Odds and ends

• While reading recent discussion of the Pope’s upcoming visit to Cuba, this message to the Pope from Guillermo “Coco” Farinas, a Santa Clara opposition figure, stood out.  He writes “in the name of the Cuban nation.”

• What to make of this story by Alfonso Chardy of the Herald?  A Cuban doctor who served in Venezuela and availed himself of an immigration program that the Bush Administration created especially for Cuban doctors was denied permanent residence here because he was a member of the mass organization for young communists (UJC).  I’m not a big fan of the program for several reasons, one being that those Cubans who can find asylum in one country (granted, not all can) should be able to stay in that country, and there’s no need to create an entitlement to come to the United States.  But after enticing this doctor to come to the United States, the denial of permanent resident status puts him in immigration limbo, and his UJC membership seems a very flimsy reason.  His lip-service loyalty to the communist cause became clear when he deserted his post 15 days after arriving in Venezuela.

• Talk about a win-win-win situation – if pressures from Cuba’s friends had led to Cuba’s attendance at the April Summit of the Americas in Colombia, Havana et al. could have claimed victory, and Washington would have been left to figure whether to attend.  It turns out Cuba will not attend and never asked to attend, its foreign minister informs us, and now the President of Colombia is thanking Cuba for “generously saying it did not want to create a problem for the Summit or for Colombia.”  At the summit itself, it remains to be seen if Cuba’s friends will cause a little stink and force President Obama to deal with the issue of Cuba’s exclusion.  The Cartagena summit is an OAS show, and Cuba is not a big fan of the OAS.

• The Treasury Department clarifies rules for advertising educational people-to-people travel.

"Significant cooperation" on drug enforcement

Some nuggets from the Cuba section of the State Department’s annual drug enforcement report, issued yesterday:

Cuba and the United States share a mutual interest in reducing drug flows in the vicinity of the island, and in 2011, Cuba maintained a significant level of cooperation with U.S. counternarcotics efforts.

Cuba continues to dedicate significant resources to preventing illegal drugs and illegal drug use from spreading on the island, so far successfully. The technical skill of Cuba’s Border Guard, Armed Forces and police give Cuba a marked advantage against [traffickers] attempting to gain access to the Caribbean’s largest island. Greater communication and cooperation among the U.S., its international partners and Cuba, particularly in the area of real-time tactical information-sharing and improved tactics, techniques and procedures, would likely lead to increased interdictions and disruptions of illegal trafficking.

The Ministry of Armed Forces and Ministry of Interior’s combination of fixed and mobile radars, coupled with visual and coastal vessel reporting procedures make up an effective network for detecting illegal incursions of territorial air and sea by narcotics traffickers.

In 2011, Cuba reported 45 real-time reports of “go-fast” narcotics trafficking events to the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG). [Cuban border guards’] email and phone notifications of maritime smuggling to the U.S. have increased in quantity and quality, and have occasionally included photographs of the vessels suspected of narcotrafficking while being pursued.

The Cuban government presented the United States with a draft bilateral accord for counternarcotics cooperation, which is still under review. Structured appropriately, such an accord could advance the counternarcotics efforts undertaken by both countries.

The 1905 extradition treaty between the United States and Cuba and an extradition agreement from 1926 remain in effect.

Odds and ends

• Reuters: Cuba will not attend the Cartagena Summit of the Americas next month.  “Colombia wants the situation of Cuba and its participation to be discussed in a constructive manner at the Cartagena Summit,” Colombian President Santos said as he was departing Havana.

• At Penultimos Dias, an interview with the creator of a “Cuban Facebook,” lalenin.com, a site for graduates of the elite Lenin high school.

• Café Fuerte: An independent journalist reports that a prisoner whose sentence was commuted (along with 2,990 others) last year, arrested on new charges, managed to escape from a Havana police station.  The police posted flyers with his photo around the neighborhood.

• AFP: The head of the U.S. Southern Command sees “no dramatic change happening in the future” in Cuba.

• Cuba Standard: The Obama Administration turned down the request of a Fort Lauderdale company for a license to begin passenger ferry service to Cuba.

On O'Reilly street

The do-it-yourself push

The new policy that allows Cuban citizens to buy and sell homes was presented as the abolition of one more “unneccessary prohibition” and also as a way to address the housing shortage. 

It can certainly do the latter by helping to redistribute the current housing stock, allowing those few with too much space to sell it off.  But that only goes so far. 

How then to expand the housing stock?

Do-it-yourself is one way, probably with limited potential too, but the government is trying to promote it. 

Juventud Rebelde just reported that the government is disappointed that 2011 sales in stores that sell construction materials were 72 percent short of the forecast.  (Culprits included uneven supplies and some high prices.)  It also reports plans to open 39 more stores that sell hardware and home construction materials.  The profits from these sales, Cuban television reported (see Prensa Latina) are being used to provide home repair grants for low-income households; this is a new program that has provided more than 200 grants in the first month.  Beyond that, bank credits are also available.

Time will tell the impact of these measures.  In the meantime, the stores themselves look to be what many of Cuba’s small entrepreneurs have been waiting for.  I saw one in Havana’s Miramar neighborhood that opened in March 2011.  While it had some big-ticket items (compressors for paint spraying) and some that were way overpriced (plastic garbage cans, $30-$70), there was a big variety of useful products, many at good prices.  There were tools and materials for carpentry, painting, electric work, tile work, plumbing, and more.  Most items were from China, with some from Spain, Taiwan (!), and the United States.

Odds and ends

·         Raul Castro proposed, and the Council of State agreed, to remove Abel Prieto as culture minister, a post he has held for 15 years, and to replace him with his deputy.  Prieto, whose work was described as “positive” in this nota oficial, now becomes an advisor to Raul.

·         El Espectador: Colombian President Santos will go to Cuba tomorrow, he said, “to have the opportunity to talk personally, as good friends talk with each other, with the Cuban government, with Raul Castro, about the matter of the summit.”  He refers to the upcoming Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, an event where Cuba’s friends in the hemisphere are making an issue of Cuba’s exclusion.

·         The Environmental Defense Fund will administer a Pew Fellowship awarded to a Cuban marine scientist, Dr. Fabian Pina, for three years of research that he will conduct in Cuba (see EDF press release).  This is a step forward in environmental collaboration and a good move by the Obama Administration.

·         Digging into a case covered by Granma, the Herald identifies a Cuban who once lived in Hialeah as the subject of an investigation into the operations of a farm in Matanzas that benefited from reportedly illegal acquisition of supplies.

More on USAID's m.o.

See a reader’s comment in the update here, continuing the discussion of the AP article’s report that USAID contractor Alan Gross was adding a special SIM card to the satellite Internet devices that he installed in Cuba to make them less susceptible to detection.

Odds and ends

• Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, recovering from another round of cancer surgery, was visited by Fidel and Raul Castro, Granma reported over the weekend.  Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will travel to Cuba Wednesday to confer with Chavez and Raul Castro, DPA reports.

• The Washington Post on Cuban oil drilling and the lack of U.S. preparedness.  This kinds of stands out: “A single Florida company is licensed to deliver oil dispersants to Havana. But there are no U.S. aircraft with contracts or permission to fly over Cuban waters. The current plan is to retrofit and deploy aging crop dusters from Cuban farms to dump the dispersants.”

• A final note on Senator Leahy’s delegation that held several meetings in Cuba February 23-24 – with President Raul Castro, a group of dissidents, Alan Gross, and others.  The meeting with Castro was “offensive” to Martha Beatriz Roque, who complained that it coincided with the anniversaries of the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown and the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo.  Independent journalist Pedro Argueyes Morán went her one better and said the Pope should cancel his visit to Cuba later this month. 

• Café Fuerte reported first on the passing of Angela Castro, sister of Fidel and Raul.  AP story here.

• Reuters: The Ministry of Basic Industries is being dissolved and replaced with new ministries of energy and mining.

Two trusty stallions...

...a side attraction at the recent Havana book fair.

Benedict and the Cuban church

National Catholic Register reporter Victor Gaetan, writing in Foreign Affairs, looks ahead to the Pope’s visit:

When Pope Benedict XVI visits Cuba next month, he will once again reinforce a strategy that the Vatican has allowed the local Catholic Church there to pursue for more than three decades: diligently avoid any political confrontation with the Castro regime, collaborate with Havana to combat the U.S.-led embargo, and support the Cuban government's incremental economic reforms. In exchange, the Church has been able to maintain a certain amount of autonomy on the island, allowing it to rebuild its presence and position for the possible post-Castro economic boom times to come.

An article from Mr. Gaetan about the opening of the new seminary outside Havana is here.

Secretary Clinton on Cuba

This is an interesting discussion between Secretary Clinton and Rep. David Rivera at the House Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday.  She views the release of political prisoners as “positive” and acknowledges that recent economic policy changes in Cuba have resulted in an increase in economic freedom.  Rep. Rivera dismisses the economic policies that have created about 200,000 new licensed entrepreneurs in Cuba and argues that the released prisoners have all been “banished,” ignoring the fact that a dozen chose to remain in Cuba rather than go to Spain.

Not in the video, the Secretary said there is “no basis and no intention” for Cuba to be invited to next month’s Summit of the Americas in Cartagena; see Xinhua story. 

Regarding the case of jailed USAID contractor Alan Gross, she said, “We’ve made no deals, we’ve offered no concessions, and we don’t intend to do so.” (AP)  Which can’t make Mr. Gross feel very good at all.

Post No. 2000

Phew.

Watercress