US, Cuba clinch ‘gesture of hope’

NO LONGER “imprisoned by our past”, the Stars and Stripes are to be hoisted over Havana, and Cuba’s revolutionary flag raised over Washington for the first time in more than half a century.

The once implacable communist and capitalist foes are to open embassies and restore full diplomatic ties in a fortnight, from July 20.

But a tough road lies ahead because the US economic blockade of Cuba remains, with Republicans and Cuban exiles in the US hell-bent on keeping it in place.

Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro have hailed the peace deal as deeply histor- ical, setting up a trip to Havana by John Kerry, who would become the first US Secretary of State to visit the country in 70 years.

The deal fulfils a pledge the former Cold War enemies made six months ago.

It also attempts to end the recriminations that have predominated ever since Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries overthrew the US-backed government of Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959.

South Africa played a leading role in easing relations between Cuba and the US, by lobbying support for Cuba at a number of government-to-government and party-to-party engagements.

Obama and Raul Castro first shook hands at Nelson Mandela’s memorial in December 2013, a move that signified to many a thawing of relations between the two countries.

Havana termed it a gesture of hope.

Yesterday, International Relations and Co-operation Minister Maite NkoanaMashabane said that while SA welcomed the announcement, the government will join all progressive and freedom-seeking nations in calling for the full and immediate lifting of the unilaterally imposed blockade against Cuba.

“South Africa unequivocally supports the call by President Obama to the US Congress to work towards the immediate lifting of the Trade Embargo (blockade),” said

From Page 1 Nkoana-Mashabane.

The Cape Town-based Friends of Cuba Society (Focus) lobbied organisations, and stood in solidarity with Cuba for decades. Focus founder member Father Michael Lapsley said they had used all available opportunities to raise the issue of the abnormal relationship between Cuba and the US.Lapsley said the move was precisely what they had been fighting for. He said the next steps would be for the US to pull out of Guantanamo Bay, where the US military has a controversial detention camp and for the lifting of the economic blockade.

Former deputy minister of international relations and cooperation Marius Fransman, who had paid official visits to Cuba, said the ally had always been a key agenda item at ANC conferences.

He said there had been two processes, one led by the government and the other by the ANC. While the party engaged fellow liberation movements in power, urging them to support Cuba, the government diplomatically lobbied countries. They had also lobbied strongly for the release of the Cuban 5.

The Castro-led government has a history of assisting freedom fighters in many countries, including South Africa. The ANC has a long-standing relationship with Cuba, and thousands of SA medical students are being trained there.

“The progress that we mark today is yet another demonstra- tion that we don’t have to be imprisoned by the past,” Obama said from the White House Rose Garden. “When something isn’t working, we can – and will – change.”

Castro welcomed diplomatic ties that he said should reinforce the principles of sovereign equality and non-interference in his country.

JOHANNESBURG: The release of the Cuban Five from prison in the US should serve as a reminder that the struggle for justice and democracy continues, including in South Africa, retired Constitutional Court judge Zac Yacoob said yesterday.

“The release of the Cuban Five should not be the end of it all in our struggles as societies. To an extent that we think that having achieved democracy, is having achieved it all… and the fact is that we have forgotten about the poor people who struggle every day because lives for some of us have improved through the course of democracy,” Yacoob told an international symposium in Johannesburg attended by Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González.

“I hope the Cuban Five will help re-energise all of us to achieve the kind of society we want in the Freedom Charter. Let us commit ourselves to the completion of the revolution… which is yet to be realised.”

Labañino, Hernández, Guerrero, Fernando and René González – commonly known as the Cuban 5 – and their families were on a two weeklong tour of South Africa and received a heroes’ welcome.

The fivewere sentenced to between 15 years and life in prison in the US on espionage charges in 2001.

One was released in 2011 and in December 2014, the Obama administration began releasing the rest in what observers saw as part of its plans to ease political ties with Havana.

The US president announced last week that Washington would open an embassy in the Cuban capital.

The Cuban Five will leave South Africa today.