A Grammy for Omara

Omara Portuondo got a visa to come to the United States and present at the Latin Grammy awards last night, and it’s a good thing – she won in the “Best Traditional Tropical Album” for her album Gracias, which is about the only word she mustered in her acceptance speech.

Herald story here, list of awards here.

Odds and ends

• Mercifully, this has been the hurricane season that wasn’t…this storm, now southwest of Cuba, could graze the island’s western tip but would first have to take a more easterly course.

• EFE reports that the Spanish business community is pressing Cuban officials to pay their debts: “According to Spanish sources, apart from Cuba’s 2-billion-Euro official debt to Spain, with 700 million in arrears and various payment commitments not honored by Havana, there are 600 million in arrears to [Spanish] commercial enterprises that provide products to the island. These figures do not include the freezing of the accounts of Spanish businesses with investments in Cuba, nor the commitments to joint ventures.”

• An interview of Juanita Castro by Daniel Viotto on CNN Spanish.

• Herald: President Obama may get his State Department Latin America chief confirmed after all.

Granma: No price controls in agros, for now

Last week I noted an AP article about a farmers market in Havana where word came down from Communist Party officials that price controls would be imposed November 1, and trouble ensued as consumers and vendors feared that supply might dry up.

According to the AP report, the price controls have been postponed until January.

Granma, the party’s official newspaper, has responded with an article that doesn’t exactly clear up the situation.

Much of the article deals with markets where the state, not private vendors, is in charge, and there is a problem of uneven supply. An official is cited saying that the “first steps” toward a solution have been taken by improving the “logistics chain.”

Regarding the non-state agros, these are the key points:

• The article notes that at these markets, where farmers and cooperatives sell their surplus at uncontrolled prices, products are sold for the same price throughout each market, as if vendors have all agreed on them. Prices do differ from market to market, seemingly based on neighborhood income. Both these observations square with what I have seen over the years.

• It quotes consumers saying that “extreme” measures could result in supplies drying up, and states the open-ended question whether the state should intervene in some unspecified way “to regulate supply.”

• It says that the November 1 measures include documenting the origin of the products that each vendor sells. (The regulations have long required that the vendors either be the farmer or a designated representative of the farmer or cooperative. Compliance with this requirement has been scant; in practice, vendors gather before dawn as trucks come into town, buy from the trucker/wholesalers, then get to work.)

• The article doesn’t say what else is included in the November 1 measures.

• The reporters went to the market in Havana’s Playa neighborhood where the disturbance took place and found that only five vendors had proper documentation. They attributed the “traumatic experiences” at the market to inadequate explanation of regulatory changes.

So will price controls be imposed?

The article doesn’t say. It quotes one official saying that “there will always be spaces for free competition” in these markets where producers sell their surplus after meeting the quota they owe to the state, and where they sell particular products “that cannot or should not follow the logic of state distribution.” The administrator of the Playa market says, “‘Intermediary’ is not the synonym of ‘thief’ or ‘speculator.’” Another official says that if the state ensures that regulations are followed, “there is no reason to arrive at extreme situations.”

Add it all up, and it sounds like a signal that the state is acknowledging the risks involved in imposing price controls, but is keeping the option open. And it sounds like transporters and vendors have a little more paperwork in their future.

A report I did in 2000 on the farmers markets is here (pdf).

House travel hearing announced

Rep. Howard Berman, House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, announces a November 18 hearing with the topic: “Is it Time to Lift the Ban on Travel to Cuba?”

In the Vatican

Now that Cuba has named a new ambassador to the Vatican (Eduardo Delgado Bermudez) and President Obama named Cuban American Miguel Diaz to the same post, Rui Ferreira muses:

“I wonder what gambit Benedict XVI would be promoting and whether the two cubanitos will ever walk together in the labyrinthine corridors of the Basilica, where no one sees them. In diplomacy, the Church has two thousand years of experience and a lot of patience. And the Holy See is a discreet place to have a cafecito without much trouble.”

Odds and ends

• Reuters: A Russian state oil company buys rights to explore in four blocs in Cuba, two offshore two on land.

• TIME magazine on changes in the Cuban American community and their impact on the debate on travel legislation.

• Penultimos Dias links to an archeology article with photos of what remains of Soviet missile sites in Cuba.

Spain tries engagement with results

It’s wrong to say that the United States has not tried engagement with Cuba, even under hard-line policies.

President Bush offered scholarships to Cuban students and credits to Cuban entrepreneurs – but the scholarships were part of his policy to bring a “transition” to Cuba and were offered only to children of dissidents and political prisoners, and the credits to entrepreneurs were conditioned on Cuba first making a series of deep political reforms. One can like or dislike President Bush’s regime change objective or his use of conditionality, but the result was that the proposals delivered lots of moral satisfaction and no results. In some cases the results were negative, such as when the Archdiocese of Havana backed out of a program where American students taught English in one of its civic centers because the program began taking funding from USAID.

Spain is trying something different, and seems to be on the verge of delivering real help to Cuba’s private farmers.

The news is contained in this IPS report on the latest iteration of longstanding UN programs that have addressed food security, mainly in eastern Cuba.

Spain is the main donor behind a $7 million initiative that will provide credits and material aid under UN auspices to private farmers in five provinces. The initiative is framed as supporting the Cuban government policy of “decentralizing” farm production, most notably through more than 80,000 land grants to individuals and small cooperatives.

There is a crying need for credits for Cuban farmers, acknowledged in Cuban media last March. Spain and other donors to this UN program are thus addressing a critical weakness in this sector, and if the program succeeds it will result in higher incomes for private farmers, higher food production, and perhaps lower prices at farmers markets.

Let’s hope the program does succeed, and let’s hope governments on both sides of the pond study the example.

U.S. farm exports to Cuba down

Cuba’s purchases of U.S.agricultural products are down about 32 percent this year, a time when Cuba’s overall trade volume was down 36 percent (AP, Reuters). These figures were discussed at a Havana trade fair where, La Jornada reports, a Cuban minister made the first tacit admission that it had frozen the Cuban bank accounts of foreign businesses; the minister also said Cuba took the measure temporarily and will meet its obligations. The head of Cuba’s food purchasing company told AP that changes in U.S. policy are likely to generate increased volume of purchases from the United States, a topic I discussed in this article.

Odds and ends

• Ted Henken on the Internet, public debate in Cuba, and the spat between Rafael Hernandez and Yoani Sanchez.

• Hollywood’s The Wrap reports that Sean Penn’s trip to Cuba was less than billed.

• The Cuban magazine La Jiribilla panned Juanita Castro’s book, big time – “in bad taste and of low morality” – but the review seems to have disappeared from the magazine’s site. But Penultimos Dias links to a copy still in the Google cache. EFE story in English here.

McJobs...

...in McTanamo, hiring now.

New blog on the block

Good news: Ted Henken, a professor at the City University of New York’s Baruch College and author of this reference work on Cuba, has started a blog, El Yuma. We’ll see what he writes about – his interests include music, culture, and Cuban migration to the United States, and no one is better at giving a street-level view of the workings of the Cuban economy. Plus, he’s a friend. Go read him.

Irrepressible Yoani

Belonging to no organization and receiving no U.S. government funds, blogger Yoani Sanchez has created a platform of her own that she uses to question government authority, quite directly.

Two weeks ago, Yoani posted a video of her argument with an immigration officer when her request for permission to travel abroad was denied.

Now at Huffington Post, she explains how she disguised herself with a blond wig to gain entry to a conference on the Internet in Cuba organized by the magazine Temas. Attendees were screened, and some were blocked at the door. A short video with excerpts of the conference is included, including her intervention, which was not interrupted and was received with applause.

The magazine’s editor, Rafael Hernandez, criticized Internet commentary on Cuba in a recent visit to the United States. Her response to Hernandez was that if he views independent Cuban blogs as trashy, then let’s have more of them.

Odds and ends

• “I don’t think, of course, that it was the intention of the United States,” Fidel Castro wrote Saturday, but he says more visitors from the United States has meant more swine flu in Cuba. AP story here.

• Mambi Watch on Juanita Castro’s history in exile. And this blog says she and Miguel Saavedra of Vigilia Mambisa ran into each other at a Miami supermarket and exchanged a few choice words.

• At Cuban Colada, the Herald’s Jordan Levin reports that Omara Portuondo, the Cuban singer made famous here when she performed with Buena Vista Social Club, will be a presenter at Thursday’s Latin Grammy awards program, broadcast on Univision.

• Reuters: Revolico.com, the Cuban Craigslist, has been blocked in Cuba.

The UN vote

A few notes after reading some of the documents and clippings about the UN vote:

• This annual event is really a demonstration of Havana’s relentlessness when it comes to multilateral diplomacy. The U.S. embargo is a very important theme in its political messaging at home and abroad, and the debate on this resolution raises the issue to a high profile every fall. It forces a discussion in the UN, it forces the U.S. government to address the issue, and the whole event resonates in Cuba, so that Cubans see that virtually the whole world votes “yes” on a resolution that their government proposes. And beyond the vote there’s the resolution’s feature of an annual report (pdf), which results in an annual compilation of governments’ and international agencies’ views on the embargo and its impact.

• Only Israel and Palau voted with the United States. I have never heard anyone ask an Israeli official for an explanation, but Israel’s vote has always seemed tongue-in-cheek to me – “We’ll vote with the Americans, and we’ll keep on investing in Cuba.”

• If you’re wondering about the Palau, Australian radio put the question to Sandra S. Pierantozzi, the Republic of Palau’s Minister of State in this interview. The minister refused to tie the vote to Palau’s request for $225 million in U.S. aid over the next 15 years, but she indicated that the U.S. offer of $156 million is “not acceptable for our people.”

• The two new votes in favor of the resolution are El Salvador (the new FMLN government) and Iraq.

• Who lost the Marshall Islands? Blame it on the Bush Administration; that country last voted with the United States in 2007 and now abstains.

• Amnesty International renewed its call for the United States to end the embargo.

• Speaking of forcing the issue, the statements of the State Department spokesman and Ambassador Rice are interesting. The Cuban use of the term “genocide” is way out of bounds and deserved rebuke. And the Obama Administration is right to tout its diplomatic contacts with Cuba and its liberalization of some Cuba regulations. But the shots at “Cold War” rhetoric are kind of funny in defense of a Kennedy Administration policy. Ambassador Rice talked about policies based on humanitarian concern for the Cuban people, holding up U.S. agricultural sales and private humanitarian aid as emblems of our virtue. Let’s hope the Administration, with that concern in mind – not to mention its aversion to Cold War relics – further defines its policies on the kinds of trade that should be permitted and the degree of contact that should be allowed between our societies. Finally, the Administration completely let pass the Cuban contention that the U.S. embargo goes beyond bilateral economic relations and effectively disrupts other countries’ commerce with Cuba.
  

Odds and ends

• Bloomberg: The Treasury Department agrees that its policy that blocks Microsoft and Google instant messaging software in Cuba and other countries is dumb, and is convening meetings with other federal agencies to figure out how to undo it. Kudos to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (!) for answering a letter from the public, in this case from the Center for Democracy in the Americas.

• Miami’s New Times on Robert Kelly, an international man of mystery who says he was recruited by Cuba, then duped the Cubans by working for the FBI. A little craftier than Colonel Simmons, he explains that his complete inability to speak Spanish is actually an asset that helped him fool the Cuban intelligence service.

• A Boston University forum on Cuba next week featuring Senator Kerry, Congressman Delahunt, and other luminaries.

• As part of Cuba’s sector-by-sector media campaign in advance of the UN vote, the sports institute claims that Cuba has not been able to receive prize money owed to Cuba for its performance in the World Baseball Classic, AFP reports.

Vigilia Mambisa rides again

Rather than engage in a book burning, Vigilia Mambisa’s Miguel Saavedra got himself what appears to be a nice cordless paper shredder to do justice to Juanita Castro’s new book. The performance art protest was double-barreled, taking place in front of Miami’s Spanish consulate to protest Spain’s diplomacy with Cuba.

The book, he says, is full of “lies that make fun of the Cuban community” in exile, he told EFE.

Speaking of Juanita Castro, Rui Ferreira reports in El Mundo that in 1969 she urged the U.S.government to arrest Cuban exiles before they could embark on an armed expedition to Cuba so they would not “throw away their lives in a useless, romantic gesture.” The report is based on a declassified State Department memo that Rui posts here.

(Photo from Cuaderno de Cuba.)

Odds and ends

• A Cuban cancer drug is undergoing clinical trials in the United States, EFE reports (English here, Spanish here). Earlier story from McClatchy here.

• Granma publishes a list of UN General Assembly votes on the embargo resolutions.

• Broward County commissioners vote to seek U.S. government approval for Cuba flights from Fort Lauderdale airport.

• Boston Globe: Hemingway papers from Cuba are now available at the JFK presidential library in Boston. Penultimos Dias links to the library’s inventory of the papers.

Price controls at agros?

AP reports that price controls may be instituted at farmers markets, citing producers, vendors, and consumers who were told by the Communist Party – not the ministry in charge – that the new policy would take effect November 1.

Now it’s apparently postponed until January 1 due to strong adverse reaction, including from consumers who seem to understand that price controls would threaten supply.

The government would do better to put this policy in the category of those that are studied forever and don’t see the light of day.

When less would have been more

An exchange at yesterday’s State Department press briefing between reporters and spokesman Ian Kelly:

QUESTION: Speaking of the UN, the General Assembly had its annual vote today on the Cuba embargo. You got two people to join you, two countries. Can you remind – (a) remind of what those two countries are, and (b) tell us what you think of the vote?

MR. KELLY: I think one was Palau, Matt. Who was the other one?

QUESTION: I don’t know. I think it – it’s usually, generally, the Solomon Islands.

QUESTION: I thought it was Micronesia.

QUESTION: Or Micronesia.

QUESTION: Or was that about Israel?

MR. KELLY: All right. Well, let me give you the guidance on this. The United States believes it has the sovereign right to conduct economic – its economic relationship with Cuba as determined by U.S. national interests. Sanctions on Cuba are designed to permit humanitarian items to reach the Cuban people, while denying the Cuban Government resources that it could use to repress its citizens. This yearly exercise at the UN obscures the fact that the United States is a leading source of food and humanitarian relief to Cuba. In 2008, the United States exported $717 million in agricultural products, medical devices, medicine, wood, and humanitarian items to Cuba.

QUESTION: Sorry. Wood?

MR. KELLY: Wood.

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. KELLY: Sanctions is one part of the United States policy approach to Cuba. In recent months, as you know, we’ve reached out to the Cuban people. We’ve taken steps to promote the free flow of information, we’ve lifted restrictions on family visits, and we’ve expanded the kinds and amounts of humanitarian items that the American people can donate to Cuba. We’ve also taken steps to establish a more constructive dialogue with Cuba. We’ve reestablished dialogues on migration, and we’ve initiated talks to reestablish direct mail service. We remain focused on the need for improved human rights conditions and respect for fundamental freedoms in Cuba, and we would need to see improvements in those areas before we could normalize relations with Havana.

QUESTION: But, I mean, you have no opinion on the fact that the rest of the world thinks that this is a bad way to go?

MR. KELLY: Well --

QUESTION: That the whole world – I mean, Palau notwithstanding – excuse me.

MR. KELLY: This – it seems to me to be an annual exercise that --

QUESTION: It’s an annual exercise to tell you that the rest of the world thinks --

MR. KELLY: -- seems to be – kind of has inertia from the Cold War. The suggestion that we’re not assisting Cuba is just false. I mean, we are one of the major providers of humanitarian assistance to Cuba. But we don’t believe that we should – while there are repressive measures in place in Cuba, that we should reward the Government of Cuba by lifting the economic sanctions that could assist the Government of Cuba in its repression of its own citizens.

QUESTION: Well, it seems that the rest of the world thinks that, in fact, if you were to lift the embargo, that could help the repression – lift it.

MR. KELLY: Well, we don’t think it’s time to lift that embargo. The – we will consider that when the Government of Cuba starts to make some positive steps towards loosening up its repression of its own people.

QUESTION: Ian, without getting into a philosophical and – especially a lengthy or philosophical debate about this, you said that this, as an annual exercise, is a Cold War remnant.

QUESTION: Yeah.

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: Well, there a lot of people who would argue that the embargo is a Cold War remnant. I mean, this is the first year that this vote has happened, where you’ve been in this tiny minority that you are – that the U.S. is the only country in this hemisphere not to have diplomatic relations with Cuba.

MR. KELLY: Well, I mean, we – our policy in Cuba is designed to try and move Cuba to doing the right thing towards its own people. And they have not taken the kind of steps to show us that they’re willing to open up their society and open up their economy. And until they do these things, we’re not willing to change our policy. Having said that, we also want to have --

QUESTION: Having said that --

MR. KELLY: -- a productive dialogue.

QUESTION: -- how long has the embargo been in place now?

MR. KELLY: I think it’s been in place almost 50 years.

QUESTION: Yeah, yeah.

MR. KELLY: Well, that’s a long time to have a repressive system.

QUESTION: Well, it’s also a long time to have a policy that has produced absolutely no results.

MR. KELLY: Well, we’re – we are looking to try and put our relationship – with Cuba on a more productive path.

Yes, go ahead.

It's Obama's embargo now (Updated)

The UN General Assembly is set to debate and vote today on a resolution that declares the “necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.”

It’s not going to be a moment of suspense or high drama – it has passed 17 years in a row, after all, last year by a 185-3 vote.

The passage of the resolution is not likely to change much in Washington or Havana. The Obama Administration will continue to say that change in Cuba will lead to change in U.S. policy, and Cuba will continue to insist that since the United States imposes sanctions on Cuba, the United States should act without precondition.

What’s new is the political symbolism, the statement that the embargo now belongs to President Obama. That is a point the Cuban government likes to make internationally, reminding foreign governments that change has not reached all parts of U.S. foreign policy and that the embargo, with many of the elements added by President Bush, remains intact under President Obama.

A UN report compiling statements from governments around the world and international agencies is here (pdf), and a CNN Spanish interview with Cuba’s ambassador in Washington is here.

[Update: It was 187-3 with two abstentions; Israel and Palau joined the United States in voting “no,” while Micronesia and the Marshall Islands abstained. AP coverage here. Statement of U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice here.]