CUBA ON THE AGENDA: EXODUS OR ECONOMIC RESURGENCE?

By editorial staff

The recent US attack on Venezuela which culminated in the seizure of the country’s leader, Nicolas Maduro - who is now on trial in New York, have firmly put Cuba in the spotlight.

Uncertainties about the future of the communist Caribbean state have grown. Comments by American President Donald Trump have made them even more stark, especially in the wake of ongoing developments in Venezuela.

“Cuba always survived because of Venezuela. Now they won’t have that money coming in,” Trump said, adding, “Cuba looks like it’s ready to fall. I don’t know if they’re going to hold out.” Those sentiments were echoed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is of Cuban background. “If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned,” he said shortly after the Venezuela incursion.

The comments directed at Cuba by the Trump administration underline a further tightening of the US economic sanctions on its neighbouring communist island, especially blocking its vital oil imports from Venezuela.

According to US media reports, there’s been a recent surge of deportations of Cubans from the US, particularly Florida, back to the island.

The increasingly precarious economic situation in Cuba is creating a new wave of analysis examining both the short-term and long-term impacts. In the short term, concerns are mounting over the likelihood of another wave of refugees from the island seeking better opportunities.

A longer-term speculation suggests the possibility of regime change in Cuba culminating in a new political and economic system.

Currently in Cuba, the administration remains defiant and has strongly denounced the US actions in Venezuela in which a number of Cubans were killed. Their bodies were recently returned to Havana in a solemn ceremony.

What might lie ahead for Cuba and how that could impact neighbouring islands have become a topic of discussion here in Cayman and in the region.

One school of thought suggests the possibility of an eventual direct US involvement in Cuba with more of a tourism-driven economic investment agenda, rather than a military-led geo-political strategy. That outlook speaks to a dormant and once-dominant regional tourism giant reawakening.

While elsewhere in the Caribbean, the prospect of Cuba as a resurgent tourism competitor has been a constant background issue in many tourism forums, of more immediate concern to Cayman is the likelihood of another exodus of Cuban nationals.

That aspect was addressed during a recent sitting of the Cayman Islands Parliamentary Finance Committee by Hon. Deputy Governor Franz Manderson.

“What’s going to happen if Cuba no longer gets in oil and the people start to suffer?  Are there going to be a mass migration?” he wondered.

Mr Manderson said a team has been assigned in the Cayman Islands Government (CIG) Ministry of Home Affairs, to look into “how we are going to be able to handle, God forbid, if a few thousand Cubans arrive here in a short period of time.”

He reported to the Finance Committee, “We don’t want to be reacting to these things. We want to have identified the risk and done everything possible to mitigate against that risk.”

It is clear that the future of Cuba is a matter of concern for Cayman and the rest of the Caribbean.

Sidebar:

Since its launch in 2013 Caymanian Times have publishing article about life an events in Cuba and its impact on the Cayman Islands

Today we Flashback to an article published 12, February 2016