Cuba is Not Vietnam

BY: CAPITOL HILL CUBANS



December 4, 2010


In a CNN opinion piece, two advocates of unconditionally normalizing relations with the Castro regime argue that Cuba is undertaking certain economic reforms and that the U.S. should use this as an excuse to engage.

Ironically, these same advocates have been arguing for years that the U.S. should unconditionally engage the Castro regime -- regardless of excuses or reforms, whether real or not.

However, their spin is worth noting, for they hold that Cuba is undertaking economic reforms similar to Vietnam, so therefore: "Why not adopt the Vietnam model for U.S. Cuba policy?"

Even if the economic adjustments made by the Castro regime amounted to genuine reforms, which history indicates that they clearly do not, the answer is simple from a geopolitical scale:

Because Cuba is not Vietnam -- not to mention that the U.S.'s policy of unconditional engagement toward Vietnam has not resulted in freedom, democracy or even greater human rights for the Vietnamese people.

These advocates might think it's apt (or convenient) to measure Cuba and Vietnam on the same scale, even though dissimilarities between both nations grossly outweigh any similarities.

However, why not measure Cuba on the same scale as its neighbors -- the other 34 countries in the Western Hemisphere -- most of which have even experienced transitions from dictatorships to freedom and democracy?

Today these countries all share (some more hesitantly) a commitment to representative democracy, as embodied in the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter, which only Cuba refuses to sign and adhere to.

Or why not measure Cuba on the same scale as Western Europe, with whom Cuba shares cultural and historic ties, and with whom Cuba used to compete (and in many cases, outperform) in economic development indicators prior to Castro's rule? Many of these countries have also successfully transitioned from dictatorships to democracy.

Perhaps that's precisely what these advocates don't want -- or they somehow find economically stable dictatorships to be perfectly acceptable.