Talks in Havana

Apart from the talks on resuming postal service, a State Department official talked with Cuban officials about other matters including migration, and with opposition figures – an orientation visit that would have been routine before the Bush Administration. Coverage from AFP here, Washington Post here, El Nuevo Herald here.

Sanctions can feel great...

…unless they are being imposed on you. Here’s Mir Hossein Mousavi, Iranian opposition leader, via AFP:

“We are against any sanctions against our nation. [They] will impose agonies on a nation who suffers enough from miserable statesmen.”

H/t: Andrew Sullivan.

Economic news

• On Thursday October 1, the Cuban government will close workers’ cafeterias in four ministries and pay workers 15 pesos daily to buy their lunch. Granma explains that it costs $350 million per year to provide free lunches at 24,700 workplace cafeterias and the measure is being taken to achieve “economic rationality,” but it doesn’t estimate how much money will be saved. It notes that some ministries have large food inventories, and food from these stocks often ends up in the black market. The article explains that this initial action is “experimental,” and will later be extended throughout the country. The article, titled “Giving, more than taking away,” takes pains to assure readers that the action will be taken gradually and that ministries and enterprises cannot close cafeterias on their own; this can only be done when the Ministry of Economy says so. In the case of these four closings, it notes that various nearby state enterprises will be able to provide lunch and is silent on whether private entrepreneurs will play any role. AFP says this is likely to be “the biggest rollback of an entitlement since Cuba’s 1959 revolution.”

• Comandante de la Revolucion and government minister Ramiro Valdes says Cubans need “to participate in the solution of their own problems and not wait for the daddy-state [papá Estado] to come solve them…Here everyone needs to work, everyone needs to contribute, everyone also needs to bring solutions, ideas.” Ok, but will the state allow people solve their own problems? Valdes made the remarks on a tour of Santiago. El Nuevo Herald story here.

• Vietnam donates 3,000 tons of rice to Cuba.

• Reuters: A Chinese company is entering a joint venture in Cuba to build the “Hemingway Hotel” at the marina in western Havana.

• Granma airs some dirty laundry: Some state enterprises are not paying farmers for the produce they have delivered, even though they have the budget to do so. At the end of August, 2 million pesos were owed to farmers. “It is an immorality to make the producer think that the state does not have the will to pay him,” the article says. It goes on to list the municipalities where the problem exists, and suggests pretty clearly that heads will roll. Raul Castro’s first move in agriculture was to settle the state’s debts to farmers. AP story here.

Odds and ends

• The Center for Strategic and International Studies publishes “Cuba Outlook: Raúl and Beyond,” a report (pdf) that reviews Cuba’s economic and political situation, its foreign policy, and other matters, and concludes that Cuba is in a “holding pattern” and “prospects for change are highly unlikely.” It calls for consideration of closer government-to-government ties and relaxation of travel restrictions on Americans.

• Cuba’s foreign minister, at the UN, states Cuba’s position on relations with the United States.

• Columnist Albor Ruiz takes note of some calls from Latin America for the U.S. to end the embargo at last week’s UN General Assembly opening. A General Assembly resolution on the U.S. embargo will be debated next month; the U.S. has been on the losing end of that debate 17 times.

• The Washington Post goes to the Cuban countryside to see how Raul’s agriculture policies are faring.

The Diz in Cuba

Eight days after, the recriminations continue over the Juanes concert. But one benefit is this photo published by Granma, showing the late Dizzy Gillespie, Fidel Castro, and Arturo Sandoval during one of Dizzy’s visits to Havana. If you’re interested in the recriminations, the Granma article is here.

U.S.-Cuba final in World Cup baseball (Updated)

[Update: The United States won the final, 10-5.]

Here are video highlights without narration of the 5-3 U.S. victory over Cuba Thursday in the World Cup baseball competition in Italy. Cuba beat Canada 5-1 yesterday to advance to the final on Sunday against the United States.

Cuban doctors in Venezuela

This paper of mine contains a description of some of the services being provided by Cubans in Venezuela. There’s plenty of debate about the economics of the Cuba-Venezuela partnership and the impact of the deployment of so many doctors abroad on Cuba’s domestic health care system. But it seems pretty clear that these doctors, in Venezuela and elsewhere, are helping people whose access to regular health care services was meager or nonexistent before, and it’s free of charge.

Less clear is where Venezuela’s economy is going now that Hugo Chavez has been in office ten years – the real subject of the paper.

[Photo of a Cuban-staffed clinic in Caracas.]

Odds and ends

• Author Achy Obejas says the real change spurred by last Sunday’s concert was in Miami. Carlos Saladrigas agrees: “The old policies of hurting the regime with collateral damage to the people need to give way to policies that help the people even when they may provide a collateral benefit to the regime.”

• AP sums up the story of the concert that almost didn’t take place. Juanes complained that his driver turned out to be the same guy that served him breakfast, and was watching him as if he were a security agent (!). And he and others complained that the section closest to the stage was being reserved for a government-supplied crowd. Rui Ferreira has video of a scene in a hallway of the Hotel Nacional. Penultimos Dias notes Granma’s response: it was a big misunderstanding, the guy is a sommelier.

• Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon is invited to a U.S. Congressional event and is denied a U.S. visa.

• The United States beat Cuba 5-3 in World Cup baseball competition yesterday in Italy, and now heads to the Sunday final. Cuba has to beat Canada (in Florence, 7:00 p.m. local time tonight) to get into the final for a rematch with the Americans.

• The Herald reports on the torture suffered by the Cuban migrants in Mexico who were rescued by Mexican police. The mistreatment was apparently perpetrated by smugglers from both Mexico and Miami. Earlier story here.

• If U.S.-Cuba postal service is resumed, it will mean the resumption of service that began as early as 1767, a Spanish researcher reports.

Obama's new rules on gift parcels to Cuba

I just plowed through the Commerce Department’s announcement of new regulations governing the gift packages that Americans can send to Cuba. The new rules took effect September 3, and they are a significant liberalization.

Commerce is involved because it regulates exports, and gift parcels are considered exports. The announcement is a counterpart to this month’s Treasury regulations that end restrictions on Cuban American family visits and remittances. Both actions follow from the President’s April 13 announcement.

The new Commerce Department regulations are here, and a short Q&A is here.

The regulations make significant openings by expanding the range of items that can be sent, by increasing the allowed value of package contents, by increasing the frequency with which packages can be sent, by expanding the universe of recipients in Cuba, and by allowing all Americans, not just those with immediate relatives in Cuba, to send gift packages. Pretty good.

Here’s what the regulations do.

The regulations move away from the Bush approach of listing items that can be sent in gift parcels (food, medicine, medical supplies, radios, batteries, cell phones) and prohibiting anything not on the list.

The Obama regulations keep that list and add a few items to it: “clothing, personal hygiene items, seeds, veterinary medicines and supplies, fishing equipment and supplies, soap-making equipment.” But they then add a catch-all category: “non-sensitive items normally sent as gifts between individuals.”

With that phrase, the Administration pretty much gets out of the business of regulating every single decision someone might make when sending a gift to someone in Cuba.

Under the new regulations, any American can send a gift parcel to an individual in Cuba who is not a high-ranking government or party official, or to a “charitable, educational, or religious organization in Cuba that is not administered or controlled by the Cuban government.” Previously, only Americans with immediate relatives in Cuba could send gift parcels – which meant Cuban Americans and a tiny number of others, such as families with kids studying in Cuba.

It remains the case that only one gift parcel may be sent per month. But instead of one per month to a Cuban household, the new rules allow one parcel per month to an individual in Cuba – which in most cases will mean several parcels per household. The limit on the value of a parcel’s contents has been raised from $400 to $800, and there is no limit on the value or frequency of parcels containing food.

The regulations then create a separate category of items that may be sent as gifts to people and organizations in Cuba: “commodities and software…related to basic personal communications devices that are widely available for retail purchase in the United States.” This includes:

“Mobile phones, including cellular and satellite telephones; subscriber information module (SIM) cards; personal digital assistants; laptop and desktop computers and peripherals such as monitors, graphics accelerator cards, data storage devices and media such as disk drives, flash drives, writable compact disks and floppy disks, keyboards, mice, and printers including commodities possessing IEEE 802.15.1 ‘Bluetooth’ wireless personal area networking (WPAN) capability; Internet connectivity devices including those possessing IEEE 802.11 ‘Wi-Fi’ and IEEE 802.16 ‘WiMax’ wireless capabilities; satellite-based television and radio receivers; digital music and video players and recorders; personal two-way radios; digital cameras and memory cards therefor; and batteries, chargers, carrying cases and similar accessories for the equipment authorized by this rule. This rule also authorizes the export and reexport of basic software for laptop and desktop computers such as: Computer operating systems and software (except ‘encryption source code’) that enable activities such as word processing, producing spread sheets, producing graphics presentations, sending and receiving e-mail, Web browsing or developing relational databases.”

As in the general gift category, these items cannot be sent to high-ranking government or party officials or to organizations controlled by the Cuban government. Unlike the general gift category, there are “no limits on value or frequency of shipments.”

In all the cases described above, senders of gift parcels do not need to get prior permission from the U.S. government.

Finally, the 44-pound limit on baggage carried by travelers to Cuba is eliminated.

There are additional details in the regulations themselves, for example a restriction on devices and software that are on Commerce’s “control list,” such as items containing sophisticated encryption technology. Separately, there’s a section that opens the door to licensing the export of equipment for satellite radio and television, in the unlikely event that Cuba would reach an agreement with U.S. companies to provide those services.

All in all, these regulations are another good, humane move by the Administration. Unlike President Obama’s new policies regarding travel and remittances, this one doesn’t create special privileges for Cuban Americans only. It recognizes that Americans in general might have something positive to contribute. Let’s hope that thinking continues to take hold.

"The Americano"

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich starts The Americano, “an Hispanic news service,” and features a commentary on the Juanes concert that is positive.

Odds and ends

• Who says blogging isn’t work? Cuban Colada translates Russian newspaper coverage of the visit of General Nikolai Makarov, chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces here, here, and here. Makarov announced that “Cuban officers will again study at our military colleges and training centers, and Russian defense industry specialists will help Havana modernize its combat arsenal.” Also: “The time has come to aid the friendly nation in its development, especially on the socioeconomic level.”

• The New York Times: Declassified documents show that Fidel Castro urged the Soviets to consider nuking us, until they explained the concept of blowback to him, and which “changed Castro’s positions considerably.”

• ESPN: Cuban pitcher Aroldis Chapman establishes his residency in Andorra, the little landlocked country in the Pyrenees, and will likely soon be a big league free agent.

• The Herald reports on Cuba’s patent registrations in the United States, and vice versa.

• Juventud Rebelde on the Coppelia ice cream pavilion in Vedado, and its problems.

Juanes, the day after

• In today’s Herald, Lydia Martin and Jordan Levin round up the concert itself and the reaction in Miami.

• Some photos from the BBC.

• Yoani Sanchez comments on the concert at the Huffington Post: “It was a rare experience to be there, without shouting slogans and without having to applaud mechanically when the tone of the speech marked that it was the time to cheer…at least this Sunday afternoon we live something different.”

• Prompted by Univision’s Jorge Ramos to discuss a U.S. role in the event – “Did it get your blessing?” – President Obama played it cool: “I don’t think it’s a matter of us providing blessings…Let me be clear. The U.S. government isn’t a concert promoter…I certainly don’t think it hurts U.S.-Cuban relations, these kinds of cultural exchanges. I wouldn't overstate the degree that it helps…What I’d really like to see is Cuba starting to show that it wants to move away from some of the anti-democratic practices of the past.”

• At Versailles, the wonderful Calle Ocho bakery and restaurant, Vigilia Mambisa brought a steamroller to smash CD’s and photos of Juanes, AFP reports. Police intervened in a “brief confrontation” between Cuban Americans who supported the concert and those opposed.

• Also in Miami, Telemundo billed it the “Concert of Discord,” which would be the biggest stretch in this whole saga, were it not for the advent of Gorki Aguila of the band Porno para Ricardo on the Miami media scene. “I have my weak moments,” he told the Herald, “Sometimes I feel like Christ on the cross – ‘why did you abandon me’…But if I don’t do what I’m doing I’d lose much of the sense in my life.”

Juanes fills the Plaza

Looked to me like a nice afternoon of music that many thousands of Cubans enjoyed.

As I thought about all the huffing and puffing in Miami, I don’t know why I was reminded of H.L. Mencken’s description of Puritanism: “The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

Everybody's talking, everybody's happy

That seems to be the feeling after the talks on re-establishing postal service that took place in Havana yesterday.

From the State Department spokesman:

Question: Can you provide us an update on the direct mail talks in Havana?

Answer: We were pleased with our initial discussions yesterday on the establishment of direct mail service between the United States and Cuba. The United States considers this first round of talks to have been positive. During the course of the one-day meeting, a variety of issues related to the transportation, quality, and security of mail service between our countries were discussed. The Cuban delegation also offered the U.S. delegation an opportunity to tour a Cuban mail processing center and post office, and the U.S. delegation has offered to reciprocate the tour with a visit to an international processing center in the United States. Both sides agreed that, after consultation in their respective capitals on the issues raised, they would meet again. Establishing direct mail service between our two countries supports President Obama’s goals, as announced April 13, of bridging the gap among divided Cuban families and promoting the free flow of information to the Cuban people. We will be reviewing the results of our discussions to determine how best to move forward on this issue.

And a statement from the Cuban delegation:

El 17 de septiembre de 2009, se iniciaron las conversaciones entre representantes de Cuba y los Estados Unidos para normalizar el servicio de correo postal entre ambos países. La delegación cubana estuvo presidida por Josefina Vidal Ferreiro, directora de América del Norte del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y la delegación de los Estados Unidos fue encabezada por Bisa Williams, subsecretaria asistente interina para Asuntos del Hemisferio Occidental del Departamento de Estado.

Durante las conversaciones, Cuba trasladó a la parte norteamericana su evaluación de la situación actual del servicio postal universal entre Cuba y los Estados Unidos y presentó propuestas de solución a las dificultades existentes en esta área. La delegación cubana también abordó los temas que deben tenerse en cuenta para el restablecimiento del correo postal directo entre los dos países, incluyendo la transportación del correo, la seguridad postal y los métodos de pago por ese servicio.

La jefa de la delegación cubana declaró:… “Estamos satisfechos con el desarrollo de esta primera reunión, que permitió examinar los temas que dificultan la normalización del intercambio postal entre Cuba y los Estados Unidos, y valorar un conjunto de propuestas específicas dirigidas a superar estos obstáculos”. Calificó de amplio y útil el intercambio sostenido entre los funcionarios de las administraciones postales de Cuba y los Estados Unidos, dirigido a identificar las áreas en que se deberá trabajar para adoptar acuerdos bilaterales en materia de servicio postal.

En las conversaciones, la delegación cubana enfatizó, en particular, la importancia de eliminar las restricciones discriminatorias derivadas de la política de bloqueo de los Estados Unidos hacia Cuba, que permitan el restablecimiento del servicio de correo postal directo entre los dos países, sobre la base de los principios y normas establecidos por la Unión Postal Universal de la cual ambos Estados son miembros.

Ambas delegaciones coincidieron en la necesidad de dar continuidad a las conversaciones en los próximos meses.

La delegación cubana estuvo integrada además por Silvia Munárriz Mon, viceministra de la Informática y las Comunicaciones; y Eliecer Blanco Prieto, presidente de la Empresa de Correos de Cuba; entre otros funcionarios.

So far, so good, I guess.

But I wonder what the Cubans mean by “the importance of eliminating discriminatory restrictions derived from the embargo policy of the United States toward Cuba…based on the principles and norms established by the Universal Postal Union, of which both States are members.” Does that mean that Cuba is assuming some kind of restriction on payments? Or on the arrival of Cuban planes carrying mail to the United States?

Odds and ends

• Governor Richardson clarifies his position on travel to Cuba: “Let anybody go to Cuba.” He spoke at the University of New Mexico about his effort to mediate a change in U.S.-Cuba relations. He engaged in some Cuba diplomacy in the 1990’s while serving in the House of Representatives; two accounts of that history are here and here.

• Reuters: Talks on the resumption of regular U.S.-Cuba postal service begin in Havana today.

• From a Herald article today: “Another exile group, Mambisa Watch [Vigilia Mambisa], announced that on Sunday evening it will use a steamroller in Little Havana to destroy CDs of artists who take part in the Juanes concert.”

Hemingway’s Cojimar

A photo essay from LIFE magazine, shot in 1956 by Alfred Eisenstaedt.

Juanes, on his way to Havana

Well, he’s going.

The concert is on Sunday and the lineup, according to a statement released by Juanes and the Cuban music institute and published in Granma, is impressive:

Amaury Pérez (Cuba), Danny Rivera (Puerto Rico), Cucú Diamante y Yerbabuena (Cuba-Venezuela), Juan Fernando Velasco (Ecuador), Jovanotti (Italia), Juanes (Colombia), Luis Eduardo Aute (España), Miguel Bosé (España), Olga Tañón (Puerto Rico), Orishas (Cuba), Silvio Rodríguez (Cuba), Van Van (Cuba), Carlos Varela (Cuba), Víctor Manuel (España) y X Alfonso (Cuba)

The statement also says that the concert will be broadcast on Cuban television and the signal will be available “without restriction” to broadcasters and websites in any country. In the United States, the Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network (HITN) has announced that it will carry the concert live.

The statement also says, “There will not be presenters on stage,” just the musicians.

If you’re keeping score of the politics of this event, that means Cuba 1, Calle Ocho 0, game over.

“Cuba” meaning the Cubans who will simply enjoy an outdoor concert, as people do in any other great city.

And “Cuba” as in the government itself, because those who attend the event will know that many in Miami were opposed to it taking place. The Cuban government will be able to say, when those folks talk about freedom and their vision for Cuba’s future, that they are the same ones who even wanted to deny you an afternoon of music. Sad.

Just to make sure, a program will air on Cuban television tomorrow night showing “all the people who opposed the Cuban people having a good time on September 20.” That’s according to Amaury Perez, in an interview last week. Consider the program Vigilia Mambisa’s gift to the central committee’s propaganda team. Sadder still.

When I first wrote about this concert, I recognized some of the criticisms. But then and now, I side with those who decided not to make the perfect the enemy of the good, and who simply support a great musical event. For example, check out this young and wise Cuban American’s view on the “right to be inspired.” For all their years, those who warned the loudest about a Castro victory have handed him one on a silver platter.

Last week, Yoani Sanchez went out and recorded Cubans’ opinions of the concert on video, and put it on her blog with a brief comment that she’s happy to be in tune with her people.

Who says there are no capitalists in Cuba?

…or at least monopolists…in the La Vanguardia story discussed below, there’s a sidebar comparing retail prices in Cuba and Spain:

20 German sausages: 12 Euros in Spain, 28 Euros in Cuba

Paper napkins: 0.9 Euros in Spain, 2.4 in Cuba

Diapers, “10 units:” 9.95 Euros in Spain, 24.4 in Cuba

Whole milk, one liter: 0.58 Euros in Spain, 2.4 in Cuba

Carbonell olive oil, one liter: 2.95 Euros in Spain, 14 in Cuba

Red wine, “reserva:” 14.65 Euros in Spain, 25.3 in Cuba

Baguette: 0.8 Euros in Spain, 0.75 in Cuba

Odds and ends

• Spain’s La Vanguardia reports on the closure of workplace cafeterias, discussed earlier here. The reporter, Fernando Garcia, is careful not to predict the end-point of this policy, but says it has already begun and will continue rolling out over the next several months. He ties the elimination of subsidized workplace meals to Raul Castro’s policy preference of making salaries, not an assortment of benefits, the main source of income. An unknown: how much private vendors will be allowed to meet the increased lunchtime demand. An interesting nugget: the 15 pesos that workers will get to buy lunch is half the state’s cost for the cafeteria’s lunches themselves.

• Five barefoot Cuban migrants at a convenience store in Lee County, Florida, a go-fast boat circling offshore with 40 fuel containers on board, and the feds investigating. Naples News story here.

• New York Times: from the Industriales to the Angels, Kendry Morales is excelling.

• Juventud Rebelde reports on the interment of Juan Almeida in Santiago, and El Nuevo reports on his son, who was not allowed to attend.

• AP: At the University of New Mexico, Governor Richardson talks about reciprocal moves he wants to see from the United States and Cuba.

• Cuban Colada grabs a Russian media report on the visit of the chief of the Russian armed forces general staff to Cuba; he’s there until Friday.

• AFP Spanish: Through October 15, Cubans are debating ways to increase production and efficiency, and to fight corruption, in their workplaces. The story is based on “material de estudio” distributed by the party in workplaces.

On Prado, under construction

The embargo, alive and well

On September 11, President Obama acted to continue “the exercise of certain authorities” under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

Nasty business

Mexican police rescued 14 Cuban migrants from a house in Cancun where they were being “held in crowded conditions and were being mistreated,” according to Mexico’s El Universal. Their alleged smuggler was also captured, the paper says.

Reportedly, their relatives had not paid the full sum required to the smuggler, which led to their mistreatment, which in turn led to neighbors’ complaints to the police. Cuban Colada has an account here.