Foreign Policy: Preparing for Life after Castro
Posted on Tuesday, 05.15.12
Foreign Policy: Preparing for Life after Castro
Early this month, a senior Cuban official raised the possibility of loosening travel restrictions, potentially making it far easier for Cuban citizens to travel abroad as tourists. So far, little is known about the details of the policy Havana has in mind. But the flurry of interest stirred by this news reminds us that change in Cuba can potentially have far-reaching strategic and political implications, for its own people as well as for the regions that surround it.
There is a great deal that can be done in advance to prepare for the day when the post-Castro transition begins. The Cuba Transition Project (CTP) at the University of Miami, created in 2001 with the support of the U.S. Agency for International Development, has become a major authority on Cuban affairs. The project has released major studies on transition by both academics and experts, as well as a variety of other reports on topics such as political parties, labor unions, a free press and economic reform. (The works cited in this article have all been produced under CTP auspices.)
In the early 1990s, many people expected the communist regime in Cuba to collapse. Those of us who followed the situation closely knew better, and subsequent events have borne out our caution. The post-Castro transition will indeed come one day, but when it does, it promises to be a long and complicated process.
The challenges are many. First, there will be the tremendous task of economic reconstruction. For nearly four decades, Cuba's extreme dependence on the Soviet bloc for trade, and the distorting effects of huge subsidies from Moscow, created an artificial economy. Most of Cuba's exports are in decline, and poverty is correspondingly growing. The internal market is weak, as domestic consumption is controlled by a strict and severe rationing system. Many transactions take place in the black market, which operates in American dollars and with merchandise stolen from state enterprises or received from abroad. The Cuban peso has depreciated, and its purchasing power has waned considerably. Huge and persistent government deficits, and the absence of virtually any stabilizing fiscal and monetary policies, have accelerated the downward spiraling of the economy.
Moreover, sugar production, Cuba's mainstay export, has dropped to Great Depression levels. With low prices, a decline in sugar consumption worldwide, an increase in the number of competitive sugar producers, and widespread use of artificial sweeteners, sugar is a losing commodity with dire prospects for the future. Thus tourism, nickel exports, and even exile remittances have replaced sugar as the mainstay of the economy. Oil exploration in Cuba's northwestern waters seems promising, but profits must be shared with foreign partners, and costs are extremely high.
In addition to these vexing economic realities, there will be also a maze of legal problems, particularly concerning foreign investment and the status of assets acquired during the Castro era. Obviously, Cuban nationals, Cuban-Americans, and foreigners whose properties were confiscated during the early years of the revolution will want to reclaim them or will ask for fair compensation.
The U.S. and other countries whose citizens' assets were seized without compensation are likely to support such demands. Cubans living abroad await the opportunity to exercise their legal claims before Cuban courts. The Eastern European and Nicaraguan examples vividly illustrate the complexities, delays, and uncertainties accompanying the reclamation process.
Cuba's severely damaged infrastructure is in major need of rebuilding. The outdated electric grid cannot supply the needs of consumers and industry. Transportation is inadequate. Communication facilities are obsolete, and sanitary and medical facilitates have deteriorated so badly that contagious diseases constitute a real menace to the population. In addition, environmental concerns such as the pollution of bays and rivers require immediate intervention.
Economic and legal problems are not, however, the only challenges facing Cuba in the future. A major problem that will confront post-Castro Cuba is the power of the military. Cuba has a strong tradition of militarism, but in recent years, the military as an institution has acquired unprecedented power. Under any conceivable future scenario, the military will continue to be a decisive player. Like Nicaragua, Cuba may develop a limited democratic system in which Cubans are allowed to elect civilian leaders, but with the military exercising real power and remaining the final arbiter of the political process.
An immediate and significant reduction of the armed forces will be difficult, if not impossible. A powerful and proud institution, the military would see any attempt to undermine its authority as an unacceptable intrusion into its affairs and as a threat to its existence. Its control of key economic sectors under the Castro regime will make it difficult to dislodge it from these activities and to limit its role strictly to external security. Cutting the armed forces will also be problematic. The civilian economy may not be able to absorb large numbers of discharged soldiers quickly, especially if the government cannot come up with viable programs for retraining them.
The role of the military will also be shaped by social conflicts that may emerge in a post-Castro period. For the first half of the twentieth century, political violence was seen by many as a legitimate method to effect political change, and this could well have an effect on societal expectations in the future. Communist rule has engendered profound hatred and resentment. Political vendettas will be rampant; differences over how to restructure society will be profound; factionalism in society and in the political process will be common. It will be difficult to create mass political parties as numerous leaders and groups vie for power and develop competing ideas about the organization of society, economic policy, the nature of the political system, and unraveling the legacy of decades of communist dictatorship.
A newly free and restless labor movement will complicate matters for any future government. During the Castro era, the labor movement remained docile under continuous government control; only one unified labor movement was allowed. In a democratic Cuba, labor will not be a passive instrument of any government. Rival labor organizations will develop programs to protect the rights of workers, and to demand better salaries and welfare for their members. A militant and vociferous labor movement will surely characterize post-Castro Cuba.
Similarly, the apparent harmonious race relations of the Castro era may also experience severe strains. There has been a gradual Africanization of the Cuban population over the past several decades due to greater intermarriage and out-migration of a million mostly white Cubans. This has led to some fear and resentment among whites in the island. At the same time, blacks feel that they have been left out of the political process, as whites still dominate the higher echelons of the Castro power structure. The dollarization of the economy and the recent relaxation in the amount of remittances allowed to flow from the U.S. to Cuba has accentuated these differences. Since most Cuban-Americans are white, black Cubans receive fewer dollars from abroad. Significant racial tension could well result as these feelings and frustrations are aired in a politically open environment.
Perhaps the most difficult problem that a post-Castro leadership will have to face is acceptance of the rule of law. Every day, Cubans violate communist laws: they steal from state enterprises, participate in the black market, and engage in all types of illegal activities, including widespread graft and corruption. They do this to survive. Getting rid of those necessary vices will not be easy, especially since many of them pre-date the Castro era.
Unwillingness to obey laws will be matched by the unwillingness to sacrifice and endure the difficult years that will follow the end of communism. A whole generation has grown up under the constant exhortations and pressures of the communist leadership to work hard and sacrifice for the sake of society. The youth are alienated from the political process, and are eager for a better life. Many want to immigrate to the United States. If the present rate of visa requests at the U.S. consular office in Havana is any indication, more than 2 million Cubans want to move permanently to the United States.
Under the normalization of U.S.-Cuban relations, Cubans will be free to visit the United States. Many will come as tourists and stay as illegal immigrants; others will be claimed as legal immigrants by relatives who are already naturalized citizens. A significant out-migration is certain, posing an added major problem for U.S. policymakers at a time of increasing anti-immigration sentiment.
While many Cubans want to leave Cuba, few Cuban-Americans will be inclined to abandon their lives in the United States and return to the island, especially if Cuba experiences a slow and painful transition period. Although those exiles who are allowed to return will be welcomed initially as business partners and investors, they are also likely to be resented, especially if they become involved in domestic politics. Readjusting the views and values of the exile population to those of the island will be a difficult and lengthy process.
The future of Cuba is therefore clouded with problems and uncertainties. More than five decades of communism have left profound scars on Cuban society. As in Eastern Europe and Nicaragua, reconstruction may be slow, painful, and tortuous. Unlike these countries, Cuba has at least three unique advantages: a long history of close relations with the United States; excellent preconditions for tourism; and a large and wealthy exile population. These factors could converge to transform the country's living standards, but only if the future Cuban leadership creates the necessary conditions for an open, legally fair economy and an open, tolerant, and responsible political system. Unfortunately, life in Cuba is likely to remain difficult for a while longer.
Jaime Suchlicki is the founding Director of the Cuba Transition Project at the University of Miami and Director of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. He is also the Emilio Bacardi Moreau Distinguished Professor of History and author of "Cuba From Columbus to Castro," now in its sixth edition.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/15/v-fullstory/2801085/foreign-policy-preparing-for-life.html
‘Project Paladar’: New York Chefs Team Up with Cuban Culinary Entrepreneurs
'Project Paladar': New York Chefs Team Up with Cuban Culinary Entrepreneurs Published May 14, 2012 Fox News Latino
For those who love and appreciate good food, Old Havana is the place to be these days.
Foreign art lovers are breaking bread with Cuban waiters, drivers and parking lot attendants this week in a unique experience that forces diners and chefs alike to overcome barriers of culture, language and five-plus decades of animosity between Washington and Havana.
Ten prominent New York City chefs are teaming up this week with 10 culinary entrepreneurs from Havana's budding private restaurant scene, cooking up savory and sweet multi-course meals from an improvised kitchen built in a shipping container. The diners are mostly foreigners in town for a major art exhibition and Cubans who are being invited to participate in the free meals by the visiting chefs who meet them during the course of their stay.
Blending contemporary American, Italian, Japanese, even Burmese cuisines with Caribbean Creole classics, it's a rare culinary treat in a country where many state-run and independent restaurants serve up dull, unimaginative fare. It's also a performance art spectacle that's about bridging the gap between estranged neighbors and socioeconomic classes.
"The easiest and most interesting way into understanding another culture is food," said Sara Jenkins, the project's chef director and proprietor of East Village eateries Porchetta and Porsena. "And the easiest, most uncomplicated way to make friends is to break bread at the same table."
"Project Paladar," named after Cuba's popular independent restaurants, is part of Havana's 11th Biennial, an irreverent bash attracting 180 artists from 43 countries as well as thousands of art aficionados and collectors. The dining project is being funded by the donations of American individuals.
For 10 days the chefs will take turns pairing off and serving up gourmet meals in the back patio of a cultural center in colonial Old Havana. Guests are greeted with a mojito and escorted to a table for 12 in homage to the maximum number of seats that the government allowed paladars to have when they first opened in the 1990s.
With two tables of 12 seats, the organizers plan to feed up to five groups, or as many as 60 people, every evening.
At the project's Friday night launch, an aproned Jenkins sweated over a pan of Burmese coconut-milk curry sauce, preparing it to poach filets of freshly caught red snapper. Accompanying the main dish were tuna tartar and a green mango salad that one could order takeout in New York but particularly tickled the palates of Cuban food professionals.
Conversation at the tables was lively as diners introduced themselves, hesitantly tried out second languages and turned to bilingual guests to translate reactions to each course: "Is this basil?" ''No, it's mint!"
"I think this is an experience that has never been done in the Biennial, a very interesting sociocultural project," said Kenia Echenique, a 25-year-old lawyer and actress who fanned her mouth after consuming the curry but said she enjoyed the flavor before the heat kicked in. "I think this can enrich our culture, our paladars, and contribute to exchange between our nations."
"In the kitchen everything's simple. A sauce is a sauce," said Hector Higuera Martinez, Jenkins' cooking partner and the man behind the stylish Le Chansonnier in Havana's Vedado neighborhood. "These things we have in common, independent of the language barrier. It has been spontaneous."
"Project Paladar" is the brainchild of Craig Shillitto, a New York architect, artist and restaurant designer who was fascinated to read about the explosion of private restaurants in Cuba after President Raul Castro revived a 1990s policy allowing them to exist, then lifted many restrictions that kept them from flourishing.
Many paladars are still little better than Cuba's dreary state restaurants and must contend with the daily struggle to find ingredients on an island long accustomed to scarcity. Some are languishing as they struggle to tap the limited number of visiting tourists and other foreigners, and the small number of Cubans with enough disposable income to patronize private restaurants.
But an increasing number of paladar owners are forming a maturing restaurant scene with creative, experimental chefs who are out to change Cuba's reputation for culinary blandness.
"It's hard to educate people …. because rice, beans, roast pork are really linked to our history," Higuera said. "Many (chefs) stick with what's easy to find. But I think there are many people who want to try different things."
Part of the inspiration behind "Project Paladar" was to support Cuba's budding foodie culture.
"The idea that people still cared about food and cuisine and still tried hard despite having no market for it was fascinating," Shillitto said.
Jenkins brought down her own cooking knives, as well as ingredients that would seem exotic not just in Cuba but in many American kitchens: kaffir lime leaf, Szechuan peppercorns, a quarter-wheel of Grana Padano cheese (it's like Parmesan, only made in a different part of Italy).
Anita Lo, executive chef and owner of Annisa, a Michelin-starred restaurant in the West Village, stuffed her suitcase with white soy and yuzu juice for her cooking partner, one of the few Cuban chefs making sushi.
"For someone to push ahead and still try to do something that's almost impossible on this island …" Lo marveled, her voice trailing off. "Fish is hard to come by. Japanese ingredients are very hard to come by."
For all their sophistication, the New Yorkers, including several of whom have written books and appeared on cooking shows such as Iron Chef America, are also learning from the Cubans.
How to make do with what's available, for one thing. The Americans also had high praise for urban gardening in Havana, a local agroponic farm they visited where crops are grown without soil and a leafy, nutrient-rich green known as "maringa." Jenkins described it as "slightly citrusy with a weird spice … and an undercurrent of bitterness."
"Whether we'll ever see it again," she said, "to taste something new and like it and think it's interesting and how can you use it … it's fascinating."
Organizers said they hope the project may create opportunities for future culinary exchanges, perhaps a chef-in-residence program. More such exchanges have occurred since President Barack Obama loosened rules on so-called people-to-people travel to the island by Americans.
Curator Elizabeth Grady said "Project Paladar" is in a long tradition of food-related art projects and tries to invert the elitist dynamic of art festivals by inviting dishwashers and taxi drivers to sup alongside the well-heeled art enthusiasts who typically patronize events like the biennial. It also gets people from two feuding nations talking to each other, even if haltingly or through translators.
"The main point is to use food as a vehicle to create genuine dialogue," she said.
Call it kitchen diplomacy.
Based on reporting by the Associated Press.
The Loss of Self Esteem / Rebeca Monzo
The Loss of Self Esteem / Rebeca Monzo Rebeca Monzo, Translator: mlk
Some days ago I read in the international press a story entitled Serving, not servile, by the journalist from Juventude Rebelde (Rebel Youth), Jose Alejandro Rodriguez, where he laments the tendency of Cubans to appear servile to foreigners. In one of his paragraphs he said and I quote:
"Neither can it be forgotten, in order not to repeat it, that certain public institutions have well matched this neo-servile tendency when in a political double standard they demand certain attributes and guidelines of a Cuban in order to access not a few sites, in contrast with the permissive submission with which they treats the foreigner."
"If the Cuban were to travel more he would be able to see more and value more, by contrast, the good things of his country," he continues in another paragraph.
If there is a guilty party in all this deformation of the Cuban, it is due principally to the government which, during the last half century, has treated its own people like third class citizens. At first they enclosed us on this little island, without permitting us to have contact with the outside: that lasted several decades.
The only valid references were the Cuban dailies and some Soviet magazines. We who worked were prohibited from writing to our family or friends in capitalist countries, above all in Europe, on pain of losing our jobs. Remember that the State was the only employer. Likewise, particular trips were prohibited or extremely restricted.
All this served to intensify the material misery and therefore morale. A feeling of distress began to grow because of not possessing the most urgent articles, which was transformed little by little into envy towards those who had access to them. The few trips to the outside were for the party militants or the youth with the most proven loyalty to the regime. Here it began to get worse and to develop the double standard.
One had to pretend and pretend well in order to be deserving of the trust and, therefore, of the little trip that would permit us to breathe a little and to be able to bring shoes and clothes to our relatives, and in a plastic bag the little food that the airplane let us ingest, so that the child at home or the old one could enjoy it. Economizing to the max on food, although that would involve hunger, in order to return to the fatherland with a little money, plus the little soaps gathered in the hotels.
With the economic crisis at the beginning of the 1980's and the lack of tourism, flights from the Comunidad — Cubans abroad — were authorized. Those countrymen of ours who were denounced in meetings when they expressed the desire to leave, these same ones who were insulted and told never come back, now as if by magic would be converted from "worms" (the epithet that had been screamed at them), to butterflies and would come to save the country's weak economy and to fill a little the empty bellies of the relatives and even some of the neighbors of those who had been insulted.
I have here other manifestations of the double standard: lying to keep a job,lying to earn a little trip,lying to be able to enjoy a reunion with family and friends and lying to try to contain proportionate happiness, at least publicly.
Now, many years have passed, the Special Period that started at the beginning of the 1990's does not seem to have ended. Because of that, as soon as tourism began to increase, the siege of the visitors increased at the same time. The bid to see who is the most favored has made many men, women and even children seem like street clowns, trying to win over the foreigner, which is likewise a cunning way of begging.
One must not blame only the suffering people; one must consider the circumstances that have surrounded all this moral deterioration. When a society loses its civility, loses the family and all its values, anything can be expected from it.
Cuban pride is very battered. That national feeling that we used to have, that made us walk with our heads held high and treat others correctly, without difference, including the tourists, without having to lower our s ingratiate ourselves, we have been losing it almost without noticing.
The daily urgencies and the lack of good education, have made us underrate ourselves. I remember when I was a girl, for us a tourist was more ordinary. The only thing that sometimes made us turn our faces towards them was the bright attire that they wore.
As far as the flower vendors of Old Havana, I believe that the costume is excessive or unnecessary. It seems when one walks through the restored streets in that part of the city that one is moving on a movie set. This is too much for me, just like the flattery and mollycoddling that they dispense to the tourists provided that they buy the merchandise that they offer. It would seem that in the whole colonial zone, they were the estates of the big movie companies.
Translated by mlk
May 12 2012
Free Alan Gross
Free Alan Gross Monday, May 14, 2012
After spending two years and five months in Cuban detention on dubious charges of subversion, American Alan Gross recently told CNN that he feels like a "hostage." The U.S. State Department agrees.
Gross, 63, was arrested in 2009, while he was working as a subcontractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development on a project designed to link Cuba's Jewish community to the Internet. For the crime of transporting laptops and other telecommunications equipment into Havana, a Cuban court found Gross guilty of "acts against the independence or territorial integrity" and sentenced him to 15 years.
While the Castro government asserts that conditions are not poor, Gross has lost 100 pounds while being held in a military hospital. His 90-year-old mother suffers from lung cancer and cannot travel. Gross has pleaded for Havana at least to allow him to see his mother one last time. He even has offered to return to Cuba afterward.
The Cuban government sent CNN's Wolf Blitzer a letter offering to hold a dialogue to find a humanitarian solution "on a reciprocal basis." The State Department takes the gesture as yet another attempt by the regime to swap its release of Gross in exchange for Washington's release of five Cuban intelligence agents found guilty of trying to infiltrate U.S. military institutions in 2001.
On the plus side, the Castro regime deserves credit for allowing Gross to use his weekly phone call to contact CNN and make his case. On the down side, the news coverage serves to remind the world of the repressive policies of President Raul Castro.
Every country has a right to uphold on its sovereignty. Havana certainly had a right to sanction Gross for misusing a tourist visa to transport laptops and other devices. Even still, Cuba's use of Gross as a pawn – for the crime of trying to put Cubans onto the Internet – shows how truly vulnerable Castro's hold on Cuba must be.
This article appeared on page A – 9 of the San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/13/ED9J1OGRL9.DTL
Unfortunate Plight of Cuban Migrants in Mexico Reported
Unfortunate Plight of Cuban Migrants in Mexico Reported
MEXICO CITY – Some 250 Cubans have been detained in difficult, dubious conditions at the Tapachula migrant station in southeastern Mexico awaiting judgment on their legal status, the independent National Human Rights Commission, or CNDH, said.
The commission, Mexico's equivalent of an ombud's office, said Friday in a note that during the last two months it has seen an increase in the number of Cuban immigrants lodged at migrant stations of the National Migration Institute, or INM, particularly in Tapachula, Chiapas state.
He said that on May 8 some 248 Cuban migrants were found at that station, of whom 169 were men, 74 women, two little girls and three boys.
The document said that CNDH personnel had made several visits to the station, where they received complaints from the Cubans about deficient medical care, overcrowding and lack of information about their legal status.
The visitors from the commission inspected the Cuban migrants' dormitories in the men's facility, "where they observed overcrowding and a prevalent lack of beds or mats to sleep on, plus a number of people suffering respiratory ailments."
Some Cubans also complained that INM personnel discriminated against some of them because of their sexual orientation.
According to the commission, personnel of the autonomous organization said that, during a visit on May 9, the Cubans tried to attract attention by banging plastic bottles, shouting "Freedom!" and complaining they hadn't eaten. The situation was remedied over the next few hours and the ruckus subsided.
For their part, INM officials told Efe that the Cubans are being held at the station in the extreme southeast of Mexico on the Guatemalan border until the procedures are completed that are required by the 2008 migration agreement between the two countries.
The memorandum of accord says that Cuba will accept the return of its citizens who have entered Mexico illegally or have an irregular immigration status inside Mexican territory "with the exception of those authorized to travel to the United States."
Cuba also agrees to accept the return of its citizens "who have emigrated directly and illegally to countries of Central America and are in Mexican territory illegally, provided they are found within a space (of 90 days) counted from their departure" from the Caribbean island.
INM officials said that the Cubans, 30 of whom were taken on Friday to the migrant station in Acayucan, Veracruz state, had no wish to remain in Mexico and were awaiting word from the Cuban Consulate about who among them will be accepted back.
They added that meanwhile the migrants are being fed and cared for at the migration center, and denied stories in the press about the Cubans being on a hunger strike.
For his part, Cuban Deputy Consul Wilson Bolaños said that Consul Maria Sanchez met the day before with the head of the INM, Salvador Beltran, "and at no time did they speak of a hunger strike, only that there were 250 Cubans lodged at the Tapachula station."
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=505394&CategoryId=14091
Prominent Cuban dissident released after brief detention
Prominent Cuban dissident released after brief detention Published May 11, 2012 EFE
Havana – Prominent Cuban dissident Jose Daniel Ferrer has been released in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba after being held for 29 hours.
Ferrer told Efe Thursday by phone from his home in the town of Palmarito del Cauto that he was arrested the day before in Havana and later transferred to police facilities in the eastern cities of Las Tunas and Santiago de Cuba.
The illegal but tolerated Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation said earlier this week that Ferrer was arrested while en route to the Czech Embassy in the capital to "access the Internet."
At the time of his release at midday Thursday, authorities in Santiago de Cuba reminded him that his movements were being restricted because he still is subject to "legal proceedings and has a trial pending" for leading street protests early last month, the government opponent said.
"Since leaving me at my house in Palmarito (near Santiago de Cuba), a police car has been parked outside," Ferrer said.
The head of the outlawed dissident group Patriotic Union of Cuba was held in custody for 27 days in April in Santiago de Cuba for creating a "public disorder" and is currently awaiting trial on that accusation. He held a brief hunger strike while behind bars to protest his arrest.
Ferrer was among a group of 75 government opponents rounded up and sentenced to lengthy prison terms in the Black Spring crackdown of 2003.
After Spanish-backed talks between the Castro regime and the island's Catholic hierarchy, he and the other Group of 75 members still behind bars were released last year.
Ferrer, 41, is one of a dozen members of that group who refused to travel to Spain as a condition of his release.
London-based rights watchdog Amnesty International had adopted all of the Group of 75 as prisoners of conscience and Havana came under international pressure to release them after one member, Orlando Zapata, died following a lengthy hunger strike in February 2010.
But the Castro regime says there are no political prisoners on the Communist-ruled island and does not acknowledge the existence of an authentic internal opposition, instead referring to these individuals as "mercenaries" at the service of the United States.
U.S. and Cuba say they’d like to see a changed relationship
Posted on Friday, 05.11.12
Latin America
U.S. and Cuba say they'd like to see a changed relationship
But U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson says during a Miami trip that the jailing of Alan Gross and Cuba's lack of political progress are stumbling blocks By MIMI WHITEFIELD mwhitefield@MiamiHerald.com
Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson said Friday that she hoped Cuba was sincere about wanting to improve relations with the United States.
"I start from the position of an optimist in government in that I hope they want to improve relations; I do hope so,'' said Jacobson, who was in Miami to attend the University of Miami Center for Hemispheric Policy's 7th Annual Latin America Conference.
A day earlier in an interview with CNN, Josefina Vidal, director of the North American Division in the Cuban Foreign Ministry, said that for many years Cuba has been "conveying to the U.S. side our willingness to have a comprehensive political dialogue… to solve all our historical problems'' and to have a mutually beneficial relationship.
But at this point, neither side appears to be actively engaged in improving the contentious relationship.
During a speech at the conference, Jacobson said the United States had a "positive policy'' toward Cuba — "one that seeks to support Cubans' right to freely determine their future."
She cited Obama administration steps to ease travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans as well as allowing higher levels of remittances and more travel for religious, academic and cultural purposes by other Americans.
"We believe that these policies are enhancing the independence of the Cuban people from the state, and we will be the first to cheer when a democratically chosen government in Cuba resumes its full participation in the inter-American system,'' said Jacobson, who was confirmed six weeks ago after serving as acting assistant secretary since July 2011.
She acknowledged that the situation of Alan Gross, a subcontractor for a U.S. Agency for International Development program, is a stumbling block in improving the relationship. Gross is jailed in Cuba for "actions against the integrity of the state.''
But there are other factors, too, she said, particularly the need for progress on the political side to allow Cubans to exercise their civil and political rights.
When it comes to Gross, Jacobson said, the Cuban government "must free him immediately without conditions.''
As a humanitarian gesture, Gross' U.S. lawyer has asked that he be allowed to travel to the United States for two weeks to visit his 90-year-old mother Evelyn, who is battling inoperable lung cancer.
The United States recently allowed René González, one of five Cuban agents convicted of spying on the United States, to return to Cuba for two weeks to see his brother Roberto, who also is suffering from cancer.
González, who had served a 13-year term in the United States but is still on probation, returned to the United States after his visit as agreed.
In the CNN interview, Vidal said Cuba is ready "to find a solution, a humanitarian solution to Mr. Gross' case on a reciprocal basis.''
In the past, the Cubans have indicated they might be interested in swapping the so-called "Cuba Five'' for Gross, an option that doesn't interest the United States.
Jacobson said there aren't currently any negotiations underway with Cuba regarding Gross' release.
Pressed by CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer on why Cuba wouldn't temporarily release Gross to see his dying mother in Texas, Vidal responded, "In the case of Mr. Alan Gross, he started to serve his prison term three years ago'' and the "conditions under which he is now do not allow him to go outside Cuba.''
A U.S. official who asked for anonymity said Cuba had approached the United States about having Evelyn Gross go to Cuba to visit her son. However, the official said she is too ill to travel and "that's not an option.''
Gross' family has even presented medical documents from her doctors stating she is too ill to travel, the official said.
But Cuba was far from the only topic of discussion at the UM Latin America Conference.
During her speech, Jacobson said that despite the United States' growing interest in the Pacific Rim, Latin America is still a top priority.
"Our partnership with the Americas matters a great deal for the United States,'' said Jacobson. "Secretary Clinton has described how harnessing the 'power of proximity' between the Untied States and Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada is among the most strategically significant tasks facing our foreign policy in the years ahead.''
While Jacobson applauded "remarkable'' changes that have been happening in the Americas in terms of a growing middleclass and "pragmatic leaders who are building deeper democracies,'' she said challenges remain.
Economic growth, she said, needs to be sustainable and include opportunities for broader sectors of society
Among areas of concern, Jacobson said, are:
• Security. "While much of the region is enjoying greater peace and prosperity, violent crime remains a serious problem throughout Mexico, Central America, and parts of the Caribbean.''
• An erosion of freedom of expression in some countries. "We've seen massive lawsuits against newspapers, judicial harassment of media owners, and continuing violence against journalists by non-state actors,'' she said.
• An effort to undermine or weaken the Inter-American Human Rights System. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said recently that his government should pull out of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Organization of American States' human rights body. The Washington-based commission has been critical of Venezuela's human rights record.
"Dissent is not criminal behavior. Opposition to the government is not criminal behavior. And free speech is not criminal behavior,'' said Jacobson.
In the past year, Cuba has arrested a record number of dissidents for protest activities and held them for relatively short periods of time before releasing them.
After her remarks, Jacobson said she was not speaking specifically about Cuban dissidents: "Unfortunately we've seen a situation in which free speech in particular but also other forms of opposition… haven't been fully respected in a number of countries in the hemisphere but it certainly includes Cuba.
"The United States has a long track record of supporting peaceful dissident opposition activity in Cuba and trying to insure overall that all Cubans have the opportunity to exercise full and universal political and civil rights, to exercise freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, which they are unable to do right now."
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/11/v-fullstory/2795508/us-and-cuba-say-theyd-like-to.html
Meñique Went out to Travel / Luis Felipe Rojas
Meñique Went out to Travel / Luis Felipe Rojas Translating Cuba
"Meñique Went out to Travel" — that's the name of a famous children's song. Those same travels were awarded to me by the combined forces of State Security (G-2) and the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) on April 28th. At 7:39 AM, Lieutenant Yasmani Suarez Ramirez showed up at my house along with FOUR other police agents to detain me. I was taken to the local police unit and, half an hour later, G2 Major Alberto Aberetis and Lieutenant Ignacio Wilson Mulet transferred me to the city of Holguin where I was interrogated in the G2 Operations Unit. The questions and offenses were the task of Major Jesus Jimenez Ballagas, who has been in charge of such an undesirable job for 6 years now. It was yet another interrogation, and yet another threat.
They once again mentioned Law 88 ("The Gag Law"), they mentioned the 25 year sentence they once gave to Prospero Gainza Aguero during the Black Spring of 2003 and what it means at this moment. Although we know very well what they are capable of, it's always good to hear from the mouths of those who sustain the Castro machinery that they do not only lash out against the 75 of the Black Spring, as they did on that occasion, but against any others who need to be attacked. They'll put them all in prison.
Considering that they are phrases which the Granma newspaper does not publish, then it's not bad that we make them public. That's the will power for change which the ingenious say that the government of General-President RC practices. Amid those threats against human rights defenders is that they outline the excellent relationship between the current government, the Catholic hierarchy, and other elites which prowl about the corpse. There is no doubt that we are the non-conformists, those who, every day, disrupt that happy union which has been established for 52 years.
The Official Letter of Warning handed to me was based on accusations against me for distributing false news about national and local events, for sending out information about prisons in Guantanamo, Santiago de Cuba, and Holguin, for participating in interviews made to me via phone from the other shores, for writing about the subject of the "re-structuring of the labor force" (a term which the government uses to describe layoffs).
I made my arguments clear to Major Ballagas, which were pretty much the following: Every citizen has the right to give their opinion about any subject which they desire, it is the leftist dictatorship of the Castro brothers which has amputated all information channels upon establishing a single press with sealed lips. Not even if they liberate all Cuban political prisoners will I stop informing about the Cuban prisons. In fact, more than 90% of my journalistic reports have to do with prisons and are stories of beatings, inhumane treatment, poor management of prisoner-functionary relations, and other violations committed by the Interior Order Functionaries, along with the re-educators and the Head of the Penitentiary Establishment Department who also go against the common prisoners. My denouncements are based on lack of medical attention in the prisons, the lack of drinkable water, the approval of the functionaries to allow prisons to become real concentration camps, and so on, highlighting many cases of self-harm by prisoners.
This time, I did sign the Letter of Warning because, in it, it says what I expressed: that I will not stop informing about the Cuba I am interested in. I signed the letter because it says that, although I do not receive money for what I write, there are organizations and Cubans in "the exiles" that collaborate with me, making it possible for me to upload my articles on www.cruzarlasalambradas.com, and even when I give my reports to Radio Marti and/or Radio Republica, I do not receive pay for it. And the moral obligation to prepare myself each day to at least be minimally at the level of the studious commentators and renowned academics who honor me, and offer me a space which my own country refuses me as a simple citizen.
The reports which I provide every semester to the Partial Report of the Human Rights Secretariat of the Eastern Democratic Alliance are directly proven and confirmed by me, and I am responsible for them, both for the form in which I obtain the information and by the primary sources in which I base myself on to make them public. Although it may sound like a declaration of principles, it is more about being the voice for my brothers out on the street and in the prisons who risk themselves on a daily basis so that the world and Cuba know just how much individual and basic rights are being violated, and with how much impunity.
The same Letter of Warning constitutes a flagrant violation of citizen rights, so much so that no one is obliged to support it with their mouth closed, their hands tied back, and the fear eating them up inside.
On Tuesday, April 24th, I provided a lengthy interview to Amnesty International, in which I describe the vicissitudes of being an independent communicator, the violation of the phone lines which make ETECSA and the G2 the owners of our phones, along with the record of my latest detentions and the attacks which I have suffered at the hands of the political police during the past few months. And perhaps that was the real motivation behind this latest arrest, I dare to say. Even so, on Wednesday May 2nd, the interview with Amnesty will go public. There, you'll be able to read more of what I said in the Pedernales Unit.
Translated by Raul G.
30 April 2012
Prominent Cuban Dissident Back in Custody
Prominent Cuban Dissident Back in Custody
HAVANA – The opposition Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation denounced the fact that dissident Jose Daniel Ferrer, who spent eight years in prison as one of the "Group of 75," was arrested on Wednesday in Havana.
The spokesman for the commission, Elizardo Sanchez, told Efe that Ferrer was arrested Wednesday morning in the capital in an operation he called a "virtual kidnapping."
Sanchez said that the arrest occurred when Ferrer was going to the Czech Embassy in Havana to "access the Internet" and it was witnessed, from a distance of about 20 meters (yards), by another dissident who was accompanying him.
Sanchez said that Ferrer had been in Havana for several days and on Tuesday he had had a meeting with diplomats representing European Union countries.
"I took him there and then a diplomat took him back to my house," said Sanchez, explaining that the dissident had been staying at his home and during his activities in Havana "he was accompanied by somebody at all times."
Ferrer, the head of the illegal opposition group Patriotic Union of Cuba, was held under arrest for 27 days in April in his home province of Santiago de Cuba and currently is awaiting trial on charges of disturbing the peace.
In the past few months, the 41-year-old dissident was temporarily arrested several other times.
The rights commission added that this "arbitrary arrest" of Ferrer may be added to the arrests of members of the Ladies in White group and opposition figures in the central province of Villa Clara, all of which occurred earlier this week.
Henry Perales, a member of the Patriotic Union of Cuba who witnessed Ferrer's arrest on Wednesday, told Efe that people in plainclothes "stopped him on the street, asked him for his identity card and loaded him into a car."
According to Perales' version, someone in another automobile was filming the arrest of Ferrer, who presented his identification and did not resist.
As one of the Group of 75 members sentenced to lengthy prison terms in the spring of 2003, Ferrer was freed on parole in March 2011 and was among the 12 members of the group who refused to travel to Spain as a condition for being allowed to leave prison. EFE
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=504100&CategoryId=14510
STASI records show Cuba deal included IKEA furniture, antiques, rum and guns
Posted on Wednesday, 05.09.12
STASI records show Cuba deal included IKEA furniture, antiques, rum and guns
Documents of East Germany's STASI security agency provide more details of the deal between Cuba and IKEA. By Juan O. Tamayo jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
The controversial contract to use Cuban prison labor to build IKEA furniture was part of a broader deal between firms run by the Cuban and East German security services that also involved Cuban antiques, cigars and guns, according to a researcher in Berlin.
Documents on the deal, found in the archives of East Germany's notorious STASI security agency, also refer to Cuban prison labor and indicate that former Cuban leader Fidel Castro personally approved the overall deal, said researcher Jorge Luis García.
Garcia told El Nuevo Herald on Wednesday he published an article about the deal in 2006 that mentioned the Cuban manufacture of furniture "for export to Sweden," and posted a note about it in his blog, STASI-MININT Connection, early last year.
But the deal blossomed into scandal last week after a German newspaper reported that an IKEA subsidiary in Berlin and an East German company had contracted for Cuban prison labor to build 45,000 tables and 4,000 sofa groupings in 1987.
The Berlin Wall fell two years later and East Germany — officially the German Democratic Republic — disappeared in 1990 into the Federal Republic of Germany, also sometimes called West Germany.
It remains unclear how much of the 1987 deal was carried out, said the Cuban-born García, who was interrogated in the STASI's underground cells in East Berlin in 1987. He now guides tours of the cells and researches the agency's archives.
It was also unclear if prison labor was used to make Cuban products that were not part of the IKEA contract.
One document Garcia found in the archives show the East German firms involved in the deal were Delta GmbH and Art and Antiquities, known as KuA, both controlled by the Interior Ministry, in charge of domestic security. The STASI, which monitored and repressed domestic dissent, was a much feared part of the ministry.
But the companies were officially branches of the government's foreign trading agency, Kommerzielle Koordinierung. The agency was led by the notorious wheeler-dealer Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski, a STASI officer who defected in 1989.
The document shows that the Havana side of the deal was EMIAT, and described the company as owned by Cuba's Interior Ministry, or MININT. Like its East German counterpart, MININT is in charge of domestic security and runs Cuba's prisons as well as the General Directory of State Security, which monitors and cracks down on dissidents.
García said the German-language document shows that three officials of KuA and Delta visited Cuba and met with MININT and EMIAT officials Sept. 17-26 of 1987 to discuss a broad array of deals.
"There were visits to production centers. In part, those centers are in penitentiary establishments of the MININT," Garcia quoted the document as saying. "EMIAT wants to increase the use of those installations for the manufacture of products for export."
The same document reported that Cuban Foreign Commerce Minister Ricardo Cabrisas had met with the East German visitors and told them "This cooperation has been authorized by Compañero Fidel Castro."
García added that the document also reported that EMIAT "supplies the guest houses of the government and the Central Committee" of the Cuban Communist Party. "It is also a commercial branch of the MININT."
A separate document, in Spanish and dated Sept. 26, 1987, is a memorandum of understanding that lists all the agreements reached by the East German visitors and their Cuban hosts, but does not give all the details of all the deals.
The memo notes that the agreements included a deal on "the production of furniture for export to Sweden" — the world headquarters of IKEA — with a total value of 12 million German Marks. But it does not specifically mention IKEA or prison labor.
It appears from the memo that Delta acted on behalf of the Swedish furniture and housewares chain.
Also mentioned in the memo are deals on textiles as well as 10,000 tons of grapefruit juice valued at 4.5 million marks, 200,000 bottles of rum and 200,000 cigars — all three products highly coveted in East Germany because of their "tropical" image.
KuA also ordered three containers of "antique furniture," the memo added. Castro's government seized tens of thousands of valuable antiques, paintings and sculptures as wealthy families fled abroad in the early years of the revolution and had to leave their property there.
The Cuban partners also asked for KuA help in exporting to the non-communist world what the document called "Oldtimers" — the antique U.S.-made cars and trucks still seen in Cuban streets to this day. "400 Oldtimers are ready for export," the document said.
Also mentioned in the memo were sales to East Germany of Cuban shellfish, coffee, precious metals and even coffins, García said by telephone from Berlin. He also provided digital copies of some of the documents.
But there was no indication of which agreements were turned into legal contracts, or which contracts were actually carried out.
Cuba's economy went into a tailspin in the late 1980s as Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev began cutting subsidies to the island.
Other documents published in Germany last week showed that the initial batch of IKEA sofas produced in Cuba had quality problems, and that a group of Delta officials had to travel to the island to fix the issue. There was no indication of what happened.
The memorandum of understanding was signed by three representatives of Delta and KuA as well as EMIAT chief Lt. Col. Enrique Sanchez, the first secretary at the Cuban embassy to East Germany and Gen. Santiago Borges. García said other STASI documents show Borges ran MININT logistics.
García said another document in the STASI archives, reporting on the East Germans' trip to Cuba, showed Havana authorities were so happy that they made KuA president Axel Hilpert an honorary MININT colonel and upgraded his flight home to first class.
After he returned to East Berlin, Hilpert brokered the sale of 2,200 U.S.-made Colt pistols in Cuban stockpiles — apparently left over from pre-Castro days — to a Los Angeles weapons dealer, according to the document quoted by García.
Hilpert, a long-time STASI agent code-named "Monika," became wealthy after the collapse of East Germany, telling reporters that he had made profitable contacts with Western business people during his years at Kommerzielle Koordinierung.
He was investigated in the 1990s in a case involving forged Cuban mail stamps, and the mishandling of some funds during the final days of East Germany, and is now jailed while under investigation on other complaints.
But he is still the co-owner of record of the four-star Resort Schwielowsee in the former East Germany, which hosted a 2007 gathering of G-8 finance ministers. A single room at the lakeside resort near Berlin goes for about $160 a night.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/09/v-fullstory/2791748/stasi-records-show-cuba-deal-included.html
Cuban Identity: Between Shame and Pride
Cuban Identity: Between Shame and Pride / Jeovany Jimenez Vega Jeovany J. Vega, Translator: Unstated
In my last post I talked about the emigration/immigration issue, but I didn't mention there what I consider the worst sequel, which is the lack of identity of some who leave. Without intending it, as in all human matters, everyone travels the same path because each person is a universe, I have seen with sadness how a significant share of those who emigrate do so denying everything they left here; they confuse the skin with the sweet potato and mix it all up in a mess of curses and blasphemies which put in a single sack our patriotic songs, neighborhood stool pigeons, Matamoros music, the line for bread, the National Anthem, and our beloved poetry.
Although depending on their personality and culture, too often those who leave and return within a few months, now bring in their suitcase a foreign accent more authentic than that of the natives over there, in a pathetic attempt to show off their new "swing," and often also have the bad taste to wear thick gold chains — more than a few times rented for the occasion — putting on a ridiculous display with an array of artifices that scream of their shame for their past.
All this seems to be the consequence of what in one of my recurring mental workshops I have named the "psychology of the prison," which is how I see these things; someone who is imprisoned or confined quickly comes to two inescapable conclusions. First, they are facing an immutable power that establishes rigid and threatening rules which exceed even insurmountable limits, rules that must be abided by no matter what, it being useless to question them. The second conclusion, in the face of this reality there is only one recourse, flee.
And it is following this logical thinking that the average citizen in Cuba, to avoid this harshest of realities of a bad life, almost always focuses his gaze on the horizon.
To this point, everything seems reasonable, because to try to widen our horizons and improve our standard of living is a natural thing. It is precisely this that made man into what he is today. It was this back and forth of experience and markets, and never the claustrophobia within limited geographic places, which drove the prosperity of the great cultures. But from this to drinking the Coca-Cola of oblivion and making a disposable package of everything that smacks of Cuba, is an enormous difference.
All great men have had as a rule — there being a few exceptions in the style of our Lezama — the healthy habit of travel. It is true that everyone has the right to form their own concept of country and to carry it with them in their own way wherever they are, but it is nothing more than the nostalgia for everything beautiful and praiseworthy they left here, that healthy pride for what is most genuine in Cuba, treasured in modest silence and the depth of one's heart, which differs substantially from this Cuban to that; I speak of this Cuba that belongs to all of us, that will always be where we place our feet, a Cuba that does not like slogans or political colors other than its flag, for which it lives and dies, wherever you may be, a good Cuban. It is in essence, discerning between the caricature and the homeland.
Although I live proud of this, I also agonize when a considerable part of our youth — some? half? most? — fix their eyes on other latitudes, feeling that they will not have, here, the least opportunity to build a future. This heartache is symptomatic of serious evils accumulated over decades and does not seem, at least when the sun came up today, to have a solution in the short or medium term.
The fate of tens of thousands of young people who, a few years ago, made up the army of social workers who ended up conned when they spread out across the entire country to substitute energy-saving pots and light bulbs — then fell into the ranks of the PNR (National Revolutionary Police) or the DTI (State Security) — or the massive suspension of their careers, after a couple of courses and without much explanation. The majority of these students who made it to the third year of public health technologies, are eloquent examples of how poor planning and miscalculation of the needs of the country have frustrated generations of young people.
As a consequence we see quite a few Cubans poking their family tree to resurrect an ancestor from the Canary Islands, but if they don't manage to get Spanish citizenship, suddenly it's all the same to them if it's Italian, Irish, Panamanian or Martian, "… Tokyo, Barcelona, or Moscow, it's all the same … ", anything to change their "cursed" status of Cuban citizenship — the point is to flee, however they can — because they've ended up considering a disgrace and a shame to be Cuban, thanks to the policies pursued by our government to deprive citizens of rights.
I recognize this lack of identity may not be unique, but the same for everyone, though they live on the Rampa in Havana, if in their heart they've already reneged on everything that is our. Here we do not presume to judge, as each has their reasons. I also am among those who think that homeland is humanity, after all, as the poet sang, we make the road by walking it, but if I lament and mourn those who leave, I do it because I believe that this beautiful and suffering homeland has in all its days past and present glory enough to be honored by all her children.
All of this, our leaders should consider when implementing the announced immigration reform. I hope that what has hitherto been a painful stigma, tomorrow will be a source of prosperity for the country of everyone.
May 7 2012
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