ANALYSIS - Protests In Cuba May Push Biden Administration To Ease Sanctions

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th July, 2021) The recent demonstrations in Cuba are unlikely to lead to major upheaval in the small Caribbean nation, yet the administration of US President Joe Biden may ease the decades-long embargo against the island, experts told Sputnik.

On Sunday, Cuba has witnessed its largest protests since 1994, fueled by anger over shortages of basic goods. Thousands of people demanded "free elections" and the resolution of social issues. According to the media, protests and gatherings took place in eight Cuban cities, including Havana. In response, government and Communist Party supporters held their own marches.

Meanwhile, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has accused some of those who participate in protests of being paid by the US to provoke unrest. Replying to the statement, Washington stressed that it would be a "grievous mistake" on the part of Havana to say that the US was involved in the protests, adding that there was every indication that the events in Cuba over the weekend were spontaneous and not induced by other countries.

As protests in Cuba are a rare phenomenon, speculations emerged over what changes � if any � they will bring to the island nation. These rallies could lead to further economic reforms in Cuba, such as the growing expansion of the non-state sector but they will hardly change the political landscape fundamentally, Jorge Duany, director of the Cuban Research Institute and Professor of Anthropology at Florida International University, told Sputnik.

"However, they might serve to pressure the Biden administration to announce new policy measures toward Cuba, such as easing existing restrictions to Cuban-American travel and remittances to the Island, which could help to alleviate the dire economic conditions of thousands of Cuban citizens," he said.

In the long run, it could lead the Cuban government to recognize that it needs to include a broader section of the population in the political system, the expert suggested.

"At the very least, the protests sound an alarm about the growing popular dissatisfaction with current social, economic, and health conditions in Cuba, as well as explicitly political unrest, and any government would have to pay attention to that alarm," Duany said.

Sebastian Arcos, associate director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University, called the demonstrations "unprecedented" but doubted that there would be any change of power anytime soon.

"This is just the first confrontation. Many more must come for the two sides to find a long-term solution," he said.

Martin Palous, the ex-permanent representative to the United Nations for the Czech Republic, believes that the best option would be that the Cuban administration opens the path to substantive reforms.

"It is a wake-up call for everybody, a call for the reunification of the Cuban nation. The Cuban people want a fundamentalism change: freedom and democracy should replace the outdated totalitarian regime," he said.

Sergio Angel Baquero, professor from the Sergio Arboleda University in Colombia, also called the protests unprecedented because, in his opinion, they have never before taken place simultaneously in all the provinces and because they have never before been sustained over time.

"The most foreseeable thing is that repression and control by the Cuban State security will increase and that people will remain in the streets because their problems of food, public services, health, etc.

will not be solved," he believes.

Meanwhile, the US and Russia which have a long history with the island nation, the peak of which happened in the Soviet time during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, have diametrically different positions on the matter.

The US promised to help Cubans in a humanitarian way. Yet Biden said his administration will not ease restrictions on remittances sent from US residents to relatives in Cuba because the Cuban government will likely confiscate the money. Russia, in its turn, expressed confidence in prompt normalization of the situation in the Caribbean country and warned against interference in Cuba's domestic affairs.

"The United States has clearly supported the right to peaceful demonstration by the protestors, while Russia has warned against outside interference in Cuba. Hence, the current tensions between the two former Cold War rivals could escalate because of their different interests and strategies regarding the Cuban government and its opposition movement," Duany said.

Meanwhile, Angel Baquero noted that there is already a conflicting position between the two powers.

"Russia, which calls for non-intervention in Cuba and sides with Miguel Diaz-Canel; and the US, which calls on the Cuban government to respect human rights and allow peaceful demonstrations," he said.

According to Arcos, the protests are "another point of friction" between the nations involved, yet it should not change relations in a dramatic way.

"Russia is not the Soviet Union and will not repeat the mistakes of the 1962 Missile Crisis. Neither Russia nor China are willing to sustain Cuba economically like the Soviets did, nor are they willing to risk a confrontation with the USA over Cuba," he said.

This year, Cuba marked the 62nd anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution over the regime of Fulgencio Batista, a notorious US-backed military dictator who served until 1959. After the revolution, the United States, which did not welcome the new government led by communist revolutionary Fidel Castro, hit the small island nation with numerous sanctions.

In the decades since, the US has been strangling Cuba with more economic restrictions, which have severely undercut the country's tourism, energy, transportation, telecommunications, healthcare, education and food security systems.

Things began looking up once Barack Obama came to the White House. His administration oversaw a period the media called the "Cuban thaw" during which sanctions started being lifted and bilateral relations began normalizing.

This positive shift was relatively short-lived, however, and things started getting worse again after Donald Trump became president in 2017. During the first year of the Trump presidency, the US State Department recalled most of its diplomatic staff in Havana following reports that they were suffering from various health issues caused by a sonic weapon.

The US attitude toward Cuba took a significant dive after the latter joined a chorus of countries that supported the legitimately elected Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, during his nation's political crisis in early 2019. Throughout last year, the Trump administration started unveiling sanctions against the Cuban oil industry, in particular on firms and vessels transporting Venezuelan oil to Cuba, prompting the island nation to brace itself for harder economic times.