Havana's blunder

If it was a chess move, there would be two question marks after it, the annotation for “blunder.”

There seems little doubt that Cuba’s shipment of anti-aircraft systems, or elements of them, plus two MiG-21 fighters, violates a United Nations Security Council resolution against sending arms to North Korea. 

That’s a political black eye that Cuba would surely rather avoid. 

So why choose North Korea to repair the equipment?  Perhaps, among the few places that do that work, Pyongyang offered the best deal, such as a brown sugar barter arrangement.  Why would Cuba entrust a North Korean freighter crew to smuggle the goods, somewhat carelessly in light of the political and diplomatic risk?  I doubt we’ll ever know.

Cuba asserts, and no one questions, its right to self-defense.  Refurbished planes and anti-aircraft systems are part of that.

As for the military impact of this materiel, it is negligible to zero.

If it were repaired, retained, and deployed by the North Koreans, it would not change the correlation of forces on the Korean peninsula.

If it were repaired and returned to Cuba, its deployment would not threaten the United States.  A boost in radar and anti-aircraft missile capability would serve Cuba’s defense capability, and that plus two refurbished MiGs would enhance Cuba’s ability to monitor its airspace and territorial waters.

These systems would not affect a modern adversary as they are several generations old, first produced in the 1950’s.  (Google “MiG-21,” and you find a story about an Indian Air Force pilot who is suing his government, alleging that to fly that plane violates his “fundamental right to life.”)

And they have nothing to do with the international community’s concern about North Korea, which has to do with the development of nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles. 

But legally speaking, none of that matters in that the mere sending of those kinds of arms seems to constitute a clear violation of the UN resolution regarding North Korea. 

If Cuba were developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, the United States might be treating Cuba as it did North Korea during the previous Administration – dialogue, visits by high-level State Department envoys, a respectful letter from President Bush to the Dear Leader in 2007, removal from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, and an offer of full diplomatic relations (with no political conditions attached) upon abandonment of nuclear weapons programs (see here, here, and here).

The Obama Administration seems to be waiting for the evidence fully to come in before it confronts Cuba with it.  The ship search will take a week or so as Panamanians hand-carry all the bags of brown sugar out of the hull, the North Korean sailors having disabled the winches that would have made the job easy. 

Whether the UN takes up the matter, and what it would mean for Cuba, is anyone’s guess. 

For now, Calle Ocho is enjoying an opportunity to revive the Cuban Military Threat.  It is also in the process of falling in love with the United Nations and international law, something we never see when the General Assembly condemns the U.S. embargo nearly unanimously, year after year.

Odds and ends

• “Military exercises fail to rouse Cubans:” A Wikileaked cable from USINT Havana, December 2009.

• Tracey Eaton digs up a government document that lists payments to consultants to Radio and TV Marti from 2003 to 2010. Penultimos Dias sifted through its 800-plus pages and lists some of the consultants.

• A statement from the Archdiocese of Havana says it “has not received from the Cuban government any notification referring to the end of [the prisoner release] process.” It referred to a Spanish foreign ministry statement (linked here) saying the process had ended.

• Your tax dollars at work: Café Fuerte, following Treasury Department sanctions activity, reports a $22,500 fine imposed on the MetLife insurance company for sending a check for a death benefit directly to a beneficiary in Cuba. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control’s description of the case is here. The penalty seems absurd because only the payment method, not the payment itself, violated OFAC rules. OFAC explains: “Upon the receipt of the notice, MetLife stopped payment and deposited the death benefit payment into a blocked account. The funds were subsequently transferred to a bank for distribution to the beneficiary.”

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.

The Obama policy -- straws in the wind

Is President Obama really changing Cuba policy? You figure it out; here are some recent straws in the wind.

• The Herald’s Carol Rosenberg reports that U.S. and Cuban troops have conducted small joint exercises at and around the Guantanamo base. The latest took place last week, on both sides of the fenceline, involving firefighting and medical assistance. The exercises have been taking place for “more than a decade,” Rosenberg reports. What is new is that the Obama Administration, unlike its predecessors, released information about them.

• Last week’s migration talks represented the resumption of twice-yearly conversations on that topic that the Bush Administration had suspended. A Voice of America editorial (“Engaging with Cuba”) seems to indicate that talks on other subjects would be possible. It cites “the U.S. interest in pursuing constructive discussions with Havana to advance U.S. interests on issues of mutual concern.”

• This one, like the Microsoft Instant Messenger case discussed here, could be a case of a new Administration carrying out actions initiated by its predecessor. Treasury issued an announcement (pdf) last week that it had fined Philips Electronics of North America $128,750 for “an employee’s travel to Cuba in connection with the sale of medical equipment by a foreign affiliate.” President Obama has made it clear that he wants to maintain the embargo, but cracking down on the sale of medical equipment seems pretty extreme. This report says the equipment was made by a Brazil subsidiary, but I have seen no report that indicates exactly what was sold to Cuba. In his Spanish-language blog, Fernando Ravsberg of the BBC argues that the action sends a peculiar political message, and notes that “not even two countries at war sabotage the functioning of public medical services.”

Across the fenceline

An American Catholic Archbishop who serves as Archbishop for the Military Services, Timothy Broglio, visited the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo and left the base to celebrate mass in the city of Guantanamo. He also visited Santiago and the shrine of the Virgen de la Caridad in El Cobre, just outside Santiago. Cuba’s Catholic bishops conference reports that the Archbishop, speaking “perfect Spanish” in his Guantanamo homily, expressed “the American people’s affection for you.” He also said that many of the military personnel on the base had wanted to accompany him across the fenceline to visit monuments and gravesites in the places where, “with the blood of both peoples,” the struggle for Cuban liberty was carried out. “We ask God that one day we can worship without separation.” (H/t Cubaencuentro).

Odds and ends

• This report in El Nuevo Herald says that the Cuban press is reporting that last year’s new regulations on labor discipline are not having much of an effect. There’s only a slight decrease in absenteeism due to workers leaving their jobs to runs errands in government offices, go shopping, etc. Meanwhile, there’s still no word on the new salary policy which was to have been formulated last summer. Maybe there’s a connection.

• From Miami journalist Michael Putney, a colorful and even-handed preview of the Congressional race between Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez.

• Frank Calzon asks how Cuba’s military will act “when the all-powerful dictaror Fidel Castro dies,” and he sounds a little optimistic. Professor Jaime Suchlicki, in a new essay (posted here), looks ahead and sees a quick succession followed by a slow transition in Cuba.

Cuban armed forces

A reader in Puerto Rico, Raul Colon, kindly contributed an article on the current state of the Cuban armed forces. He discusses changes in force structure and their impact on Cuban military doctrine. I posted his article here (pdf).

Dialogue with the Cuban military?

Brian Latell, former national intelligence officer for Latin America, reportedly told Radio France Internationale that U.S. military officers tell him they have been in touch with their Cuban counterparts, including in the Dominican Republic. The contacts, he says, could only have occurred with the approval of Raul Castro.

Right. And with George Bush’s blessing, too. Lincoln, call your office!

With due caution, Latell describes the report as unconfirmed.

Contacts with the Cuban military would certainly be a sign of new thinking in the Bush Administration. “Hard-liners” in and out of government can be found on both sides of this question. Some advocate such contacts because the Cuban military, to say the least, has a role in determining Cuba’s future course, and U.S. messages might be delivered better in person than by shouting across the straits, and we might learn something useful. Others have opposed the idea, arguing that Cuba’s military should focus on issues inside Cuba rather than on a dialogue with Americans, and U.S. officers are unlikely to gain useful information.

AFP English report is here. H/T: Penultimos Dias.