CUBA POLICY
Cuba analyst joining State Department
A Cuba expert joins the State Department's Latin American section, and
there's a new chief for the Cuba desk.
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
The U.S. State Department has added a top Cuba analyst to its Western
Hemisphere Affairs (WHA) staff, and appointed a career diplomat as the
new head of its Cuban affairs section.
Daniel P. Erikson, a senior associate with the Inter-American Dialogue
think tank in Washington and author of a book on Cuba-U.S. relations, is
now a senior advisor at WHA, headed by Assistant Secretary of State
Arturo Valenzuela.
His duties are still being defined, U.S. government officials said, but
he's likely to play at least some role in carrying out the diplomatic
side of the Obama administration's policies on Cuba.
Department officials don't comment on their personal opinions on foreign
policy issues, but Erikson's views on Cuba are known through his book,
The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States and the Next Revolution,
and his many media interviews.
Erikson criticized Cuba's human rights record and ineffective economic
model during a book presentation to New York-based Carnegie Council for
Ethics in International Affairs in early 2009.
``Fidel Castro has clearly subverted the goal of democracy in the Cuban
revolution. Some people in Cuba who support the revolution would say,
`You know, it was a good revolution, but it stayed one generation too
long,' '' he said.
He also criticized President George W. Bush's aggressive policies toward
Cuba as ineffective and at times counterproductive, and backed a policy
of engagement that fits well with the Obama administration's efforts to
expand travel and communications with the island.
U.S. policy on Cuba, he told the Council, has been based on the hope
``for a `poof moment': that at one date in the future the Castro
government will go poof, vanish.''
The Inter-American Dialogue favors a policy ``which basically says
remove all the barriers to communication, travel, and exchange . . . and
have the trade-and-investment embargo be a subject of discussion between
the two governments. I think that's a pretty good starting point,'' he
added.
The best policy ``is to allow a range of actors in American society to
engage with a range of actors in Cuban society, not for the purpose of
democratizing Cuba, but for the purpose of trying to create a more open
environment between the two countries that will lead to more openness in
Cuba,'' Erikson told the Council.
Erikson graduated from Brown and Harvard universities, was a Fulbright
Scholar focusing on U.S.-Mexican business relations and joined the
Dialogue in 2001.
He first visited Cuba in 2000 and returned to the island about 15 times
to research his book, published in 2008.
His arrival at WHA comes at a time when career diplomat Peter Brennan is
scheduled to take over as director of Cuban affairs, officially known as
Counselor for Cuban Affairs, on Monday.
Brennan last served as Chargé d'Affaires and deputy chief of mission at
the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica, and previously served in Nicaragua,
Uruguay, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Barbados.
A graduate of Georgetown University, he entered the Foreign Service in
1984 and has pursued graduate studies at Georgetown and George
Washington universities.
He will replace Ricardo Zuniga, who has been acting head of Cuban
affairs since the previous head, Bisa Williams, was named ambassador to
Niger. Zuniga was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Brazil.
The Cuba section reports to Julissa Reynoso, a political appointee
serving as deputy assistant secretary for Central American and Caribbean
Affairs.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/12/1772342/cuba-analyst-joining-state-department.html
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