A lukewarm endorsement

Today Granma published an interview with Fidel Castro that was done after he voted last Sunday.  It was “revised and updated by the interviewee” before publication.  An excerpt where he was questioned by a Telesur reporter:

Fabiola Lopez:  Comandante, what do you think of the changes that are taking place now in Cuba?

Fidel Castro:  You say the changes, but the big change was the Revolution.  What changes are you referring to?

FL:  I mean the changes that are taking place now with the lineamientos and everything happening to update socialism.

FC:  Well, in general I believe it is a duty to update it and improve it, but this is a stage where it is indispensable to proceed with lots of caution, we should not make mistakes.  We are moving from a unique and very complex time in history, life has to have taught us things during these 50 years.  The country that has done the most to come close to a deep revolution, in the neighborhood of the empire, is Cuba.  Not everything has turned out perfectly, but it is an unavoidable obligation to perfect and improve upon what we have done.

Odds and ends

• The Boston Globe calls for a “new diplomatic agenda with Cuba” beginning with ending “the silly claim, reinstated by the Obama administration last summer, that Cuba remains a ‘state sponsor of terrorism.’”

• Reuters on the search for a partner to expand the Cienfuegos refinery, a project where the Chinese showed interest but have not bought in.

• Diario las Americas gets the first interview with Pedro Alvarez, the former Alimport chief who defected in 2010 and now lives in Tampa.

• “People who don’t believe strongly in immigration, they’ve lost confidence in the greatness of America,” says former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, a Cuban American trying to show his party the light on immigration.  He is profiled in the Washington Post.

• AP’s Andrea Rodriguez on how Venezuela’s Telesur, now on Cuban television 12 hours a day, has changed Cuban’s media mix for the better.

• Tracey Eaton has a redacted version of the classified annex of the Bush Administration’s Cuba transition commission report from July 2006, much of which has been declassified.  You can’t make a full judgment since parts of it are blacked out, but it’s not as interesting as one might expect.  

• In the Herald, from the guy who ran the USAID program that sent Alan Gross to Cuba: Gross’ predicament is all Castro’s fault, if you question the program you are aligned with the Cuban government, and the program has a “measure of tolerance for losses and failed initiatives” in places such as Cuba.  So suck it up, Alan. 

Don't tell Sen. Rubio...

Radio/TV Marti reporter Ricardo Quintana reports on a store in Hialeah that stocks parts for East German motorcycles, which customers buy and send to Cuba where the motorcycles are still in use.  The report focuses on aid that Cuban Americans provide to relatives in Cuba who are running their own businesses.

An earlier report looks at the growing links fostered by visits and remittances, and a forthcoming piece will look at real estate transactions.

Odds and ends

• Granma publishes the list of those elected to the National Assembly that will be seated February 24.

• From the Latin America Working Group, a petition urging President Obama to end Cuba’s designation as a “state sponsor of terrorism.”

• Reuters on the possibility that the Cuban Adjustment Act might be debated and revised as Congress considers immigration reform.

• Cuba Standard: Attorney Jose Palli on the “Unbearable lightness of Cubanology.”  “Rather than focusing on helping the Cuban people to widen what most of them see as a window of opportunity by freely and fully interacting with them,” he writes, “we foolishly and conceitedly argue against any such interaction…We do not even ask ourselves if the collapse we wish upon them is what the Cuban people want to have to live through: We rather act as if they have earned and deserve it.”  While we’re on the topic, there’s this from Professor Jaime Suchlicki.

• The Herald’s Mimi Whitefield profiles Vivian Mannerud, ABC Charters president whose office was firebombed last April in an apparent act of domestic terrorism.

• From Metronews (Toronto), an awful story about a Canadian who fell in love with a Cuban, married him, sponsored him for a visa and brought him to Canada, only to have him rob her and take off como Matias Perez within days of his arrival.  When she reported it to authorities, they responded that her case is “one in 10,000.”  In the article’s comments, a civic-minded Cuban living in West Palm Beach says that anyone thinking of such a marriage should “think it 10 times before doing it or call me,” and he provides his phone number. 

More on the GAO report

Yesterday’s GAO report gives good marks to the financial and program management practices of the Cuba democracy programs run by USAID and the State Department.

Of course, that’s not the same as saying the money is well spent.  GAO’s antiseptic, management consultant’s-eye view of the programs is thorough, but it doesn’t go to the foreign policy aspects of a program that is central to U.S. policy toward Cuba.  Nor did GAO benefit from access to Cuba to see recipients and how U.S. funds are used. 

So the dollars are well accounted for, but as to whether they are being spent in ways that make a positive difference, well, that’s outside the scope of the report.

Which is worth noting because in the case of USAID’s satellite Internet program run by Alan Gross and other grantees, the dollars may have been perfectly managed and 100 percent accounted for, but they were 100 percent wasted because these operations were rolled up by Cuban intelligence. 

Those operations were not typical, of course.  But in an environment where those who operate the program have no direct access to Cuba, effectiveness may be impossible to measure.  There’s a second version of the report that is classified.

At any rate, a few things stand out.

On the lack of access to Cuba, GAO almost seems surprised that the Cuban government would give USAID the cold shoulder:

“USAID does not work cooperatively or collaboratively with Cuban government agencies, as it does in most other countries receiving U.S. democracy assistance. USAID does not have staff in Cuba, and State does not have staff dedicated to the Cuba democracy program in Havana. USAID and State program staff have been unable to obtain visas to visit Cuba over the past decade, which poses challenges for program implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.”

The report uses the term “partners” instead of “grantees.”  Here it notes a shift away from grants to promote Cuba activities in third countries:

“Several partners we reviewed received funding to support international solidarity activities, although agency and partner officials indicated that the program recently has reduced its focus on off-island activities to foster support for democracy in Cuba.”

Such third-country activities were rarely if ever identified as USAID projects, making it hard to tell if they were spontaneous, or induced by U.S. funds, or a combination of the two.

Aid to families of political prisoners is down:

“In recent years, USAID and State had few awards or contracts focused solely on such humanitarian assistance as assistance for political prisoners and their families, according to agency officials. USINT [U.S. Interests Section] officials noted that humanitarian assistance has declined along with a decrease in the number of political prisoners in Cuba. Officials added that USINT itself no longer provides any humanitarian assistance on the island.”

And apparently there is less focus on dissidents:

“To broaden reach and impact, Cuba democracy assistance efforts have expanded beyond a focus on traditional activists to include groups such as poor and rural communities, religious organizations, small businesses, and information technology enthusiasts. Typical program beneficiaries also include Cuban community leaders, independent journalists, independent bloggers, women, and youths.”

If you have tried to figure out how money in this program is spent, you have seen lists of grantees, and that’s where the visibility ends.  They hire subgrantees, which are not disclosed, and which carry out a lot of the program’s operations.  They are called “subpartners” here:

“Many partners, and worldwide or regional organizations in particular, use subpartners to help carry out their Cuba democracy assistance work. We reviewed 29 recent awards and contracts to determine the extent to which partners use subpartners to implement program activities.21 We found that partners used subpartners under 21 of the 29 awards and contracts, obligating about 40 percent of the funding under these awards and contracts to subpartners. On average, partners that used subpartners under an award or contract had 12 subpartners.”

And the subgrantees are managed by the grantees, with “no direct relationships” with the U.S. government:

“USAID and State have no direct relationships with their partners’ subpartners. Partners are responsible for all oversight of their subpartners and for reporting to the agencies any updates and problems related to the subpartners’ work, such as through any quarterly reports and site visits. However, the agencies are generally required to approve any partner requests to award funding to subpartners.”

More here and here from Tracey Eaton.