In his best-known work, Cuban independence hero José Martí called for no less than a “second independence of our América” in the face of American imperialism, or as he termed it, “la Roma Americana” (the American Rome). For Cuba’s revolutionary government, this required—and still requires—the deployment of an active, multifaceted foreign policy to recalibrate the overwhelming asymmetry of power between Cuba and the United States.
On September 2, 1960, in response to the already recurrent aggressions of the U.S. government against the young Revolution and to a resolution approved at the Organization of American States (OAS) just days before, Cuba’s National General Assembly ratified the “First Declaration of Havana.” Still a cornerstone of Cuban foreign policy, the Declaration announced Cuba’s “friendship with the peoples of the world,” and it asserted the country’s right to establish official relations with all governments that sought them—including the Soviet Union, China and others in the then-called “socialist camp.” In its second article, the Declaration condemned “the open and criminal intervention exercised by North American imperialism for more than a century over all the countries of Latin America.”1
Since then, I would argue, Cuban foreign policy has retained a clearly consistent trajectory—from its foundational ideas and its choices of regional and international bodies in which to participate, to the strengthening of its diverse international alliances. For example, in opposition to U.S.-dominated “Pan-Americanism,” the Revolution has always posited the doctrine of latinoamericanismo, adopted in the Cuban Constitution of 1976, which seeks the “integration of Latin American and Caribbean nations that have been liberated of external domination and internal oppression into a community of brotherly nations committed to national and social progress joined by a common history and struggle against colonialism, neocolonialism and imperialism.”2 But as these conditions remain unfulfilled, Cuban authorities have generally maintained a critical stance toward existing regional inter-governmental organizations—be they political coalitions, cooperation agreements or economic integration efforts.
It is no surprise, then, that Cuba has only fully incorporated itself into regional international organizations that do not question its political system, and those in which the United States either does not participate or does not wield veto power: the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the Latin American Energy Organization (OLADE), the Latin American Economic System (SELA), the Ibero-American conferences, the Association of Caribbean States (ACS-AES) and others. And given the Cuban economy’s socialist base, the country does not participate in regional integration schemes that function within the neoliberal capitalist matrix: the Central American Economic Integration System (SIECA), the Caribbean Community (Caricom), the Andean Community (CAN) and the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). These integration efforts surged or regained momentum at the height of the so-called “Washington Consensus,” which prescribed a diminished role for the state in social and economic affairs, privatization, deregulation, labor flexibilization and other drastic policies.
Yet amid the formation of these blocs, Cuba has maneuvered its way by signing mutually acceptable, yet limited, cooperation agreements—as with Caricom in 2002, allowing for mutual market access as well as cooperation in trade, tourism and other areas, and the creation of a school to train eastern Caribbean health professionals in treating HIV/AIDS.3 In the case of the Latin American Association for Integration (ALADI), established in 1980 and which Cuba joined in 1996, the government has reached several “partial scope” (involving fewer than the 12 member countries) economic complementation agreements. And in light of the positive political changes in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay since 2002, Cuba has sought a “4+1” agreement—allowing trade but short of full membership—with Mercosur, which is slated to induct Venezuela as a full member.
In contrast to such openings, the Cuban state has consistently rejected the prevailing U.S.-dominated Inter-American system, including the OAS, the Inter-American Defense Board and, in the last decade, the Summit of the Americas process—particularly its negotiations over a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Cuba has expressed some of its harshest criticisms over recent moves by these institutions to pave the way for “collective democratic interventions” in the internal affairs of nations, as embodied in the OAS’s “Inter-American Democratic Charter.” In a similar vein, the OAS-ratified “Inter-American Convention Against Terrorism” requires its signatories to ascribe to the insidious notions of “hemispheric security” defined by the current U.S. administration and its allies.
For these reasons, reentry into the OAS (from which Cuba was illegally suspended in 1962) and participation in the Summit of the Americas process (to which Cuba was never invited) do not form part of Cuba’s foreign policy objectives. Cuba has categorically opposed a long list of foreign interventions (whether direct or indirect, individual or “collective”) in Cuban affairs and those of its neighbors that were led by the U.S. government—with the consent or tacit support of the OAS.
Besides withstanding relentless attack by ten u.s. presidential administrations, the Revolution has also managed to express its internationalist solidarity with a multitude of struggles for democracy and movements for national and social liberation in the Americas and beyond. It has done so regardless of the social position or political affiliation of their protagonists; of their forms of struggle (armed or unarmed); or of their level of identification with socialist ideals. The varied episodes of internationalist assistance offered by Cuba are well known and need only brief mention: Guyana’s People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government in the 1960s; Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity (UP) in Chile; the military nationalist reformers in Ecuador, Panama and Peru; the positive changes that marked the 1970s in both Jamaica and Guyana; the popular revolutions in Grenada and Nicaragua; and, more recently, the “Bolivarian Revolution” underway in Venezuela. The type of assistance depended on, among other factors, the willingness of the political actors involved, official Cuban opinion on their reliability and the international alignment of forces (including the island’s ties with each respective government of the region).
Yet Cuba’s solidarity with popular, democratic and anti-imperialist struggles has not prevented it—for the most part—from establishing and maintaining relations of mutual respect with the region’s governments that do not interfere in the island’s internal and external affairs. Tense relations and even diplomatic crises, of course, do flare up occasionally, as sometimes happens when Latin American governments support the anti-Cuba resolutions hatched by the White House at the UN Commission on Human Rights. But recent diplomatic rows between Cuba and Latin American states—Mexico, Panama and Uruguay—have been overcome and relatively cordial relations have been restored.4 Cuba now maintains diplomatic relations with 30 of the 32 states of Latin America and the Caribbean, excluding only El Salvador, which does not maintain official relations with the island, and Costa Rica, with which bilateral relations have not gone beyond the consular level since 1959.
As a testament of its goodwill, and independent of its diplomatic or commercial relations on a governmental level, the Cuban state has always offered humanitarian aid to countries afflicted by the social catastrophes that stem from the region’s frequent natural phenomena—hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. In some cases, as with Cuba’s offer to send doctors and supplies to the victims of Hurricane Katrina in the United States, this aid has been rejected. But the island’s medical expertise has helped combat regional pandemics like the mosquito-transmitted dengue hemorrhagic fever. To carry through these projects Cuba lends the services of doctors and healthcare workers through inter-governmental agreements with each nation. For the sustainability of this and similar programs, in 1999 the government inaugurated the Latin American School of Medical Sciences in Havana. The school currently has 8,922 students from 27 countries of the Western Hemisphere, including 71 from the United States. When these students graduate, they will join the 43,000 other students from 120 countries with medium and higher education diplomas provided by scholarships from the Cuban government; more than 20% of these graduates are Latin American and Caribbean.5
As part of the Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement signed with Venezuela in October 2000, Cuba agreed to send 20,000 doctors and healthcare workers to assist Venezuela’s Barrio Adentro (Into the Barrio) healthcare programs, which have provided free medical attention to 17 million poor Venezuelans. At a speech last April at the Karl Marx Theater in Havana, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela told the audience that so far 90,000 Venezuelans had received medical attention in Cuba, of which some 20,000 had recovered their sight through an effort dubbed “Operation Miracle.” And with Cuba’s assistance, Chávez expects his government’s Misión Robinson education programs in the barrios will teach more than 1.4 million Venezuelans how to read and write.6 As a result of these efforts, Venezuela announced in October that it was an “illiteracy-free territory,” a claim certified by UNESCO.
Despite the White House’s efforts to portray Cuba as a threat to regional stability and security, the island’s economic and commercial relations with the countries of the Western Hemisphere (including Canada) have improved drastically in the last 15 years. This trend will continue in light of Cuba’s deepening political and economic relationship with Venezuela.
Today, cuba’s early engagement within latin america and the Caribbean finds continuity in the nascent Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA). Spurred since 2001 by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, the ALBA stands in stark contrast to the designs of the new Pan-American order envisioned by the U.S. government. Although the project is still in its infancy, it represents nothing less than a bold new paradigm for the multinational integration of Latin America and the Caribbean.
In December 2004, the two governments signed a joint declaration that defined 12 articles forming “the principles and cardinal bases guiding the ALBA.” Taking radical anti-imperialist positions—unlike their counterparts in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay—Chávez and Castro characterized the U.S.-sponsored FTAA as “the most hollow expression of [U.S.] appetites for domination over the region.” They also recognized that integration processes underway in the region, “far from responding to the objectives of independent development and economic complementarity, have served as one more mechanism that deepens external dependency and domination.”7
The ALBA—which Chávez calls “the dawn of a new era”—contains provisions that seek to address the varied levels of development of each member state by providing for special and differential agreements so that each “nation is guaranteed a share in the benefits of the integration process.” The declaration also calls for the ALBA members to privilege “economic cooperation and complementarity over competition between countries and products.”
Another important aspect of the ALBA involves attempts to wean Latin America and the Caribbean away from their overdependence on foreign, extra-regional investors. To this end, the two presidents announced the creation of a Latin American Investment Fund, a Development Bank of the South and what resembles an international Latin American credit union. According to the document, such projects are based on the supposition that “commerce and investment are not ends in themselves, but instruments that make possible a just and sustainable development process. True integration cannot be left to the market nor be conceived as a simple strategy to expand foreign markets and stimulate commerce. Integration instead requires the effective involvement of the state as a regulator and coordinator of economic activity.”
On the diplomatic front, the ALBA calls for coordinated positions in the multilateral sphere and in negotiations with non-member states and other regional blocs. On this point, the declaration explicitly includes efforts to promote greater democracy and transparency in international organizations, particularly citing the UN and its branches.
The December 14, 2004, accords concretized the goals and application of the ALBA, deepening and broadening Venezuela and Cuba’s bilateral Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement of 2000. The agreement is nothing short of a milestone in the outward projection of the Cuban Revolution, because for the first time in its history, it has ratified an agreement leading to the multifaceted integration of Cuba with another Latin American country. The two governments confirmed this by signing a strategic implementation plan in April 2005, and again six months later by ratifying 192 joint projects with an earmarked budget of more than $800 million funded by Cuba and Venezuela.8
Among these projects, Cuba’s medical support will help Venezuela’s construction of 600 comprehensive health clinics, 600 rehabilitation and physical therapy centers and 35 centers fully equipped with top medical technology—all offered to Venezuelans free of charge by trained professionals. As a testament of its solidarity, and notwithstanding the strong strains it causes in Cubans’ own medical coverage, Havana has begun sending up to 30,000 of its healthcare workers and doctors to Venezuela to staff these medical centers and to support the Barrio Adentro program. A portion of these professionals will also train a new cadre of 40,000 doctors and 5,000 healthcare workers. Meanwhile, back in Cuba, 10,000 aspiring Venezuelan doctors and nurses will receive training, and an estimated 100,000 Venezuelans will receive medical attention for ophthalmologic diseases. Cuba will also maintain its commitment to supporting education through the sixth grade, and strengthening education programs for high school, skilled labor and higher education.
For its part, the Venezuelan government plans to reciprocate with a supply of approximately 90,000 barrels of oil a day as well as other industrial products, technology transfers and scholarships for Cubans to enroll in specialized energy-sector degree programs. Venezuela also agreed to issue credit and will undertake joint investments with the Cuban state in sectors of strategic importance to both countries: nickel, steel, port facility development, shipping, information communications technologies, electricity production, and oil storage and refining.9
Venezuelan assistance will spur Cuba’s fledgling energy sector—which has recently partnered with foreign firms in exploratory drilling projects—with the added benefit of helping Venezuela’s state-run company, PDVSA, cut its costs in supplying oil to Cuba and, from there, to other Caribbean nations. This forms part of Chávez’s strategic vision of building a state-run regional energy conglomerate called PetroAmérica.
In September 2005, Venezuela, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and 11 member-states of Caricom ratified the final text of an Energy Cooperation Accord at the Second Caribbean Energy Summit held in Jamaica.10 The agreement establishes PetroCaribe as a regional body charged with coordinating the energy policies of its member-states. Venezuela will directly supply the signatories with oil and petroleum-based products under preferential terms. Signatories will receive oil under long-term financing agreements (17 to 25 years) with one percent interest. In cases of deferred payments, “Venezuela shall be able to determine the portion that shall be paid with goods and services for which it shall offer preferential rates,” says the agreement.11 One observer considers the oil deal “an example of the special and differential treatment of less developed nations” that guides the ALBA.12
What’s more, the agreement establishes the “ALBA-Caribbean Fund.” With a startup investment of $50 million from Venezuela, the fund seeks to foment employment, productive activities and services as well as to contribute to cultural, education, sports and public health programs. According to the document, “funds will also be contributed from financial and non-financial instruments. Such contributions may, upon agreement, be drawn from the financed portion of oil invoicing and the savings from direct trade.”
These agreements are indeed historic, but they must now confront the practical difficulties posed by the varying political will of each signatory government. They are also dependent on the evolution of Venezuela’s political and economic situation, so by implication are subject to the excesses and hostilities of powerful U.S. interests. And as the recent Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina showed, despite the public showing of anti-U.S. sentiment, the leadership of most Latin American and Caribbean countries are still willing to fall in line behind the United States in pursuing FTAA negotiations.
As agreements between Cuba and Venezuela progress, the content of the ALBA will continue to be defined. Already, mechanisms are being designed to facilitate the participation of municipal, provincial or state governments in securing the genuine integration of the region from within and from below.
Despite the differing points of view that exist between Venezuela and Cuba and the majority of Latin American and Caribbean countries, if the energy sector agreements between Venezuela and Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay as well as PetroCaribe are any indication, it would seem that promising opportunities are emerging for broadening these agreements with existing and future governments of the region.
If such a wave of resistance materializes forcefully, it could tip the scales in cooperation projects, economic integration efforts and political alliances toward new paradigms of self-sustained, long-term development and a genuine integration of Latin America and the Caribbean. In these efforts, countries must not only make a radical break with the “structural adjustment programs” promoted by the Washington Consensus, but they must also specifically reformulate the UN’s Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean’s (ECLAC) outward-oriented development strategies of “open regionalism” and “productive transformation with equity”—conventional market-based proposals of the past decade’s neoliberal reforms.13 The rise of inequality in what is already the most unequal region of the world should make the failure of this approach readily apparent. Furthermore, the forecasted productive transformation has not materialized, and any “progress” has come at considerable social and environmental cost.
“Open regionalism” has decidedly failed to deliver the deep multinational integration the region demands. The majority of projects have been oriented toward what Gustavo Magariños, the former Secretary General of ALADI, calls “coercive integration” with the United States and “integration at arm’s length” with the European Union.14 Until recently, the centrifugal forces of U.S.-dependent integration like NAFTA, and the piecemeal liberalization of the hemisphere, have trounced centripetal forces that, in theory, should be driving processes of multinational integration. In fact, it could be said there is always more “opening” and less “regionalism.”15
The ALBA declaration reasons that the rise of massive economic blocs in the global economy have made the integration of Latin America and Caribbean an indispensable requisite for regional development, but adds that such a process must be driven by concerted efforts for cooperation, solidarity and common will—the only way for “the hopes and necessities of Latin American and Caribbean countries [to] be satisfied and their independence, sovereignty and identity preserved.” It is for these reasons, among others, that the departure point for a paradigm shift in regional integration efforts must be a practical and theoretical critique of neoliberal capitalism. As the Cuban Revolution has proclaimed since 1959, only in this way will the dream of those who have fought for Latin America’s first independence—and the coming one—be realized.
About the Author
Dr. Luis Suárez Salazar is a professor of history and political science at the Universidad de La Habana and the Instituto Superior de Relaciones Internacionales. His most recent book is El siglo XXI: Posibilidades y desafíos para la Revolución Cubana. Translated from the Spanish by NACLA.
Notes
1. Primera Declaración de La Habana, en Cinco Documentos (La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1971).
2. Constitución de la República de Cuba, Departamento Orientación Revolucionaria del CC del PCC, La Habana, 1976.
3. Norman Girvan, “Cuba, CARICOM Cement Ties,” Dec. 9, 2002. See ACS Web site: http://www.acs-aec.org/column/index63.htm.
4. In the case of Mexico, bilateral relations have chilled during the government of Vicente Fox (2000-2006). Uruguay under President Jorge Batlle (2001-2005) broke off relations with Cuba. Relations with Panama were severed in 2004 over then-President Mireya Moscoso’s pardon of five Cuban terrorists engaged in plots against Cuba and a plan to assassinate President Fidel Castro during his trip to the Tenth Ibero-American conference held in Panama in 2000. Relations were restored in 2005 with the new Panamanian and Uruguayan administrations.
5. Departamento de Cooperación Internacional, Globalizando la solidaridad (La Habana: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, 2005), pp. 3 and 12.
6. Hugo Chávez, ALBA: Amanecer de una nueva era (La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado, 2005).
7. “Declaración conjunta del Presidente de los Consejos de Estado y de Ministro de la República de Cuba, Fidel Castro, y del Presidente de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez,” Granma, December 15, 2004.
8. Ventura De Jesús and Jorge Baños, “Cuba y Venezuela consolidan y amplían la cooperación,” Granma, October 6, 2005, p. 1.
9. Inter Press Service, “Integración: Un proyecto de largo aliento,” Economic Press Service, No. 9, May 2005.
10. The only Caricom states that did not sign on to the deal are Barbados, Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago. The last has expressed fears of a dip in its oil profits with competition from PetroCaribe, while Haiti is under military occupation.
11.For text of this agreement, see: http://www.petroleumworld.com/storytt05071002.htm.
12. Osvaldo Martínez, “ALBA y ALCA: El dilema de la integración o la anexión,” Cubarte: Portal de la cultura cubana, La Habana, August 29, 2005.
13. CEPAL, “El regionalismo abierto en América Latina y el Caribe: La integración económica al servicio de la transformación productiva con equidad,” Santiago de Chile, 1994.
14. Gustavo Magariños, Integración multinacional: Teoría y sistemas (Montevideo: ALADI/ORT, 2000).
15. Jaime Estay, “La globalización y sus significados,” en José Luis Calva (ed.), Globalización y bloques económicos: Realidades y mitos (Mexico, D.F.: Juan Pablo Editor S.A., 1995).
