Cuban Colada

Diplomat jokes about a sunken Cuba

The political differences between Cuba and the United States will end in 50 years because the rise in ocean waters caused by global warming will make the island disappear, predicted U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual.
Addressing the forum Green Business Expo in Mexico City, Pascual said that "we don't have to worry much in the United States about Cuba, because the environment is going to eliminate the problem for us."
However, he added, "maybe Fidel Castro can live 50 more years and has powers that we don't know so far."
The comment drew laughter from his audience but earned a rebuke from the official Cuban website Cubadebate, which called it a "heavy and arrogant joke."
"If Cuba disappears, so will all the other islands in the Caribbean," a Cubadebate article said. "Is that what Mr. Pascual and his jolly audience wish, too?"
Pascual has been Washington's envoy to Mexico since August 2009, following a 23-year career in the U.S. Department of State, National Security Council and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
His latest book, co-authored with Vicki Huddleston, is "Learning To Salsa: New Steps in U.S.-Cuba Relations."
Pascual was born in Havana in 1959 and was brought to the U.S. at the age of 3.
[For expanded reaction, in the official website Cubahora, click here.]

Brits are confused about travel insurance, can't obtain the definitive list of providers

British travelers arriving in Cuba on Saturday (May 1) and thereafter will be required to carry travel insurance, "but confusion reigns over exactly which policies are valid," the newspaper The Guardian says.
"Anyone entering Cuba from this weekend will be expected to present a copy of their insurance documents on arrival, showing that they have a policy in place which covers the full duration of the trip and includes medical evacuation by air," the newspaper says.
However, "confusion exists because the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs had originally said it would require travelers to have policies from a select list of providers but, since then, British insurance and travel companies have struggled to get a definitive list from the ministry."
This "exotic chaos" is "somewhat typical of Cuba," one tourist agent told The Guardian. But it "can also frustrate at times."
Britons who arrive in Cuba without insurance will be able to buy a policy from a Cuban insurance company, the paper says, "but the cover is likely to be less comprehensive than many U.K.-bought policies and could work out more expensive. The Cuban ministry is quoting typical premiums of around £2 [US$3.10] a person a day."
To read more about the Brits' puzzlement, click here.

House panel weighs bill lifting restrictions

From a Reuters news report:
Business and human rights groups urged Congress on Thursday to ease the decades-old embargo on Cuba by passing a bipartisan bill to lift a ban on travel to the communist country and remove certain obstacles to legal farm sales.
Representative John Tanner (D-Tenn.), chairman of a Ways and Means subcommittee on trade, called the hearing to examine a bill crafted by House Agriculture Committee chairman Colin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Representative Jerry Moran (R-Kan.).
That legislation would lift restrictions on American citizens traveling to Cuba and remove certain obstacles to the cash sale of agricultural products, already allowed under previous reforms.
"Lifting these travel and trade restrictions is about what is best for the United States," Tanner said, adding it would create U.S. jobs through additional farm sales and help the Cuban people through increased tourism.
Myron Brilliant, senior vice president for international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, argued that maintaining the embargo allows Cuban authorities to blame the United States for the island's poverty when the real culprit "is a half century of Marxist mismanagement."
Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the House trade subcommittee, said he supported normal financing for food and medicine sales but opposed further moves until a democratic government is in place in Havana and billions of dollars in expropriation claims are resolved.
To read the entire Reuters item, click here.

Plan to allow individual home construction is welcomed – but with cautious optimism

The official website Cubadebate on Wednesday confirmed a report by the Spanish news agency EFE to the effect that the National Housing Institute will grant licenses to individuals to build or repair their homes themselves.
EFE had credited the story to a broadcast on Radio Rebelde.
But Cubadebate confirmed the story by simply reprinting the EFE story, without providing additional information from official sources.
Whatever the reason for Cubadebate's reluctance to expand on the news, reaction from its readers was favorable – though some voiced reservations. Examples:
• "The only thing left is for the Cuban state to sell the construction materials at accessible prices, free from speculation, and to authorize the opening of bank credits."
• "Let's hope that the delivery of materials comes true and that an outlet for those materials is created, at prices in the parallel market."
• "The [previous] 'approvals' from the bureaucrats were a source of corruption. Unless you bribed an official, you found it very difficult to get a permit. [...] They should go farther and allow true ownership of housing, where the individual can do with it as he sees fit, and where anyone with means can legally build a house."
• "We could create cooperatives of builders, who can buy their own equipment, tools, etc., even the materials."
• "They should follow this up with the sale and purchase of houses, cars, etc., through specialized agencies, so the money can circulate and more sources of employment can be created. [...] They should lift the restrictions that only spawn improvisation, malversation and expenditure."
• "Where are people going to find the materials for construction? Who is going to inspect the houses for compliance with regulations, like plumbing, etc.?"
• "As a retired builder, it worries me that [...] more and more builders will work on [private] houses and quit the industry. [...] Colleagues tell me that by working privately on a house they earn more than by working three months in a state-run company."
• "Let's hope that the people in charge of this don't bureaucratize, prostitute or corrupt the process."
• "[Let's hope] that, a year from now, this measure won't turn into the same process, full of bureaucracy and corruption, that now exists in the housing sector."
To read the Cubadebate (EFE) account, click here. For the story in El Nuevo Herald, click here.
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Interrogation of spies is proceeding well, prosecutors say; sentencing set for July

Admitted spies Walter and Gwendolyn Myers have met with federal investigators 50 to 60 times to divulge details of their three decades of spying for Cuba, Justice Department officials said Tuesday in Washington.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Michael Harvey told a federal judge that the government had expected the "debriefings" with the couple to take six months, and that investigators were "still on track" and expected to finish the talks in 30 to 40 days.
The Washington couple were charged last June with wire fraud, serving as illegal agents for Cuba and conspiring to deliver classified information. Walter Myers, a former State Department employee, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage and wire fraud. He agreed to a life sentence without parole.
Gwendolyn Myers could have faced as much as 20 years in prison but, under a plea deal, she might serve six to seven-and-a-half years.
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton on Tuesday set a sentencing date for July 16.
For more details, click here.
–LESLEY CLARK.

Press group denounces jailing of blogger after swift trial that led to a 20-month term

The Inter-American Press Association has denounced the arrest and imprisonment of Cuban blogger Dania Virgen García, a member of the support team for the Ladies in White.
García was arrested on April 22 on undisclosed charges, tried and sentenced to 20 months' imprisonment within 48 hours. Her destination was Manto Negro (Black Cloak) women's prison, outside Havana.
García did not have a particularly high profile in the dissident movement, so her arrest might be a warning to bloggers in general and the Ladies in White in particular.
In her website, El Blog de Dania, she identifies herself as an independent journalist and the representative in Havana of the Freedom and Democracy Party of Holguín.
She is associated with the Commission for Attention to Political Prisoners and their Relatives, (CAPPF) and the Center for Human Rights and Democracy (CDHD).
An editorial on García's arrest and the implications for the Ladies in White, titled "Women Who Brave Mobs," appears in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal. Click here.
[UPDATE: Dissident sources in Havana told El Nuevo Herald on Wednesday that García, 41, was arrested for striking her daughter Suzy, 23, and tried on charges of "abuse of maternal authority." For details, click here. For an Associated Press account, click here.]

A look at conduits for trade with Cuba

Joaquín F. Monserrate, Political and Economic Counselor at the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba, made some intriguing statements during an address in Puerto Rico to members of an advisory trade organization.
Speaking Thursday in San Juan to the Puerto Rican Institute for Mutual Aid to a Democratic Cuba, Monserrate said that "Cuba could open to business a lot earlier than it could become democratic. In fact, that's a big possibility."
Although "opportunities [for trade] are very limited today, everything points to the fact that, from one moment to another, more profound changes will occur. The big question is when. Truth is, I don't know. Nobody knows."
Monserrate's comments were reproduced Tuesday by the Puerto Rican newspaper El Nuevo Día.
The State Department official told the businessmen that they should "look for experiences that will help you penetrate into Cuba." One conduit is the Dominican Republic, he said.
"If you have no presence in the Dominican Republic, you have nothing to look for in Cuba. The Dominican Republic, after concluding its free-trade treaty with the United States, becomes a barrio of Mayagüez. You're going to have investment terms almost as if you were almost in the United States. Explore that market, because it will be useful to you," he said, according to El Nuevo Día.
"Use the government of the United States, which is your government," Monserrate told his audience. "In all embassies in the world, the Department of Commerce has an Office of Foreign Commercial Services that does nothing but find markets for you.
"The Department of Agriculture also has offices of Foreign Agricultural Services, which find markets for farm exporters."
Monserrate cautioned the businessmen that "Cuba has an extremely leonine and unattractive investment climate." The government is always the majority partner and takes a lion's share of the profits, even though it contributes little to the business, he explained.
As a point of reference, until last year Monserrate was deputy chief of the Economic Section of the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam, a communist country that does business with the United States.
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Chinese defense minister offers to update and expand military relations with Cuba

China on Monday "committed itself to promote even more the development of its military relations with Cuba," The People's Daily said.
The Chinese newspaper quoted Defense Minister Liang Guanglie as saying that "the years that have passed since China and Cuba established diplomatic relations in 1960 have seen a stable development of bilateral relations and a fruitful cooperation in several fields."
The Chinese official spoke during a meeting with Gen. Álvaro López Miera, chief of the Cuban Armed Forces General Staff. (See our April 25 blog item "Military delegation arrives in China...")
Liang said he would like to work with Cuba "to modernize the military relations."
Miera and the Cuban military group that accompanies him will be in China until Thursday. (PHOTO SHOWS Miera and Liang in Beijing on Monday.) For Prensa Latina's account, in Spanish, click here. [UPDATE: Miera was received Tuesday by Vice President Xi Jinping. Click here for details.]
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Chávez rejects allegation of 'Cubanization', announces hike in wages of all servicemen

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela on Sunday rejected allegations from a retired general that the Venezuelan Army has been "Cubanized." (To read the Associated Press story "Ex-general: Cubans involved in Chávez's military," click here)
"It's sad," Chávez said of the accusation made by former Gen. Antonio Rivero on Thursday. "He could have ended his career well, gone into a dignified retirement," but he made "the usual enemy speech about the Cubanization of the [Venezuelan] armed forces," the president said, according to Radio Nacional.
Chávez spoke during his weekly TV program "Hello, President."
"What Cubanization? The Cubans are helping us," not as in the past, when "the yanquis were in charge here and handled secrets that we ourselves didn't have."
American military advisers in the past "had officers and academic chiefs" in Venezuela, Chávez said. "All that was missing was for them to be named field officers."
As to Rivero, "he spent his time meeting with opposition mayors," Chávez said. "He was in bad company and turned squalid," he said, using his derogatory term for the opposition.
"Well, let the dogs bark; we'll continue our work," the president said.
Chávez took the opportunity to announce that "we are going to increase the wages for [servicemen of] all ranks, by 40 percent, retroactively to April."
Thus, "a newly graduated lieutenant will make almost 2,500 bolívares a month [US$580]; a captain, 4,000 bolívares [US$930]," he said.
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Military delegation arrives in China after a two-week tour of NKorea, Russia, Vietnam

A Cuban military delegation headed by Gen. Álvaro López Miera arrived Saturday in Beijing from North Korea, continuing a tour that has taken it to Russia and Vietnam. The group will remain in China until Thursday, said Cuba's National Information Agency.
The purpose of the visit, as stated in the three other countries on the group's itinerary, is "to strengthen the links between the armed forces of both countries."
According to the Chinese news agency Xinhua, López Miera, Vice Minister of the Armed Forces and chief of its General Staff, met with his Chinese counterpart, Chen Bingde.
"Chen hailed the sound communication and exchange of visits between military leaders of the two countries, saying it guaranteed a smooth development of Sino-Cuban military exchanges and cooperation," Xinhua reported.
Last week, López Miera met in Pyongyang with his North Korean counterpart Ri Yong Ho, who described the Cuban official's visit as "a milestone in developing the friendly and cooperative ties between the armies of the two countries and the overall bilateral relations."
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.