Politic de Realidad

On December 17, president Obama announced the normalization of relations with Cuba, a diplomatic decision that falls under the rubric of executive powers. This move opens up once again the question of whether the legislature will remove the embargo on trade with Cuba.

As residents of Cuba celebrated in the streets, Marco Rubio and other representatives of the old guard of Cuban-Americans predictably protest the president’s decision. Their claim: Cuba does not deserve this concession because it does not meet US standards of human rights. A quick breeze through recent global events shows that US foreign relations are ruled not by human rights concerns, but by Realpolitik, which the US learned from Kissinger, who borrowed it from Bismarck. This is neither a policy of appeasement nor of domination; it is the pragmatic acceptance and use of actually existing conditions to one’s own advantage. Moving from our own backyard, to the Eastern end of the Mediterranean, to Southern Asia, US policies are not driven by human rights.

This summer, as thousands migrated from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to the USA, our country’s response was to build detention centers to house them while processing their deportations. These countries of origin, despite their nominally democratic governments, are known for their political instability, gangs such as MS-13, and depressingly low levels of development compared to other nation-states in the hemisphere. At least one of these centers, the for-profit Karnes Facility southeast of San Antonio, is now under investigation by ICE for its treatment of inmates, which has morphed from lack of freedom of movement and inadequate food when it opened in August to allegations of sexual abuse by prison guards. A policy built on human rights would not imprison these refugees, much less in these conditions.

The USA’s main allies and aid recipients in the Middle East remain Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel.  Last summer, while Israel used shells made in America to literally flatten Palestinian residential areas to rubble and Saudi Arabia increased the speed with which it carried out its annual dozens of death sentences by beheading, Egypt sentenced hundreds of people who disagreed with the government to death in mass “trials”. A policy built on human rights would give neither arms nor funding to these regimes.

Under a Cuban government nearing the level of evil that US opponents claim, an embargo is much more likely to harm private citizens than the state. During the embargo of Iran following the Shah’s overthrow, the people suffered from malnutrition, while what funds were available were used by the government. This is the logic that was used by the Clinton administration in its decision to open relations with China. In recent years, the middle class has grown and has seen the hated 1-child policy eased. The free market economy, while bringing these developments, has also brought new human rights questions to the Economic Free Zones that service the global economy. Recent protests in Singapore underline that open economies and democratic governments do not necessarily bring human rights. A policy built on human rights must take the experiences of the ordinary citizen into account, regardless of the name of the economic or political system and will allow for free contact between the peoples of the countries involved.