Daily life has been very difficult lately due to the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic at the international level, which has paralyzed trade. One of Cuba’s main resources is tourism. It is the second largest source of income, just after the export of medical services. There is the prospect of being able to sell the vaccine and that can be a very important source of income. Today, the food question arises because the country does not have the means to import as before a large part of its food, up to 80% of its consumption. This year, that has not been possible, except on a very small scale. Cuba does not produce enough food raw materials to meet its needs, although there has been an acceleration in agricultural production this year. There is an absolute need for Cuba to produce more food. Therefore, everyday life is difficult.

42Hopefully the Biden administration will eventually adopt the reforms that everyone expects in Cuba and loosen the grip imposed by Trump.

43SL: What are the main challenges facing Cuba today?

44IR: Domestically, the main challenge is food because Cuba must win the battle for food sovereignty. This is a major and fundamental challenge because the embargo prevents it from paying for the imports that the country wishes to make. On the other hand, as President Díaz-Canel pointed out, from a structural point of view, it is not normal for a country like Cuba, which is under siege, to depend 80% on imports from abroad. This must change and the country is determined to do so. We will see what measures will be taken in this direction. No doubt it will be necessary to go through the easing of the bureaucratic measures that weigh on the Cuban farm workers. It will undoubtedly be necessary to draw inspiration from the Doi Moi Revolution led by the Vietnamese who are today very large exporters of food products, when it was a country plunged into famine after their military victory over the United States.

45The second challenge is to defeat Covid-19 for good and to be the first country in Latin America to vaccinate its entire population, which is very doable.

46Finally, the third challenge relates to relations with the United States. We will have to see how it will be possible to have a peaceful dialogue as was the case during President Obama’s second term. I believe these are the three main challenges for Cuba.

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Salim Lamrani, « Conversations with Ignacio Ramonet »Études caribéennes [En ligne], 7 | Juillet 2021, mis en ligne le 15 juillet 2021, consulté le 13 mai 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudescaribeennes/23069 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/etudescaribeennes.23069

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Salim Lamrani

Université de La Réunion

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