Chairman Joe declares

This election year just got even more interesting with the announcement by Miami-Dade Democratic Chairman Joe Garcia that he will challenge Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart for Florida’s District 25 seat in the House of Representatives.

Rui Ferreira broke the story in EL Nuevo Herald.

Garcia, a sharp and always bilingually quotable operative, is making his first run for elective office; his career includes time as head of the Cuban American National Foundation and director of its program to resettle Cubans in the United States. Diaz-Balart, no slouch, has a background in private business and in the state legislature.

Voters are sure to benefit from a good competition between two strong candidates. Cuba policy will be only one of the issues dividing them; Diaz-Balart is a champion of President Bush’s policy, including his 2004 family sanctions that affect many District 25 constituents. Garcia supports the embargo, but says that “the Cuban family is not an impediment to Cuban liberty, but rather an instrument of it.”

Alarcon's town meeting [Updated]

Raul Castro said he wanted a debate. He told Cubans and young Cubans in particular that he wanted them to speak out, and they are obliging. National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon is the latest to find out.

Someone passed the BBC’s correspondent in Havana, Fernando Ravsberg, a video of a lively meeting between Alarcon and students of the Universidad de Ciencias Informaticas. Ravsberg’s story, in Spanish only on the BBC website, is here. Note that in the middle of the story there’s a link to a four-minute audio report where you can hear several students’ statements and questions.

It’s well worth a listen.

One student complains that candidates for the National Assembly don’t visit the University: “Who are they? Where did they come from?” Another complains that basic necessities are priced in hard currency and salaries are paid in Cuban pesos, worth “25 times less” than the convertible peso. There’s a call for more communication and interchange between government ministers and the people, so that the public can know how government is addressing problems and the people can be part of the solution.

Not included in the recording is a complaint that Cubans cannot travel freely abroad, but Alarcon’s answer is included, where he says that only a minority of people of any country travel internationally, and that Cubans travel based on merit rather than financial means, as was the case in the past. The story on the website reports that there were also questions about Internet access; Alarcon responded that he is not up to speed on that question.

What does this mean? I’m interested to know what readers think, especially those who know about the kind of debates Cuba has conducted in the past. Mr. Ravsberg deserves congratulations for his reporting, and maybe BBC London will find a way to put the video on its site so we can see it. [Update: video here, a four-minute clip.]

Not having been there, I’m hesitant to draw big conclusions. Events such as this could be a sign of a government that’s out of touch. Or they could mark a government that is confident that it can brook criticism, that benefits from an airing of criticism within the system, and has some responses up its sleeve. Time will tell.

A yerbero's wares

Just off Havana's Parque Central.

"Likely to remain stable"

CIA Director Michael McConnell delivered his annual threat assessment testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee today. The Cuba section reads as follows:

“Raul Castro has served as Cuba’s Provisional President for over 18 months, but his political skills will be further tested over the next year as he deals with heightened public expectations for economic improvement in food availability, housing, transportation, salaries, and meaningful employment. His actions to date indicate that he is looking for ways to bring about economic changes through a modest, though not a sweeping transformation of Cuba’s Communist economic model. Raul Castro has publicly called for contact with the United States on Havana’s terms aimed ultimately at bringing about an end to the US embargo.

“We judge Raul’s most likely approach will be cautious, incremental steps to make the agricultural sector more productive, to allow some private sector expansion through the creation of more small-scale enterprises, and to attract new foreign investment. If Raul moves forward, he probably will take pains to ensure elite consensus. Senior Cuban officials have made clear that there are no plans to permit competitive elections or otherwise alter the Communist Party’s monopoly of power. Indeed, the determination of the Cuban leadership to ignore outside pressure to carry out significant economic and political reform continues to be reinforced by the more than $1 billion net annual subsidy that Venezuela provides to sustain Cuba.

“Policy missteps or the mishandling of a crisis by the leadership could lead to political instability in Cuba, raising the risk of mass migration. We assess the political situation is likely to remain stable at least in the initial months following Fidel Castro’s death and do not expect to see overt signs of major cleavage in the ruling elite because many of the top Party and armed forces leaders were hand-picked by Raul Castro. Moreover, senior Party and government officials probably would not want to jeopardize their futures by forcefully challenging regime decisions. Pro-democracy dissidents continue to be harassed and to risk lengthy prison sentences for minor public criticism of the regime.”

And from the introduction to the Latin America section:

“Inspired and supported by Venezuela and Cuba, leaders in Bolivia, Nicaragua, and—more tentatively—in Ecuador are pursuing agendas that undercut checks and balances on presidential power, seek lengthy presidential terms, weaken media and civil liberties, and emphasize economic nationalism at the expense of market-based approaches. Moreover, each of these governments, to varying degrees, has engaged in sharply anti-US rhetoric, aligned with Venezuela and Cuba—and increasingly Iran—on international issues, and advocated measures that directly clash with US initiatives.”

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.

Rice and beans

A few years ago, in an attempt to reduce food prices, the Cuban government began organizing "ferias" one Sunday morning a month, where cooperatives would truck their produce into the city and sell at prices lower than those at farmers markets. This guy, not too busy at the time, was on the edge of a "feria" that occupied a few blocks of Calle G in Vedado, also known as Avenida de los Presidentes.

More on taxes on foreign company employees

Here are three documents in Spanish on the income tax on hard currency payments to employees of foreign companies in Cuba:

• the finance ministry resolution;

• the explanation by Cuba’s tax office, ONAT;

• and a critical commentary by dissident economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe that places the tax decision in the context of the labor laws and practices affecting these workers.

Cuba's doctor diplomacy

Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom, inaugurated last month, has made relations with Cuba a diplomatic priority. His new government’s first official visit was that of Vice President Rafael Espada, who traveled to Cuba last week.

There was lots of talk of good relations and increased cooperation. “We have much to learn” from Cuba, Espada said. He recalled to La Jornada that Cuba was the first to provide emergency aid after recent hurricanes. 294 Cuban doctors are now working in Guatemala, and 347 Guatemalans are earning medical degrees at Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine. The two governments plan greater cooperation in the health sector, and will explore ways to collaborate in energy, mining, and petroleum.

Coverage in Spanish from La Jornada here, AP here, and ANSA here.

This was not an earth-shaking event by any means, but it illustrates a reality that a) helps to drive Cuban diplomacy and b) frustrates U.S. efforts to isolate Cuba and to enlist other countries in pressing for political change in Cuba.

Guatemala, like other Latin American countries, has a democratic system but does not reject relations with Cuba. For Latin American countries, relations with Cuba and votes to condemn the U.S. embargo at the UN have long been a low-cost way to needle Washington. But today, something more important is in play: the concrete benefits of Cuban medical and educational aid programs. Even as Cuba admits that the aid programs are straining delivery of medical services at home, there’s no denying that these programs help to consolidate relationships abroad.

And as this visit, last month’s Brazilian visit and aid package, and other developments show, Cuban diplomacy has not gone on vacation since Fidel Castro left the scene.

Jovellanos

Odds and ends

• Newsweek foreign affairs columnist Fareed Zakaria admires Senator Hillary Clinton, but sees her as “terrified to act on her beliefs.” Cuba policy is his case in point. She positions herself to the right of Obama, who wants to get rid of the Bush family sanctions that limit visits and remittances. Zakaria doesn’t believe that Clinton really believes in her own position. Not a flattering column.

• Cuba’s Dialogo Nacional just sent out a newsletter that includes an article that Oswaldo Paya published in the Washington Post last year. It is titled “Four Years in the Other Guantanamo.” While Paya doesn’t equate conditions in Cuban prisons with those at the prisons on the U.S. base, he does criticize the “unjust” practice of holding detainees without trial. Ouch.

• Colombia’s El Tiempo reports that Cuba and Brazil are going to work to reduce tensions between Colombia and Venezuela. Maybe they can enlist the help of the King of Spain, if they want to get to the root cause.

Cuba alone...

…as “the one country in Latin America that represses nearly all forms of political dissent,” according to the 2008 report of Human Rights Watch. The organization sees “no significant policy changes” since executive powers were delegated to Raul Castro 18 months ago. Also, “significant hardship” imposed by the U.S. embargo, and “profound harm” inflicted due to the 2004 family sanctions.

500th post

Whew.

[Photo taken in Centro Habana.]

Everybody hates taxes

I spent some time in Cuba at the end of 1996 interviewing trabajadores por cuenta propia, Cuba’s self-employed workers. There are about 150,000 of these workers today, about three percent of the labor force.

At that time, these entrepreneurs were preparing to file income tax returns. Income taxes disappeared in the early days of the revolution, so when they were reinstituted in 1995, they were a novel concept. There was apprehension and confusion about procedures.

And, of course, no one liked the idea of paying tax. I had the impression, if you can believe it, that lots of these entrepreneurs might not have declared their full income so as to reduce any tax payment they would have to make, on top of monthly advance payments they had already made, when they filed their return early in the new year.

Cuba’s income tax is progressive and simple. The cuentapropistas have been paying it ever since – the flower vendors who yell “florero!” as they push their carts down the street (sometimes, as in the photo, with grandson in tow); the bicitaxi guys who sweat all day; the thousands of families that rent rooms in their homes; the painters who sell their work in the market by the cathedral; the carpenters, plumbers, and glass repairmen who fix up homes; the operators of Cuba’s ubiquitous tire repair shops; the pizza vendors; the retirees who make a little extra money tutoring students, selling sandwiches, or repairing watches.

The income tax also applies to authors and artists who earn money abroad. To my knowledge, it applies to no one else.

Now, a new group has to pay taxes; they do not like it, and one can’t blame them. This is the part of the Cuban workforce that works for foreign companies (not joint ventures), and who receive a hard currency bonus of a few hundred dollars a month in addition to their peso salary. This new policy was announced last December and discussed briefly here.

According to documents distributed to the workers, they are now required to register with the tax office by April 1 and to file returns, and companies are required to record the hard currency payments that they make to workers, and to inform the tax office. The tax applies only to hard currency bonuses, not to the workers’ peso salaries. Income tax will have to be paid three times per year. Monthly earnings up to $200 are taxed at a ten percent rate; earnings above that, up to $500, face a 12 percent marginal rate, all the way up to a marginal rate of 50 percent for earnings higher than $5,000 per month.

Two weeks ago, El Nuevo Herald reported that there were meetings where workers subjected to this tax complained bitterly to officials. Now comes a Reuters report (English here, Spanish here) on these same meetings. A video of the meetings seen by reporters shows workers complaining, demanding that the payments first be declared explicitly legal before any tax is levied, and laughing at the idea that they would have to pay a fee of more than $30 to register with Cuba’s tax office. (On that last point, Cubans who deal with their own immigration authorities would say, welcome to the club.)

It would be very interesting to know more about this discontent among some of the highest-paid workers in Cuba. But a few things stand out.

• Raul Castro encouraged Cubans to speak out, and this group of “card-carrying Communists,” as the Reuters correspondent calls them, took him up on it.

• From the accounts of the meetings, I barely see lip service paid to the social justice ideals that justify the tax on entrepreneurs who earn far less (usually less than 1,000 Cuban pesos per month) than these company workers, or the fees taken out of remittances from abroad. Zippo.

• It is interesting is to think how else the government might have dealt with this. Foreign companies’ hard currency payments to workers are longstanding, widespread, and blatantly outside the law. The government could have acted shocked like Claude Rains and attacked the companies for making the payments, or cracked down and stopped them altogether.

• Instead, it was decided that it is OK for the foreign companies to provide this benefit and incentive, and it’s OK for these Cubans make more money than others, but it is only fair that they pay tax. In the scheme of things, it’s hard to argue that the taxation of these workers is unfair.

• I doubt that the hyper-egalitarian Fidel Castro would have reached this decision. It signals acceptance of incentives and higher earnings for workers in sectors of the economy that produce results. If this attitude is carried to other economic policy decisions, it will mean more incentives, more opportunities for higher pay, a greater chance to improve output and productivity. That would all be positive for Cuba’s economic health.

Odds and ends

• From Reason magazine, a review of Shootdown, the “scrupulously even-handed” documentary about Cuba’s downing of the Brothers to the Rescue planes in 1996.

• Cuba and Spain agree on a date for the next round of their human rights dialogue.

• There was a parade in Miami to commemorate the birthday of Jose Marti. Los Miquis covered it (in Spanish), proving that bloggers can be great spot reporters too. It’s reverent toward Marti, much less so toward some of those on parade.

McCain sweeps Miami-Dade, wins Florida (Updated)

I haven’t seen hard numbers, but there’s lots of reporting that Cuban Americans voted in strong support of Senator McCain in yesterday’s Florida primary. The Herald reports that Senator McCain beat Governor Romney among Latinos statewide, 51-15, which would indicate that McCain benefited from being the exception to the GOP’s draconian tilt on immigration issues.

The state’s official tally shows that McCain beat Romney better than three to one in Miami-Dade.

If McCain did indeed sweep Little Havana, it’s not yet clear why. It could be that among a crowd of candidates with hardline views on Cuba policy, McCain had the most credibility. He had the endorsement of Reps. Diaz-Balart and Ros Lehtinen, and they stuck with him through thick and thin. A Washington Post reporter interviewed Cuban Americans and found that Cuba policy was not everyone’s prime motivation; “I live here, not in Cuba,” one voter told the Post. “The most important issue is the economy.”

Robert Novak claims that Senator Martinez’ endorsement helped McCain against Romney, and “more lethal…was the word spread by Martinez that he considers Romney a demagogue because of his tough stand against the immigration bill co-sponsored by McCain and Martinez.” If that’s the case – and Novak offers no evidence – then Cuban Americans voted altruistically, in solidarity with Latinos who would face Romney immigration policies such as deportation of illegal immigrants that would not affect Cuban Americans.

Finally, here’s an overview of voter behavior statewide with an interesting nugget: voters who like President Bush flocked to Romney, those who disapprove went with McCain.

Update: A St. Petersburg Times analysis says McCain won due to high turnout, and disproportionately high turnout of moderate Republicans. As for Cuban Americans, “While McCain and Romney were tied among non-Hispanic Republicans, exit polls showed Romney won just 9 percent of Cuban-American Republicans, compared to 54 percent for McCain and 32 percent for Rudy Giuliani.”

[St. Petersburg Times photo]

Campaign odds and ends

● LA Times: Mitt Romney’s campaign complains that automated phone calls, origin unknown, are distorting his position on Cuba by telling voters that he is eager to open relations with Cuba. Not so, as we know. Meanwhile, at a Sweetwater rally on Sunday, Romney donned a guayabera, a gift from Bay of Pigs veterans. County commissioner Pepe Diaz said the veteran who presented the shirt did so with tears in his eyes; he also said it would have been “a major insult” had Romney declined to accept the shirt. Nice.

● The Hill: Meanwhile, Senator Clinton is distorting her own past position on Cuba. She was one of 59 Senators to vote to end the travel ban in 2003. Her spokesman, in error, claims that this was a vote on family travel only. Her current position seems narrower still: “flexibility to allow visits for immediate family members in humanitarian cases,” which sounds quite minimal, but still enough to “give hope to the Cuban people,” as she stated in the CANF questionnaire.

● The Weekly Standard: As Giuliani fades, McCain seems to benefit in Little Havana.

[AP photo via Herald.com]

Presidential brevity

From the President’s State of the Union address tonight:

“America is opposing genocide in Sudan and supporting freedom in countries from Cuba and Zimbabwe to Belarus and Burma.”

No boundaries

Florida Senator Bill Nelson has a way to stop exploration for oil in Cuba’s Gulf waters: declare that the maritime boundary between the United States and Cuba is void, threaten U.S. sanctions against executives of foreign companies involved in exploration in Cuban waters, and apply those sanctions against the executives’ families too.

And the horse they rode in on.

This part of the Senator’s “ongoing effort to protect Florida’s coast from the ravages of oil drilling,” as a press release from his office put it, is found in S. 2503, a bill introduced last January (and in the previous Congress too) with no cosponsors.

The U.S.-Cuba maritime boundary is the result of a 1977 agreement (described here, pdf) that was never ratified by the Senate. Every two years since, including during the current Administration, the United States and Cuba have exchanged diplomatic notes that renew their commitment to the agreement, and to the boundary.

The Senator’s bill would nullify this agreement. Maybe there’s a lawyer out there who knows whether Congress can do this. One certainly wonders why the Senator doesn’t get the Senate to bring up the agreement for ratification, and vote it down.

Regardless, outside the legislative arena, the Senator is now asking President Bush not to make a new two-year commitment to the maritime boundary agreement. His staff was told that the note to that effect was sent but not yet received, according to an oil industry publication, and he asked the President to recall the note in a January 23 letter.

The Senator has good reason for concern. He notes that, “as the Gulf Stream flows, an oil spill or other drilling accident would desecrate [!] part of Florida’s unique environment and devastate its $50 billion tourism-driven economy.” And he is probably right to calculate that if his recommendations were followed, there would be enough uncertainty and fear of sanctions that foreign oil companies might abandon Cuban projects.

But one can question the effectiveness of his approach. The Senate has shown no interest in his bill. The Bush Administration might think it reckless to abandon a fair, split-the-difference maritime boundary that governs fishing, energy, and any other economic activity. Absent the agreed boundary, there would be overlapping claims of 200-mile exclusive economic zones. That could have unpredictable results – Hugo Chavez and PDVSA, I hope you’re not listening – that might not benefit Florida, much less the U.S. national interest.

If this were any country but Cuba, the United States would be talking to its neighbor about environmental issues and emergency preparedness. Indeed, American companies might be involved in the exploration – the same companies whose deep-water platforms and rigs were destroyed in the Gulf of Mexico during Katrina and other hurricanes, without a major spill.

But this is Cuba. Grand gestures will do just fine.

Cuba on Flickr

I saw another blog’s samples of Cuba photos from Flickr, the Internet’s photo repository, and decided to check it out myself. If you like images of Cuba, you could easily get distracted and spend an afternoon browsing photos from all parts of Cuba, and from several eras.

This one surprised me; a 2005 shot of the mothballed Juragua nuclear plant that a Dutch visitor, Kees de Vos, took from a helicopter in 2005. This is an industrial project that collapsed with the loss of Soviet aid and, unlike the recently reactivated oil refinery nearby in Cienfuegos, there seems to be no talk of resuming work on it.

Then there’s a street scene from a photographer called “Zoom Zoom”…

…and from the small “Cuba before Castro” photo group, a 1958 shot of Paseo del Prado, apparently taken from the Hotel Telegrafo. It comes from the blog Dos Epocas.

And some of the Library of Congress’ photos recently deposited on Flickr were taken in Cuba. Here’s one, circa 1910, of American sailors encamping on O’Reilly, across from the Plaza de Armas on the grounds of the Castillo de la Real Fuerza, a small corner of which is seen at right.

On the trail in Florida

Odds and ends from the Florida campaign:

• Republicans, each working hard for a slice of the Cuban American community.

• Huckabee: Raul Castro should be indicted for the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue Shootdown, and Los Miquis reports that in a visit to Miami’s Channel 41, he promises to allow Helms-Burton’s Title III to go into effect. That’s the provision of the law that would allow Cuban Americans to sue foreign investors in Cuba in U.S. courts if their investments touch properties in Cuba to which they have a claim. Presidents Clinton and Bush have acted every six months to prevent it from going into effect.

• McCain, with a late endorsement from Senator Martinez: Let’s go to Cuba “when Cuba is free” and find “that Cuban that came to the prison camps of North Vietnam and tortured and killed my friends. We’ll get him and bring him to justice, too.”

• Giuliani, apparently slipping, citing his mayoral record on Cuba as he works Little Havana.

• Romney’s son Craig speaks great Spanish, and uses it in a web video and radio ad in Florida.

Readers overseas might wonder why nearly all the election news from Florida is about Republicans. Florida changed the date of its election to make the state more important in the primary campaign. The national Democratic party responded by deciding that it will not seat Florida delegates at its national nominating convention this summer, and by telling its candidates not to campaign there – and they have indeed stayed away from the state.

Candidates on Cuba -- CANF questionnaire

Three cheers to the Cuban American National Foundation for submitting a Cuba policy questionnaire to presidential candidates, and three cheers to Senators Clinton and Obama for actually answering the questions. The other candidates submitted statements giving their general views on Cuba, ducking some of the questions, such as whether they would abandon the wet foot-dry foot policy and admit all Cubans to the United States – those who reach land and those picked up at sea. Clinton and Obama said “no.” Text of responses here.

Church and politics

Cuba’s Catholic church takes a lot of heat from people outside Cuba who say it is not doing enough to promote political change inside Cuba. Some of that criticism is based on current events, and on a supposition that the church has a duty to go beyond its pastoral and charitable work, and involve itself in politics directly. If you scratch the surface you find that some of the criticism is rooted in events that took place decades ago, or even a century ago when Cuba was fighting for independence from Spain, and clerics sided with the crown.

Here, in a Catholic News Agency story, dissident leader Oswaldo Paya voices praise for the church’s work in Cuban society:

“The Church is playing a key role in the evangelization and in aid to the poor, not only economically but also in a human and moral plane as well. I would like to clarify that, as a Catholic, I can only speak of the Church in third person. Our local Church has suffered persecutions and de-Christianization in very difficult circumstances, but she has always been faithful to the Gospel, to the Church and to the Cuban people. This is a reality that is often ignored by international public opinion.”

That story, in English, also talks about his colleagues in prison, and his desire for national reconciliation.

And speaking of the church, here’s a roundup from Encuentro (in Spanish) of the church’s views on church-state relations, Cuban policies, and U.S. policies.