Cuba to come in from the ‘Cold’?

It has been one of the most enduring symbols of the Cold war, - which transcended the Cold war - and of the US bullying a smaller nation. Cuba, the tiny Caribbean Island which for over 50 years has been economically strangled by its powerful neighbour for wanting and demanding greater fairness for its people.

When Fidel Castro and Che Guevara did what many saw as the impossible and deposed the corrupt US backed puppet government, no one could have envisaged more than half a century of isolation. Castro began his own brand of communism, which unlike the Russian model embraced religion/Christianity.

However, as the Communist block weakened Cuba’s spiritual and economic allies –USSR -left them with no trading partners and a country that has per capita the highest number of doctors in the modern world, but without at times the basic medicines, including soap, to ensure effective treatment.

But yesterday Cuban President Raul Castro and President Obama signalled a new near era, to improve their respective countries relationship.

The beginning of the end came when Cuba released the US held prisoner Alan Gross, the US responded by releasing three Cubans charged with spying.  After the exchange of prisoners the two leaders made their statements of intent; that the last country to be frozen out by the enduring ‘Cold war’, should end hostilities.

This grand step should in a very short time ensure that the trade embargo that has strangled Cuba is lifted.

In general, much of the world will rejoiced by Obama’s bold move, but in some parts of Miami, where the Cuba’s elite fled after Castro’s military coup, this will be perceived as a defeat for the USA and another victory for Castro’s Cuba.

And in a way they are right. Castro’s Cuba has engaged in a 50 year ‘David and Goliath’ battle - and won. The people of Cuba have suffered tremendously, but throughout all those years the dignity of Cuban’s has been their unshakeable success.

In the end President Obama has done the right thing for calling time on this dark Cold war episode.

Simon Woolley