La Farola

Crackdown on satellite tv

Lest anyone think that Cubans could do anything they want with the video equipment that they can now import, a Cuban law enforcement campaign is cracking down on the pirating and resale of satellite television signals.

According to Reuters, a dozen individuals engaged in this business were nabbed and could face five years in jail. According to Prensa Latina, 20,000-peso fines ($640) have been levied on individuals who bought the service. The black-market service sells DirecTV signals, which allows Cubans to see the U.S. government’s TV Marti, which is carried on one of DirecTV’s channels. Cuban authorities say that the “counterrevolutionary” and “destabilizing” content of TV Marti and private stations carried on DirecTV are the reason for the crackdown, in addition to the illegality of the black-market activity itself. (I’ll add a link to a news account in English when I can find one.)

How interesting it would be to know what Cubans are actually watching when they buy satellite access. I have heard Cubans rave about Sabado Gigante and trade videos of it, and they trade videos and DVD’s of movies of all kinds. Any guesses as to the percent that tune in to the U.S. government’s broadcasts if they also have the option to see sports, movies, other entertainment, and news?

EU stalemate

A report from the EU Observer in Brussels describes a stalemate in the EU between Spain and like-minded countries that believe that “engagement will help ensure peaceful succession of power after Fidel Castro dies and open room for human rights discussions,” and others spearheaded by the Czech Republic, which believe that the way to stand up for human rights is through a set of unspecified “operational ideas.” A Czech-sponsored initiative has been shelved, making it likely that EU policy will not change.

The organization People in Need, based in Prague but sounding as if it is based in Miami, is cited attacking Spain for being interested in protecting its business interests as opposed to caring about the Cuban people.

Updates & catch-ups

• Michael Moore’s martyrdom continues to blossom with his release of a defiant letter to the Secretary of the Treasury in which he ignores the questions he was asked to answer about his trip to Cuba, and launches into an attack on the Bush Administration and the health care industry.

• Cuban media publish what are purported to be transcripts of Luis Posada Carriles’ phone conversations in which he discusses the Havana hotel bombings and their financing: there’s “mucho billete” supporting his project, reads one quote.

• The Miami Herald rounds up opinion on where Cuba stands after nine months of Fidel Castro’s absence. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart expects political change once Fidel Castro is gone. But most others cited see things differently; University of Miami Professor Jaime Suchlicki, quoted in the article, pretty much sums it up: “'Now, there is a growing realization that the succession of power has taken place – and that’s it.”

• The New York Times reports on fugitives from American justice who reside in Cuba, such as Charlie Hill and Joanne Chesimard.

• And phone service was restored in Cuba, New Mexico. No word on apagones.

Customs regulations eased, again

In today’s El Nuevo Herald, Wilfredo Cancio reports on new customs regulations that permit non-commercial imports of car parts, engines, electricity generators, and similar equipment.

This step follows removal of prohibitions on importing VCR’s and DVD players.

There may be more to come: Cancio also reports on documents indicating that Cuba is studying repeal of prohibitions on non-commercial imports of heaters, microwave ovens, freezers, and other household appliances.

These are “liberalizing measures,” professor Carmelo Mesa-Lago told Cancio, noting that we should wait to see what tariffs are applied to these items.

These measures do lighten the hand of the state and will benefit public welfare. But they can’t be confused with the kind of liberalization that would allow Cubans to create more wealth through their own energies. The new customs regulations are an invitation to Miami and the rest of the Cuban diaspora to create wealth, and to send it to Cuba.

AG Gonzales on Posada

Excerpt from a House Judiciary Committee hearing, May 10, 2007, with Rep. Bill Delahunt questioning the Attorney General:

DELAHUNT:

Well, back in March of 2005 an individual by the name of Luis Posada Carriles entered this country illegally. He has had a long and rather dramatic history of violence and in fact has been convicted of acts of terrorism in other countries. The most famous charge, of course -- and this is referenced in a series of FBI documents that are now in the public domain -- is that he was implicated in the midair bombing of a Cuban airliner, resulting in the deaths of some 73 civilians. I'm sure you're familiar with that.

GONZALES:

I'm familiar with the news stories, yes, sir.

DELAHUNT:

Well, let me ask you this: Have you reviewed this particular case?

GONZALES:

I'm aware of this case.

DELAHUNT:

And have you made at any point in time an assessment of whether this individual should be designated as a terrorist and detained?

GONZALES:

What I can say, Congressman, is that, of course, I'm concerned about what I know. And we've taken steps in the courts to try...

DELAHUNT:

I understand you've taken steps in courts, but I'd appreciate a direct answer.

GONZALES:

What's the question?

DELAHUNT:

Why have you not taken steps to designate Luis Posada Carriles as a testimony -- rather, as a terrorist, given the overwhelming information that exists in the public domain today?

GONZALES:

Congressman, what I'd like to do is go back and look at this case so I can give you an answer. I want to be -- I want to be totally accurate with you with respect to...

DELAHUNT:

I understand. But this is your responsibility...

GONZALES:

And I want to be careful about what I can say publicly. And so, again...

DELAHUNT:

Well, I understand you have to careful. But at the same time, have you undertaken a review of this case, given the law authorizing you...

GONZALES:

I'm aware of the circumstances of this case. But I'm also aware that there are still on -- think -- matters and actions ongoing within the department that have not been completed. And I don't want to say anything that would in any way jeopardize that.

Vinales, 2005

Delahunt: Detain Posada now

Rep. Bill Delahunt writes to the Attorney General to ask why Luis Posada Carriles has not been designated as an alien who has “engaged in terrorist activity” under the Patriot Act, and kept in federal detention on that basis. The Administration’s own statements, as the letter outlines, make the case for taking that step.

The Administration may yet do the right thing. But as the stumbling and bumbling in the Texas immigration fraud case show, the Administration has not put its “A” team on the field.

In the case of Islamic terrorist suspects, we have press conferences by the Attorney General, reinterpretations of the Geneva Convention, limits on habeas corpus, limits on access to attorneys – whatever it takes.

In this case, we have a former prosecutor from Quincy, Massachusetts reminding Alberto Gonzales that the Patriot Act exists.

(H/t: Western Hemisphere Policy Watch.)

Michael Moore and the Feds: So what?

Actually, Michael Moore might have two different words for the Treasury Department agents threatening to fine him for traveling to Cuba: Thank you.

No, make that four words: Thank you very much.

The left-wing buffoon has made a film, Sicko, about the U.S. health care system. It involved taking ten Americans to Cuba for medical treatment. He applied to Treasury for permission to take that trip, got no response, and traveled anyway.

A May 2 letter from the Office of Foreign Assets Control demands information on the trip, its participants, and their reasons for going. He has 20 days to respond.

So now, a health care documentary by an economic illiterate has been converted into The Film the Bush Administration Wants to Stop.

Thank you very, very, very much.

Moore is playing the feds like a violin to feed his pre-release publicity. He released the letter. According to AP, he has placed a print of the film in a “safe house” outside U.S. territory to protect his oeuvre from oncoming government goons.

If he is smart, he will refuse to pay a fine, which he surely could afford, and instead demand a hearing before a U.S. administrative law judge. With cameras, he could appear with the patients who were treated in Cuba. The judge will grill him as to how much he spent on meals, lodging, and transportation, and why he didn’t have a license.

Martyrdom, anyone?

If he is really smart, he could go to Miami to confront those who are already pining for him to be incarcerated (example here, with salty language). He can count on being attacked for his views, which will create a public impression that the government and his critics are trying to regulate free speech.

Which would not be accurate: The travel ban, and the action against Moore, are part of our government's policy to “hasten the demise of the dictatorship” in Cuba.

Promoting tourism

Cuba is holding a tourism promotion fair this week amid news that 2006 tourist visits fell 3.6 percent between 2005 and 2006.

A news report in early 2006 fingered the cause: high prices, set entirely by the Ministry of Tourism and accentuated by Cuba’s exchange rate for the convertible peso, that make Cuba less attractive compared to other destinations in the Caribbean.

I have no experience buying the all-inclusive packages sold to Canadian and European travelers to beach resorts, the prices of which have drawn complaints from foreign tour operators. But when one sees that a modest rental car in Havana, for example, costs an American about $100 per day, one senses that the ministry is pushing the limit.

It will be interesting to see the tourism results for 2007, and whether Cuba adjusts prices to draw more visitors. Cuban officials surely understand the “elasticity of demand” that professors teach in Economics 101. If Cuba is satisfied with low growth or no growth in tourism, it will be yet another sign that the government feels secure in its economic position and that the tourism sector, on which the government depended in large part to escape the foreign exchange crisis of the early 1990’s, is not as crucial as it once was. Venezuelan support, Chinese credits, high nickel prices, and an improved energy picture have created breathing room.

A sign that the message about high prices may be getting through: On the second day of the fair, Prensa Latina reports, the ministry announced that it will charge normal prices for aviation fuel for planes refueling in Cuba.

A Lexington report on Cuba’s tourism industry and its role in the Cuban economy is here (pdf).

Surge!!!

Keeping half an eye on where new readers are coming from, I see that the U.S. eastern seaboard is pretty well covered from Boston to Miami, including a reader in the Hollywood, Florida of Ana Nicole Smith fame. Not doing bad in the Midwest, either.

Outside the U.S., I see readers in Bhopal, Santo Domingo, Chihuahua, Edmonton, Madrid, Amarillo, Hong Kong, Taipei, and points in between. And Africa is now covered with a new reader from Johannesburg. The French maintain a cool indifference, for now.

Welcome all.

Bellas Artes, 2005...

…formerly the Centro Asturiano, the social club for immigrants from Asturias, Spain, on Havana’s Parque Central.

Economist on Cuba politics

Is the big guy coming back to the office?

The Economist Intelligence Unit discusses Castro’s health, economic policy management, cabinet reshuffling, and the generational change that is taking place regardless of what happens at the very top.

H/t: Penultimos Dias.

Chepe: Allow travel to Cuba

The calls to restrict travel to Cuba never seem to come from Cuba. They don’t come from Europe, not from the governments of the former communist countries or from the organizations in those countries that work independently or with U.S. support to press human rights issues. All European countries allow open travel to Cuba and there is no debate in Europe about restricting travel.

In Cuba itself, you would be hard pressed to find people who believe that the solution to their country’s problems lies in barriers to contact with the outside world.

Writing in Madrid’s El Pais (Spanish here, translation here), dissident Oscar Espinosa Chepe discusses the economics of Cuba’s tourism industry, then calls for an opening in U.S policy in the interest of promoting a “democratic, reconciled Cuba:”

“In these circumstances, the mechanisms established by the U.S. authorities, aimed at isolating Cuban society from contact with its citizens, and even with Cuban-Americans, are counterproductive and incomprehensible. In fact, it is aligned with the policy always promoted by the Cuban Government, of keeping the people on the Island isolated from any outside contact. The only sensible thing that could help the Cuban people is what was done in Eastern Europe and later in China and Viet Nam, where the ties between the peoples were fostered and continue to be fostered, with unquestionable success.

“One would hope that, with the new balance of power in the U.S. Congress and Senate [sic], there will be more understanding of this matter, and that there will be a radical change in the policy toward Cuba, especially because Cuba-U.S. relations are vital for the democratic transition in Cuba. A climate of tension and suspicion in the Straits of Florida has always been very helpful to the interests of the most change-resistant sector of the Cuban Government.

“So, the proposals made recently by Representatives Jeff Flake, Bill Delahunt, Mrs. Emerson, and Charles Rangel, among other important U.S. legislators, all made with great common sense and which, if approved, would doubtless significantly benefit efforts on behalf of a democratic, reconciled Cuba, where human rights are respected, are essential to Cubans.”

FBI's case against Posada

If you wonder what the FBI knows about Luis Posada Carriles and the 1997 Havana hotel bombings, and what might be the basis for an indictment in the Newark grand jury, see this 2005 affidavit on The Miami Herald’s website. The agent says it is some of what he knows about Posada, but it is quite a bit.

"Fraud, deceit, and trickery"

If you are a fan of limited government, the separation of powers, and checks against the power of anything-goes federal prosecutors, you will love reading the decision of U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone in the Posada case (pdf here). If you are an admirer of the Bush Administration and want to believe in its competence in matters involving terrorism, you are in for an unedifying spectacle.

The judge ruled that the government’s conduct was so incompetent and so out of bounds that the indictment of Posada could not stand, so she dismissed it entirely.

With Posada in U.S. custody in an immigration proceeding, the federal government assembled a special team to interview Posada for eight hours in the course of two days.

The government produced a transcript of the interview that was, Judge Cardone said, “so inaccurate that it is not reliable.” She continued: “The danger of prejudice that would result from submitting this proposed evidence to the jury far outweighs its probative value.”

In theory, that problem could have been fixed, the judge said, but two other problems were insurmountable and made that point moot.

The first involved translation. The interview team included Susana Bolanos, an official of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration services and a Spanish speaker. Bolanos was allowed to conduct the interview in Spanish, but she did not do so. Instead, the team brought its own interpreter and questioned Posada in English.

The interpreter, however, was incompetent. The Judge’s key finding:

“This Court has extensively examined the enhanced digital copy multiple times with the aid of a court-certified interpreter and has found numerous instances where words were incorrectly interpreted or not interpreted at all, where Defendant appeared to provide unresponsive answers as a result of his confusion over the questions, and where Defendant expressed difficulty understanding what was said to him.”

Second, Judge Cardone ruled that “the Government engaged in fraud, deceit, and trickery” by representing that it was conducting a routine naturalization interview when “the entire interview was, instead, a pretext for a criminal investigation.”

She summed up by saying that “the Government’s tactics in this case are so grossly shocking and so outrageous as to violate the universal sense of justice.”

The only saving grace for the government is that, with the immigration fraud charges gone, its choices regarding Posada are a little bit simpler today than they were yesterday.

Posada walks

Maybe it’s just as well. The sideshow is over, and we’re down to the real issue.

With the immigration fraud charges against Luis Posada Carriles dismissed yesterday – big time – by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone, only one issue remains: whether the U.S. government will treat Posada as a terrorist rather than merely an illegal immigrant.

The immigration charges were always a sideshow. The Justice Department calls Posada an “admitted mastermind of terrorist plots and attacks,” the U.S. government’s own declassified files and investigators’ statements implicate him in acts of terrorism, and his own statements do the same.

Once Posada fell into U.S. hands two years ago, the Administration faced a challenge of its own making, one that has nothing to do with the clamor coming from Cuba and Venezuela. It’s simple: Having instructed the world as to its obligations in the fight against terrorism, Washington has to decide whether and how to meet its own clear moral standards.

What might happen now?

1. He might leave the country. The government says he has no legal status here and under the terms of his bail order, he was obligated to continue looking for a country that would give him a visa. Perhaps the U.S. government is also looking for such a country; it has tried and failed before. Surely his lawyers will seek a place where he faces no risk of extradition.

2. Washington may indict him for involvement in the 1997 Havana hotel bombings. Follow the Newark grand jury.

3. Washington could respond to Venezuela’s extradition request so that Posada would face charges in the 1976 airliner bombing in Barbados.

4. Washington could invoke Patriot Act legal authorities that apply to terrorists and return him to detention.

Now, as ever, there is no Administration official explaining the policy judgments in this case. There is only Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd, explaining that prosecutors are reviewing the judge’s decision.

There’s a lot more to say about Judge Cardone’s decision, but one of her statements deserves mention because it makes one wonder what the government was trying to achieve with these charges, other than a lengthy pretrial detention for Posada while Washington sorted out its options.

The maximum sentence for Posada’s charges added up to 40 years – but even if convicted, Posada might have walked. The judge notes:

“The Court routinely presides over trials and formulates sentences for defendants facing the same charges as those faced by the Defendant in this case. For example, a typical defendant convicted of all seven counts with which Defendant is currently charged would receive a maximum sentence of six to twelve months under the United States Sentencing Guidelines. In addition, any time that such defendant served in federal incarceration would more likely than not qualify such defendant for time served, or at the very least, probation.”

Plaza de Armas, 2005

"Asylees" and the desire to visit home

A Miami Herald op-ed today by the premier pro-embargo lobbyist argues, as one might expect, against any changes in current U.S. policy. It attacks the 1992 policy contained in the Cuba Democracy Act as if it were a gift to the Cuban government, failing to note that it was negotiated, approved, and endorsed by the revered Jorge Mas Canosa, who was not a softie. It contains the routine Calle Ocho slander against the motives of people on the other side of the debate, who “have adopted the regime’s insidious mantra as their own.”

I will be getting into the broader travel debate soon, but here I want to treat a myth that appears in this article and in some discussions by Administration officials – that Cubans who come to America are “asylum seekers,” i.e. they gain entry based on a claim of persecution. Based on that falsehood, the article goes on to argue that Cuban Americans should not have an unrestricted right to return to the island for family visits. It is cheeky if not hypocritical, the argument goes, to demand a right to visit Cuba if you gained entry to the United States by claiming you were persecuted there.

The problem is that relatively few Cuban immigrants (22 percent of Cuban immigrants in 2003-2005, the last three years for which data are available), enter in the legal category of refugees or asylees – i.e. by claiming they would be persecuted if returned home.

Why? Because they don’t have to. Successive U.S. Administrations have adopted a policy of admitting Cubans who arrive on U.S. territory or present themselves at the Mexican border without a U.S. visa. (More detail here.) Those migrants are admitted because of their nationality, not based on a legal claim of persecution. Most become permanent residents one year later under a policy enabled but not required by the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966. Similarly, Cubans who immigrate through the visa lottery conducted by the U.S. Interests Section in Havana are not admitted based on a claim of persecution.

There is plenty to debate about U.S. travel restrictions and our immigration policy toward Cubans. But there is no basis for arguing that Cuban Americans are hypocritical, or are violating a principle of immigration law, if they want to go to Cuba to visit or help their family.

Hello out there

I just took the steps necessary to track the traffic on this blog – lots of fun, lots of work to do. I’m happy to see readers from Canada’s west coast, Australia’s east coast, and points in between. Not to mention Havana (6.4 percent of readers), todos son bienvenidos. And Hanoi, Venezuela, Spain, England, Brazil, and the Netherlands too. Africa has yet to check in. A special hello goes out to the reader in Eskisehir, Turkey; if you were lost I sure hope you found where you were going.

Links

A friend asks why I have links to blogs on this page that have views different from my own. First, the list of blogs represents diverse points of view. And since this is an exercise in information, I find that a scan through a variety of Cuba blogs, each with a different focus and point of view, is a good way to stay on top of news and the issues in the Cuba debate. One thing the pro-embargo blogs teach you is that for all the change that is taking place in Cuban American opinion, the so-called hard-line point of view is not rooted exclusively in the first generation of exiles.

The distance from Miami to Havana

He spent a career writing for Cuban state media then left to join the opposition and to write as an independent journalist. Jailed in 2003, released in 2005, Manuel Vasquez Portal went into exile but his heart remains in Cuba and he wants to continue working for the cause he still espouses.

But how to do so from abroad?

He addresses that question in an article that says exile is at best “a personal truce” that brings relief from persecution but also “minimizes the impact of the opposition activist on his natural reality.”

Vasquez argues for the Cuban opposition, inside Cuba and out, to unite with discipline behind a common set of tactics – a goal that seems unattainable, even if strategically desirable. Fortunately for those of us who are not Cuban, that thorny question is none of our business.

But his main point is that anyone who wants to affect Cuba from abroad needs to begin by understanding that “the role of protagonist belongs to those who stay on the field of direct action.” And this: “One cannot export tactics when distanced from a changing reality.”

Mr. Vasquez is so diplomatic that he gives no examples of “exporting tactics.” But by raising the issue of distance – political distance – he seemed to me to touch on the factor that dooms many outside approaches to Cuba.

What might he have had in mind?

When the Pinar del Rio Catholic journal Vitral apparently closed, the Cuban American National Foundation offered to finance its operations so it would not have to close. The Foundation announced its offer to the media – a perfectly normal thing to do in the United States, but it doomed any hope of the offer being accepted in Cuba. The Cuban government views the Foundation as a terrorist organization; one does not have to agree with that view to see that from the church’s point of view, the publicity poisoned the offer.

The Directorio Democratic Cubano, an organization funded by the U.S. government, documents opposition activity in annual reports. The reports in recent years have found lots of private prayer vigils and relatively little open opposition such as non-cooperation or open defiance of the government. The Directorio and other organizations launched a campaign to promote non-cooperation, including posters and stickers urging Cubans, among other things, not to show up for work. Rather than deliver the materials to Cuba discreetly and let activists there do their work, generate publicity, and take credit, the organizations launched a publicity campaign in Miami, including press conferences, distribution of the campaign materials in Hialeah, and an event at the Coral Gables Country Club. The problem here is that even if the idea for the campaign originated in Cuba – a claim the Directorio makes – the Miami publicity gave it a made-in-the-USA stamp, and associated it with the Administration’s policy to change Cuba’s political order, which puts dissidents in more hot water than they are in already. Apart from reporting by U.S. government grantees, I have seen no reports on the impact of this campaign in Cuba. A sharper view of this operation – part of an emerging debate in Miami about the work of U.S. grantees – appears in Alajandro Armengol’s Cuaderno de Cuba.

But when it comes to lack of discretion, the U.S. government takes first prize.

By making aid to dissidents part of its “transition” plan – which sounds like a regime change plan to Cuban authorities – the U.S. government unnecessarily plays into the Cuban accusation that dissidents are nothing more than an extension of U.S. foreign policy.

Then there are other programs under that plan that are based on the naïve expectation that Cuba will cooperate with them. The most famous of these is the scholarship program for children of dissidents and political prisoners. Cuba, as one might expect, does not give exit permits to political opponents to go abroad for training. The last report I saw on this program indicated that Georgetown University, with $400,000 in government funding, had succeeded in bringing exactly two students out of Cuba.

I have no idea if Mr. Vasquez, based on his experience in Cuba, had initiatives like these in mind when when he wrote about the ineffectiveness of “exporting tactics.” But these stories and many more often make me think that the political distance between Miami and Havana is a lot greater than 90 miles.