A Florida legislator is asking Washington to allow U.S.-Cuba charter flights from Tampa. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Tampa) wrote to U.S. Customs and Border Protection asking that Tampa be permitted to establish an air bridge to Havana, as Miami, New York and Los Angeles have.
That would increase direct air-charter flights from the U.S. from three to 8 or 10 a day and raise the number of American travelers from 10,000 per month to nearly 30,000 per month, The Tampa Tribune reported Saturday.
"The addition of Tampa International Airport as a departure point could be one less burden the [Cuban-American] families would have to face," the Miami-born Castor wrote. For details, click here.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
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Fidel sighting began as a rumor
The rumor that Fidel Castro walked the streets of Havana began to circulate several days ago, writes Miami radio commentator Max Lesnik, who was in the Cuban capital last week. According to an article in Lesnik's website, signed by his alter ego, "The Goblin," Castro was seen on Friday Feb. 20 "walking down the street, doing exercises through the area of Jaimanitas, a few blocks from the Siboney district, where his family home is. [...] that's the rumor on the street, according to the testimony of some local residents who say that it wasn't a ghost or an apparition, that it was Fidel himself walking through Jaimanitas." (For the article, in Spanish, click here.)
The date raises some questions. Friday Feb. 20 and Saturday Feb. 21 were days on which Hugo Chávez met with Castro in Havana. If the stroll took place, did Chávez witness it? (See previous blog item.) Might the date have been Friday Feb. 13, the day after Castro met with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet? At this point, only the grapevine knows.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
Fidel took a stroll, Chávez now says
Fidel took a surprise stroll through a Havana neighborhood, President Hugo Chávez said Friday in Caracas. "He went walking through Havana," he said, according to the French news agency AFP. "Fidel Castro, who is often described as being in a terminal phase, Fidel has surprised us all, and do you know what he did? [...] He went walking. Fidel stepped out. And people saw him. 'Why, it's Fidel, walking through Havana.' A miracle. The people wept," Chávez said, after a public ceremony.
No photographs were made of the stroll, at Castro's request, Chávez said. The Venezuelan leader did not say when or where it occurred.
"Of course, he planned [the walk] so no record would be made. But there are some photos I saw. In that sense, I consider myself a humble, privileged person," he said.
Chávez said he had received four letters from Castro and one of them told about the stroll.
"In one of them, he told me he had gone far. It's like a miracle [...] Fidel, from here, we congratulate you and ask God for you to continue to recover completely," Chávez said, according to Agence France-Presse. [UPDATE: Prensa Latina indirectly confirmed Chávez's account Friday evening by reporting it in detail. Click here.] [PHOTO SHOWS Chávez in Caracas on Friday.]
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
Chávez: Fidel looked fine last week
Fidel Castro is feeling "much better than at any time I visited him in the past three years," Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez told Venezuelan television Friday morning. Castro is "like never before," he said; those who predict his death "are dead wrong." Chávez met with the 82-year-old Cuban leader on Feb. 20 for three hours and again on Feb. 21, for four hours, during an unannounced trip to Havana.
According to Chávez, who spoke on the phone with Venezolana de Televisión, the two men discussed Latin American affairs, the Obama administration, the world financial crisis and the strengthening of Cuba-Venezuela relations.
Castro did not write a "reflection" about his meetings with Chávez and no photographs of the two were released by either Havana or Caracas. (The photo above was made on Feb. 12, during a visit by Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.) Castro's latest article, written Feb. 14, dealt with the death in 1973 of Chilean President Salvador Allende.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
French politologist: Big changes due
Passage in the U.S. Congress of a bill that would lift some restrictions on Cuba would be a major shift in U.S. policy, says Pierre Rigoulot, director of the Paris-based Social History Institute, writer, and the author of Sunbathing in Havana; Castro's Cuba, 1959-2007.
"I say 'a shift' and not 'a revolution' because Obama is at the start of his mandate and must show prudence, and it's too soon to talk about a lifting of the U.S. embargo," Rigoulot told the Swiss newspaper Tribune de Genève.
"I'm sure we're going to see big changes in Cuba this year, even if Fidel's presence prevents his little brother from having enough elbow room to carry out his policy of Chinese-style reform," he said.
One such change is Raúl Castro's invitation to French President Nicolas Sarkozy to visit Cuba, extended Wednesday through special envoy Jack Lang (see previous blog item.) Such a visit would be important, Rigoulot said, "because everything that happens in Cuba always has a big impact in all of Latin America."
No French president has visited Cuba since the 1959 revolution. The last visit from a European leader was in 1986, when Spain's Prime Minister Felipe González traveled to the island.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
Raúl welcomes special French envoy
Looking très chic in a dark, tieless shirt, Raúl Castro on Wednesday met for more than two hours with a similarly tieless and tanned Jack Mathieu Émile Lang, émissaire spécial of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Lang, a Socialist deputy and former culture and education minister, heads the French National Assembly's foreign affairs commission.
Speaking to reporters later, Lang said that Paris wishes to be "the engine" of a dialogue between Cuba and Europe and contribute to a greater insertion of the island in the international community, the Mexican agency Notimex reported. Lang also said Paris would like to help improve relations between Havana and Washington. Those relations should be "direct, simple and based on the economy, politics and culture," always on the basis of mutual respect.
Even if President Obama cannot lift the trade embargo, he "could take some measures of change toward Cuba," Lang said. "How are we to understand that [the U.S.] still maintains Cuba on the list of terrorist countries?" Sarkozy's envoy said that his impression is that Raúl Castro "is interested in a dialogue with France, in an orderly manner and within the bounds of the existing relationships." France, he added, "is among the countries in the European Union that desire an unconditional dialogue with Cuba." Asked about Washington's recent criticism of the human rights situation in Cuba, Lang answered: "It is not up to one country to become the world's tribunal." Lang, who delivered to Castro a letter from Sarkozy, expects to remain in Cuba until Monday.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
A close look at a timely book
I have received an invitation from F.I.U. that I shall pass on to you more-or-less verbatim:
"I'm delighted to pass on an invitation to a discussion of The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States, and the Next Revolution sponsored by the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University. The event will take place at Books and Books, 265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables, from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 24. Author Dan Erikson will discuss the current state of U.S.-Cuba relations and present findings from his book, which Foreign Affairs called a 'fresh, astute, and compassionate exploration of the past two decades of U.S.-Cuban relations' and Current History labeled 'the most important book on Cuba in a generation.' A reception and book-signing will follow. For more information, contact the Cuban Research Institute at 305-348-1991 or cri@fiu.edu."
---FRANCES ROBLES.
Chávez sees Fidel twice in brief visit
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez met twice with Fidel Castro in 24 hours, during an unannounced visit to Cuba that began Friday evening and ended Saturday afternoon. The official daily Granma said Chávez paid "a working visit" to Cuba, during which the leaders talked "about the fruitful links that exist between the two countries in various fields" and "about the international situation, particularly the world economic crisis and its consequences for Latin America and the Caribbean."
With Chávez were his chief of staff, Luis Reyes; Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro; Rafael Ramírez, Energy Minister and head of PDVSA; and Asdrúbal Chávez, vice president of PDVSA.
Chávez met with Fidel on Friday and with Fidel and Raúl Castro on Saturday, Granma said. No pictures of either meeting were released immediately by the Cuban government. The last time Chávez and Fidel met face to face was on June 17, 2008, when pictures of the two, accompanied by Raúl, appeared in the official press. [PHOTO SHOWS: Chávez being greeted by Raúl on Friday.]
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
Senate panel calls for policy shift
U.S. policies toward Cuba are "ineffective" and "should be reevaluated to take advantage of recent political changes on the island," says Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), according to an article Saturday in The Washington Post. Lugar's views are attached to a Senate report that calls for an end to the current restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba, the resumption of joint efforts to impede drug traffic and normalize migration, and the sale to Cuba of U.S. farm products on credit. It does not call for a lifting of the trade embargo.
The report will be released Monday.
"The recent leadership changes have created an opportunity for the United States to reevaluate a complex relationship marked by misunderstanding, suspicion and open hostility," wrote Lugar, the senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to The Post. To read the entire article, click here.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
