Author: Emma Lodes
We could soon see the end of Communism in Latin America – in the last few weeks, communist Cuba and socialist Venezuela were rattled by two major blows that could affect the course, and even the existence, of the extreme left south of our borders. News of the impending end to the Castro dynasty and the death of Hugo Chavez have set into motion a crucial transitional period in Cuba and Venezuela respectively. Now is the perfect moment for the United States to step in, demonstrate a change of heart to a changing face of communism and spark a new era of constructive engagement with both countries.
On Feb. 22, Cuba’s president Raul Castro, brother of the infamous Fidel Castro, announced that he will be resigning by 2018, ending nearly sixty years of Castro family rule. He promptly endorsed Miguel Diaz-Canel as his first vice president and de-facto successor. Although Diaz-Canel has announced he will maintain communism in the country, the prognosis is not so bleak. Cuba is changing slowly but surely. It is gradually edging away from communism, and has already implemented various reforms. Cubans are now allowed to start businesses, hire employees, buy and sell property, own cell phones and travel outside of the country. Diaz-Canel will be the first non-Castro to rule Cuba since 1959 and the first Cuban president who didn’t fight in the Cuban revolutionary war, the conflict that gave birth to communism in Cuba.
As if on queue, on Mar. 5, socialist Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez succumbed to cancer, ending his 15 year reign. Venezuela’s next president will not be chosen until elections scheduled for Apr. 14. Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’ vice president and current interim president, has explicitly stated that under his leadership, Venezuela will continue to uphold Chavez’ socialist policies. Alternatively, centrist Henrique Capriles, the opposition, is pushing for reforms to simulate Brazil’s market-friendly policies and is favored by the United States. These elections, and their starkly polarizing candidates, mark a crucial turning point in Venezuelan history.
Castro and Chavez rose to power in similar ways. Castro, along with Ché Guevara, ousted the right wing dictator Fulgencio Batista in the Cuban revolutionary war, and in doing so, paved the way for the emergence of communism. Venezuela’s Chavez broke out of obscurity in 1992 with a failed coup and entered the political scene as the populist champion for the poor. He was elected in 1998 and has since led the country with “twenty first century socialism,” according to Latin American Perspectives, cultivating close ties with communist Cuba and China (not to mention an uncomfortably cordial relationship with Iran).
According to Time Magazine, Latin American nationalists consider the Castros and Chavez to be protectors of their people and are devastated about Castro’s resignation and Chavez’ death. The leaders spoke out against Western “neo-imperialism” and laissez-faire capitalism, and advocated for Latin American solidarity. Many believe that with Castro and Chavez gone, working class Latin American people will lose their defenders.
Since the Castros and Chavez rose to power, the United States’ relationship with Cuba and Venezuela has been far from friendly. The United States attempted to overthrow the Castros several times, and Cuba has been on America’s antiquated list of terrorist-sponsoring states since the Cold War, although it remains highly unlikely that Cuba has the financial resources to fund extraterritorial militant groups of any sort, let alone the desire to sponsor terrorism. To make matters worse, the United States’ current embargo against Cuba is the strictest and most complex embargo against any country in the world and only further isolates Cuba.
Our relationship with Venezuela isn’t much better. In 2002, George W. Bush was implicated in a failed coup against Chavez that briefly removed him from office. Not unrelated, during a 2006 UN meeting, Chavez called Bush the “devil,” and announced that the room “didn’t smell like sulfur anymore” when Bush walked out.
In allowing this absurdly adversarial relationship to perpetuate, the United States is doing itself a serious disservice. Venezuela boasts the world’s second largest oil reserves. But because of melodrama and endless animosity, Venezuela has rejected U.S. consumption of their oil and has instead turned to Chinese and Russian markets. The United States should mend harsh feelings with Venezuela for both its sake and Venezuela’s. President Obama has wise to re-institute diplomatic relations with Venezuela (which were nonexistent under Bush), but must go further. Obama must make improving relations with Venezula a priority in his fresh term and encourage Venezuela to both boost its oil production and raise oil exports to the U.S. Such policy changes would vastly improve both the U.S. and Venezuelan economies.
The same goes for Cuba. In his second term, Obama should assert his authority by lifting the strict embargo against Cuba. The Cold War is long behind us; Obama should move beyond historical skirmishes for the betterment of both the United States and Cuba. Obama’s partial lift of the embargo in his first term permitted thousands of Cuban-Americans to reunite with their families in Cuba and send them money and allowed small businesses to rekindle. A complete retraction of the embargo would drastically improve American-Cuban relations, relieve security fears around Cuba – freeing up resources to deal with more imminent security threats – and lead to a better standard of living for Cubans.
The United States can either wait for Cuba and Venezuela’s fates to take shape on their own, or it can step in now and initiate a new era of friendly relations. The pace of Cuba’s modernization will depend on Diaz-Canel; Venezuela’s fate rides on the upcoming election. Very soon, Cuba and Venezuela could be wholly different countries – with new opportunities for business, travel, entrepreneurship, trade and technological advances, which would only further be augmented by normalized relations with the U.S. Obama should make a concerted effort to revitalize relations with Cuba and Venezuela as there is no apparent reason for Cuba and Venezuela to remain our enemies. The United States must shrug off historical grudges and extend a friendly hand to countries that have long been erroneously vilified. The obvious, if not the only, logical decision for the Obama foreign policy team is a thawing of this absurdly prolonged diplomatic stalemate – a policy shift that would be of immeasurable value to the U.S., Cuba and Venezuela.
Emma Lodes is an undeclared first-year. She can be reached at lodes@oxy.edu. Do you have an opinion on this issue? If so, keep the conversation going and comment on this article at occidentalweekly.com or write a Letter to the Editor.
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