Nov. 8, 2012
NACLA.org
Early Wednesday morning the Caribbean breathed a sigh of relief with
the re-election of Barack Obama. A Romney victory would have ushered in a
period of uncertainty, as it was expected that he would pursue a more
aggressive stance towards Cuba and other left leaning governments in the
region. During the debates however, it became apparent that Latin
America and the Caribbean was not an area of deep concern for either
candidate as the foreign policy discussion was intensely focused on
matters relating to the potential conflict with Iran, security in
post-Gaddafi Libya, Israel/Palestine, Syria and the trade imbalance with
China.
While
Caribbean Prime Ministers immediately extended their congratulations to
Obama, their expressions of cautious optimism also came with calls for
more meaningful engagement with the region. For example, Dominica’s
Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit sent his congratulations to Obama, remarking that
“The relationship between the United States and Dominica continues to
be strong, based on mutual respect...we work very diligently on matters
relating to regional security and we look forward to advancing those
efforts. Clearly, the U.S. focus is on anti-terrorism matters and they
moved away from issues relating to development in the region. But I am
hoping that the new term of President Obama there would be some kind of
re-direction towards developmental issues.”
During his first term, Obama’s most significant interaction with the
region came in the form of the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative to
combat the growing influence of the drug trade. While sounding familiar,
this should not be confused with the Caribbean Basin Initiative.
In 1984, the Reagan administration implemented the first Caribbean
Basin Initiative to stem the tide of leftism in the region—characterized
by the Grenadian Revolution of 1979—by offering financial aid and
development assistance. A key pillar of the initiative was export
diversification in the region, but this consisted primarily of
relocating export processing plants for textiles and apparel industries
to the Caribbean.
Obama formed the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative during the Fifth
Summit of the Americas in April 2009, when he announced an investment
and partnership with the Caribbean toward strengthening regional
security. In the first two years of the initiative, the Obama
administration invested $139 million
which went towards training scouting aircraft and boats, police
polygraphers, improving prisons, and training police. Despite the
initiative claiming to work on “increasing educational opportunities and
providing workforce development and entrepreneurship training for
at-risk youth,” very little has been done of this aspect of the program.
During Obama’s first term there were no clear signs that the
antagonistic relationship between Washington and Havana was going to
change. Evidence of this could be seen by the U.S. State Department
keeping Cuba on their list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism.”
Despite this irresponsible categorization, Obama introduced small
changes—specifically easing the restrictions on Cuban-American travel to
the island and increasing the amount of remittances they can send back
home. The increased flows of remittances have been pointed to
as a key source of financing for the small businesses that are now
sprouting up in Cuba under Raul Castro’s economic reforms. Next week at
the United Nations General Assembly, Cuba will submit a draft resolution
titled “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial
blockade imposed by the United states of America against Cuba.” It is
universally expected that the United States will veto the resolution for
the 21st consecutive year.
In regards to Haiti, U.S. policy has maintained the status quo of
empowering international capital at the expense of the Haitian people’s
livelihood and self determination. At the opening of a controversial
$300 million industrial park (sweatshop) in an ecologically sensitive
zone far outside of the area damaged by the earthquake, U.S. Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton remarked that
“When I became Secretary of State, I looked at the billions of dollars
of foreign assistance that the United States spends around the world and
I asked myself why the results didn’t always create meaningful and
sustainable change in the lives of people .… So we redirected our
efforts to work with Haiti, not just in Haiti.”
A sign of the sustainable priorities envisioned by the United States
and the Bill Clinton-led Haiti Recovery Commission is their focusing on
constructing low wage assembly plants and totally ignoring Haiti’s
education system. After the earthquake the State University of Haiti was
severely damaged, but two years later classes are still taking place in
sheds and under tarps. Haiti Grassroots Watch
revealed the troubling priorities of the commission, which noted that
the State University submitted a reconstruction contract to the
Clinton-led commission in early 2011 which was ignored, while the
Clinton commission offered $914,000 to the private Quisqueya University
to open a Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
While the Caribbean has fallen off of Obama’s radar, it has allowed
non-traditional political forces such as China and Venezuela to exert
their influence in the region. Over the past ten years, China has
gradually made inroads into the region and has now become one of the
Caribbean’s largest sources of development projects, trade, and
preferential lending. The Chinese Government’s first-ever policy paper
on Latin America and the Caribbean, written in 2008, stated that
“As the largest developing country in the world, China is committed to
the path of peaceful development and the win-win strategy of opening-up.
It is ready to carry out friendly cooperation with all countries on the
basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence and build a
harmonious world of durable peace and common prosperity.”
Furthermore, the countries of the Eastern Caribbean are seeking out
alternative alliances with the Venezuelan and Cuban influenced
Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA). ALBA is an international
co-operation organization based on the idea of social, political, and
economic integration between the countries of Latin America and the
Caribbean. It is associated with socialist and social democratic
governments and is an attempt at South-South regional economic
integration based on a vision of social welfare, solidarity, and mutual
economic aid. Immediate benefits from ALBA include reduced oil via the PetroCaribe program, infrastructure grants, and investments in social services.
While the Bush-era will be remembered for backing violent
intervention in Venezuela in 2002 and Haiti in 2004, it must be
remembered that the coup which ousted the democratically elected
President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya occured on Obama's watch. Despite
initially calling the coup which brought Porfiro Lobo to power illegal, Obama quickly moved on to recognize the regime, praising Lobo for his "strong commitment to democracy" in 2011. Additionally, Obama has been silent on the parliamentary coup which removed Paraguay's democratically elected President Fernando Lugo from power in June.
It remains to be seen whether or not Obama will shift to a more
development focused approach in the Caribbean, but based on his past
actions it remains doubtful that meaningful change will occur. However,
the shift to a less antangonistic, more hands off approach comes with
both new problems and possibilities for change through new alliances and
spaces for policy development in the Caribbean. Given the troubling
history of intervention, destabilization, and the steadfast
implementation of neoliberal economic policies, perhaps giving the
Caribbean its own space to decide their future and chart their own
political and development priorities is what exactly what they need.
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