Secretary of State John Kerry is in Cuba Friday for the opening of the U.S. embassy in Havana. His trip is the first by a U.S. Secretary of State in 54 years. But a newspaper column written by Cuba’s Fidel Castro on Thursday shed some light on the lingering tensions between the two countries.
The U.S. owes Cuba “millions of dollars” following the decades-long embargo according to Castro. The U.S. first levelled sanctions against Cuba following the revolution that deposed dictator Fulgencio Batista and brought Castro to power. President John F. Kennedy made the embargo official in 1962.
The embargo prevents American companies from doing business with Cuba and limits the amount of money people can send money to family in the island country. As relations improve with the opening of the respective nation’s embassies in Washington and Havana the repealing of sanctions is widely expected. But a history fraught with antagonism won’t fade overnight.
“This has been Cuba’s long standing position that they say in the UN debate over the embargo every year,” Geoff Thale, Program Director at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), told ThinkProgress by phone from Havana. “I think their positon is that [there are] property claims and we have claims for damages for lost economic resources.”
Cubans want the Guantanamo area back from the U.S. government. The U.S. maintains a naval base there and established a detention center there in 2002 to hold people the government considered extremely dangerous — usually people thought to belong to groups like al-Qaeda. The prison’s use of torture has been regularly denounced by rights groups in recent years.
Calling for the return of Guantanamo and embargo reparations is a position that is well-received among Cubans.
“Cuba’s said this for a long time,” Thale said. “In fact, this is a regularly repeated talking point from Cuban leaders. It’s very rhetorically popular.”
Thale said a working group has been set up with representatives of the two countries to hash out each side’s lasting qualms.
“I believe it will take time to work out these issues,” Thale said. And while animosity remains, it’s unlikely that dialogue will be thrown off track anytime soon.
“[Fidel’s] position is not any reason to believe this is a game changing issue in U.S.-Cuban relations.”