See this movie

Website with trailer here, reviews here from the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, and notes from El Pais here and here.  Now playing at Washington’s E Street theater.

Church occupation ends

The Havana church protesters ended their 48-hour occupation when police, called by the Archdiocese, showed up to remove them.  The Archdiocese issued a statement explaining the end of the saga, noting that government authorities gave the assurance that no charges would be brought against any of the protesters.  CNN story here.

"He wanted to come as a pilgrim"

Here is the video of Cardinal Ortega's March 13 appearance on Cuban television explaining the upcoming papal visit.

Cuba's occupy movement

A number of Catholic churches in Cuba were occupied yesterday by Cuban citizens who apparently demanded that Pope Benedict see them when he visits Cuba later this month.

The Catholic church strongly rejected their tactic and demanded that they leave church premises. 

A statement from the Archdiocese of Havana said that a group of persons “who identify themselves as dissidents” in one Havana church (the Basílica Menor de Nuestra Señora de la Caridad) had a message for the Pope and a “series of social demands;” they “refused to leave the church,” the church was closed, and they remained inside, “frequently” placing and receiving calls on their cell phones.  Church authorities told the group that the message would be delivered, but they declined to leave.  The statement also noted that the church communicated with Cuban government authorities, “who agreed to take no action at all” against the protesters; that similar protests occurred in other churches across Cuba but those involved departed the premises; and that as part of a “prepared and coordinated strategy,” some dissidents and others were encouraged to occupy churches but “declined to do so because they considered it to be ‘an attitude of disrespect to the church.’” 

The statement, signed by Archdiocese spokesman Orlando Marquez, said these acts were “illegitimate and irresponsible,” and argued that “no one has the right to convert places of worship into political trenches.”

Radio Marti’s story identifies the dissidents as members of the Partido Republicano de Cuba. 

On its website, the Partido Republicano de Cuba says its work includes supporting the internal dissidents, supporting the U.S. embargo, and strengthening Radio and TV Marti.  It also prints a statement from its members who were in the Havana church, naming the protesters and listing some of their cell phone numbers, and it posts a recording of the statement made from that church.  It says churches were “occupied” by its members in Las Tunas, Holguin, and Pinar del Rio.  The statement calls for formation of a provisional government “with the objective of creating a legal framework for the functioning of the rule of law.”  It asks the public to enter a “national strike and to go into the streets to demand their rights.”  This Miami website notes the events in Holguin, and the local bishop’s rejection of the protest inside a church there.

The Partido Republicano de Cuba has a Miami office and appears to be led by Magdelivia Hidalgo.  

Miami blogger Emilio Ichikawa reports that dissident Jorge Luis García Pérez Antúnez, in an appearance on Radio Mambi, called the Partido Republicano de Cuba “a creature that nobody knows.”  He paraphrased Antunez saying that the organization was made “by people outside of the island and has been absent” from opposition activities in Cuba.  Ichikawa reports further that one of the Havana protesters was on Radio Mambi this morning complaining that the church is not feeding them and is thereby forcing them into an “involuntary hunger strike,” but nonetheless they are “prepared to carry on toward the ultimate consequences.”  We’ll see about that. 

Radio Marti’s story includes audio from Martha Beatriz Roque, who expresses her “disagreement with using the Catholic church in any way for political purposes.”  Yoani Sanchez calls the protests “invasive and disrespectful.”

AP reports today that the group in the Havana church is no longer demanding to see the Pope, but rather that he act as mediator and take up their demands with the Cuban government.

I have no idea if this Cuban “occupy” movement and its day of protests was hatched in Miami or by activists in Cuba.  But my bet is that opponents of the Cuban government will continue to distance themselves from it.  The protesters have every right to request of the Vatican whatever they wish.  But the Pope, Cuba’s church, and Cuba’s Catholic laity are also entitled to celebrate a pastoral visit as they wish.  The protests accentuate the image of a movement focused more on actors outside Cuba than within, and they do the cause of opposition to the Cuban government no favors.

Explaining the Pope's visit

AP: Cardinal Ortega will address the Cuban public on television tonight in advance of the Pope’s visit.

The Herald’s Juan Tamayo covers the 20-minute address.

Menos mal

Egypt and U.S. democracy programs

Writing at National Review’s website, former Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich takes a side-by-side look at the Alan Gross case and that of the Americans who came close to being put on trial in Cairo for their work there for the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute. 

I’m not going to compare the two cases – the Americans in Egypt, for starters, operated openly out of their organizations’ local offices – but they are two cases of Americans working on U.S. government-funded democracy programs who landed in legal hot water in their respective jurisdictions.

Mr. Reich notes that the U.S. government used the leverage of our massive economic and military aid program to press the Egyptian government for their release.  We have no such leverage in Cuba, and he opposes trading Cuban prisoners in U.S. jails for Gross, so he argues that Washington should threaten to “suspend remittances” if Gross is not freed.  Such a move, to the degree Cuban Americans would comply, would hurt families who are responsible neither for Mr. Gross’ actions or his arrest; I somehow doubt it would free him.

“Providing hard currency to any country holding American hostages is both immoral and self-defeating,” he concludes.  He leaves out the fact that we paid $330,000 bail in U.S. taxpayer money for each U.S. citizen freed when their legal proceeding was suspended and their travel restrictions lifted.

I’m not suggesting a payoff is desirable or feasible in the Cuban case.  But the Egypt case is not as pristine as Mr. Reich portrays it; its solution involved both high principle and a cold cash payment from one government to the other.

Odds and ends

• While reading recent discussion of the Pope’s upcoming visit to Cuba, this message to the Pope from Guillermo “Coco” Farinas, a Santa Clara opposition figure, stood out.  He writes “in the name of the Cuban nation.”

• What to make of this story by Alfonso Chardy of the Herald?  A Cuban doctor who served in Venezuela and availed himself of an immigration program that the Bush Administration created especially for Cuban doctors was denied permanent residence here because he was a member of the mass organization for young communists (UJC).  I’m not a big fan of the program for several reasons, one being that those Cubans who can find asylum in one country (granted, not all can) should be able to stay in that country, and there’s no need to create an entitlement to come to the United States.  But after enticing this doctor to come to the United States, the denial of permanent resident status puts him in immigration limbo, and his UJC membership seems a very flimsy reason.  His lip-service loyalty to the communist cause became clear when he deserted his post 15 days after arriving in Venezuela.

• Talk about a win-win-win situation – if pressures from Cuba’s friends had led to Cuba’s attendance at the April Summit of the Americas in Colombia, Havana et al. could have claimed victory, and Washington would have been left to figure whether to attend.  It turns out Cuba will not attend and never asked to attend, its foreign minister informs us, and now the President of Colombia is thanking Cuba for “generously saying it did not want to create a problem for the Summit or for Colombia.”  At the summit itself, it remains to be seen if Cuba’s friends will cause a little stink and force President Obama to deal with the issue of Cuba’s exclusion.  The Cartagena summit is an OAS show, and Cuba is not a big fan of the OAS.

• The Treasury Department clarifies rules for advertising educational people-to-people travel.

"Significant cooperation" on drug enforcement

Some nuggets from the Cuba section of the State Department’s annual drug enforcement report, issued yesterday:

Cuba and the United States share a mutual interest in reducing drug flows in the vicinity of the island, and in 2011, Cuba maintained a significant level of cooperation with U.S. counternarcotics efforts.

Cuba continues to dedicate significant resources to preventing illegal drugs and illegal drug use from spreading on the island, so far successfully. The technical skill of Cuba’s Border Guard, Armed Forces and police give Cuba a marked advantage against [traffickers] attempting to gain access to the Caribbean’s largest island. Greater communication and cooperation among the U.S., its international partners and Cuba, particularly in the area of real-time tactical information-sharing and improved tactics, techniques and procedures, would likely lead to increased interdictions and disruptions of illegal trafficking.

The Ministry of Armed Forces and Ministry of Interior’s combination of fixed and mobile radars, coupled with visual and coastal vessel reporting procedures make up an effective network for detecting illegal incursions of territorial air and sea by narcotics traffickers.

In 2011, Cuba reported 45 real-time reports of “go-fast” narcotics trafficking events to the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG). [Cuban border guards’] email and phone notifications of maritime smuggling to the U.S. have increased in quantity and quality, and have occasionally included photographs of the vessels suspected of narcotrafficking while being pursued.

The Cuban government presented the United States with a draft bilateral accord for counternarcotics cooperation, which is still under review. Structured appropriately, such an accord could advance the counternarcotics efforts undertaken by both countries.

The 1905 extradition treaty between the United States and Cuba and an extradition agreement from 1926 remain in effect.