Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque visited the United Nations recently for a vote on a resolution to condemn the United States embargo against his country. The resolution passed 167-3. Roque, only 35, earlier served as President Fidel Castro’s chief of staff and is considered a devoted protege of the communist leader. While in New York, he sat down with Rafael Lorente to talk of Cuba’s long-range hopes.
Q: What is the significance of this year’s resolution at the United Nations condemning the embargo against Cuba if the United States will just ignore it anyway?
A: It constitutes a clear signal of what the international community thinks of the United States’ current policy. In that sense it is valuable.
Q: Cuba has said it will not buy any food or medicine under the law signed by President Clinton this year, so does that law have any value at all?
A: The reality is that the law has hardened the blockade of Cuba because it has converted into law for the first time in 40 years the provisions saying that Americans cannot travel to Cuba. I believe everybody understands that the embargo has not been made more flexible.
For the first time there is a clear sign from Congress that it favors changing the policy toward Cuba, but I don’t think those forces will be able to celebrate a victory, though, because they have been deceived. Their rights as a majority were violated by the Republican leadership.
Q: How much of the embargo has to be eliminated before Cuba does business with the United States? Are there interim steps that would satisfy Cuba or is this an all-or-nothing proposition?
A: We would be comfortable only with the total end of the blockade and the resumption of normal relations between Cuba and the United States, but if the blockade is partly lifted tomorrow to allow, for example, Americans to travel to Cuba, of course we would not turn them away. What is happening is that there have not been any steps.
Q: Why do you want to do business with the United States if the two economic and political systems are not compatible? Might American ideas and money overwhelm Cuba and contaminate Cuba’s communist system?
A: No, no. First, we believe that the system of government in the United States is an issue for Americans, … just like we believe that what happens in Cuba and the system in Cuba and what is done there is a matter for us to worry about. Second, we have absolutely no fear about a clear relationship between the United States and Cuba. We believe that those who do not want it are the people who defend the blockade. We are not afraid of being contaminated.
Q: What do you think of the presidential election?
A: I should say I have observed with special curiosity what has been happening. I ask myself what would the United States be doing if this were occurring in another country. Probably the United States would have demanded new elections, international observers and maybe even have taken a resolution to the United Nations Security Council. I expect this will serve as a lesson in modesty and knowledge that one should not sit in judgment of others. I am very curious to see how this will end. I think we will have to repeat the elections in Florida under the watch of international observers.
Q: In the months since the Elian Gonzalez story and the changes in the embargo, how have relations changed between the two countries?
A: I believe there has been a profound change in the perception of Cuba in the United States. I believe the American public has received more information, really, of what happens with Cuba, a small country. I believe the American public has been able to get a much clearer idea of who it is that defends the blockade of Cuba. They were the same people who defended the idea that the boy should stay here in the United States and who burned American flags and assaulted the press. They demonstrated, really, that they were unscrupulous extremists.
Q: Countries other than the U.S. have criticized Cuba for human-rights violations. During his visit, Pope John Paul II called for opening Cuba to the rest of the world. Some European critics have said that has not happened.
A: No, the pope said the world should open itself to Cuba, and Cuba should open itself to the world. We must say the United States has acted in a way to make sure that doesn’t happen. The blockade is a way of trying to seal the world from Cuba and Cuba from the world. That is the reality, so the principal that has turned a deaf ear to the calls from the saintly father is the government of the United States.
The blockade is the biggest violation of human rights of Cubans
Q: But has the world opened itself to Cuba?
A: Look, Cuba has diplomatic relations today with 171 countries, more than ever before in its history. Today, Cuba has 98 embassies around the world. And there are 95 diplomatic missions from other countries in Cuba. Cuba has 160 correspondents accredited from the international press, and 1,000 foreign members of the press go to Cuba every year to report.
We also have almost 400 mixed companies with foreign capital working in the country. Almost 2 million tourists will visit Cuba this year. Sixty-three thousand Americans went to Cuba last year, the majority illegally, violating the laws of the blockade. Cuba is a member of 15 international organizations of countries.
Q: Will Cuba also open up internally one day? Will we see a free press and other freedoms that we don’t see from our perspective?
A: You don’t see things well. You have to take into account that in the United States there is a lot if misinformation about what happens in Cuba. You can’t travel there. You cannot see what happens there. As for opening Cuba, the most dramatic opening started 40 years ago with the revolution. It opened the road to education. We had 40 percent illiteracy. Cubans enjoy a broad internal openness. We are the owners of our country. We decide what happens there and what doesn’t. We maintain and perfect a democratic regime with elections and respect for human rights. We do not believe that is a current problem in Cuba.
We believe that we are really way ahead in material freedoms, liberties and public rights, light years ahead of a large part of the people who live in the United States and in many other parts of this hemisphere. All Cubans have guaranteed medical care. In the United States 40 million people do not enjoy guaranteed minimum health-care coverage.
Q: Yes, but many people, including many outside the United States, say dissidents and the press do not enjoy the freedoms they should enjoy in Cuba.
A: There is no human, political, cultural, economic or social right that is not respected in Cuba. And there is no country in the world, and less in the United States than in any other, that can say its people enjoy freedoms not enjoyed in Cuba. Why do we have the majority of the country with us? Because people know what they have.
Q: The rest of the world continues to become more connected in an ever-expanding global economy. But Cuba has been critical of that economic system. What is Cuba’s role in the global economy?
A: We are opposed to the current economic system in the world. And we believe that this system is not only unjust but unsustainable. We cannot maintain a system that destroys the environment, perpetuates hunger and poverty in the world, that wastes natural resources, that privileges only a minority of the population.
We have followed a different path. We feel that the economy should be for the service of the people and not the people slaves to the economy. We believe that the economy should exist to benefit the vast majorities and not a small, rich minority. That does not mean we do not want to insert ourselves into the world’s commerce. We do not accomplish it simply because the blockade prohibits us. For example, Cuba cannot access international credits from international financial institutions because the blockade prohibits it. We do not think we can develop if we are isolated, but we are not willing to accept neoliberal dogmas or impositions. We will do what we believe is most convenient for our interests, the interests of our population.
Q: We have two countries just 90 miles apart with a long history of good and bad relations. Are we destined to ever have normal relations?
A: Cuba wants the economic blockade to be lifted and an end to the hostilities between our countries. I further believe that it is inevitable that this will happen, and I believe the fact that relations are not normalized today is not only bad for the interests of Cuba but also for those of the United States.
What benefit does the blockade bring today to the United States? None. Only problems and difficulties.
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This an edited transcript.
