[News] Talks in Havana, Threats in Washington

[Anti-Imperialist News]

resumen-english.org
<https://resumen-english.org/2026/04/talks-in-havana-threats-in-washington/>
Talks in Havana, Threats in Washington
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By Rosa Miriam Elizalde on April 23, 2026

<https://i0.wp.com/resumen-english.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/c_0637-scaled.jpg?ssl=1>

July 20, 2015, the opening of the Cuban Embassy in Washington DC. foto;
Bill Hackwell

The images from January 1959, with Fidel Castro entering Havana, doves on
his shoulders and a dense crowd, have often been interpreted as the end of
a historical era. However, the very words spoken on that January 8—“we have
only earned the right to begin”—place that moment in a different light.
They are not the end, but the starting point of a permanent tension between
the aspiration for peace and the need to defend it.

That tension resurfaces today. Last week, a meeting took place in Havana
between representatives of Cuba and the United States, in a particularly
contradictory context. While diplomatic talks were underway, U.S. President
Donald Trump has once again placed the island on the radar of a possible
escalation, by suggesting that Cuba could be the next target following
other conflict scenarios. The simultaneity is not anecdotal: it defines the
nature of the moment.

Recent experience with Venezuela and Iran shows that negotiations with
Washington have not served as a barrier against military aggression. In
both cases, dialogue coexisted with economic pressure, explicit threats,
blockades, extrajudicial killings on the high seas, and, ultimately,
military actions or scenarios of intervention. The talks did not defuse the
conflict; in many ways, they accompanied and paved the way for it.

The evidence is particularly revealing in the Venezuelan case. The military
operation carried out on January 3, 2026, involving bombings of key
infrastructure in Caracas and other strategic areas, was not an improvised
move, but the result of prolonged preparation. U.S. intelligence had spent
months reconstructing the Venezuelan air defense system in real time,
identifying vulnerabilities and operational patterns to ensure the attack’s
effectiveness. In other words, while channels of contact and spaces for
dialogue existed, the military apparatus was simultaneously advancing with
intervention planning.

This makes it clear that the institutions engaged in negotiations are not
the only ones operating. Diplomacy does not replace the military apparatus,
but coexists with it. In Iran, this logic manifested in the constant
readiness to resume bombing if certain conditions were not met; in
Venezuela, in the effective execution of an operation preceded by months of
preparation. Negotiation, therefore, did not suspend the logic of
confrontation, but coexisted with it.

>From a strategic standpoint, dialogue can serve several simultaneous
functions: facilitating the gathering of political and operational
intelligence, assessing the adversary’s internal cohesion, and building
international legitimacy prior to a larger-scale action. In this context,
negotiation does not appear as an alternative to conflict, but rather as
part of the process that precedes and conditions it.

This precedent inevitably shapes the interpretation of the current Cuban
situation, because the meeting in Havana does not take place in a neutral
vacuum. It occurs under the weight of a brutally intensified economic
blockade, deliberate energy pressure, and a regional environment disrupted
by recent interventions and unworthy governments. From the Cuban
perspective, however, the position maintains historical consistency. Cuba
has reiterated—in line with that founding declaration of 1959—that it
aspires to peace. Not just any peace, but one with sovereignty, justice,
and rights. A peace that does not imply subordination or surrender.

But that will must not be confused with naivety. The political tradition of
the revolution has always maintained that peace is a strategic objective,
but its defense requires preparation. It demonstrated this early on, in
1961, when Cuba confronted and defeated a U.S.-sponsored invasion in just
72 hours, without yet having the military experience accumulated in
subsequent decades. Later, that learning was applied in international
settings such as Angola, where Cuban participation contributed decisively
to the defeat of South African *apartheid* and the independence of Namibia.

This historical continuity explains why today the assertion that Cuba knows
no fear is not mere rhetoric, but a concrete political statement: the
willingness to engage in dialogue does not exclude the capacity for
resistance, and the possibility of negotiation does not imply political or
psychological disarmament. It is, in any case, the expression of a
political culture forged in defense, sacrifice, and the conviction that
peace is only viable when it can be sustained.

Fidel Castro made this clear from the very first hours of 1959: peace only
makes sense if it is linked to dignity. More than six decades later, that
premise remains as valid as ever. Cuba engages in dialogue because it is
committed to peace as a political horizon, but it does not disarm in the
face of threats nor confuse negotiation with concession. It knows, from
historical experience that under certain conditions peace is not a
guaranteed destination, but a balance that must be won and sustained. And
that, when that balance is broken, defending peace requires being willing
to do whatever is necessary to preserve it.

Source: La Jornada
<https://www.jornada.com.mx/noticia/2026/04/23/opinion/conversaciones-en-la-habana-amenazas-en-washington>
translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English
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