Get your popcorn

Chris Simmons, described in media reports as an active duty U.S. Army officer and a top expert on the Cuban intelligence service, will appear tonight on A Mano Limpia, Oscar Haza’s program on Miami’s Channel 41.

According to Cuban Colada, “A press release issued by Simmons’ associate in South Florida, Ana Margarita Martinez, said Simmons will be here Thursday to ‘follow through on his word to publicly name Cuban spies in South Florida.’”

In addition to his government work – the Washington Times says he works for the Defense Intelligence Agency – Simmons is founder of the Cuban Intelligence Research Center, a private company that offers a variety of services, including a seminar that you can host at your company for up to 25 participants for $51,750. The Center’s website has a number of videos of Simmons on Spanish-language media, speaking English.

At Babalu, they posted a message from Simmons indicating that he will not be divulging any classified information, and he will only divulge the names of spies in which the U.S. government has no investigative interest.

Well, we can’t have everything.

What we do have is probably the most talkative member of the U.S. intelligence community in recent memory. Last November at the Heritage Foundation, he said there are probably Cuban agents working inside the U.S. government today, just as Ana Montes did. “There may be, the number may actually be in the teens, of long-term penetrations at the highest level of the U.S. government,” he said. “And we’re not talking a slipshod operation. We’re talking the FBI, Central Intelligence Agency, Congress, and the White House.”

Maybe Mr. Haza will ask about that.

Parque Central

Odds and ends

• AP: Senator Arlen Specter plans to go to Cuba, and seeks a meeting with Raul Castro.

• The New York Times on the Fidel-Raul relationship.

• If you read Frank Calzon’s letter to the Miami Herald, you come to realize that maybe we all have things backwards. One of Calzon’s employees embezzled half a million dollars in federal funds from his organization, and Calzon discovered it – so he should be congratulated. Congressional attention to the issue has nothing to do with the fact that taxpayer money went missing; rather, it’s a “political fishing expedition.” And the lack of a federal grant constitutes “punishment.”

• Al Kamen of the Washington Post uncovers a message from the office of Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, inviting legislators to discuss “the very troubling granting of a Treasury/OFAC license to a little league team to travel to Cuba in August.”

• At Oswaldo Paya’s website, a report on conditions of political prisoners.

• Former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castaneda, writing in Newsweek, takes an interesting look at Vietnam now, and muses about Cuba’s future.

• Penultimos Dias, a great blog and resource, celebrates its second anniversary. Congratulations to the indefatigable Ernesto.

More on Arocena

The Miami Herald reports on the campaign to free Eduardo Arocena, in jail since 1984 for “gunning down a Cuban diplomat and for several bombings in the New York City area” and also convicted for “planting nine bombs over a four-year period in the Miami area.”

I had written, as does the Herald article, that a pardon is being sought. But as a reader pointed out, the campaign is actually seeking a commutation of Arocena’s sentence. (See the campaign’s suggested letter to the Justice Department here.)

The President has the power to do either. A commutation reduces a sentence, while a pardon can imply forgiveness and erases the consequences of a conviction. (The difference is explained here.)

By seeking a commutation rather than a pardon, Arocena’s supporters seem to be recognizing that it might be politically difficult for President Bush to pardon someone who used violence against civilians on U.S. soil for political purposes – i.e. a terrorist.

On the other hand, if the White House wants to do Arocena a favor, a commutation might be easier – a reduction of punishment that doesn’t imply absolution. Except that the letter itself engages in some distinctly pre-9/11 thinking by arguing that Arocena’s actions – “to the extent that those actions violated laws of this country” – were in a just cause, to “bring about the end of a repressive regime.” The letter also makes the claim that Arocena somehow represents the Cuban American community: “This commutation is not just about Mr. Arocena, but about an entire community of Cubans that has been forced out of their home country by a brutal dictatorship.”

Meanwhile, Senator Lieberman, after meeting Arocena’s wife and leaving her hopeful that he would intervene favorably (“I’ll do my best,” he told her), has cooled. The Miami Herald asked his spokesman for Lieberman’s position on the Arocena case, and the answer was that the Senator has no position. From the Herald’s blog:

“Senator Lieberman does not intervene in criminal proceedings including requests for pardons,” according to Scott Overland, a Lieberman spokesman. “The correspondence was merely forwarded without any comment, endorsement or support whatsoever.”

Plaza de Armas

Odds and ends

• The New York Times on the amazing variety of offerings left prayerfully by Cubans at the chapel at El Cobre, near Santiago. It’s the only place I have seen in Cuba with public displays calling for freedom for political prisoners.

• Last week the Arco Progresista held a meeting with the purpose of uniting the center-left segment of Cuba’s opposition. Some long documents came out of the event; a speech by Manuel Cuesta Morua, and a political statement that outlines eight tasks, including creation of a “pressure group” in Washington, regardless of who wins the U.S. presidential election.

• Russia’s deputy prime minister is headed to Cuba, reportedly to discuss energy projects including on-shore oil production, and refining.

• Will the InBev deal to purchase Anheuser-Busch be a problem for Senator McCain’s campaign because of InBev’s Cuba business unit? sYou might think so, reading this article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, or this one from an online journal of Marxist thought. Then there was this warning from Congressmen Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, issued before A-B agreed to the deal.

Raul's speech in Santiago

Just because last year’s speech offered a road map of sorts to some of Raul Castro’s policy actions, it was not guaranteed that this year’s 26^th of July speech, delivered in Santiago, would do the same. (English text here.)

And it certainly didn’t.

Major passages of this speech were local – about investments in the water system in Santiago and other eastern cities, the “east-west water transfer system in Holguín” that shares water between provinces, etc.

Unlike last year, there was no talk about “excessive prohibitions” in the laws and regulations that affect Cubans’ daily lives, no talk about “structural changes” in agriculture or elsewhere.

Raul Castro did outline some positive economic results (tourism up, efficiencies realized in transportation), but he gave no hint of policies that would help to address big challenges that he has described starkly – aging population, declining workforce growth, income inequality, dual currency – much less an indication that, as in agriculture, he is looking at ways to change policies to liberate productive energies that could generate growth and jobs.

Instead, there was a warning of tough times ahead:

“I repeat that the revolution has done and will continue to do anything within its power to continue to advance and to reduce to the minimum the unavoidable consequences of the present international crisis for our people. Yet, we should timely explain to our people the difficulties so that we can be better prepared to face them. We must get used to receiving not only good news.”

All in all, when it comes to economic policy, it’s hard to improve on the way Alejandro Armengol put it, in a nutshell, in his blog: that the speech gave no hope “that the process of change would accelerate in the coming months, or would even continue.” We’ll see.

Congressional oversight, up close

Here are two Congressional letters regarding the USAID Cuba program. Both are from Rep. Howard Berman, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; one is directed to the USAID administrator, and the other to her and to the Secretary of State.

Malecon

No, the Russians are not coming

If you have little pangs of nostalgia for the Cold War, the recent story about the possibility of Russian bombers in Cuba turns out to be a big, big disappointment.

The Russians are not playing the part of the angry bear: in Moscow, the defense ministry spokesman said, on the record, that the story amounts to “disinformation and another media hoax.” The White House won’t play along, either: it’s“just speculation and hypotheticals.”

Fidel Castro is the only one who came close to playing his part. He issued a commentary (English here) that praised his brother’s silence in the matter, saying there’s no need “to give explanations.” He went on: “What is needed in times of genocide is nerves of steel, and Cuba has them. The empire knows it.”

There is still no indication that anyone ever asked Cuba’s government about the idea of basing long-range bombers or receiving them for refueling stops, and no indication of Havana’s opinion on the matter.

Odds and ends

• The Christian Science Monitor on the dissident movement in Cuba, and why women are leading it – because they tend not to get locked up.

• Two American students at Cuba’s Latin American Medical School have written a journal article about the school and the academic experience. It’s a minor point in this article, but I didn’t know that a U.S. organization (the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization) pre-screens and briefs U.S. applicants.

• At a blog called “Beautiful Horizons,” which a reader pointed out, Frank Calzon of the Center for a Free Cuba affably explains the facts regarding the apparent embezzlement of $500,000 or more in government funds from his organization by a former employee.

The end of Plan Marabu

When Cuba downsized its sugar sector in 2002, the theory was that the land that was freed up – an amount equal to the land already in agricultural production – would be converted to productive agricultural use.

That was the theory. In practice, much of the land remained idle, and Cubans jokingly called the operation “Plan Marabu,” a reference to the nasty bush that take over untilled fields.

Last week’s decree to turn over idle state lands to agricultural producers – state farms, cooperatives, and private farmers – aims to end that plan and start a much more productive one.

Will it work?

A recent BBC report found that in Pinar del Rio, there are obstacles: low pay, lack of equipment, and for some, lack of interest in life on the farm.

Independent economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, in an article he circulated this week, says we have to wait to see if a “real process of transformation” is being initiated. He argues that results would be better if if the land were given outright as property, instead of being granted for 10 years to individuals. That, he says, would eliminate the possibility that the state could take the land back if it is not used for its intended purpose, and it would give Cuban youth “tangible incentives” to return to the land.

It goes without saying that it all depends on people and incentives – if there are substantial numbers of individual farmers and cooperatives that are limited by a lack of land, and if there’s a sufficient profit motive for them to take more land and work it, then there will be results.

The incentive issue depends on the level of tax that will have to be paid for new lands, and on the terms of contracts offered to producers. (All producers have contracts whereby the state provides seed, fertilizer, fuel, and other inputs, and in return the producer pays an agreed amount of produce to the state; the rest is sold on the open market.) I heard from a friend in Cuba (but cannot confirm) that in some cases, new lands are bring offered without contracts, so that the producer would have no quota to meet, and could sell all produce on the open market.

Another limiting factor would be if farmers can’t get the equipment they need, but it seems they’ve got that one covered. Reuters reports that in one place in central Cuba, farmers are being told to place their requests: “We can ask for whatever we need. Machinery, spare parts, irrigation systems, wind mills, land clearing kits, you name it,” said a cooperative member quoted in the report. The materials are provided on credit to farmers, and it’s all supported by credits from Iran and Venezuela. Nice.

For the tourists

Chairman Berman on USAID funds

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman has withdrawn his objections to disbursement of USAID’s Cuba program funds, except for grantees under investigation:

“In response to our Committee’s concerns, USAID has announced an immediate review and an expanded audit of all Cuba democracy program participants, and I applaud this expanded oversight. Yesterday, I received assurances that USAID and the State Department are seized with the gravity of the problems in these programs and that they are actively working to correct the problems. Therefore, I have decided to release the hold placed on the $45 million in funding for Cuba democracy programs, except that funds will not be extended to those program participants that are under investigation.”

His full statement, released today, is here.

“Cuban political prisoner in U.S. jails”

That’s not Granma referring to one of “Los Cinco Heroes” serving time here for espionage – it’s from a Net for Cuba story referring to Eduardo Arocena, who is in jail after being convicted in 1984 for murder of a Cuban diplomat, conspiracy, and other charges. The story (with video) reports that Arocena’s wife asked Senator Joe Lieberman to carry letters to the President and First Lady asking for a pardon for her husband. In the video, Senator Lieberman said, “I’ll do my best,” and he told Mrs. Arocena, “I think of you like you were my family.”

The Russians are coming?

Bloomberg reports on an Isvestiya story where a “highly placed source” says that if a U.S. missile defense system is deployed in Europe, Russia may send long-range bombers to Cuba. The Washington Post reports that a Russian defense ministry spokesman would not comment, but did not deny the report. Reuters reports that:

The Kremlin declined immediate comment. The Defence Ministry questioned the story, saying it was written under a false name and quoted a source at an organization that did not exist.

There seems to be no word, in these reports or elsewhere, on what Cuban authorities thought about the idea, if indeed it was ever proposed to Havana.

Meanwhile, Professor Jaime Suchlicki of the University of Miami doubts that Raul Castro would welcome Russian bombers. But in his essay speculating that a “more ominous and difficult crisis” than that of 1962 “may be brewing in the Caribbean,” he says Venezuela just might accept them.

Odds and ends

• The Export Law Blog digs into last week’s story about a Colorado company accused by the feds of violating the embargo, and is not impressed with the government’s case based on what has been disclosed so far. The company, Platte River Associates, is said to have provided software to Cuba that is used in mapping potential oil exploration areas. According to a Colorado newspaper, it seems the company sold software to Spain’s Repsol, not to Cuba.

• Reuters looks at burgeoning Cuba-Venezuela economic ties.

• USAID’s Cuba program funding has been frozen by Congress, and USAID is conducting a top-to-bottom review of the program, the Herald reports.

• A Canadian airline inaugurates Windsor-to-Varadero flights, and the Detroit News, from just across the border, speculates that Americans will be aboard. Although, as President Nixon used to say, “That would be wrong.”

Escambray

New book on 1950's Havana

A new book arrived in the mail: Havana Before Castro – When Cuba was a Tropical Playground by Peter Moruzzi, published by Gibbs Smith. (See website here.) It’s beautifully illustrated with hundreds of images – the author’s photos, old advertisements, images dug up from archives. And as the title indicates, it’s about the Havana that visitors saw generations ago, so the emphasis is on nightlife, music, and entertainment, with recipes for various cocktails thrown in.

But it’s more than a coffee table book about Havana nights in the 1950’s. There are chapters on Cuban history and politics, and an interesting chapter on the Mob’s role in Batista’s Cuba. There’s even a diagram showing which casinos and other operations were controlled by Meyer Lansky and Santo Trafficante.

The author is an architectural historian, and it’s his fascination with Havana’s “built environment” that most shines through. The Hotel Riviera – the “best preserved example of mid-century Las Vegas-influenced Miami Modern resort architecture in the world” – gets its own chapter, full of details and photos about the hotel’s design and construction, and its attributes as a destination for visitors. The Riviera was financed and run by Meyer Lansky, who also served, we learn, as its kitchen director. Its architect, Igor Polevitsky, also designed the Shelborne in Miami Beach.

A chapter on the Havana Hilton (now Habana Libre) tells us that the hotel was financed by the pension fund of the Cuban catering workers’ union. A statement from Hilton Hotels International lauded the partnership, “unique in the history of private enterprise,” where “labor and capital have joined hands” so that the “operators of the hotel will, in effect, be working for their employees.”

Another chapter, “Havana Modern,” tries to balance the attention paid to Havana’s colonial center by focusing on the city’s 20^th century architecture, particularly its “astounding inventory of Modern architecture.” A handy two-page guide, with photos, lists the top 25 attractions, citing their original names and functions, and their addresses. The old Office of the Comptroller is #9 on the list; it’s now the Interior Ministry, and may be best viewed from outside.

All in all, a good read, and the photo archive contained in this book’s 250 pages is alone worth the price of admission.

USAID memo on Cuba program

A memo that USAID circulated today, signed by Deputy Assistant Administrator Stephen Driesler:

This memo is sent to provide you with the latest details regarding the status of USAID’s Cuba Program. As you know, we have encountered challenges in the implementation of this important program. Audits of USAID’s Cuba Program by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2006 and the USAID Office of Inspector General (OIG) in 2007 highlighted issues with grants management. To generalize, these audits found there were internal controls issues both in USAID’s management of the grants, as well as with regard to grantee capacity. USAID responded to the GAO and OIG findings and recommendations by taking the actions stated below.

· A financial monitoring and audit contract was awarded in mid 2008 to facilitate enhanced oversight of grantees’ management of USAID funds. The OIG will oversee the USAID-contracted audits of all the grantees. The audits will review costs incurred from the grant’s inception to the present. These audits will include a review of internal controls and compliance.

· The Latin America and Caribbean Bureau (LAC) will be holding quarterly portfolio reviews of existing grantees to review status, and results of the grants and to highlight potential problems and outstanding issues.

· USAID’s Office of Acquisition and Assistance (OAA) issued additional guidance on pre-award reviews in March 2007, resulting in conduct of pre-award reviews for new awards with written findings issued prior to the awarding of grant funds. This helps ensure that findings are tracked and resolved in a timely manner.

· OAA is employing a system to track compliance with the Single Audit Act, which requires audits of NGOs spending more than $500,000 annually in Federal funds.

Grantees with expenditures below the $500,000 threshold will now be audited internally.

· LAC/Cuba program staff cognizant technical officers (CTOs) conduct systematic grantee on-site monitoring and track submission of required reporting, such as project implementation plans, monitoring and evaluation plans, program narrative reports, financial reports, etc.

· LAC/Cuba program staff has been increased and received training in grants management

· LAC is working to restructure the Cuba program to add an umbrella grant program through a contract in order to improve management capability of small grantees.

Many of these initiatives have only recently begun implementation and we believe that they will have a significant impact over time. Some are bearing fruit already, however, given the problems identified in both audits, issues with some grants have surfaced in the last few months. In particular, you are well aware of the problems with the Center for a Free Cuba (CFC) involving alleged illegitimate use of USAID grant funds by a former CFC employee. This grant was suspended in March 2008 and remains suspended. The Department of Justice and the USAID OIG are conducting ongoing investigations. Significant Congressional concern has been expressed, and the GAO is conducting a follow-on to its 2006 audit which, although broader, encompasses the CFC matter. Given the continuing investigations, significant Congressional concern and review, and the need to ensure USAID is meeting our federal management responsibilities, we have decided to wait until additional information is available from the USAID/OIG as well as other programmatic reviews and audits that USAID is undertaking, to make a decision on reinstatement of the CFC grant.

Recently, another Cuba Program grantee problem surfaced during an USAID-funded financial review of our Cuba program grantees in accordance with the first bullet above. As a result of irregularities identified during this financial review, the Executive Director of Grupo de Apoyo a la Democracia (GAD) notified USAID regarding the use of GAD’s purchase card by one of GAD’s contract employees to purchase unauthorized items. Most of GAD’s funding comes from USAID, therefore it is likely that funds used to cover costs incurred under the purchase card are USAID grant funds. GAD informed USAID that the employee signed a statement admitting to his actions, and promising to repay all improperly incurred expenses. The employee gave GAD a cashier's check for approximately eleven thousand dollars ($11,000), but the amount at issue remains to be determined and is expected to be higher. USAID immediately referred this matter to our OIG and suspended the grant. The OIG investigation is ongoing and USAID/OAA is conducting a review. GAO has also been informed of this situation.

Given the information resulting from the GAO and OIG audits, as well as the problems with the two grantees detailed above, USAID has decided to conduct an immediate review of all the grants to determine where financial vulnerabilities exist and how best to address these vulnerabilities to strengthen the program for future success. All grants are currently undergoing review, and pending the outcome of these reviews, some grants will be partially suspended. Audits of partially suspended grants will be conducted, management and internal controls vulnerabilities that exist will be identified, and any that are significant will be addressed prior to reinstatement of the grant in full.

We recognize and appreciate Congress’ oversight role with regard to use of funds appropriated for USAID’s programs. USAID takes seriously our responsibility as federal managers of appropriated funds, therefore we are focused on taking the steps laid out herein to ensure the future viability of this important program. If you have any questions or need additional information please do not hesitate to let me know.

Land grants decree

Cuba has published a decree that provides for the distribution of idle state lands to Cubans – individual private farmers, cooperatives of all types, state farms – who will make it produce. It’s a sound step; there’s no more surefire way to increase food production in Cuba than to put more land in the hands of the private farmers, who are the most productive.

To my memory, the first mention of this was in Raul Castro’s July 26 speech last year. So it took nearly a year to bring the idea to full legal fruition.

Private farmers that are new and have no land can be granted 13.42 hectares – in Cuba, that’s one caballeria – and those with land can have their holdings increased until they are three caballerias in size. The grants are 10 years for private farmers, 25 years for cooperatives.

The only potential snag is that there will be a tax on the use of the land, and it’s yet to be defined.

University building

Above the portal of the renovated building that once housed the education ministry, a reflection of the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales.