Carlos Victoria, R.I.P.

On the passing of Cuban author Carlos Victoria, two appreciations: in Spanish from El Nuevo Herald (where he worked as a copy editor), and in English from Manuel Tellechea here.

Loans for small business

Here’s a positive initiative directed toward Cuba, albeit in a future when policies on both sides of the Straits have changed: the Cuba Study Group’s plan to provide credits and business education for Cuban micro-enterprises. It has nothing to do with sanctions, it is not conditioned on change in Cuba’s political leadership, and it is based on the assumption that Cuba has, as the group’s leader Carlos Saladrigas explains in this interview, a fine educational system and a workforce prepared for entrepreneurship. This would be a larger, formal means of carrying out what many Cuban Americans and others outside Cuba have already done to help Cuban entrepreneurs – a flow of direct assistance that would surely be greater if the Administration were not focused on limiting and controlling contact with the island.

A combination of private and public contributions are contemplated to build the fund for micro-loans, but the main connection to the U.S. government seems to be that Washington would have to get out of the way to let it proceed.

Saladrigas is in Europe drumming up interest in the initiative. I’m sure it’s not his intention, but his initiative provides quite a contrast to the widespread efforts emanating from Washington and Miami to pressure Spain and the rest of the EU on their policy toward Cuba.

Hope it prospers someday.

No energy conference in Mexico

There’s an apparent AP story on the “Hoy Digital” website in the Dominican Republic that has attracted some attention. It announces a conference in Mexico between Cuban officials and U.S. energy executives. It’s an old story about a 2006 conference that is posted in error. I just confirmed with the sponsor, Kirby Jones, who is cited in the article, that there is no new conference.

The 2006 conference was the scene of the famous OFAC battle with the Sheraton Maria Isabel that resulted in the eviction of the Cuban delegation. For the record, my coverage here.

While we’re on the subject of energy, here’s a photo of an oil rig east of Havana with Chinese writing on the sign. Hard to see, but it’s there.

Odds and ends

• “We seem to have had good cooperation from the Cubans on these law enforcement and drug issues,” a U.S. diplomat tells Reuters, as Raul makes his third rendition of an American wanted on criminal charges here.

• A Presidential call for release of a Cuban political prisoner.

• Gloom and doom, fear and loathing, an ascendant Left, drugs, guerrillas, subversion, a hemisphere going completely down the tubes – and all of this at 5:14 a.m., no less, from our friends at Western Hemisphere. Before or after their coffee, I don’t know. It’s the State Department’s fault.

• The U.S. government wants Canada to hand over passenger lists and more, 72 hours in advance and then with updates, for flights that depart Canada, cross U.S. airspace, and land in a third country. There are two Cuba angles here: 1) this would be a problem for Americans who go to Cuba via Canada, and 2) if Cuba asked the same of the many U.S. flights that cross Cuban airspace, would Washington agree?

• Coverage of local debates on economic policy from the IPS news service. In the magazine Consenso (h/t Penultimos Dias), a skeptical view.

Valle de los Ingenios

Just north of Trinidad.

Two victories for U.S. foreign policy

A Sun-Sentinel report cites a Congressional source saying that 1,000 Cuban medical professionals have entered the United States under the year-old policy (outlined here, pdf, 2 pages) to allow those professionals to get U.S. visas if they are working on medical missions in third countries. Absent that policy, they would have no automatic qualification to come to the United States. The individuals qualify not because of their personal characteristics or because they are doctors – if they were in Cuba this door would not open for them – but because they are deployed overseas in medical missions. I don’t begrudge these people their entry into our country, but it is striking that the Administration’s response to Cuba’s provision of medical services abroad is to try to disrupt it by dangling U.S. visas in front of Cuban doctors all over the world.

Also on the travel front, there’s a Miami Herald story of a phony church with phony clergy that obtained a Treasury license for religious travel under false pretenses. The perps have confessed to everything, apparently. It’s a pathetic story that illuminates the black market that U.S travel regulations have created, and the use of law enforcement resources for what has got to be the most victimless of victimless crimes. In this case about 6,500 people, reportedly Cuban Americans, traveled to Cuba and paid an extra $200 to the phony church for use of its license. Now, we can suppose, they will pay the extra money on airfare to travel through third countries.

More on property

As if 1,000 words below is not enough, here are a few more comments on the property issue as treated in the USAID-funded study by Creighton University. If readers can shed light on these issues, please do.

Lots of papers on Cuba property issues refer to a provision in the U.S. tax code that provided compensation to Cuban Americans for properties they had in Cuba, that were expropriated by the Cuban government. As I read it, Cubans who came to the United States and subsequently had their property in Cuba expropriated were allowed to claim a deduction from U.S. taxes based on that loss. So, in effect, the U.S. government provided at least partial compensation for the Cuban government’s expropriation by reducing the property owner’s U.S. taxes. I see no reference to this in the Creighton study.

Creighton does involve the United States in another way: as financier. It says the “clearly preferred situation would be for a democratic transitional Cuban government to acknowledge the legal claims of the claimants and compensate them via a lump-sum payment if at all possible,” and this could be done if the United States government were to provide a “large returned loan on favorable terms.” So the taxpayer would subsidize credit to the Cuban government in order to pay Americans and Cuban Americans who lost property in Cuba.

Finally, when it comes to the Cuban court to handle Cuban American claims, Creighton says Cuba should agree that “All cases shall be decided on the basis of civil law, particularly as derived from the Spanish Civil Code of 1889.” Does that not mean that the Cuban government would be denied the option of retaining elements of its current laws if it so desires?

Creighton’s treatment of the Cuban American claims issue is based on two elements in contradiction: a finding that there is no basis in international law for the United States to be involved, and a proposal that Cuba agree to create a Cuban court in which the U.S. government would play a large role. It’s a proposal that Cuba cede sovereignty because “Cuban judges lack experience presiding over civil cases,” and because if Cuban American claimants are not satisfied, “their political and economic power” could be used in ways detrimental to Cuban interests. At the right time, Cuban propagandists will have a field day with this.

At work

Etecsa phone company worker, Havana

Odds and ends

• From the Village Voice, Miami reporter Kirk Nielsen delivers a detailed report on how the Cuba issue plays in the contest for the Democratic presidential primary. With persistence, he interviewed Bill Clinton, who is not exactly in agreement with candidate Clinton’s Cuba stance.

• “And I will work with leading exiles like Armando Perez-Roura, whose life and whose continued commitment to Cuban freedom is nothing short of inspiring.” – Governor Mitt Romney, in a March 9, 2007 speech in Miami-Dade

• Re-reading the 1996 Helms-Burton act, I ran across the declaration that U.S. foreign policy is, among other things, to “bring democratic institutions to Cuba through the pressure of a general economic embargo at a time when the Castro regime has proven to be vulnerable to international economic pressure.” Give it time.

On the international front

Italy apparently joins Spain in breaking from the EU consensus, opting in favor of a “constructive dialogue” and moving beyond the 2003 diplomatic sanctions, which are suspended.

The president of Honduras visits Cuba, talks with Raul Castro, but apparently encounters a snag that prevents signing of a treaty to establish a maritime border with Cuba. This VOA report offers reasons that have nothing to do with Cuba.

With the explicit purpose of offsetting Spain’s position within the EU, a U.S.-sponsored conference in Lithuania will try to get the Baltic states involved in the Cuba issue. Here’s the report from the Radio Marti website.

Una tremenda corte

Imagine that there’s a public policy problem – call it The Problem – that is rooted in actions taken by the U.S. government toward some U.S. citizens 50 years ago.

Imagine that some of those U.S. citizens emigrated, and the foreign government where they reside is now interested in The Problem. The foreign government pays one of its universities to study The Problem. Its study team concludes that there is no basis in international law for devising a “bilateral system” to solve it. It belongs entirely within the U.S. legal system.

So, pursuant to the university’s recommendations, and notwithstanding the fact that there’s no law or treaty that obliges the United States to treat The Problem with any other government, the foreign government proposes that the United States agree:

• to create a special U.S. court to deal with The Problem, and nothing else;

• that the court will consist of twelve judges who will be chosen in consultation with the foreign government, that no more than half the judges on this American court will be Americans, and the rest will be foreign;

• that the United States agree to the foreign government’s ideas about the system of law and the administrative rules to follow;

• that the chief judge will decide where the court will be based, but that decision shall not preclude the court from holding sessions outside the United States;

• that once the judges are named, they can only be removed “with the concurrence of both governments,” and if a judge is removed, a new judge can only be placed on the court “with the concurrence of both governments.”

Can you imagine the United States agreeing to such a thing?

No?

Well, maybe you weren’t educated at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.

Creighton, the alma mater of a former USAID Latin America administrator, got a $375,000 USAID grant to study possible solutions to property claims in Cuba – both those involving U.S. corporations and citizens, and those involving Cubans who later became U.S. nationals. Creighton’s study team consulted lawyers for some of the most prominent Cuban American claimants.

Creighton published its study last week. Creighton will sell it to you for $45.00, or you can get it from the Miami Herald’s website for free (pdf, full report of 280 pages, or 10-page summary).

The court described above is Creighton’s solution to claims of Cubans who later became U.S. nationals. Creighton made clear that because the claimants “were nationals of Cuba when their property was expropriated,” it’s a Cuban issue and there is no international law angle to it. That makes sense, since the properties are located in Cuba, they were owned by Cuban nationals, and the Cuban government took possession.

I don’t want to be too hard on Creighton – its study is thorough, giving a good description of Cuba claims issues and the way other countries have resolved similar issues. It also gives a realistic assessment of the situation in Cuba today: an “apparently orderly succession from Fidel to Raúl Castro” has “already played itself out,” and “the short-term scenario for the island suggests a continued consolidation of the succession.”

Creighton’s study seems to assume that large numbers of Cuban Americans will pursue claims; I think that assumption is dubious. Nonetheless, and notwithstanding the fact that there’s no legal basis for forcing Cuba to resolve these claims, the study argues that Cuban American claimants “should not be ignored.”

Its reasoning is purely political. Cuban Americans, the study says, brought about Helms-Burton, achieved a special immigration status for themselves, assure Radio Marti funding, and “leveraged millions of dollars in federal money to support democracy programming for Cuba.” If claims are not resolved, “their political and economic power could be turned against stabilizing a new government in Cuba, much to the detriment not only of the island, but also to potentially fruitful Cuba-U.S. relations. Thus, the positive aspects of including this group in a broader property claims settlement policy far outweigh the general lack of domestic or international legal justification for doing so.” Not a very flattering portrait of Cuban Americans.

Creighton offers its study as a mere “template” for the U.S. government to use in the future, and it offered a set of detailed potential solutions. And I certainly agree that one day, Cuba will have to address the issue of property claims, and it should do so. Creighton described an ideal solution, not a political or diplomatic strategy.

The problem is that this issue is so politically charged inside Cuba that to handle it the wrong way, or even to discuss it the wrong way, is to set back any chance of resolving it at all.

There are two main problems with Creighton’s proposals. First, unless someone in the Administration rejects them outright – fat chance – they will be viewed in Cuba as if they are those of the U.S. government. And the proposals now join a series of Administration statements that were are made as if Cuban history did not exist, and as if Cuban nationalism did not exist.

Cuba has big problems. Cubans know it, and they talk about them in lots of different ways. But if you are in such a conversation, and you introduce the idea of an American role in a solution, red flags go up, understandably, because the U.S. role in Cuba’s history has not always been benign. Cubans are not necessarily reassured if they know Cuban Americans are the driving force behind a U.S. proposal. And if you use language like Creighton’s – its description of the court to treat Cuban American claims reads like a court order – you have changed the subject completely. Cuban sovereignty, not friendly assistance, is now the subject at hand.

We can be assured that every lawyer in Cuba, and many more Cubans, will soon read about the Bush Administration’s proposals for a Cuban court, half of whose judges must be foreign nationals, and that must be free to come and hold sessions in Miami in order to address claims by Cubans who live there.

It’s easy to assume that because Cuba’s government invokes Cuban nationalism so much, that it is a phony sentiment. But in fact Cuban nationalism long preceded Fidel Castro, and it will long outlive him. A long list of American blunders in Cuba can be traced to a complete disregard of that political fact. Creighton’s scholars, with good intentions, have just published the latest.

Odds and ends

• From Mario Loyola writing in the Weekly Standard, an interesting critique of the Bush Administration’s approach to Cuba that concludes with a very modest proposal to end restrictions on Cuban American travel to the island. Mr. Loyola, a former Pentagon official, participated in a symposium on Cuba last March in Front Page Magazine, here.

• AP’s Will Weissert covers the nomination of municipal assembly candidates in a Havana neighborhood.

• From the Sun-Sentinel, a report on the economic debate, and in an essay on CubaEncuentro, a report on a word that is starting to creep into streetcorner discussions: amnesty.

• “Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul.” The U.S. Interests Section drops the news-only format of its big electronic signboard, leading with a Mark Twain quote.

Morro, Havana

Odds and ends

• The USAID-funded study on Cuba property claims was released Wednesday (10-page summary here, pdf; Herald’s story here).

• The State Department starts a blog, “DipNote.”

• EFE covers an exchange between students and Cuban foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque. It seems they asked about everything but foreign policy, including what happens “if they lift the [U.S.] embargo and we were to continue with some of the management practices [métodos de dirección] that we have, that are so deficient…”

More on Perez Roura's plan

Now it’s all cleared up. Unidad Cubana’s Declaración de Miami is now released; it includes the “Concrete Steps” document discussed yesterday, plus a series of further recommendations from Unidad Cubana, plus five points that were agreed upon by the Cuban Patriotic Forum (in Miami) and the Assembly to Promote Civil Society (in Cuba, led my Martha Beatriz Roque), following a talk between Roque and Armando Perez Roura.

Those five points, in summary, call for freeing political prisoners, creating a transition government and a new constitution, recognizing political parties, writing a new electoral law that would allow elections that “guarantee the participation of all the Cuban nation.”

The Unidad Cubana “recommendations” include:

• A future Cuban government should sue Russia for damages inflicted on Cuba by the Soviet Union during its three-decade relationship.

• Foreign executives in the tourism industry should be expelled from Cuba.

• Unidad Cubana will “insist on the prosecution of Cubans who, in exile, dedicate themselves to promoting negotiations with the Cuban enemy.”

• An investigation should be opened to assemble proof of payments the Cuban government made to foreign journalists in exchange for positive news coverage, and documents should be published; the same goes for foreign government officials who acted “in complicity” with the Cuban government since 1959.

• Double citizenship should be recognized, and a negotiation should be conducted with the United States to allow retirees to live in Cuba and receive retirement benefits.

What really stands out is the idea of prosecuting Cuban Americans who have advocated negotiation with Cuba. I guess this means that in Cuba in the future, they will create a statute that criminalizes ex post facto the expression of such an opinion while in the United States.

So in the future Cuba that Unidad Cubana envisions, people who expressed a certain opinion on U.S. foreign policy will be prosecuted, the communist party will be illegal, and political parties and private organizations will be required to subscribe to certain principles if they want to operate.

It’s little wonder that Martha Beatriz Roque, after talking with Perez Roura, agreed to join him in re-stating her longstanding position in those five points, but her name appears nowhere near the rest of Unidad Cubana’s ideas. So far, she’s the one showing a grasp of democratic principles.

Odds and ends

• With one metaphor, Frank Calzon insults everyone living in Cuba today. And warns that while President Bush remains firm, the State Department might flinch at any minute. In English and Spanish.

• The Miami-based Directorio says that Cuban dissidents – unnamed – have called for a boycott of municipal elections.

• Congressman Diaz-Balart slams the Spanish government for its renewed cooperation with Cuba.

Perez Roura's plan

Armando Perez Roura, Miami AM radio king and head of Unidad Cubana, issued a statement on the Radio Mambi website in the name of Unidad Cubana and its constituent groups. It is called “Plan of Concrete Steps for Change in Cuba.”

The statement was to be issued at an event at Miami’s Manuel Artime theater Monday night. But according to press accounts and people who attended, it was not issued there because Mr. Perez Roura said the lighting was bad and he could not read it.

Hate it when that happens.

The Diario las Americas story is here; the Herald’s is here. At Babalu, they posted a nice reflection on the event that didn’t name the speaker, didn’t mention the statement, and seemed to be based on a concern that people would ridicule the event, the audience, and everything.

I hadn’t realized that el exilio vertical, which really, really knows how to dish it out, needs to be handled delicately. But no matter, let’s deal with their ideas, starting with the positive.

The statement calls for a “prohibition on evictions from housing in urban and rural areas.” Good for Unidad Cubana. There is no elaboration, but maybe we can guess at the reasoning. Maybe it reflects the idea that if you deal with Cuba’s property issues by threatening to throw people out of their homes, you encourage people in Cuba to circle the wagons, you reinforce the worst stereotypes of the exile community, and you make change less likely. Note to Secretary Gutierrez: if you are to the right of Mr. Perez Roura, it’s safe to change your position. The Administration would do itself a big favor by disavowing its commission’s vision of Cuban “tenants” being evicted from their homes.

Now for the rest.

The statement is based on the assumption that change is coming soon to Cuba and calls for consensus among all Cubans on steps to take to “avoid last-minute improvisation” when the opportunity to ensure “freedom, justice, and peace” arises.

The statement was released without any sign of support from anyone or any group in Cuba, or even any connection with anyone in Cuba. Maybe the reason is that, among its calls for legal and constitutional reforms; special tribunals to judge military commanders, interior ministry officers, and others responsible for the “Cuban national tragedy;” establishment of an electoral process; and more, it includes a call for the ilegalización permanente – a permanent legal ban – of the Cuban communist party. And also the “re-establishment” of political parties and non-government organizations, but only those “whose programs express respect for private property, a fair market economy, respect for human rights. and a representative, multi-party democratic system.”

This is interesting. Step one in establishing democracy is to ban the existence of a specific political party. That doesn’t say much for Cuba’s future democracy or the confidence of its proponents who issued the statement. And who would certify that parties and private organizations support, for example, a “market economy?” What if a future Cuban party advocates, for example, maintaining complete government operation of health care, education, and other social services? Sounds like socialism to me – so, would that party qualify? Who would decide?

While the Helms-Burton law says that the United States will not recognize as democratic any government that includes Fidel or Raul Castro, it places no such conditions on participants in Cuba’s political debate. It defines a “transition government” in Cuba as one that “has legalized all political activity” – “all” – and sets the stage for elections “with the participation of multiple independent political parties.”

Things are getting interesting in Cuba. Each day seems to confirm again that Fidel Castro will not return to office; the latest sign comes from Bolivian President Evo Morales. Generational change is a certainty, economic reform a distinct possibility, a national debate on economic policy a new and intriguing development. As things stir and possibilities of change loom, the debate outside Cuba is getting more interesting too. Sadly, Unidad Cubana’s statement accentuates its distance from the Cuba of today and, I strongly suspect, from the Cubans who live in Cuba today. Except, that is, those who embrace the idea of regulating speech and banning political parties.

Odds and ends

• In case you missed it in the post below, the CIA is estimating Cuba’s 2006 economic growth at 11.1 percent.

• With tourist visits down 3.6 percent last year, Cuba created a new unit to monitor the tourism sector and to recommend measures “to improve the competitiveness of Cuban tourism products and destinations,” the minister of tourism said. It would be amazing if this group could affect exchange rate policies that make Cuba more expensive, especially to those exchanging dollars. But maybe they will convince someone to invest in road signs on Cuban highways.

• Another roundup on the economic debate in Cuba, this one from the Herald.

• Reuters on migration issues: 16,312 Cubans entered the United States without a visa last fiscal year, 4,825 by sea and 11,487 by crossing the Mexican border. And as anticipated, the U.S. consulate in Havana fell short of the goal of 20,000 visas stipulated in the migration accords.

Trinidad

Sanctions at work

I can understand the argument that the embargo is a good policy because it squeezes hard currency flows to Cuba. I don’t agree with it, especially in all its far-flung applications that affect regular citizen contact, and most especially now that the CIA’s most recent estimate for Cuba’s economic growth is 11.1 percent for 2006. (Seemed high to me, too.) But I can understand the argument.

What I can’t understand are Treasury actions that seem to have nothing to do with any real impact on hard currency flows and that seem to be pure harassment of Americans in contact with Cuba. That’s a harsh thing to say, considering that Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is on the front lines of the fight against terrorists, but what else can one say about the following two cases?

First, there’s a 2004 action to restrict Americans who would edit or publish materials that originate in Cuba. After a court fight, that action now seems to have been revoked, according to lawyers involved in the case. As a result, a field guide to Cuban birds, a collection of Cuban short stories, a discussion among Cuban and U.S. archaeologists, and a book about a little-known slave revolt in 19^th century Cuba can now proceed to publication.

Then there’s this August 2006 OFAC announcement (pdf, one page) that stipulates that companies that help Cuban Americans send remittances to relatives must have those remittances paid to to Cuban recipient in dollars, or in one of four other foreign currencies, but not in Cuba’s convertible peso. That, the State Department affirmed to Treasury, would be “contrary to U.S. foreign policy.” As a result, the recipient has to change the money into convertible pesos; the company can’t perform that service. Big deal. Between this and other regulations affecting remittances, it’s no wonder that a black-market cottage industry of companies and individual entrepreneurs is delivering remittances every day through third countries. Just as in Cuba, people find a way around government restrictions that block normal, beneficial private economic activity – in this case, family charity.

If someone wants to send in a comment that would illuminate how these measures do have a significant foreign exchange impact, or have some strategic importance, it would be welcome.

Measures such as these are trivial in Cuba’s economic context, and they are trivial when compared to the Administration’s declared purpose of changing Cuba’s political order. They make our policy seem trivial in light of the situation in Cuba – generational change in the leadership is a certainty, economic reform a possibility, and there’s a national debate on economic policy – but our government plods on, shunning contact, deploying accountants and enforcers, letting the big foreign policy issue wait until one man passes from the scene.

One more thing: the IRS is chasing piano virtuoso Chucho Valdes for $5,466.10 in taxes on 2003 earnings.

Odds and ends

• In Generacion Y from Yoani Sanchez, a comment on the economic debates at the grass-roots level, and an expression “between shock and happiness” among habaneros who have discovered that police are no longer stopping taxis, hence the taxis that have no license are stopping readlily to pick up passengers. This is apparently an unannounced new policy. Yoani says “no one knows with precision” when this measure took effect. The first press report that I saw was in July. I asked taxi drivers in August, they said the change happened in May or June.

• In the Sun Sentinel, the former bishop of Santiago says the church’s position is eroding, while the current bishop, visiting the United States, tells AP that the church’s reach is slowly expanding.

• According to Granma, Cuban doctors in Bolivia performed a cataract operation and restored eyesight to the Bolivian who executed Che Guevara in 1967. As Granma put it, “Mario Terán, a man educated in the idea of killing who can see again thanks to the doctors who follow the ideas of his victim.”

• An announcement of an undersea telecom cable between Cuba and Venezuela that is planned to go into operation in mid- 2009.

More foreign investment?

One of many blanks to be filled in when it comes to Cuba’s economic policy is what officials mean when they say they want more foreign investment.

It could mean they will do more intense marketing and negotiations without changing the current policy framework. It could mean that they are going to change policies to make conditions more attractive to potential investment partners. It could mean they are going to look for partners in sectors of the economy – sugar, agriculture – where there has been bureaucratic resistance to foreign investment.

Regardless of how they proceed, Cuban officials will have to deal with the fact that in closing about 100 joint ventures in recent years, they have likely damaged their own investment climate.

The minister in charge of foreign investment, Marta Lomas, now says that the tourism sector is the top priority. In that sector, Cuba used foreign capital to build hotels in the early 1990’s but switched to using its own capital once its foreign exchange position improved. Perhaps the idea today is to enter new joint ventures to build golf courses and other non-hotel developments that would diversify the experience available to tourists in Cuba. That idea has been kicking around for several years; we’ll see if it’s brought to fruition.