Fund for Reconciliation and Development
100 signatures reached
To: President Biden, Vice President Harris, Secretary Blinken, President Diaz-Canel, Prime Minister Marrero
Mutual Responsibility and Opportunity for the US and Cuba
The policies and practices of both the US and Cuba were responsible for the social unrest of July 2021.
Both governments must take bold steps to return at least to pre-Trump engagement and undo the harsh consequences for those arrested and imprisoned.
We support the appeal of Pope Francis for prisoner amnesty with the option for immigration offered by the US and Spain.
We call for comparable commitment by the US to reverse the destructive legacy of Trump, including all restrictions on travel, cruises and hotel use; enablement of Title III sanctions; and Cuba's designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism.
The Biden-Harris Administration can foster economic reform and development and reduce emigration by exempting Cuba's private sector from the embargo and enabling normal banking practices.
It can enhance mutual trust by negotiating the future of Guantanamo Bay.
Why is this important?
For more than six decades the US and Cuba have been at loggerheads, each blaming the other for the failure to establish a normal relationship. Presidents Obama and Castro opened the complicated process of change but President Trump destroyed most of it. President Biden has taken only partial steps to rebuild.
Both Presidents Biden and Diaz-Canel must overcome controversy and distrust in their own and the other country. Neither leader can expect the other to make major concessions without making his own.
Cuba should accelerate its economic reforms and the US must initiate policies that offer practical support to the emerging private sector and markets. Biden must return to the policy of all his predecessors except Trump by suspending Title III of the Helms Burton law which permits nuissance suits by Cuban Americans.
Ben Rhodes and Alejandro Castro went far toward achieving the return of Guantanamo Bay to Cuba during the Obama Administration's negotiations of normalization. Agreement for a transitional joint administration could be a good start.
Later discussions may include transforming the base and prison into a free trade zone with a cruise port serving Santiago or into a Hemispheric Health Center.
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