Special to the AmNews
Now that the euphoria surrounding President Barack Obama’s historic visit to Cuba has subsided, the question was raised March 22 on Leid Stories with Utrice Leid by Dr. Gerald Horne, the John J. and Rebecca Moores chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston: Why did Obama really go to Cuba?
During his interview with Leid, Horne, the author of more than 30 books, said that the United State’s concern with Chinese encroachment in the Western Hemisphere fueled Obama’s trip to Cuba. “And this puts Cuba in the cat-bird seat,” Horne told the AmNews. He added that Cuba’s leaders, who have been analyzing global currents, understood that Obama’s visit was China-driven.
Horne said that China has a large footprint in the Caribbean region and its financial moves are now surfacing in Cuba. Some analysts say that the vast oil and gas reserves off of Cuba’s shores and China’s investments in that sector have alarmed U.S. businesses.
Bill Fletcher Jr., CEO of Common Forces LLC, talk show host and the former president of TransAfrica Forum, told the AmNews that China was definitely driven by Cuba’s vast natural resources.
In 2004, a U.S. Geological Survey estimated that there were 4.6 billion barrels of oil and 9.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to be recovered in Cuban waters. In 2014, Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosneft and China’s National Petroleum Company agreed separately to extract oil from the 200-mile stretch along the northern coast of Cuba, according to a story published by the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas. Cuba reportedly began in 2011 producing 53,000 barrels of oil a day.
Reuters reported in 2015 that Cuban oil officials said deep-water exploration would begin late 2016, early 2017. China has positioned a state-of-the-art deep-well drilling rig known as Scarabeo 9 in Cuban waters. A 2015 USA Today article noted that because of the 60-year-old U.S. trade embargo against the Caribbean island, U.S. companies are not allowed to participate in plans for off-shore drilling.
Fletcher explained, “There is a growing business-led lobby in the U.S. to wanting to end the blockade, and Obama speaks for that lobby.”
Horne warns that the lobby in Washington led by Republicans won’t allow the embargo to end before Obama leaves office.
Observers are raising another issue that Obama should address before leaving office, and that is whether he would visit the Caribbean island nation Haiti, which January 12 marked the sixth anniversary of the earthquake that killed more than 300,000 Haitians. It is said that a visit to Haiti would go a long way in helping Obama to establish his legacy after leaving office.
However, according to Erzili Dante, head of the Connecticut-based Haitian Lawyers Legal Network, Obama won’t go to Haiti because he would have to face up to his imperialistic practices, such as going to court to deny compensation for Haitian victims from the cholera spread by UN Peacekeepers.
Fletcher opines that Obama is realizing that the U.S. isolation in Latin America and the Caribbean grows day-by-day. “He would do well by telling the American people the ‘Cuban Blockade’ must end, and he must stay out of Cuba’s domestic affairs.”
Horne wants the Black community to put pressure on the administration to end the blockade.
The Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization will hold a five-day action in Washington, D.C. April 18-22 to protest the continuing U.S. blockade of Cuba.