No Snowden in Havana

Until yesterday it appeared that Edward Snowden, the rat on the run for divulging U.S. government secrets, might depart Russia for a life of political asylum in Ecuador, making a brief stop on our favorite island.  But the Moscow-Havana Aeroflot flight took off without him, and his plans and whereabouts are as unclear as ever.  Today, Russian officials are denying that he is even there. 


(Update: President Putin confirms that he’s in Russia and won’t be extradicted.)

Cuba has not been mentioned as an asylum option.  Is that because Cuba has been asked and said no?  Anya Landau French dug up the State Department’s terrorism report for 2005 where the section that justifies Cuba’s designation as a “state sponsor of terrorism” includes this statement: “Cuba has stated that it will no longer provide safe haven to new U.S. fugitives who may enter Cuba.”  That’s a pretty clear statement of Cuban policy, not something that Bush Administration officials would have included casually.  If it applies now, and if it bars layovers as well as long-term stays, then Snowden needs a Plan B, big time.

There has been no Cuban government statement on the matter.  This article in yesterday’s Granma simply rounds up the news about Snowden without mentioning speculation that he might transit Cuba on his way to Quito.

The reason Snowden is having to hop-scotch around the world is that the United States has agreements with many countries that would require them to turn Snowden over.  And in the absence of agreements, we have relationships with many countries that are sufficiently strong that they would be open to a request from Washington.  Add up the two categories of countries, and Snowden’s options narrow.

The United States and Cuba do have an extradition agreement in force, dating from 1904.  But it is a dead letter because neither side has honored its terms for years.  From the first weeks of Cuba’s revolution, the United States refused to hand over persons sought by Cuba, and Cuba has fugitives from U.S. justice that it has refused to hand over.

Since extradition agreements are based on reciprocal obligations, and since the United States thinks little of Cuba’s justice system, it is unlikely that the United States would seek to revive an extradition agreement with Cuba.  Even in cases where we have agreements, some do not apply to all crimes.  As we saw in the Ana Montes case, Montes’ alleged accomplice Marta Rita Velazquez is safely out of reach of U.S. law in Sweden because our extradition agreement with that country excludes political crimes, a category that includes espionage.

But what if we did negotiate with Cuba?  Each side would carve out exceptions from the obligation to extradict, and the agreement might exclude past cases such as Luis Posada Carriles and JoAnn Chesimard.  Even if it’s an agreement full of holes, it would be worth it if it complicates the life and travels of the next Edward Snowden.

A course for entrepreneurs

On her Twitter feed, Yoani Sanchez posts a photo of a sign announcing a training course for entrepreneurs in a Santiago church.

Tampa speaks up

Miami-Dade is the U.S. capital of engagement with Cuba, with dozens of flights per week filled mainly with Cuban Americans.  Many of those flights require a second cargo-only plane to carry passengers’ excess baggage, a large and uncounted stream of U.S. exports to Cuba.  Cuban Americans have responded enthusiastically to openings in Cuba, helping relatives there open businesses and acquire real estate, so much so that a friend of mine calls Miami-Dade one of Cuba’s largest trading partners. 

But Miami’s political leadership still represents, with the partial exception of Rep. Joe Garcia, the views of those Cuban Americans who oppose all engagement with Cuba.

Tampa’s engagement with Cuba is far less than Miami’s, although its connections with Cuba are far deeper, going back more than a century to the days when Jose Marti went there to seek the local Cuban community’s support for Cuba’s struggle for independence from Spain.

In contrast to Miami, Tampa’s political and business leadership stands up for engagement with Cuba and wants more of it.  Three city council members just joined the Tampa Chamber of Commerce in a trip to Cuba.  How strong is the political push?  Look at Rep. Kathy Castor’s April letter to President Obama calling for a comprehensive reform of Cuba policy. 

What is the trend?  It would be wrong to underestimate the strength of the pro-embargo forces – note Congressional voting patterns, the Florida legislature’s passage of legislation to punish firms that do business with Cuba, and the fact that Senator Nelson remains in Miami’s camp, not Tampa’s. 

But the changes taking place are important.  No other state has stood so strong for the Cuba embargo, and the strength of its argument in presidential politics was sapped by the 50-50 split in the Cuban-American vote in the 2012 election.  Tampa’s argument for change based on economic and foreign policy interests can only augur well for the future.

Odds and ends

• Herald: One of Rep. Joe Garcia’s staffers is gone and another is on leave after the feds searched their homes in an election fraud probe.  During last year’s Democratic primary election they allegedly went on-line, using computers with masked IP addresses, to request absentee ballots in the names of hundreds of voters.  It is not clear from any of the articles how they planned to obtain the absentee ballots, once issued.  In the event, authorities smelled something fishy and did not act on the requests.  Garcia says he did not know of the scheme.  He is cooperating in the investigation and conducting his own investigation, and while he is angry about the scheme, he said: “I think it was a well-intentioned attempt to maximize voter turnout.”  Strange.  The primary was already marred by apparent fraud in the case of David Rivera’s straw-man candidate Justin Lamar Sternad.  Now it appears to be bipartisan.

• Herald: The Florida law designed to punish the Brazilian firm Odebrecht for the business it does in Cuba was struck down by a federal appeals court.  Earlier note on the Florida law here.

·         Progreso Weekly interviews Jorge Pinon of the University of Texas on Cuba’s energy future.  Note his comments on ethanol, the untapped resource that could revive sugar production, creating jobs and producing by his estimate 70,000 barrels of the fuel per day.  See also Reuters on the Russian company Zarubezhneft that is abandoning a deep-water exploration project and says it will be back next year.

• El Pais on the difficult story of the 115 Cuban dissidents who were released from jail and went to Spain (along with 650 relatives) in 2011: “big intentions, insufficient planning, too many surprises, and very few resources.”

·         Diario de Cuba: Cuba’s national baseball team will come to the United States to play a few games next month.  As for Cubans in the majors, the Dodgers called up outfielder Yasiel Puig and he’s not doing badly, hitting a grand slam last night; see also here and here.

• JTA: Jailed USAID contractor Alan Gross settled his lawsuit with DAI, his employer, and his separate suit against the U.S. government was dismissed.  There’s more at Along the Malecon.  CNN reports that Cuba will permit a U.S. doctor to examine Gross; last September his family requested such an examination.

·         Havana Times has an English translation of an interview that the BBC’s Fernando Ravsberg did with Rene Gonzalez, one of the “Cuban Five” intelligence agents who completed his sentence in the United States and has returned to Cuba.

• El Pais interviews economics professor Carmelo Mesa-Lago on the economic reforms in Cuba.