The Supreme Test: A Visit to Cuba

Last week, we all witnessed, with or without our will, one of the strangest moments of the unprofessional external affairs strategy. While in Libya, President Traian Basescu seriously accused the Romanian external affairs strategies after 1990, which, in his opinion, regarded mostly occidental partners and left behind a series of traditional relations like the one led by Colonel Gaddafi.

Many of the readers of this article might say this is rather a personal reaction because I was more than involved in the Romanian external affairs strategies after 1990. Actually, this is partly true. There is no man in this world that would stand and do nothing when other people are talking nonsense about the thinks he had worked on for several years. However, this case is a little different. Romania’s strategic orientations after 1990 haven’t been the result of any exotic "Nastase doctrine" or of the opinions of the former External Affairs Ministers, PMs or Presidents, but the result of careful analyses of new realities, which imposed a series of trenchant and responsible options, even if these caused certain mistakes along the way.

In time, Ceausescu’s Romania gathered a series of traditional external partners that took part in the general picture of the Romanian communist dictatorship. They were generally people and regimes in conflict with the free world and its beliefs. This is nor the time, nor the place for an analysis of the profit Romania obtained from these relations. However, there is a question that arises by itself: what is it that we should have done after 1989 to get away from communism and Ceausescu? Should we have tried to reacquire the Clause of the most favored nation, to get into the Partnership for Peace, to develop relations with the European organizations, or to continue the visits of the former presidential couple? Who would have believed we wanted a change if we had developed relations with the dictators of the third world? How could we have taken part in a global effort for the reconfigurations of the international relations after the cold war if we had continued to frequent the fossils of that war?

Therefore, the Libyan case is more complicated than this. During the ‘90s, Libya went through a very severe international quarantine due to the proven and admitted support for terrorism. In 1986, the American aviation was bombarding Libyan objectives as a result of this kind of support. In 1993, the Security Council adopts the 883 Resolution that asked all the countries to stop any economical relations with Libya. What should we have done according to Traian Basescu? Should we have left the UN, defy the international community and get to taking down planes together with Gaddafi?

The Romanian President is brave and critical today because the "Great Fire-Fly" allowed him to visit Libya. Actually, everybody is allowed to do it now. Starting from 2003, this state has started to make important changes in its international strategy. It paid damages of almost three billion USD to the families of the Pan Am and UTA flights and gave up on the mass destruction weapons. As a result, starting from October 2004, the European Commission (re)initiated the economical relations with this country, a process that became official in May 2005, after the visit of European Commissary Ferrero-Waldner in Libya. The USA announced the re-initiation of the diplomatic relations with Libya, after they have eliminated it from the list of the countries that supported terrorism.

Is Traian Basescu a true supporter of the international relations developed once upon the time by Nicolae Ceausescu? He should hurry then. Few of the political leaders back then still have the power. He should also be brave. He should initiate contracts right when the international community doesn’t consider them advisable. The New Year is close. The President could celebrate the adherence to the EU with a traditional Romanian dance in Bucharest. Or, he could go to Havana for a samba to celebrate the Cuban Revolution that takes place in the same day!

P.S.: Maybe Traian Basescu learned several interesting things in Libya: the political parties have been forbidden there ever since 1972. Watch out!