55 years of calming disputes ends happily
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Diplomatic relations between Cuba and the US were restored 20 July but today, 14 August, is the big day in Havana, with the American flag being raised by Marines at the US embassy for the first time since January 1961. Switzerland will be an honoured guest, signing off on its “protecting power role”.
The flag-raising takes place in a building that almost became the head office of the Cuban Fishing Ministry, a takeover prevented by the Swiss ambassador in 1962, who convinced Castro that it was a diplomatic building protected by international law. Presence Switzerland in a press release 13 August says:
“In 1963, the Cuban authorities wanted to know how Switzerland would react if the US embassy building were to be nationalized: Stadelholfer, based on a legal opinion issued by FDFA lawyers, persuaded the Cuban government that the Swiss mandate also included the buildings of the mandating power. He warned the Cubans that Switzerland could potentially consider this “the most unfriendly and severest act against Swiss foreign policy since the existence of the Confederation.”
The message seemed to have been understood, but on 2 February 1964 four Cuban fishing vessels were arrested by the US Coast Guard and their crews detained. In retaliation, Cuba cut off the water supply to the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, which elicited a note of protest from the United States, delivered by Stadelhofer. As Cuban officials prepared to occupy and confiscate the US embassy building, Stadelhofer intervened in person, declaring that this was diplomatic property and that the Vienna Convention would be violated only over his body. After that the Cubans made no further attempts to nationalise the US embassy. In February 1964, it was also Stadelhofer who negotiated the repatriation of the Cuban fishermen in exchange for the return of a hijacked American vessel and aircraft as well as the cessation of hostile actions against the Guantanamo naval base.
Today’s US Embassy re-opening is accompanied by insights into what really happened between Cuba and the US during the Cold War, through the perspective of the neutral Swiss. The US asked the Swiss to become involved well before the Bay of Pigs failed invasion in April 1961 and the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Swiss archives show:
“In 1962, with the Soviet missile crisis threatening to transform Cuba into an offensive nuclear basis, thereby triggering a third world war, the Swiss delegation played a discreet but nonetheless crucial role. In a televised address on 22 October 1962, John F. Kennedy announced a blockade on all deliveries of military equipment to Cuba and demanded the withdrawal of Soviet missiles already on the island.
According to the memoirs of diplomat Edouard Brunner, the US Secretary of State Dean Rusk spoke in these terms to August Lindt, the Swiss ambassador to Washington: “If I have called you it is to ask a favour of you that only you, as the Swiss representative in charge of our interests in Cuba, can provide.” Lindt was asked to inform Fidel Castro that the US would be making reconnaissance flights over Cuba and that the signal rockets should not be mistaken for bombs, triggering a response from Cuban air defences. From Brunner’s house, Lindt called Stadelhofer, who forwarded the message straight to Castro and called back within an hour to confirm the transmission of the message. This allowed Lindt to get back to Rusk between 4 and 5 p.m. and assure him that no Cuban response was to be feared. According to Brunner, this was exactly the kind of service Swiss diplomacy could render during the Cold War to the great powers by acting as an “honest broker”. In his memoirs he adds: ‘…and thus could be avoided, thanks to this rapidly conveyed message, an escalation of the crisis.'”
The Cuban Missile Crisis ended in October 1962 but the Swiss provided crucial services as other crises continued to develop over the next few years.
The longest “protecting power role” in Swiss history
Representing the interests of the US in Havana for 55 years is the longest such role among the hundreds of mandates the neutral Swiss took on in the 20th century, although the role was reduced in 1977 when US officials took overe management of the US Interests Section again in Havana.
Switzerland also represented the interests of Cuba to the US, but only from 1991, when it took over the job from Czechoslovakia, and that also ended 20 July 2015. The end of the two mandates brings to just four the protecting power roles: Iran in Egypt (since 1979), the United States in Iran (since 1980), Russia in Georgia (since 13 December 2008) and Georgia in Russia (since 12 January 2009). Tensions in the Caribbean in the early 1960s resulted in Switzerland holding a protecting power role for several other countries in Cuba: at the end of 1964, Switzerland was representing the interests of not only the United States but nine Latin American countries: Argentina, Guatemala, Honduras, Chile, Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia and Haiti.
Behind the official rhetoric, a willingness to negotiate
The Bay of Pigs is arguably the most famous moment in the series of US-Cuba spats that threatened in the 1960s to heat up the Cold War in the new nuclear era. Presence Switzerland notes:
“From spring 1961, tensions ran high between the United States and Cuba, with the attempted invasion of the Bay of Pigs and other disputes surrounding the confiscation of ships and aircraft registered in one country but located in the other. The archives attest to intense diplomatic activity and many attempts by the Swiss embassy to explain and to ease tensions. Fidel Castro and his senior officials soon decided to meet Emil Stadelhofer – then still chargé d’affaires [soon to be named ambassador] – in person: sending notes and cables via Bern and Washington took too long and the problems were urgent.
A direct dialogue was established, as testified by the various photos from the Swiss Federal Archives … From 1961 onwards, Stadelhofer – who undoubtedly played the most intense role of any Swiss ambassador during the 55-year mandate – built up a close and confiding relationship with the Cuban government, then subject to various destabilization attempts by the CIA. He would frequently remind his interlocutors of the principles of public international law, while maintaining a strict neutrality that gained him much credit with the Líder Máximo. He also came up with quick and pragmatic solutions that met with the approval of the Cuban government, at least as regards the departure of US citizens. The issue of political prisoners and individuals arrested after the failed invasion of the Bay of Pigs proved harder to resolve. Nonetheless, the Swiss embassy showed constant concern for their plight and endeavoured to enforce humanitarian law, in accordance with its mandate and the Swiss tradition.”
Stadelhofer’s relationship with Castro helped end the deadly 1965 boatlift, in which some Cubans fleeing to the US died when boats that weren’t seaworthy sank.
“Thousands of Cubans set sail from the port of Camarioca, near Varadero; some of the vessels were unsafe and capsized, often with children on board. As happened whenever Stadelhofer made representations to the Cuban government, Fidel Castro listened and looked for solutions to avoid heightening tensions. In this case, he was moved by the drownings and wanted an immediate end to them on humanitarian grounds. Washington and Havana decided in their common interest to end the sealift. The United States instructed the Swiss embassy to negotiate the conditions for an airlift from Varadero to Miami. Stadelhofer was given precise instructions but conducted the negotiation himself.
An agreement was reached between Cuba and the United States (with no time limitation), resulting in an airlift operation starting on 1 December. It enabled the departure of between 3,000 and 4,000 Cubans per month on board US aircraft departing from Varadero military airport. This airlift provided two flights per day, five days a week. In total, 9,268 refugees left Cuba in 1965, including 3,349 in December alone. The airlift remained in place for the next seven years, and the Swiss embassy played a leading role in managing it. Indeed, this was the central element of its protecting power mandate. It was tasked with interviewing all those applying to leave, for approval by Washington.
By the end of the operation in April 1973, a total of 260,737 Cubans had entered the United States this way. The Swiss embassy faced numerous problems, some of them political: for example, of the 55,000 applications pending in June 1966, 700 were for American citizens and their families, whom the Cuban government had refused to allow to leave the country.”
A new American “invasion” soon?
Cuba this summer is filled with tourists from Europe and elsewhere hoping to see the country before a presumed stampede of Americans risks changing its languid pace and special features, from a near-total lack of advertising to the famous 1940s to 1960s American cars that create a sense of a time warp. An Irish visitor, with whom I traveled around the country on a bicycle for two weeks until last weekend, wrote a web site review of the trip: “Do it, do it soon before the American brands move in and it’s awash with Starbucks and McDonalds!” (also see: Ellen’s bicycle diaries: Cuba, a series that will continue next week)
How soon Americans will be able to stream into Cuba – for the interest appears to be there – is unclear. The tourism infrastructure is currently barely able to handle the number of travelers to the country and changing this would require massive investment from abroad, given the state of the Cuban economy. Will President Raùl Castro and his government allow this? When Google recently offered to provide widespread Internet coverage, one government minister replied XX
I met a group of Americans in the lobby of the Havana hotel where I was staying. “No, it won’t happen for years!” said one man, who has a license to organize legal trips. At the moment you can travel to Cuba legally, on a US passport, only as a member of a limited number of “delegations”, according to the businessman. Other Americans often fly to another country, then to Cuba, where they obtain a slip of paper instead of a stamp in their passports, but as far as the US is concerned, this is still illegal. A smaller number of US citizens, some journalists, for example, obtain a second US passport and use that one for travel to Cuba and Palestine or anywhere else they don’t want showing on their passports – also technically illegal.
Will Cuba change once Americans start to flock there? Undoubtedly, and even before, with new talks on the agenda between Cuba and other countries including Switzerland. Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter said Friday morning in Havana, now is the time to start focusing on the island’s badly needed economic development as well as human rights.
Will Americans change once they start to visit Cuba, or change their understanding of the two countries’ history? Hopefully. One of the highlights of my bicycle trip around Cuba was seeing how ubiquitous are the markers of the island’s recent history; far from being a joke about revolutions and cigars and bearded dictators it was humbling to see that this small country staged a little revolution that created echoes far bigger than its numbers called for.
The memorial to Che Guevara and others who tried to export the Cuban revolution to Bolivia, which wanted none of it, is a remarkable and touching place to visit. The Bay of Pigs museum, with political rhetoric from a bygone era, and the road markers to the Cuban fighters who died during the invasion, give you pause. Cubans are proud of their history and while maybe not all moments of it are salutory, I hope they don’t too quickly dismantle their side of the story, for it is in hearing it that others will understand their own role, also not always salutory.