Cuba Is Ready to Talk, But the US Is Already Talking to Multiple People

The LA Times is reporting this morning that Cuban officials are saying once again that they are ready to talk, but of course they still have lots of conditions.

Cuba’s top diplomat in Washington says Havana is prepared to enter diplomatic talks with the United States, reiterating the country’s willingness to engage even as tensions escalate with President Trump asserting that the island nation’s government could soon collapse.

“We are ready to engage with the U.S. on the issues that are important for the bilateral relation, and to talk about those in which we have differences,” Ambassador Lianys Torres Rivera, who leads Cuba’s mission in Washington, told The Times on Wednesday.

Any dialogue would need to respect Cuba’s sovereignty and its “right to self-determination,” the ambassador said.

Self-determination in this case means Cuba’s communist government tells people what to do and the people pretend to like it or wind up in a jail somewhere. That’s literally what happened in Cuba when protests against the government began during the pandemic.

Frustrated by chronic shortages of food and medicine and lengthy power outages as the coronavirus pandemic lingered, protesters marched in the streets chanting “Patria y Vida,” or “Homeland and Life,” the title of a popular song that inverts the Communist slogan “Patria o Muerte,” or “Homeland or Death.”

The phrase became a rallying cry for a movement that ‌was quickly crushed by state security forces.

That was just a few years ago. People who might otherwise be protesting the government right now remember how it turned out last time:

“I assure you, people won’t protest in the streets because they’re afraid,” said Brian Jimenez, 26, a baker from San Antonio de los Baños, who said he was beaten by police that day and detained for several days afterward.

Police showed restraint ⁠at first, he said, but then came the feared “black berets,” a brigade of the Interior Ministry, and “they roughed up the people,” setting an example that was still reverberating.

“A lot of my friends are still in jail,” Jimenez said.

So at least for now, Cubans mostly limit themselves to banging on pots and pans every night as a form of protest that won’t result in a crackdown.

Meanwhile, as Cuban officials express their readiness to engage in formal talks, the Trump administration is just going around them. The Miami Herald reported yesterday that the administration has been talking to lots of people around Raul Castro, apparently trying to decide who might make a good replacement leader for Cuba.

The Miami Herald has previously reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s advisers met with Raúl Castro’s grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, in the Caribbean island of Saint Kitts last month. But the administration’s outreach efforts, Díaz-Balart said, have been broader than previously reported.

“There have been conversations with multiple people around Raúl Castro, basically with everyone around Raúl, at the highest levels, but they aren’t negotiations,” the Republican congressman from Miami said. “They’re the kind of conversations they had with Maduro. Even President Trump spoke with Maduro.”…

Two sources familiar with conversations with Raúl Castro’s inner circle, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss the sensitive matter, said there is no deal with Cuba yet. Among the ideas floated are economic deals that could make Cuba dependent on U.S. oil, according to one source. A third source described the administration’s thinking as wanting the United States to become Cuba’s main oil supplier.

Some Cubans in Miami have expressed concern that Trump might make a deal which effectively leaves Raul Castro in power and doesn’t upend the communist government. Rep. Díaz-Balart says that’s not the plan.

“Partial changes are not acceptable; the concept of Raúl without Raúl is not acceptable to this administration,” Díaz-Balart said, referring to the idea that other members of the Castro family could remain in charge of the country.

Exactly what will happen next isn’t clear. Sec. of State Rubio seems to be handling it while President Trump is focused on Iran. The president still sounds convinced that communist Cuba is coming to an end soon.

“As we achieve a historic transformation in Venezuela, we’re also looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba,” Trump said Saturday, one week after U.S. and Israeli forces attacked Iran and killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

He added: “Cuba’s at the end of the line. They’re very much at the end of the line. They have no money. They have no oil. They have a bad philosophy. They have a bad regime that has been bad for a very long time.”

Trump is right but it could be a few weeks before Cuba is back on the front burner, so to speak.

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