‘It wasn’t a friendly relationship.’ Former top diplomat in Havana talks about U.S.-Cuba relations.
The Cuban government needs to move the country towards democracy and abandon its “destabilization” activities in Venezuela if it wants to improve relations with the United States, says Mara Tekach, who was the chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Havana during one of the lowest points in the relationship between the two countries.
“The regime needs to democratize,” Tekach said in an interview with the Miami Herald on Wednesday. The Cuban government, she said, is “fomenting destabilization abroad” and has established a “parasitic relationship built around all kinds of nefarious arrangements” with the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela.
“These things have to end,” she said.
Tekach finished her tour of duty in Havana last week as part of a “routine transition,” a State Department spokesperson said. But she will remain influential in Cuban policy as the new coordinator of the department’s Office of Cuban Affairs.
During her time in Havana, the U.S. diplomat said she was more struck by “the fact that the regime would not tolerate a single free thought among its people.”
She was a vocal critic of the Cuban government, which contrasted with most of her predecessors’ low profile. She visited political prisoners and dissidents and met with activists around the island.
Critics of the Trump administration said this confrontational style was counterproductive, but she said “it was important to raise awareness on the island of the repression. And I was very focused on bringing this to the attention of the international community.”
Under her leadership, the embassy’s social media accounts engaged in campaigns to criticize the Cuban government’s medical missions and the country’s human-rights record. The government responded by showing on television images of her meeting with dissidents and accusing her of “recruiting mercenaries.”
Tekach said the disagreements never stopped her from communicating with Cuban officials and working on issues like the repatriation flights organized after the coronavirus pandemic disrupted travel. But she noted that “it was not a friendly relationship.”
“I’m a diplomat, and I get to speak up because I can, but the Cuban people don’t have those protections. So that’s a key part of the whole picture,” she said.
Tekach was replaced by another career diplomat, Timothy Zúñiga Brown, who will have to deal with a reduced embassy staff and unsolved issues, such as the suspension of visa processing and the family reunification program. The program has left more than 20,000 applicants in limbo.
Tekach declined to say if there are plans to resume the program or the issuing of visas in Havana.
Follow Nora Gámez Torres on Twitter: @ngameztorres
This story was originally published August 5, 2020 at 3:40 PM.