Odds and ends

·         Every day for two weeks, Granma published lists of health services and their cost – just a list, no comment, no indication if the idea was simply to sensitize consumers to the costs or to prepare them for a change in policy (example here).  AP dug around and found, as can be expected in a system where consumers pay nothing, that some Cuban health professionals say that some consumers make unnecessary doctor visits.  It’s hard to imagine that Cuba would charge for medical care, so consumers are likely to remain insensitive to cost.  So maybe the idea is to strengthen the hand of doctors and health care professionals such that “free” doesn’t mean “unlimited” and doesn’t mean that the patient is in charge when it comes to ordering tests and treatment. 

·         Granma: Cuba’s health ministry says that the cholera outbreak that originated in Manzanillo, producing 417 cases and three deaths, is ended.  It has been more than 10 days since a new case has been identified.

·         Herald: The daughter of Vice President Marino Murillo went to Mexico for a conference, crossed the U.S. border, and has decided to stay.

·         In this interview on Spanish televisión, the brother of the late Oswaldo Paya says, “Carromero is innocent, we know it,” and asks for an international investigation of the July 22 crash that also claimed the life of dissident Harold Cepero.

Beach time

Odds and ends

·         The Herald has an unusual story on an unusual campaign tactic apparently employed by Rep. David Rivera in his re-election bid: funding of an unknown Democratic candidate in the Democratic primary election with “$43,000 in secret money.”  The candidate, Justin Lamar Sternad, was defeated by Joe Garcia, who will now face off against Rivera in November.  The story is unusual in that those involved, in this case direct mail vendors, spoke on the record about Rivera’s role.  This will be the second Rivera-Garcia contest and the first in a redrawn district less favorable to Rivera.  Garcia, a former official of the Cuban American National Foundation, would break the unanimity among Cuban Americans in Congress.  He supports President Obama’s Cuba policy and would be the first to support that part of the community that fills dozens of flights to Cuba each week.  More here from the the Wall Street Journal.

·         Granma reports on the degree of womens’ participation in politics and government on the occasion of the 52^nd anniversary of the founding of the Cuban Women’s Federation, one of Cuba’s quasi-official organizaciones de masas.

·         Nick Miroff at NPR on Bollywood, one of Havana’s new paladares.

More on the Paya crash

Here’s some more information and allegations about the July 22 car crash that killed Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero; for more, plow through this set of posts.

Europa Press reports that Swedish activist Jens Aron Modig, fully back in the swing of things in Stockholm, sent an e-mail to the family of Oswaldo Paya on August 17 to express his condolences.  His recollections of the accident were “fragmentary,” he said.  It came three days after Paya’s daughter tweeted: “‘I don’t know, I don’t remember’ is all Modig can say about the death of my father and Harold.  For how long?”

El Mundo (but no other Spanish media) reports that Partido Popular activist Angel Carromero will go on trial August 31 in Bayamo.

Paya’s widow Ofelia Acevedo continues to reject the Cuban government’s account of the crash, advancing her own version and calling for an independent investigation.  In recent interviews with Europa Press and Madrid’s ABC newspaper she has said that:

·         Carromero was not speeding at the time of the accident and he should be freed and returned to Spain;

·         she will not attend the trial, “not even to testify on Carromero’s behalf,” as the Europa Press reporter puts it, presuming that the decision to testify would be hers;

·         information from witnesses tells her that a red Lada was traveling parallel to Paya’s car, and the family is “convinced there was a pursuit [by another car]”

·         her “information and evidence” comes from multiple sources around the crash scene and at the hospital;

·         she cannot reveal the witnesses’ names for fear of reprisal;

·         she has no way to present her information officially to the court; and

·         a text message from one of the Europeans “to his colleagues” [in Europe, presumably] said that their car was being followed and was “rammed several times.”

Acevedo also says that reports about the revocation of his drivers license are “news media manipulation,” and “one would have to see” if Carromero had a record of speeding in Spain.  In fact, there was no manipulation.   Spanish newspapers reported what was in public records: a May 18, 2012 published announcement that Carromero’s license was to be revoked, and municipal records of speeding and other violations.

At this point, is anyone out there getting the feeling that this event will never be fully clarified to everyone’s satisfaction? 

Havana is hardly likely to allow an independent investigation, least of all under pressure, of a case that in its view boils down to a driver error that killed two Cuban citizens.  The Cuban government has the opportunity to disclose lots of information at trial and after trial, although that would not satisfy those who view it as illegitimate, right down to the provincial police traffic division.

Meanwhile the Paya family and Oswaldo Paya’s colleagues in Spain are presenting dramatic allegations backed by almost none of the information and evidence they claim to have.  If their priority is to protect witnesses or wait for an independent international investigation to occur, that’s their business.  But the result is that their case is thin and hard to judge.  It’s natural to question why, if they believe Carromero is bring framed and want to prevent it, they don’t give a full written presentation of their case to Cuban prosecutors and to the public.  It’s also hard to envision a core event in their case taking place: a briefing by police, who are Interior Ministry officers, in a public or non-secure location in the Bayamo hospital on the day of the crash where Paya’s friends could listen in (and supposedly hear witnesses’ statements about the red Lada, etc.)  Whatever its other virtues, Cuba’s Interior Ministry is not known for casual sharing of information.    

Odds and ends

·         Without specifying exactly what the convicts did, Granma reports the convictions and sentences of twelve individuals for “crimes associated with corruption during the process of negotiation, contracting, and execution” of the expansion of the Pedro Soto Alba nickel plant in Moa, which is part of a joint venture with Canada’s Sherritt International.  The convicts include three former vice ministers of basic industries and ranking state enterprise executives.  AP’s sources link these cases to those of arrested executives of a Canadian import-export company and a British investment company.  Reuters story here.

·         The new Cuban customs regulations that take effect next month were previously only explained in the Gaceta Oficial, none too clearly.  This new explanation is a big step forward.

·         Trabajadores: Private carriage drivers in Santa Clara have unionized.

·         Congressman Paul Ryan clarifies his position on Cuba.

The GOP platform's Cuba plank

The Los Angeles Times obtains the 2012 Republican platform language on Cuba:

“We affirm our friendship with the people of Cuba and look toward their reunion with the rest of our hemispheric family. The anachronistic regime in Havana which rules them is a mummified relic of the age of totalitarianism, a state-sponsor of terrorism. We reject any dynastic succession of power within the Castro family and affirm the principles codified in U.S. law as conditions for the lifting of trade, travel, and financial sanctions: the legalization of political parties, an independent media, and free and fair internationally-supervised elections. We renew our commitment to Cuba’s courageous pro-democracy movement as the protagonists of Cuba’s inevitable liberation and democratic future. We call for a dedicated platform for the transmission of Radio and TV Marti and for the promotion of Internet access and circumvention technology as tools to strengthen the pro-democracy movement. We support the work of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba and affirm the principles of the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, recognizing the rights of Cubans fleeing Communism.”

Reports: Prosecutors to seek seven years for Carromero

Multiple reports in Spanish media, citing diplomatic sources, say that Cuban prosecutors will proceed to try Partido Popular activist Angel Carromero for involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero, and will seek a seven-year sentence. 

The Cuban statute provides a maximum of 10 years per count; in this case prosecutors will ask three and a half years per count.  El Pais story here. 

Many of these stories refer to a treaty between Spain and Cuba that allows Spanish nationals convicted of crimes in Cuba to serve their sentence in Spanish jails. 

August 14, 1762

The Spanish surrendered Havana to the British 250 years ago today, opening the way for 11 months of British rule that changed Cuba and started centuries of speculation on the question, “What if the Spanish had never come back?”  At Penultimos Dias, Vicente Echerri has a wonderful essay on the history and the what-ifs.

Romney in Miami

Governor Romney didn’t mention Cuba in his event at Miami’s Palacio de los Jugos, the Herald reports, but he gave an interview to Radio Mambi where he explained that his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, had changed his position on the Cuba embargo and now supports it (Univision story here, audio here).

Meanwhile, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel looks back at Paul Ryan’s record on Cuba.

Ryan on Cuba (Updated)

Herald political reporter Marc Caputo says the Ryan pick could be a “sore point in Miami-Dade” notwithstanding the assertions by Cuban American big shots that Ryan was “educated” and changed his position on Cuba.  And in El Nuevo, the headline is that Romney will “break tradition” today by visiting Miami and going not to Versailles on Calle Ocho, but to a very nice-sounding place called El Palacio de los Jugos. (Update: more from Sergio Valdivieso at Cafe Fuerte.)

Obviously Ryan will support the pro-embargo Romney position and my bet is that he will have to find a public opportunity to do so.  Politics being politics, he will put his convictions in storage and swallow words such as these from 2002, when he argued in the House for unrestricted travel to Cuba:

Mr. Chairman, the greatest antidote to totalitarianism is an informed mind. I would like to read a quick passage from an independent journalist, a dissident in Cuba, Oscar Espinosa Chepe:

“The passage of the House amendment last year to end the travel ban reflects a public opinion that every day understands more clearly that the effort to isolate Cuba has only increased the suffering of the Cuban people and strengthened the positions of the most recalcitrant elements in the Havana regime. Experience demonstrates that isolationism breathes life into totalitarianism. It helps it exercise control over citizens subjected to its power and to reinforce its monopoly over their minds. On the other hand, contact between peoples free individuals from falsehoods and from the lies without dignity to which they are obliged to lead.”

Mr. Chairman, it has been the American policy from Republican presidents and Democrat presidents that we engage; it has been in the American policy that we engage the Soviet Union, that we engage China, that we, just a few minutes ago, voted to engage Vietnam.

We should do the same with Cuba. The simple reason is that it has been a bedrock principle of American policy that travel is a device that opens closed societies. American travelers are our best ambassadors. They carry the idea of freedom to people from communist countries. There is no reason to make this exception for Cuba.

We want Americans to go down and exchange ideas, to show them the taste of freedom, to know what kind of brutal totalitarian regime they are living under. A people cannot rise up and ask for alternatives if they are not acquainted with those alternatives.

We are simply saying this 42-year practice of turning our backs, of looking inward, of being hypocrites while we go to China and Russia and Vietnam, must be ended.

Tourism, growing and changing

AP reports that Cuba’s tourism sector performed well in 2011, with visits up seven percent and revenues up 12.8 percent over 2010. 

Part of the story has to do with Cuban tourism, following the 2008 end to the prohibition on Cubans staying in hotels in their own country.  Xinhua reports on how Sol Melia is marketing its hotels to the Cuban public, noting that there were 1.3 million hotel stays (sounds high, doesn’t it?) by Cubans (including Cuban Americans) in Cuban hotels last year. 

The promotion has been going on for some time; see this Granma piece from 2010.  And an item on Cubans in Varadero hotels here.

Odds and ends

·         From Nick Miroff in Global Post: “Paya’s widow, Ofelia Acevedo, says Modig has not called the family to tell them his version of the accident, or to address their suspicions that the Castro government was involved.” 

·         This video has the August 1 statements of Acevedo and Paya’s daughter on the accident that claimed the lives of Paya and Harold Cepero.  An August 11 op-ed by Acevedo in El Mundo is here.

·         Amnesty International calls on Cuba to stop its “cat-and-mouse” harassment of political opponents.  Amnesty’s latest report on Cuba here.

·         Juventud Rebelde: More than 2,000 fines have been issued and more tan 40 licenses revoked from Cuban entrepreneurs for health code violations in food establishments.

·         The Herald reports on the Miami-Havana shipping business for humanitarian deliveries.

·         Macleans on the anti-corruption campaign and foreign investment in Cuba.

·         El Universal: Venezuela’s opposition candidate, pushing back at Chavez, says he will not end the presence of Cuban doctors in Venezuela, and “if we need them we will continue paying Cuba.” 

·         As Cuba works on its own economic model, its state media continue to highlight progress in Vietnam: increased foreign investment and 734,000 jobs created this year.

·         BBC:  Playlists haven’t changed yet, but Havana radio stations have been told they can ditch a blacklist of musicians.

Ryan for VP?

Perhaps in search of a Republican vice presidential nominee that supports repeal of laws that restrict American travel to Cuba and who voted for Rep. Rangel’s amendment to end the embargo altogether in 2000, 2002, and 2004, a private plane was sent today from Boston to the airport in the hometown of Rep. Paul Ryan.

Modig's lapses, and ours

Swedish Christian Democratic activist Aron Modig has now spoken about his experience in Cuba – the crash that killed Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero and left him and driver Angel Carromero of Spain’s Partido Popular injured, his memory, the questioning he faced afterward – and Modig is telling the same story to Swedish print and radio reporters that he told on camera in a press conference in Cuba. 

In sum: Modig was snoozing when the crash took place, he awoke when the car lost control, lost consciousness upon impact, and awoke again in an ambulance en route to the hospital.  He was questioned in Bayamo about the accident and had dinner with the Swedish ambassador there, and he was questioned in Havana about his political activities while being held in a windowless room in a house.  He did not enjoy the process. 

When asked for more details about the crash, he told Swedish reporters he preferred to stick with his memory and not to speculate.  (See AFP Spanish, AP English, and you can Google-translate this article from Stockholm’s Dagens Nyheter; if you speak Swedish you can listen to this radio interview.)

From various accounts, Modig seems not to have communicated with the Paya family before leaving Havana to give information or to express condolence.  Paya’s organization chided Modig today for failing again to express condolences to Paya’s family.

Carromero, meanwhile, is reported by Madrid’s ABC newspaper to have phoned a friend immediately after the accident to say, “We have just had an accident.  Things could get bad, and you need to help me out.”  ABC’s reporter got almost no information from anyone at the Partido Popular; all personnel are staying quiet so as to avoid saying anything that could hurt his case.  Some friends did say Carromero is “prudence personified” at the wheel.  For their part, Spanish traffic authorities have now revoked his drivers license, having stated their intention to do so last May based on his many speeding and parking violations.

How does all this figure into the speculative debate over what really happened July 22 on the highway outside Bayamo? 

It certainly does not support the theory that a Cuban government car caused the accident directly or indirectly by harassing Paya’s car on the highway.  This theory, advanced by Paya’s family, might have been sustained by statements by Modig made from Swedish soil.  But he continues to say he was asleep, which doesn’t fit a less-than-relaxing scenario where the car was being rammed by another, or harassed such that (as Paya’s daughter suggests) Carromero accelerated to escape the harassment. 

Carromero himself has said he was driving at 50 miles per hour the last time he checked, came upon a gravel-covered section of the road, saw a pothole, braked, and lost control.  It “could have happened to any other person,” he said in a statement recorded in Havana.  The Cuban legal case against him will apparently rest on the allegation that he failed to heed signs to slow down in an area under repair.

If Modig is sticking with his terse statement to leave the door open for Carromero to say what he wishes at trial, then he is also leaving Carromero completely on his own. 

Of course, it’s also possible that the Swede and the Spaniard are telling the truth.

Driving in Cuba is not easy.  Eight hours into this grueling Havana-to-Santiago trip, the group had passed the point near Sancti Spiritus where a wide, open highway turns into a two-lane road.  On the former it’s easy to average 70 miles per hour; on the latter you’re lucky to average 40 as you pass through towns and slow down for trucks, bicycles,  horses, parked cars, pedestrians, and vendors leaning into the highway hawking home-made cheese and other wares.  It’s hard for any driver – and this driver was new to Cuba, 27 years old, and judged to be unfit to drive in his own country. 

I’m all for being skeptical of government statements, in this case Cuba’s, and I don’t for a moment discount the rough treatment that dissidents receive.  And certainly the statements of Carromero and Modig in Cuba may have been be colored by their desires to escape criminal charges and go home.

But the many efforts to accuse Havana of assassinating Paya, or in most cases to insinuate that it did so, seem hasty and very political, even as those who make the accusations complain that Havana is making its own political points.  No one else is being blunt, so I will: The idea here seems to be to avoid the quite plausible conclusion that an amateurish political operation intended to help Cuban dissidents ended up getting two of them killed.  

Worse still is the charge that Carromero is a “hostage” in the absence of evidence that the Cuban case against him is a sham.  The idea seems to be that Cuban laws, even traffic laws, are illegitimate and should not apply to foreigners engaged in political work.  Even Senator Rubio has recognized Cuban “civil law” and the obligation of foreigners to respect it. 

The burden on the Cuban state is to prove its case.  The burden on us, it seems to me, is to let that process take its course.  The alternative is to send a message to the Cuban people that when two Cuban citizens die and a foreigner is involved, the only thing that matters is to get the foreigner out of Cuba and back to the comforts of home. 

Other items from the Spanish media:

·         From El Pais: “Madrid prepares for a long diplomatic crisis with Havana”

·         Luis Gomez of El Pais profiles Carromero, who as part of his effort to climb the ranks of the Partido Popular, “traveled to Cuba to fulfill a mission.”  Gomez could not verify if this was Carromero’s first trip to Cuba.  Carromero’s political mentor, Pablo Casado, traveled to Cuba in 2007 and later wrote of a “clandestine meeting” with Oswaldo Paya.  “My mission consisted of gaining access to the most surveilled houses in Cuba without being detained or jailed,” he wrote.

·         Mauricio Vicent, former Havana correspondent for El Pais, puts Carromero’s trip in the context of a long line of other Spanish political activists who have traveled to Cuba and been turned around at the airport, “thus obtaining the sought-after headline,” or who manage “to move about the island believing themselves to be a kind of James Bond” only to meet eventual deportation.

[Photo from the website of Dagens Nyheter.]