CUBA-USA
The Audacity of a Revolution
Witness and leading participant, Ramón Sánchez-Parodi has published a book in which he examines various aspects of the relations between the two countries.

By: MARTA G. SOJO (inter@bohemia.co.cu )
Photos: EDUARDO LEYVA BENÍTEZ (foto@bohemia.lco.cu)
(01 June  2011)

A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

Ramon Sanchez-Parodi Montoto
Headed the Cuban Section of Interests
in Washington DC from September 1977
to April 1989.

He is considered an insightful analyst of US policy, a standing he has attained after long years of study of that nation’s problems and based also on his diplomatic experience acquired mostly in Washington, DC as Head of the Cuban Interests Section.

His book Cuba–USA, Diez tiempos de una relación, explains the profound reasons behind the inter-relationship between both nations. His living testimony is a detailed and well-informed account of his 12 years in the North American capital.  

Ramón Sánchez-Parodi Montoto took part in the negotiation process that permitted the establishment of Interests Sections in the respective countries. Back in Havana, he was Deputy Foreign Minister, Cuban Ambassador to Brazil and Deputy Director of the José Marti Program, directed by Armando Hart Dávalos. As a journalist and writer he has published articles in Granma newspaper, and in other national and international media.  

The present work, as highlighted on the back-cover, is particularly focused on bilateral differences. Based on documents and his personal experiences, he delves into the hostility of Yankee imperialism against a people which rejects domination, a feeling contained in its watchword Patria o Muerte.

What is the thesis on the relations between the two countries that you wish to substantiate in your book? 

Ocean Sur Press published Cuba, diez tiempos
de una relación, a book by Sanchez-Parodi.

The key and essential element is to highlight that –contrary to what is commonly said that relations between Cuba and the United States  are bitter since the triumph of the Revolution, the fact is that
they’ve been so for more than 200 years -- ever since the US emerged as an independent nation,-- due to the persistent intention of the dominant forces of yesterday and today to exert control over Cuba and even physically capture the Island. That is the central thesis.

Do you think that Jose Marti foresaw the impending future as to our relations with US governments?

Marti not only foresaw the future; he clearly defined the roots of the problems and challenges that the independence from colonial rule meant for the Latin American countries and Cuba itself. In our case, and very concretely based on the experiences of the 10 Years War, he pointed to the need to achieve unity and the participation of all the country’s forces in the struggle for independence. I think this is one of the most outstanding contributions Marti made. He was able to unravel the origins, conditions, circumstances and perspectives for the United States to exert what we have hitherto known as domination and imperial policy in the modern sense. This was something Lenin later on described in different terms. Marti also foresaw the importance that the independence of Cuba had for Latin America, something that was largely frustrated at the end of the 19th century and beginnings of the 20th by the US intervention in the Spanish–Cuban war. After the Revolution, the important role of our country in blocking imperial ambitions of the US in our continent has become apparent.

There have been 10 US Presidents since January 1st 1959 and full relations have never been re-established. Could Obama be the exception that brings about a change?   

I don’t know if Obama can be the exception. What is really obvious is that if there is no change the US is faced with a total failure after 50 years and 10 Presidents. He has no other option but to modify his policy. In any case, Obama has the chance of bringing about that change but I’m not sure whether he will waste that opportunity or not; up to now he doesn’t seem very keen on making the inevitable correction.

Why do you believe that blockading and isolating Cuba is a big mistake of US policy?

The foreign policy of revolutionary Cuba has had an international impact that goes beyond its small dimensions as an island due to its audacious defense of the sovereignty, independence and integrity of the nation.

Among other reasons, because it has utterly failed in its pretentions of dominating and coercing Cuba. It is also a big mistake because it has marked and made things difficult for the United States in its own relations with Latin America, since they tried to associate the governments of the region with their attacks against the island. They did succeed at a given moment, but in the end it’s been a big mistake that has prevented them from developing a constructive relationship with all the Latin American and Caribbean sectors.

The TV series Las razones de Cuba [Cuba's Reasons] has illustrated a few elements of how they’ve tried to insist on the policy of hostility, but it has constantly floundered and after each failure they have devised a new modality that has met the same fate. Right now they are isolated. Therefore the only thing left [for them] to do is to change that policy. If they don’t, they will lose any chance of introducing a beneficial influence in the process together with the rest of the nations in this continent. That is the current state of affairs at this moment. There is no alternative other than changing that stance. Failing to do so will imply sinking deeper into the quagmire of incapacity and impotence.

Do they still cling to the theory that once the historic leaders of the Revolution are gone it will be a different story?

Not even that theory is sustainable, because it is clear that the Commander-in-Chief does not hold any posts in the structures of the Cuban government and state and nothing has happened. The process enters a new phase in keeping with the times.  Proof of this is the Sixth Congress of the Party and the new wave of young leaders, which is a fact of today not of tomorrow. So that moment is gone. The Revolution, on the contrary, becomes stronger in these new circumstances.

In your book you argue that the United States is losing the capacity to conduct an imperial policy. Would you care to comment? 

Sánchez-Parodi plans to write a series on the 2012 US presidential election

The US imperial power is undoubtedly declining. Today I was reading an interview with Noam Chomsky where he speaks in those terms: how his country has been losing that capacity since the end of the 2nd World War when the US represented 50 per cent of the world’s economy. Today its prevalence is solely in the military field. But as Fidel Castro has pointed out, it is practically suicidal for the US to employ all of its nuclear might to impose its imperial power; it would endanger the very existence of humanity. Therefore, rationality is the only way out: to acknowledge the realities of the present day world and the need to abandon the hegemonic ambitions that the dominant forces try to pursue. 

For 12 years you were in charge of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington DC. Which were the most difficult or conflictive moments?

I wouldn’t say one was more serious than the other; they were all part and parcel of the same process, they were all significant and carried a lot of weight in this experience.

You have been a diplomat for many years. Do you feel this gave you the opportunity to witness or be part of special circumstances?

I think we have all been present at special moments in the history of Cuba.  Having lived through a revolutionary process means having gained the experience of what a profound revolution really is, a revolution that has stood up to the most powerful enemy the world has ever known. In diplomacy and outside diplomacy I think we’ve all had the honor of living and learning within this process.

In your view, which have been the most important diplomatic battles Cuba has fought in the UN and in Washington DC?

Playa Girón [the Bay of Pigs],  the October Crisis [Missile Crisis of 1962, ed.], the defense of our independence at a time when the US threatened to use even nuclear weapons… Those were all transcendental moments, important battles, but none more important that the other; they were all necessary and played a part in keeping our independence, integrity and sovereignty.