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19 The Time for Cuba Is Coming Víctor López Villafañe What Cuba has accomplished since the end of its 1959 revolution to the present is historic. One hundred years from now books will refer to the history of Latin America and, in particular, the history of Cuba as a fundamental component of what happened to the continent during the latter half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first.1 The Cuban Revolution was carried out and was able to continue under extremely difficult global conditions, especially in light of the embargo and the political isolation imposed by the United States since the early 1960s. Nevertheless, these global conditions have been changing, especially during the transition toward a more multipolar world, and now Latin America is more supportive of and closer to Cuba than at any time since the revolution. At the same time, once the isolation to which it has been subjected is ended and it can start making fundamental decisions regarding change, Cuba has the opportunity to become a power in Latin America because it possesses fundamental ingredients that other countries in the continent do not. Cuba in the Post–Cold War World The Cuban Revolution was an extension of the world revolutionary cycle of the second half of the twentieth century that began with the Chinese Revolution, then continued with the revolutionary struggles in Southeast Asia, especially the revolution in Vietnam, and the decolonization process in Africa. In Latin America it was the only triumphant revolution during this period, a revolution that radically changed the power structure in favor of a socialist project and was able to survive thanks to the mixture of strong ideological leadership; help from the USSR during the period it existed and provided a reason for being to the bipolar world; and an almost heroic The Time for Cuba Is Coming · 375 determination by the Cuban people to persist through the most difficult periods of recent times. In 1972 the United States recognized the reality of a communist China, which it could no longer ignore. Vietnam, which had defeated the U.S. Army, was recognized by President Clinton in 1995, but Cuba has continued to be considered an enemy and the U.S. embargo has been maintained .2 What makes the Cuban situation different from those of China and Vietnam? China had not only separated from its alliance with the USSR during the 1960s but considered it the primary threat to world stability. Also the U.S. defeat in Vietnam made the strategy of rapprochement with Mao’s China inevitable. The recognition of Vietnam and the lifting of the trade embargo against it occurred after these policies no longer made practical sense. The Chinese market reforms of 1978 and the Vietnamese ones of 1986 were implemented in the context of internal changes in those countries and also as a result of enormous economic development in the AsiaPacific region. The enormous regional development of East Asia has been a determining factor in the success of these economic reforms. All these elements as a whole were critical in leading the United States to decide to normalize its relationships with these countries, which up until then had been considered enemies. In contrast, Cuba remained an ally of the USSR until the latter collapsed. Moreover, market reforms like those of China and Vietnam could not be carried out, in part because unlike Asia, Latin America did not experience great economic growth and because there was no country or association of countries with the ability to inject capital and technology that could serve as an incentive or driving force for Cuban market reforms, as had occurred in Asia. To a certain extent the market reforms of the communist countries of Asia were the direct result of the great economic transformations that took place in the region and in countries such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.3 The only country in the Americas that could have injected capital and technology into Cuba was the United States and it refused, by means of the embargo, to provide it, in an effort to reverse the revolutionary process that had started in 1959. These are, from my point of view, the geopolitical elements of great importance in understanding the past and being able to discern the changes on the horizon in Cuba. The global reality has been changing dramatically in recent years. Latin America has been going through very difficult periods, first the...

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