Hare in Latin America Advisor on Cuba-Venezuela Relations
Amb. Paul Webster Hare, Senior Lecturer at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, recently published a commentary on the past, present and future of relations between Cuba and Venezuela.
Hare’s commentary was published in the May 12, 2017 edition of the Latin America Advisor, the newsletter of the Inter American Dialogue.
From the text of the commentary:
“For more than 15 years, Cuba and Venezuela have not been two sovereign nations. They are much more interdependent than that and
unique in the world. Cuban advisors have themselves crafted much of Chávez’s and now Maduro’s policies. They are still active in areas such as intelligence, communications and in creating the role of Maduro’s feared ‘civilian’ militias. So we must assume that the disastrous results of Venezuelan government policy are partly the result of Cuban advice. Fidel Castro saw Chávez as his political protégé, but also an indefinite source of economic support. The Cuban medical and other personnel sent were to cement a Soviet-type relationship. Maduro
scraped a win in the 2013 presidential election despite the wave of emotion after Chávez. Cuba got the message that Maduro would likely stumble. The oil price collapse confirmed this prediction, and Cuba began making adjustments. Countries like Algeria and Russia are now supplying oil to Cuba, which is itself in recession. The Cubans will know better than Maduro himself whether he will survive.
Amb. Hare teaches classes at Boston University on Diplomatic Practice, Arms Control, Intercultural Communication and on Cuba in Transition. In Spring 2016 he will offer a new class on Public Diplomacy. His novel, “Moncada – A Cuban Story”, set in modern Cuba, was published in May 2010. His book “Making Diplomacy Work; Intelligent Innovation for the Modern World.’ was published in early 2015.