The Brookings Institution

The Brookings Institution
Rafael León Rodríguez, Translator: Unstated

The press and official propaganda organ of the Cuban government, Granma,
published a report dated May 18 in Washington, on a lecture given by the
City of Havana historian, Eusebio Leal Spengler, at The Brookings
Institution think tank in the U.S. Capital. It dealt with the project of
restoring the historic center of Havana, declared a World Heritage Site
by UNESCO in 1982. The note also makes reference to the comments of the
noted intellectual with regards to the update of the Cuban economic
model, which he described as irreversible, and added as a declaration of
faith his plans for the country, and I quote, "I am not here by
accident, but looking and working in the direction that I consider
correct, the salvation of our national rights and our ancestral worship
of our sovereignty, the establishment of normal relations between the
United States and Cuba."

In April of 2009 The Brookings Institutions released a document titled
"Report of the Brookings Project 'U.S. Policy toward a Cuba in
Transition.'" This study, undertaken by a large group of American,
Cuban-American and Latin American advisers, proposes a kind of road map
in three stages — the short, medium and long term — to solve the
differences between Cuba and the United States. Under the title "Cuba: A
New Policy of Critical and Constructive Engagement," the study was
intended as a foreign policy tool for the new President Obama, whom they
assume, given his election campaign speeches, to be interested in
changing the conflicted relations between the two countries.

It would be interesting were Mr. Eusebio Leal Spengler, who certainly
knows of this study from The Brookings Institution, and enjoys the
privilege of access to governmental center of power on the island, to
promote the publication of this project for Cuba, on his return. In this
way, Cuban citizens would have the opportunity to learn about a topic of
interest to them, which directly affects them and which they are
entitled to know about. It's clear that the declaration of the speaker
to the Associated Press was not delivered on his own account. These
references are associated, among others, with the speeches made by the
co-chair of the Cuba Study Group, Mr. Carlos Saladrigas, in one of his
recent visits to our country. Mr. Saladrigas served as an adviser to the
Brookings Cuba project and was among the financial donors for the work.

If, as Mr. Leal said, the updating the so-called economic model is
irreversible and this is nothing other than the recovery of a share of
the right to work for oneself, and small private property rights we have
enjoyed for fifty years, the right of all citizens to participate in the
solution of the problem of Cuba, beginning, as well, with reclaiming
universal information: free access to the media and the Internet. Above
all, it is through this universal right that we begin to establish
normal relations, not only with the United States but with the world.

22 May 2012

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