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.

Bill Rogers, R.I.P.

William D. Rogers died yesterday in Virginia while riding his favorite horse.

He was a lawyer and senior American diplomat with a long and rich career. The New York Times obit points out that he turned down Henry Kissinger’s request that he join the Nixon Administration, but he agreed to enter the government as soon as President Ford took over. In the Ford Administration, he managed an attempt to normalize relations with Cuba; U.S. diplomats had several secret meetings with Cuban diplomats in New York, but Cuba left the offer on the table and later the offer was definitively sunk when Cuba intervened in Angola.

Bill never lost his interest in Cuba and always had time for those of us who wanted to learn about his experience or get his advice. We’ll miss him. R.I.P.

Trinidad

Don’t, Britney, don’t

“She thinks it’s her only hope,” a friend says of Britney’s Plan B. Heading to Cuba with her kids, that is. Britney Spears. There, supposedly she would be beyond the reach of U.S. law and Kevin Federline.

I’m sure the Treasury Department would have a few thoughts, and we can imagine Federline asserting his parental rights in a Cuban court.

Britney, better go back to Plan A.

More on the detentions

Here’s more reporting on the detention of about 20 dissidents in Cuba yesterday: from the Herald, AP, AFP, Reuters. Different reports still carry different numbers, but the accounts are the same: Martha Beatriz Roque and others detained in front of the justice ministry as they awaited a response to a letter demanding better conditions for prisoners, and others detained en route or at home to prevent them from reaching the ministry. Some reports say they were driven home and dropped off; not all who were reported detained have been accounted for; and there is no indication whether any will face charges, as happened in a similar incident a few years ago when a group planned a protest in front of the French ambassador’s house. The Miami-based, U.S.-funded Directorio has a list and quotes dissident Rene Montes de Oca saying that actions such as these were expected as the date of local elections approaches, because the government wants “to show domestic and international public opinion that no opposition exists and there is no consolidated civil society ready to confront all the risks to demonstrate that in Cuba there is indeed a people that wants to be free.”

Billboards

Some of the billboards on view in Cuba, including some that are but one part of the government's campaign against the "Plan Bush," its term for the 2004 report of the Administration's Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba.

Pedro Campos interview

Pedro Campos, author of the 15 proposals discussed here, gives an interview to the BBC (Spanish, text here) where he discusses the current debate and his “absolute conviction” that the top government and party leadership are following it in detail. The core issue, he says, is to address the results of the reforms of the 1990’s – some capitalist in nature, some socialist – that created “large social differences” and uneven benefits among the Cuban workforce, “in spite of the state’s redistribution efforts.” He would like to see his and other proposals debated in all national media and submitted to a referendum within three months.

Odds and ends

• Judge Cohen ruled today that, contrary to the State of Florida’s arguments, Rafael Izquierdo of Cabaiguan, Cuba is not an unfit parent. But I was wrong in my earlier post – this decision doesn’t end the matter. The judge gave Mr. Izquierdo a strong hand, and send all parties to mediation. There will be another hearing on the girl’s welfare.

• Different reports cite different numbers – EFE says it was 13 – but there are reports that dissidents were detained in Havana today as they prepared to join together to deliver to the Justice Ministry a letter protesting the conditions in which political prisoners are held.

• The Mexican and Cuban foreign minsters met at the UN, and I have a report from Havana that Mexico’s ambassador there says he hopes that a visit to Cuba by President Calderon can be made before the end of the year.

• Another look at the economic debate in Cuba, this one from Federico Fornés in Encuentro.

Raul the reformer? -- an opposite view

Now here’s an antidote to my prediction that reforms will result from the current economic debate. Written by Alex at the Stuck on the Palmetto blog, it describes a similar airing of grievances in 1991. And it’s persuasive.

But as they say on the stock exchange, past history does not guarantee future performance. Right now, there’s a clear desire for change, the system itself says it needs change, the system is organizing discussions of change, and there is no shortage of ideas and options.

And there’s a difference in the leadership. I don’t think we’re going to have to wait too long to see if its foot is on the gas or the brakes.

Odds and ends

• Three Democrats and three Republicans call on the Administration to lift travel restrictions. Their letter is here (pdf).

• Via Los Miquis de Miami, somewhere to go if the Interior Ministry Museum in Miramar is passé.

Raul the reformer?

Why would I conclude that the economic talk in Cuba today will lead to action? My explanation here.

Trinidad

“Socialism allows for variations”

Here, courtesy of the Miami radio program “La Noche Se Mueve,” is an interview (Spanish, pdf) with Cuban economist Pedro Monreal, who works at the University of Havana’s Center for Research on the International Economy (CIEI).

The interview was given earlier this month when Monreal attended the Latin American Studies Association convention, which was held in Canada so that the Cuban delegation could participate.

Monreal is an academic, not a policy-making official, and he makes clear that he speaks in a personal capacity. But his comments on the Cuba’s economy and policy options are an interesting window on the ideas circulating in Cuba today.

It’s a long interview. For English-speaking readers, here are a few of the points he makes:

• On the meaning of “structural change:” “Basically we are talking about institutional changes…eventually, including changes in types of property, organization, and systems of incentives.”

• On political consensus: “…reforms that imply a structural modification will first require a political consensus…that today is not known; there is an intention to change, but my reading is that in Cuba there is now emerging a relatively slow process in search of a political consensus that could set the guide lines of this move to structural change.”

• How to fix agriculture? “…I believe there would have to be a change in the way land ownership is structured…one would have to put at the disposal of private producers, family enterprises, and also cooperatives, a substantial part of the land – and not only that, but more flexible elements of land management would have to be introduced; so that not everything would be through such a centralized management, but also permitting a role for the market…”

• On the state’s role: “I am among those who consider that a socialist state can accommodate – it’s not a contradiction – can accommodate a sector of domestic private property much more extensive than is being considered in Cuba now...I do not believe that a state must concern itself with endless things that today are done by state enterprises that do not do them efficiently and where it is proven that the private sector and cooperatives can do them much better.”

• On credit: “…there could exist a specialized financial sector, a state bank that would specialize in providing capital to persons who can demonstrate with a plan that they can be successful…but the question as to whether the state necessarily has to concern itself with auto body work, shoe repair, making electric appliances or repairing, I don’t know, blenders or producing food – not necessarily, that can be organized on the basis of cooperatives or domestic private businesses.”

• Are these the ideas in Raul Castro’s July 26 speech? “…I’m not very sure because, really, what the July 26 speech did was to open a process that is not at all going to be a fast process; it is a process that implies, simultaneously, a reflection, the search for a consensus, and to implement some measures, because there are things that cannot wait for a finely developed consensus, for example, the typical case of food production is a problem that I hope is resolved in Cuba in the next year…”

• On Cuba’s dual-currency system: “My opinion is that the coexistence of two currencies is an economic disaster…there has long been a realization on the part of the Cuban government that this had to be resolved, it is not sustainable…What blocks the solution that everyone knows is necessary? What blocks it is the lack of productivity in the Cuban state sector; if the state sector that supports that currency is not productive, the problem of unifying the currency can never be resolved…”

Bush on Cuba

From the President’s address today to the UN General Assembly:

“In Cuba, the long rule of a cruel dictator is nearing its end. The Cuban people are ready for their freedom. And as that nation enters a period of transition, the United Nations must insist on free speech, free assembly, and ultimately, free and competitive elections.”

Update: The speech provoked a walkout by the Cuban delegation.

Odds and ends

• The Chicago Tribune reports on Havana Bay and Luyano River pollution, and efforts to clean it up.

• A Cuban media report on how U.S. sanctions cost some Cubans their jobs working on foreign cruise ships.

• A BBC Spanish roundup of the “thousands of debates” taking place in workplaces across Cuba. Foreign reporters have not witnessed them directly, but a hospital worker and communist youth official told BBC that workers complained about pay, work conditions, the dual-currency system, and “bad conditions” in hospitals. He wondered how it is possible that the health sector earns hard currency by providing medical services abroad, but has not raised the pay of its personnel in Cuba.

Lost in translation

Cuba’s Carlos III stores have a Canadian website where you can buy items and have them delivered to someone in Cuba. A “mattress of jetties” (ouch!) can be yours for $275.56 Canadian. I guess colchon de muelles, whatever that is, loses something in translation. Speaking of which, alongside is a poor photo taken at the buffet table in a Cuban hotel, right above a chafing dish of poached eggs. If the eggs were “embezzled” for real, wouldn’t they have gone out of the hotel instead of in?