Hare Comments on Future Protests in Cuba
Ambassador Paul Hare, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, was recently featured in the Latin America Advisor, a publication of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington D.C. think tank.
Hare responded to the publication’s feature Q&A, which asked about the impacts of the past year of protests in Cuba over government authoritarianism, officials’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic, shortages of food and medicine, and the state of the country’s economy. In his remarks, Hare noted that the protests accomplished a lot and showed that Cubans were able to organize effectively despite government security and monitoring. Unfortunately, he also said the government’s harsh response to the protests has driven more people to leave, and the international community is too preoccupied to address the country’s woes.
An excerpt:
Unlike in the March 2003 imprisonments, the European Union, United Kingdom, Canada and the United States have been more preoccupied with Ukraine – where Cuba sided with Russia – to maintain much of a sustained diplomatic response. The causes of the protesters’ discontent have not been addressed, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has only aggravated Cuba’s economic misery.
The full issue of the Latin America Advisor can be read on the Inter-American Dialogue’s website.
Ambassador Paul Hare was a British diplomat for 30 years and the British ambassador to Cuba from 2001-04. He now teaches classes at Boston University on Diplomatic Practice, Arms Control, Intercultural Communication, and on Cuba in Transition. His novel, “Moncada — A Cuban Story,” set in modern Cuba, was published in 2010. His book, “Making Diplomacy Work; Intelligent Innovation for the Modern World” was published in 2015. Learn more about Professor Hare on his faculty profile.