William D. Rogers died yesterday in
He was a lawyer and senior American diplomat with a long and rich career. The New York Times obit points out that he turned down Henry Kissinger’s request that he join the Nixon Administration, but he agreed to enter the government as soon as President Ford took over. In the Ford Administration, he managed an attempt to normalize relations with
Bill never lost his interest in
“She thinks it’s her only hope,” a friend says of Britney’s Plan B. Heading to
I’m sure the Treasury Department would have a few thoughts, and we can imagine Federline asserting his parental rights in a Cuban court.
Britney, better go back to Plan A.
Here’s more reporting on the detention of about 20 dissidents in
Pedro Campos, author of the 15 proposals discussed here, gives an interview to the BBC (Spanish, text here) where he discusses the current debate and his “absolute conviction” that the top government and party leadership are following it in detail. The core issue, he says, is to address the results of the reforms of the 1990’s – some capitalist in nature, some socialist – that created “large social differences” and uneven benefits among the Cuban workforce, “in spite of the state’s redistribution efforts.” He would like to see his and other proposals debated in all national media and submitted to a referendum within three months.
Now here’s an antidote to my prediction that reforms will result from the current economic debate. Written by Alex at the Stuck on the Palmetto blog, it describes a similar airing of grievances in 1991. And it’s persuasive.
But as they say on the stock exchange, past history does not guarantee future performance. Right now, there’s a clear desire for change, the system itself says it needs change, the system is organizing discussions of change, and there is no shortage of ideas and options.
And there’s a difference in the leadership. I don’t think we’re going to have to wait too long to see if its foot is on the gas or the brakes.
Why would I conclude that the economic talk in
Here, courtesy of the
The interview was given earlier this month when Monreal attended the Latin American Studies Association convention, which was held in
Monreal is an academic, not a policy-making official, and he makes clear that he speaks in a personal capacity. But his comments on the
It’s a long interview. For English-speaking readers, here are a few of the points he makes:
From the President’s address today to the UN General Assembly:
“In
Update: The speech provoked a walkout by the Cuban delegation.
With possibilities of change in Cuba appearing closer – either through policy change or Fidel Castro’s departure from office – I’m beginning to wonder if people are beginning to re-examine assumptions and to discuss in the open issues previously kept private.
Last week I posted an article from an independent Cuban journalist who argued that dissidents are not well known in
Now here’s another one from an independent journalist, Luis Cino. It begins by sounding like one more criticism of the way foreign reporters working in
“It seems to be that, according to them, a member of the opposition must inevitably support the American embargo, advocate for the Constitution of 1940, and flatly reject any kind of dialogue with the communists unless it would be in a tribunal like that of Nuremberg.”
Then there’s this article from Jorge Sanguinetty, a U.S.-based consultant and
How to help? “The first thing that would have to be done is to break the information blockade and isolation between Cubans,” he says. (By that he doesn’t mean spending more on Radio and TV Marti.) More visits from Cuban Americans, Sanguinetty says, could be a “very effective destabilizing force.” What blocks this force, he continues, is “the fact that we don’t know how to choose better thinkers among us to choose real leaders (not aspirants to become caudillos) and to follow them in the fight against the tyranny.” Travel with a political purpose is needed, he says, “without worrying too much that some will go to
Now, I don’t share Sanguinetty’s implicit assumption that Cubans in
But no matter. What Sanguinetty is saying, quite sharply, is that if you want to influence
Ot that there is no influence without presence and contact.
Let the debate continue.
A decision is forthcoming in the case of Rafael Izquierdo of The Herald summarizes the case here, and has provided daily coverage of the court proceedings.
One notable aspect of the case, as the Herald notes, has been the Cuban government’s silence. One suspects that if Fidel were in the saddle, this would be an opportunity for mass rallies and all the campaigning that surrounded the Elian Gonzalez case.
In Miami too, if you set aside questions about the State’s vigorous effort to deny the father custody, the case is less political than Elian’s; there is no equivalent of the “Miami relatives” of seven years ago, no calls that the child cannot become “a trophy for Fidel,” no national media attention, no Congressional involvement.
It all rests on the judge, and her determination whether Mr. Izquierdo is a fit parent.
One hopes that’s all that is involved.
I haven’t read all the charges and counter-charges in this sad case. If Mr. Izquierdo is found to be unfit to raise his child according to the standards we would apply to an American parent, then so be it.
But if a decision goes against him because he would raise his daughter in Cabaiguan, that would be unjust and damaging to American interests.
We who complain about the lack of rights in
And we would damage the
I wrote earlier about the way the Administration’s top
If you listen to Radio Marti newscasts, you hear a brief recorded statement from Gutierrez where he recognizes that “the future of
So the approach is not to disavow the statements that did the damage, but rather to say something different and repeat it many times over.
Ask yourself this: If you’re in
While we’re on the subject, Armengol comments on Gutierrez’ speech in
Radio Marti landed an “exclusive interview” with Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez who said that “Raul Castro’s government is weak and corrupt and will not be able to maintain itself in power.” A few details of the interview are in this story; Radio Marti provides no audio link. It would be interesting to hear the interview to see if he explained what he observes in the 14 months of Fidel Castro’s absence that leads to his assessment that the government is “weak.”
Here’s an essay (Spanish, pdf) by Rene Gomez Manzano, a prominent dissident who practiced and taught law before breaking with the system. He analyzes the legal and political conditions that lead him to conclude that it is not worth the opposition’s while to attempt to contest any seats in Cuba’s upcoming municipal assembly elections, and why the opposition will instead “continue our peaceful struggle” to change the “Machiavellian” electoral system.
And here’s an essay (pdf, original and translation) by independent journalist Miriam Leiva that I translated for a colleague and am posting here for you to read. It compares the treatment in the Cuban legal and penal system of the 75 dissidents arrested in 2003 with that received by the “Cuban Five” in the
“Why is Cuba so far away?” A reflection on the pain of separation from an independent journalist, via CubaNet.
Reuters reports on the “national debate on economic reform opened by acting President Raul Castro.” In
In Diario las Americas, an opinion column questions whether the messages about reform coming from Raul Castro and other figures is a “well orchestrated campaign of confusion” designed to buy time and “strengthen” the system “for what may come.”
Well, it could be that. Or it could just be the system itself, in its own way which is not too clear to us, figuring out how to meet the challenges it has set for itself of improving output, productivity, and living standards – and moving deliberately as it chooses its policy moves and figures out how to make them work politically.
If you take a cold look at the Cuban opposition, take your preferences out of the equation, and try to assess what it means as a political force, what do you see? In my opinion, it’s a collection of exceedingly brave people who have set forth a strong ideological alternative, but who are not well known in Cuba (or are known by the public to be penetrated by Cuban intelligence), and who – with the exception of the often-derided Varela Project petition drive – do not engage in retail politics and hence do not amount to an opposition movement in the sense that they lead or mobilize Cubans in political action. That’s not meant by way of criticism, but I do think it accurately describes their state of development.
If you think that is harsh, look at this opinion from a Cuban independent journalist published on Miscelaneas de Cuba, a web-based magazine published in
The author, Jaime Leygonier, writes a highly critical assessment of the opposition’s problems – those that have nothing to do, he says right up front, with the repression it faces. In fact, he says, opposition leaders “seem more boxed in by their own limitations than by those the regime imposes on them.”
Plus:
Leygonier offers some reasons to be skeptical about the prospects of reform under Raul – a good antidote to what I have written. He leads me to think that if reforms are realized, the opposition’s reaction will be interesting to watch.
Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to be on Maria Elvira Live, the MegaTV public affairs program in
The interview is on the MegaTV website in two parts.
The first clip includes the program introduction and the beginning of the interview where we discuss the prospects of economic policy change under Raul Castro.
The second clip continues on that topic, including footage of Raul Castro’s 26th of July speech, and a discussion of
The key issue was the prospect of reform. Given that I was saying that change is likely under Raul, Maria Elvira naturally asked me to state when the reforms are coming. My answer: within one year. Given the expectations Raul has raised, and the amount of discussion that the system is generating within
We’ll see how things turn out.
As in any interview, there are things I wish I hadn’t left unsaid. In this case, these are the following.
Regarding reform,
Second, with regard to travel policy, I would add that if we have affection and concern for the Cuban people, I can’t square those sentiments with a policy that builds barriers to contact with them. And given our urgent interest in influencing post-Castro Cuba, I don’t understand why, as a pragmatic matter, we don’t open up to unregulated contact now with the people who live in Cuba now, who are the actors that will shape post-Castro Cuba.
Enough of all that; you can go to the tape if you wish.
Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez spoke about
President Bush is determined to keep the current policy in place, he said: “Unless the regime changes, our policy will not.” By that I don’t think he means “regime change” per se, but rather political reform – “We are prepare to respond to genuine democratic change.” He rejected as “naive” the notion that significant change would come from Fidel Castro (which isn’t exactly going out on a limb) or Raul Castro.
Gutierrez said that the Administration is prepared “to work with Cubans on the island, with Cubans who hold positions on the island, as long as they are willing to change and obviously as long as they don’t have human rights violations,” he said. In response to a question, he recognized that there are Cubans within the system who want change but “can’t be as open as we would like,” and “one of the opportunities is to identify those people because they are there and we would like to help.”
Gutierrez also emphasized that “the future of
Left out of the speech was any definition of “genuine democratic change” that would trigger a
It seems that whenever Secretary Gutierrez talks about
As for the “opportunities” to identify Cubans who might seek reform, Gutierrez seems to imply that those are opportunities to seize someday in the future, and he showed no interest in changing the
All in all, Secretary Gutierrez seemed to be in a passive, distant, wait-and-see posture, making no claim that any
Update: Here's the story on the Radio/TV website, which has a different emphasis than mine. The story provides no audio link, so it may be that Marti covered the story on the website but not on the air.
Will Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart draw a serious challenge when he runs for re-election next year?
The buzz in
Clearly,
● The chill in ● Ricardo Alarcon, asked about Fidel Castro’s assertion that a missile, not a plane, hit the Pentagon on 9/11, does his best. (Full transcript here, scroll down.)
● From one columnist to another, 10 questions about Fidel’s column.
● Bolivian President Evo Morales, in remarks in Cochabamba as he delivered 92 tractors, declared that
If you are in In an old book warehouse, there’s a gymnasium with an open area upstairs for aerobic exercise, and the entire downstairs is full of weightlifting machines.
The gym was the idea of some locals. They got permission from municipal authorities to create it and to charge admission. They also got a license under self-employment regulations. Men pay 100 pesos for monthly membership, women pay 60 pesos, retirees and people with special needs pay nothing.
What wasn’t immediately apparent to my eye is that all the weight machines are home made. The proprietors looked at equipment in weight training magazines and decided they could make their own. So they collected scrap metal and other materials piece by piece and started welding. The result is a facility with dozens of machines with red painted steel frames that allow for every kind of exercise that I could imagine.
I first visited in 2000. My notes remind me that the founder, a retired merchant mariner named Ignacio, told me then that he runs special programs for women. Most gyms in
A new Fidel Castro “reflection” – or, as Agence France-Presse put it, an “article attributed to Cuban leader Fidel Castro” – claims that there was “deliberate disinformation” about 9/11, including that the Pentagon was hit by a missile, not by a plane, on that morning.
This is too ridiculous to refute. But in that some years have passed, and people outside the
One wonders how officials in the Cuban government would respond if asked about this thesis.
A Herald article provides some interesting information on how alien smugglers operate in
● The North Korean foreign ministry seems to expect that in exchange for supposedly acting to put their nuclear program on ice, the ● At Western Hemisphere Policy Watch, the anonymous authors are worried about the photos I post. I’m worried that they’re worried!!!
● Senator Mel Martinez, GOP chairman, point man for outreach to Latinos.
● The feast day of
● It is interesting to read the recent impressions of Cuba by Anastasio Blanco posted at Babalu. Also read his exchange with readers, where he says that Cuba’s dissidents are “rather unknown inside Cuba,” that “the only people who really know about folks like Dr. Biscet and Darsi Ferrer are those with access to the internet – i.e. hotel workers or those working with foreign firms operating on the island;” that Radio Marti “is a success and has become rather popular,” and that “TV Marti is a complete failure.”
● When the Fidel-is-dead rumors were flying two weeks ago, State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said there was no reason to believe that Castro had died. He then went on to float a rumor of his own, that maybe the Cuban government had started the whole frenzy. For all he knew, or for all he let on, it could as well have been the Chinese or the Jamaicans or the Turks. What Gallegos confirmed once again is that when the U.S. government talks about Cuba, all the usual standards go out the window.
Readers have pointed out a second essay by Pedro Campos, author of the 15 proposals on economic policy discussed here last week.
In it,
Nor did Campos appreciate the suggestion that he, Soledad Cruz, and others are positioning themselves for the post-Castro future. For good measure,
The interesting issue here, in my view, is the nature and limits of the economic policy debate in
In November 2005, Fidel Castro gave his last major policy speech at the
Then Fidel fell ill.
Then others continued to take up the theme of the economy, but in a different way, pointing out that the black market is the result, not the cause, of
So Fidel kicked off the debate, but its terms seem broader than they would be if he were the sole referee. Among the many questions to be answered, the big one is what Raul meant on July 26 by “structural” change.
In the end what counts are results, and I’m making no predictions on that score. But I don’t believe that last week’s “reflection” shut the process down, and I think we’re in for a very interesting time ahead.
Simon Romero in the New York Times gives an account of how the ELN gets along in Cuba: medical treatment, a house at el Laguito, visits to jazz clubs, walks in Old Havana. And this on the status of negotiations with the Colombian government:
The recent talks ended late last month on a note of bitter discord. The E.L.N. rejected a proposal for its leaders to be transferred outside
“In the EU, there is too much acceptance of the supposed leadership from
Via Kaos en la Red, we have an interesting set of ideas about economic policy from Pedro Campos, a retired diplomat and researcher at the
But they are “revolutionary” in
They include:
It’s not clear to me how his ideas for state enterprises would play out in practice.
As for the rest, I believe that the currency unification, if feasible, would be immensely popular.
The ideas on agriculture policy and self-employment would generate increased production, a reduction in black market activity, and most likely an increase in tax revenues.
The political impact would be equally interesting. At minimum the measures would generate a sense of relief and change in direction in
I want to clarify something and hopefully save some readers some aggravation.
I notice that when I post some things, like a photo of an urban garden cooperative or a citation of a Fidel Castro “reflection,” that some readers assume I am in agreement with a writing that I cite, or that I think the cooperative represents the ideal thing for the Cuban people.
Not so.
The pictures are from my collection unless I note otherwise. I put them up because I hope readers will like them. They break up the text. If they illustrate something I may add a caption.
When I cite writings that I pick up here and there, it’s because I think they are interesting or significant in what I am trying to do, and what I assume readers are trying to do, which is to figure out what is going on in
As for the “reflections,” some readers believe that Castro is dead and the writings are not his own. Fair enough. I don’t share those assumptions. Right now our environment on that question is information-free. Someday, we’ll know the story.
But those “reflections” sure sound like Castro and they track with what we know of his views. And beyond the Fidel question, they sometimes represent a very distinct point of view in the debate on economic policy taking place in
That debate may not take place within parameters that we like, it takes place in a political system that most of us surely don’t like, but it is a real debate nonetheless. My impression is that it is gathering steam. I have no idea where it will end or the results it will produce. But I do believe it’s worth watching.
So I take the point about Fidel. I appreciate all comments.
And on economics, more soon.
