A prior post discussed the portions of the State Department’s undated (but approved 5/27/22) Integrated Country Strategy for Cuba that set forth the following two of ‘three key priorities:” (1) “supporting Cubans seeking to exercise their universal human rights;” and (3) “encouraging the growth of an empowered, innovative, and inclusive Cuba.” [1]
Since then the Department has reissued that ICS for Cuba (again without a date (other than stating they also had been approved 5/27/22)) with additional sections for (2) Mission Strategic Framework; (3) Mission Goals and Objectives; and (4) Management Objectives.[2] Here is a discussion of those first two additional sections.
Mission Strategic Framework
For Mission Goal 1 (Advance human rights in Cuba), this document listed the following as Mission Objectives:
1.1: “Promote respect for human rights and support human rights activists.”
- “Justification: With hundreds of Cubans facing decades-long prison sentences for peaceful protests in 2021, the cause of promoting respect for human rights and raising global awareness about those arbitrarily imprisoned by the regime is as desperately needed as ever. Creating space, through our support and advocacy, for them to do their work is vital. This includes Cuba’s independent media, which is under constant threat.”
- “Risks: The Cuban government actively represses human rights activists with threats, fines, and arbitrary detentions. It uses every authoritarian tactic at its disposal to block both U.S. and international efforts to foster basic respect for universal human rights. Persistent engagement and support for these individuals is essential and helps mitigate the great personal peril they face for their activism.”
1.2: “Identify and engage the next generation of Cuban civil society leaders in support of their democratic aspirations”
- “Justification: Cuba’s future will be determined by its youth. To build a future with greater economic and political freedoms, they need to remain connected with each other and the outside world. In contrast, the regime actively attempts to frustrate those efforts and to condemn its youth to de-facto exile or imprisonment simply for publicly expressing dissent.”
- “Risks: Cuba does not permit a civil society to exist independent of Communist Party control. Members of civil society organizations, the independent press, and similar interests live under constant threat.”
For Mission Goal 3 (Encourage the growth of an empowered, innovative, and inclusive Cuban society), this subsequent document listed the following as one of the Mission Objectives:
“3.1 Support the development of private economic activity and encourage a more open economy through engagement with entrepreneurs and private businesses.”
- “Justification: Cuba’s route to a more prosperous future lies in the innovation and enterprise of the Cuban people. U.S. economic outreach is designed to support and empower Cuba’s private sector innovators, as they seek new pathways to prosperity, through programs that build their capacity and link them with the broader global economy.”
- “Risks: For many years, Cuban reforms to permit and foster private economic activity have followed a pattern of slow implementation, insufficient measures, followed by periods of retrenchment. One of the many factors that constrains Cuba’s economic growth is the risk that any private sector reforms could (and have been) easily be rescinded.”
Reactions
As expressed in the prior post on this subject, the logical, complicated structure of the Department’s Integrated Country Strategy makes one wonder whether such complexity will interfere with the Department’s meeting the constantly changing, complex problems of the world and whether the Department’s costs for doing this for every country in the world is a waste of money.
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[1] U.S. State Department’s Integrated Country Strategy for Cuba, dwkcommentaries.com (Feb. 16, 2024).
[2] U.S. State Department, Integrated Country Strategy for Cuba (Approved May 27, 2022).
