Breaking News: René González of the Cuban Five Renounces Citizenship, to remain in Cuba

Just before we hit send, there was an important development in the case involving René González, a member of the Cuban Five.

González, who was permitted by U.S. District Court Judge Joan Lenard to travel to Cuba for two weeks under strict conditions pursuant to his probation, will renounce his citizenship and remain in Cuba. González becomes, as the Havana Times reported, the first of the five Cubans to return and reside in Cuba following their convictions.

González, who served a 13-year sentence, was allowed to return to Cuba on April 22 to attend a service for his father who died at age 82.

But, González, a U.S. citizen, is permitted under the laws of the United States to renounce his citizenship to a consular official while visiting a foreign nation.  The court has the power to modify his probation accordingly, and enable González to serve the remainder of his term in Cuba without reporting to the court.

Attorneys for González filed a motion to modify his probation, to remove a requirement imposed by the court that he return to the U.S. by May 6^th, clearing the way for him to renounce his citizenship and stay in Cuba.

The U.S. Department of Justice told the court that it would not oppose González’s request, and the “Government indicated that ‘the FBI has concluded that the national security interests of the United States are furthered if the defendant…does not return to the United States.”

That led Judge Lenard to issue an order today modifying his probation and allowing him to renounce his U.S. citizenship and not return.

According to the Associated Press, González is thrilled but wants a chance to review the judge’s decision.  “First I have to read the order,” he said. “If the order is real, it will be a great relief to me.”

González was convicted for acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, conspiracy to act as a foreign agent and to defraud the United States.

González, along with Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, and Fernando González, were arrested in 1998, for their roles in efforts to track Miami groups who, according to Cuba’s government, were responsible for terror attacks against the island.

The case of the Cuban Five has been a significant obstacle in U.S.-Cuba relations.  As Peter Kornbluh wrote in The Nation last month:

“The Cubans are holding US subcontractor Alan Gross, now in his fourth year of incarceration for illicitly attempting to set up a satellite communications network in Cuba as part of the US Agency for International Development’s Cuba Democracy and Contingency Planning Program. And the United States is holding the ‘Cuban Five,’ who include four Cuban spies, now in their fifteenth year in prison for conducting espionage operations, mostly against exile groups with violent pasts…Raúl Castro has called for mutual ‘humanitarian gestures’ to resolve these obstacles to improved bilateral relations.”

This case is controversial in the U.S. and complicated for domestic political reasons in both countries.  The decision by Judge Lenard, available here, may not bring relief to the families of Alan Gross or other members of the Five who remain in prison in the U.S., but it is a welcomed development in any case.

U.S.-CUBA RELATIONS

Cuba to remain on State Sponsors of Terrorism List

The State Department has missed its April 30th deadline to file its Country Report on Terrorism, and it is now expected to be released in late May.  Cuba watchers hoped the report would reveal a decision to drop Cuba from the state sponsors of terror list. According to The Hill, a State Department spokesperson indicated that release of the report is not used as a vehicle to announce decisions to add or drop countries, and that Cuba when the list is published will retain its designation.

But, as the Miami Herald reported, that does not rule out the possibility that at any time in the future, the U.S. government can decide that Cuba should be removed from the state sponsors list.

On a related matter, Joanne Chesimard, a fugitive living in Cuba, was added this week to the FBI’s list of Most Wanted Terrorists.  Chesimard, a former member of the Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army, who goes by the name Assata Shakur, escaped from prison in 1979, and received asylum in Cuba in 1984.  She was convicted of murder in the 1970s for her role in a shootout which left a New Jersey state trooper dead.

Although the Associated Press reported that Cuba does not have an extradition treaty with the U.S., according to the website of the U.S. Department of State, such a treaty is in place.  While the countries cooperate on fugitive cases from time to time, they rarely observe the treaty.

Although the issue of fugitives plays no statutory role in determining whether a country is a state sponsor of terror, the U.S. government said in last year’s report, “The Cuban government continued to permit fugitives wanted in the United States to reside in Cuba and also provided support such as housing, food ration books, and medical care for these individuals.”

59 in Congress sign letter urging Obama to end travel restrictions to Cuba

Representative Sam Farr (CA-20) sent a letter signed by 59 Members of Congress to President Obama urging the administration to expand the right of Americans to travel to Cuba.  Their proposal would build on Obama’s decision in 2011, which restored people-to-people travel, and allow all categories of permissible travel to Cuba be carried out under a general license. In a press release Farr points out that “there are no better ambassadors for democratic ideals than the American people” and that “a pragmatic policy of citizen diplomacy can be a powerful catalyst for democratic development in Cuba.”

The full text of the letter is available here.

Seasonal flights to resume between Tampa and Holguín, Cuba

The Tampa International Airport (TIA) announced that after a three-month hiatus, seasonal flights to Holguín, Cuba, will resume in June, reports the Tampa Bay Times. Until February of this year, TIA had offered five flights to Cuba each week, but discontinued two because of low demand and stiff competition.

IN CUBA

Over 2,000 of Cuba’s state-owned businesses now in private sector

Since 2009, over 2,000 formerly state-owned businesses in Cuba have been leased to private management, reports EFE. The initiative to shift the management of state-operated businesses began as an experiment with barbershops and hair salons in 2009. Since then, the changes have grown to include 47 economic activities, employing over 5,000 people. The shift gives employees of the formerly state-operated businesses the ability to manage the business and set prices, while collectively handling the costs of rent and utilities. Employees have some complaints, such as tax burdens and a lack of wholesale markets where businesses can buy supplies. However, both the government and workers have acknowledged that this new arrangement has improved service, reduced absenteeism, and increased employee salaries.

Cuba celebrates International Worker’s Day

As President Raúl Castro presided over Cuba’s May Day parade in Havana, First Vice President Miguel Díaz-Canel led the celebration in Santiago de Cuba, reports ACN.  This year’s theme was “For a more prosperous and sustainable form of socialism” and the late President Chávez of Venezuela was honored, reports Havana Times (article and slideshow).

Victoria Burnett of the New York Times reports on May Day in a changing Cuba, where private sector workers joined state sector workers in the celebrations in Havana.

CUBA’S FOREIGN RELATIONS

Nicolás Maduro pays official visit to Cuba

Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro visited Havana last Saturday on his first official trip to Cuba since taking office, reports EFE. While in Cuba, Maduro met with President Raúl Castro and took part in the 13th Meeting of the Cuba-Venezuela Intergovernmental Commission. The commission signed 51 bilateral agreements, and pledged to spend $2 billion on bilateral social development programs this year, reports Reuters. The agreements regarding energy management and social programs follow Maduro’s campaign promise to continue the relationship Hugo Chávez forged with Cuba.

Cuba undergoes Human Rights Review at UN

This week, the UN Human Rights Council performed its Universal Periodic Review of Cuba, a process that takes place every four years for each member country. During the review, several governments recommended that Cuba extend an open invitation for visits by UN human rights experts. In response, Bruno Rodríguez, Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Relations, extended a permanent welcome to such experts, on the condition that the purpose of the visits be “non-discriminatory” and impartial, reports EFE.

Rodríguez further stated that “Cuba will never accept a process of regime change,” from UN member countries, specifically referencing suggestions made by the U.S.

Rodríguez presented evidence of Cuba’s advances in human rights, citing the country’s universally accessible education and healthcare systems. His complete statement for the Universal Periodic Review is available here.

According to the Miami Herald, UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO affiliated with the American Jewish Committee, said Cuba had committed fraud “on a massive scale” to influence the Council’s review of its human rights record.

FAO Director General visits Cuba

On Friday, José Graziano da Silva, Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations arrived in Havana to meet with Cuban government officials, reports Cubadebate. While in Cuba, Graziano will discuss food security programs with officials such as Minister of Foreign Relations Rodríguez; Vice President Marino Murillo; Gustavo Rodríguez Rollero, the Minister of Agriculture; and Félix González Viego, President of the National Association of Small Farmers.

Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment ends contract with Canadian firm Tokmakjian

Cuba’s government has officially ended the operations of Canadian firm Tokmakjian Group, reports Café Fuerte. The conglomerate had operated on the island for the past 25 years, until a 2011 corruption scandal resulted in the closing of the company’s offices in Havana and the arrest of the company’s head, Cy Tokmakjian. Until now, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment had not taken any major action against the company. Tokmakjian Group’s operations were the second largest of any foreign enterprise on the island, selling mining and construction equipment as well as cars and car parts.

President Raúl Castro has led a nationwide campaign against corruption, which has seen the arrest of several high-level foreign business representatives, as well as Cuban nationals. In a 2011 speech, Castro stated that corruption in Cuba “is equivalent to counter-revolution,” encouraging the government to be relentless in its campaign as corruption “could lead to self-destruction.”

China fulfills Cuba cargo ship order

Shanghai Shipyard Co. Ltd. has delivered the sixth of ten cargo ships that Cuba had ordered from China, reports Cuba Standard. The additional 35,000-ton grain cargo ships are expected to increase Cuba’s maritime trading capacity with nations far from the Caribbean. In addition, the ships will lower the cost of grain shipments to Cuba, which often come at a premium cost due to the sanctions prohibiting ships coming from Cuba to dock at U.S. ports.

350 Cuban doctors sent to Ghana

As a part of the recently-renewed Ghana-Cuba Medical Service and Educational Agreement, 350 Cuban doctors arrived in Ghana on Wednesday, reports the Daily Graphic. The agreement aims to improve Ghana’s doctor-to-patient ratio, which now stands at one doctor to every 10,000 patients. Ghana matched Cuba’s contribution by sending 250 young Ghanaians to Cuba for medical training. The Ghanaian-Cuban partnership began twenty years ago and is renewed every two years.

Around the Region

U.S. citizen accused of conspiracy against Venezuela’s government

U.S. citizen Timothy Hallett Tracy, arrested in Venezuela last Wednesday, was accused of sowing unrest in the country, reports La Jornada. According to The Guardian, Tracy was in Venezuela as a documentary filmmaker and spent time interviewing people on both sides of the country’s political spectrum. Gloria Stifano, Tracy’s lawyer, clarified that he is the subject of an investigation and so far “nobody has said that he is criminally responsible,” reports El Universal. She also stated that his human rights would be respected, and he will not be imprisoned.

National Electoral Council discloses timeline and procedures for secondary audit

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) has released a statement outlining a timetable and detailing procedures for a secondary audit of Venezuela’s recent presidential election. The audit was agreed to in response to a formal request by former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles. However, the CNE clarified that some of Capriles’s demands are “impracticable.”

Venezuela’s opposition claims to have lost last month’s election due to massive fraud, prompting the CNE to state, “Anyone who puts forward charges on such a scale must provide a minimum of necessary elements in order to ascertain whether these charges are indeed suppositions of fact.” According to the CNE, the investigation demanded by the opposition into alleged complaints of irregularities in the voting process is not possible given the incomplete documentation it provided which does not clearly indicate “which polling booths; which records; who is involved” and provides no “precision whatsoever regarding possible damage to the vote.”

Bolivia expels USAID

In a May Day declaration, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales announced the expulsion of USAID, reports BBC. Morales said the move is to protest a remark by Secretary of State John Kerry in which he described Latin America as the “backyard” of the United States. USAID’s operations in Bolivia focused on counter-narcotics and military initiatives. Bolivia, along with six of the eight ALBA countries, signed a resolution last June calling for all member states to expel the agency.  For further analysis of the USAID program, see our feature in Recommended Reading.

El Salvador Update: April, 2013, Linda Garrett, Center for Democracy in the Americas

Linda Garrett, CDA’s Senior Policy Analyst on El Salvador, discusses developments that have taken place in El Salvador during the month of April, including President Funes’ visit to Washington, D.C. and his announcement of formalized support for the country’s historic gang truce and peace process.  The update covers developments in the presidential race and in the U.S. trials against former Salvadoran military officials. It also includes a detailed chronology of El Salvador’s (gang truce) peace process, and a map of municipalities that have joined the “Violence-Free Municipalities” program.

If you would like to receive the Monthly El Salvador Update via email, contact: ElSalvadorUpdate@democracyinamericas.org.  

Recommended Reading

Special Feature: Along the Malecón: In Cuba: USAID Flies Into the Cuckoo’s Nest

Investigative journalist Tracey Eaton examines how schizophrenic U.S. policy toward Cuba can be.  Eaton provides examples drawn from USAID’s program there noting that while typical development programs seek to alleviate poverty, USAID’s work in Cuba is framed by legislation whose real goal is “to increase poverty, not reduce it.”

Amid Fealty to Socialism, a Nod to Capitalism, Victoria Burnett, New York Times

Havana’s May Day Parade now acts as a curious metaphor for Cuba’s changing economy, writes Victoria Burnett. Private and government-owned businesses work together and learn from each other, as the inefficiencies of the purely state-run economy are being replaced with a new entrepreneurial spirit within the private sector. The growing number of private sector workers in the parade expressed that participating is a way to show solidarity with all workers on the island, public or private.

Havana’s Classic Taxis Get a Taste of Competition, EFE

For the first time in decades, taxis in Cuba – especially in Havana – are facing increased competition. As the city continues to experience serious transportation problems, a boom in licenses for private taxi drivers has made the competition for customers fierce. Private taxi licenses make up 11% of the 400,000 private licenses registered in Cuba.

Shakur’s addition to Most Wanted Terrorist List reeks of Cuba Lobby desperation, William Vidal, On Two Shores

William Vidal of On Two Shores analyzes the news of the past few months about Cuba’s place on the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism; beginning with reports in February that Cuba would be removed from the list and culminating in this week’s announcement that Cuba will remain on the list.

Political calculus keeps Cuba on U.S. list of terror sponsors, Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times

Carol J. Williams examines the political considerations in keeping Cuba on the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, even as national security analysts call the designation “counterproductive,” and note that there is no evidence indicating that Cuba is a national security threat to the U.S.

The Impact of Telesur and Cuba’s Media Crisis, Fernando Ravsberg, Havana Times

Fernando Ravsberg of the Havana Times analyzes the effects of Telesur’s broadcast in Cuba, contrasting the news coverage with Cuba’s national television.

Recommended Viewing

A glimpse inside Cuba’s high security prisons, Sarah Rainsford, BBC

Leading up to Cuba’s Universal Periodic Review at the UN, the government opened several prisons for foreign journalists. Here, the BBC’s Sarah Rainsford gets a rare tour of one of Cuba’s high security prisons.

A FINAL WORD:

THE ROAD FROM NEW YORK TO PHILADELPHIA GETS SHORTER

For some time, the Equality Forum, an organization dedicated to advancing LGBT rights, planned a 2013 summit with Cuba as its featured nation and Mariela Castro, Director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX) as its honored guest.

The summit, being held in Philadelphia, May 2-5, coincided with meetings related to United Nations population policy in New York.  Ms. Castro was granted a diplomatic visa that got her to New York to visit the UN, and she applied for permission from the State Department to go beyond the 25-mile barrier that prevents high-ranking Cubans from moving about the country as freely as diplomats and citizens from other nations are permitted to do in the U.S., so she could attend the summit.

Her request apparently posed too big a dilemma for the decision makers at State.  After all, this is the same Mariela Castro who was recognized in the Department’s 2012 Human Rights Report for being “outspoken in promoting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons,” and who was granted a visa to attend the 2012 Latin American Studies Association conference in San Francisco.

But the 97 miles between New York and Philadelphia was simply too much for the Department to handle.  As the New York Times reported last week, State denied her request “without explanation.”  Understandably so; how could you explain why it’s alright for Mariela Castro to visit Manhattan and discuss population policy but not okay to attend an equality conference down the New Jersey Turnpike to talk about AIDS?

Their position was not sustainable.  It took less than four days for the State Department to change its mind, reverse the decision, and give Ms. Castro permission go all the way to the City of Brotherly Love to speak and receive her award.  CNN reported on the development here.

This made some hardliners very unhappy.  Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-27) issued a statement denouncing the decision, “For a person like Mariela Castro to attend a conference on civil rights for lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender people, and to receive an award, is shameful, pathetic and a ruse. The words ‘equality’ and ‘human rights’ don’t exist in the vocabulary of the Castro tyranny.”  Inexplicably, the Babalú website protested the decision by publishing an old picture of Madonna kissing Britney Spears.   They were really upset.

Why? These opponents of engagement with Cuba have never been fans of Mariela Castro, but we suspect that something larger here is at play.

After all, the State Department didn’t give in to the impulse to stick with a decision that made the U.S. bad just to make the hardliners happy.  Instead, it changed its mind.

Think about that.  We know that State is keeping Cuba on the State Sponsors of Terror list for 2013, but the law enables the U.S. government to remove its designation by notifying Congress and reporting the reasons for doing so. It can change its mind.  Maybe State won’t.  But, at least it’s the other side that is going to be up at night thinking they might.

When Spring Comes to Washington

Tourists, from the U.S. and around the world, flock to Washington at spring time.  They come to hear echoes of this nation’s past, learn about its founding principles, and think about their relevance today.

Visitors to the monuments along the Tidal Basin often stop at the Jefferson Memorial.  Modeled after the Roman Parthenon, it speaks loudly to those who can appreciate his vital and open mind.  One panel reads:

“I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and institutions,” quoting a letter he wrote after his presidency, “But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.  As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times.”  Otherwise, he concluded, “We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him as a boy…”

Is there a better metaphor for U.S.-Cuba policy, buttoned so uncomfortably into the straitjacket fitted for it by Senator Jesse Helms and Congressman Dan Burton?  You might have read about their Helms-Burton law using Netscape Navigator to “surf” the web when it passed in 1996.

Seventeen years later, the conditions that existed on the ground then – in Havana and Miami, where its passage was demanded – have changed as much as the technology we use to learn about them.

No, Cuba is not marching toward a multiparty democracy.  But, it’s economic system is being revamped, government payrolls are being down-sized, cooperatives and private businesses are on the rise.  State-owned media carry complaints about the slow pace of reform.  Houses and cars are being sold on the open market.  Cubans with cellphones pass in and out of hotels.  Most Cubans, including Cuban dissidents, are free to travel, even tweet their opposition to government policy, and return.  These changes are real, and a Vice President whose last name is Díaz-Canel, not Castro, is in place to carry them forward.

Yes, Florida too, once ground zero for policies like Helms-Burton, has a different look and feel.  President Obama’s travel reforms are speeding the reconciliation of the Cuban family and helping Cuban-Americans support relatives taking advantage of Raúl Castro’s economic reforms.  Miami Cubans, including Carlos Saladrigas, who once led thousands to stop believers from visiting Cuba to witness Pope John Paul II celebrate mass in the Plaza of the Revolution, embraced the chance to see Pope Benedict XVI worship with the island’s faithful.

The last election saw President Obama split the Cuban American vote with his opponent; Miami elected a pro-family travel Democrat to a Congressional seat; and Rep. Kathy Castor (FL-14) is in Cuba right now pursuing the business interests of her district and the foreign policy interests of the United States.  Today, it is the hardliners who are increasingly marginalized, while Mr. Saladrigas and his Cuba Study Group join the ranks of those who have long called for Helms-Burton’s repeal.

These are big changes.  What might Jefferson have thought about them?  History teaches us that our Third President wanted to purchase or annex Cuba for reasons he expressed in his time, which might seem eerily familiar to us in our time.

And yet, spring has come to Jefferson’s capital.  It is easy to imagine that he would find the changes happening in Havana and Miami to be self-evident; that as evidence of what he called “discoveries,” and we might call, “new thinking,” were made, he’d want the policy to be more enlightened; that he’d have us slip from the confining coat of Helms-Burton, and beckon his successor in the White House (with apologies to Chance the Gardener) to turn over a new leaf as well.

Climate Change and Cuba

There is a scientific consensus that climate change is real.  Not everyone agrees, but the people who don’t believe it are answering to an awfully scornful title: climate change deniers.

Since assuming leadership in 2006, following the illness of his brother, President Raúl Castro initiated a gradual process to update the nation’s economic model and loosen restrictions on the Cuban people.

Restrictions on cell phone ownership, access to tourist hotels, ownership of computers and DVD players, the ability to rent a car, sell real property, travel and return to the island, have ended or begun to fall away.  A process involving Raúl Castro, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, and the government of Spain provided for the release of high profile political prisoners, including the remainder of those confined from a round-up that took place in 2003.  Some 400,000 Cubans have taken the opportunity to open small businesses in newly legalized professionals.  The former Pope Benedict XVI, who was warmly received in Cuba last year, spent part of his visit inspecting the San Carlos and Ambrosio Seminary, “the first building that Cuba’s government has allowed the Catholic Church to build since the 1959 revolution.”

Cuba is not the multi-party democracy the U.S. has been demanding it become at the point of a spear since 1959.

Even so, the idea that any reform was taking place in Cuba has been too foreign for many in the U.S. to accept, so it’s been dismissed in recent years, much like evidence of rising temperatures and catastrophic storms could not persuade some people to worry about the weather.

Reform in Cuba, however, has just gotten a lot harder to deny.  Consider, for example, Yoani Sánchez, Cuba’s dissident blogger, now visiting the U.S. in the midst of an 80-day world tour. What’s she doing here anyway?  Reform deniers were absolutely certain she wouldn’t get a visa when Cubans’ travel rights changed.  Well, as former Congressman Bill Delahunt wrote in The Hill this week, “it is now easier for Yoani to visit our country, than it is for most Americans to visit hers.”

Free to speak her mind on U.S. soil, is Yoani denying that changes are taking place in Cuba? Quite the opposite.  In fact, she told an audience at New York University that “Irreversible change” is transforming Cuba, because independent bloggers and democracy activists are forcing Raul Castro’s government to evolve. “Cuba is changing,” she said, “but not because of Raul’s reforms. Forget that.”

This line of thought clearly engaged the Washington Post, which wrote after she visited the newspaper:  “Cuba has lately seen some economic reforms and liberalizations; one of them allowed Ms. Sánchez to travel freely abroad for the first time. But she told us the real change in Cuba today is not from the top but rather from below.”

Serious analysts like Arturo López-Levy say it’s “nonsense” that conditions are changing in Cuba without the Cuban government changing its policies.

True, but there’s a larger point: For Yoani, the Post, and others, the question is different; it’s moved from “is reform even happening in Cuba?” to “who is responsible for the changes underway?”

That’s a huge and important shift.  The hardliners know it and they don’t like it.  Capitol Hill Cubans angrily labels the reforms “fraudulent change.” Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen calls her colleagues in Congress “Castro apologists” because they support lifting restrictions on Cuba.

Theirs is the language of denial.  They may be out in the snow and the rain stomping their feet in anger, but the debate on Cuba – like the weather – has really changed.

Cuba A-Z (from Aruca to Zoo-bio)

The New York Times once described him as “a cheerful, box-shaped man with a face like a friendly bulldog.”  Like a bulldog, Francisco Aruca was resolute and courageous, friendly with strangers and, when provoked, he was a force to be reckoned with.

So, we were stricken when friends like Silvia Wilhelm, Bob Guild and Marazul Charters (which he founded), and the Miami Herald and Progreso Weekly (which he also founded), circulated the sorrowful news that he had died unexpectedly at age 72.

Aruca’s life reflected, La Jornada aptly said, “the fundamental trajectory of recent Cuban history.”  He supported the revolution.  Soon after, as the New York Times reported, “he organized student strikes against the government’s crackdown on free speech and was promptly arrested and sentenced to 30 years in jail.”  But, he wasn’t imprisoned very long.

He liked retelling the story of his escape; how his youthful appearance enabled him to convince his guards that “he was a child visiting family in prison.” He got away and spent more than a year in asylum in the Brazilian embassy, before he came to the U.S.

Studying at Georgetown University, he earned an economics degree, graduating in 1967.  He taught economics, as the Miami Herald reported, in Virginia and Puerto Rico.  Along with other Cuban-Americans in 1974, he founded a magazine, Areíto, from which he put forward the idea that the Diaspora had to talk with the Cuban government, an utterly radical idea at the time.  It was so controversial “among Cuban exiles that bomb threats forced its editors to move from Miami to New York (where it stayed until 1987).”

Aruca was among the pioneers who advocated dialogue leading to the reconciliation of the Cuban family.  He participated in those talks – including foundational ones in 1978, 1994, 1995 – because he wanted to do the hard and necessary work of building trust and clearing the obstacles that had existed since 1959.

He was among the group, later known as the Comité de 75, who negotiated with Fidel Castro for the release of 3,600 Cuban political prisoners in 1978, and also made it possible for exiles to visit Cuba.  The next year, Aruca’s Marazul Charters was founded to provide travel for tens of thousands of Cuban Americans to visit their relatives for the first time since they had left Cuba.

This was (and still is) dangerous business, in Florida and elsewhere. Marazul’s windows were “routinely smashed.”  His offices were firebombed. Carlos Muñiz, an exile and colleague of Aruca living in Puerto Rico who operated a sister travel agency was shot in the head and killed.

In 1994, after Miami residents attended the first meeting between Cuban exiles and the Cuban government in nearly fifteen years, they returned home and were besieged by death threats, bomb threats, verbal assault, acts of violence, and economic retaliation, as Human Rights Watch reported.

Aruca himself received a fax that called him “Communist, vendepatria [homeland-seller]…and traitor,” among other names, and went on to say, “Be very careful, as I think there are many who would like to see you dead.”

Advocating the right to travel or speaking your mind about improving relations with Cuba are  incendiary acts in some Miami precincts.  As WSVN reported:  “3 Miami companies doing business with Cuba were attacked by firebombs,” in 1996, “a string of bomb attacks attributed mostly to anti-Castro radicals haunted the city in the 1970s and 1980s. The violence recently earned Miami a rank among the nation’s top 5 terrorism ‘hot spots’ by researchers studying the last 40 years of attacks on American soil.”

Not one to be intimidated, Aruca was a champion of travel and free speech.  He started a morning program Radio Progreso, which debuted  in 1991, “where he discussed Cuba-related issues from a perspective that had never been heard publicly in Miami.”

As Vivian Mannerud, a fellow agency operator, whose own business was firebombed in Coral Gables last year, remembered, “Those were times when people tuned in to Aruca’s radio programs but kept the volume real low so their neighbors would not know.  It was a difficult time. It’s called democracy.”

For Aruca, it was about democracy, but more fundamentally, about family.  As he told the Hartford Courant in 1999, “We Cubans have a very strong sense of family,” Aruca said. “If there were 300 relatives [seeing off passengers] at the airport today, there are 600 waiting in Havana tonight.”

Aruca lived to see Cuba’s government abolish nearly all travel restrictions on its people, but not long enough to see his adopted country abolish every restriction on the rights of Americans to visit Cuba.

But, according to the most recent estimates, the pioneering work he did enabled as many as 440,000 Cuban-Americans visit their families in Cuba in 2011 alone, a figure that will only grow so long as legislators like Senator Marco Rubio don’t gain enough power to roll back family travel licenses.

Shortly after Aruca’s death became known, Senator Rubio addressed a luncheon fundraiser for the Cuba-Democracy PAC where he made light of people who visit Cuba.  He said:

“These trips that are traveling to Cuba: Look, God bless them, I know they mean well. But I have people come to me all the time and tell me and say, ‘Oh, I went to Cuba. What a beautiful place, I feel so bad for the people.

“Cuba is not a zoo where you pay an admission ticket and you go in and you get to watch people living in cages to see how they are suffering,” said Rubio, adding “Cuba is not a field trip. I don’t take that stuff lightly.”

Rubio’s disdain for travel is not news, but comparing travel to Cuba – a place Rubio has never visited – to visiting a zoo seemed especially odious and over the line, even more than his earlier declarations that travelers visiting Cuba were supporting the activities of a terrorist state.

Our experiences in Cuba are altogether different from Rubio’s fact-free imaginings.  We have been embraced by Cubans of all political persuasions and life circumstances every time we have visited their country and their homes.

To fill in what he does not know about zoos, Senator Rubio could join the Congressional Zoo and Aquarium Caucus, yes it really exists, or simply visit its Facebook page.

To learn something about Cuba and U.S. policy, he could listen to his constituents, for example, the faithful who joined Archbishop Wenski who went to witness the visit of then-Pope Benedict XVI the and 400th anniversary of Cuba’s patron saint –the Virgin of Charity (la Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre) – Cuba’s patron saint.

Or, he could pay attention to Senator Patrick Leahy, who responded to Rubio’s preference for isolating Americans from Cuba by saying:

“It has been obvious to any objective observer for a very long time that isolation has not worked, and it is demeaning for a great and powerful nation like ours, for instance, to forbid U.S. citizens from traveling where they want to travel.  It is in our national interest to take a fresh look at how to effectively address our differences with the Cuban government, such as the imprisonment of Alan Gross and many other matters.”

That is the kind of engagement Francisco Aruca spent the better part of five decades fighting for.  His son, Daniel, emailed Alvaro Fernandez, editor of Progreso Weekly, with a reminder of Aruca’s words that defined his life:  “If I die tomorrow, I know I have lived a very full life and that I lasted much longer than anyone ever expected.”

Aruca, the bulldog we remember and loved, lived a full, big, courageous, and uniquely American life.

Happy International Women’s Day…for all

March 8th is International Women’s Day.

It started more than a century ago to call attention to the struggles of women who worked as garment workers.

Now, it’s a global celebration; it still shines a spotlight on the harsh conditions that women confront, but also reminds us that making progress on women’s rights as human rights, equal access to economic opportunity and political power, will bring us closer to a more just world.

To join the celebration, our organization, the Center for Democracy in the Americas (CDA), released this report, “Women’s Work: Gender Equality in Cuba and the Role of Women Building Cuba’s Future.”

It examines progress made by Cuban women toward gender equality since the 1950s and discusses how that progress can be sustained in the future.

We published the report after two years of fact-finding, collaboration with Cuban and U.S. scholars, and four research trips to the island, during which we interviewed dozens of Cuban women who spoke candidly to us about their lives, their gripes, and their aspirations.

In it, you will hear the voice of Emilia, an auditor who speaks three languages. She says, “I was born in the Revolution.  It has given me opportunities.” Mimi, an academic, who was told by a manager not to get married or have kids, discusses sexism in the workplace.  Barbara, a small business woman, who tells us about the decision making, the ability to save money, and the feelings of independence that come from being her own boss.

The story in Cuba is really interesting and really complex.  In the mid-1950s, the Cuban revolution made gender equality an important part of its political project.  After coming to power, Cuba’s government acted on its commitments and began addressing widespread attitudes that held women and a lot of other Cubans back.

If you just look at the numbers, the progress is extraordinary.  According to Save the Children, Cuba scores first among developing countries in maternal mortality, live births attended by health care personnel, female life expectancy at birth, and other factors.  It has tripled the number of Cuban women who work.  It has fulfilled the Millennium Development Goals for primary education, gender equality and reducing infant mortality.

These accomplishments are met with skepticism, even disbelief, by some in the U.S.; because Cuba has a tiny economy, it is not capitalist or rich and, by U.S. standards, it is not free.

But, it is also the case that these numbers don’t tell the full story.

Measured against key objectives of gender equality – do women have access to higher-paying jobs; can they achieve a fair division of labor at work and home; are they acceding to positions of real power in the communist party or government– Cuban women told us their country has a long way to go.

What about the future?  To address its economic problems, Cuba is taking steps to update its economic model – for example, cutting state jobs, and reallocating spending on health and education programs – that propelled women forward.  As Cuban scholars tell us, these actions could have real repercussions for women and gender equality.

So, the report concludes with recommendations about the role Cuban women can play in building their country’s future.

Because we believe that having a stable and prosperous Cuba ninety miles from our shores is in the national interest of the United States, our recommendations include steps the U.S. can take to signal its support for women and Cuba’s economic reforms writ large.

We are not alone in holding this view.  As Jane Harman, who served in the U.S. House and who is director, president and chief executive of the Woodrow Wilson Center, told the New York Times:  “Whether or not one favors major change in U.S. policy toward Cuba (which I personally do), shining light on the need to make Cuban women full partners in Cuba’s future is in everyone’s interest.”

You’d think the administration would agree.  After all, President Obama released a statement for International Women’s Day saying “Empowering women isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s the smart thing to do.”

But smart wouldn’t describe U.S. policy toward Cuba.  As Dr. Cynthia McClintock at George Washington University says, “It’s a contradiction. Here’s a country which has been doing well at this (gender equality) but we don’t want to deal with it.”

After failing for so long, it’s time for the U.S. to engage with Cuba differently.  If policymakers accepted Cubans’ humanity and ran U.S. foreign policy accordingly, we could support women, start repairing our relations with Cuba, and remove an irritant that has long divided us from the region.   That is why we hope Congress and the Executive Branch really pay attention to what we report and recommend.

Happy International Women’s Day.

Reality Check

The same day that a bipartisan Congressional delegation left Cuba, the Boston Globe triggered a brief and unsatisfactory debate when it reported that “High-level US diplomats have concluded that Cuba should no longer be designated a state sponsor of terrorism.”

That Cuba should be removed from the list has long been the view of authorities from the Council on Foreign Relations to anti-terrorist expert Richard Clarke.  It has been understood for years that the designation was at least out-of-date and a function of domestic politics rather than terrorism policy or reason.  When Cuba was revealed as a broker of the peace process between the government of Colombia and the FARC – after years of being listed as a state sponsor for “supporting” the FARC – it was obvious that the next step was delisting.

This would be in accordance with U.S. law which says, as ABC News pointed out, “in order for any country to be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism, the Secretary of State must determine that the government of that country has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism,” a finding that our government cannot make regarding Cuba.

But the bodyguard surrounding the status quo moved quickly to discredit the notion that U.S. policy would undergo any change.  Leave it to the State Department to say, “Not so fast.”  In the words of spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, “This Department has no current plans to remove Cuba from the state sponsor of terrorism list.”

Others went further.  As Professor Greg Weeks posted this week, José Cárdenas, a former senior U.S. official, argued in an op-ed piece, that while Cuba is no longer supporting terrorism, it should remain on the list of state anyway.  Weeks called this “pretty much the definition of moving goal posts.”

This is our great problem.  U.S. policy is based on the premise that Cuba must capitulate unilaterally to our demand that it reshape its political system to our liking, or U.S. sanctions will remain in place.  Consequently, when Havana changes the facts on the ground that fall short of that goal, Washington cannot consider them consequential.

No matter that, as The Economist reported, “Raúl Castro has allowed Cubans to buy cars and homes, to lease farmland and to set up small businesses.” Or, “Last year he scrapped curbs on foreign travel.”

No matter that President Raúl Castro, as we reported two weeks ago, has announced that he will abide by the term limits he put into place, or that a far younger man, Miguel Díaz-Canel, apparently less charismatic and unrelated to the Castro family, is being groomed to succeed him.  A Cuban government no longer run by a member of the family is a key goal of U.S. policy, but this development, too, cannot be acknowledged.

Once Raúl Castro made his announcement, as the Miami Herald reported, the maximalists simply moved the goal posts to other demands.

Forget the Castros, said Mauricio Claver-Carone, director of the pro-sanctions U.S. Cuba Democracy lobby, “The most important conditions in Helms-Burton are the legalization of opposition parties, independent media, the dismantling of the State Security apparatus and free and fair elections.” Or as Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said, “(T)he real change in Cuba involves much more than the Castro brothers… The whole system crafted by the Castro brothers is corrupt and must be totally replaced.”

Happily, policymakers who actually take the trouble to visit Cuba, and talk to the Cubans, are more grounded in reality.  As Senator Pat Leahy, leader of the delegation which met with President Castro, Alan Gross, and others, said on network television upon his return, “I think the worst thing that can happen is if we stay either in our country or in their country in this 1960s, 1970s Cold War mentality.  We’re a different century now.”

Cuba has made clear over the last, oh five or six decades its system is not up for negotiation. Thus, the administration must decide whether to be with the maximalists, who argue against the evidence that nothing in Cuba has changed, because everything in Cuba hasn’t changed, or switch to a reality-based policy that takes into consideration developments that actually occur, on issues from terrorism to who is being positioned to run the country, and then respond accordingly.

We’d like to think that Rep. Jim McGovern, who joined Leahy in Cuba, was on to something when he told Nick Miroff of the Global Post, “I feel change is in the air.  To me, this is the moment. We have President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, and my hope is that they will take some risks and end this last relic of the Cold War.”

That would be nice.

Coming Soon: “Women’s Work: Gender Equality in Cuba and the Role of Women Building Cuba’s Future”

On March 6^th, the Center for Democracy in the Americas will release the results of a two-year study on the status of women and gender equality in Cuba.  This week, we have been posting quotes from women we interviewed, as well as photos and other information, on our Facebook page and on Twitter.  Be sure to follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page – we’ll continue posting updates leading up the official release!

As Donor/Pal Flies “Under the Radar,” Will Senator Menendez Mind His Words Or Eat Them?

A curious angle to the story about Senator Bob Menendez and his relationship to Dr. Salomon Melgen, his donor-benefactor-travel pal, has gotten obscured in the larger ethical churn.

Dr. Melgen is the ophthalmologist who donated tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to Senator Menendez, and took Mr. Menendez on his private plane to the Dominican Republic (D.R.) for vacations in 2010 that the Senator did not disclose.

For his part, Menendez lobbied the U.S. government to get its support for a port security contract in the D.R. for the doctor’s company, and intervened on Melgen’s behalf by questioning a government audit that revealed overbilling in the doctor’s practice.

The Senator sent a reimbursement check for $58,500 to Melgen’s company after the unreported flights became public, which relieved Menendez of the responsibility to make a public disclosure about his trips with the eye doctor, and appears to have cost him an ‘arm and a leg’.

Now, Dr. Melgen, as was reported earlier this month, has asked the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to “block his plane’s flight activity from public view in air trafficking systems.”  He seems eager to cover the trail (or the contrail).

Stunningly, the FAA agreed and will allow Dr. Melgen to keep his flight records secret; this applies not only to future flights, but also to on-line access to historical records.

In “Doctor now flying under the radar,” Tracey Eaton, an investigative reporter with whom our organization is working, has posted a detailed piece about Dr. Melgen, the FAA’s powers of disclosure and authority to keep records secret, and why its decision to shield records Melgen’s flights raises issues around accountability and transparency, and possibly the Menendez investigation itself.

As Mr. Eaton writes:

“In January, before the flight activity was blocked, the Associated Press reported that Melgen’s plane had made more than 100 trips to the Dominican Republic and about a dozen flights included brief stopovers in the Washington area.”

Is there anyone in the Congress who might think Melgen’s request was a little fishy?  Or, that the FAA’s decision is antithetical to the idea of good and open government?

How about Senator Bob Menendez, a champion of disclosure?

• In 2010, he took credit for writing provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, which toughened regulation after the economic crisis, to increase transparency in the trading of the financial instrument called derivatives.
• In 2011, he organized a letter cosigned by nine Senate colleagues to the Department of Transportation demanding that airlines disclose their fees.
• That same year, he sponsored legislation with a section to require disclosure by companies for certain business activities with Iran.
• In 2012, he sponsored legislation to require corporations to disclose their campaign donations to shareholders, following the Citizens United Supreme Court decision.
• As a candidate for reelection in 2012, Menendez released five years of his tax returns, as a spokesman explained, in the full spirit of transparency.
• Only a few weeks ago, when Senator Menendez traveled to Afghanistan, he told President Karzai that the U.S. expects elections in his country next year to be fair, free, and (you guessed it) transparent.

Senator Menendez even told a constituent a few years back that he’d consider supporting legislation to protect coastal New Jersey’s fish population, because he believed in transparency in the management of fisheries.

Isn’t the Senator’s next step, well, transparently obvious?

He could do nothing; eat his words on disclosure and transparency.  Or, he could write the FAA and demand that the shield concealing Dr. Melgen’s flight records be removed.  Nothing could be more consistent with what Senator Menendez has said – and wanted others to do – in the last three years alone.

Besides, what else could he have to hide?

The Democracy Promotion Paradox – or why Americans hate politics

Sometimes our Cuba policy is so farcical, it’s impossible to keep a straight face.

Consider poor Pedro Adriano Borges, age 68 who, according to the Miami Herald is awaiting trial in federal court.  He is charged with ten violations of the Trading with the Enemy Act, money laundering, and other crimes for which he could spend 35 years in prison if convicted.  The underlying charge is this: he shipped $93,000 worth of goods – including light bulbs and diapers, spices and mayonnaise – to Cuba before Congress authorized food trade with the island.  Opening the market to mayonnaise might be considered a crime against Cuban cuisine, but he should hardly be facing jail time in 2013 for an activity that’s been legal for a decade.

Other times, however, the policy is not just farcical, but so internally inconsistent that it edges in the direction of tragedy.  Consider what we continue to learn about the USAID democracy promotion or regime change programs.

The Government Accountability Office issued a report on the programs this week.  Unlike prior studies, which disclosed that U.S. recipients of the funds were wasting them on Godiva chocolates, cashmere sweaters, and Nintendo Game Boys, GAO said the program was being operated with tighter internal controls.  This – along with headlines like “U.S. government report says America’s democracy programs have improved” –undoubtedly delighted USAID, which just last month read this story in the Washington Post:  “Interference with bid-rigging probe alleged at USAID.”

In fact, Marc Lopes, head of USAID’s Latin American and Caribbean section, told the Herald in a phone interview, “We have increased transparency and financial monitoring, and we are pleased that GAO has recognized that.”

But, remember, the GAO makes judgments about accounting, not about policy.  As the Miami Herald reported, U.S. taxpayers have spent more than $205 million dollars on democracy promotion activities since 1996.  There is no evidence that the programs are achieving their objective of hastening a democratic transition in Cuba.  Phil Peters says it well on his Cuban Triangle Blog:

“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.”

Wasted and obscured from public view.  There is another version of the report, “sensitive but unclassified,” that GAO won’t allow U.S. taxpayers to see.  Even worse, Tracey Eaton, an investigative reporter with whom our organization is working, discovered that USAID hired an outside contractor to review the programs, which found “questionable charges and weaknesses in partners’ financial management, procurement standards, and internal controls.”   But when Mr. Eaton filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get a copy of the outside audit, USAID fought him and then provided only ten pages of material that “omit most findings, recommendations and other key information, including the identity of the aid recipients named in the audit.”

This is more than a little odd coming from USAID which recently gave a $25 million grant to researchers at the University of Texas…(wait for it)….to develop tools that will “Increase Global Aid Transparency.”

Not only that, Mr. Eaton requested an interview with Mr. Lopes a little more than a week ago, and he declined.

Can someone stop the pain?

Not if what President Eisenhower might have called The Cuba-Industrial Complex has anything to say about it.  Although there was scant public mention of democracy promotion at John Kerry’s confirmation hearing, a new round of questions and answers about the program popped up in the Congressional Record, according to “Capitol Hill Cubans,” an eager supporter of regime change in Cuba.

In testimony apparently provided for the record –questions asked and answered in private – Senator Marco Rubio urged Mr. Kerry not to negotiate with Cuba to obtain Alan Gross’s release; not to shut down or rollback democracy programs; and to scrutinize the already legal people-to-people trips to Cuba.  You can read Kerry’s responses here.  We think he gave Senator Rubio no quarter.  To date, Mr. Kerry has made no public statements about whether he’d change the programs that he tried to reform as a member of the U.S. Senate.

But, the bodyguards surrounding USAID’s Cuba programs – the contractors, the pro-sanctions Senators, the array of publicists and polemicists aligned with them – will continue resisting the scrutiny and long-overdue public debate that ought to take place about these wasteful, ineffective, covert-but-not-classified programs that antagonize Cuba and which turn Latin America more broadly against us.

We are reminded of what E.J. Dionne wrote in “Why Americans Hate Politics” –

“With democracy on the march outside our borders, our first responsibility is to ensure that the United States becomes a model for what self-government should be and not an example of what happens to free nations when they lose interest in public life.”

Such is the democracy promotion paradox.

Inauguration Week: An emerging vision of a “new normal”

From Havana to Washington, there was a sustained glimpse of what a “new normal” could look like in the U.S.-Cuba relationship.

President Obama’s inauguration was broadcast live in Cuba, on Educational Channel 2, Progreso Semanal reports, which carries the Telesur  network live.

This is pretty remarkable stuff.  The U.S. didn’t need to send a subcontractor with a flash drive to enter Cuba on a tourist visa to distribute “democracy unfiltered,” hand to hand, for secret viewing in the homes and offices of Cubans fortunate enough to have access to a computer.

Instead, Cubans could watch television and see Senator Lamar Alexander quote Alex Haley, “Find the good and praise it,” and herald election practices in the U.S., “There is no mob, no coup, no insurrection.”

Or see Richard Blanco, “A child of Cuban exiles raised in Miami,” as the Miami Herald reported, read his Inaugural poem and make history, as the first Latino, Cuban-American, and openly-gay man to serve in this capacity in U.S. history.

Or listen to Rev. Luis Leon, an Operation Pedro Pan veteran, a Cuban-born American, invoke Martin Luther King (on the U.S. national holiday that honors his memory), asking blessings for the citizens “of a beloved community, loving you and our neighbors as ourselves.”

And, of course, see the President of the United States remind all within earshot:

“That all men are created equal.  That they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Today we continue a never ending journey to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time. For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they’ve never been self-executing. That while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by his people here on earth.”

Later, perhaps more prosaically but no less importantly, Cubans saw José Contreras, the powerful right-hander who pitched for the Vegueros of his native Pinar del Río, and defected to the U.S. to play baseball in the major leagues a decade ago, return to Cuba and visit his sick mother, thanks to their nation’s new, more permissive immigration law.

What a welcome respite.  These developments took place without attracting much attention in Washington – no derisive tweets from hardliners in Congress about Cubans “defecting” to the Obama administration, no “wait and see” platitudes from the State Department podium.  Perhaps, the city was so preoccupied with itself, and the ceremonial transition, that no one was in the mood to taunt “our neighbors.” But, it also could be indicative of progress toward a new normal, here and in Cuba.

Even in Senator John Kerry’s hearing to be Secretary of State – when confirmations so often are cauldrons of controversy where Senators press nominees to take positions in line with their interests against those of the president who selected them – Cuba at first wasn’t even on the table.

No mention of Cuba by Senator Marco Rubio, who proposed grounding all flights to Cuba in 2011, but “focused his questioning of Kerry on North Korea, Syria, the Middle East and China”; no efforts to get Mr. Kerry to renounce negotiations for the release of Alan Gross; only a generic mention of “democracy promotion” programs by acting Chairman Robert Menendez.

But briefly, a reminder of the old ways surfaced later in the Kerry hearing.

Jeff Flake, recently elected to the Senate, after service in the U.S. House as a champion of the freedom to travel to Cuba, angered Senator Menendez by affirming his faith in the constitutional right of Americans to travel to Cuba, joking that he’d force “the Castro brothers” to deal with spring break, and urging Mr. Kerry as Secretary of State to continue liberalizing U.S. travel policies and finding innovative approaches to deal with changes in Cuba; a policy that honors the pursuit of happiness and freedom, as written in the Declaration of 1776 and given voice in the Inauguration of 2013.

That, finally, was too much for the hardliners.  And so a beat-down of Senator Flake commenced with Senator Menendez and the usual suspects.  But, Senator Flake has told that joke before, heard the howling before, and emerged undaunted before.

This is the new normal – with Senator Flake serving as a burr under Bob Menendez’s saddle as they debate Cuba together on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; with Richard Blanco, Luis Leon, José Contreras, John Kerry, and President Obama representing the future – as a new approach for engaging with Cuba and Cubans is busy being born.

IN CUBA

Cuba performing quality tests of high speed fiber-optic cable

Cuba’s state telecommunications firm ETECSA has confirmed that the fiber-optic cable connecting Cuba to Venezuela is currently undergoing quality testing for its Internet-trafficking capabilities. An official statement said that the cable has been in use primarily for international phone calls since August 2012, and that the current Internet tests began on January 10.

Completed in February 2011, ALBA-1 reportedly possesses the capability to increase Internet speeds on the island by up to 3,000, but reports of mismanagement involving the project apparently halted progress. The official statement says that “When the testing process ends, the activation of the cable will not mean that access possibilities will automatically multiply.” The government has indicated that initially, the cable will be used to improve current connections, rather than to increase points of access to the Internet. Previously, Cuba’s Internet services functioned solely through satellite links.

Authorities confirm reappearance of cholera in Bayamo, hospitals to shorten visiting hours

Health authorities confirmed on Thursday that cholera has reappeared in the eastern city of Bayamo, reports Café Fuerte. Doctor Ana María Batista González of the Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology said that there have been four confirmed and 44 suspected cases at a local hospital.

At least 51 cases of cholera were confirmed in Havana earlier this month, though a January 15 official statement said that the outbreak was in the eradication phase. In light of recent cholera and dengue outbreaks, the Ministry of Public Health has announced that hospitals will have limited visitation hours beginning January 30th, reports Havana Times.

CUBA’S FOREIGN RELATIONS

Ecuador implements new travel law, 26 Cubans repatriated

Ecuadorian officials repatriated 26 Cubans who arrived at the International Airport in Quito without a letter of invitation on Monday, according to Café Fuerte and Havana Times. CDA reported last week that the government of Ecuador was implementing a new law on January 21 requiring Cuban citizens entering Ecuador to hold a letter of invitation notarized by the Ecuadorian Consulate. The 26 Cubans argued that they boarded their flight before the new law took effect that same day. They returned to Cuba 12 hours after they arrived in Ecuador. Before the reversal in policy, Ecuador was one of the few countries in the region that allowed Cubans to visit without a visa after dropping the visa requirement in 2008.

U.S. – CUBA RELATIONS

Senator Kerry faces no Cuba questions; Senator Flake emerges as strong voice on free travel

Senator John Kerry (MA) faced no direct questions regarding Cuba in his confirmation hearing for Secretary of State on Thursday, despite the presence of Committee members Senator Menendez (NJ), the acting chairman, and Senator Rubio (FL), both hardliners on the issue.  Newly-elected Senator Jeff Flake (AZ), who had a strong anti-embargo record as a U.S. Representative, made his first statement on Cuba as a Senator, encouraging Kerry to use his presumptive position as Secretary of State to work with President Obama to continue to loosen travel restrictions and allow further engagement between the Cubans and Americans.

Sen. Flake stated, “With regard to Cuba…the best way to foster change and progress toward democracy is to allow travel, free travel of Americans, to let them go as they wish. I don’t think that that’s a weakness or any capitulation at all.” Sen. Flake ruffled the feathers of some of his Cold Warrior colleagues when he went on to joke, “I’ve often felt that if we want a real get-tough policy with the Castro brothers, we should force them to deal with spring break once or twice.”

Senator Marco Rubio, surprisingly, stayed silent on Cuba, and only brought up Latin America to challenge the validity of recent elections in Nicaragua and question whether a coup really took place in Honduras in 2009.  Cuba received no further mention until Senator Robert Menendez, acting as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made his closing remarks lecturing Senator Flake, leaving no room for response.

In response to a question from Sen. Menendez about prospects for cooperation with Latin America during President Obama’s second term, Sen. Kerry noted that although continued cooperation is likely with Brazil and Colombia, little cooperation has occurred with Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Sen. Kerry remarked that “depending on what happens in Venezuela, there could be an opportunity for a transition there.” Elias Jaua, Venezuela’s Foreign Minister, stated in response that Venezuela’s government regrets Kerry’s comment, and that Venezuela hopes to engage in relations of “mutual respect” with the U.S.

Assistant U.S. Secretary of State meets with new Chief of the Cuban Interests Section

Roberta Jacobson, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs met Wednesday with José Cabañas, the new Chief of the Cuban Interests Section, at the Department of State, reports Café Fuerte. The meeting represented Washington’s first diplomatic gesture towards Cuba in Obama’s second term. No comments were made about the contents of their meeting.

Cuban pitcher José Contreras becomes first athlete to return to Cuba under new immigration law

Major League Baseball pitcher José Ariel Contreras Camejo became the first Cuban athlete to return to Cuba under the new immigration law on Wednesday, report NBC News and Café Fuerte. The new law, adopted on January 14th, allows Cubans who emigrated without authorization to make temporary visits to the island if they have spent 8 years outside of the country. Contreras defected through Mexico in 2002 and returned this week in order to visit his family. Contreras stated that he did not have problems entering the country.

Around the Region

U.S. Once Again Gives Cold Shoulder to Salvadoran Gang Truce, Linda Garrett, Center for Democracy in the Americas

CDA El Salvador Analyst Linda Garrett responds to the U.S. State Department’s recent travel warning on El Salvador: “The timing of the January 23^rd travel warning is curious. No such warnings were issued during the height of the violence in 2010 and 2011. The past year, 2012 was the least violent since 2003. The ‘Security Message for U.S. Citizens’ acknowledges that the truce ‘contributed to a decline in the homicide rate’ but questions its sustainability and says it has had ‘little impact’ on other crimes.”

If you would like to receive CDA’s Monthly El Salvador Updates, contact: ElSalvadorUpdate@democracyinamericas.org

Recommended Reading

Seven Actions Obama Should Take on Cuba Now, Peter Kornbluh, The Nation

Peter Kornbluh makes the case for seven policies that the second Obama Administration can implement to leave a legacy of sensible policy toward Cuba: remove Cuba from the U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism list; end the economic and commercial sanctions that accompany the terror list designation; order the arrest of Luis Posada Carriles; expand general licensing for Cuba travel; change the “Cuban Democracy and Contingency Planning” section of the Helms-Burton Act; engage in bilateral dialogue in areas of mutual interest; and commute the sentences of the “Cuban Five.”

Memo to President Obama: Cuba has extended the olive branch, shouldn’t the U.S.?, Albor Ruiz, New York Daily News

Albor Ruiz addresses the lack of response from the Obama administration to the recent easing of travel restrictions for Cuba’s citizens. The piece quotes CDA Executive Director Sarah Stephens, who says: “After Cuba released scores of political prisoners following talks with the Catholic Church; after the Castro government implemented the most significant changes in its economic model in six decades; after Colombia turned to Cuba to help it broker peace talks with the FARC, U.S. policy remains in an official state of denial that its goals are being met.”

Alan Gross and his descent into hell, Tracey Eaton, Along the Malecon

Tracey Eaton continues his coverage of U.S. funding for “democracy promotion” programs and the Alan Gross case, further detailing the circumstances around Gross’ arrest and the nature of his work in Cuba.  We reported on the first installment last week.

Is the Cuban Adjustment Act in play?, Phil Peters, The Cuban Triangle

Phil Peters asks if the Cuban Adjustment Act will, in fact, be open for discussion during the upcoming U.S. debate on comprehensive immigration reform.  But, Peters questions statements made by Senator Marco Rubio and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen that ground their arguments for a change in the Cuban Adjustment Act in the idea that all Cubans who arrive in the United States claim persecution and therefore should not be returning to Cuba to visit their families. Peters points out that most Cubans who remain in the U.S. under the Cuban Adjustment Act do not state a claim to persecution, as refugees or asylees must do.

Is Obama Acting Pragmatically in the Alan Gross Case?, Arturo López-Levy, Foreign Policy in Focus

Arturo López-Levy analyzes how the Obama administration has handled the case of former USAID contractor Alan Gross: “Obama’s legacy in the hemisphere will suffer if he wastes his second term flexibility to improve U.S.-Cuba relations because of unrealistic expectations. Incidentally, the probability of Gross’ release will improve as general relations do.”

Talking to Cuba, Julia E. Sweig interviewed by Robert McMahon, Council on Foreign Relations

Robert McMahon interviews Julia E. Sweig, Director for Latin American Studies for the Council on Foreign Relations. Sweig by answering a series of questions analyzes Cuba’s recent reforms especially the new travel laws. She argues that the United States should initiate a new dialogue with Cuba and work on solving the many issues that prevent normalization of relations between the two countries.

The Rivers Internship Blog, Emma Stodder, Center for Democracy in the Americas

Emma Stodder, CDA’s first Stephen M. Rivers Intern, will be keeping a blog on her experiences working at the Center, and posting her reflections on issues concerning U.S.-Latin America relations.

Stephen Rivers, who had a storied career as an advisor to César Chávez and the United Farm Workers Union, a political advisor to the Kennedy family, and a publicist for celebrities including Jane Fonda and Kevin Costner, devoted much of the last decade of his professional life to working for closer U.S.-Cuba relations by building bridges between the two countries’ cultural communities.

The internship was created by CDA in Rivers’ honor as a part of the organization’s 2012 annual event; contributions for the stipend were received from his long-time friends and colleagues including Maria Shriver, Norman Lear, Ricki Seidman, Greg Craig and Paul and Diane Begala. Emma will serve at CDA’s offices in Washington from January to July, 2013. Follow Emma here!

Recommended Viewing

Close Up: Cuba’s new love for the Union flag, Sarah Rainsford, BBC

Sarah Rainsford reports on the popularity of the U.K. flag in Cuba, and asks Cubans on the streets about their impressions of the trend.

Cuba: The Accidental Eden, Nature, PBS

PBS’ Nature showcases Cuba’s well-preserved biodiversity and how Cuba can act as a future model for ecotourism.

This post will self-destruct in ten seconds. Good luck, readers.

In the 1960s, many of us in the U.S. never missed an episode of Mission Impossible, the weekly Cold War-era television drama, in which a top secret group of operatives were entrusted with undercover missions that put their lives at risk.  Their instructions were always accompanied by a message reminding them of the government’s plausible deniability:

As always, should you or any of your IM force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.

In recent legal filings, the United States government and Development Alternatives Inc. – the customer and client operating the “democracy promotion” activities that led to Alan Gross being locked up in Cuba – appealed in a federal court to dismiss the $60 million lawsuit filed against them by Mr. Gross and his wife Judy.

The merits of the lawsuit do not matter, the government says; it is immune and can’t be held accountable for the injuries to Mr. Gross and his family, because they arise from his imprisonment in Cuba and there’s a “foreign country exception” under the Federal Torts Claim Act.

They may be right about the law, but what a Catch-22!  The program was designed to send people like Mr. Gross to a foreign country, Cuba, and engage in activities that put them at risk.  It also begs the question whether the legislators who wrote, funded, and obstinately insisted that its operations continue, as well as those in the State Department and USAID, ignored the risks since there was no legal recourse available to someone who got caught in Cuba doing what they sent him to do.

In connection with the court filings, new documents are now available – including a confidential memo from a 2008 USAID meeting as well as a written report by Alan Gross – that provide new details and greater clarity about the regime change program operated by USAID.

The documents – analyzed here by Tracey Eaton – also undermine the State Department’s cover story, repeated as recently as December 3, 2012, that “He was there in Cuba as an aid worker working with the Jewish diaspora community there, helping them to better communicate through the internet to the outside world.”

Instead, the documents make clear that the project was an “operational activity,” run at the end of the Bush administration, which had already put together five to seven transition plans for Cuba.  The administration was seeking “immediate results” from the program designed to spark reactions by change agents in Cuba who were being given access to highly sensitive, high technology equipment.

Secrecy was at the heart of the project, starting with communications coming from Washington.  In the USAID memo, under a section marked “response to public inquiry,” there is a bold-faced note: “Nothing anywhere.  We must not post anything on our website or issue a press release on the awarded contract.” The memo says that “Official and contract communications demands (sic) careful wordmanship and crafty use of terms.  No reference whatsoever to the new media component.”

Stealth was particularly important for the operations in Cuba.  In September 2009, Mr. Gross reported that his activities were already supporting direct communications between “target communities” and the U.S.  At the same time, he was monitoring Cuban users of the equipment to see what websites they were accessing.  High technology equipment was brought in to make the activities more secure, but these also made the operation more dangerous.  He writes, “Discovery of BGAN usage for Internet access would be catastrophic.”

USAID admitted that “building this network is risky because of the security threats.”  It called for “creativity” in implementing the project “in the face of opposition from the Cuban state – one anchored in the past and resistant to change – while protecting the security of participants and change agents.”

His work was called a “pilot project.”  Mr. Gross was planning four more roundtrips to Cuba – and budgeted for more roundtrips to bring in more equipment –to expand the program in 2010.  But, then his plans changed.  His security was not protected.  He was arrested, convicted, and sentenced under Cuban law for activities the U.S. government and his employer knew in advance were risky, subject to detection, and illegal.  With the actions taken to dismiss the case, it appears that the Obama administration and DAI are washing their hands of him and leaving his fate entirely in the hands of Cuba’s government.

This is just fine with Senator Robert Menendez, the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who fought to maximize spending under the “regime change” programs and who has already told the New York Times, “I’m not into negotiating for someone who is clearly a hostage of the Cuban regime.”

Small wonder that Judy Gross told R.M. Schneiderman of Foreign Affairs late last year, “I feel betrayed by the United States.”   Her government has disavowed responsibility for her husband’s actions and plight.