Attendees at the recent Cuban “Rapprochement” Conference in Tampa found it noteworthy that the general counsel at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, Llanio Gonzalez-Lopez, was among the participants. Cuban officials have routinely been confined within the D.C. perimeter. Obviously travel restrictions had been eased by the United States. Gonzalez-Lopez had a 48-hour visitor’s window.
Moreover, Gonzalez-Lopez’s boss, Ambassador Jose Cabañas Rodriguez, was in Athens, Ga., at the same time speaking at the University of Georgia. His remarks were more formal, detailed and pointed than his general counsel’s low-key comments in Ybor City, an area steeped in U.S.-Cuba awareness and chronology.
Cabañas’ presentation focused on Cuban-American proximity as “geographic fatalism”–and featured an historical overview that included references to a manifest destiny Thomas Jefferson quote, the Platt Amendment, United Fruit, Fulgencio Batista, the Bay of Pigs, the embargo, Operation Mongoose, the Helms-Burton Act and a lot more.
“The U.S.,” underscored Cabañas, “should treat Cuba as an adult neighbor.”
He concluded, however, by noting the areas of mutual self interest–including Cuban nickel-production and oil-drilling as well as foreign drug-running and terrorism–that beg for Cuban-American cooperation. In the final analysis, he emphasized, increased coordination was a matter of “common sense.”