The Organization of American States voted by consensus at a gathering in San Pedro Sula this week to allow Cuba to reapply for membership. The event marked the third straight meeting of hemispheric heads of state in which Cuba dominated the agenda.
Since Obama was elected, governments across the hemisphere have called upon him to rescind the US embargo against Cuba. The Rio Group invited Cuba to become its 23rd member last December. Elected leaders whose attitudes toward the United States span the spectrum from the hypercritical Chávez of Venezuela, to the staunchly supportive Alvaro of Uribe declared their support for an end to the embargo at the last meeting of hemispheric heads of state at Trinidad and Tobago in April. Upon his inauguration, Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes restored diplomatic relations with Cuba, making the United States the last country in the hemisphere not to do so. That means that for the first time Cuba now enjoys relations with more countries in the hemisphere that the U.S., which also lacks full diplomatic relations with Bolivia or Venezuela.
The meeting at San Pedro Sula this week offered another vehicle for Latin American leaders to confront U.S. officials on Cuba policy, but readmitting Cuba to the OAS proved much trickier than denouncing the embargo at the Summit of the Americas. The catch hinged on the Obama Administration’s unwillingness to accept Cuban membership unless the Castro regime takes concrete steps to conform to the principles enshrined in the OAS’ 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter, including multi-party elections and protection of political speech. While Latin American governments unanimously supported the re-inclusion of Cuba, the majority did not jump at the chance to publicly renege on their commitment to such widely held principles. Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia pushed hard for an unconditional resolution, but the participants eventually reached a compromise requiring the Cuba’s readmission to conform to the “practices, purposes and principles of the OAS” rather than using language referring specifically to the 2001 Charter.
The OAS’ vote did not play well with conservative Cuban Americans. US Representatives Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart released a statement following the vote deriding the OAS as “a putrid embarrassment” and threatening to withdraw U.S. financing of the organization, according to a report by the Miami Herald. Tim Padgett’s article in Time Magazine notes that Cuban American Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey shares his colleagues’ views.
Conservatives opposed to Cuba’s admittance to the hemispheric organization may have little to worry about for the moment, however, since Cuba itself maintains its traditional stance against joining the organization. Al Jazeera reports:
…Ricardo Alarcón, the president of Cuba’s national assembly, was quoted by AFP as saying that the OAS vote was “a great victory for Latin America and the Caribbean and also for the Cuban people” .
However, the Caribbean nation said it would not rejoin the group, which it sees as dominated by US interests.
“[The move] does not alter what Cuba thought yesterday, the day before yesterday and today,” Alarcón said as quoted by AFP.
Neither Raúl Castro, president of Cuba, or his brother, former president Fidel Castro, have commented publicly on the OAS move so far.
But regardless of whether Cuba joins, the vote symbolizes the growing independence of Latin America vis-à-vis the United States and provides further pressure from the South on the Obama administration to end the embargo unilaterally and unconditionally. It is becoming clear that until that occurs, regional diplomacy will remain stuck on Cuba.
Photo credit: Henryk Kotowski
