Odds and ends

• Next Monday, President Bush will award the Medal of Freedom to jailed Cuban dissident Oscar Elias Biscet. From the White House statement: “Oscar Elias Biscet is a champion in the fight against tyranny and oppression. Despite being persecuted and imprisoned for his beliefs, he continues to advocate for a free Cuba in which the rights of all people are respected.”

• Ron Paul on Cuba: for him, the issue boils down to letting Americans make their own decisions. H/T: Stuck on the Palmetto.

• Missed this one from last week: Cuban Air Force General Rafael del Pino, who defected in 1986, on the symbiosis between hard-liners on both sides of the Straits.

• Here’s a link to an article that a friend sent to me; it’s by former Salvadoran FMLN guerrilla leader Joaquin Villalobos, who is now – what else? – a consultant on international conflict resolution. It appeared in Madrid’s El Pais last month. The article doesn’t have a lot to do with Cuba, but it does show how the world around Cuba has changed as the guerrillas who fought with Cuban and Soviet support in the 1970’s and 1980’s have moved to other pursuits. Villalobos disparages today’s violent left in Latin America, describing a “lumpenización” whereby today’s fighters are tied more to criminality than ideological motives. According to consultant Villalobos, the “greatest danger in the Cuban transition is not a war between Cubans, but that organized crime would take control of the island.”

• If this was a baseball blog, I would write about 500 words on Alex Rodriguez’ vile attempt to upstage the Rockies and the Sox by announcing his “I want more money” contract decision in the middle of Sunday night’s World Series game.

Guayos

Dental pain

Juventud Rebelde published an article yesterday on the problems of dentistry in Cuba based on an investigation by a team of reporters who visited clinics in six provinces across the island.

The article is here, and a Reuters report in English is here.

The majority of the clinics visited had shortages of personnel, and the reporters also found clinics that lacked equipment, materials, and even running water.

One dentist said she sometimes relies on patients who have cars to go to the warehouse to get the supplies she needs, and she sometimes takes it upon herself to distribute supplies to clinics in her municipality.

The reporters also found patients who resorted to “private clinics” where they paid for services. The top dentistry official in the Ministry of Public Health, interviewed by the reporters, admitted that this practice occurs, and he said that eight dentists had been fired in the past two years for it.

The official also concurred with the reporters’ findings that Cuba’s dentists – there is one dentist for every 1,049 Cubans, the article says – are not evenly distributed, leaving some areas under-served. He said that when thousands of dental personnel now in training begin to practice their profession, the Cuban public will be better served and Cuba will be able to “maintain cooperation with other nations” – an indirect admission that shortages are caused at least in part by dentists serving abroad.

The article is similar to a series that appeared a year ago in Juventud Rebelde, documenting problems in state enterprises.

Odds and ends

• Fix your bookmarks: In a new format and with a new design, the indispensable Penultimos Dias re-launched yesterday. Url: http://www.penultimosdias.com/

• Cuban oil and gas production: growing, according to Carlos Lage, but still short of what’s needed for self-sufficiency.

• What Granma printed, and what it omitted from the Bush speech: the Herald did the comparison (pdf).

• Thinking of going to Cuba for medical care? I ran across this press release from this company in Canada; seems a lot less cheesy than this U.S. site, with the photo of the coco-taxis.

Parque Central

Odds and ends

• In today’s Herald’s story on Cuba’s decision to put the Bush speech in Granma and Cuban television, dissident Vladimiro Roca says, “In the past, they would summarize speeches or quote the parts they liked that suited their purposes…I’ll tell you this: Something is behind this. If I only knew what.”

• From former U.S. Interests Section chief Vicki Huddleston in the Washington Post on-line, “How Not to Promote Democracy in Cuba.”

• At Penultimos Dias, Ernesto checked out Radio Marti’s web coverage of the speech, found “stone age” technology, and wonders what the station does with its money.

• Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, in calling for the President to give Oscar Elias Biscet the Medal of Freedom, compared Biscet to “Colonel” Antonio Maceo. Manuel Tellechea reacts to the demotion, and to the comparison.

• The Economist on prospects for economic reform in Cuba: an expectation that the government’s first moves will come in late December. El Pais says Cuba is “at a crossroads,” and notes that Cuban media have not covered the recent debate and the the ideas for change that came from it.

Plaza de Armas

Faith, heaven, earth, and Cuba

If we were truly seeing “the dying gasps of a failed regime” in Havana, as President Bush said yesterday, then it might be possible to interpret his speech as something other than an expression of his deep personal faith that change is coming to Cuba.

But as former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote after the President’s second inaugural where he stated the “ultimate goal of ending tyranny” worldwide, “this is not heaven, it’s earth.”

And in Cuba’s little corner of this earth, it’s hard to discern the gasping government and the teeming opposition that would be poised to bring the President’s vision of change into earthly reality any time soon.

To be sure, there are human rights violations and there is opposition in Cuba, and beyond the formal opposition there is a widespread desire among Cubans, extending even into the communist party and spoken out loud, for profound change. And there is something else that the President ignored: a government that has a tiger by the tail, saying it too wants change, taking the public’s pulse, feeding expectations, studying options, figuring out what to do. As a result, the big question in Cuba today is how Raul Castro will govern, and whether he will deliver on the expectations he himself has raised.

One can’t fault the President for giving a visionary speech or for attempting to put political reform front and center at a time when the possibilities of economic reform are more prominent in public discussion.

But contrary to the Secretary of State’s view last May that Cuba has a “very nascent and fragile democratic opposition that is beginning to arise,” President Bush seemed to place Cuba’s opposition on the ramparts and spoiling for a fight, so much so that he thought it was time to tell Cuban soldiers and police that they will face a decision about “using force against your own people.” If they decide not to use force, they have now been assured by the President – of the United States – that there is “a place” for them “in the free Cuba.”

The President certainly did not try to dissuade Cubans from taking to the streets; he made clear that what matters to him is the final result of freedom, and if that comes at the expense of stability, that’s not a problem.

The President directed himself to those in Cuba who might be listening “perhaps at great risk.” Cuban officials, smarter than the average bear, apparently took about two minutes to call the President’s bluff. They ran 1,800 words of the speech in today’s Granma (pdf), and 15 minutes of it on Cuban television last night.

Which means one of two things: that everyone who reads Granma in Cuba today will be arrested by sundown, or that officials calculated that it serves their political interest for Cubans to know what the American President says about their country.

Why would that be? Here are a few guesses: to discredit the President’s assertion that they are weak; to highlight the President’s vision of possible violence and his indifference toward instability; to amplify his assertions that Cubans have no sense of community, that they cannot legally gather in groups of more than three, or that they cannot change jobs or houses; and generally to allow the President’s words to increase Cubans’ fear of radical change.

Before the speech, I thought the President was looking for a way to turn the page and start a new discussion about Cuba with U.S. allies. (Indeed, he did call for “the world to put aside its differences,” which is easy for him to say, since the “differences” are generated by his own policy.) But rather than diplomacy, his real interest seemed to be to draw moral distinctions between a United States bathed in virtue and other democracies whose conduct will “shame” them in the future.

The President concluded by leaving Cubans with “a mission.” His message seemed to be, in sum, “I have done what I can, and what I have done will not change Cuba; it is time for you to act.” The dying, gasping, failed regime ensured that his message was heard from one end of the island to the other. Now it’s up to the Cuban people to decide what to do with the new mission assigned to them.

Bush speech preview #2

The following is an excerpt from a White House briefing given this evening by a senior Administration official regarding the President’s speech tomorrow:

And he will then say that now is the time to stand with the democratic movements and the people of Cuba; now is the time to put aside the differences that have existed amongst the international community, and we need to be focused on how we're prepared -- we, the international community are prepared for Cuba's transition. He will acknowledge and thank three countries specifically for their efforts to stand with Cuban pro-democracy forces -- the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. He will call on other countries to follow suit and to make tangible efforts to show public support for pro-democracy activists on the island -- such things as interacting with pro-democracy leaders, inviting them to embassy events, encouraging their country's NGOs to reach out directly to Cuba's independent civil society.

Turning back to the U.S. support for pro-democracy activists on the island, he will note that the U.S. Congress has approved his -- the President's request for additional funding to support Cuban democracy efforts. He will thank the members of Congress for this bipartisan support and urge them to get the law -- or the bill to him that they approved -- get the bill to him so that he can sign it. They will also urge members of Congress to show our support and solidarity for fundamental change in Cuba by maintaining our embargo until there is fundamental change in Cuba.

He will note that the regime does use the embargo as a scapegoat, but that Presidents of both countries have understood that Cuba's suffering is a result of the system imposed on the Cuban people. It is not a function or result of U.S. policy, that the only thing that trade will do is further enrich and strengthen the regime and their grip on the political and economic life of the island.

He will note then that the United States over the years has taken a series of steps to try to help the Cuban people overcome the suffering; that we have done things such as opened up as a place of refuge the United States; that we've tried to rally other countries; that we have authorized private citizens and NGOs to provide humanitarian aid to the island. And it's to the point that the United States is one of the, if not the largest, providers of humanitarian aid to the Cuban people in the world.

He will note that for us the objective has been -- the objective is to get aid directly into the hands of the Cuban people, and that the heart of our policy, the essence of our policy is to break the absolute control the regime holds over the material resources that Cubans need to live and prosper.

He will then announce some initiatives that the U.S. is prepared to take now to help the Cuban people directly if the Cuban regime will allow it to happen, if the regime will get out of the way. One initiative will be to -- one initiative he will announce is that the United States government is prepared to license NGOs and faith-based groups to provide computers and Internet access to Cuban students, and here we would like to be able to provide this to a Cuba in which there are no restrictions on Cubans on Internet access -- so that we would look at expanding this category of getting more computers with Internet access capability to the island, if Cuba's rulers end their restrictions on Internet access for all Cubans.

Excuse me, I apologize, a little tired here.

The next initiative is that we are prepared to invite Cuban young people into the scholarship program, Partnership for Latin American Youth. This is an initiative the President originally announced in March that was hemisphere-wide. He is going to extend a specific invitation to have Cuban youth participate in this, and again call upon the Cuba's rulers to allow Cuban youth to freely participate.

The President will then make the point that life will not improve for Cubans under the current system. It will not improve by exchanging one dictator for another, and it will not improve in any way by seeking accommodation with a new tyranny for the sake of stability. He will note that our policy is based on freedom for Cuba; our policy is not stability for Cuba, it is freedom, and that the way to get to a stable Cuba is through the Cuban people being given their freedom and fundamental rights.

To help bring about that reality, the President will ask Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Commerce Gutierrez to pursue an effort to develop an international freedom fund for Cuba. They will be asked to go work with international partners and to look at how we can -- how we, the international community, can work together to be prepared to assist Cubans as they transition to democracy. But a key to this is going to be at a point at which there is a transitional government in place that respects fundamental freedoms -- freedom of speech, press, freedom to form political parties, the freedom to change their government through periodic multiparty elections. And also key to this is going to be the government that releases political prisoners, and which no longer imprisons or represses individuals who exercise their conscience freely, and frankly, where the shackles of dictatorship are removed.

The President then will note that the speech is being carried by a number of media outlets, some of which are reaching the island. And he will, for a moment, deliver a message to members of the Cuban regime, especially members of the Cuban military and the security apparatus. He will note that they are going to face a choice, and the choice is, which side are they on, the side of Cubans who are demanding freedom, or are they going to face the choice of having to use force against a dying -- force against their own -- their fellow citizens against a dying regime. And he expresses the hope that they will make the choice for freedom, and that -- and note that they will have a place in a democratic Cuba for those who support Cuba's democratic evolution.

He will then address a comment to the ordinary Cubans who are listening. He will say to them that they have the power to change, and/or to shape their destiny; that they are the ones who will bring about a future where Cuban leaders are chosen by them, where their children can grow up in peace and prosperity. He will remind them that over the years there have been many so-called experts that have said that change would never come to certain spots in the world, that there would always be totalitarian in Central and Eastern Europe, or there would always be authoritarianism in Spain or Chile, and that has not been the case; that there you had a case in which the people understood that they could shape their own destiny. Cubans can do the same. And at that point he will pretty much end the speech.

Will Fidel run?

Via Penultimos Dias, a clip from Spain’s El Pais (pdf) where Cuban balladeer Silvio Rodriguez, on tour in Spain, is quoted saying, “I believe – thinking out loud, I don’t know anything – that Fidel will not present himself as a candidate.”

Take it for what it’s worth. But if he does not stand for election to the National Assembly, he is effectively resigning, because that is the only path for election to the Council of State.

Bush speech preview

In today's press briefing, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino raises the curtain a little on the Cuba speech that the President will deliver tomorrow:

First of all, it is true that soon the decades-long debate about our policy towards Cuba will come to a time when we're going to have an opportunity here, when Castro is no longer leading Cuba, that the people there should be able to have a chance at freedom and democracy. That opportunity is coming. The President will call on the world to come together and to support the people of Cuba in their growing support for democracy in the region.

One of the things the President will talk about is that the Cubans are prohibited by their government from participating in things that all of us have come to take for granted -- owning a business, or having access to the Internet. And these are things that can help provide for freedom and hopefully for the future of democracy, if they could lay the groundwork for people to be able to have their own business and to be able to educate themselves and have access to the outside world.

And the President has talked about Cuba in standalone speeches three times before: May 18, 2001, May 20, 2002, and October 10, 2003. This is a time for the President to remind people of our commitment to support the Cuban people's aspirations for freedom.

What will the President say?

President Bush will make a Cuba policy speech at the State Department on Wednesday, AFP reports. According to the President’s spokesman, he will discuss ways “to help the people of Cuba.”

We’ll see what that means. Meanwhile, here’s what I’ll be watching for.

First, it will be interesting to see how the President describes the situation in Cuba. When Fidel Castro first fell ill, President Bush thought a turning point had arrived and declared that Cubans were engaged in an “effort to build a transitional government” – but that turned out not to have been the case. Then, after many uneventful months with Castro remaining offstage, the President envisioned a potential turning point on the day when “the good Lord” takes Fidel Castro away. But I think that train has already left the station, in that Cubans have assimilated Fidel’s absence already, and his death or resignation is not likely to be a shock to the political system. The most intriguing story in Cuba today is the possibility of reform from within; we’ll see if the President addresses that, and if so, how.

Second, how will President Bush describe American capacity to influence Cuba? The release of the Administration’s 2004 commission report marked the high-water mark of Administration confidence in that regard; it claimed that its sanctions, beefed-up broadcasting, and aid to the Cuban opposition would “accelerate” the downfall of the Cuban government. One official also stated that there would not be a succession in Cuba, and that the United States would not permit one to occur. Since then, that kind of talk has largely subsided, although Secretary Rice did say in July that “we’re not going to tolerate the transfer of power from one dictator to another.” What will be the President’s ends, what will be his means, and will they be connected to each other?

Third, how will the President try to influence Cuba? With the “transfer of power” that Secretary Rice envisioned basically complete, it’s clear that the 2004 measures are not very consequential. As a result, the Administration has turned to asking other countries to join in a call for democracy in Cuba, or perhaps to work together in other ways. So maybe the President will have something to announce along those lines. Or maybe he will offer carrots of some type – an extension of the (backfired) approach in his two commission reports, which held out the prospect of U.S. aid as an inducement to change. Or maybe he will backtrack on his 2004 measures and ease restrictions on Cuban American visits and remittances.

There are rumors that the President will pursue that last option, and that he discussed it recently with some leaders in Miami.

I doubt it.

Another possibility, also the subject of rumors, is that the President will offer to modify U.S. sanctions if Cuba takes certain steps toward democratic reform.

It wouldn’t be the first time he has tried this; in May 2002 he offered to ease sanctions if Cuba held fair elections that year. That offer was perceived as a softening of policy, a retreat from the long list of conditions that the Helms-Burton law sets forth before any easing of U.S. sanctions can occur. The result, to put it mildly, was a lot of criticism from Miami.

But I can see the Administration trying some version of this offer in today’s context, especially if its priority is to forge a common approach with other countries. The point would be to soften the U.S. approach, or to appear to soften it, in order to gain international support, reduce the distance between Washington and its allies on Cuba policy, and put the United States in a better position from which to influence Cuba itself. Not to mention putting Washington in the position of taking the initiative, and attempting to put the issue of political reform front and center.

We’ll see.

Bayamo

IRI releases Cuba poll

The International Republican Institute released a survey of Cuban public opinion (pdf) today in a press release datelined Vilnius, Lithuania and with a document that lists the author as the organization “Solidaridad Espanola con Cuba.” IRI says that interviews for the survey were done in 14 of 15 Cuban provinces between September 5 and October 4, 2007, and it claims a four-point margin of error.

The IRI materials don’t say who did the poll, but a spokesman says it was done by a professional survey research firm.

In a question where respondents were asked to name, without prompting, the “biggest problem in Cuba,” economic issues predominate: 66 percent named salaries, prices, food, the embargo, transportation, or housing, and 18 percent said the biggest problem is lack of freedom or the political system.

By a three-to-one margin, survey respondents were not optimistic about the government’s ability to solve the problem they cited, and when asked what kind of government could solve the problem, 42 percent didn’t answer.

Other questions showed a belief that political and economic change would improve conditions in Cuba, and 74 percent agreed that Cubans should vote to select Fidel Castro’s successor.

Asked whether Cuba resembles other countries, 90 percent said, no, it’s unique. They got that right.

The survey says that nine percent of Cubans have access to e-mail and Internet, an additional 27 percent have access to e-mail alone, and ten percent use cell phones.

These are selected comments; for the full document – a summary of results, not the poll itself – follow the link above.

The survey raises another question. If two U.S. government grantees, IRI and Solidaridad Espanola con Cuba, can send pollsters to Cuba, why does the U.S. government’s own Radio and TV Marti rely on surveys of émigrés in Miami to measure their audiences?

A real race?

If, as is often said, the Cuban American community is changing so much and moving away from the hard-line position, then why do Miami voters return three hard-line Cuban American representatives to Congress every two years?

A pretty good question.

Or you could ask: If there’s so much moderation, why don’t the Democrats take advantage of it by fielding and funding strong candidates to run in those three Congressional districts?

This year, maybe they will.

The Hill (a newspaper that covers the legislative branch) has some good reporting on the long, hard look national Democrats are giving those three races. A sign that the party is serious is that it is running radio spots now to press Reps. Diaz-Balart, Diaz-Balart, and Ros-Lehtinen to vote this week to override the President’s veto of the “SCHIP” health care program.

Former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez (who seems like a guy who’s a lot of fun when he’s mad) tells reporter Ian Swanson that he is leaning toward running against Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart. He is well known and has been on the ballot; if he’s well funded it would make for a real race.

Centro Habana

Odds and ends

• Some time ago I linked to an article by independent journalist Jaime Leygonier where he wrote critically of Cuba’s opposition and its strategy. He heard from a few readers and elaborates here.

• The Inter-American Press Association slams the imprisonment of journalists in Cuba and the “intimidation” of journalists in Venezuela. The Herald’s coverage is here. Venezuela’s communications minister cries “defamation” and compares the IAPA meeting to a conclave of Salem witches.

• New customs regulations set conditions for importation of car parts and engines by Cubans traveling abroad and show that the bureaucracy’s imagination is alive and well – parts for the traveler’s car only, and with the approval of Customs and the traveler’s boss. Regulations issued last April covered those who receive shipments of auto parts from someone outside Cuba.

Cuba-Venezuela agreements

From Reuters, a report on economic agreements signed by Cuba and Venezuela; oil exploration on land and offshore, telecommunications, nickel, fisheries, construction, tourism are included. Granma’s summary in English is here.

A plant to upgrade heavy crude oil would increase the value of the Cuban crude from the north coast east of Havana, and a “regasification” plant would enable Cuba to use liquid natural gas from Venezuela.

There’s also a plan to create a joint venture for the “construction and subsequent exploitation” of a hotel on Cayo Paredon Grande, which would be a departure from the recent practice of building hotel with Cuban capital and operating them under Cuban ownership with management contracts with foreign hotel companies.

Cuban media headlined these agreements as a sign of “integration.” In Mexico’s La Jornada, Gerardo Arreola points out that Cuban officials did not react to Hugo Chavez’ concept of “a confederation of republics.” Chavez was on Cuban television for nearly eight hours over the course of two days, Arreola reports. In his analysis the coverage of Chavez’ visit carried the message that the Cuba-Venezuela relationship is “anchored to political institutions,” is tied to “the next generation of Cuban leaders,” and “does not depend on the close relationship between Chavez and Fidel.”

"So much paranoia"

I’m not going to defend Yoani Sanchez of Generacion Y because she doesn’t need defending. The work on her blog, and the work of Yoani and her colleagues at the on-line magazine Consenso, speak for themselves.

This item expresses respect for Yoani’s work and goes on to call her motives and her work into question because she left Cuba with her son and then returned, and because her blog seems to be “great publicity for Raul’s media campaign.”

Two rebuttals: from Ernesto at Penultimos Dias, succinctly, “Who gains from so much paranoia?” And from Alex at Stuck on the Palmetto, a longer explanation of why “not every Cuban wants to leave the island.” (Or, he might have added, why it is not a crime for a Cuban who has a choice to opt to stay in her own country.) All of which prompted Val Prieto at Babalu to comment, very indirectly.

Some time ago I went to Yoani’s building, went up its remarkable elevator, and met her, her husband, and her son. I learned, among other things, that she learned HTML, uses the computer and Internet access that’s available, created a blog, launched it and had a Web-based platform for her own opinions – all, apparently, without going outside the law.

If we marvel at the ingenuity and drive of Cubans here and there, why should it be impossible to believe that one in eleven million would achieve that?

Or that she and others would decide that for them, the way to do good things for Cuba is to stay in Cuba, and get busy?

More on the Mexico route

The New York Times advances a story that the Herald broke weeks ago, with lots of new detail on the way U.S.-based smugglers have adapted to Coast Guard interdiction efforts by bringing Cubans to Florida via Mexico, as opposed to directly across the Straits. It’s reminiscent of the way drug traffic from the Andes shifted years ago in response to Caribbean interdiction, moving west to the Central American “land bridge.”

Fast boats, satellite phones, easy coastlines, safehouses with rice and black beans, flights from southern Mexico to the U.S. border, coaching on what to say at the U.S. border post – it’s all there. Then this:

“Some Mexicans are even getting ideas from the Cubans. A trade is developing in Cuban identity documents and some savvy Mexican migrants are now practicing Cuban accents and rehearsing dramatic stories they intend to tell United States Border Patrol agents about the horrors they have suffered in Havana.”

So if they have Cuban documents, a Cuban accent, and a Cuban life story to tell, U.S. agents at the border will have to test knowledge of Cuban Spanish to separate the real Cubans from the pretenders. What word or phrase would you use, that no non-Cuban would ever know?

Wills and sanctions (Updated)

If someone dies in the United States and has heirs in Cuba, how can the heirs receive their inheritance?

That’s the subject of some terrific reporting by El Nuevo Herald’s Wilfredo Cancio that describes some effective, low-profile work taking place in the Cuban and U.S. legal systems to give heirs in Cuba what is due to them.

Thanks to a Miami judge and a 2003 action by the U.S. Treasury Department, a group of U.S. lawyers is handling 1,500 cases and is able to travel to Cuba to work with Cuban lawyers to locate heirs and execute the necessary paperwork. Inheritances designated for Cuban nationals are placed in blocked accounts (the same device used for Cuban government funds on deposit in U.S. banks) and if everything works out, the heir is allowed to receive the inheritance. But not in a lump sum – Treasury allows disbursement according to the same rules that apply to remittances, $300 every three months, sent via Western Union, no matter how large the inheritance.

This policy is certainly better than completely denying heirs access to their money, and all involved deserve applause.

But why not simply tell the heirs, “This is your money, your uncle wanted you to have it, how can we get it to you?” Why should these heirs be subject to U.S. sanctions supposedly directed at the Cuban government?

Update: The article is in the Herald in English today, with the rosy headline, “Despite embargo, Cubans get what is rightfully theirs.”

Mariposas

Cuba's sweet-scented national flower.