USINT on Alan Gross, January 2010

From a January 6, 2010 cable from USINT Havana on detained American USAID contractor Alan Gross, weeks after his arrest:

EXPLAINING THE ARREST

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5. (S/NF) President Raul Castro himself was the first Cuban official to have acknowledged the arrest. (The only other public statement by officials or in the official press was a January 6 remark about his treatment by National Assembly President Alarcon in response to questions from the press.) Theories about the arrest abound, from an attempt to force high-level attention from Washington a la North Korea, to a move to counter the blogger movement (see paragraph 7). However, at his National Assembly speech on December 20, President Castro linked the detention to U.S. democracy programs on the island, deriding the very notion of a Cuban "civil society" (Ref C). Whether that was Castro's intent or not, the arrest has chilled the atmosphere for democracy programs in Cuba, especially those that hinged on unfettered and hassle-free travel to the island. Thus, the arrest has already served the interests of the authoritarian ruling class. It is not clear how the GOC intends to exact more mileage from the arrest, but if theories about the elder Castro are accurate, he could throw a gigantic wrench in the relationship if he insists on holding the man as a bargaining chip.

The cable makes reference to 09 Havana 772, an undisclosed cable that provides an account of a consular visit with Mr. Gross.

More recent releases here.

More from Wikileaks

A way with words: Venezuela donated three electricity plants to Haiti, with plans for Cuba to assist in the installation, and the U.S. Embassy report begins: “Venezuela and Cuba appear to be taking advantage of Haiti’s electricity gap.” The Wikileaked cable from 2007 is here.

The U.S. Embassy in Panama reported on the pardons given to Luis Posada Carriles and his associates by former President Mireya Moscoso as she was leaving office in 2004. The cable reports on all the speculation, in Panama’s press and elsewhere, about her reasons for granting the pardons. An earlier cable, written as the “anti-Castro Cuban Americans” awaited the judge’s decision, is here.

Quotable

“Medina Mora warned of the destabilizing dangers of a rapid post-Castro regime collapse in Cuba and argued that a ‘semi-authoritarian’ regime evolving toward democracy would be better for stability in the region. He said displaced Cuban regime elements, particularly from the armed forces, could pose an organized crime threat in the Hemisphere akin to the Russian mafia in Europe.”

– The U.S. Embassy in Mexico in 07 Mexico 983, a Wikileaked 2007 cable recounting comments from Mexico’s Attorney General; see story from La Jornada

Odds and ends

• From November 2006, a Wikileaked cable that gives a glimpse of the annual campaign to beat the UN General Assembly resolution that condemns the U.S. embargo. This cable is brief, reporting that Uruguay would be voting “in favor of Cuba.”

• The talk of additional golf course/real estate development continues, with a Canadian company “hoping to finalize a deal this August,” according to the Globe and Mail. Another story in the New York Times.

• A photo of the mountains of Pinar del Rio from a cruise ship moving northeast along Cuba’s north coast, from Flickr user roger4336.

• The Minister of Internal Commerce is out, replaced by his deputy Mary Blanca Ortega, according to a note published in Granma.

• Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman supports the Obama Administration’s Cuba travel measures in a talk to the Cuban American National Foundation.

• EFE: The late Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s mother and 12 relatives have visas to go to the United States with refugee status.

• The New York Times on how Cuban ballet dancers fare abroad.

• Wyoming biologists fitted osprey with satellite tracking devices to learn about their migration patterns and found that one lone male left the Rocky Mountain flyway, headed east to Florida, and went on to Cuba.

WIkileaks: Colombia's Ecuador raid, and Posada

Cuba maintained a studied neutrality in 2008 in the dispute between Colombia and Ecuador that when stemmed from Colombia’s successful military attack on a FARC guerrilla camp in Ecuadorean territory, according to a Wikileaked cable published by El Comercio of Quito. This is a little surprising considering that Ecuador’s government is friendly to Havana, the raid’s victims were communist guerrillas, it involved a cross-border incursion, and Colombia’s president at the time was a big buddy of President Bush. The cable comes from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana and is based on an account from Colombia’s ambassador there. El Comercio’s story is here.

Then there’s this 2005 cable from the U.S. Embassy in New Zealand reporting that instructions to deliver a message about Luis Posada Carriles were carried out. We already know from court proceedings that the Bush Administration had asked a number of foreign governments to take him off our hands; maybe this message refers to one more such effort. To my knowledge it has never been reported whether the idea was to find a place where he could retire in peace, or a place where Venezuelan or Cuban extradition requests would be executable. If Wikileaks would dig up the “reftel,” 05 State 99854, we would know.