Cuba, Cuba

In April 1961, with CIA's support Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs (Vịnh con heo) to overthrow Fidel Castro's government but were quickly defeated by his army. This invasion had intensified the worsening US-Cuba relationship and inflamed the following Cuban Missile Crisis, in which US president J. F. Kennedy blockaded Cuba to force removal of Soviet nuclear missiles, as well as US's trade embargo against Cuba in 1962. After 47 years, the easing of American policy against Cuba annouced by Obama administration several days ago indicates a shift, albeit slightly, in American approach to Cuba and a change, maybe more sharply, in Cuban society.

Barack Obama's decision to ease some sanctions against Cuba now allows Cuban-Americans, and maybe Americans in the near future, to visit Cuba as frequently as they like. They can also send gifts and money to their family members as long as the recipients are not senior or officials of the Communist Party.We might have to notice that former US president George Bush had imposed a harder line against Cuba with tighter travel embargoes and cash transfer restriction. Since 2004, only Cuban-Americans who have relatives in Cuba could visit Cuba just once every three years and send only $US300 every three months to their family.

Some Republicans argue that Obama is making a serious mistake with millions of dollars inflowed into Castro government's pocket because the this government, in fact, has charged heavy fees on cash remittances. But from my point of view, the US's new approach is wiser than that of former US presidents. In term of diplomacy, it is the failure of a 50-year-old policy to overthrow Castro's Government and this is the right time for the US administration to face with the reality and change its Cold-War-fashioned policy. Just after the engagement with Iran and Syria, there is no reason for the unwilling to engage with Cuba.

In term of economics, Obama's decision allows US's companies to operate in Cuba, particularly in the telecommunication industry. In addition, the unprecedentedly enormous amount of capital, included cash, inflowed into Cuba might cause a so-called Dutch disease in this country and thus, a decline in Cuba's manufacturing. The policy also advocates an increase in private aid for pro-democracy groups in Cuba. Some of them might be CIA-trained agents aimed at trying to push Communist Party out of power. It is what we called "the US's peaceful process" of the happenings in VN.

Whatever Obama's got in mind in the long term, I hopefully believe that it was a necessary step to spur an initial change in the Cuban society, which has been wretched in poverty for nearly half of a century. But the emphasis of an vital change is now on the hand of the Cuban people because they are going to be the ones who change things in this countries. Cuba, the country whose the revolution was symbolically an inspiration to the revolution of the Third World including VN and Latin American countries, now has the externally conditional force to reform itself the first time in this modern world.

* The title of this entry is derived from that of the film "Tura! Tura! Tura!" ;)