Havana, Cuba 1930s

FULL COMPLIANCE WITH THE INTER-AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC CHARTER MUST PRECEDE CUBA’S READMISSION TO THE O.A.S

Despite press reports stating that Cuba has been unconditionally readmitted into the Organization of American States, the Cuban American National Foundation has confirmed with the U. S. Department of State that the United States has insisted that language be included in the final approved resolution at today’s OAS meeting in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, explicitly stating that any return to the hemispheric organization by Cuba must be in full compliance with the practices, principles, and purposes of the OAS, defined as those embodied in the institution’s Charter and the fundamental instruments of the organization, such as the Inter-American Democratic Charter, promoting democracy and human rights.

This diplomatic initiative was achieved under the leadership of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, despite the unsuccessful efforts of governments such as Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Ecuador with strong ties to the Castro regime who campaigned vigorously to allow Cuba readmission in the OAS without any conditions at all.

Cuba under Fidel Castro was originally expelled from the OAS in 1962 for imposing a totalitarian dictatorship, allying itself with the Soviet Union, and not complying with the democratic principles in the organization’s charter. We believe that for Cuba to be readmitted to the OAS, it must comply with the organization’s core principles. The only major element that has changed since the 1962 decision is that Cuba is no longer allied with the now defunct Soviet Union. Today, the island-nation remains a Marxist-Leninist regime that violates all of the basic civil and human rights of its citizens. Therefore, admission of Cuba must be conditioned to real, significant, and verifiable movement by the present regime in the areas of democratic reform and respect for human rights, such as the release of all political prisoners, and the establishment of basic rights such as freedom of the press, freedom of movement, and free and open multiparty elections.

“We congratulate President Obama and Secretary Clinton for a courageous stance in the face of enormous diplomatic pressure,” stated Jorge Mas Santos, CANF Chairman. “If Cuba wishes reinstatement in the OAS, it should fully comply with the principles in its charter. To otherwise allow present-day Cuba readmission into the organization is to betray the democratic ideals upon which the OAS is founded.”

CUBAN AMERICAN NATIONAL FOUNDATION SEES RENEWED U.S. MIGRATION TALKS WITH CUBA AS POSITIVE STEP

The Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) sees the Obama Administration’s move to resume migration talks with the Cuban regime as an opportunity to resolve issues of United States national interest. The possibility of resuming such talks was announced late Friday afternoon.

The CANF believes that among the issues that should be addressed is the present U.S. “wet foot-dry foot” immigration policy which leads to the unfair deportation of Cubans who escape from the Castro dictatorship but are unable to reach the U.S. mainland.

The resumption of migration talks is a key component of the recently published CANF Policy Recommendations which were submitted to the Obama Administration.

Documentary on Cuban Freedom Flights Premieres Thursday

This new one-hour documentary narrated by Willy Chirino revisits one of the most important chapters in the history of the Cuban exile. The Freedom Flights brought several hundred thousand refugees to the shores of the United States, permanently altering the lives of those who left behind their families, their homes and their cultural identities for a chance to live in freedom. This program tells their stories.

By the mid 1960s Cubans within the island had become disgruntled with Fidel Castro's revolution. Since the end of the Missile Crisis in 1962, Cubans had not been allowed to migrate to the United States. In September of 1965, sensing the rising discontent, Castro exalted the "malcontents who were not happy with the triumphs of the revolution" to leave the country. In a month's time, over three thousand Cubans had taken the Cuban leader up on his offer. Fearing an uncontrollable migration from the island, President Lyndon Johnson's administration proposed an alternate procedure. The proposal involved daily chartered flights to Miami. At that point, the already difficult social and economic conditions worsened for those wanting to leave the country. Between 1965 and 1973 over 265,000 Cubans arrived in the United States. My Suitcase Full of Hope: The Story of the Cuban Freedom Flights captures recollections of the hardships and humiliations they experienced while waiting to leave.

The program concludes with the emotional yet insightful stories of those who endured the difficulties of starting a new life in a new land. Rolando Llanes, now 49, recalls the difficult decision his parents made. "As a father of three, I thank my parents every day. They forfeited many of their goals and aspirations, not to mention leaving behind family members and their country to give me a better life."

Cathartic to some, enlightening to others and touching to all, My Suitcase Full of Hope: The Story of the Cuban Freedom Flights approaches this historic event from the personal and human point of view. The filmmaker, Joe Cardona, who also directed Adios Patria and Café con Leche, weaves a historical tapestry laden with the drama associated with leaving behind one's homeland.

http://www.channel2.org/suitcase/

The 20 de Mayo, 2009 Address

Cuban American National Foundation-The 20 de Mayo, 2009 Address
By CANF
May 20, 2009 - 10:39:55 AM

During the last three decades, the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) has remained on the forefront of efforts for the restoration of liberty, democracy, and human rights in Cuba. CANF has been instrumental in the creation of Radio and Television Marti; the passing of the Torricelli Bill and the Helms-Burton Act; the reunification, through its Cuban Exodus Relief Fund, of more than ten thousand Cuban families forcibly separated by the Castro regime; and the condemnation of the Castro government in many international forums for its continued violation of the human rights of Cuba’s people.

In recent years, the Cuban American National Foundation, through the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, has bolstered the work of the democratic opposition on the Island, providing moral and financial support for the courageous actions of the Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White), as well as numerous civil disobedience campaigns such as Con la Misma Moneda (With the Same Currency) coordinated by the rural women of FLAMUR, while simultaneously sending humanitarian aid to political prisoners and their families who have personally borne the cruelty of the Castro dictatorship’s injustice.

Today on May 20th, 2009, the 107th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Cuba in 1902, the Cuban American National Foundation stands proudly, having played a significant role in President Barack Obama’s decision to lift those restrictions that previously limited Cuban exile family aid to relatives on the Island. Once again, we continue the legacy of our venerable founder, Jorge Mas Canosa, who said “the Foundation brings together what the Castro regime separates.”
On this 20 de Mayo, the Cuban American National Foundation renews its commitment to freedom for Cuba, resolutely supporting all those on the Island who call for democratic change and respect for the physical, moral, and spiritual dignity of all Cubans. Furthermore, we continue to serve as advocates for democracy in Cuba with President Obama’s Administration, encouraging a renewal of the US commitment to the people of Cuba by making better use of those resources already in place that advance the democratic cause on the Island – this includes restructuring Radio and Television Marti and ensuring that the overwhelming majority of democracy aid funds distributed through USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy reach the brave and heroic internal opposition inside Cuba itself.

Moreover, we call upon those leaders of good faith among the brethren nations of Latin America to pressure the Castro dictatorship, publicly or in private, for a real improvement in the living conditions of the Cuban people, and likewise urge the European Union to utilize its economic and cultural influence to secure the immediate and unconditional release of those Cubans who have been unjustly jailed solely for expressing disagreement with the policies of the regime.

Today, with renewed optimism, we continue to promote liberty and the hopes for renewal of the Cuban people over the obstinacy of those who persevere in defending an oppressive and despotic regime that has plunged Cuba into a state of desperation, hatred, and misery for half a century. On this 107th anniversary of the establishment of the Republic of Cuba, we call on all Cubans, whether in exile or on the Island, to unite in support of the noble endeavor of restoring peace, liberty, and prosperity to Cuba.

CANF Board of Directors
Miami, Florida
May 20, 2009

Afternoon tea with Raul?

During the US Presidential election, Obama's public stance that he was willing and able to talk with dictators (i.e., Cuba, Iran, North Korea) to improve relations received much media attention. Many (including myself) questioned the underlying logic and wondered if having "afternoon tea" with dictators would lead to anything other than US embarrassment.

Thankfully, Obama the President has been much more practical and pragmatic, actively seeking better relations as promised, but not blindly engaging in dialogue or inadvertently giving them prestige (the Chavez smiles notwithstanding).

The dialogue issue came up recently when Cuba was aggressively pushed to into the limelight during the recent Latin American conference, where multiple leaders called for lifting the embargo and accepting Cuba as a responsible state. This set off a short, intense flurry of public communications where it appeared Cuba was ready to "discuss anything".

Naturally, the US got excited and there was talk of a new beginning, with both Obama and Clinton calling for more "gestures" from Havana, to push the process forward. Promising and exciting indeed.

The last few days however, have shown the risks in talking to these folks at the highest level. Fidel publicly stated that Obama had misinterpreted Raul, and that Cuba was not willing to change the core of the revolution. Then today, Raul is quoted as:

• We have reiterated that we are willing to talk about everything with the United States, in equality of conditions, but not to negotiate our sovereignty, nor our political and social system, the right to self-determination, nor our internal affairs," he said in a speech to a ministerial meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement.

So what exactly is Raul willing to talk about then? It seems as though its a one-way conversation - Cuba will continue to oppress its people and starve them to death, while the US lifts the embargo and accepts Cuba as a responsible international member. Not much of a dialogue.

We should all wish Obama much success in changing these regimes via dialogue - that would be a phenomenal achievement. But...we need to be careful...countries like Cuba, North Korea, and Iran think of these negotiations/discussions in terms of decades, not in 4-year blocks, have proven their "staying power", and are unconcerned with their people's suffering.

With this context, the US should take extreme measures that it doesn't legitimize these regimes by simply having "afternoon tea" with them.

Here is the article from today;

----------------------------------------

Raul Castro repeats U.S. talks offer
Wed Apr 29, 2009 10:49am EDT
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban President Raul Castro repeated on Wednesday an offer to discuss "everything" with the United States to try to improve relations, but said Cuba did not have to make any "gestures" to its long-time enemy.
"We have reiterated that we are willing to talk about everything with the United States, in equality of conditions, but not to negotiate our sovereignty, nor our political and social system, the right to self-determination, nor our internal affairs," he said in a speech to a ministerial meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement.
"Cuba has not imposed sanctions against the United States ... and therefore it is not Cuba that has to make gestures," he said.
U.S. President Barack Obama earlier this month eased the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba by removing limits on Cuban American travel to the communist-ruled island.
But Obama said he wanted to see "signals" from Cuba on such issues as freeing political prisoners and improving human rights to be able to move to normalize relations.
Castro has offered wide-ranging talks with the U.S. before.
The last time was on April 16, when he said discussion topics could include political prisoners -- whom Cuba views as "mercenaries" in the service of the United States -- as well as democracy and freedom of the press.
The Obama administration greeted the April 16 comments as an important gesture, but Raul Castro's older brother, former leader Fidel Castro, wrote a few days later that the words had been "misinterpreted" and indicated Cuba had no intention of making concessions to Washington.
Cuban and U.S. officials have begun informal talks in Washington to explore ways of improving relations that have been hostile since Fidel Castro took power in a 1959 revolution and transformed Cuba into a communist state.
(Reporting by Nelson Acosta; Writing by Jeff Franks; Editing by Pascal Fletcher)
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A dear friend of mine, Danny Pino, will be staring in a play set in Cuba circa Castro’s Revolution at Actor’s Playhouse at the Miracle Theater in Coral Gables. If I know Danny this will be an entertaining and impactful tribute to the Cuban people and the genesis of their lengthy and determined fight for freedom. I strongly encourage you all to take the time to see it.

Adelante,

Tony

Havana Bourgeois Tickets On Sale Now
Florida Premiere
May 13th - June 7th, 2009

Playwright: Carlos Lacámara

Set in Cuba from 1958-1960, Havana Bourgeois explores the impact of Fidel Castro’s Revolution on the Cuban middle class. Havana Bourgeois is a universal drama that illuminates the choices we make as history closes in around us. This remarkable new play follows the associates of an advertising agency as Castro moved from savior of the poor to dictator forcing the mass exodus of the Cuban middle class. This historical play mixes powerful drama, touching humor, and will capture the heart and soul of our theatre patrons and our entire community. Relive this compelling moment in history as seen through the eyes of the people who lived and breathed it.

Pepe Hernandez & Aldo Leiva Discuss US-Cuba Policy Changes

MARIA ELVIRA LIVE 04 13 2009 CUBA

A New Course for U.S.-Cuba policy

Here is the 14 Page CANF White Paper on US-Cuba Policy...

A New Course for U.S.-Cuba policy:
ADVANCING PEOPLE-DRIVEN CHANGE
Since the end of the Cold War our policy toward Cuba has remained static, reactive and focused on responding to developments following the demise of Fidel Castro. That policy, in our opinion, does not advance or promote the best interests of the United States or of the Cuban people; it relegates the U.S.’s role to that of passive observer rather than active supporter of the process of democratization for one of our closest hemispheric neighbors.
The recommendations listed herein chart a new direction for U.S.-Cuba policy, one that is guided by a deep understanding of the Cuban people, the impact of five decades of totalitarian rule, and a firm belief that the tides of change are swept in by the grass roots efforts of common people who have acquired confidence in their abilities and feel empowered in their responsibilities. Our recommendations are a break from the past because they seek to adapt to the realities of the present, which require a measured and incremental path that allows for adjustments along the way based on empirical evidence and evolving dynamics on the ground in Cuba.
That path is not one that can be assumed or applied solely by the United States. It requires Cuba’s present rulers, or their successors, to understand that irrespective of changes to U.S. policy, the incorporation of grassroots reforms demanded by the Cuban people, are absolutely essential to the nation’s future prosperity and stability.
As President Obama stated at the CANF Cuban Independence Day Luncheon on May 23, 2008, “after decades pressing for top-down reform, we need an agenda that advances democracy, security, and opportunity from the bottom up.” The Cuban American National Foundation stands ready to contribute our best effort in support of a new U.S.-Cuba policy that advances the interests and security of the United States and helps the Cuban people in their quest for democracy and prosperity.
Jorge Mas Santos
Chairman
1
A New Course for U.S.-Cuba Policy
ADVANCING PEOPLE-DRIVEN CHANGE
I. Overview and Summary Recommendations
Over the course of half a century, United States foreign policy towards Castro’s Cuba has evolved through four distinct phases. From 1959 until about 1964, U.S. policy was centered on regime change. Early on, the Administration of President John F. Kennedy was focused on the removal of Fidel Castro from power and to this end, provided U.S. support for the Bay of Pigs invasion and later approved a series of covert actions under Operation Mongoose, directed at destabilizing the regime.1 However, increasing tensions with the Soviet Union and the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, caused Kennedy to drastically shift course, agreeing under the “Kennedy-Khrushchev Pact” to cease any interference in Cuba’s internal affairs and pull out U.S. missiles from Turkey in exchange for an agreement that the Soviet Union discontinue nuclear arms shipments to Cuba.2 The pact brought an end to the policy of regime change and as a result a policy of containment was instituted which remained in place until the presidency of Jimmy Carter in the late 1970’s.
President Carter quickly embarked on a policy of rapprochement towards Cuba, an effort which complemented his attempt at extending a new kind of détente with the Soviet Union and its allies. He held a belief that direct dialogue with the Cuban leadership would achieve desired changes—namely Cuba’s withdrawal from military involvement in Africa as a surrogate of the USSR. In a Presidential Directive signed by Carter shortly after he took office, he stated explicitly the new goal of U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba: “I have concluded that we should attempt to achieve normalization of our relations with Cuba.” 3 Carter’s attempt at rapprochement with Cuba culminated in the opening of diplomatic Interests Sections in the capitals of both nations.
Yet despite his extensive efforts to reach out to Cuba’s leadership, and through direct engagement curb Cuban foreign intervention, inevitably those efforts proved fruitless as Cuba, in turn, increased its presence and military cooperation with the Soviet Union in various countries in Africa including Angola and Zaire. In 1978, after Cuba sent 16,000 troops to support the communist Ethiopian government in the Ogaden War against Somalia,4 then Secretary of State Cyrus Vance formally announced the Administration was turning away from trying to normalize relations with Cuba because of Cuba’s additional
2
1 Dominguez, Jorge I. "The Cuban Missile Crisis (Or, What was 'Cuban' about U.S. Decisions during the Cuban Missile Crisis .Diplomatic History: The Journal of the Society for Historians of Foreign Relations, Vol. 24, No. 2, (Spring 2000): 305-15.)
2 Letter from Chairman Khrushchev to President Kennedy, Moscow, October 27, 1962.
3 Presidential Directive, NSC-6, March 15, 1977
4 George, Edward in: The Cuban Intervention in Angola, 1965-1991, Frank Cass, London, New York, 2005
3
actions in the African continent and later its support for communist insurgent groups in Latin American countries like Nicaragua and El Salvador. 5
Subsequent administrations have limited U.S.-Cuba policy to little beyond posturing for domestic electoral purposes or periodically responding to Castro’s continuing efforts to undermine U.S. international objectives. Although President Ronald Reagan signed Radio Marti into existence and invaded Grenada where Cuban troops were stationed, his administration’s efforts were mainly punctuated by a return to the containment strategy of the Cold War. During President Bill Clinton’s tenure, there was an attempt to increase people-to-people contact as a vehicle to influence democratic change in Cuba, yet executive action under that administration was overwhelmingly characterized by cautious reaction to legislative initiatives and unforeseen international events. The 1994 Cuban rafter crisis and resulting wet foot-dry foot policy and the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot-down led to the signing of the Helms-Burton bill, which codified significant portions of Cuba policy, such as the U.S. economic embargo, into U.S. law.
Under the Administration of George W. Bush, Cuba policy was defined by the desire to placate perceived domestic political interests, leading to the enactment of policies that lacked strategic thought or benefit and that ignored Cuba’s increasingly influential role in Latin America and its active support for anti-American leadership in the region. Following the mass crackdown on the democratic opposition in Cuba in 2003, rather than increase direct aid to Cuba’s opposition groups to counter the regime’s attempt to obliterate their efforts, the Bush Administration instead enacted regulations which had the converse effect of cutting off vital Cuban-American remittances and the flow of support and humanitarian aid made possible by their remittances and travel to the island-nation. The Bush Administration often took to the bully pulpit to criticize the Cuban regime; however, its actions were not consistent with the rhetoric. Instead, the establishment of entities such as the Commission on Assistance for a Free Cuba6 and government positions like that of a Cuba Transition Coordinator, which were ill-defined and directed, became “achievements” it could point to on Cuba policy though in reality they were merely symbolic gestures with no meaningful effect on precipitating democratic change on-island.
This brings us to the present. With an ailing figurehead, a cadre of aging hard-liners thwarting any movement toward significant reform, and a mounting sense of desperation among a Cuban population increasingly unable to meet its basic needs, the results of the long term absence of a forward-looking U.S.-Cuba policy may soon become painfully obvious. Rather than the peaceful democratic transition we all desire, events may thrust the Cuban people into chaos thereby forcing the United States to take unilateral actions, at the very least in securing its own borders. It is therefore critical that President Obama’s Administration adopt a policy that avoids this scenario by assisting the Cuban people in
5 Foreign Policy Magazine, Spring 1982, Letters to the Editor, Miles R. R. Frechette Office of Cuban Affairs Department of State
6 White House transcript of President’s remarks establishing Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, , October 10, 2003
4
laying the groundwork for a peaceful transition to democracy via support for the development of a strong and vibrant independent civil society in Cuba.
Both President Obama and Vice-President Biden have made it abundantly clear that there will not be any unilateral lifting of the embargo absent significant moves on the part of the Castro regime towards freedom and democracy for the Cuban people. The Cuban American National Foundation concurs with the Obama Administration’s position. To unilaterally lift the embargo without any significant evidence of irrevocable change in Cuba would be tantamount to sentencing the Cuban people to the continuation of the deprivation of economic, civil and human freedoms they have endured for the past five decades, and would continue to negatively affect the long term strategic interests of the United States in the region. A change in course can only be achieved by bolstering the resolve of the Cuban people so that they may achieve the prosperity, social and political stability that the Castro regime is incapable of delivering.
Nevertheless, the Castro government will not unilaterally and freely initiate a path toward democratic rule. It has had ample opportunity to voluntarily make such changes over fifty years of unbridled power; as Frederick Douglass so wisely said: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” External and, more importantly, internal factors are critical in creating that demand for change. The Cuban people, supported by U.S. policy, must be empowered to speak out, organize, and peacefully enact democratic change. The Cuban American National Foundation believes that the President has the authority and prerogative to initiate the necessary changes in U.S.-Cuba policy within the parameters provided by current statutes.
To that effect, the Cuban American National Foundation recommends that the President pursue a proactive U.S.-Cuba policy that: (i) increases support for the development of Cuban civil society, (ii) increases people-to-people exchanges, (iii) improves communication to advance freedom of information, and (iv) engages in targeted bilateral and multilateral diplomatic efforts.
II. Objectives for a New U.S.-Cuba Policy
United States-Cuba policy should focus on (1) advancing U.S. interests and security in the region and (2) empowering the Cuban people in their quest for democracy and prosperity. These two objectives are intricately intertwined and one cannot be individually accomplished without the other.
The United States has direct national and security interests in promoting a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba. The resurgence of anti-American forces in the hemisphere that view Cuba as their ideological paradigm has led to increased tensions between the United States and several of its Latin American counterparts. Most evident is that of the growing tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela and Hugo Chavez’s increasing collaboration with rogue
5
nations like Iran that are potential threats to U.S. national security and the overall security of the region. 7
In addition, a stable and democratic Cuba will avoid a possible chaotic mass exodus of refugees that could cause significant disruptions in affected U.S. communities, and will promote lawful and controlled migration between the two nations. Further, a stable, democratic and prosperous Cuba will create the benefit of a regional partner in promoting democratic values, the rule of law, international human rights, and global prosperity. Both countries would have enhanced opportunities to cooperatively address common threats such as drug trafficking, international terrorism, organized crime, human smuggling, and environmental degradation. Such benefits and interests have not and will not be attained by maintaining the status quo.
To proactively and creatively support the Cuban people in their quest for democracy and prosperity, U.S.-Cuba policy must empower the Cuban people by encouraging independence from the State, self-sufficiency, and entrepreneurship. A vibrant civil society is the cornerstone to any successful democracy8 and is certainly a precursor to a peaceful and lasting democratic transition. By shifting U.S. focus onto the Cuban people, our commitment to them will match the robust and direct support previously extended to people suffering under repressive regimes, such as those in Eastern Europe, South Africa, Chile, and other countries where democratic change was achieved from the ground up.
The Cuban American National Foundation recommends the following policies, which can all be implemented by Executive action, to chart a course for U.S.-Cuba policy that promotes the best interests of both the United States and the Cuban people:
III. Recommendations
(i) Increase Support for the Development of Cuban Civil Society
It is a well established fact that Vaclav Havel’s Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and labor union movements like Solidarity in Poland gave rise to the creation of independent civil society groups which eventually mounted successful challenges to their respective authoritarian regimes. In an Eastern Europe under communism, these independent civil society groups built islands of independent thought and action; they created popular movements that were well organized and became effective purveyors of truth and information to the general population. Their success was largely a result of their brave and determined efforts and a confluence of both internal and external political factors; yet without the determined support of nations like the United States, their triumph may have been delayed. The Cuban dissident
7 CNN, April 10, 2008, U.S. terror report cites Venezuela, Iran
8International Peace Academy, April 2005, Civil Society and Democratic Transitions in the DRC, Burundi and Rwanda, Mashood Issaka and Batabiha Bushoki
6
movement has proven to possess the same determination, courage and skill as their Eastern European counterparts; they only lack the effective, direct, and coordinated support the Europeans received.
In 2004, following the passing of President Ronald Reagan, former Polish President, Solidarity leader and Nobel Prize Winner Lech Walesa recognized the critical importance of that support when he wrote: “When talking about Ronald Reagan, I have to be personal. We in Poland took him so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty. This can't be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century, until communism fell in 1989.”9
The United States has an extensive history of supporting the forces of democracy abroad. It did so in the 1980’s in Eastern Europe to great success. It was likewise critical in the late 1990’s and early 2000 in supporting efforts to topple Slobodan Milošević by infusing opposition groups such as the student movement Otpor and the Democratic Opposition of Serbia with significant direct aid. U.S. government assistance to these groups increased from $10 million in 1999 to $31 million in 2000, the year Milošević was ousted.10 Much of these funds were distributed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI), and in great part, were in the form of direct cash assistance.11
Today, USAID-based assistance for democracy promotion in Cuba is crippled by several factors, the most critical being a banning of cash aid or remittances to opposition groups on island. In 1997, a mid-level Clinton Administration official arbitrarily imposed a ban on cash aid claiming he was fearful the funds might be used to try to assassinate Fidel Castro.12 The obviously flawed thinking that led to this department-level policy has gone unchallenged through the last two presidential administrations, even though Administration officials have recognized the counterproductive nature of such a policy. Roger Noriega, former Undersecretary of State for the Western Hemisphere during President Bush’s first term and later U.S. ambassador to the OAS stated that the policy: ‘created a ridiculous situation where we were spending ten times the cost of shipping to send in materials that could be bought on the market (in Cuba) if we just gave cash and got a receipt.’13 Yet the policy remained, and an extensive report published by CANF in 200814, uncovered that over 80% of the grant monies destined for Cuba democracy promotion, ended up being spent in Miami, Washington, D.C. and internationally by U.S. based NGO’s rather than on the intended recipients of such aid—Cuba’s civil society groups.
9 The Wall Street Journal, Friday, June 11, 2004, Remembering Reagan,
10 Template Revolutions: Marketing U.S. Regime Change in Eastern Europe Gerald Sussman and Sascha Krader
Portland State University
11 New York Times, September 20, 2000, Steven Erlanger, Milosevic, Trailing in Polls, Rails Against NATO
12 The Miami Herald, Corral, Oscar, Is U.S. Aid Reaching Castro Foes? November 15, 2006
13 Ibid.
14 The Cuban American National Foundation, March 2008, Findings and Recommendations on the Most Effective Use of USAID-CUBA Funds Authorized by Section 109(a)of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Helms-Burton) Act of 1996
7
Not only do independent civil society groups create pressure for democratic change; studies on transitions from authoritarianism to democracy have demonstrated that the strength and viability of an enduring democratic transition is directly linked to the overall success of civil society groups. First, once a democratic transition begins to take place, civil society organizations are critical in representing mass interests and affecting government decision-making. Secondly, these organizations act as important conduits for the interpretation of information controlled and disseminated by the new government to the general populace and at the same time exerting some influence over the public. And finally, they are critical actors in helping to implement the decisions, policy and directives of a government embarking on a democratic process. 15
Cuba’s independent civil society and opposition groups, as well as the Cuban populace in general, are in dire need of our support in order to continue to build a parallel society and institutions that are critical to pressing for democratic change and for ensuring an enduring democratic transition. To that effect we recommend the following:
Lift restrictions on Cuban-American family remittances.
Rationale: The implementation of additional restrictions on Cuban-American remittances by the Bush Administration in 2004 contradicts our stated policy of ‘support for the Cuban people’. Cuban-Americans are in the best position to assess the needs of Cubans on the island and can most efficiently direct essential remittances to them. Not only will such a policy provide increased humanitarian aid but it will also permit the Cuban people to become more independent from the State in meeting basic needs and in creating and developing civil society. An increase in the level of remittances is critical at this juncture due to the impact of last season’s hurricanes and the dire humanitarian situation on the ground in Cuba.
Lift the 2004 restrictions limiting certain items from humanitarian aid parcels and increase the weight limit of such parcels
Rationale: In 2004, the Bush Administration restricted personal hygiene items, seeds, fishing equipment, and soap-making equipment from allowable humanitarian gift parcel items. Gift parcels were also limited to a maximum of 4 pounds per parcel per month sent through the United States Postal Service (USPS). The real effect of these measures has been to deprive Cuban-Americans the ability to send basic needs items to their family members in Cuba. The humanitarian crisis on the ground in Cuba today in the wake of last season’s hurricanes makes the reversal of these additional restrictions all the more critical at this stage.
15 Civil Society and the Democratic Transition in Spain, Kerstin Hamann; Perspectives on Political Science, Vol. 27, 1998
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Permit direct cash aid—Change USAID-Cuba’s internal policy of banning cash aid to independent civil society groups, dissidents, and the families of political prisoners in Cuba.
Rationale: The internal ban imposed in 1997 has remained and is perhaps the greatest obstacle to delivering efficient and substantive support to Cuba’s opposition and independent civil society groups. Eliminating this ban would allow Cuban groups to receive direct aid in a much more expeditious manner and would also curtail the instances of abuse and misappropriation of funding that has been alleged with some U.S.-based NGOs receiving USAID grants.
Impose a Cost-Share requirement for U.S.-based NGOs—USAID should implement and enforce a cost-share requirement for all U.S.-based non-profits seeking to obtain funding for Cuba democracy programs.
Rationale: Many of USAID’s recipient organizations, the majority of which are located in Miami, have relied almost exclusively on government grants either through USAID or NED for their existence. This has created a situation where many grantees spend the majority of the government funds on salaries and overhead costs here in the United States and use very little in direct support of Cuban groups. (For more information, please refer to CANF report on Findings and Recommendations for USAID Cuba programs).16 Imposing this requirement would ensure that the maximum amount of U.S. funds are going to support the efforts of those working for change on the island.
Allow sub-granting to Cuba-based Independent Civil Society Organizations—USAID should allow and encourage sub-granting to independent civil society groups in Cuba by USAID-Cuba grantee organizations.
Rationale: The process of sub-granting to independent groups in Cuba will truly help build organic NGOs in Cuba—a vital part of establishing a functioning civil society that can take on the grass roots responsibilities of a democratic transition. It also provides for a more effective system of support delivery that would allow opposition or civil society groups to grow and carry out their programs.
Require USAID-Cuba grantees to spend at least 70% of the funds in programs directed to aid Cuban Civil Society.
Rationale: A minimum of 70% of government funding received by grantee recipients should be dedicated to direct aid to the Cuban people. While some of the funding may be directed to salary, overhead costs, etc., the bulk of these types of expenses should be
16 Findings and Recommendations on the Most Effective Use of USAID-CUBA Funds Authorized by
Section 109(a) of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Helms-Burton) Act of 1996, March 2008, The Cuban American National Foundation
9
obtained mainly through non-governmental sources, thereby guaranteeing that the maximum amount of public funds are destined for the intended recipients of USAID’s program.
Promote the development and growth of microenterprises in Cuba by permitting private micro-loans.
Rationale: The growth of Cuba’s independent economic sector is vital to the growth of an independent civil society as a whole and is critical to preparing and training Cubans for a post-Castro, democratic era. Permitting Cuban-Americans and others, under license, to send cash, building materials, agricultural implements and provide services to independent, private entrepreneurs not affiliated with the regime for the establishment of micro-enterprises, such as artisans and family-owned small businesses, and the building and repair of private family residences affected by last season’s hurricanes would have an indelible and immediate impact on the growth of Cuba’s independent economic sector and civil society as a whole.
Permit the increase of private aid to pro-democracy groups.
We recommend that the following current regulations be amended to read as follows:
-CFR § 515.570(d)(1) be amended to allow general licensing of unlimited remittances from non-governmental organizations and individuals subject to U.S. jurisdiction to members of pro-democracy groups as well as individual family members of Cuban political prisoners;
Rationale: In addition to providing U.S. government assistance to pro-democracy groups in Cuba, private citizens, organizations interested in supporting independent civil society groups and the families of political prisoners can and should play a very valuable role in effecting change in Cuba.
(ii) Increase People-To-People Exchanges
During the Carter and Clinton Administrations, people-to-people exchanges to Cuba were expanded, though for very different strategic reasons. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter announced the opening of general license travel to Cuba as a sign of rapprochement. That policy was reversed under the Reagan Administration and restrictions remained in place until 1995 when President Bill Clinton announced a new policy to “engage the Cuban people and promote the free flow of ideas.”17 In 1999, following the visit of Pope John Paul II to Cuba, President Clinton further expanded people-to-people exchanges creating categories of travel licensing that included cultural and academic exchanges and announced the easing of restrictions governing cash remittances to the island.18 That policy was allowed to stand for the most part until 2004 when the Bush Administration significantly scaled back the Clinton era measures, eliminating categories of licensed travel and restricting Cuban-American family
17 Federal Register, October 20, 1995, pp. 54194-54198
18 White house Press Office, January 5, 1999
10
visits and remittances. In 2004, the Bush Administration further restricted Cuban-American humanitarian gift parcels, prohibiting the inclusion of such items as toothpaste, soap, and clothing.
For the past five years, our policy, in practice, has run contrary to the stated goal of “support for the Cuban people.” Rather than opening up avenues for the delivery of aid and information, we have managed to make it increasingly more difficult to get help to even those brave dissidents who risk their lives. A prime example of this is the restriction placed on limiting the types of aid allowed to be sent in gift parcels to the Cuban people. The Bush Administration explained their rationale for the policy stating that the purpose in limiting “such parcels decrease the burden on the Cuban regime to provide for the basic needs of its people.”19 This statement not only incorrectly assumes the Cuban government is concerned about providing basic needs for its people but worse yet, instead of urging and assisting Cubans in becoming independent of the State, it has the reverse effect of having Cubans turn back to the State as their sole provider and source for basic goods and necessities.
Communist regimes have frequently used the deprivation of food and basic necessities as a way to control the masses. Maxim Litvinov, Soviet diplomat under Lenin’s regime, was well known for utilizing the line “Gentlemen, food is a weapon.” 20 The Soviets were not the only ones to effectively use the deprivation of food and goods as a weapon. We have seen many examples throughout history, including the Serbian regime under Milosevic, the Iraqi regime under Sadaam Hussein, the North Korean regime under Kim Jong-Il, and the Cuban regime under the reign of Fidel and Raul Castro.
In Cuba, the black market for goods and services has become increasingly important. Following last season’s hurricanes, the regime’s inability to provide enough to meet even the most basic demands has become much more evident. U.S. policy should then allow for direct support to the Cuban people with the purpose of assisting Cubans in meeting their most basic needs and equally as important, helping to break their dependency on the State.
Purposeful travel to Cuba is also an important element in transferring news and information as well as providing a means with which to deliver direct aid and support. Purposeful travel differs from other types of travel, such as commercial tourism, in that it explicitly seeks to put Cubans in contact with those interested in helping the development of an independent Cuban civil society and encourages the type of exchange that is both mutually beneficial and free of State control and manipulation.
Lift restrictions on Cuban-American family and humanitarian travel.
19 Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 119 / Tuesday, June 22, 2004, pp. 34565-34567
20 Hoover Archives, Food as a Weapon, Bertrand M. Patenaude
11
Rationale: The implementation of additional restrictions on Cuban-American travel by the Bush Administration in 2004 has been counterproductive to our stated policy of ‘support for the Cuban people’. These measures have limited the ability for Cuban-American family members to deliver humanitarian aid and to act as important conduits for objective news and information to the island. Now, more than ever, we need to provide effective vehicles of support and communication—Cuban-Americans are undoubtedly our greatest ambassadors of freedom to the Cuban people. We believe, however, that it is important to ensure that safeguards are in place to limit the abuse by individuals who may utilize the accessibility of frequent travel to Cuba for illicit purposes that circumvent U.S. law.
Promote and enhance travel to Cuba programs under the following licensing categories: Support for the Cuban People, Humanitarian Support, Academic Study, and Cultural Exchange. Promote travel by U.S.-based NGOs, student organizations and individuals focused on democracy-building to travel to Cuba under specific license of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
Rationale: Encouraging and increasingly purposeful people-to-people exchanges promote the ability to exchange information in a way that is beneficial to the development of Cuba’s independent civil society. The ability for American institutions to travel to Cuba to provide support and training are critical in laying the groundwork for a civil society that is equipped to take on the responsibilities of an open and democratic system.
(iii) Improve Communication to Advance Freedom of Information
Western broadcasts into the former Eastern European bloc were significant in helping to deliver a message of hope and solidarity. They provided a vehicle for objective news and information to those living under the cloak of communist censorship. Radio Free Europe (RFE) was perhaps one of the most successful examples of how the free flow of news and information can have an indelible impact on supporting a transition to democracy. RFE began transmissions in the 1950’s from a transmitter near Frankfurt, Germany and later from Munich to five Soviet satellite states: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.21 RFE’s programming content focused on issues that pointed out the clear contradictions of communist practices with the exercise of individual freedoms. The discussion of topics ranged from the negative experiences of farmers with agricultural collectivization and the persecution of those attempting to exercise their right to practice a religion of their choosing to the government’s restrictions over reading material and suppression of culture. 22
Radio Free Europe boasted a huge audience throughout the Eastern bloc particularly in Poland where RFE played a critical role in “bringing down at least three party leaders and was instrumental in sustaining the Solidarity trade union when it was forced underground by martial law. During Nicolai Ceausescu's time, RFE was Romania's most popular source of
21 Radio Free Europe: mission accomplished , December 2003, The Weekly Standard, Arch Puddington
22 Ibid.
12
news”23. The impact of Radio Free Europe in Hungary was documented in a 2006 study by A. Ross Johnson, a Hoover Institute Fellow and former director of RFE: “Many Hungarians have testified to the positive role played by Radio Free Europe (RFE) for over 40 years in helping Hungary return to the community of free nations”. What’s more, Prime Minister Antal wrote to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in June 1990: "Radio Free Europe has … given us the gift of truth about our own country and the world at large, and has done so at a time when telling the truth was counted as a crime against the state.”24
In 1989, Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa remarked that free radio transmissions to Poland, including those of the Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe, that the role they played in Poland’s struggle for freedom "cannot even be described. Would there be earth without the sun?"25 In a 2002 interview, he again recalled the importance of the broadcasts and the drain of resources it caused Poland’s communist regime to actively block and censor access. “To control the free flow of information, the Communists would have to increase the secret police by a factor of four. It would be a huge effort for police to control the channels you get on TV or the phone numbers you are allowed to dial. So technology helped end communism by bringing (in) information from the outside.”26
Radio and television transmissions to Cuba can be similarly successful in helping to support a transition to democracy. Radio Marti was established by President Reagan in 1983 at the urging of this institution’s founder and former Chairman, Jorge Mas Canosa, and began transmitting a signal to Cuba in 1985. The purpose was to emulate the work of RFE and VOA in the communist bloc by providing a source of news and information to the Cuban people. In 1990, Television Marti made its debut. The television station has never been able to transmit to a wide audience because the Cuban regime expends extensive resources in blocking its signal while the U.S. has failed to counter by employing technological advances in trying to overcome the jamming.
Radio and television transmissions to Cuba have a critical role to play in helping to precipitate democratic change. Yet through successive Administrations, a lack of proper oversight has allowed the Office of Cuba Broadcasting to veer off course. The General Accounting Office (GAO) recently documented some of the serious flaws that have led listenership ratings in Cuba to drop from a once impressive 70% to today’s dismal 3% figure.27 Prominent Cuban dissidents who represent an umbrella group called the “Agenda for a Transition” recently documented their own complaints regarding the content of programming and the quality of leadership at the Marti’s. Dissident Vladimiro Roca stated that Radio Marti devotes over 80 percent of its programming to Miami issues and doesn’t
23 Radio Free Europe: mission accomplished , December 2003, The Weekly Standard, Arch Puddington
24 Setting the Record Straight: Radio Free Europe and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, History and Public Policy Program Occasional Paper #3, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, October 2006 A.Ross Johnson, October 24 2006,
25 The Washington Examiner, August 17, 2008, Editorial: Don't stop U.S. broadcasts to Russia and Georgia
26Wired News, June 19, 2002, Lech Walesa: Tech Freedom Fighter, Julia Scheeres
27 Broadcasting to Cuba: Actions Are Needed to Improve Strategy and Operations GAO-09-127 January 22, 2009
13
understand that its mission is to break the government’s information monopoly about news in Cuba.28
In order to restore OCB and help it implement its mission of serving as a conduit for objective news and information on Cuba and the world to the Cuban people, we recommend:
Upgrade Radio and Television Marti. As the recent GAO Report explains, change at Radio and TV Marti is needed. These critical communication tools must return to their original purpose of disseminating truthful and balanced information and promoting democratic ideals to the people of Cuba. To that end, we recommend the establishment of an independent panel of experts to examine four specific issues: (1) the restructuring of the administration at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, (2) the redesign of programming in order to increase the audience’s knowledge of current events taking place within Cuba itself and focus their attention on the peaceful democratic activities of dissidents and opposition groups, (3) a technological overhaul to ensure that radio and television signals reach their target audience, overcoming the regime’s attempts to block transmissions, and (4) explore the possibility of enhancing the mission of Radio and TV Marti programming to reach audiences throughout the Western hemisphere.
Rationale: Few things are more empowering than information. Just as Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe, with the direct support of the United States, played a key role in delivering freedom to Eastern Europe, Radio and TV Marti are essential to achieve freedom in Cuba. According to OCB reports, at one point nearly 70% of the Cuban population tuned in to Radio Marti. However, for the last several years the audience has been diminishing due to programming and management deficiencies. Now is the time to act to save and improve this immensely valuable tool in promoting democracy.
Telecommunications upgrades- The U.S. government should allow for the improvement, upgrading, and installation of telecommunications equipment that will facilitate increased telephone traffic between the United States and Cuba.
Rationale: Currently, calls to Cuba are subject to some of the highest international rates. We need to extend and improve all methods of direct communication that undermine Cuban regime-imposed censorship and that expose Cubans to news and information from abroad.
(iv) Apply Targeted Bilateral and Multilateral Diplomatic Efforts
Reestablish semi-annual migration talks.
28 Knight Center for Journalism, CUBA/USA, Dissident Groups Boycott Radio/TV Marti for Placing Miami Over Cuba, January 21, 2009
14
Rationale: In 2004, the Bush Administration suspended semi-annual migration talks with the Cuban regime. The migration talks allowed for an opportunity to broach a wide range of issues that went beyond the discussion of visa allocation. The limited contact that has existed since then has been counterproductive in several ways. It has negatively impacted our ability to influence events; however limited that influence might be, it has closed down one of the few formal conduits of information that existed, and it has sent the wrong message to the international community.
Remove restrictions on CUBINT travel within the United States, contingent upon the Cuban government doing the same with USINT personnel inside Cuba.
Rationale: In 2004, the Bush Administration imposed restrictions on the travel of CUBINT and Cuba U.N. Mission personnel to a 25-mile radius surrounding their respective offices. The Cuban regime reciprocated by limiting USINT personnel movements to a 25-mile radius around USINT in Havana. The unintended consequence of this action has been that it has severely impacted the ability of USINT personnel to engage with the Cuban people, particularly those in the democratic opposition outside of the capital. Their interaction with members of the Cuban opposition and with the Cuban population as a whole is limited to those residing in Havana. This has resulted in the inability to provide adequate analysis of the situation on the ground.
Identify and open channels of communication with reform-minded individuals or groups in the military and government ranks
Rationale: In order to provide a powerful incentive to reformers within the regime to push for change, i.e. Government officials and members of the Cuban military who have not participated in crimes against the Cuban people, they must understand that the United States encourages their participation in a post-transition government. Such a clear message of support and friendship from the U.S. government will undoubtedly assist in strengthening any existing attempts at reform and promoting the emergence of new efforts.
Encourage, and develop international cooperation in support of Cuban civil society.
Rationale: Multilateral efforts by the international community will serve as additional sources of support to the Cuban people in building a civil society. Such cooperative international efforts resulted in successful peaceful transitions to democracy in Eastern Europe, South Africa, and Chile.
######

CANF STATEMENT IN REACTION TO ANNOUNCED CABINET CHANGES IN RAUL CASTRO REGIME

After weeks of persistent calls for a revision of U.S. policy towards Cuba and just weeks before the Summit of the America’s is to take place, the Cuban regime under Raul Castro has moved to deflate any hope of change by purging three of its highest profile civilian Cabinet Ministers, Carlos Lage, Jose Luis Rodriguez, and Felipe Perez Roque. In light of these changes, the Cuban American National Foundation considers of importance to point out the following:
• These abrupt changes remind us of Stalin’s purges, an effort to recentralize power under Raul Castro and to portray a unified front to the international community;
• The designation of various military figures, loyal to Raul Castro, to high level cabinet positions including Jose Amado Ricardo Guerra a Brigadier General, who now substitutes Carlos Lage as Secretary of the Council of Ministers, is demonstrative of the regime’s desire to place additional control of the government in the hands of the Cuban military;
• The consolidation of several government ministries indicates a return to a centralizing structure that has proven to be at best inefficient and that promotes cronyism and corruption, instead of a way forward.
The surreptitious way in which the announcement was made, points toward a sense of urgency on the part of the regime. Our experience leads us to believe that these changes were made perhaps in response to a perceived threat and that they will not be conducive to positive, democratic change, in fact, they represent an attempt on behalf of the regime to realign itself in order to perpetuate its hold on power. Democratic change in Cuba will only be possible by empowering the Cuban people not by waiting for a dictatorship to reform.

Wrong Message at the Wrong Time

Today, December 10th, 2008 on the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Castro regime reaffirms its commitment to continue its, almost half-century, violation of every single chapter of the Declaration. Nothing has changed since the first days of the Castro revolution. It is wrong to expect that any change in United States policy toward the Castro government will make it change its ways as long as Raul and Fidel Castro continue to hold absolute power over the Cuban people. It is a sad reality that can only be changed by the Cuban people themselves.
It is unfortunate that, on this day, the Cuba Study Group, an organization with whom CANF has agreed on a number of issues in the past, has decided to join efforts with those who blame the United States first by calling for the unilateral lifting of all travel restrictions of all American citizens and residents to Cuba.
It is the wrong message, at the wrong time. What the United States and the coming Obama Administration need are recommendations as to how it can help the Cuban people find hope on their own island instead of risking their lives to find it across the Florida Straits and how to empower the Cuban people by becoming independent of the Castro regime, rather than solidifying the regime’s hold by sending it tourists to spend money in government hotels and resorts.
Unilateral concessions will be seen by the Castro regime and its allies clearly for what they are, unconditional surrender of a weak Administration. The CANF has repeatedly said that it is time for the United States to challenge the Cuban government to, in the words of former Spanish President José María Aznar, “mover ficha” – to show their desire to improve bilateral relations with United States by behaving in a way that is not inimical to the concerns and interests of the United States. But the United States would commit a great disservice to its own interests and those of the Cuban people by conceding its only “ficha” on the first move.
We call on the Cuba Study Group, the Brookings Institution and all those sincerely interested in improving the realities of life in Cuba as well as advancing the interests of the United States to realize that despite the undeniable mistakes made by successive US Administrations, the real victims here are the Cuban people and the real culprit is the Castro regime.
# #

Human Rights Day in Cuba

Yesterday several dissidents on the island, including the Ladies in White, held peaceful demonstrations in Cuba to commemorate Human Rights Day and the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.



On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, members of FLAMUR (Federation of Rural Latin American Women) were beaten by government officials as they were leaving the US Interests Section in Havana where they usually send out e-mails to different international organizations and activist groups.

Modern Cuban Hospitality, Courtesy of the National Revolutionary Police

Keep in mind that as vicious as his public beating was, one can only imagine things got considerably worse for this young man after being escorted into the back of the police truck.

I have a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving, not least of which is the fact that I live in a country where liberty, democracy and human rights are not only sacrosanct, but form the very basis of our secular religion. May peace and mercy find this young man, wherever he may be tonight.

Our Chairman appeared on Fox Business discussing Cuba Policy....

Here is a link to the video on FoxBusiness.com

http://www.foxbusiness.com/video-search/m/21382412/end-of-an-embargo.htm?q=Cuban+Embargo

Where will PE Obama visit first?

The Economist posted interesting odds on what foreign nation
President Elect Obama will visit first. Cuba has long odds at 33 to 1.

Door open for CANF to help shape policy

Door open for CANF to help shape policy
BY MYRIAM MARQUEZ

W ith Democrats in control of the White House and Congress, the Cuban American National Foundation is sitting pretty after wandering the political wilderness for eight years.

Jorge Mas Santos -- scion of the architect of U.S. policy toward Cuba before ultra-conservatives walked out of CANF in a huff in 2001 -- now has the ear of President-elect Barack Obama.

Mas Santos' father, Jorge Mas Canosa, was brilliant at positioning CANF as a human rights group backed by Republicans and many Democrats in Congress during the Reagan years. When George H.W. Bush was running for reelection in 1992 against Bill Clinton, Mas Canosa tried to straddle both sides.

I recall Mas Canosa telling me at the time that, even though he personally embraced the GOP, he did not want CANF or Cuban Americans to ever be taken for granted, as blacks had been by the Democratic Party. Human rights, he noted, have no party affiliation.

The Bushes never forgot the slight. When George W. Bush ran in 2000, he expected allegiance from CANF. By then Mas Canosa had died, and Mas Santos vowed to keep his father's bipartisan approach. CANF was locked out. Instead, the Cuban Liberty Council, formed by CANF's break-away old guard, had an open door at the White House and pushed to tighten travel and remittances to Cuba.

OPPOSITION SUPPORT

The result? With Fidel Castro all but dead and his brother Raúl in charge, the U.S. government has had no sway on the regime and the opposition is floundering.

With Obama's win CANF is positioned to have immense influence on Cuba policy. What to expect?

An aggressive policy to get more money to the opposition in Cuba. For years the U.S. government has handed millions of dollars to exile groups and academics for democracy-building programs on the island. But as past U.S. government audits have pointed out, most of that money never left Miami. The rules need to change so that money and equipment can reach the opposition -- just as it did during the Cold War for the Polish Solidarity movement.

Radio and TV Marti must be more efficient and have more reach. Programming should focus more on what the opposition in Cuba is doing.

The U.S. embargo toward Cuba will rightly stay. The 2004 Bush restrictions on travel and remittances will go. Returning to the pre-2004 rules would mean Cuban Americans could travel once a year to see family instead of once every three years, and remittances could go up to $3,000 a year -- instead of the current $1,200 -- and open to all family members. This is particularly important after thousands of Cubans were left homeless from two back-to-back hurricanes and with Paloma heading their way.

NAMING THE REAL ENEMY

''The centerpiece of U.S.-Cuba policy has to be our assistance to the brave men and women of the opposition in Cuba,'' Mas Santos said. ``That's key to promoting freedom.''

Republican Sen. Mel Martinez acknowledges that it's time to rethink the U.S. approach, too, but not to do it in a way that's ''unilateral.'' One concession to extract from the regime: the outrageous 20 percent charge it places on remittances. Any new policy, he said, ``needs to have more nuance and flexibility . . . but not give the government a free pass.''

I agree, but we've lost valuable time to the Castro propaganda machine that has spent decades portraying exiles as the enemy.

We need to turn the tortilla upside down and let Cubans know through our actions that their only enemy is a 50-year dictatorship

How to Win the Cuban American Vote

THE WASHINGTON POST
How to Win the Cuban American Vote
By Jorge Mas SantosSaturday, October 25, 2008; A15
U.S. policy toward Cuba is at best static and at worst counterproductive, a source of increasing frustration to many Cuban Americans. This sad status quo contributes to the challenge that Cuban Americans will face on Election Day as, once again, particularly in Florida, our vote will probably help determine the next occupant of the White House.
The overwhelming majority of Cuban Americans expect the next president to abandon today's failed "wait and hope" policy and adopt a policy of support and engagement directed toward opening new avenues of freedom for the Cuban people as well as enhancing stability in the United States.
The Cuban American National Foundation, the nation's largest Cuban exile organization, has a predominantly Republican membership. Yet our fundamental interest is not partisan politics but helping to restore freedom to our brothers and sisters on the island.
We entered the new millennium expecting U.S. policy toward Cuba to follow the effective model of the West's support for Poland's Solidarity movement and civil society across Eastern Europe. It was our hope that by seeking to empower Cuba's independent civil society through unlimited support for the brave men and women on the island opposing the Castro regime, the energy and resources of the Cuban American community would be unleashed. To this end, we have been sorely disappointed.
As a direct result of President Bush's strategic blunder in 2004 restricting contact with the island, Cuban dissidents have experienced a significant reduction in material and humanitarian assistance. They are also subject to a ban on receiving cash remittances that help them and their families survive. The isolation of these and other Cubans has increased while Fidel Castro's departure from office caught the Bush administration off guard. Together, these developments have helped Raúl Castro consolidate control over the Cuban people.
These failures in U.S. policy undermine important American interests. Just as a democratic Israel is a key U.S. friend in a critical region, a democratic Cuba would be a crucial ally in furthering democracy in Latin America. Cuba is important, also, because the dissatisfaction of its people under the Castro regime is bound to have a significant effect on Floridians and Cuban Americans nationwide. It has in the past.
The next president must put a stop to America's spectator approach. To this end, we have presented the campaigns of Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama with simple recommendations based on two basic premises: (a) the status quo is unacceptable; and (b) change needs to come from within Cuba. Our specific recommendations are:
· Change the rules that make it impossible to send cash aid and allow direct, substantial and unfettered aid to Cuba's dissidents.
· Lift the 2004 restrictions on travel and remittances by Cuban Americans. Removing the handcuffs that have prevented us from becoming active participants in the development of Cuban civil society will make us agents of change.
· Maintain sanctions that diminish the Castro regime's access to hard currency, which it uses to help fund its apparatus of repression.
· Engage democratic and reformist forces in Cuba, including those in the military and in the civilian government. They need to know that they can count on the friendship and support of the United States.
· Rebuild our intelligence capabilities in Cuba; they have been dismantled over the past decade, creating a vulnerability in this nation's security.
Both presidential candidates have made clear that they want to help the Cuban people achieve freedom. But Barack Obama's forward-looking and proactive approach toward empowering the Cuban people is more in line with these proposals than John McCain's vow to continue the Bush administration's policy.
More of the same will not bring about freedom in Cuba, and more must be done to directly assist Cuba's opposition movement. Cuban Americans are wary of empty promises. But on Nov. 4, before casting ballots, we will ask ourselves two important questions: Who will adopt a proactive policy toward Cuba, and if dissidents in Cuba had a vote in our election, for whom would they vote?
The writer is chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation.
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Help Cubans enact change from within

THE MIAMI HERALD
OPINION
Posted on Saturday, 10.25.08
U.S. POLICY
Help Cubans enact change from within
BY JORGE MAS SANTOS
www.canf.org
President Ronald Reagan in the State of the Union speech in 1985 said: ''We must not break faith with those who are risking their lives to secure rights which have been ours from birth. Support for freedom fighters is self-defense.'' This commitment translated into a vigorous program of substantial, direct support to the democratic opposition in the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc.
U.S. policy on Cuba has been devoid of such a vision, turned, instead, into a mere domestic issue where lip service is paid to the cause of freedom but little is done in the way of substance. Two primary considerations have driven U.S. policy on Cuba: the Cuban-American vote in South Florida and avoiding a mass migration from Cuba. For many years, our community's vote could be guaranteed by a photo opportunity in Miami and the quintessential anti-Castro, rhetoric-filled speech. No longer is this the case.
The Cuban American National Foundation strongly supports a policy that uses the embargo and effective sanctions against the oppressive regime but is accompanied by a proactive approach that empowers the Cuban people to enact change from within. What has been touted as a hard-line policy on Cuba is anything but. Rather than an active partner for the Cuban people in pushing for democratic change, the United States has served as a passive bystander doing nothing to derail the now ostensibly seamless dictatorial transition that has taken place in Havana. This administration has failed to destabilize the regime or its mechanisms of internal control.
The result is a policy full of inherent contradictions:
• It has allowed U.S. companies to sell more than $2 billion in agricultural products to the regime during the last eight years, yet it prohibits a Cuban American in Miami from sending a relative basic hygiene products like soap and toothpaste.
• It allows American businessmen to tour Cuba as many times as they choose, spending money in luxury, government-run hotels and restaurants, while it limits to once every three years a granddaughter from visiting her ailing grandmother in a dilapidated housing tenement in Havana.
• It promises to support Cuban dissidents but prohibits critical cash remittances to those on the front lines of the struggle for democracy.
• It forbids person-to-person humanitarian assistance to Cuban victims of the most destructive hurricane season in Cuban history.
By refusing to move beyond the status quo policy, Washington has strangely, or maybe predictably, embraced a policy of accommodation. Waiting for Raúl Castro to reform is not a strategy; it is wishful thinking, it is surrendering a critical juncture in Cuba's history that could make all the difference.
The next president of the United States, whether it is Sen. John McCain or Sen. Barack Obama, will have to adopt a policy toward Cuba that demonstrates a break from the past and a real and substantive commitment to the triumph of democracy that recognizes the very significant role that Cuban Americans must play in helping Cubans on the island win back their freedom.
We must reassure and strengthen the hands of reformists within the Cuban government, those outside the cohorts of Castro, using effective sanctions and other incentives as a trading card for fundamental political and economic reforms. A proactive Cuba policy should, also, include direct, vigorous support in the form of cash aid and substantial material goods to Cuba's brave opposition leaders and members of independent civil society.
We cannot continue to cripple U.S.-Cuba democracy programs with illogical regulations that result in more than 83 percent of the funding being spent outside of Cuba while Cuba's dissidents and political prisoners are unable to meet their family's most basic needs. We need to facilitate the ability for a family member to send their relatives in Cuba cash assistance that not only alleviates real humanitarian need but also allows them to become independent of the state.
With only days before a crucial election, little can be expected from this administration or our elected officials when they refuse to even temporarily lift the 2004 restrictions after two devastating hurricanes. They have forced the democratic opposition in Cuba to make a desperate appeal to First Lady Laura Bush and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez in a, thus far, unsuccessful effort to push for a moratorium on the restrictions.
We should demand more of our elected leaders. We cannot forfeit our opportunity to influence events in Havana while we wait for Castro to be born again as a democrat. It will not happen. The next U.S. president should usher in a new U.S. policy on Cuba, one that demonstrates the political will and courage that Reagan heralded with his support for the forces of freedom; one that defies the predominant wisdom in Washington that not much can be done, outside the realm of military power, to help a people be free.Jorge Mas Santos is chairman of the board of the Cuban American National Foundation

Another Totalitarian Wellspring?

It seems as though cruel geology, and not economics, is the true dismal science. Whether one believes Cubapetroleo's announcement this weekend that Cuba may have oil reserves of 20 bn barrels (about the same as the US, or almost a quarter of Venezuela's reserves) or the US Geological Survey's more conservative estimate of close to 9 bn barrels (putting it between Norway and Mexico), it seems as though Cuba might one day become an oil exporter instead of an importer. There is plenty of talk of Venezuela becoming another Cuba, but can the converse soon be true (without, of course, any redeeming characteristics such as democratic elections)?

If these announcements do prove to be true (and that is a big "if"), and Cuba eventually takes its place among the pantheon of authoritarian regimes that finance their repression through oil, the prospect of liberty and democracy in Cuba will be the biggest casualty. Sure, with increased government income, the regime might afford buying off more of its citizens with an increased standard of living, but it will also strengthen its repressive hand and corrupt institutional hold. And those who struggle for freedom and reform, whether inside of Cuba or in exile, will surely have to adapt their tactics to face the reality of a more formidable tormentor.

But like anything else coming out of Cuba's state controlled propaganda machine (or as it's some times mistakenly characterized: the "press"), these announcements must be taken with a grain of salt. By its own account, Cubapetroleo arrived at these figures by extrapolating data of "very similar" undersea geology with Mexico's Bay of Campeche, as well as their own data and "inside knowledge" of Cuba's off-shore geology (hardly very convincing stuff). And regardless of its true size and Repsol's well (planned for 2009), they are still many years away from any significant amount of oil coming online and shifting the current equation, and these years might be full of challenges that cannot await for a potential oil bonanza off in the future. Besides, we've heard these type of announcements before (although of a different scale), and they didn't prove to be "game changers" in Cuba either.

And the timing is also suspicious. Is it really sheer coincidence and mere fortune that just when the credit crunch and impeding global economic slowdown, the hurricane devastation, and rising food and commodity prices, tighten the vise around the Cuban regime, it suddenly announces a newly discovered source of collateral and investment opportunity? Also, a couple of months before the 111th Congress is sworn in, this move seemingly creates a new anti-embargo constituency, inside the beltway, of "drill baby drill" congressmen and their oil industry lobbyists who will push for unconditional easing so as to not miss out on a cut (although in reality, as a fungible commodity, we can still benefit from the increased global supply of oil while still not importing it from Cuba).

What's your take on the validity of these claims? If there's more than just a semblance of truth to this, what fate do you think awaits Cuba? Will this perpetuate the regime's lifespan much longer after Castro(s) (how much farther in A.C.?) or is this too small a bulwark against the tide of forces pressuring Cuba, both from outside its borders and increasingly within them?

The price of gas might be dropping as demand plunges, but maybe these are still high times for South Florida Toyota Prius dealers.

Here are some of the articles:
BBC
Guardian (UK)

In other Cuba news:

- Due to the aforementioned "discoveries" and their possible implications to the regime, you might expect Raul Castro to be somersaulting the entire length of El Malecon. Instead, he was busy introducing his latest reform aimed at helping the Cuban people, since none have been uttered for quite some time. So in the wake of the utter destruction of the hurricanes, in which tens of thousands of homes were severely damaged or destroyed, Raul was helping to open up a Russian Orthodox church in the officially atheistic country's capital. He's not one to miss an opportunity to rekindle a strategic romance with an old comrade or maybe, now, to pray for more oil.

- Cuba dropped in rankings of infant mortality from 1960 to 2004, as reported by the New York Times. Hong Kong (now #2), Greece, Spain and Portugal, using "different" (i.e. less repressive) development models, are among those who leap-frogged Cuba (and us).

- With growing food and commodity prices, and the devastation of two hurricanes, Cuba faces a food crisis. Does it respond by taking the advice of a Nobel Prize-winner like Amrtya Sen, and just about every other economist in the free world, by liberalizing production, distribution and the market, or does it borrow a page from the ol' socialist planner playbook? Would you like to hazard a guess? So much for all the highly celebrated "reform" talk this summer...

Is the oil party over for Chavez, and therefore Cuba?

As many people know, since Chavez took power the Venezuelan economy has become fully dependent on oil exports - particularly to the US - to support the Venezuelan government and society. Additionally, Chavez has used $100+/barrel oil to support a number of Castro-wannabe regimes across Latin America.

The question is how this model will survive with a sustained drop in oil-prices. Estimates vary, but it is believed that Chavez bases his budget on oil at $60-$75/barrel, a range we are very close to. In all likelihood, we are already below the level needed to support Chavez's budget and off-budget spending (i.e., buying Argentine bonds), given the strong pleas for OPEC production cuts by Chaves and Iran. We know what the Castro model predicts will happen next, lets hope that is wrong for the sake of the Venezuelan people.

The bigger impact may be on Cuba, if Chavez is forced to cut oil-subsidies (estimated to be discounted 60%). How will Cuba's non-existent economy survive a 60% rise in oil-costs...not to mention wow the Cuban people will react to more black-outs?

The future in general is uncertain...but what is certain is that Castro and Chavez are already preparing their anti-US speeches for the crisis to come. God forbid they actually accept responsibility before their own citizens.

Below are two articles. The first talks about oil and Chavez's budget...the second how RBS is cutting its credit line to the government.

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Tumbling oil could hurt Chavez's revolution
The Associated Press
Saturday, October 18, 2008
As Hugo Chavez gloats over the crisis in the global capitalist system, the Venezuelan president is acting as if his socialist project is somehow immune. But with oil worth half what it was in July, Chavez's free-spending revolution is bound to be hurt.
For starters, he's apt to cut back on the checkbook diplomacy that helps sustain his regional ambitions. But will Chavez be forced to pare down populist handouts to the poor? Slash a bloated government payroll? Try to win over foreign investors he previously alienated?
Opinion is mixed.
"This country is headed for crisis," predicts former Venezuela central bank president Domingo Maza Zavala.
But some economists say Venezuela has experienced far worse in the past. And for now at least, Chavez is showing few signs of concern.
_He plans to boost state spending by 22 percent next year to US$79 billion after nearly tripling Venezuela's budget since 2004. And that is after overspending this year's budget by about 30 percent.
_Venezuela's state oil company has added almost 11,000 workers this year to what many consider an already bloated payroll, boosting the number of workers to more than 70,400.
_The military said this week that it would buy dozens of Russian tanks and armored vehicles, adding to more than US$4 billion in arms purchases from Moscow.
_And Chavez's government now plans to reduce the workday from eight to six hours, something critics say could put a squeeze on the private sector just as times are getting tough.
"We have the ability to weather this crisis," Chavez told state television Thursday from the presidential palace. He added that he isn't "singing victory" and that the government will review all spending and "watch every cent."
Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez said this month that cost-cutting will be unavoidable — but the only cuts he initially mentioned involved taking government SUVs off the road, slicing cell phone bills and holding less-extravagant parties. Oil prices were down when he spoke — but not to the level they reached Friday: about US$68 a barrel for Venezuelan crude.
On Friday, Rodriguez said the government could raise the price of gasoline, currently 12 cents a gallon.
"It's not in my hands to say it at the moment, but I won't rule it out. It's a decision that's not even being studied yet," he said.
Oil prices are also hurting a key Chavez ally, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador. Like Chavez, he has relied on high crude revenues to ease the burden on his country's poor, and like Chavez he has created expectations of an enduring social safety net.
Both countries' economies depend mightily on petroleum. It accounts for 94 percent of Venezuela's exports and half the national budget. In Ecuador, it's 70 percent of exports and a third of the budget.
Pollster Alfredo Keller says Venezuelans consider a share of petro-profits their birthright: "The dominant idea is that Venezuela is a very rich country and thus poverty is solved when the administrator of riches, the government, distributes them."
So no matter how low oil prices drop, he predicts Chavez won't dare cut social programs, which include subsidized food and free education. Nor, he says, will Chavez cut a government payroll that has swelled to 2 million people — roughly one in 14 Venezuelans.
Chavez's popularity dropped last year when Venezuela — a net importer of food and durable goods — experienced sporadic food shortages. Polls show Chavez has since recovered. But especially with Caracas inflation at 36 percent, some people are worried.
"The only thing we produce is oil. We live from imports," said Franco Bolivar, a 50-year-old importer. "Imagine if there are no dollars. How will we buy? How will we import?"
Many economists believe Venezuela's cushion against fiscal disaster is more than adequate to stand up to anything short of a global depression. Venezuela has international reserves of almost US$40 billion, Chavez says, and total reserves on the order of US$100 billion.
That should allow Chavez to "weather the storm without making any significant adjustments for at least 18 to 24 months," said analyst Patrick Esteruelas of the Eurasia Group.
Ana Maria Di Leo, head economist at the newsletter Veneconomia, says Venezuela has seen worse in the past — including a 1994 banking crisis and oil prices as low as US$6 a barrel.
But some analysts believe Chavez will nevertheless cut back on hundreds of millions worth of petrodollar diplomacy — which has included underwriting eye surgery in Peru and building soccer fields in Bolivia.
Venezuela needs to export oil at US$94 a barrel in order to offset its imports of goods and services, according to calculations by PFC Energy, a Washington-based consulting firm.
The United States has long had a similar "balance of payments" problem but offsets it by selling Treasury bonds that people readily buy, said RoseAnne Franco, an analyst at the firm.
"Venezuela," she said, "does not have the same array of options."
The Petrocaribe program, through which Chavez sells oil at highly favorable rates to Caribbean and Central American states — has already been affected. Venezuela has financed well over US$2 billion in sales since 2005 to its 18 members.
As long as oil was over US$100 per barrel, Petrocaribe members had only to pay 40 percent of the bill immediately, canceling the balance over 25 years at 1 percent interest.
Under the agreement, once crude prices fall below US$80 a barrel, the initial payment jumps to 50 percent. It goes to 60 percent if oil hits US$50 a barrel.
___
Associated Press Writers Rachel Jones, Fabiola Sanchez and Ian James in Caracas and Jeanneth Valdivieso in Quito contributed to this report.



Venezuela State Oil Company Loses Credit Line
HUGO CHAVEZ, VENEZUELA, PDVSA, OIL, ENERGY, OIL AND GAS, ENERGY PRICES, SOCIALIST, RBC, ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND
CNBC.com
17 Oct 2008 06:35 PM ET
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Venezuela's state run oil company, PDVSA, is urgently searching for replacement financing after losing a line of credit of more than $5 billion from the Royal Bank of Scotland, CNBC has learned.
PDVSA had an agreement in principle with RBS until the UK government stepped in last week and bailed out the troubled bank. RBS then rescinded the financing, citing market conditions.
Now, a source within the US administration says Hugo Chavez's government is giving off indications that it's strapped for cash.
As an oil-producing country, Venezuela should be swimming in cash. A member of it OPEC, it's believed to pump roughly 2.6 million barrels of oil per day, though the exact number is disputed.
Also in question is how much oil Venezuela actually sells. Chavez distributes 800,000 barrels per day internally for his citizens’ use, and then another 300,000 barrels per day to friendly Latin American neighbors, such as Cuba and Bolivia, at highly subsidized prices.
Chavez also has been spending money extensively, both internally and overseas, as he builds what he calls his “Bolivarian Socialist Revolution.” Just how much the president spends is unclear, because Venezuelan government finances are opaque.
In a speech Thursday, Chavez put Venezuela's savings at $100 billion. But in terms of actual reserves that can be measured by the international banking system, that figure is closer to $39 billion dollars. Video: How Low Can Oil Go?
Six months ago, Venezuela's bonds were yielding between 7-9 percent depending on maturity. Currently yields have dropped to a range of 15 percent to 16 percent, indicating investors are increasingly nervous about getting paid back on the bonds.
© 2008 CNBC.com
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Communist experiment or a victory for the opposition?

I found this article very interesting and wanted to share it with you all. As some of you know, a group of female activists in Cuba (FLAMUR) has received attention for a campaign they created called "Con la Misma Moneda" which touches on this very issue - economic discrimination due to the dual-currency system on the island. I can't help but wonder... is this finally a victory for the opposition?

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'Peso paradise' in Cuban town
The Associated Press

Monday, October 6th 2008, 11:01 AM

Ismael Gonzalez/AP
A local vendor attends a family at the "Amanecer" ice cream in Bayamo, in Granma's province, Cuba.

BAYAMO, Cuba — A communist experiment is letting average government workers in this eastern city enjoy a few things only foreigners and monied Cubans can usually afford: a good burger, a kicking jazz bar and stiff cocktails. Across the rest of the island, monthly government salaries of 408 pesos, about $19.50, don't cover grocery bills, let alone a night out. But in Bayamo the central government has made a special effort to support peso businesses, giving the lowly currency actual buying power.

Along the stylish pedestrian mall known as "Paseo" or "The Boulevard," six blocks of restaurants, barber shops, ice cream parlors and department stores give Cubans a taste of tourist life at local prices. Jazz bands jam for free until 2 a.m. at the Piano Bar, where mojitos go for just 5.50 pesos, or 30 cents. A 1950s-style diner serves up tasty meatball sandwiches for about half a peso — the equivalent of three cents — and four scoops of the richest ice cream in Cuba for about the same price.

"Almost everyone who comes in is surprised at first. The music is good. The cocktails are strong," said Ernesto Aldana of the Piano Bar, where the Cuba Libre — copious rum pours with ice and splashes of cola and lime — costs 4.80 pesos, the equivalent of less than 25 cents.

"It's like you're paying in dollars," Aldana said. "But you're not."

Under the country's dual currency system, most things Cubans want and need are not available in the money they earn — the regular Cuban peso which is worth a little more than 4 cents. Virtually all upscale businesses across the island are priced for foreigners in so-called convertible pesos worth $1.08 each, 24 times as much. Cuba has had two currencies since the collapse of the Soviet Union wrecked its economy and spurred its turn to tourism. Tourist businesses took U.S. dollars and charged U.S. prices, while the peso was maintained for everyday transactions. The convertible peso, also called hard currency, was born around the same time but took on its current value in 2004, when the government banned the use of the U.S. dollar.

Cubans have long hoped the government would merge the two pesos and close the gap between the goods and services they and foreigners can afford. But so far, nothing has changed under Raul Castro, who took over as president from his ailing brother, Fidel, earlier this year. Cuba's government historically has chosen provincial areas to test potential economic policy changes. In Bayamo, a city of 140,000 and the capital of Granma province, leaders of the regional Communist Party began expanding peso businesses in 2005.

"Normally, there's a gap between quality of service to foreigners and service to Cubans," said Isidro Alonso of Bayamo's Communist Party's Committee on Ideology. "We are working to erase that."

Huge government subsidies are needed. Paseo businesses here take in only 1,000 to 1,700 pesos a day, or $50 to $80. And the program only took shape after Bayamo communists asked central government planners for special autonomy and won the right to sell regionally produced items such as rum, seafood, beer, yogurt, beef, ice cream and cheese to local residents, rather than shipping them elsewhere on the island.

"We would see products like powdered milk made here and sold somewhere else and we said, 'How is this possible? If we make it in Granma, we should be selling it in Granma,'" Alonso said. However, rising global commodity prices have made Bayamo's government subsidies more costly, while hurricanes Gustav and Ike in recent weeks dealt serious blows to Cuban food production. The government recently ordered all provinces to contribute more food to all parts of the country and reduce Cuba's dependence on foreign imports, said Humberto Rondon, technical director for production at a state cheese and ice cream factory outside Bayamo. In Granma's case, officials will now have to ship about 80 percent of its cheese to points elsewhere in Cuba.

Despite the hurricanes and rising food prices, the Bayamo experiment is so successful that the central government in Havana is continuing to devote $10 million this year to reopen some peso businesses and cover operating expenses of those already established, Alonso said. There are ordinary peso businesses all over Cuba, but the products are shoddy and service is mediocre. Shortages of everything from potatoes to pasta mean most of the dishes listed on peso restaurant menus aren't available, while peso stores have long lines of customers for mismatched inventory on largely empty shelves.

Contrast that with Bayamo, where the raw juice bar offers freshly squeezed mango or papaya juice for the equivalent of less than a nickel. The fully stocked dairy stays open until 11 p.m. on Saturdays. Ground beef is often hard to come by elsewhere, but here two hamburger joints serve up double patties heaped with ham for about $0.40 in pesos. There's an office supply store, a flower shop, two beauty parlors, a pair of seafood restaurants, a Spanish eatery and a place offering passable vegetarian dishes.

"Usually, without hard currency, you never go to restaurants, you never go out on Friday nights. But here you can," said Vilna Lopez, who rents rooms in her home three blocks from Paseo. Out-of-towners even brave long bus rides to spend their pesos in Bayamo.

"I would like to take this place home with me, and I'm from Havana," said Alexey Rodriguez, visiting from the capital 460 miles to the northwest. But the Bayamo experiment is too expensive to work on a larger scale. And it has not done enough to soften the sting of the dual currency system for many. Ana Luisa Gonzalez earns 225 pesos a month as a street sweeper on Paseo. Her son works at a tampon factory. A portion of his pay comes in convertible pesos.

"We live on that," Gonzalez said. "Salaries in (regular) pesos have no value." When asked about all there is to buy along Paseo, the 50-year-old shook her head and said even here, her salary isn't enough. One large block of cheese is 80 pesos. "If I buy two cheeses and two yogurts here, there goes all my salary," she said. "Then what?"

Qatar & Select Middle Eastern Muslim Investment - Cuba's Burgeoning Trade Partner Part "Dos"

This is the second piece of a two part series published by the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies' Cuba Transition Project (see below "Iran & Select Middle Eastern Muslim Countries - Cuba's Burgeoning Trade Partner" posted on August 11, 2008). Of note, is arguably the biggest foreign investment commitment to Cuba in the post - Soviet Union era -- United Arab Emirates-based Dubai Ports World (DP World) US $250 million commitment to form a joint venture with the Cuban government to transform the Port of Mariel into a word-class port that by 2012 -- and what amongst other things it may suggest, "a high degree of trust in the stability of the Castro regime as well as confidence in the longer-term economic value of the island."


Hans de Salas-del Valle*

Islamic Investment in Cuba: Part II

The reach of Cuban diplomacy in today’s Middle East transcends Havana’s historic alliances with fellow archenemies of the United States and the West. Since Fidel Castro’s first foray into Middle Eastern affairs in the early 1960s (1), an eclectic array of anti-American regimes from North Africa to the Persian Gulf, among them Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Qaddafi’s Libya, and the Iran of the Ayatollahs, have all found a friend in Castro’s Cuba.

The island’s longstanding political alignment with Iran, for instance, has expanded into a billion-dollar financial lifeline from Tehran to Havana. (2) Yet, the best measure of Havana’s recent diplomatic triumphs in the region lies in its rising profile as a pragmatic geostrategic partner and safe haven for Islamic interests in the Western hemisphere. The fact that even allies of the U.S., including the moderate Persian Gulf states of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, are investing in Cuba and collaborating with the government of General Raúl Castro is itself indicative of the Cuban regime’s remarkable ability to continue to circumvent and outmaneuver Washington around the world.


Qatar

In April 2008, Qatar’s real estate development fund Qatari Diar announced that it will invest $70 million in a joint venture with Cuba’s state-run Gran Caribe hotel group to build a 200-room five-star hotel and an accompanying 60 luxury villas on Cayo Largo, an exclusive island resort off the Cuban mainland. (3) The commitment of Qatari capital in Cuba is the culmination of many years of political courting by Fidel Castro, who in September 2000 bestowed Cuba’s highest honor, the Order of José Martí, on Qatar’s ruling emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. At $70 million, the investment by Qatar surpasses in value the declining number of new business deals with Spain and other European nations, which have dominated Cuba’s hospitality sector since the Castro regime opened the island to foreign investment in the early 1990s. Moreover, such a large infusion of capital by Qatari Diar, a government-funded subsidiary of the Qatar Investment Authority, suggests a high degree of trust in the stability of the Castro regime as well as confidence in the longer-term economic value of the island.

Indeed, Qatar has also signed an accord with Havana for the services of Cuban public health professionals to establish and operate a new comprehensive hospital, staffed and supervised by Cuban physicians and specialists, in the Qatari town of Dukhan. (4) While the details of the deal have not been released, the contract with the wealthy Gulf emirate will undoubtedly generate a substantial stream of hard-currency revenue for the Cuban government. Qatar is a potentially very lucrative market for the export of Cuban medical services as Havana increasingly relies on hiring out physicians and other highly-skilled Cuban workers to developing countries in order to compensate for the low productivity of the Cuban economy. (5)


OPEC Fund

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has emerged as one of the island’s largest aid donors since 2003, when Cuba ended all official cooperation with the European Union (EU) and rejected further bilateral assistance from most EU member states. Through the Vienna-based OPEC Fund for International Development, the oil cartel has funneled more than $50 million in low-interest development loans to the Cuban government for major investments in electrical infrastructure, water sanitation, and agricultural production. (6) And unlike the aid provided by European and other Western governments, which publicly reprimanded the Castro regime following the widespread repression of Cuban dissidents in 2003, the OPEC Fund does not exert any pressure on Cuba to democratize its political system or liberalize its economy.

It is undoubtedly for this reason, as well as for the magnitude of the aid itself, that Cuban vice president Carlos Lage has praised the OPEC Fund as “one of the few institutions left in the world that offer[s] such concessional and untied aid,” (7) i.e., with no reform conditions attached. Considering that grants and other assistance from Spain, the island’s leading European investor which at times has sought to use its economic presence as leverage to influence the direction of a post-Fidel Cuba, totaled 44 million euros (about US$56 million) over a three-year period from 2004 through 2006 (8), aid from the OPEC Fund and other alternative sources has enabled the Cuban government to break its post-Soviet dependency on Western donors and in the process largely nullify Spanish and EU political pressure on the Castro regime, especially at times of crisis.


Dubai Ports: Mariel v. Miami

After Congress forced the United Arab Emirates-based Dubai Ports World (DP World) to sell its operations at six U.S. ports, including New York and Miami, to a U.S. company in response to the perceived security implications of an Islamic firm running major American ports, the Dubai-owned marine terminal operator found an alternative to Miami in the Cuban seaport of Mariel. In what may be the single most ambitious foreign financed project in Cuba since the collapse of the Soviet Union, DP World, which is backed by the sovereign wealth fund of the emirate of Dubai, revealed in October 2007 that it will commit some US$250 million in a joint venture with the Cuban government to transform Mariel, about 30 miles to the west of Havana, into a world-class transshipment center. The flow of Arab capital into an undervalued but strategic asset like Mariel could transform Cuba once again into a major entrepôt at the crossroads of the global economy.

A prescient analysis in The Economist argues that by the time DP World completes its planned modernization and expansion of the Cuban port’s facilities in 2012, “Mariel…would be a well-positioned hub” with the potential to compete for international business. (9) East Asian container lines (DP World, currently the third largest international shipping terminal operator, manages several ports in China) might be willing to reroute their vessels via Cuba for both economic and political reasons. How? Assuming that Washington’s trade sanctions against Cuba have been lifted or relaxed sufficiently so as to allow merchandise imports from the island to enter the U.S. market, by the end of the next administration in the White House both Cuban and multinational “goods could be transferred from the big container ships arriving at the port to smaller vessels which could then reach dozens of harbours in the southern United States.” (10) The possibility that a DP World-run Mariel could eventually challenge Miami’s dominance as the preferred commercial port along the Florida Straits has already been acknowledged by the current director of the Port of Miami with “great concern” at what lies “right around the corner” in 2012. (11)


Cuba, 2012: Islamic Island?

It is not likely that a substantial segment of the island’s population will convert to Islam in the near future or that the fundamentally secular nature of Cuban society will be altered by recent contacts with the Muslim cultures. Nevertheless, the emerging economic ties with Islamic nations do suggest that Cuba is seen as a secure and stable country for Islamic capital and as a reliable political partner to Islamic regimes.

The immediate concerns of most Western observers with respect to Cuba, particularly in light of the catastrophic costs to the island’s economy and infrastructure by hurricanes of recent memory, tend to be short-sighted. While the danger of short-term social upheaval must always be taken into account, it is unlikely that Havana’s allies will allow the strategically located island to sink into chaos simply for a lack of resources, which they are able and willing to provide as a long-term investment in Raúl’s regime. Instead of short-term apocalyptic fears, Islamic investors have demonstrated confidence in Raúl’s vision of a Beijing in the tropics.

By 2012, the island could very well become a leading financial and logistics center for Islamic firms seeking proximity to the United States while remaining beyond the reach of Washington’s policies and regulations. Only Cuba could offer such a safe haven for Islamic capital and interests.

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Notes

(1) Cf. Piero Gleijeses, “Cuba’s First Venture in Africa: Algeria, 1961-1965,” Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Feb. 1996), pp. 159-195.

(2) See “Islamic Investment in Cuba,” Cuba Focus, August 11, 2008, http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/FOCUS_Web/Issue99.htm.

(3) Amy Glass, “Qatar to build $70 mn Cuba resort,” ArabianBusiness.com, April 29, 2008, http://www.arabianbusiness.com/517917-qatar-investment-authority-signed-70mln-deal-with-cuban-republic (accessed September 2008).

(4) “Qatar, Cuba sign deal on medical services,” Doha, The Peninsula, April 23, 2008.

(5) Cf. Marc Frank, “Cuban service exports continue dramatic rise,” Havana, Reuters, January 10, 2008, http://in.reuters.com/article/asiaCompanyAndMarkets/idINN1016624020080110.

(6) Cf. OPEC Fund for International Development, “Country Profiles, Cuba,” http://www.ofid.org/projects_operations/latamerica/cuba.html, (accessed September 2008).

(7) OPEC Fund for International Development, “Cuban Vice-President visits OFID,” Press release, Vienna, May 17, 2006.

(8) “España reactiva la cooperación con Cuba,” El Mundo (Spain), September 30, 2007. The approximate value of euros to U.S. dollars is based on October 2006 exchange rates.

(9) “Foreign investment in Cuba: Bye-bye embargo?” The Economist, November 22, 2007.

(10) Ibid.

(11) “Port Director Expresses Concern Over Cuba’s Mariel,” Miami, Local 10.com, April 14, 2008, http://www.local10.com/news/15875315/detail.html.


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* Hans de Salas del Valle is a Research Associate, Cuba Transition Project, Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, University of Miami.

Recent Cuban address to the UN – hay que tener la cara dura!

Two days ago, the Cuban Ambassador to the UN gave a speech (http://www.un.org/ga/63/generaldebate/pdf/cuba_en.pdf) before the UN General Assembly. I read the transcript with much amusement – it is truly incredible how Cuban officials can produce six pages worth of words with such little care for truth, reality, or indeed, logic. Thankfully it was not Fidel, or we would have had hundreds of pages.
A full rebuttal of the speech, point by point, is beyond the scope of this blog. However, I would like to highlight a few common threads in every rant by a Cuban official.

• Perverse subversion of the word “democratic” – a call for more “democracy” in the world is a common pitch. Ironic and ludicrous, of course, given that Cuban refuses to allow its citizens any form of political choice. Option 1 = Fidel. Option 2 = also Fidel.
  
• Calling for action but doing nothing – the rich world is the cause of all of Cuba’s problems. Surprising that Cuba finds no fault in itself. Cuba is a country awash with farmable land, yet imports food from the US worth hundreds of millions. It supposedly has an educated populace, but has no industry to speak of. Also interesting how Cuba refuses to adopt basic reforms regarding property and ownership – reforms that its erstwhile “comrades”, Russia and China, have fully embraced. Even Cuba’s BFF Chavez allows this.
  
• Embargo – no Cuban speech is free of rant against the embargo. It is amazing how they just gloss over the fact that they can purchase goods from every single country on Earth bar the US. Why so keen to buy from your self-described worst enemy? That’s right, they are at high risk of default and no one wants to give them credit.

It is also interesting to note a point that is never made. Despite the condemnation of the US, no Cuban official mentions the remarkable growth the US has experienced since Castro took power (vs. Cuban stagnation), the acceptance and integration of millions of immigrants from every corner of the world (vs. a mass outflow from Cuba), the incredible technological achievements (vs. Cuba’s drug recovery clinic for leftist South Americans), and the incredible amount of aid given to the third world, in terms of both dollars and people (vs. Cuban guerillas in Africa and a doctors for oil program with Venezuela).

Is it surprising then, that the world still flocks to the US in search and hope of a better future, while 10% of Cuba’s population lives in exile, while an untold number continue to search for a way out of the island?

Hurricanes Shift Debate On Embargo Against Cuba

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 24, 2008; A01

LOS PALACIOS, Cuba -- A pair of devastating storms have prompted new calls for the United States to end its long isolation of Cuba, including from hard-line exile groups that are pushing for the Bush administration to loosen restrictions they had long favored.

For the first time in the 47-year history of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, Washington has offered direct aid to the island's Communist government, long dominated by Fidel Castro and his younger brother, Raúl, who is now nominally in charge. The offer marks a slight softening of the Bush administration's policy toward Cuba, motivated in part by a new generation of Cuban Americans who think a more open approach to the island during a time of political transition could help bring about a lasting change in government.

But even the most hawkish Cuban exile groups are pushing the Bush administration to go much further. Traditionally a voice for greater isolation of the Castro government, the Cuban exile lobby has asked Congress to lift the four-year-old rules that limit Cuban Americans to sending $300 every three months to immediate family on the island and to making just one trip to Cuba every three years. Some have even proposed a temporary suspension of the trade embargo, a cause taken up by a few members of Congress.

So far, though, the Cuban government has rejected the U.S. offer, preferring instead to rely on relief aid that arrives daily by the planeload from Russia and other more sympathetic countries. The Cuban government has mobilized the military to help in the reconstruction effort, including here in this hard-hit stretch of western Cuba, while legions of volunteers are picking coffee beans and other crops to salvage this year's harvest and working to repair damaged homes.

"I will not be surprised if we're looking at a major immigration crisis in the next few months," said Silvia Wilhelm, executive director of the Miami-based Cuban American Commission for Family Rights, an organization that promotes closer U.S.-Cuba relations, who visited the island after the hurricanes. "We're talking a situation that is very critical for the Cuban people."

The question of who should help the Cubans in times of need and to what degree has shaped Cuba's relationship with the United States for decades. The severe damage done by the storms appears now to be changing the debate. The hurricanes, which hit the island one after the other in just over a week, damaged an estimated 500,000 homes and ruined 30 percent of the nation's crops.

Four days after Gustav struck Cuba on Aug. 30, the U.S. government offered to send an assessment team to the island and $100,000 in emergency funding for humanitarian groups. The Cuban government has estimated that the damage from the two storms totals $5 billion, and it dismissed the offer as too paltry to be serious.

But on Sept. 13, six days after Hurricane Ike barreled into the island of 11.4 million people, the Bush administration raised its offer to $5 million, which U.S. officials called an unprecedented proposal of direct aid to the Cuban government. In the past, U.S. aid to the island has been channeled through nongovernmental relief organizations. The Bush administration has authorized an additional $8 million in private U.S. donations to be distributed in that way.

The Cuban government requested building materials instead of the blankets and "hygiene kits" the aid included, said José Cárdenas, the U.S. Agency for International Development's acting assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean.

"These people are in dire need," he said. "We certainly hope that they would just accept it and get this stuff to the people who need it."

In an attempt to fulfill the request for building materials, the U.S. government on Friday proposed sending 8,000 "shelter kits," which include zinc roof sheeting, lumber, tools and wire. Cárdenas said the value of the aid is $6.3 million. So far, the Cuban government has not responded.

But Fidel Castro, who because of illness handed over official power to Raúl in February but remains highly influential, has signaled that the Communist Party would reject the U.S. aid on principle.

"Our country cannot accept a donation from the government that blockades us," he wrote recently in Granma, the party's daily newspaper. "The damage of thousands of lives, suffering, and more than $200 billion that the blockade and the aggression of the Yankees has cost us -- they can't pay for that with anything."

Despite the offers, many Cuban exiles who favor more contact with the island have sharply criticized the Bush administration.

"A whole group that you could consider extreme right-wing a year ago is now in favor of two very important changes," said Alfredo Duran, a Miami lawyer and a member of the Cuban Committee for Democracy, a moderate exile group that favors dialogue with the Cuban government. Referring to proposals to lift restrictions on remittances and travel to Cuba and the fuller debate emerging among Cuban exiles about the embargo itself, Duran said: "A lot of people in the past would not even talk about it. They basically shunned the issue."

Last week, El Nuevo Herald, a traditionally hard-line Spanish-language newspaper in Miami, published an editorial supporting a proposal by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) to lift the restrictions on remittances and travel for six months. Even in "normal times," the editorial read, the measures were "highly unpopular."

"Now, they offend intelligence and sensibility," the paper said. "That absurd strategy does not benefit North America's best interests nor puts pressure for the return of freedom to Cuba."

The Cuban American National Foundation, historically the most powerful Cuban exile organization, still supports the embargo. But it is now actively campaigning to eliminate the travel and remittance restrictions, and recently sent a letter to President Bush urging him to waive them. The president of the foundation, Francisco Hernandez, said the Cuban government is taking advantage of the storms to win international political support while the Bush administration is "tying the hands of its friends, the Cuban American community."

"We all have, down here in Miami, a terrible sense of frustration at this administration at this time, because we are wasting the greatest opportunity for those who want freedom and democracy in Cuba to help and to be agents of change in Cuba," said Hernandez, who took part in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and described the current U.S. policy as an "even bigger mistake."

Meanwhile, Russia has sent planeloads of supplies to help storm victims; Brazil and Spain have also contributed. President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, a close Cuban ally, visited Havana this week and is expected to give a lucrative aid package.

Havana, the seaside capital, was largely spared the brunt of the storms. But many important industries suffered serious losses.

The winds flattened fields of sugar cane, the coffee harvest was hurt badly, and tobacco-curing sheds collapsed. Millions of acres of crops were damaged in the storms. The destruction left an estimated 200,000 people homeless and left others facing severe damage and long delays in the arrival of building supplies to repair what remains.

"Everything was destroyed -- look at this," said Linda Meléndez, the sun beating down into what was her living room before Hurricane Gustav tore the roof off her home here in this city of 40,000 people set among cultivated fields.

The Cuban government had classified her house as a partial loss, she said, preventing her family from receiving wood to build a temporary backyard hut.

"How long can we wait for materials?" she said.

On the way west out of Havana, metal electricity towers, one after the other, lay on the ground, their cables slumped between them. Houses had been shorn of their corrugated roofs.

Here in Los Palacios, every house appeared to have sustained at least some damage. But the rebuilding effort, in comparison to the chaos of neighboring Haiti, has been orderly.

Rubble and debris have been swept into piles along every street. Several residents said the government had assessed the damage and outlined the building materials they were supposed to receive. Many people were living with friends and neighbors, had moved into public buildings or were constructing small wooden shacks in their yards until the supplies arrived.

"I have never seen a storm like this; it was terrible," said Mario de Jesús Fuentes Campos, a 55-year-old retiree who lost his roof and the big mango tree in the back yard.

His family went 15 days without electricity. Prices of gasoline and cooking oil have risen. The stores have shortages of rice, he said, and there is hardly any meat at the butcher's.

"We have no money now," said his mother, Encarnación Campos, 81, who has a son living in Riverside, Calif. "It's unfair the Cubans can't send help to their relatives in Cuba. I don't agree with these rules."



© 2008 The Washington Post Company

U.S. offers $6.3M in construction materials to Cuba

Posted on Mon, Sep. 22, 2008
U.S. offers $6.3M in construction materials to Cuba
BY FRANCES ROBLES
After seeing the first three of its aid packages for Cuban storm victims rejected, the U.S. government on Friday told Havana it could provide $6.3 million in light construction materials to benefit hurricane victims, U.S. officials said.
The Cuban government has yet to respond to the latest offer made by the U.S. State Department, U.S. officials said Sunday night.

On Friday, the U.S. State Department delivered the latest offer of $6.3 million in corrugated zinc roofs, nails, tools, lumber, sheeting and light shelter kits to benefit some 48,000 people.

''What we tried to do was base our next offer on what they said they needed: construction materials,'' said U.S. Agency for International Development's Jose Cardenas, acting assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean. ``We did not want to be in a position like we were standing idle while seeing these destruction reports from the island. We are still trying to proceed as a disaster relief agency, as if this were the Dominican Republic or Jamaica.''

The latest proposal comes on the heels of a diplomatic clash between Havana and Washington over two devastating storms that hit the island in as many weeks. When Hurricane Gustav slammed into western Cuba on Aug. 30, the U.S. government offered $100,000 in aid and a disaster assessment team, a standard initial response to natural disasters.

Cuba turned it down, saying an assessment team was an unnecessary pretext. When Ike hit the east and west coasts of Cuba, destroying thousands of buildings in its path, Washington came back with the identical aid package. Cuba blasted it and asked for a temporary reprieve from the U.S. embargo instead.

Washington came under heavy criticism for playing politics during a time of need and was widely condemned for insisting on the assessment team and making such a paltry initial offer.

The U.S. Agency for International Development went back a third time, lifting the conditions and increasing the aid to $5 million in goods and cash.

''It's obvious that such a powerful government cannot comprehend that a nation's dignity has no price,'' retired president Fidel Castro wrote in a column published last week. ``If instead of $5 million it were billions, they would find the same response.''

The Cuban government's official response said what the nation really needed was credits to purchase construction materials. The U.S. embargo prohibits American companies from selling such materials to Cuba on credit. Current law allows food and lumber sales paid upfront in cash.

Castro criticized Washington for making public statements that suggested Washington had allowed more cash sales since the two storms, when in fact the amount of sales has remained the same.

''In the three weeks since Hurricane Gustav hit western Cuba, concern for the well-being of the Cuban people has been growing and getting aid to them is our top priority,'' U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said in a statement. ``Reports from news agencies and relief organizations that have visited the island indicate that as many as 2.5 million Cubans remain without homes. We understand the difficulties caused by such devastating storms, and we want to give the people of Cuba the materials needed to begin to recover.

``We hope the Cuban government will consider our genuine offers of assistance and that the best interests of the Cuban people will come before political differences.''

Cardenas said $1.7 million of Washington's aid is already making its way to Cuba through nongovernmental organizations. Should Cuba reject this latest offer, some of the materials could be donated to aid groups as well, he said.

''I don't suspect this will go on much longer,'' Cardenas said. ``We'll have to donate cash and commodities to different organizations. I don't think we will go back to the well if they reject this offer.''

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© 2008 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com

Bill Proposed in Congress to Facilitate the Provision of Humanitarian Relief to Cuba

110TH CONGRESS

2D SESSION H. R. 6292

To facilitate the provision of humanitarian relief to Cuba.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Mr. DELAHUNT introduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee

A BILL
To facilitate the provision of humanitarian relief to Cuba.
1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; FINDINGS.
4 (a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the
5 ‘‘Humanitarian Relief to Cuba Act’’.
6 (b) FINDINGS.—Congress makes the following find7
ings:
8 (1) Hurricane Gustav, which struck Cuba on
9 September 1, 2008, was the worst hurricane to hit
10 the island of Cuba in over 50 years. The Category


1 Four storm displaced over 400,000 Cubans and
2 damaged or destroyed 130,000 homes and caused
3 severe damage to infrastructure.
4 (2) Hurricane Ike, which made landfall on
5 Cuba on September 7, 2008, forced the evacuation
6 of over 2,500,000 Cubans, damaged an additional
7 100,000 structures, and damaged local infrastruc8
ture.
9 (3) The number of Cubans left homeless is ex10
pected to reach 100,000, and the total economic
11 losses of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike are expected to
12 reach upwards of $10,000,000,000, with serious
13 damage done to the island’s agricultural industry.
14 (4) In the wake of past natural disasters, the
15 United States eased restrictions to mobilize the gen16
erous spirit of many thousands of Americans by al17
lowing humanitarian aid originating from the United
18 States to be transported directly to Cuba to the ben19
efit of the Cuban people.
20 (5) Allowing the people of the United States to
21 assist the Cuban people in reclaiming their lives and
22 livelihoods following a major natural disaster just 90
23 miles from the United States is an important aspect
24 of United States national security and defense pol25
icy.
1 SEC. 2. EASING OF RESTRICTIONS ON TRAVEL TO CUBA
2 FOR A PERIOD OF 180 DAYS.
3 (a) IN GENERAL.—
4 (1) FREEDOM OF TRAVEL FOR UNITED STATES
5 CITIZENS AND CERTAIN OTHER PERSONS TO VISIT
6 FAMILY MEMBERS IN CUBA.—For the 180-day pe7
riod beginning on the date of the enactment of this
8 Act, the President may not prohibit or regulate, di9
rectly or indirectly—
10 (A) travel to or from Cuba by United
11 States citizens or any person subject to the ju12
risdiction of the United States with family cur13
rently residing in Cuba; or
14 (B) any of the transactions incident to
15 such travel that are described in paragraph (2).
16 (2) TRANSACTIONS INCIDENT TO TRAVEL.—
17 The transactions referred to in paragraph (1) are—
18 (A) any transaction ordinarily incidental to
19 travel to or from Cuba, including the importa20
tion into Cuba or the United States of accom21
panied baggage for personal or family use only;
22 (B) any transaction ordinarily incident to
23 travel to or maintenance within Cuba, including
24 the payment of living expenses and the acquisi25
tion of goods or services for personal and family
26 use only; and


1 (C) any transaction ordinarily incident to
2 the arrangement, promotion, or facilitation of
3 scheduled and nonscheduled travel to, from, or
4 within Cuba, including lodging and meals in an
5 amount not to exceed the per diem amount au6
thorized under chapter 57 of title 5, United
7 States Code.
8 (b) SUPERSEDES OTHER PROVISIONS.—This section
9 supersedes any other provision of law, including section
10 102(h) of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity
11 (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996 (22 U.S.C. 6032(h)).
12 (c) EFFECTIVE DATE.—This section applies to ac13
tions taken by the President before the date of the enact14
ment of this Act that are in effect on such date and to
15 actions taken on or after such date during the 180-day
16 period beginning on such date of enactment .
17 SEC. 3. EASING RESTRICTIONS ON REMITTANCES FOR A
18 PERIOD OF 180 DAYS.
19 (a) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in subsection
20 (b), for the 180-day period beginning on the date of the
21 enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury may
22 not limit the amount of remittances to Cuba that may be
23 made by any person who is subject to the jurisdiction of
24 the United States, and the Secretary shall rescind, for
25 such 180-day period, all regulations in effect on the date


1 of enactment of this Act that so limit the amount of those
2 remittances.
3 (b) STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in sub4
section (a) may be construed to prohibit the prosecution
5 or conviction of any person committing an offense de6
scribed in section 1956 of title 18, United States Code
7 (relating to the laundering of monetary instruments) or
8 section 1957 of such title (relating to engaging in mone9
tary transactions in property derived from specific unlaw10
ful activity).
11 SEC. 4. EASING RESTRICTIONS ON GIFT OR RELIEF PACK12
AGES FOR 180 DAYS.
13 (a) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in subsection
14 (d), for the 180-day period beginning on the date of the
15 enactment of this Act, the President may not limit the
16 size, quantity or frequency, or the carrying, transporting
17 or shipping of personal gift items and relief supplies (not
18 for sale or resale) that are eligible to be shipped through
19 existing or new mechanisms established expressly for the
20 delivery of such packages. Such items and supplies may
21 be sent to Cuba by any person who is subject to the juris22
diction of the United States and the President shall re23
scind, for such 180-day period, all regulations in effect
24 on the date of the enactment of this Act that so limit such
25 items.

6
1 (b) PERSONAL GIFT ITEMS.—For purposes of this
2 section, the term ‘‘personal gift items’’ includes goods in3
tended to improve the daily life of the Cuban people, in4
cluding clothing, medication, foodstuffs, personal hygiene
5 items, and other daily necessities.
6 (c) RELIEF SUPPLIES.—For the purposes of this sec7
tion, the term ‘‘relief supplies’’ means any item intended
8 to provide temporary or permanent comfort or shelter to
9 hurricane victims in Cuba, or intended to facilitate repairs
10 to personal dwellings in Cuba damaged during the 2008
11 hurricane season.
12 (d) STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in sub13
section (a) may be construed to prohibit the prosecution
14 or conviction of any person committing an offense de15
scribed in section 1956 of title 18, United States Code
16 (relating to the laundering of monetary instruments) or
17 section 1957 of such title (relating to engaging in mone18
tary transactions in property derived from specific unlaw19
ful activity).

Exodo Cubano Festival at Tropical Park

Date: Sunday, September 21st, 2008
Time: Noon-6:00PM
Location: Tropical park - 790 SW 40 ST, Miami, FL
Entrance: $5 per Person, Children Under 12 Years of Age are Free
For Ticket Information Call: 305-592-7768

CANF PRESIDENT FRANCISCO PEPE HERNÁNDEZ TO TESTIFY BEFORE CONGRESS

CANF PRESIDENT FRANCISCO PEPE HERNÁNDEZ

TO TESTIFY BEFORE CONGRESS TOMORROW ON

CUBAN AMERICAN TRAVEL AND REMITTANCE RESTRICTIONS


On Thursday, September 18, the Cuban American National Foundation’s President, Francisco “Pepe” Hernandez, will testify before the House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs regarding US government restrictions on Cuban exile travel and remittances to Cuba. Mr. Hernández will speak on CANF’s efforts to send direct aid to families in Cuba, following the recent hurricanes that have ravaged the island nation.

The day after Hurricane Gustav passed through Cuba, CANF called publicly for a temporary suspension of the US government’s restrictions on Cuban American travel and remittances. This position was reinforced by the subsequent destruction brought on by Hurricane Ike.

Taking concrete action to alleviate the suffering on the island, on September 11, CANF obtained a special OFAC license permitting direct remittances to families in Cuba as part of its hurricane relief efforts and opened its doors to the Cuban American community. By Friday afternoon, September 12, after only two days, the $250,000 license limit had been exhausted. On Monday, September 15, CANF requested another $250,000 extension of this license and is presently awaiting a decision from OFAC.

In 2004, the Bush Administration established new regulations which further restricted the ability of Cuban Americans to travel to the island and send remittances to their families. CANF has opposed these restrictions and consistently argued for their elimination, based on the premise that Cuban exiles are the best agents of democratic change inside Cuba and that these restrictions place unnecessary hardships on families in need inside Cuba.

The hearing will be held before the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight at 10am in Room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC and is open to the public. For more information regarding the hearing, please contact the House Foreign Affairs Committee at 202-225-5021.

Moscow is ready to help Cuba develop its own space center

Wed Sep 17, 2008 5:50am EDT

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow is ready to help Cuba develop its own space center, Russia's space agency chief said on Wednesday after talks in Caracas with Venezuelan and Cuban officials, Itar-Tass news agency reported.

Russia has stepped up efforts to develop closer links with both countries, which are ideological enemies of Washington, including sending Russian strategic bombers on a mission to Venezuela this month.

"We have held preliminary discussions about the possibility of creating a space centre in Cuba with our help," the chief of Russia's Federal Space Agency Anatoly Perminov was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass in Caracas.

"With our Cuban colleagues, we discussed the possibilities of joint use of space equipment ... and the joint use of space communications systems," Perminov was quoted as saying.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin visited Cuba this week and together with representatives from several Russian ministries and large Russian companies looked at ways to help Cuba recover from hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

Renewed Russian links to the Caribbean island will stir memories in Washington of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when the United States and Soviet Union almost went to war over Soviet missile bases on Cuba, which is 90 miles from U.S. shores.

Russian officials have said they want to renew Cuban ties that were neglected after the Soviet Union's collapse.

(Reporting by Conor Sweeney; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Cuba to U.S.: Lift embargo rules for six months

Miami Herald Article:


Posted on Mon, Sep. 15, 2008
Cuba to U.S.: Lift embargo rules for six months
BY FRANCES ROBLES
The Cuban government asked Washington for a six-month reprieve on embargo rules that prohibit the communist country from making purchases from American companies, saying devastation from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike make it critical.
Washington and Havana have been in embroiled in a diplomatic dispute over hurricane aid since Hurricane Gustav smashed into western Cuba on Aug. 30. Washington offered $100,000 and a humanitarian assessment team, and the Cuban Foreign Ministry answered by saying what it needed was purchasing credits.

Havana sent a second, more harshly worded note last week when Washington made the same offer after Hurricane Ike devastated eastern Cuba. The statement released Thursday called U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutiérrez a hypocrite, and said U.S. diplomats were cynical liars.

But Sunday's diplomatic note published Monday takes a much softer tone.

''The Cuban Interests Section in Washington wishes to communicate to the government of the United States that our country cannot accept a donation from the country that blockades us, although it is willing to purchase the indispensable materials that the North American companies export to the markets, and requests authorization for the provision of same, as well as the credits that are normal in all commercial operations,'' the statement said.

``If the government of the United States does not wish to do so permanently, the government of Cuba requests that at least it do so during the next six months, especially if the damage caused by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike is taken into account, as well as the fact that the most dangerous months of the hurricane season are still ahead.''

There was no immediate response from Washington.

Last week Gutiérrez said the Cuban government is behind on payments to many of its creditors, and suggested that the request for credits was a pretext.

''Do they really want us to extend their credits?'' he said.

Judge strikes down Cuba travel ban for professors

Link to Herald Article

I'm curious to to hear everyone's opinion on where the line should be drawn as to who can and cannot travel to Cuba.

Pictures Are Worth Thousands of Words....

Before the trial...

After the trial...

Look at that smile! After 5 days in custody, one concert in protest (which the police interrupted with beatings and arrests) and a massive international call for his release, Gorki is free! He was fined 600 pesos cubanos and his charge was changed from "pre-delinquent dangerousness" to "disobedience".

The sad thing is that while normally I would be jumping with happiness about this victory, I can't help but wonder with sadness at what's next. Although i'm glad they let him go, he still isn't "free" per say. He won't be locked in a cell for now but he still lives imprisoned by restrictions on his most basic human rights. He will be imprisoned for something that most of us take for granted without realizing that an entire country 90-miles off our shores is suffering.

The Cuban regime has violated, currently violates and will continue to violate every single article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (I'll get into that at a later date because it's something that I have a huge problem with and all the violations they commit deserve their own post in itself.) Hopefully, the international attention from organizations, groups and media that has surrounded this story will scare off the regime from doing anything to them for now. Pero si no son ellos, son otros...

This won't be the last time we'll hear from Gorki or Porno Para Ricardo. They're the kind of guys that will stand for their beliefs no matter the cost, and for that they deserve our respect.

Gorki Arrested

Naturally, independent artistry in Cuba is only rewarded with persecutions, search orders and arrests by the regime's police. Gorki Aguila, lead singer and guitarist of the punk-rock group "Porno para Ricardo" was arrested on Monday while recording songs from their new album. With lyrics such as "Raul, Raul, a ti no hay nadie que te aguante" and my personal favorite, "pues yo me abstengo y me abstengo, de seguir en su juego de mentira y de miedo, y siempre yo, Yo! Yo! Yo! por encima de todos ellos!" it is no surprise that they have caught the attention of the repressive regime.

There's already international attention about this arrest and even a Facebook group called "Free Gorki". Their sound is catchy, their lyrics are powerful. They attract students and adults alike. Everytime I listen to them, I sit in awe. I'm consumed by their powerful lyrics which screams "We want change!". These guys are obviously not afraid to stand up for their rights and should be supported by all of us. They are indeed rebels WITH a cause.

Below is the CNN article about the arrest.

_________________________________________________________________

Cuba arrests dissident rocker, band says

Morgan Neill, CNN

Musician Gorki Aguila has been accused of "dangerousness," his band mates say- Aguila, 39, is an outspoken critic of Cuba's government- Police reportedly say Aguila faces sentence of one to four years in jail- Aguila's punk rock band, Porno para Ricardo, recording album at time of arrestHAVANA, Cuba (Morgan Neill, CNN) -- Cuban police have arrested dissident musician Gorki Aguila on a charge of "dangerousness," fellow band members said Tuesday.
Hebert Dominguez, the bass player in Aguila's punk rock band, Porno para Ricardo, said police detained Aguila at his home at 10 a.m. Monday.
Aguila, the lead singer, was arrested as he was about to record the final songs of the band's next record, according to a statement on the band's Web site.
"This new episode of harassment and persecution is occurring just as Porno para Ricardo is in the middle of recording its new record, which eliminates any possibility that this repressive escalation could be described as a 'coincidence,' " the statement said. "In Cuba, the voice of the brave is silenced by the regime, which doesn't hesitate to use intimidation and force."
An official at the state-run press office said Cuba had no comment on the arrest.
Aguila, 39, is an outspoken critic of Cuba's government. " Communism is a failure," he said in a 2007 interview with CNN. "A total failure. Please. Leftists of the world -- improve your capitalism."
Dominguez said authorities said Aguila's trial will take place Thursday. Police told the group's guitarist, Ciro Diaz, that Aguila faced a possible sentence of one to four years in jail.
The statement on the band's Web site said Aguila wasn't feeling well -- that he had inflammation in his lungs and was short of breath.

Cuba uses the charge of "dangerousness" to prosecute those whom authorities believe are likely to commit crimes. Under Cuba's penal code, habitual drunkenness and anti-social behavior are signs of a "state of dangerousness."
In its early years, Porno para Ricardo was featured on Cuban television, but as Aguila's lyrics grew bolder, the group was banned from playing in public. With the help of a friend outside the country, the band put its songs on the Internet. Its CDs are distributed only by hand in Cuba.
In 2003, Aguila was jailed on drug charges in what he said was an attempt to silence him. He said a woman working for police posed as a fan and baited him into giving her amphetamines.
He admitted to CNN that he gave her two pills, but he called it entrapment.
Following his time in jail, Aguila's lyrics grew more political. In one song, he sings, "I've lost my fear, I've already been a prisoner I've only got a few bones left, from up here the tyrant is watching you, you're playing his game so that he'll oppress us."

Take a look at the music video for their song "El General se hizo Comandante".

Cuba's economic problems worsen

Short article on how Cuba is having difficulty making payments on its debt. You have to wonder how long Cuba is willing to continue hurting its citizens for the sake of a failed ideology and the well being of those on top of the socio-economic pyramid (i.e., the communist party).

----------------------------------------------

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/20080820TDY08302.htm

Cuba defaults on debts owed to Japanese firms
The Yomiuri Shimbun
The National Bank of Cuba told Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI) on Aug. 11 that the bank would not be able to pay for imports into Cuba in due terms as the country is short of funds, the independent administrative institution said Monday.
Observers say more of Cuba's debts may become uncollectible in the near future as it has been seriously affected by soaring oil and food prices.
Though the extent to which Cuba is short of settlement funds is unclear as it is not a member of the International Monetary Fund, observers say the influence of the country's financial situation on the global economy will be limited as its economy has been cut off from international financing.
Meiwa Corp., a midsize trading house, said Monday that 872 million yen worth of its accounts receivable for medical instruments and other items may be uncollectible.
The company said it would not be seriously affected by the situation as 97.5 percent of the bad debts are covered by NEXI.
Exports from Japan to Cuba, mainly comprising medical and other precision instruments, were worth about 20.9 billion yen in 2007. Most of this amount was insured.
NEXI said it had already covered losses several companies have incurred on their exports to Cuba, but has not made the details public.
NEXI was established in 2001 to provide foreign trade and investment insurance services.
(Aug. 20, 2008)

Cuba's Athletic Potential

As I sat in Miami International Airport's Customs gate waiting area awaiting the arrival of a beloved family member who I hadn’t seen in almost two decades I had plenty of time to think. For 5 hours I stared at entire families pressing their faces against the glass security divider hoping for a glimpse of their loved ones. After hours of waiting, one by one that glimpse would come, followed by tears, screams, and a mad dash for the opening at the exit of the gate and a happy hug and tear-filled reunion.

As I witnessed family reunion after reunion my initial emotion was of sadness for all of the families that have been torn apart by the Castro regimes stubborn policies and lack of compassion for the Cuban people. But when I would see a young Cuban walk through the gate I couldn’t help but smile. There stood one of my countrymen whose potential would no longer be limited by an oppressive government. He or she now stood on U.S. soil and their futures and their prospects would now more than ever be a result of their talents, determination and diligence.

The Cuban system shackles its people’s potential in an effort to control and manage the populace. Nowhere is this more evident than in its athletes. World class baseball players, boxers, volleyball players and track & field athletes are one of the islands greatest resources. In reasonable countries such talent is developed, nurtured and set free to reach its highest potential. Often leading to riches and fame for the athlete, and just as often and in the true spirit of capitalism, resulting in that athlete giving back both through charity, re-investment and by serving as a role model and inspiration to his/her people. Heck, even China released Yao Ming to reach his full potential by allowing him to come to the NBA and play against the greatest competition his sport has to offer.

Yes, Yao has become monstrously rich and famous. But, in doing so he has aided his country in ways he otherwise couldn’t of. He’s given back financially. He’s served as a great inspiration to his people, evidence by his prominence in the recent Olympic Opening Ceremonies. And when his country was devastated by disaster his fame, money and love for his countrymen lead the efforts in raising aid from all around the world to assist.

Cuba, in contrast shackles its athletes. It’s become more and more evident especially in this years Olympics. The Cuban teams have been depleted by defections and more athletes where not allowed to compete for fear of the same:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/olympics/2008/writers/sl_price/08/14/us.cuba/index.html

It’s a microcosm of what the Cuban Government does to its entire people. For it’s not just those with the potential for world class fame and riches that try to escape and realize those dreams. Those are Cuban mechanics, gardeners and teachers who walk up to the beaches of Cuba and dive into the perilous waters of the Caribbean and Florida Straits in search of a land that will allow them to realize their potential. Those are Cuban carpenters, nurses and students who walk through the security gate at Miami International Airport to hug the families they’ve been torn apart from, in many cases for decades.

I long for the days when the shackles are removed from the Cuban people so that the world can be witness to their true, unrealized potential. The day when the traffic in the Florida Straits is reversed and instead of rafters risking their lives to come north, the exiled sons and daughters of Cuba are headed south. To re-invest, to donate, and to serve as capitalist role models during Cuba’s resurgence.