First Havana-Miami Cargo Service Marks Sea Change for Cuba Past and Future

First Havana-Miami Cargo Service Marks Sea Change for Cuba Past and Future
Posted: Jul 16, 2012 Review it on NewsTrust


Photo: Last week, the Bolivian ship, Ana Cecelia, the "Peace Boat," set
sail with the first regular cargo service between Miami and Havana in a
half-century, marking new era.

MIAMI, Fla.—When the Bolivian merchant ship, the Ana Cecelia, docked in
Havana from Miami last Friday--ambitiously labeled "Peace Boat" on its
side—it was set to unload its humble cargo of bedding and mattresses
bound for the Cuban populace.

But the little-reported voyage quietly marked the first regularly
scheduled commerce allowed between the United States and Cuba in a
half-century—and a sea change for Cubans on both sides of the 90-mile
journey. In doing so, though, it also exposed a humanitarian barrier
between affluent white Cuba and its largely non-white and impoverished
population.

Since the Cuban revolution rolled into Havana on New Year's Eve 1959,
exiled Cubans in South Florida have offered a narrative of their
Homeland Recovered: Once Castro is ousted, they believed, they would
return to rebuild and renew their country. And since October 1960, their
desire for repatriation has been supported by a U.S.-imposed embargo on
commercial and economic exchanges with Cuba, imposed by the United States.

The exiles' narrative envisioned a return to Cuba as it was during
Camelot--when sugar cane, tobacco and beautiful beaches would be the
basis of a restored economy, and where fresh capital inflows would
modernize Havana--and the whole of Cuba.

Humanitarian Shipments

The world, however, has changed dramatically since then. There is a glut
of sugar on the world markets. Almost no one smokes cigars any longer.
In the intervening decades Cancun, Cozumel and the Maya Riviera have
risen from the barren beaches of nearby Mexico, giving the world a
Caribbean playground unrivaled anywhere.

There has also been a dramatic demographic shift in Cuba: a constant
exodus over five decades of the largely white professional middle class
has transformed this island nation into a society heavily populated by
people of color--who have no money.

Against that background sailed the newly restored cargo service between
Havana and Miami—the first commercial link between those ports of call.
The "Peace Boat's" first shipment, which left the Port of Miami on July
11 and docked in Havana 48 hours later, included humanitarian
aid--mattresses and bedding.

Organized under the auspices of CubaPAK, a purchasing agent for the
Cuban regime, the operator of the vessel is the International Port
Corporation (IPC), which received licenses from the United States
Department of Commerce and the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of
Foreign Assets Control. The ship's registration and crew are Bolivian.

"It's a difficult, very complicated [process] we have requested through
many stages," Leonardo Adega Sánchez, a spokesman for IPC, told
reporters. "We are the first to do so. There have been many people
who've tried and given up, so complicated it is. We must take into
account the regulations of the U.S. and Cuba, and the character of the
citizenship in both countries. The idea originated two years ago when we
decided it was worth working on sending humanitarian aid to the island."

The nature of the cargo reflects the passage of time, and the
deteriorating conditions on the island-nation long governed by a
white-minority government.

Of Cuba's 11.2 million people, fewer than 720,000 are members of the
Communist Party. The entire Politburo consists of European-descendant
whites, who rule over a nation comprised of people of color. With the
Fidel Castro ceding power to his brother Raúl, there has not been a
passing of leadership to a younger generation. Cuba remains stuck in the
twilight of the Cold War reminiscent of the 1950s and 1960s.

In contrast, there has been a demographic shift of Cubans--in the United
States. The generation that toasted each New Year's Eve in Miami with
the melancholic, "Next Year, in Havana!" diminishes with each passing
day. The new generation of Cuban-Americans, born in the U.S., and who
only know Cuba from stories told by elderly relatives, has different dreams.

Their ambition is to succeed in the U.S. Whether it is U.S. Sen. Marco
Rubio, R-Fla., or Hollywood columnist Perez Hilton, Cuban Americans have
only a passing interest in the dreams of their parents and grandparents.

Hilton (whose real name is Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr.), the fabulous
gossip-monger in Los Angeles, is firmly entrenched in celebrity culture
outside the Washington Beltway.

Rubio, the GOP's fabulist U.S. Senator from Florida, is the flavor of
the season inside the Beltway. Other Cuban Americans, such as actress
Cameron Díaz and CNN broadcaster Soledad O'Brien, are more preoccupied
with their lives and careers in their chosen fields than in fantasies
about restoring Havana's crumbling seaside boulevard, the Malecón.

Cuba's Tired Generation

Compare that with the tired generation of Cuban Americans, fast becoming
irrelevant, such as Republican U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Now age
60, she has been represented Florida's 18th congressional district with
promises of a "free" Cuba since she was first elected in 1989. In that
time, though, she has not been able to deliver much more than free
pastelito de guayaba (Cuban guava pastry) to occasional constituents who
visit her office at the U.S. Capitol.

It is true that, driving around Miami and Hialeah one sees bumper
stickers that read "No Castro, No Problem" and "Cuba: We Will Rebuild
You." But these are on old cars, driven by seniors.

For her part, Rep. Ros-Lehtinen, a member in good standing of the
congressional Foreign Affairs Committee, dashed off an angry letter to
the Office of Foreign Assets Control seeking assurance that IPC is not
in "violation of any provision of the law, specifically the Helms-Burton
[1996, a statute that extends the U.S. embargo on Cuba], which
determines that no ship coming into Cuba, and taking part in trade in
goods, may enter a U.S. port in order to load or unload cargo for a
period of 180 days after the ship departed from Cuba."

The contrast between the past and the present could not be starker than
if the reestablished commercial ferry service were of a humanitarian aid
in nature.

But wait! It is!

The Ana Cecelia had the slogan, "Peaceboat" painted on its side, a
ridiculous reminder of the nature of trade between the U.S. and Cuba. If
Karl Marx once envisioned the withering away of the state, this is the
harsh reality of the withering away of the U.S. economic embargo against
Cuba. The ship that will ferry bedding and foodstuffs to Cuba, the
island of starving of socialists and comatose communists, is Orwellian
in double-speak!

Carl Hiaasen, the satirical novelist from South Florida, could not have
made up such an absurd situation.

Thus, while the young and ambitious Marco Rubio looks toward a future
that may very well lead him to the White House, Ileanan Ros-Lehtinen
looks to the past, to a modest vessel departing the port of Miami bound
for Havana, loaded with donated mattresses. So the Revolution-weary
Cubans can rest their tired heads and dream of the day when they will
wake up in the 21st century.

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=9b88cf0db9f0704fb2ddd086edad8cb7