Cuban Colada

Senator gets assurances on Cuba policy, drops 'hold' on ambassadorial nominee

Senator George LeMieux (R-Fla.) says he has received assurances from the State Department that it will continue to accept requests from nonprofit groups for grants to aid the dissident movement in Cuba.
As LeMieux phrased it in a written statement, "the U.S. will reopen the process for nonprofit organizations to apply for pro-democracy grants; the practice of including members of the Cuban pro-democracy movement in events at the U.S. Interests Section will be restored; Title IV of the Helms Burton Act will be enforced; and the awarding of Cuba Democracy Assistance grants will be done in a fair and transparent manner."
Also, State has vowed it will continue to normalize relations with Honduras and President-elect Porfirio Lobo, in the wake of Manuel Zelaya's ouster. "Counter-narcotics cooperation will resume, and visa procedures will be normalized," the senator wrote.
Accordingly, LeMieux has dropped his "hold" on the State Department's nomination of Thomas Shannon as U.S. ambassador to Brazil. "Holds" are procedural tactics used by legislators to pressure government agencies to act in a certain way. (For additional information in The Miami Herald, click here.)
–Renato Pérez Pizarro, with thanks to Lesley Clark.

Poster on wall is indigestible to diner

Bradley Blakeman is no fan of communism.
A Republican Party consultant who works in Washington, Blakeman stopped the other day to eat at a restaurant and almost choked on his food when he saw a poster of Ernesto Che Guevara and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin on the wall.
According to The Washington Post's Reliable Source column, Blakeman fired a letter to the restaurant's owner, Andy Shallal, to complain about the pictorial tribute to "two of history's most notorious and infamous figures, who dedicated their lives to bringing misery and death to thousands of their political enemies."
The poster is "offensive and inappropriate," he wrote, and asked Shallal to remove it.
Shallal wrote back, saying that Guevara and Lenin "represent the struggles of working people. [,,,] They fought against the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few."
Blakeman told Reliable Source that he'll never eat at Shallal's restaurant again.
Referring to the fact that Shallal is an Iraqi immigrant, Blakeman said: "A guy who fled oppression and built a business in the U.S. – he never would have been able to do that under Che Guevara or Lenin."
Shallal's retort: "[George] Bush caused more death and destruction in the world than Che or Lenin.".
–Renato Pérez Pizarro, with thanks to Lesley Clark..
 

Havana weighs crackdown on corruption

The provincial committee of the Communist Party in Havana met this week to evaluate ways to deal with "illegalities, social indiscipline, crime and corruption," Radio Guantánamo reported Sunday in its website.
The local party's first secretary, Lázara Mercedes López Acea, said that "the lack of administrative control facilitates the criminal acts, half of which are committed by persons not linked to the work place." This seems to be an allusion to the theft of raw materials from work places such as construction sites, a major problem in the city.
López blamed "the lack of control by those who manage the resources of the state and must keep track of them."
Another topic discussed was "the recovery of land that is idle or insufficiently exploited for the production of food. The main difficulties in the sector are the delays in the execution of contracts, delays in the clearing of the areas, deficient utilization of spaces and insufficient frequency in the control by agrarian commissions.
"Added to this are the lack of agricultural tools and supplies, delays in the delivery of seeds, the lack of electric service for different uses, the need for irrigation systems, pumps for wells and the training of producers."
Although the article does not impute any wrongdoing to "comrade Roberto García Díaz, who looked after the sectors of the Economy, Judicial Organizations and Popular Power," it says that the Party "liberated him from his post" as a member of the Party's provincial bureau.
"Comrade Julio Martínez Ramírez, who was until recently first secretary of the National Committee of the Union of Communist Youths," replaced García, the report said.
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Russian parliamentarians visit the island

Another high-ranking Russian official is visiting the island. Ivan Ivanovich Melnikov, deputy chairman of the Duma and first deputy chairman of the Communist Party of Russia, met Thursday night with National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcón "to strengthen the ties between the two countries," Granma reported Saturday.
In the vague but typical description that characterizes official announcements, "the meeting unfolded in an environment of frankness and cordiality within the framework of the excellent relations of friendship" between the two legislative chambers, the paper said. No specifics.
Earlier Thursday, Melnikov met with Ricardo Cabrisas Ruiz, vice president of the Council of Ministers, and Yadira García Vera, Minister of Basic Industry.
Melnikov actually arrived in Cuba on Monday. His entourage included Vladimir Klimenkov, first deputy chairman of the Duma committee on transportation; Sergei Ivanov, member of the Duma committee on information and communications, and Vladimir Chikunov, Melnikov's chief of staff.
Prensa Latina's report points out that "the visit of the Russian parliamentarians also includes tours of historical and social interest, like the famed beach resort of Varadero," east of Havana.
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Trial is planned for individuals whose acts led to the ouster of Lage and Pérez Roque

Several Cuban personalities associated with ousted Vice President Carlos Lage and Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque will go on trial next year on charges that may include espionage and the disclosure of state secrets, El Nuevo Herald has learned from sources in the Cuban Prosecutor General's office.
The Prosecutor General himself, Juan Escalona Reguera, is expected to present the government's case. The defendants include:
• Entrepreneur Conrado Hernández, who worked for a Basque trade association and is believed to have delivered information about affairs of state to the Spanish intelligence service;
• Hernández's wife Amalia, a physician who worked at the Havana hospital where Fidel Castro was operated in 2006. She allegedly gave information about Castro's condition to Hernández, who in turn passed it on to his Spanish handlers.

• Raúl Castellanos Lage, cousin of the ousted Vice President, who allegedly made "counter-revolutionary statements" and disparaging remarks about First Vice President José Ramón Machado Ventura. (For background on the ouster in March of the two high officials, click here and also here.)
Prosecutor Escalona, 78, a retired Army general, is described as a hard-liner, whose prosecution of the case does not bode well for the defendants. According to Alcibíades Hidalgo, a former Cuban deputy foreign minister, Escalona's assignment to the case "is a terrible sign. [It] means that these people are going to be tried with the maximum severity. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes."
For the full story in El Nuevo Herald, click here.
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

A Cuban reporter's frustrations boil over

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you...
José Alejandro Rodríguez, a regular columnist for Juventud Rebelde, has written a scathing j'accuse "against the demons of sequestered information," as he titles his latest article. The object of his ire is trickle-down information.
"The problem, and we in Juventud Rebelde are living it," he writes, "is that information does not escape the excessive centralization of our economy and society in general. [...] Very often, decisions are made way up top about what to say and inform and what not to say about the major topics of society..."
Officials refuse to answer reporters' questions, claiming that they've explained everything in appearances on the radio-TV program Round Table, Rodríguez complains. "The hyperbolization of the Round Table as the stage for supreme information is an assault on the necessary versatility and variety that distinguish good journalism," he scoffs."'Round-Tableization' is a major contribution to the bureaucratization of journalism."
Announcements are made about socioeconomic tactics being undertaken but no one explains HOW they'll be accomplished, Rodríguez says. For example, after the distribution of idle land in usufruct was announced, the subject "could not be talked about, not even mentioned. In this newsroom, I was told the decision came from above."
The press is asked to help promote the decree that created a results-based salary scheme, but "the bureaucrats refuse to complicate their lives with the [new] rules and the sliding wage scales. It's easier to be egalitarian, to pay the usual dues. And nobody explains why merit pay has run into a wall in Cuba."
Another example. A reporter goes to the Ministry of the Economy, asking for confirmation of a rumor that dining halls for workers are going to be eliminated. "The minister turns him over to the vice minister; the vice minister tells the reporter that he should check with the minister. Back and forth goes the ball, until the vice minister confesses that an experiment is being studied but there is no intention to report on it 'for now.' One week later, an article on the subject appears in Granma and the reporter feels deceived. Could that be the concept of 'Granmatitis'? Could it be that only in Granma can information acquire supreme majesty?"
"There is no shortage of examples of the many functionaries who assume the right to decide what information can be given out, after looking upward to receive the blessing for a news item that's already cold dead. Almost no one dares to inform the press and maintain horizontal relations without the approval of his superiors. And often the chain of genuflection extends for several levels and institutions – until the news is buried by life itself."
"Information is public property and we mustn't replace it with timed, allotted information, with virtual information, with information-propaganda, or convenient information, information extracted with tweezers, or however you want to call it," Rodríguez writes. "Information is information."
The column – which is long and at present is published only in Spanish – is notable for the bluntness of its frustration. It makes for interesting reading. Click here for it. [UPDATE: On Saturday, the column had disappeared from the online edition of Juventud Rebelde. Fortunately, Spanish blogger Jorge Ferrer downloaded it before it was removed. Click here.]
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Almeida, a leader of the Revolution, dies

Juan Almeida Bosque, a comrade-in-arms of the Castro brothers since the start of their guerrilla struggle in Cuba back in the early 1950s, died Friday of a heart attack at age 82, The Associated Press reported.
Almeida was once among the most important and decisive voices in the battle to overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, as well as in the early years following the Jan. 1, 1959, triumph of the revolution, the news agency said.
To read the AP obituary, click here. For an obituary from Radio Nuevitas, click here. (UNDATED PHOTO SHOWS, from left, Raúl Castro, Almeida, and Fidel Castro.)

Cuba's envoy to Brazil reassigned to U.N.

Pedro Juan Núñez Mosquera, Cuba's ambassador to Brazil since 2004, has been appointed Cuba's chief delegate to the United Nations, with ambassadorial rank.
He replaces Abelardo Moreno Fernández, who in turn replaced Rodrigo Malmierca, promoted last November to Minister of Foreign Investment.
Núñez, 58, entered diplomatic service in 1975 and has held several diplomatic posts, including deputy foreign minister, ambassador to Zimbabwe in 1994 and director of multilateral affairs at the Cuban Foreign Ministry.

Chinese, Cuban officials exchange visits

China's top legislator, Wu Bangguo, left Beijing on Monday "kicking off his official good-will visits to Cuba, the Bahamas and the United States from Aug. 31 to Sept. 12," the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.
Wu, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and member of the Communist Party's Politburo, is the guest of Ricardo Alarcón, president of Cuba's National Assembly. In the United States, his host will be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In June, Wu flew to Moscow to meet with President Dmitri Medvedev.
Cuba's Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, is traveling to Beijing for meetings with his Chinese counterpart, Tang Jiaxuan, and other officials, Sept. 1-3. On Thursday, he will go on to North Korea, where he will stay until Saturday. [UPDATE: Wu arrived in Vancouver, Canada, and will stay there Monday night before proceeding to Havana.]
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Díaz-Balart derided by Cuban website

The news that Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart had decided not to seek the Senate seat left vacant by Mel Martínez (see The Herald's story here) was reported Wednesday in Havana by Cubadebate.com, a website favored by Fidel Castro.
At the end of an otherwise straight news account of Díaz-Balart's decision, Cubadebate added this comment:
"It wasn't profitable for him to leave his seat as Representative to spend only one year and a half in the Senate. He realized that, except for the ultra-radical sect that burns paintings and destroys music records with a hammer, nobody gives a pea for him as a Senator. Lincoln Díaz-Balart is as despicable as he appears to be."
News and opinion in one package. How neat.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.