The re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba marks the end of a ferocious asymmetric war between the neighbouring countries and represents a clear victory for the Caribbean nation, that has managed to resist more than half a century against the violent hostility of the only global superpower, the richest and most technologically developed country today.

This has ended a cruel war, although there persists, on the part of the great aggressive country, some of the more cruel aspects of its savagery, including the costly economic and financial blockade.

The reopening of the US Embassy in Havana coincided practically with the 89th birthday of the revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro, an event that, though in Cuba it is not the occasion of any official celebration, is well remembered in Latin America and two heads of state, Evo Morales and Nicolas Maduro, of Bolivia and Venezuela respectively, came to Havana to greet the former Cuban leader.

In the sentiments of Cubans, the defeat of the aggressive policies of the United States against the island constituted the principal merit of Fidel Castro and the joy in all of Cuba coinciding with the birthday of their hero was evidence of this.

Cuba began a war for their independence, national identity and social justice in 1868, a struggle that is still in progress. When the armed victory over the colonialists was approaching, after the Cubans had overcome the weaknesses due to the lack of unity in their own ranks, as the result of a unifying effort in which José Martí played the principal role, the strange explosion in Havana Bay of a US cruiser that was paying a courtesy visit to the Spanish authorities upset the hopes of the patriotic Cubans.

This served as a pretext for Washington to declare war on Spain, beginning a relatively brief armed conflict enabling the United States to take charge of all the countries that made up the Spanish Empire, including the Philippines as the main target, in addition to Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and other minor territories. This intervention frustrated the possibility for the Cubans to gain full sovereignty over their country, so they had to continue their struggle against US neocolonialism under the conditions of a diminished republic that continued, in one form or another, until the revolutionary triumph of 1959 against the bloody tyranny of Fulgencio Batista, the strong man of the United States in Cuba since the 1930s. The dominant classes of Washington never accepted the legitimacy of the popular Cuban victory nor of the leaders outstanding in this process, led by Fidel Castro.

However, the Cuban revolutionaries never lacked the solidarity of broad sectors of youth, intellectuals and discriminated minorities of the US people, in spite of the monumental global publicity campaigns that called for the isolation of the island.

The unpopularity of the pretended blockade against Cuba was such that, in recent decades, it was the US government that was isolated from other nations in their policy towards Cuba.  As journalist Fernando Ravsberg of the Reuters Agency noted, the ceremonies of re-opening the respective Embassies in Washington and Havana are symbols of the total failure of the economic war of the empire against the island, reminiscent of the images of US diplomats and military leaders fleeing Saigon after their military defeat at the hands of Vietnam.

The existence of diplomatic ties between Washington and Havana is not, of itself, a guarantee of respect and normality in the relations with the US, as the heads of State of various European countries could testify when they recently denounced wiretapping espionage against their countries by their "ally", with whom they maintain the tightest diplomatic, political, military and economic ties.

The joint effort to build the confidence required between the parties to reach a normalization of relationships between Cuba and the US will be immense.

Above all because the Cuban people will never accept a return to the character of the ties that existed before the breakdown in relations. To be just, this would mean a return to the times in which the Cuban people were about to obtain their independence from Spain, but the US, with their intervention, frustrated the conquest of their full enjoyment of national sovereignty.

Augusto 19, 2015.

(Translated for ALAI by Jordan Bishop) 

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