Would-be Cuban defectors from Guyana face tough times- Wikileaks

Several Guyana-based Cuban doctors, who wanted to defect to the United States, had fled the airport and gone into hiding, fearing that Guyanese and Cuban officials would have tracked them down and return them to Cuba, a cable released by Wikileaks has revealed.

Having worked for meagre salaries and unable to save enough, they usually have to endure months of waiting to know whether their parole applications are approved.

Six Cuban doctors had gone into the United States embassy and were interviewed for Signficant Public Benefit Parole under the Cuban Medical Personnel program.

“Three of the pending applicants are in hiding, reporting that they cannot move freely for fear that Guyanese police or Cuban embassy personnel may apprehend them and repatriate them to Cuba,” the cable stated back then.

One of the doctors complained that the Cuban government canceled his passport after he refused to board a plane to ostensibly accompany a six doctor back to Cuba. He told the US embassy that he felt that he was being tricked after Cuban authorities might have been informed that he had visited the American embassy here to request parole.

“The applicant refused to board the plane because of a hunch that he was being tricked into repatriating himself. Subsequently, Cuban Embassy authorities told him that his passport would be canceled immediately. They also removed him from the medical brigade and labeled him a deserter,” the cable states.

The Wikileaks cable also reveals that Cuba had dispatched a new manager to Guyana in December 2006, aimed at cracking down on Cuban medical personnel who have intentions to request parole or flee Guyana.The revelation, which is contained in a March 30, 2007 cable from the US embassy here to the State Department, appears to confirm previous news media reports that the Guyana government has taken a policy not to grant citizenship to Cuban doctors who refuse to return to Havana even if they marry Guyanese. The embassy reported to the State Department that the renewal of the doctor's visa is done done six months prior to the conclusion of their medical mission so that the termination of their legal status will coincide with their repatriation to Cuba.

The cable notes that Cuban medical personnel who apply for parole are ostracized. Any Cuban medical professional who maintains communication with parole applicants is at risk of losing his/her legal status in Guyana and job with the medical brigade.

The embassy said three of the parole applicants told the Consular Officer that upon arrival in Guyana members of the Cuban Medical Brigade are forced to surrender their passports and they are returned just before they are about to board the plane to return to Cuba at the end of their two-year stint. Those who went to the embassy with their passports said they fled the Cheddi Jagan International Airport and went into hiding after they were chased.

“The applicants that came to the Embassy with their passports risked arrest by fleeing from the airport rather than returning to Cuba. They reported that "official-looking" people chased them as they ran to a taxi and drove away from the airport. They went into hiding until they felt safe enough to come to the U.S. Embassy to file an application for parole,” states the cable.

The embassy told the State Department that the Cuban doctor who was approved for parole was hesitant to travel because he feared for the safety of his female colleagues whose applications had been still pending. Three of the pending applicants had been in hiding and had reported that they could not have moved freely for fear that Guyanese police or Cuban embassy personnel might have apprehended them and repatriated them to Cuba.

“All of the parole applicants expect their families in Cuba to be targeted for reprisals because of their failure to return to Cuba after the completion of their mission,” the cable added.

The embassy said that Cuban applicants for parole told them that the only reason that the US embassy in Guyana does not receive many more parole applications is that they are terrified of being seen entering the U.S. Embassy. Consular Officers, according to the cable, sense that Cuban medical personnel are willing to take the risk of requesting parole; however once they do, they are faced with months of delay and uncertainty. “Since many applicants are requesting parole after they have completed the medical mission, they are no longer legally employed and unable to subsist on their meager savings while awaiting a decision from the Department of Homeland Security that can take months to process.

Against the backdrop of meager funds on which to live, the cable states Cuban medical personnel who have applied for parole rely on former colleagues for assistance. “Presently, they rely on the assistance that some former colleagues are willing to give them at much risk to their own status.”

“Local charities can offer very little assistance to political refugees. Moreover, every time the applicants have to leave their hiding place to ask for assistance, they risk detention and deportation because of their lack of status,” the cable adds.

Cuban medical personnel, the cable states, receive very low wages compared to their Guyanese counterparts, and their contracts require them to relinquish fifty percent of any overtime pay to the Central Unit for Medical Cooperation (UCCM) in Havana. The Cuban doctor's monthly salary is equivalent to US$500 from which US$100 is deducted on a monthly basis and contractually remitted back to the UCCM. Overtime is accumulated at the rate of US$1.25 per hour, and doctors on the overnight shift make US$2.50 per night. In comparison, Guyanese doctors typically make US$1,500 per month.

Source: Demerarawaves

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Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Libya… Is Cuba next?

With the global financial crisis, ongoing Arab Spring and now the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s in Libya, there must be a collective worry for the world’s last remaining dictators and authoritarian governments.

Since free or cheap goods and money from other countries to dictatorships are in short supply and with the Internet being a collective unifying force that appears to be more powerful than many military governments, no leader in any repressive country can wake up in the morning without wondering if their country will be next to see an uprising.

The world’s people are demanding their freedom. People are tired of living under repression and now they can easily organize online.

With the spreading of the Arab Spring, I feel compelled to write this article posing the question… Is Cuba next? First, let me explain my reasons for posing this question.

The Arab Spring Contagion

Samia Nakhoul of Reuters from Beirut writes “The implosion of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s 41-year-old rule will put a new spring in the step of the Arab revolutions and demonstrate once again that these entrenched autocratic governments are not invincible.”

Rami Khouri, a Middle East analyst said this Arab Spring is an important development because “it shows there are different ways in which Arab regimes will collapse. It just shows once you get a momentum developing and the right combination—a popular will for change and regional and international support—no regime can withstand that.”

Today President Obama said “The people of Libya are showing that the universal pursuit of dignity and freedom is far stronger than the iron fist of a dictator.”

David Rothkopf of Foreign Policy writes about the Conclusions and implications of the fall of Gaddafi.

Many people, including myself, have given up trying to predict the end of the Castro regime but I think we can all agree that it is not a matter of IF the Castro’s Communist regime will end, it is a matter of WHEN it will end. Fidel and Raul must be feeling international political and economic pressures to give the Cuban people more freedoms and human rights respect. Yes, Raul has proposed many economic reforms but VERY FEW political reforms. That might work for China but Cuba is NOT China.

Will the Arab Spring affect US Cuba policy?

Also, worth mentioning here, will President Obama change his Cuba policy from the current approach of allowing more Americans to travel to Cuba to a more, hard-line approach as President Bush tried… and failed. With justice served to Osama bin Laden, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and now with Gadaffi on the run, will President Obama take credit for the downfall of these men and set his sights on the Castro brothers regime? I doubt it but since President Obama wants to win in November 2012, his vision and motivation may be corrupted by hard line, selfish advisers from Miami. Hopefully he will not start taking advice from the selfish politicians like Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart, Debbie Wasserman-Shultz and Senator Menendez… all who have been wrong about Cuba for their entire political careers. Sanctions do not work against Cuba and they will never work but I’ll save that argument for another article.

I hope President Obama elects to engage the Castro’s rather than to try to alienate them. Regarding Chavez in Venezuela, President Obama should play hard ball with him since he is trying to destroy Venezuela as Fidel Castro did to Cuba.

Cuba - A State Sponsor of Terrorism

Agree or not, Cuba is on the US state sponsor of terrorism list. I think that Cuba’s place on the US state sponsor of terrorism list is more political than based on any facts that Cuba actually sponsors terrorists. Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria are all on the list but North Korea is not? How about Pakistan since that’s where Osama bin Laden was living for years and that government didn’t know about it? What a joke...

Gaddafi coming to Cuba?

On August 4, I wrote an article about the Finance Secretary from Libya making a visit to Cuba. I found it odd at the time and now have to wonder if the Finance Secretary may have been asking Raul Castro if he would accept Gaddafi should he have to flee Libya. Interesting right? I would hope that Raul would have the sense to not allow Gaddafi to seek exile in Cuba.

If Gaddafi did land in Cuba, I see that as being more of a Fidel Castro move than a Raul Castro move. Gaddafi in exile in Cuba would certainly be a financial and cultural disaster for Cuba so I don’t think that Fidel is in charge that much where Raul would let him ruin everything that Raul has started. A younger Fidel would probably welcome Gaddafi and that brings me to Hugo Chavez. I can definitely see Chavez taking Gaddafi as an a “victim of US imperialism”.

Gaddafi coming to Venezuela?

According to The Telegraph, Gaddafi could flee to a country not signed up to the International Criminal Court such as Venezuela or Cuba.

A source told The Telegraph that Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela was looking the most likely destination if Gaddafi were able to, and chose to, flee Libya. Hugo Chavez has condemned NATO operations in Libya as an attempt to seize control of the country’s vast oilfields. “Chavez would take him as a victim of Western Imperialism,” the source said.

As recently as this morning, Chavez is supporting Gaddafi. If Chavez welcomes Gaddafi, you can expect democratic governments to condemn Chavez and bring all kinds of political pressure on him. Chavez will probably love the attention but this ultimately would be terrible for Cuba.

More Freedoms

I am no great political thinker, writer or analyst but I can’t help but to speculate on how people want their freedoms today in a collective way. The internet enables people to be free in many ways. Facebook and Twitter allow people to unite or at least find like minded people and that freedom of assembly can give way to hope for a change in one’s government and ultimately the hope for a better future.

Even in the US, we have the Tea Party (a movement I support) where millions of people have “assembled” online and at the voting booth to demand more freedom and less intrusion from our own government. In the US, we don’t need to take up arms and fight the government with bullets, we fight within the political process of freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, freedom of the press and free elections.

Now I know this is a reach but hear me out… Hewlett Packard has decided to get out of the computer manufacturing business. How the hell is this relevant you ask? Apple, Google, smartphones… these are the rebels fighting against the desktop computer and software that is only available on one computer. Today we want to be free from the computer for information and free from software that lives on one device. Microsoft. Are you listening?

Gene Marks of Forbes writes about Google buying Motorola Mobility where he compares Microsoft to the Roman Empire, a truly repressive government. He speculates that Microsoft (sort of a repressive regime since they USED TO own all computer operating systems and force us to do things there way).

He goes on to talk about how Google/Motorola/Android and Apple are freeing people from the desktop computer and Microsoft’s empire so oddly enough, I think his story is relevant to the Arab Spring uprisings. We all want to be free from any authoritarian regime. We are smart enough to make good decisions for ourselves.

So, is Cuba next?

Unfortunately not.

1. The Castros, by design, control all communication in Cuba. All the press is controlled by the government. All the radio and TV is controlled by the government. The Internet is by design slow and restricted. (Don’t let anybody tell you the US Embargo is to blame for any of this). The Castros do not want people to communicate because they know what can happen. When people communicate they can share ideas and find like-minded people and then assemble and then demand freedoms… way too risky for a failed political experiment called, oddly enough “La Revolucion”. Fidel and Raul do not want to have another Revolution in Cuba.

2. The Committee for the Defense of the Revolution is a Cuban government operation which is like having a Resident Assistant in every college dormitory. Every neighborhood has an active CDR staffed with people loyal to the Cuban government. It is their job to spy on their neighbors and to report any suspicious activity to the Cuban government. They get rewarded for reporting all of their neighbors’ “suspect” activities… and you would be surprised what is considered a “suspect” activity.

3. Since most all activities are illegal in Cuba, MOST Cubans have to break some law every single day of their life just to survive. The Castros have locked down the entire country in what many call and “island prison”.

In summary, I wish Democracy minded rebels well in their quest for freedom and democracy and I sincerely hope this ultimately leads to a new Cuban government where the Cuban people can enjoy a political process of freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, freedom of the press and free elections.

By Rob Sequin

Source: Havana Journal 

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Acts of bravado hardly the panacea for failed states

Mugabe and Castro, two losers in power for decades.

Lots of my friends studied in Cuba. When they returned after four years on the Caribbean Island they waxed lyrical about the great revolutionary Fidel Castro. None of them had anything bad to say about him. One of my greatest wishes therefore was to meet this great icon before he or I died. Now because of his poor health this might not be possible or even necessary!

It has become clear in the past few months that my friends had been allowed to see, or had not been inquisitive enough to discover, what was really happening in Cuba. They were beneficiaries of Castro’s magnanimity and our own government encouraged a view of the island that was beyond reproach.

But I had my own fears. A few years ago the high-profile defection of two Cuban doctors working in Zimbabwe had awakened in the minds of even the least sceptical that “everything was but what it was not”.

Last September Castro confirmed in his own words that his economic model no longer worked even for Cuba.

He told Jeffrey Goldberg, a writer for the Atlantic Monthly magazine that “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.”

Even in that statement Castro was being economic with the truth. Soviet-style socialism never worked for Cuba in the 50 years that he was forcing it upon his country.

A week ago Castro’s party, the Communist Party of Cuba, was meeting to discuss a raft of reforms that would, it was hoped, transform the country into a modern state and, more importantly, save the moribund party.

That meeting coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs.

On April 17 1961 about 1 300 exiles, armed with US weapons, landed at the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast of Cuba. Hoping to find support from the local population, they intended to cross the island to Havana.

It was evident from the first hours of fighting that the exiles were likely to lose.

President JF Kennedy had the option of using the US Air Force against the Cubans but decided against it. Consequently, the invasion was stopped by Castro’s army.

By the time the fighting ended on April 19, 90 exiles had been killed and the rest had been taken as prisoners. The invasion made Castro wary of the US. He was convinced that the Americans would try to take over the island again. From the Bay of Pigs on, Castro had an increased fear of a US incursion on Cuban soil.

This was a heroic moment for Cuba for successfully defending its sovereignty but it also defined how Cuba was to operate in the next half century.

Because of the paranoia that resulted from the Bay of Pigs episode Cuba has been defined by little acts of bravado that brought economic stasis.

In the interview with Goldberg Castro even criticised his own actions during another little act of bravado, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when he urged the Soviet Union to launch nuclear weapons against the United States, telling Goldberg “it wasn’t worth it at all”.

How many other acts of the Communist Party of Cuba were not worth it at all? Sports boycotts, for example, were they worth it? And these were many.

For political reasons, Cuba boycotted the 2002 Central American and Caribbean Games in San Salvador, El Salvador. In 1987, Cuba did not compete at the Women’s World Junior Volleyball Championships in Seoul (South Korea). The reason: there were no diplomatic relations between Cuba and South Korea.

For political reasons, Cuba did not send a baseball team to the 27th Baseball World Cup in South Korea in 1982. Cuba boycotted the 1988 Olympic Games in South Korea.

Cuba sent only seven athletes to the 2007 World University Games in Thailand, heeding Fidel Castro’s fears about future defections. But the 1991 Pan American Games were held in Havana in which 39 countries participated. It is reported the Games were a huge source of pride for Castro.

Castro has been replaced as the leader of the Communist Party by his younger brother Raul who is trying to lead reforms, the major hitch though is that Raul himself is 79 years old and his vice José Ramón Machado Ventura, is an 80-year-old veteran of the revolution.

What this means is that although Raul is urging both political and economic reform, Cuba will for a while longer remain in the clutches of the same leadership that has failed to move it forward in the past 50 years.

One factor that stands out is that among Raul’s proposed reforms is not the opening of political space to other political parties. His major reform is that presidential terms would be limited to two five-year terms. This will not personally affect him for it will allow him to remain at the helm until 2018 when he will be 86.

A Cuban independent economist is quoted saying that term limits won’t “resolve our essential problem, which is the monopoly on power by a group whose policies have failed for 50 years.”

But Raul does not see this; he wants to stick with the same geriatric leadership instead of inviting competing opinion:
“Today, we are faced with the consequences of not having a reserve of well-trained replacements with sufficient experience and maturity to undertake the new and complex leadership responsibilities in the Party, the State and the Government,” he said at his party congress.

What is clear from the Cuban fiasco is that eventually it is not the little acts of bravado that will stand a country in good stead on the world stage but its cultural software. By cultural software I refer to a country’s exploits in the arts, in sport and in initiatives that encourage national and world peace.

South Africa, for example, has taken its place on the world stage because of the efforts of liberation icon Nelson Mandela, when he was still able to bring peace to the world after he reunited his own people who had just emerged from apartheid. The leaders that followed him are also engaged in peace-building initiatives on the African continent. But also importantly, its hosting of the Rugby World Cup and the Fifa World Cup have made it a giant on the world stage.

In Zimbabwe Zanu PF’s little acts of bravado have not moved the country forward. Gukurahundi, Murambatsvina, chaotic land reform, pulling out of the Commonwealth and alienating the country from the West have already brought untold suffering on the common people.

When will President Mugabe meet his Damascus moment and ask himself: “Is his model working for us anymore?”

By Nevanji Madanhire

Source: The Standard

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Mind control keeps Cubans in line

Cyber cafe in Havana, Cuba.

The 15-year verdict handed down by a Cuban "court" against U.S. citizen Alan Gross is the deeply unjust result of events that bear no relationship to due process in an impartial legal system. Let's call this cynical manoeuvre what it really is -- blackmail.

The 61-year-old Gross is not a criminal of any sort. He's a chess piece manipulated by the Cuban regime in the relentless war against its own people. The Castro brothers want to stop ordinary Cubans from obtaining the slightest bit of information from the outside world from any independent source. Punishing this envoy from a private U.S. company financed by a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development is a convenient way to deter further efforts to circumvent Cuba's extensive system of communications surveillance.

Satellite phones are increasingly common instruments used to make calls around the world. But not in the Orwellian world run by Fidel and Raul Castro and their paranoid minions. In Cuba, a satellite phone such as the one Gross is accused of carrying for use by the island's tiny and impoverished Jewish community is deemed a dangerous weapon in an alleged "cyber war" being waged by the U.S. government to bolster a web of spies plotting to bring down the government.

In most countries, a violation of customs regulations might result in a stiff fine and possible expulsion from the country. In Cuba, where the state controls all information outlets, violations that threaten the state's hegemony are seen as crimes that endanger the security of the state.

The real target of this mock-judicial charade is the "pro-democracy" funding from USAID designed to promote Cuba's budding civil society movement. People who can think for themselves, talk to each other and learn from each other without government intrusion represent a danger to the state's tyrannical masters, which practice various forms of mind control designed to snuff out any kind of independent action.

At a minimum, the punitive actions against Gross should throw a splash of cold water on what some call the warming in relations between Washington and Havana. He should be released unconditionally and immediately. As long as Alan Gross remains in jail, there can be no improvement in U.S.-Cuba relations.

President Obama came to office saying his administration would respond positively to an unclenched fist from previously hostile governments. We doubt the mistreatment of Alan Gross by the Cuban government is what he had in mind as an appropriate response.

From: Winnipeg Free Press

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Castro vs Batista

Castro to Batista: "Are we there yet?"

Fifty-two years into the Revolution, Fidel Castro will have achieved all the failings, real and perceived, that Cuba had under Batista, and it will have retained few of the virtues.

Over at the Museo de la Revolucion, Fidel Castro's case against the dictator he overthrew 52 years ago is vividly on display.

Fulgencio Batista was evil incarnate, the museum earnestly instructs visitors in room after room of the once-magnificent building, formerly a presidential palace built in 1920 and decorated by Tiffany's of New York. Under Batista and his predecessors, we learn through photos and text, Cuba became a playground for crass tourists who came for sex, drink and gambling, and who crowded the country's pristine beaches to the detriment of ordinary folk. To drive home the immorality of pre-socialist times, the museum displays an original National Lottery of Cuba ticket from early in the century, a symbol of the country's fall from grace.

We learn that Batista was an illegitimate leader, the election he won stolen by manipulating the press. Worse, Batista intimidated, even jailed or killed, political opponents.

But Batista also failed Cuba by failing to invest government funds wisely. One damning display berates Batista's priorities with a list of budget line items that show government expenditures on frills such as roads, promenades and buildings. Batista's sky-high spending on telecommunications - which the display dubs as military - comes in for criticism. Another display lambastes Batista for failing to diversify the economy. Another still, which provides a year-by-year report of sugar output, accuses Batista of neglecting this all-important industry. The numbers show a downward trend, interrupted with some up-ticks, in the 1950s, and then a giant leap forward, as Castro mobilized the country to produce more sugar in one of his regime's grand economic plans.

The moral and economic rot under Batista led to humiliation and human tragedy, the museum tells us. "Many women who were denied jobs saw themselves forced to become prostitutes in order to survive," said one display. Said another: "According to a census in 1953, there were 200,000 shacks and misery huts." Said a third, also referring to the 1953 census: "40,939 people died due to lack of medical attendance and unsanitary living conditions."

The history the museum imparts is part truth, part fiction and all hypocrisy. Batista was indeed an unsavory character. He did oversee a corrupt administration in Cuba. He did undermine the halting democracy that the United States helped create after liberating Cuba from oppressive Spanish occupation at the turn of the century.

But Cuba and its U.S.-style constitution was also an economic powerhouse with potent social institutions and impressive accomplishments. A 1958 United Nations report ranked Cuba's vibrant free press eighth in the world, and first in Latin America. Despite its much smaller population, Cuba had 160 radio stations compared to the U. K.'s 62 and France's 50. It had 23 television stations compared to Mexico's 12 and Venezuela's 10. The tiny country supported 58 newspapers, fourth in Latin America behind populous Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.

Raul Castro (r), now the President of Cuba, in the hands of Fulgencio Batista (around 1938).

Cuba once installed telephones at a rapid rate. No more. It once ranked first in Latin America, fifth in the world, in television sets per capita, and also ranked high in radios, automobiles, and many other consumer goods. No more. With the population increased and the housing stock degraded, more people suffer inadequate housing today than ever before, and sanitary conditions have become a scandal through much of the country.
 
The information-hungry populace in the Batista era was well-educated, as it remains. Student registration at primary schools in 1955 was 1,032 students per 10,000 inhabitants, higher than the figures for 1990 of 842. The registration rate for higher education was an impressive 38 per 10,000, about the same as it was 10 years later (34 per 10,000) and 15 years later (41 per 10,000). The country, in fact, had a long history of high literacy levels: At the turn of the 20th century, only 28% of those 10 and over couldn't read or write, not that different from the current figure, 100 years later, of 16%.

But unlike today, Cuba's economy under Batista was powerful, both domestically and in exports, and it was becoming increasingly diversified. Under Castro, its economy is in tatters, nowhere more so than in the sugar industry that Castro once promoted so heavily. A few years ago, Castro announced a shut down of half of the country's sugar mills. "We had to act or face ruin," he explained. As he told NBC News at the time. "It cost us more to produce sugar than what we could sell it for."

But if Batista bested Castro in virtually every broad socio-economic indicator, he paled in comparison when it came to controlling either the electoral process or the populace. Castro executed thousands of political opponents after he came to power, imprisoned tens of thousands and caused hundreds of thousands to flee to exile. Where Batista won a disputed election, a Castro election leaves no room for dispute: Castro allows no opponents, no opposing viewpoints to appear in the press, and, because that might not be enough, his political machine ensures a good turnout by keeping tabs on who votes and who doesn't: In the 2003 national election, Castro managed a 90%-plus "yes" vote, not quite as impressive as Saddam Hussein's 100% but, among dictators, respectable enough.

Those who revile Batista often point to a decadent economy that relied on mafia-run casinos, prostitution and other demeaning jobs servicing tourists. Tourism was important under Batista - Havana was an east-coast alternative to Las Vegas, complete with the sex and gaming, and the same mafia owners - but never as important as tourism has become today. Cuba's once diversified economy is gone and Castro is now putting all of his hopes in attracting tourists.

To do this, Castro's Cuba now permits prostitution, it winks at sex tourism - tourist guide books even include sections on the country's once-taboo gay and bisexual scenes - and, as under Batista, the country unabashedly invests heavily in tourism. In 2003, Castro inaugurated a US$100-million resort on the island's northeastern coast, broadcast nationwide, to underscore the importance the government places on the new five-hotel complex of 944 rooms able to house 1,500 tourists.

Tourism is now Cuba's No. 1 source of foreign income, with 1.6 million visitors generating about US$2-billion in 2002. More tourists come from Canada than from other important sources of foreign exchange, chiefly Germany, Britain, Italy, France, and Switzerland. Castro, like Batista, is eyeing one other important tourist market.

"Our friends from the north are not in this list," Castro said once with a grin, referring to Americans that can't travel to Cuba due to U.S. government regulations.

Some day soon, perhaps, Castro's dream may be realized, and Cuba's economy may once again benefit from U.S. tourism. If it does, Cuba under Castro will have recovered one of the benefits that the country once enjoyed. Fifty-two years into the Revolution, Castro will have achieved all the failings, real and perceived, that Cuba had under Batista, and it will have retained few of the virtues.

Updated from an article by Larry Solomon in the Capitalism Magazine

Some images from Cuba before 1959  

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A Transformational Year For Cuba Policy

Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina, currently in prison, is one of the faces of the pro-democracy movement in Cuba.

Since Fidel Castro fell ill in 2006 and transferred power to his brother Raul, members of Congress have been weighing possible options in U.S. policy toward Cuba, partially by raising the fundamental question: “is there a viable pro-democracy movement in Cuba?”

The uncertainty is not surprising. For years much of the foreign policy establishment in New York and Washington, and advocates of “normalizing” relations with Cuba, have argued there are no viable alternatives to Cuba’s totalitarian dictatorship. The only answer is to “throw in the towel,” unilaterally lift U.S. sanctions and engage the Castros. Somehow this engagement is supposed to alter their ruthless behavior.

That position had been music to the Castros’ ears. But on February 23, 2010, it was permanently debunked. That tragic morning, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a forty-two year old afro-Cuban plumber and pro-democracy activist, died after an eighty-five day hunger strike. He was protesting the abuses of the Castro regime, his unjust imprisonment and denial of medical care.

Literally overnight, the international community's focus dramatically shifted. All of a sudden, there was undoubtedly a concrete pro-democracy movement in Cuba, noted for its courage and resilience. Since then, there is hardly a news story about Cuba that does not mention the opposition movement. While qualifiers such as “small,” “fractional,” and “divided” are frequently used by foreign news bureaus in Havana as they describe the pro-democracy movement—likely to avoid being booted from the island by the Castro regime—foreign reports no longer ignore the fact that a movement exists.

These accounts highlight a highly diverse group, challenging the Cuban state in a multitude of ways. There are the quixotic efforts of the wives, sisters, and daughters of Cuba's political prisoners, known as the Ladies in White, who dress in white and parade through public plazas. New regional bases of popular support are being carved out by leaders such as Jorge Luis Perez Garcia “Antunez” in the central province of Matanzas, by Orlando Zapata Tamayo's mother and siblings in the eastern province of Holguin, and by the Rodriguez Lobaina brothers in the Castros’ home province of Santiago de Cuba. These follow the historic trend of Cuba’s most prevalent revolutionary movements—against Spanish colonialism in the nineteenth century and against the Batista dictatorship in the 1950s—both of which originated in the eastern provinces and expanded westward to Havana. And then there is the stinging critique of the island's ever-growing blogger movement, led by Generation Y's Yoani Sanchez.

Cuba’s pro-democracy movement is becoming an increasingly difficult force to ignore. And for better or worse, everyone knows it.

The Castro regime knows it.

It is no coincidence that Fidel and Raul have spent the better part of 2010 doing back-flips to divert attention from the opposition. They have brought Fidel "back from the dead"—as he himself now boasts—for an ongoing series of speeches and interviews in which he has neurotically predicted nuclear holocaust and admitted the failings of Cuba’s socialist model (though he later recanted). The Castros have extended land-leases for foreigners to build sailing marinas and golf courses—for the use of foreigners only, of course. And most importantly, they began a crisis management campaign to clean up their image by announcing the release of dozens of political prisoners to Spain, although they will never be allowed to return to Cuba. Throughout the world, the Castro regime is now seen as making concessions in order to draw attention away from the pro-democracy movement.

The Catholic Church knows it.

At the peak of a summer standoff led by the Ladies in White and a hunger strike by a former political prisoner, Guillermo Farinas, the Catholic Church quickly saw an opportunity to become relevant, after decades of religious oppression and institutional silence. Catholic leaders volunteered themselves to intercede with the Castro regime to negotiate the release of political prisoners. What remains to be seen is whether the Church's intervention strengthened or weakened the pro-democracy movement by downplaying their role in the negotiations. Regardless, it represented an acknowledgment of the movement’s existence—and the potential power to be derived from it—by the Church.

The Spanish government knows it.

Just as the Catholic Church moved to intercede, the Spanish government weighed in as well. But unlike the Church, it was not motivated by its waning influence. Instead, it intervened as part of its ongoing effort to protect billions in investments on the island. Nothing is worse for business than instability and unpredictability. Again, this is a nod to the power of the opposition to disrupt business as usual.

Now finally, the U.S. Congress also appears to recognize it.

Instead of asking: is there a viable pro-democracy movement, members of Congress are asking: how can the United States support it?

In a July 14 letter to the U.S. Congress, some 500 pro-democracy leaders in Cuba explained how the United States might help, or at least avoid setting the movement back:

“At a moment such as this, to be benevolent with the dictatorship would mean solidarity with the oppressors of the Cuban nation. [We] believe that the freedom of Cuba will not arrive by means of the pocket-book or the lips of libidinous tourists, who are aseptic to the pain of the Cuban family. Rather, it will come through the efforts of those who, from within and abroad, fight for democratic change in Cuba.”

Plainly stated, the message of these pro-democracy leaders is simple: we are here, we are strong, and there is no reason to bail out the Castro regime.

by: Mauricio Claver-Carone

From: Yale Journal of International Affairs

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Cuba: enemy of the Internet

The Cuban regime, more wary of bloggers than traditional dissidents, decided to expand its online presence to combat them. Now that Venezuelan fibre optic cable is available on the island, the authorities have what they need to improve connection speeds and lower costs. There are fewer and fewer excuses for maintaining censorship or keeping the population away from the Web. Are we witnessing signs of a Web Springtime, now that the journalists persecuted during the Black Springtime of March 2003 have all been released from prison?

Fibre optic cable in Cuba: Unprecedented potential for growth?

According to the authorities, nearly 10% of Cuba’s population is connected to the Internet. That does not necessarily mean that they have access to the World Wide Web. Two parallel networks co-exist on the island: the international network and a closely monitored Cuban intranet consisting only of an encyclopaedia, email addresses ending in “.cu” used by universities and government officials – a sort of “Cuban Wikipedia” – and a few government news websites such as Granma.

Outside of hotels, only a few privileged individuals have a special permit to access the international network. Yet even the latter does not escape censorship, which is mainly directed against dissident publications on foreign websites, but has been relaxed to some extent since early February 2011.

The regime does not have the means to set up a systematic filtering system, but it counts on several factors to restrict Internet access: the exorbitant cost of connections – about 1.50 U.S. dollars per hour from the points of access to the state-controlled intranet, 7 U.S. dollars per hour from a hotel to access the international network (even though the average monthly salary is 20 U.S. dollars), and lastly infrastructural problems, particularly slow connections.

These obstacles explain why the number of Internet users and the time spent online remain limited. Most cybernauts try to just read their emails and answer them. They do not have the time to navigate the Internet or surf websites. For years, the regime has been blaming the American embargo for the lack of a good Web connection on the island, claiming that it prevents the country from accessing international networks. That problem is about to be solved, thanks to the ALBA-1 fibre optic undersea cable which has been linking Cuba to Venezuela since February 2011, thereby increasing 3000-fold Cuba’s capacity to connect to the rest of the world. It is scheduled to be put into service in July 2011.

Until then, international network connections will continue to be made via satellite, at immoderate costs.

Theoretically, fiber optic cable should lead to lower Internet access prices and improve connection speeds.

It is unlikely, however, that Internet access will be democratised and made available to the general population.

The authorities are cautious when commenting on this new development. In February 2011, Cuba’s Vice-Minister of Information and Communications, José Luis Perdomo, pointed out that cable “is not a ‘magic wand,’” and that granting Cubans access to the Internet will require a substantial investment in its infrastructures. He also said that there is “no political obstacle” to offering such access. For the time being, this access to the Web will remain reserved for “social use” by institutions, universities and certain categories such as doctors and journalists. He stated: “Our priority is to continue the creation of collective access centers in addition to strengthening the connections in scientific, university and medical research centers.”

Resourcefulness

A genuine black market has been prospering in Cuba in which offers are made to buy or “rent” passwords and codes used by the few individuals and companies whom the incumbent party has cleared for Internet access.

Navigating the Net costs 50 U.S. dollars per month and receiving/sending one email message costs 1 U.S. dollar in some “hacker centres.” Illegal users find it safer to connect only at night.

Some international network connections can be accessed from foreign or private residences.

Certain dissidents tweet by sending SMS via foreign-based accounts, while others insert foreign SIM cards into their cell phones to access the Net. While netizens will stop at nothing to pass on information, it can come at a high cost. Freelance bloggers do not have direct access to their websites, which are not hosted on the island. They are have to rely on friends abroad to publish their articles and posts. They do that by following a well-tested procedure: they prepare their content in advance, copy it onto a USB flash drive, and send it by email from a hotel or other location, because dissidents are more and more frequently denied entry into tourist hotels. USB flash drives, which are also being passed from hand-to-hand, are the new vectors for freedom of speech in Cuba – the local “samzidats.”

Demonising bloggers and social networks: A digital cold war?

In 2009, the regime became wary of the growing popularity of certain bloggers, notably Yoani Sanchez. The latter has been repeatedly assaulted, interrogated and targeted by genuine slander campaigns, while other bloggers, such as Luis Felipe Rojas, have been arrested several times.

Cuban dissident and cyberjournalist Guillermo Fariñas Hernández (“El Coco”),  winner of the 2010 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought awarded by the European Parliament, was arrested three times in less than 48 hours in January 2011. His only wrongdoing is that he has been militating in favour of the right to inform and to circulate news freely.

The legal arsenal used against online opposition to the regime remains particularly harsh and dissuasive. Cuban netizens risk punishment of up to twenty years in prison for posting an article deemed “counter-revolutionary” on an Internet website hosted abroad, and five years for illegally connecting to the international network.

The problem is becoming increasingly urgent as the authorities fear the social networks’ mobilisation power even more after witnessing Tunisian and Egyptian examples of it. Some U.S. diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks in December 2010 revealed that the Cuban regime is more afraid of bloggers than of “traditional” dissidents.

In a 15 April 2009 telegramme, dissidents were described as forming “a movement as old and out of touch from the lives of ordinary Cubans as the regime itself.” A cable dated 20 December 2009 stressed, to the contrary, that bloggers are “a much more serious threat” to the Cuban government. The United States views the reporting by Cuban netizens of their arrests and mistreatment as an invaluable political tool, because the latter represent “a group which frustrates and scares the Cuban government like no other.” “The bloggers’ mushrooming international popularity and their ability to stay one tech-step ahead of the authorities are causing serious headaches for the regime.” The U.S. diplomat concluded: “We believe that it is the younger generation of ‘non-traditional dissidents’ that is likely to have a greater long-term impact on post-Castro Cuba.”

Another telegram noted that “Younger individuals, including bloggers (…) are much better than traditional dissidents at taking ‘rebellious’ stands with greater popular appeal” – an assessment that Cuban leaders seem to share. Since February 2011, a one-hour or so video has been circulating on the Internet (vimeo.com/19402730) in which an unidentified Cuban expert explains in detail how the American enemy is funding Cuban cyberdissidence.

Using as an example blogger Yoani Sanchez, he asserts that “she is organising a virtual network of mercenaries who are not traditional counter-revolutionaries.” The expert urges that these new forces be neutralised, stressing that “being a blogger is not bad. They have their bloggers and we have ours. We’re going to fight to see which of the two turns out to be stronger.”

Government reprisal: Occupy the field

The authorities are now striving to expand their presence on the Web: an official Cuban bloggers association was formed in 2009. The number of “pro-government” bloggers is said to be constantly rising, and may be as high as several hundred. In February 2011, the Reuters press agency reported that Cuba had some 1,000 “official bloggers.”

Any possible links between the Havana government and hackers who target Cuban websites and blogs hosted abroad, among others, are under heavy scrutiny.

Since the regime’s strategy is to “drown” dissident bloggers in a flood of pro-government bloggers, the government no longer needs to keep such a tight rein on the former, and can afford to make some concessions. Since 9 February, forty-some opposition blogs and Internet pages, among them Yoani Sanchez’s Generación Y, are accessible again from the island for those who can connect to the international network. According to this blogger’s statements to the foreign press, Cuba may owe this breath of fresh air to the 14th Informática - International Convention and Fair, held in Havana from 7 to 11 February. What remains to be seen is whether this deblocking will last.

The authorities’ negative track record with regard to censorship accounts for dissidents’ doubts that the Internet will ever be accessible throughout the island. According to Yoani Sanchez, “the cable optic fibres are already engraved with the name of their owner and its ideology. This undersea connection seems destined more to control us than to link us to the world.” However, with this cable, “it will be more difficult to convince us that we cannot have YouTube, Facebook or Gmail,” she pointed out, specifying that “no one will prevent us from using this cable to do something very different from the plans of those who bought it.”

For the middle or long-term, some people are banking on Chinese-type progress: Web growth for economic reasons, with more access for the population, while maintaining political control. A glimmer of hope remains: Cuba has announced that it wishes to switch from a Windows to a Linux operating system. This initiative may enhance the technical expertise of Cuban IT specialists, who will then be in a better position to circumvent censorship.

From: RSF

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Cuba frees another political prisoner

Iván Hernández Carrillo

Cuba has freed another political prisoner, leaving only six still behind bars from a group of 52 that President Raúl Castro has promised to release, the Catholic Church said.

The latest was Iván Hernández Carrillo, who had been jailed since a 2003 government crackdown on opponents and was serving a 25-year sentence.

Castro has said he wants to clear all political prisoners from Cuban jails in an apparent attempt to end one of Cuba's thorniest international issues as it moves into a new era of economic reform.

In a deal brokered by the Church, Castro agreed in July to free the 52, those remaining in jail after 75 were arrested in the 2003 crackdown, which drew wide condemnation of the communist-led government.

Hernández, 39, told reporters from his family's home in Colón, 135 miles (220 km) southeast of Havana, that he was "very happy to be in my house, sharing freedom with my family and friends."

He vowed to resume his work as an independent journalist, which led to his imprisonment in 2003, and fight "for freedom of expression, for respect for human rights."

Castro wanted the freed dissidents to go to Spain, which agreed to take them, and most have. But the last prisoners, including Hernández, have refused to go and will be allowed to stay in Cuba.

Cuba views dissidents as mercenaries who work for the United States.

It is not clear how many more political prisoners Cuba has, but it has been releasing most of those who jailed for committing crimes either while trying to flee Cuba or during activities against the government.

The Church said in a separate announcement that six other prisoners not included in the group of 52 would be freed soon and sent to Spain.

Source: Buenos Aires Herald

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US-Cuban Relations Ease Another Notch

Cuba has stopped flying black flags in front of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana, the latest step towards dismantling an in-your-face confrontation that arose around the building during the George W. Bush administration and brought always-contentious relations between the two countries to the breaking point.

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro ordered the parking lot in front of the U.S. Interests Section dug up and the 100-foot-high flags installed in 2006.

The action came after the United States turned on a five-foot-high news ticker that ran across 25 windows on the outside of the fifth floor of the mission on Havana's busy seaside Malecon Drive.

The Times Square-style ticker streamed news, political statements and messages in crimson letters blaming Cuba's problems on the country's communist system and socialist economy.

The dozens of huge black flags, which Cuba said represented more than 3,000 of its citizens killed over the years by U.S. inspired violence, effectively blocked it from view.

The bizarre scene, as the two old nemeses symbolically squared off in Havana, became a tourist attraction and barometer of the rising level of hostility between them.

The two countries do not have full diplomatic relations, but maintain lower level interests sections in each other's capitals.

"They stopped flying the flags completely at least two weeks ago," a U.S. diplomat said, adding he had no idea if the measure was permanent.

The Cuban government hasn't commented on the flags disappearance. The huge -- and now barren -- field of flag poles remains standing and at the ready where cars once parked just yards from the building's front door.

Soon after the Obama administration took over in Washington, anti-Bush billboards around the building, depicting the former U.S. president as Dracula, Hitler and a terrorist, were taken down.

The news ticker went dark in June 2009 and the government of Raul Castro, who replaced his brother in 2008, responded by reducing the size and number of flags, but still kept some flying.

From: 1250 WTMA

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Cuba "fears Internet, social media"

Cuba fears the United States is encouraging dissent through social media such as Facebook and Twitter with the goal of toppling the government, according to the video of what appears a meeting of Cuban officials posted on websites this week.

The 50-minute video apparently is a presentation given by an Internet expert to officials of Cuba's Interior Ministry last June.

A link to the video at http://vimeo.com/19402730 was posted on several blogs, including that of Cuban anti-government blogger Yoani Sanchez, and on the website of the Miami Herald. It is not known how the video was obtained.

The expert, whose identity is not disclosed, told the officials the United States is promoting use of Facebook and Twitter to foment dissent similar to ways it was used in insurrections in the Ukraine in 2004 and in Iran in 2010.

He also said the US government is financing the introduction into Cuba of satellite communications equipment to create secret points of WiFi access.

In communist-led Cuba, Internet access is limited and content largely controlled by the government.

The lecturer mentioned US aid contractor Alan Gross, who has been detained since December 2009 on suspicions he illegally supplied satellite phones to Jewish groups for Internet access. Gross is described in the video as a “mercenary.”

“The idea is to create a technological platform away from control of Cuban authorities that permits the free flow of communication between Cuban citizens selected by (Cuban enemies) and the world,” he said.

Cuba said on Friday that Gross, 61, will face trial soon on charges of crimes against the security of the state and that prosecutors would seek a 20-year sentence in the case that has been a stumbling block for US-Cuba relations.

The lecturer said the US-supplied satellite equipment seeks to spread the voice of a new wave of anti-government bloggers such as Sanchez.

“A virtual network of mercenaries is organizing that are not the traditional counter-revolution. We are talking about young people, people who can have an attractive discourse, young people who hang out with our children and our brothers,” the expert said.

He said the United States is dedicating more money to finance “cyber dissidents” than to the island's traditional opponents.

According to a US State Department cable obtained by WikiLeaks and published in December, Washington is losing confidence in the older dissidents and giving more credence to bloggers and intellectuals.

In the video, the expert said Cuba should try to neutralise the dissident bloggers by countering with its own.

“Being a blogger is not bad. They have their bloggers and we have ours. We're going to fight to see which of the two turns out stronger,” he said.

by Esteban Israel

From: Independent Online

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Mafias Get Involved in Administering The Sectors of The Cuban State

Corruption in Cuba is “widespread” and sections of the state are administered by “mafias”, according to diplomatic cables from the U.S. mission in Havana, released by WikiLeaks and published in the newspaper El Pais in Spain on Saturday. According to the cables, corrupt practices included “bribery”, “misuse of state resources,” accounting tricks and “illegal commissions charged by officials in exchange for concessions and an amount is deposited in accounts opened in your name or that of people brought in foreign banks. “

“There are state facilities that are managed, in fact, mafias (in sectors such as tourism and construction) as anywhere in the world, a one million dollars is (for the Cuban commission) 100,000 dollars in bank “, the reports said.

The newspaper added that according to these corrupt leaders cables are not aware of the revolutionary leadership, but officials “pragmatists have a space within a rigid communist system.” Information submitted to the State Department for the U.S. Interest Section in Cuba states that where the state controls more than 90% of the economy, theft and corruption, to feed the black market “is a survival mechanism, due to low wages.

“The authorities tolerate the corruption of survival to some extent, but when they know detours act with severity,” the report added.

They note that many of the potentially most profitable jobs are usually assigned by bribing the official who decides and that the police “are famous for taking bribes.” Raul Castro’s government carried out a crackdown on corruption and theft of resources to the state and created a powerful Comptroller General.
ZUCPWFTDMX6T

From: CoffeToday

To read:

Corruption in Cuba: Castro and Beyond

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The prison that calls itself a country

Number of prisons per province in Cuba. In total, about 550.

In December, when the European Parliament awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Cuban independent journalist and longtime protester of the Castros' repression of thought, Guillermo Farinas, the Cuban dictatorship, as is done by the rulers of China, barred him from leaving the country to accept the award.

In his acceptance speech by video, Farinas, characteristically forthright, said: "In the minds of Cuba's current rulers, we Cuban citizens are just like the slaves from whom I am descended, kidnapped in Africa and brought to the Americas by force. For me or any other ordinary citizen to be able to travel abroad, I need a Carta de Libertad, that is a Freedom Card, just as the slaves did, only today it is called a Carta Blanca, a White Card."

His reference to the "white" card should also be a reminder of the long-imbedded racial discrimination against black Cubans by the Castro Revolution. In December 2009, I reported on the "Statement of Conscience by African-Americans" the month before by 60 prominent black Americans, including Cornel West, condemning the partnership of Jim Crow with the Cuban regime.

I have seen no further mention of that long-delayed protest from the actual signers of the declaration of conscience, and from hardly anyone else. Is this a self-imposed gag rule? I welcome any information about this strange silence, including from the Congressional Black Caucus.

Guillermo Farinas would have welcomed, I expect, some support from those prominent black Americans, and others of us. He thanked the European Parliament "for not abandoning the Cuban people in these more than 50 years of the struggle for democracy."

But he has been abandoned – despite his hunger strikes against the imprisonment of independent Cuban librarians, among other dissenters – by the American Library Association, which has yet to demand the release of these, among the other Castros' prisoners of conscience.

As Farinas delivered his acceptance speech, an empty chair draped in a Cuban flag was placed on the European Parliament stage.

Amnesty International has not abandoned him or any of the other Cubans treated like ungrateful slaves. Last summer, it called world attention to the harassment of Reina Luisa Tamayo, "who takes to the streets each Sunday with a small group of relatives to honor her son Orlando Zapta Tamayo who died Feb. 23 after refusing food and water for months."

Imprisoned since 2003 for "disrespecting authority," among other charges, Tamayo "became the first Cuban opposition leader in nearly 40 years to die after a hunger strike – an incident decried by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and European leaders" (Associated Press, Aug. 17, 2010, and foxnews.com).

Reina Luisa Tamayo told Amnesty "that pro-government mobs surrounded her house in the eastern Cuban city of Banes on Sunday and prevented her, her family and friends from marching and attending Roman Catholic Mass. She said Cuban security forces kept other women who planned to march from leaving their homes."

Previously, a typical Castro regime warning was delivered to this besieged mother, as reported by Amnesty International: "On Aug. 8, a mob blocked (Tamayo's) path and beat relatives and friends who were marching – while police nearby failed to act. She said six loudspeakers has been installed near her house, used to shout insults against her and the Ladies in White, a Havana support group for wives and mother of political prisoners."

Has Secretary of State Clinton informed President Obama of the ruthless subjugation of liberty-starved Cubans that led to Guillermo Farinas receiving the Sakharov Prize? Does he care that in 2005 this human-rights prize was awarded to the Ladies in White in Cuba and – dig this – in 2002 to dissenter Oswaldo Paya?

A leader of the Christian Liberation Movement and several times nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, Paya founded the still-continuing Varela Project aimed at establishing by referendum such scandalous heresies as freedom of press and religion and free elections. The only time I met the still-idolized-by-many Che Guevara (at the Cuban Mission to the United Nations), he professed to understand no English and was accompanied by a translator. As I asked him if he could conceive there ever being free elections in Cuba. Guevara, not waiting for the translator, broke into derisive laughter.

Last year, the Latin American Democratic Bridge Network awarded its first Prize for Democratic Openness to the doggedly surviving Varela Project (catholicnewsagency.com, May 20, 2010, reported again on CNA, Jan. 12, 2011). Because such freedom warriors as Oswaldo Paya do not give up, resistance is rising in Castroland.

The most accurate reports on Cuba come from Mary Anastasia O'Grady of the Wall Street Journal. On Dec. 27, she told those of us who care: "A new generation of angry, young Cubans now vents on blogs and through music, mocking the old man and his ruthless little brother. On Nov. 28, in the city of Santa Clara, hundreds of students launched a spontaneous protest when they were denied access to a televised soccer match they had paid to watch.

"What began as a demand for refunds soon turned to shouts of 'freedom,' 'down with Fidel' and 'down with socialism.'" These seeds may yet bring revolutionary liberty to Cubans. O'Grady provides more of the context:

Michael Moore notwithstanding, she writes that "Food, water, transportation, access to health care, electricity, soap and toilet paper are all hard to come by. ... The government tries to put the lid on through repression. But in private, among Cubans there are no limits to the derision of the brothers Castro."

On Nov. 28, 2007, Laura Bush held a video conference with members of the independent library movement with whom she expressed solidarity (Friends of Cuban Libraries). Your turn, Michelle Obama. President Obama has eased travel restrictions to – and the sending of money to Cubans – with restrictions, while calling for the return of freedom to Cubans. What will happen to any of these American travelers if they demand to see any prisoners of conscience?

Nat Hentoff

From: WorldNetDaily


Trapped in Castro's gulag and lived to tell about it – check out Armando Valladares' story of 20 years under dictator's thumb: "Against All Hope"

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Obama eases Cuba visa, remittance and travel curbs

President Barack Obama on Friday eased restrictions on visas, remittances and travel under the US embargo on Cuba, seeking to weaken the long grip on power of the communist Havana government. The move will expand religious and educational travel between the United States and Cuba, allow any airport to offer charter flights to the country and restore cultural initiatives suspended by the previous Bush administration.

"These measures will increase people-to-people contact, support civil society in Cuba; enhance the free flow of information to, from, and among the Cuban people and help promote their independence from Cuban authorities," the White House said in a statement.

"The president believes these actions, combined with the continuation of the embargo, are important steps in reaching the widely shared goal of a Cuba that respects the basic rights of all its citizens.

"These steps build upon the president's April 2009 actions to help reunite divided Cuban families; to facilitate greater telecommunications with the Cuban people; and to increase humanitarian flows to Cuba."

Obama's move means that religious organizations will be able to sponsor travel to Cuba under license and will allow higher educational institutions to send students to Cuba and restore licenses of educational exchanges.

Staff and students will also be allowed to attend conferences, seminars and workshops in Cuba and there will be more scope for journalists to travel to Cuba, according to the White House.

In another move, Obama will restore a license allowing any American to send remittances of up to 500 dollars per quarter to people in Cuba are not part of their families, as long as they are not senior Cuban government or Communist Party officials.

Obama also ordered that all US international airports will be able to provide charters to and from Cuba.

Currently, only New York, Miami and Los Angeles airports have that privilege.

The US embargo on Cuba was partially imposed in 1960, just after Fidel Castro staged his revolution, became law in 1962 and is now the biggest remaining hangover from the Cold War. The United States bans trade with and most travel to Cuba.

But Obama has the power, under legislation passed in 2000, to regulate 12 categories of authorized travel to Cuba.

He used his presidential authority in 2009 to reverse the Bush administration's tightened restrictions on immediate family travel and allowed Cuban Americans to send remittances to relatives.

But he cannot lift the embargo on Cuba unless the move is authorized by Congress, an unlikely prospect.

In a first reaction, Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, born in Miami to Cuba American parents who fled Castro's revolution, condemned the decision to ease restrictions.

"I strongly oppose any new changes that weaken US policy towards Cuba. I was opposed to the changes that have already been made by this administration and I oppose these new changes," Rubio said.

"I believe that what does need to change are the Cuban regime's repressive policies towards the independent press and labor unions, its imprisonment of political prisoners and constant harassment of citizens with dissenting views, and its refusal to allow free multi-party elections.

"It is unthinkable that the administration would enable the enrichment of a Cuban regime that routinely violates the basic human rights and dignity of its people."

Source: Hindustan Times

Reaction to easing travel to Cuba mixed

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The Spineless American Library Association

In April 2003, the security police of Fidel Castro arrested and imprisoned 75 journalists, members of opposition parties and owners of independent libraries. The charge: "crimes against national sovereignty." The librarians had been making available to Cubans books that were banned in the state's libraries for containing "terrorist" material. Among them were a biography of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (a document for all human beings).

During the one-day trial, Castro's judges ordered that all printed volumes confiscated during the raids of the libraries be burned. I obtained copies of those incendiary court rulings that then, and now, characterize the Cuban "revolution." Immediately, Amnesty International designated all the 75 inmates "prisoners of conscience." There continues to be more of them — some, as always, in dire need of medical attention they have yet to receive.

At first, I had expected immediate protests about the caged independent librarians from the American Library Association. The core credo of this largest national library association in the world has been "the freedom to read" — for everyone everywhere.

Why should you care? Because banning books and imprisoning librarians mean banning literature, ideas — thought — and critically wounding freedoms that should be as essential as oxygen to citizens and a society.

In the many columns I've written since about the abandoned Cuban librarians, I've cited the ALA's refusal to demand the release of these librarians. In June 2003, for one of many examples, Michael Dowling, then director of the ALA's International Relations Office, said: "There has been no definitive evidence that books are banned and librarians harassed." There had been international press on the raids.

As my documented stories on these and future imprisonments went on, I was targeted by the director of Cuba's National Library, Eliades Acosta: "What does Mr. Hentoff know of the real Cuba?"

My public reply: "I know that if I were a Cuban, I'd be in prison."

Polish and Latvian library associations did call for the release of the prisoners of conscience. But in 2005, the state library association of Cuba stingingly replied to the Latvian protest resolution: "it is too late ... to attempt to trick the world in this manner."

The ALA, annoyed by the continued criticism, occasionally expressed "deep concern" about the allegations but declined to mention the silenced freedom-to-read librarians in Castroland.

Also, in 1995, as a longtime admirer of Ray Bradbury, including his classic novel of censorship by fire, Fahrenheit 451, I sent him some of my columns and the burning Castro court rulings that Bradbury's novel had prophesied. Publicly, Bradbury then said:
I plead with Castro and his government to take their hands off the independent librarians and release all those librarians in prison, and to send them back into Cuban culture to inform the people.

No comment from Fidel or the ALA. Last year, on May 19, the Mario Chanes de Armas Independent Library was raided by Cuban State Security police, who confiscated 360 books I do not know the whereabouts of the director of that purified library, who had telephoned this news under the regime of Raul Castro.

But, in yet another appeal to the ALA on March 11 last year, the American-based Friends of Cuban Libraries sent a letter to then-president of the ALA Camila Alire, "asking for your urgent and compassionate aid in saving the life of a fellow library worker, Guillermo Farinas (director of the Dr. Roberto Avalos library).

"Mr. Farinas has refused to consume food or fluids since he began a hunger strike" at his home in Santa Clara for the release of 26 Cuban prisoners in poor health, including "Ricardo Gonzalez, the director of the Jorge Manach Library, and Ariel Sigler Amaya, who was condemned to a long prison term for, among other alleged crimes, gathering books for a library collection." Both have been named prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International.

As for this hunger striker, Guillermo Farinas, he "is growing weaker, and Cuba's official newspaper Granma has indicated that the government will make no effort to save his life after his health declines to the point of unconsciousness."

Therefore, "on an urgent basis, we ask you to please contact the Cuban Minister of Foreign Relations, Mr. Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, to request that efforts be made to save the life of Guillermo Farinas. The e-mail address of the Foreign Ministry is: cubaminrex@minrex.gov.cu."

The Parliament of the European Union recently passed a resolution expressing concern for Mr. Farinas: "We hope the American Library Association will rapidly join the worldwide effort to help in saving his life."

This plea for the life of Guillermo Farinas was ignored by the American Library Association.

Next week: What happened to the acute discomfort of the Castro government and the American Library Association after — on Oct. 1, 2010, the BBC reported: "The European Parliament has awarded the Sakharov human rights prize to Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas. In July, Mr. Farinas, 48, ended a hunger strike after Cuba's communist government announced it was freeing 52 political prisoners." (But the EU and Farinas are aware that more remain in the Castros' prisons and that the raids on independent libraries continue.)

The prize is named after the late, brave Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov. Those who nominated Farinas called him "a beacon of hope for dozens of journalists and activists who are currently in prison."

And the prizewinner dedicated the human-rights award to the people of Cuba. He said they struggle for "an end to the dictatorship."

The people of Cuba should be reminded that on April 26, 2005, Canek Sanchez Guevara — the grandson of the murderous Che Guevara, still a hero to Fidelists around the world and in the United States — spoke in Stockholm of "the obsession (in Cuba) with surveillance, control, repression, etc. And freedom is something entirely different."

The American Library Association should invite Che Guevara's grandson to address one of its conferences to enlighten its governing council on how to end its obsession with ignoring the persistently persecuted Cuban independent librarians.

by Nat Hentoff  

From: Cato Institute

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Cables spotlight health system woes in Cuba

Doctor's workplace in one of the Cuban hospitals.

In one Cuban hospital, patients had to bring their own light bulbs. In another, the staff used "a primitive manual vacuum" on a woman who had miscarried. In others, Cuban patients pay bribes to obtain better treatment.

Those and other observations by an unidentified nurse assigned to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana were included in a dispatch sent by the mission in January 2008 and made public last month by WikiLeaks.

Titled "Cuban health care: Aqui Nada es Facil" — nothing here is easy — the cable offers a withering assessment by the nurse, officially a Foreign Service Health Practitioner, or FSHP, who already had lived in Cuba for 21/2 years.

The Cuban government still boasts of its vast public health system, though the system suffered deeply after Soviet subsidies ended in 1991. It also blames most of the system's problems on the U.S. embargo. Though U.S. medical sales to Cuba are legal, the process can be cumbersome and Havana can sometimes find better prices elsewhere.

The U.S. cable is not an in-depth assessment of Cuba's health system. Rather, it's a string of anecdotes gathered by the FSHP from Cubans such as "manicurists, masseuses, hair stylists, chauffeurs, musicians, artists, yoga teachers, tailors, as well as HIV/AIDS and cancer patients, physicians, and foreign medical students."

At one OB-GYN hospital, the dispatch reported, the staff "used a primitive manual vacuum to aspirate" the womb of a Cuban woman who had a miscarriage "without any anesthesia or pain medicine. She was offered no . . . follow up appointments."

A 6-year old-boy with bone cancer could only be visited at a hospital by his parents for "limited hours," the cable added.

Cancer patients receiving chemotherapy or radiation get "little in the way of symptom or side-effects care . . . that is critically important in being able to continue treatments, let alone provide comfort to an already emotionally distraught victim," the dispatch noted.

"Cancer patients are not provided with, nor can they find locally, simple medications such as Aspirin, Tylenol, skin lotions, vitamins, etc.," it added.

HIV-positive Cubans have only one facility, the Instituto Pedro Kouri in Havana, that can provide specialty care and medications, the cable noted. Because of transportation problems and costs, some patients from the provinces may be seen only once per year.

Kouri institute patients can wait months for an appointment, "but can often move ahead in line by offering a gift," the dispatch added. "We are told five Cuban convertible pesos (approximately USD 5.40) can get one an x-ray."

Although the practice was reportedly discontinued, some HIV-positive patients had the letters "SIDA" (AIDS) stamped on their national ID cards, making it hard for them to find good jobs or pursue university studies, according to the cable.

The cable acknowledged that medical institutions reserved for Cuba's ruling elites and foreigners who pay in hard currencies "are hygienically qualified, and have a wide array of diagnostic equipment with a full complement of laboratories, well-stocked pharmacies, and private patient suites with cable television and bathrooms."

Hospitals and clinics used by average Cubans don't come close, the dispatch added, providing details on the FSHP's visits to four Havana hospitals:

At the Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital, part of which is reserved for foreign patients and was featured in the Michael Moore documentary "Sicko," a "gift" of about $22 to the hospital administrator helps average Cubans obtain better treatment there. The exterior of the Ramon Gonzalez Coro OB-GYN hospital was "dilapidated and crumbling" and its Newborn Intensive Care Unit was "using a very old infant 'Bird' respirator/ventilator _ the model used in the U.S. in the 1970s."

During a visit to the Calixto Garcia Hospital, which serves only Cubans, the U.S. nurse "was struck by the shabbiness of the facility . . . and the lack of everything (medical supplies, privacy, professional care staff). To the FSHP it was reminiscent of a scene from some of the poorest countries in the world."

At the Salvador Allende Hospital, the emergency room appeared "very orderly, clean and organized." But the rest of the facility was "in shambles" and guards by the entrance "smelled of alcohol."

"Patients had to bring their own light bulbs if they wanted light in their rooms. The switch plates and knobs had been stolen from most of the rooms so one had to connect bare wires to get electricity," the dispatch reported.

From: The Gazette

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