Cuban Colada

Dissidents support an end to the travel ban

Miriam Leiva, a founder of the dissident group Ladies in White, issued a statement in Havana on Monday saying that she and her "husband, Oscar Espinosa Chepe, fully support the lifting of the travel ban on Americans to visit Cuba."
Both have been vocal critics of the Cuban government.
On Thursday, Leiva testified via teleconference at a House committee hearing on the travel ban. In effect, her written statement reaffirmed that testimony. Excerpts:
• "To a Cuban woman who is denied the right to opine in her country, who has suffered reprisals for not bending to pressure and faces the harassment of the authorities, taking part in that [hearing] was a great responsibility.
• "Those in the United States who oppose the visit of its citizens invoke the financial impact of tourism in the Cuban economy, for fear it may invigorate the totalitarian regime. But, without a doubt, many thousands of Americans visiting Cuba would benefit our society and therefore our people. In the first place, through the free flow of ideas, and also by pressuring the government to allow self-employment for the offer of products and services such as room rentals, because hotel accomodations would be swamped.
• "Of course the Americans would spend money. It would be collected by the Cuban government, which is so inefficient that it could only keep small amounts, not enough to cover its major needs. [...] The money spent by the Americans would return through the purchases made from American farmers and other traders to supply the hotels, restaurants and stores.
• "The Cuban authorities [...] have used the embargo to justify their arbitrariness, economic inefficiency, mismanagement and repression. They fear losing that pretext, just as they panic at the idea of losing the excuse to keep the Americans out.
• "[The system] has fallen into a deep economic, political and social crisis, with no solution other than profound changes. These can come from the power structure, aware of their inevitability, or from the people, through desperation and civic commitment. They could come in velvet or violence, with great repression. We struggle for an understanding among all Cubans [...] We are convinced that a lessened tension in the relations between Cuba and the United States would help our objectives."
The entire text, in Spanish, is in Cubanuestra.nu.

Newspapers disagree on benefits of travel

Two diametrically opposed editorials appeared Friday in newspapers in Canada and the U.S.
• Under the headline "Don't Go to Cuba," The National Post of Canada tells tourists that Cuba is "a nation where the worst excesses of authoritarianism remain as entrenched as ever."
The Post cites the recently released Human Rights Watch poll as it remarks that "in Raúl's Cuba, as in Fidel's, unemployment is considered antisocial and the government can lock away anyone a summary trial finds guilty of 'dangerousness,' a legal catch-all.
"Once incarcerated, political prisoners are denied medical care, family visits and legal aid," The Post goes on. "Solitary confinement is a common and seemingly arbitrary form of discipline." And the editorial concludes: "Canadians should not be subsidizing this tyranny – directly or indirectly. If you want sun, try Miami, the Dominican Republic or St. Lucia. Don't go to Cuba." (For full text, click here.)
• Under the headline "Cuba's Isolation Begets Abuses," The Boston Globe editorial board states that "the fundamental fallacy underlying U.S. policy toward Cuba is that isolation forces transformation. The most glaring proof that the 50-year embargo has failed is that the Cuban regime remains profoundly repressive."
The Globe also cites the HRW's condemnation of the Castro government but comes to a different conclusion.
"As more Americans enter Cuba, so, too, will information and ideas that foster dissent and that undermine Castro’s ability to use the United States as a scapegoat for his repressive policies. And when the United States lifts the embargo – a policy that hurts Cuba’s poor and makes the island appear a victim of a rich, bullying neighbor – it will gain the credibility in Latin America to negotiate the release of Cuba’s political prisoners.
"If the repressive Cuban regime is to come to an end, it will not be through isolation, but through exposure to the ideals and virtues of free societies. Congress should act now on [the] proposal to lift the travel ban and promote progress in Cuba. It should be a first step toward eliminating the embargo, a damaging policy that has never borne its intended result." (For full text, click here.)
–Renato Pérez Pizarro, with thanks to Juan O. Tamayo.

Pros and cons of unfettered travel to Cuba

Quotes heard during Thursday's House committee hearing on travel to Cuba:
• Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) blasted efforts to open Cuba to American tourists, suggesting that the tourist dollars would only keep the regime in power.
"If you desire to come to a warm tropical climate, come to my district," she said. "Let's not fill the coffers of the Cuban regime."
• Committee chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.) said travel to Cuba is in the national interest of the United States.
"Waiting for a concession from Havana before we do something on behalf of our own citizens perversely puts the Cuban governent in charge of that decision," he said.
• Philip Peters, vice president of the Lexington Institute, said, in a prepared statement, that "there is every reason for Americans to do all we can to increase our influence in Cuba now. With great confidence in our values, administrations of both parties consistently criticize Cuba’s poor human rights record. With equal confidence in our values and our people, we should allow our citizens to travel without restriction to represent our country and the American ideals in Cuba." (For his entire statement, click here.)

• Miriam Leiva, a founding member of Ladies in White, testified in support of lifting the ban via teleconference from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. She said an influx of American tourists would benefit Cuba, "through the free flow of ideas. "We are positive that less tension in the relations between Cuba and the United States will favor our goals," she said. "We hope to greet you soon in Havana, when all Americans could visit Cuba."
• Berman read a statement from Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez, who said that "faced with no evolution of our current political and social situation, an opening of travel for Americans could bring more results in the democratization of Cuba than the indecisive performance of Raúl Castro. [...] Along with suitcases, Bermuda shorts and sunblock, support, solidarity and freedom could come too. Both peoples would come out winners."

–Lesley Clark and Renato Pérez Pizarro.

HRW: We favor an end to the travel ban

On the eve of a House committee hearing on the U.S. travel ban to Cuba, a Human Rights Watch official went on record as saying that his organization believes "lifting the travel ban represents an essential step towards ending a U.S. policy that has failed for decades to have any impact whatsoever on improving human rights in Cuba."
[For background, read our blog items "Travel ban will be subject of House hearing" (Nov. 15) and "Cuba rejects Human Rights Watch report" (Nov. 18). Read also this Washington Post update and this reaction from the Cuban News Agency.]
In a letter to the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Rep. Howard Berman (D-Ca.), José Miguel Vivanco, director of the HRW's Americas Division, pointed out that HRW had just issued a report critical of the Cuban government and then made the following points:
"Efforts by the U.S. government to press for change by imposing a sweeping ban on trade and travel have proven to be a costly and misguided failure. The embargo imposes indiscriminate hardship on the Cuban population as a whole and has done nothing to improve the situation of human rights in Cuba.
"Rather than isolating Cuba, the policy has isolated the United States, enabling the Castro government to garner sympathy abroad while simultaneously alienating Washington's potential allies.
"There is no question: the Cuban government bears full and exclusive responsibility for the abuses it commits. However, so long as the embargo remains in place, the Castro government will continue to manipulate U.S. policy to cast itself as a Latin American David standing up to a U.S. Goliath, a role it exploits skillfully.
"Ending the travel ban is a step in the right direction toward reforming this failed policy, and Congress should act swiftly to pass the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act.
"...Human Rights Watch recommends that the U.S. government replace its failed embargo policy with a more effective, multilateral approach. Our report lays out a proposal for the United States to work with allies in the European Union, Canada, and Latin America to forge a new coalition that will exert targeted pressure on the Raúl Castro government to release all political prisoners."
To read the HRW report on Cuba, click here.

Aruca: Review travel to Cuba by émigrés

Travel to Cuba by Cubans living in the United States is the topic of an interview with Miami travel specialist and radio commentator Francisco Aruca, published Monday in the Mexican daily La Jornada.
Interviewed in Havana, Aruca said he "would like the island [government] to understand that there are legitimate issues on the part of Cubans who live abroad. [...] For example, to be able to come to Cuba and buy a home here; to enjoy health services here. [...] A huge number of Cubans in Miami don't have such services. I am convinced that the day will come when an insurance company in the United States will say 'hospitalization will take place in Cuba.' That would enormously reduce costs. [...]
"Other examples: to come here to retire, [...] the possibility of investing here."
Asked about the rafters who left Cuba after the 1995 migration talks ("...there may be 20,000 or 30,000 of them..."), Aruca said that the Cuban government "has not allowed them to return. They haven't visited their families for 15 years. They're worse off than the Mariel folks, who waited only five or six years" to return.
Aruca favors "an immigration policy that takes into account that 95 percent of those people want to come in peace." He cited a conversation with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, who said, "almost verbatim, that this is a problem for which a solution must be found, so long as it does not create conflict with the United States government."
New migration talks (set for next month) might lead to "more methodical ways in which the Cuban government could deal with the needs of its émigrés," Aruca said. To read the interview, in Spanish, click here. For an English translation, click here.
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Cuban media react mildly to the disclosure of lobbyist's donations to U.S. lawmakers

Cuban reaction was prompt but mild to the disclosure that some members of Congress who assumed pro-embargo stances received cash donations from a pro-embargo political action committee. (See our Nov. 16 blog item "Money and Cuba policy..." and Lesley Clark's story in The Herald titled "Money affects Cuba policy.")
Alberto González, a press officer at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, sent Clark an e-mail saying that the report "reveals the tip of the iceberg of what moves behind U.S. policy toward Cuba. It also shows how money rules policy toward Cuba, not principles, ethics, justice and morality.
"The right of Americans to travel to Cuba [is] a constitutional right of American citizens. However, it is remarkable how these legislators accept money for something that goes against the very constitutional rights of the American people," he wrote.
The Cuban spokesman then zeroed in on one Congressman.
"It is interesting and scandalous that Sen. Bob Menéndez [D-N.J.] was one of those who received the most money for maintaining this type of policy against Cuba," he wrote. "Evidently, one must question whether his interests respond not to the Cuban community but to an issue of money.
"Bob Menéndez [...] is making policy toward Cuba on Republican grounds and against the interests of the real Cubans, even against his own party. If this is called democracy, then it should be 'the democracy of money.'"
(For a response from Menéndez's office, click here.)
In Havana, the Communist Party daily Granma borrowed an article titled "Who receives the money and who gives it," published in the website of Radio Miami, a program broadcast in South Florida by anti-embargo commentator Max Lesnik. The article lists the donations and the recipients and ends by saying: "All that remains is to post a sign outside the Capitol that says 'For rent or sale to the highest bidder.'"
The Cuban News Agency summarized the Radio Miami account under the headline "Yankee legislators charge for supporting policy against Cuba."
The official site Cubadebate published a factual report, without commentary, attributing its information to the Reuters news agency and The Miami Herald. It was reproduced by Radio Habana.
It will be interesting to see how soon Fidel Castro weighs in with a formal denunciation.
–Renato Pérez Pizarro, with thanks to Lesley Clark.

Money and Cuba policy: cause and effect?

Supporters of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba have donated $10.77 million to members of Congress since 2004 in an effort to keep lawmakers from weakening sanctions against the island, The Miami Herald's Lesley Clark reported Sunday, citing a study by an independent Washington organization..
In several cases, the study – by Washington-based Public Campaign – says, members of Congress who had supported easing sanctions against Cuba changed their position and then received donations from the U.S.-Cuba Democracy political action committee and its contributors.
"Critics of U.S.-Cuba policy have long suggested a link between campaign contributions and policy," Clark writes. David Donnelly, a Public Campaign official, sees "a damning pattern," but Mauricio Claver-Carone, director of U.S.-Cuba Democracy, calls the donations a "constitutional, democratic right to support candidates who believe in freedom and democracy for the Cuban people." [Radio Habana on Monday described the political action committee as one of several "anti-Cuban mafia groups."]
Public Campaign describes itself as "a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to sweeping campaign reform that aims to dramatically reduce the role of big special-interest money in American politics."
Its study says that at least 18 House members received contributions from the PAC or its donors and then switched to opposing efforts to soften the embargo. Miami's three Cuban-American Republican members of Congress – the Diaz-Balart brothers and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen – and Sen. Robert Menéndez (D-N.J.),are among the top five recipients.
To read Clark's entire report, click here. Accounts also appear in Granma and Cubadebate.
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Travel ban will be subject of House hearing

The full House Committee on Foreign Affairs will hold a hearing Thursday (Nov. 19) on the question "Is It Time To Lift the Ban on Travel to Cuba?"
The committee, chaired by Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Ca.), will meet in Room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building at 10 a.m. to listen to testimony from:
– Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, U.S. Army (retired), former chief of the Southern Command;
– Ignacio Sosa, member of the executive board of Friends of Caritas Cubana;
– Berta Antúnez, sister of dissident leader Jorge Luis García Pérez; and
– James Cason, former chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.
On April 29, General McCaffrey advocated the lifting of the U.S. trade embargo during a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs. At the time, he summarized his conclusions thus:
• "The people of Cuba need to determine their own future.
• "U.S. government role [...] must be supportive. We should start now by rapidly lifting the embargo. This will be a catalyst for political change.
• "Our technical experts can be helpful but they must work in partnership with capable Cubans and play a supportive role.
• "Cuba will reassume its place in the international community. We must recognize that it will have political, economic, and social relationships with multiple nations.
• "In the end, a broadly cooperative approach will be healthier for Cuba and for longer-term U.S.-Cuban relations.
• "Multilateral lending organizations like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and Inter-American Development Bank will make enormous contributions.
• "Government-to-government relations and accords will likely not be the centerpiece of future U.S.-Cuba dialogue. We must make space for civil society right from the start as we reengage with Cuba."
This week, García Pérez (aka "Antúnez") organized what he called a National Front for Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience that will stage "massive acts and civil demonstrations to achieve the unconditional release of all political prisoners in Cuba." Its slogan: "We all are the resistance."
García Pérez served 17 years in prison for civil disobedience. He was released in 2007.
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Con man is sentenced to 5 years in prison for selling bogus religious tours to Cuba

A California man was sentenced Monday to five years in state prison for selling "phony travel packages" to senior citizens seeking to visit Cuba for religious and cultural purposes, the California Attorney General's Office said in a press release.
Ralph Adam Rendón, 33, a resident of Santa Ana, was also ordered to pay $154,000 in restitution.
"Rendón never arranged for travel to Cuba, but used the funds to purchase a Mercedes, pay his rent and hire a divorce lawyer," AG Edmund Brown Jr. said.
In 2006, Rendón began advertising his travel agency, USA to Cuba, in religious magazines. He said he could arrange trips for Jewish and Greek Orthodox Americans who wanted to visit members of their faith in Cuba.
Approximately 41 individuals, including 20 senior citizens, responded to the ads and purchased travel packages priced at up to $4,000 each. Once Rendón received payment, he falsely informed his victims that the trip had been cancelled by the U.S. Treasury Department and then ignored demands for refunds.   
The case was referred for prosecution and Rendón was arrested in April 2008 on 78 charges of felony. For more details, click here.
–Renato Pérez Pizarro, with thanks to Lesley Clark.

Broward OKs bid to host air traffic to Cuba

Broward County (Fla.) commissioners approved seeking permission from the federal government to allow flights to and from Cuba at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Amy Sherman reported Tuesday in The Miami Herald.
County officials will also ask the U.S. Treasury Department to designate Port Everglades as another point of entry.
Spirit Airlines and JetBlue have expressed an interest in starting such flights in Fort Lauderdale. Broward airport director Kent George estimates that the airlines would start offering service a couple of times a week.
He said he had no immediate plans to send lobbyists to Washington, though he said that is a future possibility.
Adding flights to Cuba would not increase costs for the airport, George added. ``We have the gates, customs and security.'
To read Sherman's entire report, click here.