At LASA: Scholars Protest Cuba Visa Denials; Romney’s Regime Change Redux; Ricardo In, Restrepo Departs

Scholars who lead the Cuba Section of the Latin America Studies Association (LASA) met Thursday evening and debated moving future conferences of the organization outside the U.S. after their ranks were depleted by Obama administration denials of visas for nearly a dozen Cuban academics.

Approximately 5,000 regional experts from nations across the globe arrived in San Francisco this week for the annual meeting of LASA.

The Obama administration has refused to discuss in public its reasons for denying entry for some of Cuba’s most vibrant and candid intellectuals, as they were described in Politico by Sarah Stephens and Phil Brenner, or what threat they constituted to the interests of the United States.

As an editorial in the Washington Post said this week:

The reasons for the rejections are mysterious and mystifying. Of the 11, many are well known and internationally respected academics with long-standing ties to top American scholars. One is a former ambassador to the European Union.

Does the United States feel threatened by Milagros Martinez, vice rector of the University of Havana, who has relentlessly pushed scholarly exchanges with American universities? By Soraya Castro Marino, a serious commentator on U.S.- Cuban relations? By Rafael Hernandez, a scholar and editor who has taught at Harvard and Columbia universities?

LASA scholars, however, said the injury extended further, to their academic freedoms and their rights to hear the Cuban intellectuals speak about developments on the island, U.S. policy, and a variety of subjects ranging migration to race relations in Cuba.

The organization could have been celebrating decades of academic relations with Cuba, whose purpose one academic described as allowing “Cubans to come to academic conferences and speak for themselves and about their own reality.”

That celebration was cancelled.  Instead, the Cuba section paid a silent tribute to the scholars by setting up ten empty chairs adorned only with the names of those who received letters from the United States calling their entry into the country detrimental to U.S. interests.

The visa denials were a throwback to Bush administration policies which regularly prevented Cuban scholars from attending LASA meetings in the U.S.  After it denied visas to all 75 Cubans whom LASA had invited in 2003, the organization vowed not to return to the U.S. until visa policies changed.  With the recent actions by the Obama administration, the Cuba section will ask LASA to hold its annual meetings outside U.S. borders beginning in 2014 until our nation supports the right of Cuban scholars to travel and express themselves freely.

A decision by LASA to stop coming to  the U.S. will hurt our nation’s economy and the vibrancy of our discussions about the entire region. But silence against the infringement of these basic freedoms would constitute acquiescence to a painfully stupid and counterproductive policy.

This week in Cuba news…

A visa “compromise” detrimental to the interests of the United States

You know how Washington works (when it works).  Opposing factions come together and “give something to get something.”  At a time when the machinery of government is so obviously broken, some would argue that more compromise is needed.

For a variety of reasons, a compromise that the Obama administration seems to have brokered – with whom we do not know – has badly backfired and compromised some pretty important principles.  It comes as no surprise that this story is about an egregious misstep on Cuba.

By way of background, the Latin America Studies Association (or “LASA”) will meet next week in San Francisco.   LASA, the most important organization of scholars who study the region, stopped coming to the U.S. for its meetings because the U.S. would not grant visas to Cubans who wanted to participate and it decided not to return to the U.S. until the problem was fixed.

Or so it thought. For next week’s conference, approximately 80 Cubans were invited and applied for visas so they could enter the United States to do so. According to this afternoon’s State Department Daily Press Briefing, of 77 received applications, 60 have been approved, 11 were denied and 6 are pending - for a conference that begins just five days from today.

Who got selected and who got rejected?  Mariela Castro Espin, the renowned champion of gay rights who heads the Cuban National Center for Sex Education, who previously visited the United States under a visa granted by the administration of George W. Bush, was among those Cubans allowed entry to attend LASA next week.

But Soraya Castro Marino, who came to the U.S. in 2010 as a visiting scholar at Harvard was, according to The Washington Post, “found ineligible this time because her presence would ‘detrimental to the interests of the United States’.”  Rafael Hernandez, a scholar who also taught at Harvard and the University of Texas, Carlos Alzugaray, a former Cuban Ambassador to the European Union, Oscar Zanetti, the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a scholar at American University, and several others who had previously received visas from the administration over the last several year were denied visas now –  because their presence would be detrimental to the U.S.

The Obama administration is enforcing no consistent principle for determining who should enter and attend LASA.  If decision makers thought welcoming some and turning away others would win them plaudits they were sadly mistaken.

Phil Brenner, a professor and Cuba scholar at American University, called the decisions “arbitrary, shameful, and cowardly.”  He observed that many of the scholars denied visas “have a history of advocating for improved relations with the United States.”  Ted Piccone, an official at the Brookings Institution who was expecting Carlos Alzugaray at an upcoming event, called it “baffling.  I wish I knew what their thinking was.”

If the administration’s strategy was to buy cheap grace with the hardliners who oppose any dialogue or engagement with Cuba by denying visas to some of Cuba’s most open and incisive intellectuals, this was a total failure.

As the Miami Herald reported, the decision to issue a visa to Mariela Castro, President Raúl Castro’s daughter, drew “irate criticism” from Cuban Americans in Congress.

Senator Bob Menendez said the U.S. government and LASA should not be “in the business of providing a totalitarian regime, like the one in Cuba, with a platform for which to espouse its twisted rhetoric.”  Senator Marco Rubio called the decision an “outrageous and enormous mistake.”  Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen called the decision “beyond comprehension.”

The administration was wrong to compromise not just because it satisfied no one or because no one “gave something to get something.”  It was wrong because the compromise was truly detrimental to the interests of the United States.

The U.S. has a policy of punishing Cuba because we object to features of the Cuban system that limit the rights of travel and expression.  The policy has accomplished none of its stated objectives for half a century.   Our government undermines whatever moral credibility the policy has left by stopping intellectuals from Cuba – who think freely and speak openly about repairing the U.S.-Cuban relationship – from traveling to our country so they could participate in an academic conference…for goodness sakes.

Is it possible that one Cuban invited to attend LASA could utter what Senator Menendez calls “twisted rhetoric” if given the chance?  Perhaps.  But we think our country is strong enough to withstand the shock.  And even if what the Cubans have to say isn’t controversial, we should be committed to their right to come and speak.  That is, what might call, the American way.

Obama should reverse the denials and welcome them in.

On Mother’s Day in Havana and Washington

In the U.S., Mother’s Day is a hallmark of our spring calendar, so we wanted to wish a happy holiday to every mother who reads and enjoys the weekly blast.

As you will read below, the organization called Save the Children has released its annual Mothers Index Rating and has once again listed Cuba as the best country in Latin America for mothers.

This will undoubtedly excite an exaggerated reaction from those who can’t stand seeing Cuba presented in a normal or flattering light.

After the New York Times published its piece earlier this month titled “Cuba May Be the Most Feminist Country in Latin America,” the heavy armor was rolled out.  While reasonable men and women of good will disagree about life and living conditions in Cuba, a discussion of the facts simply couldn’t be allowed to stand.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen called women “the biggest victims of the Cuban regime,” the author and others holding this view were labeled as apologists, the perspective called “unspeakable,” the New York Times didn’t just publish the article, it ‘squealed,’ etc.

One can only imagine the hail storm that awaits Save the Children.

But this week the hardliners didn’t own the monopoly on absurdity.   Special credit was earned by the U.S. State Department which publicly rejected an offer by Cuba to negotiate with the United States on a broad range of issues, including the Alan Gross case.

Mr. Gross, imprisoned in Cuba since December 2009, for his work in a USAID-funded regime change program, and sentenced to 15 years in prison, pleaded for a brief release to visit his mother, aged ninety, who is suffering from cancer – a Mother’s Day gift they could both enjoy – and made his case in a telephone interview with CNN.

Reacting to the interview, Josefina Vidal, a top Cuban Foreign Ministry official, said that while Cuba was ready to engage in a dialogue with the U.S. on Mr. Gross’s case, Havana wanted “to sit down at the negotiating table with Washington to discuss all outstanding issues in an effort to establish normal relations,” according to CBS News.

Rather than seizing the initiative, the State Department “reacted sharply,” saying Vidal’s statement confirmed its belief that Mr. Gross is a hostage and there is no justification for his continued imprisonment.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that the Obama administration is negotiating with the Taliban on a prisoner exchange that could free an American soldier held hostage in Afghanistan.

Leaving us to wonder what principle is at stake when U.S. decides who to talk to about what.

Our policy of not talking directly to Cuba on subjects core to the national interest, such as protecting our shared environment against an oil spill, or as central to our humanitarian interests as freeing a pawn in our Cold War efforts to topple the Cuban government, both of which we discuss below, might be good politics in some precincts, but it’s a substantial and damaging  failure to communicate.

Our mothers never would approve of that.

Governor Scott steps on a rake; the Cuba Transition Project loses the plot

Last week, we reported on Governor Rick Scott’s decision to sign legislation to stop Florida’s municipalities and state agencies from doing business with companies that have dealings with Syria and – the intended target – Cuba.  At the time, we called him “cynical” for signing legislation that is probably unconstitutional and bad for business and the economy of his state just to score points with hardliners in the Cuban American community.   It turns out we gave him far too much credit.

On Tuesday, Scott signed the bill at a ceremony staged at the Freedom Tower in Miami to impress the hardliners who sponsored and supported the legislation most strongly.  But immediately after the event, he issued a letter indicating the law might be unconstitutional. Scott didn’t utter a word about his doubts or about his letter while the signing ceremony was taking place.  The Miami Herald said that “No governor in recent memory has signed a law and then called it unenforceable in his bill signing.” His cheering section felt blind-sided and betrayed.  Congressman David Rivera threatened to sue Governor Scott.  Cowed by controversy, Scott doubled back, promising to enforce the law.

What was he thinking?

Scott’s office issued a statement that got close to the truth:  “After consulting with all interested parties and thoroughly weighing all sides of this issue, Governor Scott signed House Bill 959 into law on May 1, 2012.”  He didn’t just weigh all sides; he adopted virtually every position imaginable on the law before buckling under the weight of a P.R. stunt gone bad.

Moving from the farcical to the tragic, let us briefly take up the promising signs coming from Cuba that Cuban citizens might soon enjoy greater freedoms to travel from and return to the island, and the Cuba Transition Project’s puzzling, even dour, reaction to this news.

Cuba maintains a complicated and costly set of rules that prevent the Cuban people from leaving or returning to the island without their government’s permission.  Cuban citizens are vocal and plain-spoken in their desire to travel freely without having to apply for exit visa, the carta blanca, requests which are often denied. These restrictions are condemned annually by the U.S. State Department and organizations like Human Rights Watch.

As the Associated Press is now reporting, “Cuba appears on the verge of a momentous decision to lift many travel restrictions.”  Some travel controls could be scrapped – cutting the fees to apply for the exit visa, ending limits on how long Cubans can live abroad, and increasing the number of Cubans allowed to travel abroad for work. According to AP, the U.S. State Department “would certainly welcome greater freedom of movement for the Cuban public.”  The news agency quotes a shop worker in Cuba saying “It’s absurd that as a Cuban I must get permission to leave my country, and even worse that I need permission to come back.”

You might well expect the scholars at the Cuba Transition Project, which calls itself “an important and timely project to study and make recommendations for the reconstruction of Cuba once the post-Castro transition begins in earnest,” to regard these reforms as important and, if not timely, certainly long overdue.

Well, instead, they seem quite miffed, very concerned, and surprisingly negative about the whole thing.  In a broadside titled “Is Cuba Planning a Legal Mariel?” Jaime Suchlicki, the Emilio Bacardi Moreau Distinguished Professor and Director, Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, University of Miami, worries that:

• Cubans will line up in front of foreign embassies to request tourist visas and that the U.S. Interests Section – since most Cubans want to visit the United States – would be most impacted;
• Airlines will benefit financially from Cubans who fill their seats in flights away from Cuba;
• It might make Cubans on the island happy(!) because the reform will eliminate one of their major complaints;
• It’s all a secret plot by President Raúl Castro to relieve internal pressure on the island because so many Cubans will want to come to the United States.

But Dr. Suchlicki has a plan to foil the plot.  Tighten the number of visas the U.S. can give Cubans to visit here.  Stop Cuban Americans from traveling to Cuba (and giving money to their relatives who might want to make reciprocal visits).  And reduce the presence of U.S. diplomats in Cuba so fewer personnel can process an increased number of visas requests.

Why would he suggest such measures?  Because, perhaps, if Cuba’s reforms take place and Cubans can travel freely to the U.S. and elsewhere, the only government restricting its citizens from traveling to Cuba will be ours.  He seems to be saying, forget the liberty interests of average Cubans; Dr. Suchlicki just doesn’t want us to be embarrassed.

Florida’s Foreign Policy and the eternal cynicism of the sunshine mind

In Florida, relations with Cuba are serious business.  Ask Miami Marlin’s manager Ozzie Guillen, publicly shamed and forced to apologize to save his job for talking about Fidel Castro’s longevity.

Or worse, ask Airline Brokers Company, a Coral Gables-based travel provider that recently helped fly 340 pilgrims to Cuba for Pope Benedict’s visit.  Their office “went up in flames” in a suspicious fire this morning that has drawn the attention of federal investigators, according to CBS Miami.

Then, there’s the case of Florida’s Governor Rick Scott who has just announced –as this edition of the Cuba Central News Blast went to press – that he will sign House Bill 959, the State and Local Government Relations with Cuba and Syria Act, to stop municipalities and state agencies from doing business with companies that are engaged in business dealings with the two countries.

While yesterday, Scott was telling Floridians he was still reviewing the legislation, he’s now clearly aligned himself with the forces who fashion Florida’s own foreign policy.

To be clear, this bill has nothing to do with the tragic and brutal civil war in Syria.  As the Miami Herald reported, Florida’s State Board of Administration created a list of companies in Florida that could be affected by the bill. There were 238 firms with business ties to Cuba.  Only “a handful” had ties to Syria.

In fact, this is about one company, Odebrecht, a Brazilian conglomerate, with engineering and construction projects across the world.  Odebrecht is now modernizing the Cuban container port at Mariel, west of Havana, under an $800 million contract with Cuba’s government. Its Coral Gables-based subsidiary, Odebrecht USA, as the South Florida Business Journal reported, has conducted major projects in South Florida, including work at the Miami International Airport and the Port of Miami.

Odebrecht’s ties to projects in Cuba and Florida have enraged a variety of political actors whose allegiance to the embargo and Florida’s foreign policy is intense and limitless. For example, Capitol Hill Cubans wrote about them in a piece titled “How Odebrecht Abets Castro’s Repression.”  Even a Tea Party affiliate said, “We usually don’t comment on local and state politics — but how could Odebrecht continue to be awarded Miami-Dade contracts (to this day) despite its partnership with the brutal Castro dictatorship (since at least 2009)?”

So, legislation was introduced in December of 2011 to force a choice for Odebrecht and firms like it between working in Cuba and working in Florida, with one supporter saying “tax dollars should not continue subsidizing the tyrannical regimes of Cuba and Syria.”

It’s a nice slogan, but experts say the law is plainly unconstitutional.  In June 2000, in a case titled Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9-0 against a Massachusetts law restricting state purchases from companies doing business in Burma (see an explanation of the case here). The Court, ruling 9-0, found the state measure was preempted by sanctions enacted by the U.S. Congress.  Massachusetts could not have its own foreign policy.

The constitutional argument didn’t seem to trouble the Florida law’s sponsors.  One wrote Governor Scott urging him to sign the bill using language eerily reminiscent of America’s great constitutional conflicts.  “Florida has the right,” Senator Rene Garcia said “to exercise its constitutional sovereignty.”

Clif Burns, a lawyer specializing in export control and economic sanctions in the Washington, D.C., office of Bryan Cave, calls the Florida statute “an open-and-shut case. The same logic that applies in Crosby would work to invalidate the Florida legislation.  It punishes acts under Florida law that are permissible under U.S. law, and that is completely illegal under the ruling of that case.”

Others are concerned by the economic consequences posed by the bill’s enactment.

Jake Colvin, Vice President for Global Trade issues with the National Foreign Trade Council, told Cuba Central, “Not only is it likely unconstitutional based on (Crosby), but it’s a looming disaster for Florida’s business reputation internationally.”

The Florida Chamber of Commerce agreed saying in a statement “our members remain concerned about the constitutionality of this bill, as well as the message it sends to our major trading partners.”

A Bradenton Herald editorial said the legislation would “maul Florida’s economy,” and repeated claims that Canadian companies would simply stop investing in the state “for fear they might get hit by this.”  Brazil, Florida’s other major international trading partner, is reported to have registered complaints about the bill directly with the U.S. Department of Commerce.

“If the sponsors had any intellectual honesty,” said Bob Kerrigan, an attorney in Pensacola Florida, and advisory board member of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, “they would be frank about the impact this will have of discouraging big business from moving to Florida. It’s just the latest chapter in the myopic self-interest of anti-Cuba hardliners prevailing over the best interests of the citizens of Florida.”

Indeed.  At the end of the day, Governor Scott, who recently signed a proclamation declaring Florida World Trade Month and crediting global trade with creating nearly a quarter-million jobs, decided to sign an unconstitutional law no matter the effect on Florida’s economy.

At the end of the day, cynicism ruled.  Cuba is, after all, serious business.

Frustration or Rebellion? Cuba’s In or the Summit’s Out, Region Tells President Obama

Note from Cuba Central: You don’t have to wait until Friday for Cuba news! CDA posts breaking news and relevant analysis on our webpage and blog, our Facebook page, and our Twitter feed throughout the week. It’s a great way to keep up-to-the minute on Cuba news. The RSS feed to follow CDA news and blogs is available here. Click here to Like us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter!

Last Sunday, the Sixth Summit of the Americas ended without a formal declaration but with the United States chastised and isolated by its regional allies.

Nearly everything has been said about the Summit – setting aside for a moment the Secret Service scandal – and nearly everyone has said it.  But a few comments are worth highlighting, a few observations worth repeating, and a few articles merit special mention.

Why does the Summit’s outcome even matter?  As the late columnist Robert Novak might have asked, ‘isn’t this just one more yack-a-thon hosted by and for the benefit of the ‘striped pants cookie pushers’ of the region’s various foreign ministries?”

Actually, no.  Time Magazine’s Tim Padgett called our attention to a pre-Summit report by the Inter-American Dialogue which makes this persuasive case that diplomatic dysfunction has its costs:

The United States and Latin America, after a decade of profound change, are increasingly going their separate ways. According to the report, without a rethinking of the relationship and resolution of three stubborn, long-standing problems—immigration, Cuba, and drug policy—the drift and distancing are likely to continue, potentially producing new tensions and risks for hemispheric affairs.

This Summit could have been known for progress on matters cited by the Dialogue or on bringing electricity to the region’s rural poor and coping with natural disasters, as Richard Feinberg suggested. Instead it got bogged down by the stale and counterproductive debate over whether the Summit should include Cuba.

Why does the Cuba issue matter?  With the curious exceptions of Canada and the United States, the hemisphere is united in its insistence that Cuba be allowed to participate in the Summit of the Americas.  The U.S. insistence on Cuba’s exclusion only calls attention to the failure of our policy, to use the embargo and diplomatic isolation to upend the Cuban system, in the name of fighting for democracy.  Read the reaction of the Los Angeles Times editorial board which wrote:

The policy of banning Cuba from the gathering of the hemisphere’s leaders for nearly 18 years is backfiring.  It hasn’t led to regime change any more than the 50-year-old U.S. trade embargo has; it hasn’t persuaded President Raúl Castro or, before him, his brother Fidel to embrace democratic reforms…Instead, it has fueled frustration among Latin leaders.

Frustration or worse?  “I think this is a rebellion of Latin American leaders against the U.S.,” Bolivia’s president Evo Morales said.  Let’s not pretend the feelings, however, are simply harbored by the region’s ALBA bloc.

The leaders of Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia made it clear that they will not attend the next Summit, scheduled for Panama in 2015, without Cuba’s participation.   Colombia’s PresidentSantos emphatically called Cuba’s exclusion and the U.S. embargo “unacceptable,” as the Financial Times reported.  These are among our staunchest regional allies.

Why is this debate happening now?

President Obama tried suggesting that the region’s reaction to Cuba’s exclusion somehow amounted to Cold War baggage he had managed to set aside:

Sometimes I feel as if…we’re caught in a time warp, going back to the 1950s, gunboat diplomacy, and Yankees and the Cold War, and so forth, and not addressing the world we live.

But President Santos put the baggage of history back where it belonged.  “There is no justification for that path that has us anchored in a Cold War overcome now for several decades.”

Perhaps the justification is U.S. domestic politics.  Although President Obama denied it, the New York Times suggested the U.S. stance could simply be attributed not to substance but to cynicism; “by refusing to sign a statement that would have called for the next summit meeting to include Cuba, Mr. Obama avoided antagonizing some Cuban-American voters in Florida.”

Whatever the reason, as Richard Feinberg said, our current “Cuba policy entails real diplomatic costs and gives regional competitors a powerful emotional wedge issue.”

Our Cuba policy is not only a failure, but a distraction.  As the Inter-American Dialogue noted, we face a gap between the region’s arc away from the U.S. and our nation’s interests in addressing issues that matter; a gap that will simply broaden the longer we scold them and fail to listen what they’re actually trying to say and do.

And speaking of a good scolding:  Last June, when Secretary Clinton released the State Department’s “Trafficking in Persons Report,” the U.S. government took Colombia to task for its various failures to prevent women and girls from being subject to the sex trade in Latin America and offered eight policy recommendations for them to get right with the U.S.

The Summit’s conclusion was a powerful reminder of what can happen to our nation and its image in the region when we punish others for failing to live up to standards we do not meet ourselves.

Flashback/Fast Forward: Obama, Cuban Docs, and the Summit of the Americas

As President Obama makes his way to Colombia for the Summit of the Americas – “to tout his trade record and convince millions of Hispanic voters back home he cares about the region,” as Reuters tartly reported – we found ourselves thinking back three years when he last attended this regional meeting.

At a concluding press conference, the president recounted what he learned about the activities of Cuban doctors in the region thanks to their nation’s commitment to “medical internationalism”:

One thing that I thought was interesting — and I knew this in a more abstract way but it was interesting in very specific terms — hearing from these leaders who when they spoke about Cuba talked very specifically about the thousands of doctors from Cuba that are dispersed all throughout the region, and upon which many of these countries heavily depend.

The Cubans have been helping nations around the world react to crises and natural disasters, and to meet their people’s primary care needs, since 1960. The achievements of this program -chronicled by scholars such as John Kirk, and non-governmental organizations like MEDICC -were well known outside the United States when President Obama heard about them in April 2009.

Following the earthquake in Haiti, however, when Cuban doctors already stationed there were the first to respond, became the backbone of the fight against cholera, and continued helping Haitians recover and build a new health care system long after many in the international community diverted their gaze, the full extent of Cuba’s commitment to public health outside its own borders was hard to ignore even in the United States.

With the president attending the 2012 Summit of the Americas, we have to ask this: Who benefits from his decision to continue a Bush-era policy of coaxing Cuban doctors to leave their medical missions and defect to the United States?

In 2006, the Bush administration started the “Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program” to encourage Cuban medical personnel saving lives internationally, most often located in rural areas or slums of the world’s poorest countries, to leave their posts. The Program promised special U.S. immigration rights for these Cuban doctors and health personnel, today numbering nearly 39,000. Although Cubans who reach the United States seeking asylum already enjoy preferential immigration status when they arrive, this program makes Cuban medical personnel eligible for parole abroad.

As Fox News Latino reported, the program was “the brainchild of Cuba-born diplomat Emilio González, director of the U.S. Citizen & Immigration Services from 2006 to 2008…a staunchly anti-Castro exile. He has characterized Cuba’s policy of sending doctors and other health workers abroad as ‘state-sponsored human trafficking’.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, more than 1,500 Cuban doctors and health care personnel received visas under the program issued by U.S. consulates in 65 countries by the end of 2010. The promise to enter our country at the head of our long immigration line to practice medicine in the United States is a powerful inducement, as Cubans devoted to working in the medical system freely admit. “You’d go, too, if you could triple your pay,” said Juan Bautista Palay, chief of physical therapy at Havana’s 10 de Octubre Hospital.

It would be bad enough if this program simply functioned as its authors intended, to undermine an appealing, humanitarian feature of the Cuban system, no matter what it meant to patients in the developing world. But the story gets worse.

Once Cuban doctors arrive, many are prevented from practicing. Sometimes, records substantiating their credentials are withheld by Cuba’s government. Others are disqualified from gaining residency because they were once members of the Cuban communist party.

Yes, as the Miami Herald reported without a trace of irony, “Questions about party membership remain on residence and citizenship application forms, as relics from the Cold War, when the United States deemed communism its chief enemy.”

For Cuban doctors lured here, it’s Lucy and the football meets the “Red scare.”

But most often, the reason Cuban doctors cannot hit the ground running as practicing physicians in the U.S. is because one piece of crucial information was withheld in the “parole promise”: they cannot hang out their shingles until they pass the three-part US Medical Licensing Exam, for which many US medical students bone up for years, through special and costly preparatory courses…not to mention the several thousand dollars in exam fees themselves. Other health professionals face similar hurdles.

President Obama should have ended this nonsense unconditionally three years ago after encountering the region’s reaction to Cuba’s doctors; or two years ago after their heroic work in Haiti made such a decisive difference; or even this month before attending the Summit in Cartagena. He might have even laid out a program of medical cooperation with Cuba, as our friend Dr. Peter Bourne recommended, to make the most of what Cuban doctors have to offer for the medically-underserved in this hemisphere. But he didn’t.

The next time the heads of government from the region gather at the Summit of the Americas, we expect Cuba’s to be among them.

By then, our government should stop the shameful -and we think un-American- practice of plucking Cuban doctors from the world’s poorest countries where are they are serving patients and doing so much good.

Losing through intimidation

The political debate over U.S. policy toward Cuba has never been for the faint-hearted.  It’s always raucous, highly emotional, sometimes violent, often absurd, and now increasingly irrelevant.

The U.S. is castigated in the region and globally for the policy, and we’re increasingly marginalized – politically and economically – as allies and adversaries alike engage with Cuba.

What keeps otherwise intelligent and reality-based U.S. policy makers committed to something proven not to work?

Many are reluctant to urge reforms in our failed policy because of their honest objections to Cuba’s political system.  For others, Cuba is just not a priority.  Their states or Congressional districts aren’t affected.  Business interests are broadly reluctant to endorse controversial changes.  Defenders of the status quo spread huge donations to lock in political support for the embargo and travel ban.

Still others know that if they speak out, they will be castigated by some hardliners, intimidation in the service, we’re told, of supporting liberty in Cuba.  Ironic, perhaps, but not what the Founding Fathers intended.

Just this week, one critic asked:  “Has the Catholic Church become the new political pulpit for tyrants?”  Archbishop Thomas Wenski, who led a pilgrimage to the island for five planeloads of Cuban Americans, was labeled “elitist.” Rep. Kathy Castor was accused of having a “preference for dictators,” because she met with Ambassador Jorge Bolaños, Cuba’s Interest Section chief in Washington, and described as taking meetings with “Castro’s business partners,” leaders – we must point out – from the Tampa Florida business community in her own district.

Then, there’s the case of Carlos Saladrigas. He left Cuba at age 12 with his family in 1961, and organized demonstrations against John Paul II’s trip in 1998.   But he returned to Cuba for Pope Benedict’s visit.  At an event sponsored by the Catholic Church, attended by “professors, dissidents, clergy, bloggers, leftists (and) diplomats,” Saladrigas – according to today’s Washington Post – said socialism no longer works and urged a greater private sector opening for Cuba’s state run economy.

And yet, Saladrigas too was denounced, his legitimacy to speak on Cuba questioned, for seizing the opportunity to express views so contrary to the system in Cuba.

We were present for the Pope’s trip and know that many Cubans were inspired and nourished by his visit.  We think it’s important for Members of Congress to meet with the chief of the Cuban Interest Section, where they can directly communicate their feelings about issues ranging from commerce to human rights to the imprisonment of Alan Gross.  We strongly believe that trips to the island by Cuban American families can move reconciliation forward.  We also support the expression of views contrary to our own about these and other issues.

This kind of unfettered debate is core to the democratic ideal in the U.S.; our Founders wanted their fellow citizens and now ours to speak their minds without fear of retribution.

Unfortunately, intolerance of free discourse and new ideas is not unique to the Cuba debate (see #healthcare, #TheFed, #etc.).  On Cuba, rhetorical excesses occur on both sides – and we’ve been called out occasionally for committing them.  The issues alive in this debate are fundamental and emotional, and that’s true for nearly everyone who participates in it.

But the harder and more coarse the condemnations become, it’s tough to see this week’s exercise in intimidation as anything less than a tactic to get leaders on the Cuba issue to pull back and to prevent followers from becoming leaders.

Thankfully, it won’t work; and ultimately, it will backfire.  Support for the old policy is changing before our eyes, even as the stalwarts in Congress and elsewhere cling to the status quo.  Travel to Cuba is rising significantly.  Facilitated by President Obama, and led by Cuban Americans, travelers by the tens of thousands are seeing Cuba each month with their own eyes.   Some experience feelings of reconciliation or become determined to change the policy.  Others visit and don’t like what they see.

But no one we’ve encountered returns from Cuba wanting the drawbridges to be pulled up to prevent fellow citizens from having the same opportunity and the same freedom to reach their own conclusions about the island and U.S policy.  That’s good, because we need a respectful and broadminded debate about the right way for the U.S. to engage with Cuba.

We have faith that a discussion that is consistent with our ideals, based on the right to speak and not intolerance, will ensure that good sense finally prevails.

Why the Pope’s Visit Mattered; USAID’s Hidden Documents; Jacobson and Reynoso, confirmed!

Over the last decades, the Catholic Church has moved from the margins in Cuba’s national life to a more influential role.

This progress has been mostly defined by decisions taken in Cuba.  But it has also been propelled forward by Pope John Paul II’s trip in 1998 and now by the visit of Pope Benedict XVI this week.

We were in Cuba as the Pope journeyed from Santiago to Havana.  We spoke to scores of Cubans.  Disappointment was hardly the prevailing sentiment, and we dissent from the view expressed in some news accounts that the Pope’s trip to Cuba failed to meet expectations.

In our view, this is what the Pope’s trip to Cuba accomplished.

First, it served a pastoral purpose, “I came here,” the Pope said, “as a witness to Jesus Christ.”  He spoke to a Cuban congregation that is a fraction of the island’s population, but his very presence reminded them they were not forgotten.

Second, the trip is likely to lead to larger spaces for the faithful to worship.  David Adams, writing for Reuters, said the Pope “used the trip to deliver a shopping list of requests in talks with Raul Castro…including official recognition of Good Friday – barely a week away – as a national holiday, as well as pressing for greater access to the media and the right to open religious schools.”

Third, the visit touched Cubans beyond the community of Catholics.  His visit received extensive coverage on Cuban television. Many Cubans we saw in the Plaza of the Revolution – especially younger Cubans –did not come to fulfill a religious purpose, but were drawn to the historic presence of the Pope because they wanted to hear and participate in something historic.

Fourth, Pope Benedict and Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, during their homilies in mass and other public appearances, pressed on issues that the larger Cuban community does not get to hear discussed, regardless of their beliefs.

The Pope said these and other things with Cuba’s President Raúl Castro, who attended two of his masses, seated in the front row. Even some of his critics in the U.S. were forced to acknowledge his message “demanding dignity and freedom for all.

Fifth, the Pope’s visit was an occasion for reunification, reconciliation, and exchange for Cubans and their families from the United States.  Archbishop Wenski led a pilgrimage of hundreds of Miami Catholics to see the pope. They included Cuban Americans who had fled the island, never returned, or rarely visited.

But, as the Associated Press reported, some of these pilgrims enjoyed the mind- and heart-opening experiences that can only take place through travel:

Lourdes Amorin, who left Cuba for Puerto Rico as a young girl with her family shortly after the 1959 revolution, said she grew up thinking she had nothing in common with Cubans on the island.  “Our parents, our relatives got it into our minds that we have nothing to return to. I am going to go home to tell them we have a lot in common. We are human. We are all Cuban.”

This is progress.  More is likely to follow.

As it updates Cuba’s economic model, cutting state employment, encouraging Cubans to take private sector jobs, cutting benefits and subsidies, the government is saying, as the Wall Street Journal noted this week, that the state cannot do everything for its people, and it is inviting the church to help fill the resulting void in both spiritual and material ways.

On the island, the church is the largest, most encompassing institution other than the state, and Cuba’s government acknowledges its reach by engaging its help in delivering social services and aid to the islands’ needy.  At the same time, as Anya Landau French observed, the church is publishing “unvarnished criticisms of Raúl Castro’s halting economic reforms.”  The church’s role is also political – it was involved in Cuba’s decision to release all of the prisoners that remained from the 2003 crackdown against dissidents.

This will continue, as Dr. William LeoGrande, a Latin America expert and the dean of the American University School of Public Affairs in Washington, told McClatchy, as demonstrated by the Pope’s last meeting in Cuba, with former president Fidel Castro.  The meeting, he said, “sends a message to ordinary Cubans that Fidel is comfortable and supports the new relationship between the church and state.”  This in turns will build acceptance of the church’s role among intellectuals and elites in the months and years ahead.

Some will never be satisfied.  Senator Marco Rubio worried that the church had negotiated “political space for themselves in exchange for their moral imperative.” A spokesman for the exile community told the Miami Herald “The pope’s visit is part of a combination or strategy to confuse people.”

We’re not confused.  This trip provided solace for the faithful, religious space for the church, reconciliation for Cuban Americans, a testament to the power of travel, and the promise of a larger role for the church during an era of economic and political change in Cuba.

We think this is pretty powerful stuff.

Benedict and the Balancing Act; Googling the Heritage Foundation; U.S. Ponders Oil Crisis Response Plans

As old saying goes, where you stand depends on where you sit.  As the New York Times reported this week, Cuba’s Cardinal Ortega, the priests, the faithful, the protestors in Cuba, the diaspora in Miami, official Washington, and many others have assigned great expectations to the visit of Pope Benedict XVI.

There’s a real balancing act ahead. Not everyone wants the visit to succeed; and it is hard to imagine that everyone will be satisfied.  But it might be nice for the Pope’s visit to take place – and for Cubans who plan to worship with him in the Plaza of the Revolution to have their chance to do so – before the grades are assigned, the political analysis is completed, and the crowd moves on to the next chapter in the Cuba story.

We’re sending a team to Cuba to observe what happens and to talk to Cubans about their reactions to Benedict’s trip.  We’d like to learn what they think first, before we try and understand whose expectations might have been disappointed or met.

In this issue of Cuba Central, we survey some of what’s been written and said – in Miami, by Amnesty International, by the Vatican, and others – as the Pope begins his journey, stopping in Mexico before he reaches Cuba early next week.

We’re also keeping an eye on René González, the paroled member of the Cuban Five, who has gained permission to visit his ailing brother in Cuba; a newly discovered document that spells out the Federal oil spill disaster plan that could be used in connection with drilling off the coast of Cuba; Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s surprising attack on USAID (she’s accusing the agency, which engages in regime change activities of “supporting” Cuba’s economic reforms); as well as Fidel Castro’s warning that an attack on Iran is a road to disaster.

There’s much to read and reflect about, this week, in Cuba news…