Cuban Colada

Why We Do What We Do

Miami Herald reporter Frances Robles (me!) and World Editor John Yearwood will be on hand Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. at Books and Books in Coral Gables to discuss the paper's coverage of Cuba.  Learn more about our unprecedented decision to send six journalists to Cuba to cover the recent storm crisis on the island.

Flier here: Download mhca209_cuba_panel_flyer_ok.pdf

The event is part of an ongoing series of panel discussions bringing the paper closer to the community. See you there!

-Frances Robles

Russia, Cuba sign cybercom agreement

Cuba and Russia on Thursday signed an accord that allows Havana to acquire Russian technology in information and communications. The document, a memorandum of understanding, was signed by the Russian Minister of Communications, Igor Olegovich Schegolev, and the Cuban Minister of Computer Sciences and Communications, Ramiro Valdés Menéndez. The pact covers telephony, satellite communications and mass-communication media, and provides for the training of Cuban specialists in Russia. Valdés told the French news agency AFP that Cuba plans to expand cooperation with Russia "in all spheres of communication." Some of the technology has already been introduced in Cuba, Schegolev said. Thursday evening, the Russian minister (chief of protocol during the presidency of Vladimir Putin) was to attend the inauguration of a Havana bureau of the Russian news agency Novosti.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Russian officers' visit sparks speculation

The Cuban government may not want to discuss the current visit by Russian military experts to the island (the Cuban media haven't even mentioned it) but the Russians have been lavish in their coverage of it. Military analysts in Moscow keep commenting on what the Novosti news agency calls a "trend toward a dizzying improvement" of relations between Russia and Cuba.
Anatoli Dmitrievich Tsiganok, head of the Military Forecast Center, told Novosti that the arrival in Cuba of Russian planes, ships and submarines would be a logical result of the current visit by air-defense specialists [see blog items below]. "To begin with, joint maneuvers would be planned, after which armaments would be supplied," he said.
Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Affairs, agreed with Tsiganok that "possibly in the future Russia will try to get its warships back into Cuba ports," but downplayed the possibility of direct deliveries of weapons, citing "Cuba's insolvency."
The comments come in a week when Russian diplomat Vitali Churkin told the United Nations General Assembly that the U.S. embargo against Cuba "does not respond to the spirit of the times and is a relic of the Cold War."
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Cuban-American Realtor Writes pro-Obama Book

  Miami realtor Teresita Shelton  wants to prove that not every Cuban-American senior is a shoe-in vote for Sen. John McCain.
So much so, that the 68-year-old owner of Shelton and Associates Realty self-published a book in English and Spanish called “A Vote for Obama – A vote with a face and a soul among millions of faceless votes.” She said she spent more than $4,500 getting it printed.
She kicked off the book this week at the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies. She says she got plenty of support, but acknowledges that her words are heresy to many of her peers.
She says Sen. Barack Obama’s stance on Cuba – his willingness to meet with Raul Castro and his support for family travel – were not among the reasons she decided to support him. Or write about him.
“We left Cuba 50 years ago and would like to see it free,” she said in an interview. “But I’ve been here almost twice as long as I was in Cuba. My main concern are my children, grandchildren and the things happening here.”
The registered Republican says she thinks many Cubans in Miami are hung up on Obama’s race.
“I think it’s horrible that they are not considering him because he’s black,” she said. “Many Cuban people tell me, ‘I’m not a racist, but I’m not going to vote for Obama, because I don’t want to see the White House filled with black people.’”
She thinks McCain chose VP running mate Sarah Palin in a “senior moment.”

The book, which costs $14.95, is at Libreria Universal on 8th St. and Moderna Poesia on NW 57th Ave.
- Frances Robles

Russians will return, military expert says

Another Russian analyst is seeing a deeper motive in the Kremlin's offer to modernize Cuba's air defenses. Writing Tuesday in Komsomolskaya Pravda, Viktor Baranets states that "everything points to the fact that a valuable strategic military partnership will be restored between Moscow and Havana. Army veterans are recalling the descriptive comparison 'Cuba is Moscow's unsinkable aircraft carrier off the U.S. coast.' [...] It is already completely clear that Russia -- looking for the right response to NATO's expansion in Europe and the building of [ballistic missile defenses] in the Czech Republic and Poland -- is counting on Cuba. And although 'the return of the Russians' may bring derisive remarks from some American generals, their associates note that 'the U.S. will have a serious headache.'"
Baranets, a retired colonel who served as Defense Ministry spokesman and now is Komsomolskaya Pravda's military affairs correspondent, cites unofficial sources as saying that Cuba will soon be visited by Russian Air Force and Navy specialists. His article is titled, plainly enough, "Russian servicemen return to Cuba."
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Analyst: Air shield is response to US plan

Russia's offer to advise Cuba on air defense and improve its defense capabilities is a tit-for-tat response to the United States' proposal to install missile interceptors in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic, a noted Russian analyst said Monday. Alexander Pikaev, a military specialist at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told the newspaper Gazeta that "although [Moscow] will officially deny this interpretation [...] it is obvious that Russia's actions are a response to the American antimissile systems in the Czech Republic and Poland and to NATO's decision to help Georgia restore its air-defense system." Pikaev is certain that "Russia decided to renew military technical cooperation with Cuba" and that an improved air-defense shield is one of the island's means of protection against the U.S. "No one ignores the fact that relations between Cuba and the U.S. remain very strained and that Cuba has to protect itself," Pikaev told Gazeta. "The fact is that [Cuba's] air-defense systems long ago became obsolete. [...] In other words, Russia will help Cuba to restore its military potential." To read the article in Gazeta (in Russian only), click here.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Russians will advise Cuba on air defense

Russia has offered to resume military advice to Cuba, the Russian news media reported Monday. "The Russian and Cuban military will exchange experiences in organizing tactical air defenses and training officers," said Army spokesman Igor Konashenkov, quoted by Interfax. A Russian military delegation will arrive in Cuba on Monday to "discuss the possibility of training Cuban servicemen at the tactical air defense academies and training centers in Russia, using up-to-date Russian-made military hardware," the spokesman said. The delegation, which will remain in Cuba until Nov. 3, is led by Gen. Aleksandr Maslov, chief of Russia's Tactical Air Defense. It "will conduct consultations on the organization of air defense, the systems of control, communications and practice of electronic warfare by the air defense forces of Cuba. It will also study the state of maintenance facilities [and] issue recommendations regarding the repair of malfunctioned equipment," Konashenkov said, according to the newspaper Gazeta. While in Cuba, the Russian officers will meet with Cuban Army Gen. Alvaro López Miera (in photo) and Gen. Pedro Mendiondo Gómez, chief of Anti-aircraft Defenses. According to the dailies Kommersant and Gazeta, the visitors will instruct Cubans in the use of the Igla (Needle) mobile antiaircraft weapons, the Wasp and Square AA missile systems, and P-18 and P-19 radar stations manufactured in Russia.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Mas Santos' advice to the candidates

Cuban American National Foundation chairman Jorge Mas Santos is proposing to the two presidential candidates a plan on "How To Win the Cuban-American Vote." In an article titled just that, published Saturday in The Washington Post," Mas describes the current U.S. policy toward Cuba as "at best static and at worst counterproductive." He assails President Bush's "strategic blunder in 2004 restricting contact with the island" and banning "cash remittances that help [Cuban dissidents] and their families survive." His recommendations to whoever wins next month:
• "Change the rules that make it impossible to send cash aid and allow direct, substantial and unfettered aid to Cuba's dissidents.
• "Lift the 2004 restrictions on travel and remittances by Cuban-Americans.
• "Maintain sanctions that diminish the Castro regime's access to hard currency, which it uses to help fund its apparatus of repression." Presumably, this means keep the embargo.
• "Engage democratic and reformist forces in Cuba, including those in the military and in the civilian government. They need to know that they can count on the friendship and support of the United States." I interpret this to mean encouragement for a military overthrow of the Cuban government.
• "Rebuild our intelligence capabilities in Cuba; they have been dismantled over the past decade, creating a vulnerability in this nation's security."
Who does Mas favor as the next President of the United States? "Barack Obama's forward-looking and proactive approach toward empowering the Cuban people is more in line with these proposals than John McCain's vow to continue the Bush administration's policy. More of the same will not bring about freedom in Cuba." To read the entire article, click here. And share your reaction with us.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Pérez Roque on repatriations, etc.

In an interview published Thursday in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque spoke at length about the memorandum of agreement on immigration he signed in Mexico this week. Excerpts:
• "Most of the Cubans who enter Mexico illegally [...] have not arrived directly from Cuba but from other countries. If we want to prevent the trafficking in illegals and the work of the mafias [that take them] to the United States, we have to accept the repatriation of other Cubans who left Cuba legally and went to Central America or other countries and then entered Mexico. If a group of Cubans is taken from Central America to Mexico as part of an operation for the illegal trafficking in persons, their repatriation also will be accepted. It's an important change. [The memo] also outlines procedures and deadlines. We have to know precisely who [a migrant] is, because there's a danger that he may be a terrorist in disguise. It has happened in the past.
• "Those who attempt to emigrate illegally do not face any legal action after being returned to Cuba. The act of emigrating is not penalized, unless [the migrants] have committed some crime. We understand that emigrating is a right and a worldwide trend. What's specific about Cuba is the fact that the United States has tried to stimulate illegal emigration from Cuba as part of its policy of siege toward the Cuban Revolution.
• "[Smugglers] have their bases in Miami, act with impunity, charge as much as $15,000 and orchestrate operations such as those in Mexico that imply violence and association with drugs. Mexico has identified those networks well. Part of the accord entails the exchange of information. The most common modus operandi nowadays is for a speedboat to take a group of migrants to another type of vessel coming from Miami -- larger leisure yachts -- to take them to Mexico or Central America, where they can travel to the border with the United States."
For more Pérez Roque comments -- on Fidel Castro's role in government, the economic crisis, the U.S. embargo, Barack Obama, and Cuba-Mexico relations -- click here. (In Spanish only.)
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Prelate: Fidel is lucid and strong

Fidel Castro is in full command of his senses and maintains his inner strength, said Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, Tuesday in San José, Costa Rica, where he attended a Russian cultural event.
Kirill, who was in Cuba over the weekend to consecrate a Russian Orthodox cathedral, met with Castro on Monday for 90 minutes, according to the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti. "He is in full command of his senses, and I refer both to the past and the present. It is proof of his overall recovery and his inner strength," Kirill told the agency. He said Castro referred "with emotion" to the consecration of the cathedral, which he watched on television. "Fidel links the building of the cathedral with the future of Russian-Cuban relations," the prelate said. "In public, Fidel always has said he is a Marxist, but his evaluation of what is going on today in the world is a Christian evaluation."
In Moscow on Tuesday, a press release by the Orthodox Church said Kirill and Castro "discussed foreign affairs, and the different problems of mankind, including those related to the financial crisis."
An article Tuesday in Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted Kirill as saying that "Fidel follows attentively everything that happens in the world. He comments lavishly on events, giving them [...] deep philosophical analysis." Kirill said Castro was "strong enough. When he shook my hand, I felt much strength in his grip." The prelate presented Castro with the Church's Order of Glory and Honor.
In a related development, the Spanish radio Cadena Ser on Tuesday cited European diplomatic sources in Havana who say that Fidel Castro is undergoing a "remarkable improvement" in his health and is increasingly involving himself in the actions of the Cuban government. "Fidel has resumed his participation in political life by dealing daily with affairs of the first order. That is interpreted by different European diplomatic corps as applying an inevitable brake to the process of aperture initiated by [his brother] Raúl," the station said.
PHOTO SHOWS: Kirill presenting Raúl Castro with the Order of Prince Danilo, a Russian Orthodox Church award, in appreciation for the construction of the cathedral. [UPDATE: In a "reflection" published Tuesday night in the Cubadebate website, Fidel Castro described his meeting with Kirill as "pleasant" and "edifying." Click here.]
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.