The US president’s visit to the island from 20 to 22 March is going to be a historic event, a sign of an easing of tensions and of friendship among peoples. The Pope’s role in this has been a discreet but efficient one.
A US president – Barack Obama – is to pay an official visit to Cuba from 20 to 22 March, for the first time in 88 years (1) and will we welcomed with full honours as is customary during state visits. This truly historic event, which was unthinkable just 15 months ago, is possible thanks to Pope Francis’ discreet yet efficient input in the final phase of negotiations between Havana and Washington, which had been going on in utmost secrecy since 2010. It all began in Canada six years ago and concluded (at least the initial stage of a long journey) between October and November 2014 in the Vatican, where negotiators representing the two sides committed to reaching an agreement in the presence of the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
Francis’ charisma and commitment
The day before the Pope’s visit to Cuba in September 2015, Mgr. Angelo Becciu, Substitute for General Affairs to the Secretary of State, gave an interview to Italian Catholic television station TV2000 recalling the meeting between Cuban and US negotiators for the final crunch: “To be specific, they came here to the Secretariat to sign the two respective documents in the presence of Cardinal Pietro Parolin who acted almost as a guarantor of the word they had given each other.” “The Pope has enchanted the representatives of the Cuba and American people. It is they who asked the Pope to act as guarantor of their willingness to talk to each other, engage in dialogue and reach an understanding. Diplomatic action, words which go beyond their traditional meaning,” Mgr. Becciu explained, “are meant in the sense of a man and leader who put his word and charisma to work, winning over the two heads of state. They expressly asked for the Pope to help them. And the Pope did not pull back. Then he had some people assist him in fulfilling the desire for dialogue and encounter.”
The meeting was announced on 17 December 2014: The Cuban and US presidents, Raúl Castro and Barak Obama respectively, delivered two speeches to the world simultaneously, announcing the end of tensions, hostilities and wars of all kinds after 54 years. The two leaders confirmed that a process for the normalisation of diplomatic relations between the two countries had been put in place, after half a century of irreconcilable hostility. This was indeed achieved, with the solemn exchange of ambassadors and the opening of the highest level diplomatic representations. Many significant events have taken place since then: Kerry has visited the island; Cuba was removed from the list of nations that sponsor terrorism; relations are gradually normalised in the banking, telecommunications, tourism and other sectors. Right now, however, there is still one major remaining obstacle to definitively ending this cold war: US Congress needs to lift regulations regarding the embargo on Cuba.
Castro had already met Obama in 2015, after the UN General Assembly meetings and before that in South Africa and Panama. Now, in a few days’ time, the US President is going to be visiting Havana, where he will be received in the Palace of the Revolution. One day not long from now, Raúl Castro may in turn be welcomed in the White House.
The request for a special intervention by Pope Francis
According to Peter Kornbluh and William M. Leogrande - authors of the book-length interview “Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana”, the most accurate, truthful and complete account of Cuban-US negotiations -, the first person to suggest Pope Francis should get involved in the negotiations between Washington and Havana, was Congressman Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, at a meeting in National Security Advisor Mrs. Susan Rice’s office, in September 2013. The authors insist that many Cuban-US representatives were keen to ask the Vatican to get involved.
At the same time, however, the role of senator Patrick Leahy (a Democrat from Vermont and President pro tempore of the US Senate) was also decisive as he made the same request to Cardinals Ortega (Havana), Theodore McCarrick (Archbishop Emeritus of Washington) and Sean O’Malley (Archbishop of Boston). The senator asked them for their help in involving the Pope in a question “of high humanitarian importance”. The letters were delivered in March 2014.
Meanwhile, before meeting Francis in the Vatican (in an audience on 24 March 2014) Obama announced to the Holy See – in advance and officially – that he intended to inform the Pope on everything that has been going on between the two countries since 2010 and especially from June 2013 and that he considered the Pope’s role to be “useful”. After Obama’s meeting with the Pope, Cardinal Ortega was tasked with sending letters to the two leaders, on behalf of the Holy Father, asking to “resolve humanitarian questions of common interest, including the situation of certain prisoners, in order to initiate a new phase in relations between the two Parties”.
The book also gives details regarding the role played by Hilary Clinton during her time as Secretary of State, about which nothing was known until recently. The secret conversations between Havana and Washington apparently began under the aegis of Clinton, who authorised bilateral meetings in Haiti in 2010 and in the Dominical Republic in 2012. Clinton’s assistants, Cheryl Mills and Julissa Reynosso, represented the US. The book goes on to describe the various ups and downs in the conversations that were often caused by mutual requests that were deemed unacceptable, even though, the book’s authors are adamant that contact between the parties was never interrupted.
In May 2012, Hilary Clinton received a message from one of the US negotiators, stating the following: “We have to continue negotiating with the Cubans on the release of Alan Gross but cannot allow his situation to block an advance of bilateral relations. The Cubans are not going to budge. We either deal with the Cuban Five or cordon those two issues off (Gross and the five Cubans accused of spying, Ed.)”.
The book also reveals the role of the Trimpa Group lobby, which received a one million dollar donation from Patty Ebrahimi, wife of Fred Ebrahimi, former owner of the Quark group. Cuban-born Patty Ebrahimi was tired and bothered by the fact that she could not return to her home country. The sole purpose of her action, or rather donation, was to lobby in favour of an agreement being reached. So the Trimpa Group received other donations just as the US government was expecting the group to lend a helping hand. Other figures and groups participated in the public opinion surveys controlled by the Trimpa Group, such as John Anzalone (a pollster for Obama), the Atlantic Council and the FIU. #CubaNow and Luis Miranda (former director for the White House’s communications with the Hispanic media) later joined. Everyone shard the same idea and that was to steer opinion in favour of a radical change in policy towards Cuba and favour the speedy normalisation of relations which were interrupted over half a century ago.
In their book-length interview, Peter Kornblum and William M. Leogrande stated that the Archbishop of Havana, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, personally delivered Pope Francis’ letters – which were never published and constituted a turning point in negotiations – to Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro, just as the Pope had requested. The cardinal delivered the letter addressed to Obama on 18 August 2014, during a brief unofficial meeting at the White House, near Rose Garden. Over the past few months, some news articles claimed that the Cuban cardinal had the specific mission of actually handing the document to the President himself, which he did in fact do. However, he did not wish to hold a formal meeting that would have left an official trail. So he came up with an original “solution”, the cardinal met and exchanged a brief handshake in a White House courtyard.
The letters
In the letters, Francis states his willingness to “help in any way possible”. This is according to the book’s authors: Petr Kornblum, director of the National Security Archive's Cuba Documentation project (George Washington University) and William M. Leogrande, Professor of Government and a specialist in Latin American politics and U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America at the American University. The letter does not seem to present any opinions or thoughts with regard to the ongoing negotiations which are strictly confidential and in a highly delicate phase. What is known unofficially is that Pope Francis’ letter was an invitation, or exhortation, for talks to continue in order for a final agreement to be reached, an agreement that is feasible, fair and honourable. In other words, the Pope was generously offering his encouragement, to strengthen bridges of communication that have already been opened, in the conviction that, as he has said on a number of occasions, only “a culture of encounter” can bear fruits of peace, dialogue and a lasting collaboration. The Holy Father was clearly aware of how noxious the Cuba-US controversy was; a controversy that had brought about a decades-long “cold war” in the region with extremely negative repercussions for everyone. Strong and threatening tensions between these great countries lingered like a massive boulder, a legacy of the clashes between the superpowers that emerged after Yalta. These tensions often ended up conditioning or even “contaminating” relations between the US and nations south of the Río Grande, from Mexico to Chile. Francis was well aware of this state of affairs, as were the Cuban and US episcopates and most of the world’s diplomatic missions, including the Holy See’s mission under the pontificate of John Paul II. Karol Wojtyla himself had the intuition and the courage to open the way in 1998.
Among Bergoglio’s many praiseworthy actions in this delicate and important affair, there are two key steps that were important in triggering the turning point in relations: on the one hand, the fact that he immediately, without any hesitation, accepted the request from both sides to make the Latin American Pope’s position known. On the other hand, the fact that he opened the doors to his home, the Vatican, so that negotiators could conclude their long negotiation, with solid and ambitious prospects for the future, ensuring the priority remains the good of the two peoples and their friendship.
