Environmental disaster and metadiplomacy. Alternatives for US-Cuba relations?
The obstacle that prevented unilateral and instant assistance from the US cannot be attributed, as in the past, to the regulations of the embargo or any other law, nor to the technical limits of an agreement, but rather to the customary lack of political will.
US relations with its bordering countries have historically responded to a geopolitical logic. Caught in that logic, for better and for worse, is the question of the environment.
As is known, the US and Mexico share an official program that includes 14 sister cities on each side. The US government associates this program with a contingency plan with these 28 cities, anticipating that they could be affected by "a major release of hazardous substances" ( a major hazardous substance release ). Among those dangerous substances is, of course, oil. Something similar holds with Canada.
The Canadian border is 8,891 km; the Mexican, 3 145 km. Although that of the north is almost triple, everything indicates that problems related to the environment, together with other issues related to national security, accumulate much more on the Mexican side than on the Canadian side.
Any other border to guard? There is one with Cuba, which is not land, but maritime, and which is only 580 km. Despite their smaller size, those 313 nautical mile equivalents are not subject to the same control and cannot be physically sealed to the same degree as land borders. Agreed by a treaty on December 16, 1977, this Cuban maritime border, unlike the aforementioned land borders, is surrounded by a common sea, and is crossed by innumerable naval routes, as well as a current that rises from the south towards the coast of Florida, bordering the island, known as the Gulf Stream.
The geopolitical importance of this maritime border determined that the only treaty that emerged from the dialogue and negotiation between the two sides during Obama's short summer was precisely the one that provides for the area of submarine exploitation in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, between the three countries. Marine exploitation that has a first common denominator in terms of the environment and natural resources: oil.
When the United States reacted to the Matanzas catastrophe, it recognized the existence of a precedent that authorizes collaboration in assistance to environmental threats related to oil spills: "United States law authorizes United States entities and organizations to provide assistance and response against disasters in Cuba."
The most immediate antecedent of mutual understanding of this declaration was one of the last signed between both countries, less than two weeks before Barack Obama left the presidency: the Cooperation Agreement on the Preparation and Response to Pollution caused by oil spills. hydrocarbons and other noxious and potentially dangerous substances in the Gulf of Mexico and the Straits of Florida, dated January 9, 2017.
The official assessment of that agreement by the US was not limited to specific or technical aspects. Although its scope was aimed at "preventing, containing and cleaning up spills of oil and other polluting substances in the sea," it was about "minimizing their adverse effects on public health, safety and the environment," so that its meaning was further: “This bilateral agreement is a recognition of the importance of protecting our marine ecosystems and coastal communities…Establish a mutual framework –including diplomatic, legal and technical aspects– to prevent, prepare for and respond to oil spills in the environment marine is particularly important for neighbors separated by 90 miles.
Although the Cuban side has recognized that that agreement was specific to oil spills in the sea, the underlying issue in that understanding, in terms of the national interest of each country, continues to be the protection of the environment of both, not only of the water.
After all, US environmental policy does not make a substantive difference between maritime and land spills. According to the US Geological Survey (USGS): “an oil spill refers to any uncontrolled release of crude oil, gasoline, fuels or other petroleum derivatives into the environment. Oil spills can contaminate land, air, or water. Although the term oil spill often brings to mind spills in the ocean and coastal waters, such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico or the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, it also refers to spills on land. Spills are incredibly damaging to those species that come into direct contact with the contaminated areas. And depending on the size and scale of an oil spill, recovery time can take anywhere from days to decades."
According to this definition, the United States and all its specialized agencies, which have an incredible wealth of technical resources and specialized equipment, in addition to the incomparable proximity to the disaster area, should have woken up on the Saturday morning in which the tank caught fire, in the mouth of the Bay of Matanzas, responding to their own interests: to prevent contamination of the land, water and air in a surrounding area, preserve the life of the species, and also that of the Cubans directly involved in the disaster.
Once the fire is over, it is not possible to realistically imagine what could happen from now on between the two parties, without first explaining what happened. The obstacle that prevented this unilateral and instant assistance cannot be attributed, as in the past, to the regulations of the embargo or any other law, nor to the technical limits of an agreement, but rather to the customary lack of political will. Against this impediment, no theory of ethnic lobbying or disaster diplomacy can provide an alternative interpretation, with greater explanatory power than what we already knew: relations characterized by hostility and mistrust, where it is difficult to develop any humanitarian diplomacy, because rather they lack humanity.
The question about the future of relations naturally does not depend on how many humanitarian missions can intertwine the two countries. We already know that, too, since the two sides cooperated to deal with the earthquake in Haiti and the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. Of course you can do it. And???
sister cities
To think about the future, in terms of alternatives, it might be useful to look again at the geopolitics of the Basin and, in particular, at the logic of the border between the US and Cuba, returning, let us say, to the topic of sister cities, among other interlocutors. .
Why is it that, despite the fact that there are sister cities on both sides, there are no border contingency plans that the US can recognize and consider in its environmental programs? To the south of that border are Havana, Santa Cruz del Norte, Matanzas, Cárdenas; Key West, Naples, Sarasota, Saint Petersburg, Tampa, next to the Everglades protected area, and cities like Miami and Fort Lauderdale, to the north. If we look further, in the interior arch of the Gulf, there are the considerable ports of New Orleans, Mobile, Houston, with which Cuba has had very close historical relations, based on the same geoeconomic logic woven by the neighborhood.
We already know what happens when a hurricane or an oil spill multiplies catastrophes in the Caribbean basin, whether by land, sea or air. We also know its impact on migratory flows and other national security problems that affect all US borders, land or sea.
Reviewing the subject, however, it turns out that we do have "sister cities," baptized that way on both sides, even without the consecration of the Environmental Protection Agency or the federal government. Las Vegas and Santa Fe (in New Mexico) are twinned with Banes and Holguín; Brunswick (in Maine) with Trinidad; Sancti Spiritus with Philadelphia; Havana with Mobile; Pittsburgh with Matanzas. These subnational relations, recognized as an important dimension of foreign relations in current academic studies of our region, have not been insignificant between Cuba and the United States, including cooperation in recovery from natural disasters. The classic example is that of the Cuban offer of aid to New Orleans, following Hurricane Katrina, in 2005. Cuba was, along with Australia, Germany, the UK, among the first countries to offer it, and among the very few (Venezuela, Pakistan ) who were not US allies. Although the United States was quite reluctant to accept it in general, which had disastrous results for the victims, it did not prevent the cities of Havana and New Orleans from creating their own cooperation channel, and a mission of Cuban doctors and health personnel from helping in the recuperation. Fourteen years later, this exchange was updated, and was extended to culture, health, education, economy, tourism, agriculture, trade and scientific development, as well as disaster management, climate change and emergency preparedness,
Havana and New Orleans agree to strengthen their cooperation
Is the Cuban system an obstacle so that this exchange that involves subnational actors from both parties can be developed as a major alternative? Does this antagonistic system result in expanding the space of relations between non-governmental actors, such as entrepreneurs, artists, academics, scientists, church representatives, athletes, environmental activists, on both sides?
Taking into account the historical experience of the last ten years, and in the absence of a federal government initiative like the one in 2014-2016, is it more realistic to bet on the humanitarianism of US agencies, with all the ties that often accompany them, or rather to a metadiplomacy that has borne fruit in the past, and that does not exclude Cuban public institutions, but rather turns them into facilitators?
Unless very unexpected things begin to happen in the coming days, when the last flame in Matanzas goes out, the hopes of those who two years ago pinned their eyes on the victory of the Democrats as national salvation will also have turned to ashes. And that will also be a lesson.
https://oncubanews.com/cuba-ee-uu/desastre-ambiental-y-metadiplomacia-alternativas-para-las-relaciones-eeuu-cuba/
Calls for US Assistance (click here)
https://cubapeopletopeople.blogspot.com/2022/08/calls-for-us-assistance-to-matanzas-oil.html
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