Credit: Gary Raynaldo /  Herman Portocarero,  former European Union ambassador to Cuba, speaks on future of the socialist nation at Columbia University,  New York  political forum Nov. 12, 2019.

By Gary Raynaldo      DIPLOMATIC TIMES

NEW YORK  –   “The vital relationship with Cuba will always be with the U.S. not Europe. Europeans will not be the ones to bring everlasting change to Cuba. It will be the U.S.” said Herman Portocarero,  who  served as the European Union’s first full-fledged ambassador to Cuba in July 2012 overseeing a diverse portfolio of activities in the political, trade and investment, and development cooperation fields. The former ambassador shared his rich diplomatic  experiences in Havana at the Cuba Program Institute of Latin American Studies of Columbia University CUBA AND BEYOND SERIES last week.  Portocarero said  his role in Cuba began in Ethiopia in 1980  where he happened to be based there  when one of the  first large scale military interventions by Cuba on African soil happened between Somalia and Ethiopia in 1978-1979.  Portocarero, 67,  was stationed at the Embassy of Belgium in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His main activity was to monitor Ethiopian politics and ongoing civil wars as Cold War proxy phenomena.

 “Cuba has been a passionate part of my career, and privately.  I lived in in Ethiopia.  My neighbors happened to be Cuban doctors.  So ,  I came to understand things. There were 15,000 Cuban soldiers still in  Ethiopia, because they had not been withdrawn after the  Ogaden war.  The Ethiopians wanted very much to send them to the Northern front for the Civil  war with Eritrea but the Cubans didn’t want to do that. Because Somalia had not been a just war by any definition it was a foreign invasion by a nationalist who wanted to create a global Somalia.  But Cubans did not want to fight  Eritrea.  First of all, the Eritreans were old Marxists long before  (Haile Mariam) Mengistu.  It was much more murky .  It was a civil war, and they did not want to get involved. We all know  Cuba made a greater  difference in Angola,  (By the end of 1975 the Cuban military in Angola numbered more than 25,000 troops, contributing)  eventually (to) the liberation of Namibia and the fall of Apartheid.  And it was generally recognized that the Cuba-Africa policy made a real difference.”

-Herman Portocarero,  former European Union ambassador to Cuba.

Credit: Gary Raynaldo   / Herman Portocarero,  former European Union ambassador to Cuba, speaks on future of the socialist nation at Columbia University political forum Nov. 12, 2019.

“The U.S. With Cuba  is Always Something Between an Opportunity And a Menace” 

“Since 1959,  there are the years when Cuba was very much enthralled  to Soviet Union.  Then after the collapse of Communism in Europe, the EU and Canada played a major role. Then 1999-2000, when Chavez and Venezuela came into the picture,  that put us somewhat on the back seat. Then when Chavez passed away,  you had the period that Brasil played a very important  part, and the  EU coming on strong again.  Then you had the very short but very intense period under President Obama when the United States got involved and was opening up. And it was always a interaction between the US,  Cuba  and Europe basically, like a triangle.  Every country is defined by geographic history.  In case of Cuba you had geography with the US  some 90 miles from Havana to the US  Key West.  And history, which is spanning  the Atlantic.  Europe, and Europe being the largest sense, the EU,   but also Russia and the communist countries in Europe in those days,  they had a certain pull of history, but the  push is geography in the end. Cuba is where it is. And that you cannot change. You cannot rewrite history but you can certainly change geography.  This has been a kind of a lopsided triangle. At certain moments in time, the  EU played a more prominent  role, the US was always there in background, but then gets more involved under Jimmy Carter and  under President Obama, then  (under President Trump) takes a backseat again and becomes very negative. The U.S. with Cuba  is always something between an opportunity and a  menace,  a threat and a possibility.”

-Herman Portocarero,  former European Union ambassador to Cuba

Credit: Gary Raynaldo /  Herman Portocarero,  former European Union ambassador to Cuba.

“Anti-Communist EU Members Stopped EU From Moving Forward With Cuba”

“We have the  EU as such, We are, of course,  a very complicated institution. There also are 28 individual member states of course.  In the 1990’s, when Europe was very important for Cuba in terms of economic survival.  what developed fairly quickly was relationships with the individual EU countries and Cuba.  And that had specific reasons.  Practically overnight, Cuba became a huge tourist destination with hundreds of thousands of European tourists coming. We saw foreign investment coming.  For that you needed agreements and a legal framework.  If you have hundreds of thousands of tourists, you are going to have accidents, You going to have visa issues, counsel issues, you need legal preparation. you need visa agreements you need airline agreements. So the relations with individual EU member states developed very quick over these years     But the EU as such,  was holding back, partly because what is happening is that former socialist states became EU members and they were very much against communism, and that stopped the  EU from moving forward with Cuba.”  Portocarero said. 

Cuba  – Chavez-Venezuela Alliance  Stalled Economic Reform :  Portocarero

Credit: Gary Raynaldo /  Herman Portocarero,  former European Union ambassador to Cuba.

In 1995 Portocarero  became ambassador of Belgium in Havana, Cuba, and till mid-1999 was very active in promoting people-to-people contacts between Europe and Cuba, especially in the field of higher education. He established close personal connections within Cuban society, while engaging the authorities and seeking common ground on sensitive political issues.

“In January 1999,  we signed all the agreements, rescheduled commercial debts, concluded deals with Universities, saw some dissidents. The Belgian Foreign Minister was present. We were making progress, when I was Belgian ambassador.  I had a very interesting dinner with Fidel until 4 in the morning.  The Belgian Foreign  minister leaves.  Everything is going fine .  Two days later , who  would land (in Havana) but Hugo  Chavez,  as President -Elect of Venezuela. Within weeks, things changed.  The Belgians and other Europeans had been encouraging economic change and  that was happening,  and as soon as Venezuela came into the  picture what we saw they slowed down economic reforms, and that went on for 10 years.  It is my conviction that for those lost 10 years, the Cuban establishment thought nothing fundamental had to change,  that they  could go on as long as they had the Sugar Daddy in Caracas, basically. They could  remain basically where they were. They stopped economic reform dead in its tracks.  And  those years were lost for the  future of the  country. I think it was a very unwise decision frankly.  And I told my Cuban friends that. They missed opportunity to keep the society on board to gradually change things,  to keep the social achievements  but to open up Cuban economy.  We see the consequences of those 10 years today (in Cuba) where  economically things are very difficult.  Venezuela was a bad decision… (Cuba)  putting too many eggs in the same  basket.”

-Herman Portocarero

BRAZIL  – LULA Was  Bad Luck For Cuba Economic Reforms:  Portocarero 

Credit: Gary Raynaldo /  Herman Portocarero,  former European Union ambassador to Cuba.

“Then  Brazil came aboard and did very well,  but Brazil was  bad luck,.. got involved in infrastructure, loans, absorbed a lot of Cuban medical aid against payments $200 to $400 million a year which was a lot for the  Cuban government.  So then the collapse of the left in Brazil (and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Lula government in 2011) was bad luck. Venezuela was bad politics. Brazil was bad luck.  The collapse of the left in Brazil effected Cuba deeply, because it  was practically  the best economic deals they were getting, since access to  credit is very difficult for the Cuban government.”

U.S. Helms-Burton and Cuba

The U.S.  Helms-Burton Act of 1996 greatly exacerbated Cuba’s economic problems by tightening the preexisting US embargo against Havana and prohibiting foreign companies from conducting business with the country

“WITH THE U.S.   Helms Burton is very difficult legislation for foreign parties,  constant threats against foreign investors.  Imposes huge fines on European banks for doing business with Cuba. Many of the  diplomats had difficult time even to transfer money from European banks for our own livelihood. Quite a few European banks flatly refused to do any financial transactions with Cuba.  I know some diplomats who went to Europe every once in a while they came back with lots of cash. There was no way they could pay their bills. This was absurd,”  Portocarero said.

Regarding future Cuba-International Relations,  Portocarero stated that the Cubans are waiting for the next move from the  U.S. regarding policy, and are not looking to Europe.  Despite historical links with Europe,  the vital relationship for Cuba in the long-run is with the United States, Portocarero maintains. The former diplomat said U.S. policy toward Cuba under President Obama held out the most hope for change in the socialist nation.  “I was in Cuba during the 2014 U.S. reconciliation and Cubans were crying, hopeful. Then (with President Trump Cuba policy reversals) the entire thing collapsed. Whenever I’m back in Havana and we are discussing it, I feel like we are in suspended time again, waiting for the what is next step from the United States. At the end of the day, Cubans are waiting (to see) what is the next step with the United States because it is the vital relationship.  For all we can do as Europeans,  we have to realize that the vital relationship  in Cuban foreign policy will be with the United States.”

Portocarero was born in Antwerp is a Belgian writer and diplomat of Portuguese and Spanish ancestry. After graduating law school at Antwerp University,  Portocarero practiced law at the Antwerp bar. He joined the Belgian diplomatic service in 1978. His first posting was with the Belgian permanent representation to UNESCO in Paris. In 1979 he joined the Embassy of Belgium in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In 2012 he ended his career as a Belgian diplomat to join the newly created European External Action Service, the diplomatic arm of the European Union. Based on his earlier experiences in Cuba and the Caribbean, as well as on his record in multilateral (UN) diplomacy, he was named the EU’s first full-fledged ambassador to Cuba in July 2012.

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