Helping Sandy's victims in Cuba

To support post-Sandy assistance delivered by Caritas Cubana, the nationwide Catholic charity that has a long-established disaster relief program, here’s a reliable option.  Yoani Sanchez lists Cuban e-commerce sites as a way to get items to people quickly. 

Odds and ends

• As cleanup efforts begin, Cuban civil defense authorities announce 11 fatalities caused by hurricane Sandy’s pass through Santiago, Guantanamo, and Holguin provinces in eastern Cuba.  Among the dead was a four-month-old who died in a building collapse.  Granma has photos.  Reuters story here.

• National Geographic has a long cover story on changing Cuba.

• AP: Florida’s Ethics Commission investigated Rep. David Rivera’s conduct while he served in the state legislature and found probable cause to believe he committed 11 violations of the law.  This is separate and apart from the investigation of his apparent financing of a Democratic primary candidate this year to soften up the eventual Democratic nominee, Joe Garcia.  Republicans continue to keep their distance from Rivera.  The Washington Post recently ran interviews of Rivera and Garcia.

• Steve Johnson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies has written a chock-full-of-information paper on academic exchanges with Cuba.  He recognizes the complications and argues that a greater degree of exchange is in the U.S. national interest.  Also, that it’s easier to achieve by private organizations than by the government. 

• Mambi Watch has the audio of a speech delivered in Spanish by Senator Rubio where he predicts that the Cuban government’s end is near.  The prediction was based on information he couldn’t share, he said.  He spoke to Unidad Cubana, many of whose members surely made the same prediction to each other before Rubio was born.

Odds and ends

• AP: Police yesterday blocked the weekly Quinta Avenida procession of the Damas de Blanco.

• CNN reports on the construction of replacement housing for hurricane victims in Pinar del Rio, with building materials manufactured on the spot.

• Herald: A 25-year-old diplomat defected from the passport section of the Cuban consulate in Mexico City and has come to the United States with her husband, according to her uncle in Canada.

• AP: A concert at the “tribuna anti-imperialista” on the Malecon next to the U.S. diplomatic mission drew a small crowd yesterday. Singer Silvio Rodriguez read a statement, and didn’t sing.

• Remember the report that travelers to Cuba would be required to buy travelers’ health insurance policies? Cubaencuentro reports that the cost will be three convertible pesos per couple per day.

• Cuban Colada takes note of a report in Spanish-language media that six Chilean companies wrote their government to point out that the problem of Cuba freezing the bank accounts of foreign companies operating there “has virtually been solved.”

Odds and ends

• Daniel Calingaert of Freedom House calls for an end to Cuba travel restrictions in the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill.

• The International Republican Institute published a survey (pdf) of public opinion in Cuba last week based on in-person interviews conducted in Cuba with a statistical sample that matches the demographics of Cuba’s population. The interviews were done in July and August. One finding: since the last survey less than a year ago, the use of cell phones, e-mail, and the Internet has increased by 10 percent, 23 percent, and four percent, respectively.

• Another reason to read the new blog El Yuma – it features translations of items that appeared only in Spanish, see here and here.

• Shreveport Times: General Russel Honore of Hurricane Katrina and “Don’t be stuck on stupid” fame says that the United States has something to learn from Cuba’s hurricane preparedness – even though Cuba is “poor,” “challenged economically,” “socialist,” and “Communist-controlled.”

• In Military Review, a short article (pdf) on the economic role of the Cuban Armed Forces by Terry Maris of Ohio Northern University.

• Cuba’s foreign ministry announces a $15 million donation from Kuwait to repair water infrastructure in Holguin.

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.

Odds and ends

• Virginia’s agriculture commissioner leads a sales delegation to Havana next month.

• New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin visited Cuba to learn about disaster response, prompting Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio to take a shot at “Hurricane Fidel” in National Review Online.

• Orlando Sentinel: Recent immigrants from Cuba are prominent in the Florida indoor marijuana growing business.

• Blunder time: Spain’s ABC reports that Cuba has rejected the U.S. offer to ease restrictions on diplomats’ movements, citing a Herald article that reports only that Cuba has not responded.

• Globalpost’s Nick Miroff has a narrated slideshow on Cuba’s Coney Island.

• Reuters on Cubans’ use of Facebook.

• The Herald’s ombudsman does a long and careful examination of allegations against columnist Marifeli Perez-Stable and concludes: “Unless her critics can come up with something firm, their accusations border on paranoia and slander.”

Odds and ends

• Elizardo Sanchez, head of the independent Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, released this report (pdf, in English and Spanish) last week including 208 persons on its “partial list of persons sentenced or tried for political reasons.” Of these, 65 are prisoners of conscience recognized by Amnesty International. The report (see paragraphs 11 and 12) chides the government for surveillance of citizens and notes that if high officials such as Carlos Lage are surreptitiously filmed, no citizen can feel immune from surveillance.

• More on the Juanes concert: The singer went to police about a threatening message on his Twitter account, the concert picked up the support of some Cuban American groups yesterday, and Mambi Watch reports that Vigilia Mambisa is taking some heat from fellow opponents of the concert for its demonstration last week.

• The New York Times on the ongoing contact and exchange of information between meteorologists in the United States and Cuba regarding hurricanes.

• Cuba’s Policia Nacional Revolucionaria has issued a call for recruits to its undercover service; Cuban Colada translates here.

Odds and ends

• Reuters: a delegation of Catholic bishops in Cuba, led by Baltimore’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, aims to send a message to the White House: “Isolation doesn’t help change.”

• Sun-Sentinel: Gulfstream International, which operates charters to Cuba, saw its second-quarter charter business increase 71 percent over last year. Last March 11, the Bush rules regarding family visits were repealed, allowing Cuban Americans to visit once per year. The measures President Obama announced April 13 – unrestricted family visits and remittances – still have not been implemented.

• Hurricane season has started, and so have worries about Cuba and its Caribbean neighbors. A potentially big one (Bill) has shifted course so it threatens Bermuda rather than the Caribbean. If you want to follow storms and cut out the middleman, you can go here to get direct access to the U.S. government reports, projections, radar images, etc.

• Orlando Sentinel columnist Jane Healy writes about the impact of Senator Martinez’ early departure on GOP efforts to win Latino votes.

Odds and ends

• Reuters: Cuba says 2009 economic growth will be four percent, and the economy minister sees higher growth in 2010 due to agriculture reforms and other measures. At Encuentro, there’s a skeptical look at Cuba’s recent gdp figures by economist Carmelo Mesa-Lago.

• David Adams of the St. Petersburg Times reports on hurricane recovery in Pinar del Rio.

• Juventud Rebelde interviews a machetero in Las Tunas – a “Cuban multimillionaire” – who estimates that he cut more than four million arrobas of sugar cane in a career that spanned 45 sugar harvests. (One arroba is 25 pounds.)

• Radios, flashlights, fake invoices, a shell corporation: The U.S. Attorney’s office issued a press release describing how Felipe Sixto stole government money from a USAID grantee, even while he worked at the White House.

Confidence builder

"The people of Pinar del Rio always recover, they never fail."

Food rebound

Cuba’s food situation is by no means back to normal after the devastation of three hurricanes this year. See, for example, this dire report from Holguin.

But I heard a few weeks ago that produce was starting to appear in Havana’s farmers markets, and last week the following items were on sale in two Havana markets I visited: pork, garlic, onions, chives, tomatoes, lettuce, several varieties of cabbage, bean sprouts, watercress, cucumbers, green beans, peppers, carrots, squash, okra, eggplant, radishes, beets, ginger, parsley, basil, cilantro, black beans, red beans, malanga, yuca, corn, peanuts, corn flour, corn meal, oranges, limes, pineapples, coconuts, grapefruit, guayaba, anon, and starfruit.

Plus lots of flowers.

There’s a list of items, posted in the markets, whose prices are capped at pre-hurricane levels. I only saw a sharp price increase in one item I note regularly; pork chops were going for 35 pesos per pound, about 40 percent higher than usual. On the other hand, maybe the vendor thought I would be willing to pay 35.

Odds and ends

• Fidel Castro could return to office if he wished, says the Spanish doctor who treated him in 2006. The EFE report doesn’t say whether the doctor has seen Castro recently.

• A Herald reporter, in Cuba, reports on shortages of food and building supplies.

• On the way home from the economic summit in Washington, China’s president makes a two-day visit to Havana; Reuters report here. [Update: AP reports on the agreements being signed in this visit.]

Odds and ends

• Cuba-Russia relations: in Havana, economic agreements are signed; in Moscow, Foreign Minister Perez Roque is received by Vladimir Putin, holds more talks on “strengthening bilateral relations,” and said the “answer is no” when asked about possible deployment of Russian missile defense systems in Cuba.

• A new Fidel Castro photo from October, via the Russian Orthodox Church, in El Nuevo Herald.

• Raul Castro toured areas affected by Paloma and spoke to evacuees, Granma reports. And there’s more from the Sun-Sentinel’s Ray Sanchez in Santa Cruz del Sur.

After Paloma

Category 4 Hurricane Paloma hit hard the southern coast of Las Tunas province, but soon fell apart and departed Cuba’s north coast as a tropical depression.

Sun Sentinel correspondent Ray Sanchez reported on the devastation in Santa Cruz del Sur, and his article includes AP video. (And Along the Malecon posted MSNBC videos.) AP reports that infrastructure damage was not as severe as that caused by Ike or Gustav.

Fidel Castro weighed in with one of his reflections as Paloma approached, declaring that if Washington were to make a new offer of aid, it “will be rejected.” Washington, “now more than ever,” should end its embargo, he argued.

Paloma

Another hurricane, Paloma, is headed toward Cuba.

Here’s hoping it never gets there. But if it does, and if it causes damage, here’s what I hope: that the United States renews its offer of aid and picks up where the conversations left off after Ike, where the “assessment team” is no longer on the table; that Cuba plays no political games with any aspect of a U.S. offer; that Secretary Gutierrez says nothing; and that American aid finally gets through. Especially building supplies for housing reconstruction. And that American companies that have sold food to Cuba since 2001, make a donation of free food.

Odds and ends

• The Sun-Sentinel reports on the post-hurricane crackdown on black market activity involving food. More here from AP, and from Cubanet, from Santa Clara.

• The UN’s World Food Program announced a $5.7 million program to provide food, storage facilities, and cooking equipment to areas hit by the hurricanes. About one in six Cubans, 1.78 million people, will be served.

• Cuban Colada notes a Russian newspaper story that gives one Russian analyst’s explanation for Russia’s decision to help Cuba with air defense.

• Encuentro is asking Cubans to write their advice to the next American president. Three letters have been published so far, from Dagoberto Valdes (editor of Convivencia) and opposition figures Manuel Cuesta Morua and Martha Beatriz Roque. Valdes (indirectly) and Cuesta (very directly) oppose current U.S. sanctions. Roque limits herself to advising a new U.S. president to take Latin America seriously.

Hurricane relief -- report from Oriente

Mexico’s La Jornada has filed stories from Camaguey and Holguin on hurricane damage and relief efforts. The stories are in Spanish only. They present a mixed picture; some residents remain in shelters, some have received temporary housing, some have received building materials, others are waiting. And even for those with hard currency to get materials in state stores or on the black market, there are shortages.

Holguin’s Catholic bishop, Emilio Aranguren, says, “As everything is centralized in state organizations, people wait for things to be given to them…they note that the pace is very slow in relation to…the amount of things that have to be done.”

Meanwhile, Cuba is requiring reporters to get advance permission to visit areas affected by hurricane damage, according to an e-mail from Cuba’s International Press Center excerpted by Rui Ferreira.

The Damas de Blanco, off the reservation

The White House held another videoconference last week, this time with several of the Damas de Blanco in Havana talking with First Lady Laura Bush and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.

The White House issued a brief statement. Secretary Gutierrez was on Radio Marti (story and audio here). He said the conversation was “unforgettable,” covering the situation in Cuba after the hurricanes, the U.S. offers of aid, economic and human rights issues, and prison conditions.

Neither the Radio Marti story nor the White House statement mentioned that the Cuban women asked that the Bush Administration suspend its sanctions “that affect the sending of direct aid,” as El Nuevo Herald paraphrased the words of Laura Pollan, who participated in the videoconference. In response, according to Pollan, “They stated that they were going to analyze it [the request]. Hopefully, the penury and suffering would be less that way…We explained to Mrs. Bush that there is widespread desperation.” El Nuevo’s story didn’t make clear whether Pollan was asking for the suspension of the Administration’s family sanctions, or something broader. A brief English summary is here.

Good for these women for raising this issue with Mrs. Bush, who is probably the only person in Washington who could possibly have an impact.

One can’t say the same for our Secretary of Commerce, who has been on these videoconferences before, and has heard the same kind of request, before the hurricanes. Still, he said last month, “What we are hearing from Cubans in Cuba is they don’t need money because there’s nothing to buy.”

The impact of Ike and Gustav in Cuba may be fading from the news, but Cubans still suffer. What governments should do in a case like this is to put politics aside and send help. President Bush put humanitarian concerns above politics when he offered aid to Cuba, and Cuba did the opposite when it turned that offer down. Still, the United States is standing in the way of direct, effective aid by maintaining sanctions against families – their visits, their cash assistance, even the contents of their gift parcels – that are truly draconian at a time when crops, food supplies, and housing have been wrecked from one end of the island to another.

Once again, the question arises: If we praise the dissidents as future leaders of Cuba and spend millions to support them each year, why can’t we heed their simple request now to ease suffering after a natural disaster?

Finally, a note about Radio Marti. From the story and audio on the Marti website, one would never know that the Damas de Blanco discussed U.S. policy, which is newsworthy by anyone’s standard, and doubly so because it would seem to be the only area of the conversation where there was a difference of opinion and a discussion of possible policy change. If Marti’s broadcasts have included Pollan’s statements, that would be great to know. If not, then it’s an omission that reinforces the idea that Marti is a government radio station with a political slant.

[White House photo.]

Spain adds to hurricane relief effort

During a visit to Spain, Cuba’s foreign minister was received by King Juan Carlos, and Spain’s prime minister agreed to visit Cuba next year (but some press reports say only that the invitation is being considered). Spain also agreed to provide $34 million in aid for hurricane relief, to partially restructure Cuba’s debt to Spain, and to extend a new line of credit worth 50-100 million Euros, also for hurricane reconstruction.

Coverage from AP English and EFE Spanish.

Odds and ends

• The Herald profiles candidates in Miami House races: Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and challenger Annette Taddeo, Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and challenger Raul Martinez, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart and challenger Joe Garcia. The Herald’s endorsements: Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Martinez.

• AP: Consumers are facing limits in the amount of produce they are allowed to buy at farmers markets in Havana, “ensuring there's enough – barely – to go around.”

• Via Cubaencuentro, a Channel 41 (Miami) report that remittances to Cuba are up in the wake of the hurricanes, even as U.S. economic troubles have caused a drop in remittances to other Latin American countries.