The world held its collective breath in October 1962 when
the United States and the Soviet Union came within a heartbeat or two of
launching nuclear weapons at each other. The Cuban Missile Crisis as it
was known came to a head because the Soviet Union put nuclear warheads in
missile silos in Cuba just a stone’s throw away from the United States.
Havana, Cuba is only 90 miles south of Key West Florida. A missile could
streak between the two places in slightly more than a nanosecond.
President Kennedy and his Administration did the proper amount of bluffing and
cajoling and luckily (and thankfully) the Soviet Union blinked first and
removed their nuclear weapons.
Almost exactly two years earlier, in October 1960, the
United States imposed a commercial, economic and financial embargo against Cuba
almost two years after the Batista regime was deposed by the Cuban Revolution.
It was enacted after Cuba nationalized he properties of United States
citizens and corporations and it was strengthened to a near-total embargo on
February 7, 1962.
Titled the Cuban Democracy Act, the embargo was
codified into law in 1993 with the stated purpose of maintaining sanctions
on Cuba so long as the Cuban government continues to refuse to move toward
"democratization and greater respect for human rights." In 1996,
Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act that further restricted United
States citizens from doing business in or with Cuba, and mandated restrictions
on giving public or private assistance to any successor government in Havana
unless and until certain claims against the Cuban government are met. In 1999,
President Clinton expanded the trade embargo even further by also
disallowing foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies to trade with Cuba. In 2000,
Clinton authorized the sale of certain "humanitarian" US products to
Cuba.
More than 50 years after end of the Cuban missile crisis and after imposition of the embargo it remains in place. Ironically and hysterically Cuba survived it and today sits with its middle finger pointed at the United States because of it. In fact if you walk along the malecon in downtown Havana as I did in 1990, you’ll see a large sign in front of the US Interests Section office (where the CIA maintains its listening posts) that carries a caricature of someone who looks almost exactly like Fidel Castro. The caricature is pointing his index finger north at the United States and is saying in Spanish “Mr. Imperialist we will not be afraid.” Other signs around the country send a similar message.
Granted things in Cuba aren’t like they are even in
Little Havana in Miami but the country has not buckled. Cuba has
universal health care for all of its citizens. Cuba has a widespread and
effective collection of national parks and marine sanctuaries protecting some
of its most vulnerable natural resources and Cuba also has an extensive and
lucrative tourist industry. Flights from all over Europe and Canada bring
visitors to the sunny beaches of Varadero and Cayo Coco and they flock there in
huge numbers.
Meanwhile the United States continued to pout and stomp
its feet and some still dream of driving Cuba into submission. I was able
to travel legally to Cuba in 1990 and again in 2007 because I possess a US
Treasury Department license that allows me to expend American funds on travel
to and in Cuba. Absent the Treasury Department license I would be in
violation of the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 that forbids
those expenditures. Ironically the United States is the only “free”
country in the world that restricts where its residents can travel – North
Korea and Cuba are off limits under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917.
One of the many frustrating aspects of the embargo is the
almost total lack of air transportation between the two countries. In
recent years that has become less of an obstacle as restrictions have been
lifted but still it’s a pain in the ass if you want to travel there. When
I traveled to Cuba in 1990 I had to do so by flying from Canada. Because
I was on Cubana de Aviacion, the national flag carrier of Cuba and because of
the embargo, we left Toronto’s Pearson International Airport and flew for the
shortest distance possible over American airspace. Once over New York
City we were directed to a point 200 miles offshore in the Atlantic outside the
American exclusive economic zone and clearly in international waters.
There we were allowed to follow a course south to a point over the Bahamian
island of Andros where we turned west and flew directly to Varadero. At
no point other than when we flew across New York State to the ocean were we
over American airspace.
Two ironies are at work here. First of all, when I
traveled to Cuba in 1990 our flight had to follow that circuitous routing
because we were in a Cuban aircraft. Had we flown to Varadero from
Toronto on Air Canada we would have been allowed to fly over American airspace
but because of the embargo and because we were in a Cuban plane we had to take
the long way around. It didn’t matter to the United States that the
Canadian aircraft is flying to Cuba. What matters is that a Cuban
aircraft was and the embargo denies them the ability to fly in American
airspace.
The second irony in play is that Cuba doesn’t reciprocate
with this childishness and allows American flag carriers to fly over its
airspace. Take a flight to Jamaica or Grand Cayman or to Bogota Colombia
on an American flag carrier from an airport in the eastern United States and
the route of flight will take you on a course just east of Santa Clara,
Cuba. You will be over the island for nine minutes and then you are
out over international airspace. The only exception to this rule is
flying to Guantanamo Bay Naval Station as I did in 2007. There we
were required to fly around the east tip of Cuba and approach Gitmo from the
south. For final approach the American flag ship was not allowed to
cross over Cuban airspace at any point which resulted in a sharply banked right
hand turn near the end of the Gitmo runway. No doubt this exception is in place
because the Cuban government is still upset that the Americans refuse to leave
Guantanamo Bay.
Recently I flew from Orlando to Montego Bay, Jamaica and
I did so aboard Jet Blue Airlines, an American flag carrier. We left
Orlando, traveled to a point over Miami then south over Cuba for 9 minutes and
then into Montego Bay. The next day when I returned to Orlando, we followed the
same route in reverse including nine minutes over Cuban airspace.
The Cuban government, in spite of the ridiculously
ineffective American embargo, allows American flag carriers to fly over its
airspace saving those American air carriers millions of dollars in fuel costs
annually on top of saving travelers thousands of hours of air travel time.
The Cubans do so because it’s the right thing to do despite the two nations
still at each other’s throats. At the same time, however, Cuban aircraft
(of which there are about 10!) are strictly forbidden from crossing American
airspace except for the shortest distance possible to get to international
waters. We could care less about the cost of fuel for the Cuban aircraft
and we could care less about the extra time it takes for people to get to Cuba
from a place like Canada. What matters apparently is this in-grained
notion that we have to somehow continue to punish Cuba for an incident that
happened when the Beatles were still largely unknown outside of Liverpool, and
the Dow Jones Industrial average was about 500!
I guess we are showing them aren’t we.
Dawn of our first full day at sea found us about 20 miles
off the coast of Cayo Coco, part of the region of Cuba known locally as the “Cuban
Keys.” Well into international waters
the ship chugged along on a southeasterly course with the forbidden island
almost a stone’s throw away. From the
ship we could see cities on the horizon and roads and power plants. Cuban fishermen sailed out in rickety boats
plying their trade and waving at the ship as we steamed past them. Cruisers on the ship responded with a
perfunctory “Oh, that’s interesting” when I’d answer their finger-pointed
question, “What island is that over there” by telling them it was Cuba. Cuba remained on the horizon until we reached
the Windward Passage between it and Haiti.
The day after our time in Grand Cayman we awoke at
sunrise with the westernmost tip of Cuba to starboard as we passed through the
Yucatan Channel. A slight adjustment in
our course soon put us parallel to the north coast of Pinar del Rio Province. Its irregular skyline filled the horizon as we
steamed northwest toward Miami. All the
while nobody on board seemed even marginally interested that we were so close
to the fascinating culture and landscapes that make up Cuba. To many it was just another island that they
had not “done” yet on a cruise and to others it was a place they may have heard
about but right now the antics of the Kardashians were of greater interest than
the geopolitical role Cuba plays in the Western Hemisphere.
Sunrise over Cuba from the deck of a ship
Watching the mountains of Pinar del Rio brought back
memories of my first trip to Cuba in 1990 when we traveled west from Havana and
spent two days in this beautiful landscape finding and studying the birds of
western Cuba. One of the species we
found was the Cuban Solitaire, a kind of thrush related closely to the American
Robin that everyone knows from their backyard.
Cuban Solitaire is one of the 21 species of birds that occurs nowhere
else on earth but this island. Returning
from that first trip I prepared a report on my observations across the entire
island and because of his intense interest in Cuba, I mailed a copy to Jimmy
Buffett solely for his edification if he chose to read it.
Imagine my surprise a couple weeks later when a letter
appeared in my mailbox that had been postmarked “Key West, Florida.” It was from Jimmy and he was interested in
the Cuban Solitaire. He said that he was
writing a book and the name “Solitaire” caught his fanciful attention. He wondered if the Cuban Solitaire was a
species of bird that a sailor would find if he sailed into Havana harbour. Unfortunately the Solitaire is a mountain
bird that was highly unlikely to ever be found at a low elevation like
Havana. Although my answer was not what
Jimmy wanted to hear a month or so later I received another letter from
him. He wanted to know about what a
pilot would see if he was flying over the Platte River in spring time when all
of the Sandhill Cranes were there. This
request was easy to fill and several weeks later a copy of a chapter in his
book “Where is Joe Merchant” arrived
in my office mailbox. Jimmy asked me to read the chapter for biological
accuracy and return it to him when my editing was completed. A year or so later, because of our
correspondence, before a concert in Fort Lauderdale I sat back stage with
Buffett drinking a beer (he opened it for me) discussing politics, the
environment, and bone fishing. It was
among the greatest 30 minutes of my life and it all started because of a
non-descript bird that lives in the mountains of Pinar del Rio.
The Carnival Victory maintained its course northeastward toward
Miami during the remainder of the daylight hours and we passed just north of
Havana near sunset. I looked out across
the Cuba Straits toward Key West just 90 miles north and longed for an end to
the ridiculous embargo that forbids Americans from traveling to a neighboring
country. As I contemplated the nonsense
of all this we turned on CNN International on the television in our stateroom
and were overwhelmed by the news. Just
that morning the United States and Cuba reached an agreement on the release of
two American’s from Cuban prisons in exchange for the release of three Cuban
spies from American prisons. Along with
the humanitarian exchange the United States was going to substantially ease and
reduce (but not totally eliminate) most of the restrictions on travel between
the two countries.
Important among the changes was that the Secretary of
State had been instructed to normalize relations with Cuba and to establish an
American Embassy there. As President
Obama made this historic announcement he recognized that the embargo has failed,
that it hasn’t impacted the government of Cuba but only its people, and that more
than half of the people living in the United States now were not even born when
the embargo was put in place. Fully 88
percent of American’s of Cuban descent living in South Florida fully supported
easing or eliminating the embargo. The
President ended his historic announcement saying in Spanish “Todos somos Americanos,” or “We are all
Americans.” It was refreshing to hear
him say that.
During the President’s address a news roll scrolled
across the bottom of the screen announcing new and important changes that were
on the horizon because of the easing of restrictions. Despite the news being only a few hours old,
already Carnival Cruise Line announced that it was investigating the
possibility of beginning cruises to Cuba.
At the same time Fort Lauderdale International Airport announced it was
investigating how to begin and how to expand air service from it to Cuba. Carnival can rest assured that I will be on
one or more of its cruises bound for Cuba when that magnificent day arrives and
airlines flying from Fort Lauderdale to Cuba can count on me being one of the
frequent fliers aboard their craft.
I’m not sure if it was serendipity or happenstance or
some other noun that was involved in today’s announcement. However I found it almost karmic after so
many years of hoping and wishing for a change in policy toward a neighbor who
could use neighbors, the President changed the policies that had hurt nobody
but Americans and he did so while we were circumnavigating Cuba.
It was a tad more than ironic that the historic sunset of America's bullying embargo of Cuba was announced by Barack as we watched the sun set over Cuba that very same day
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