On September 17 Cuba’s new Ambassador to the U.S., Jose Ramon Cabanas Rodriguez, presented his credentials to President Obama.[1]
Afterwards, Cabanas said he would be continuing to spread the truth about Cuba, promote new relationships and explain all remaining obstacles to normal relations between the two countries. “In particular we are going to work intensely to realize the decisions of the first meeting of the Bilateral Commission held last week in Havana.”
As discussed in a previous post, that meeting of the Bilateral Commission established an agenda in three tracks, with the first encompassing issues where there is significant agreement and the possibility of short-term progress. These include re-establishing regularly scheduled flights, environmental protection, natural disaster response, health and combatting drug trafficking. A second track includes more difficult topics such as human rights, human trafficking, climate change and epidemics. The third includes complex, longer-term issues like the return of the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, U.S. damage claims over properties nationalized in Cuba after the 1959 revolution and Cuba’s damage claims for more than $300 billion in alleged economic damages from the U.S. embargo and for what it says are other acts of aggression.
Last October Cabanas, then the Chief of Mission of the Cuban Interests Section, was in Minneapolis at the invitation of the Minnesota International Center. I had the pleasure of having a delightful Cuban lunch with him, his wife and others at one of the city’s Cuban restaurants, Victor’s 1959 Café, where he wrote his name on the wall. Afterwards, Cabanas, his wife and others came to my church, Westminster Presbyterian Church, to talk about our Cuban partnerships and various issues between our two countries. Our main partnership is with a church in the city of Matanzas, and when most of the Americans in the room indicated they had been in that city, Cabanas said it was the “home town” for both him and his wife.
We at Westminster and Minneapolis wish the Ambassador success in his diplomatic endeavors in our country.
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[1] Davis, First Cuban Envoy to U.S. Since 1961 Presents Credentials at the White House, N.Y. Times (Sept. 17, 2015); Reuters, Cuba Has First Ambassador to U.S. in Half a Century, N.Y. Times (Sept. 17, 2015); Gomez, Cuba already has US Ambassador, Granma (Sept. 17, 2015).