Cuba in a Global Context: International Relations, Internationalism, and Transnationalism

7. The Cuba-Venezuela Alliance and Its Continental Impact

7 The Cuba-Venezuela Alliance and Its Continental Impact Max Azicri For more than ten years now—since at least 1999—Cuba and Venezuela have worked together to establish a remarkable partnership based on mutual reinforcement of sociopolitical forces and historical, ideological, and personal friendship factors cemented by geographical proximity. Although the Cuban socialist regime and the Venezuelan Bolivarian process remain systemically and structurally different,1 the two countries have placed a claim to the Bolivarian ideal of a united Latin America free of U.S. dominance. This closely knit partnership has had a significant domestic effect—recognizing their capacity to help each other, the countries exchange goods and services in a collaborative fashion2—which has been matched by a widely felt continental impact. In addition to being a source of vital resources and services to both countries, the partnership has promoted Latin American unity and other long-held objectives. ALBA, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of the Americas (changed in 2009 to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of the Americas)—the brainchild of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez—has been instrumental in pursuing such goals. Since Cuba and Venezuela founded ALBA in 2004, several other countries have joined. These include Bolivia (2006), Nicaragua (2007), and Dominica and Honduras (2008) (after the 2009 coup ousting President Manuel Zelaya, the right-wing government of Honduras withdrew its membership), Ecuador, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda (2009). In 2012 Suriname and St. Lucia were admitted as “guest countries.” Havana and Caracas took up outreach initiatives through ALBA and other programs, and those projects continue today despite the depressed financial conditions caused by the world economic crisis of 2008–9. Relationships with Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Mercosur (Common Market of the South) offer prime examples of the connections being fashioned. Max Azicri 128 Spreading Health and Oil Benefits The regional approach included record-setting initiatives such as Cuba’s Operation Miracle, which restored the sight of more than one million patients free of charge. The program started in 2005, catering only to Venezuelans, but in two years it was expanded throughout the region. By mid-2008 the project had reached thirty-two countries; low-income patients from Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as from Africa and Asia, whose vision was impaired by diabetes, glaucoma, cataracts, and other illnesses had been treated and had their eyesight restored. Havana’s continuing program aims at treating from six to ten million patients.3 Venezuela’s Petrocaribe (conceived by Castro and Chávez) was launched in 2005, with Cuba, twelve of the fifteen members of CARICOM (the organization of Caribbean countries), and the Dominican Republic signing the agreement. Later Haiti (2006), Honduras (2007), and Guatemala (2008) joined the program. Petrocaribe guarantees oil supplies to sixteen participating staterun agencies at market-value prices, with deferred payments in a twenty-fiveyear agreement carrying 1 (or 2) percent interest (the 2005–10 participating countries’ borrowing credit was estimated at more than $4.5 billion). The sales, made directly by Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA, amount to close to 200,000 barrels per day, and the buyers can pay for the oil with commodities such as bananas, rice, and sugar. Cuba’s daily supply of 200,000 barrels of oil is based on exchanging in return more than 30,000 medical doctors and health personnel, including a number of professionals in other fields. This agreement springs not from Petrocaribe but dates back to the December 14, 2004, convention between Havana and Caracas. Havana’s technical support allowed the Chávez administration to carry out its national social missions—from health and literacy campaigns and other educational projects to unemployment and peasant welfare issues to supports for mining communities and indigenous peoples and the subsidization of supermarkets. Yet another mission is administered through an organization called Mothers of the Barrio, which targets drug use and unintended pregnancies in young girls and provides help to mothers in poverty. The missions in their totality are aimed at eradicating poverty by 2021.4 Petrocaribe has had its problems, such as failing at times to deliver the agreed quota of oil, failing to satisfy the Dominican Republic’s demand to increase its quota, and postponing completion of the Nicaraguan refinery until 2018.5 Altogether, however, Petrocaribe has provided vital help to sustainable The Cuba-Venezuela Alliance and Its Continental Impact 129 development efforts in...