Posted on Monday, 08.04.14
Groups: US political effort in Cuba hurts aid work
BY DESMOND BUTLER AND JACK GILLUM AND PETER ORSI AND ANDREA RODRIGUEZ
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON -- A U.S. program in Cuba that secretly used an
HIV-prevention workshop for political activism was assailed Monday by
international public health officials and members of Congress who
declared that such clandestine efforts put health programs at risk
around the world.
Beginning in late 2009, the U.S. Agency for International Development
deployed nearly a dozen young people from Latin America to Cuba to
recruit political activists, an Associated Press investigation found.
The operation put the foreigners in danger not long after a U.S.
contractor was hauled away to a Cuban jail.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Monday it would be "worse than
irresponsible" if USAID "concocted" an HIV-prevention workshop to
promote a political agenda.
And InterAction, an alliance of global non-governmental aid groups,
said, "The use of an HIV workshop for intelligence purposes is
unacceptable. The U.S. government should never sacrifice delivering
basic health services or civic programs to advance an intelligence goal."
The Obama administration defended its use of the HIV-prevention workshop
for its Cuban democracy-promotion efforts but disputed that the project
was a front for political purposes. The program "enabled support for
Cuban civil society, while providing a secondary benefit of addressing
the desires Cubans express for information and training about HIV
prevention," said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
Documents and interviews make clear that the program was aimed at
recruiting a younger generation of opponents to Cuba's Castro
government. It is illegal in Cuba to work with foreign
democracy-building programs. Documents prepared for the USAID-sponsored
program called the HIV workshop the "perfect excuse" to conduct
political activity.
Leahy, who is chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee that
oversees USAID, said in response to the AP's findings: "It may have been
good business for USAID's contractor, but it tarnishes USAID's long
track record as a leader in global health."
The White House is still facing questions about a once-secret "Cuban
Twitter" project, known as ZunZuneo. That program, launched by USAID in
2009 and uncovered by the AP in April, established a primitive social
media network under the noses of Cuban officials. USAID's inspector
general is investigating it.
In April, Leahy called the ZunZuneo program "dumb, dumb, dumb."
But on Monday, not all lawmakers were critical.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said USAID's programs were important
for human rights in Cuba. "We must continue to pressure the Castro
regime and support the Cuban people, who are oppressed on a daily
basis," said Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban native and vocal supporter of
pro-democracy programs there.
As for health projects, the latest criticisms come months after a pledge
by the CIA to stop using vaccine programs — such as one in Pakistan that
targeted Osama bin Laden — to gather intelligence.
In the HIV workshop effort, the AP's investigation found the Latin
American travelers' efforts were fraught with incompetence and risk. The
young workers nearly blew their mission to "identify potential
social-change actors." One said he got a paltry, 30-minute seminar on
how to evade Cuban intelligence, and there appeared to be no safety net
for the inexperienced workers if they were caught.
In all, nearly a dozen Latin Americans served in the program in Cuba,
for pay as low as $5.41 an hour.
The AP found USAID and its contractor, Creative Associates
International, continued the program even as U.S. officials privately
told their government contractors to consider suspending travel to Cuba
after the arrest of contractor Alan Gross, who remains imprisoned after
smuggling in sensitive technology. A lawyer for Gross said Monday that
his client cannot take life in prison much longer and has said his
goodbyes to his wife and a daughter.
"We value your safety," one senior USAID official said in an email
concerning the Latin American travelers. "The guidance applies to ALL
travelers to the island, not just American citizens," another official said.
Creative Associates declined to comment, referring questions to USAID.
"All governments need to make trade-offs, for example, between civil
liberties and public safety," said Les Roberts, a professor at Columbia
University's Mailman School of Public Health. In the case of Cuba, he
said, there is a trade-off between conducting neutral development
efforts and "the political goal of regime change in Cuba."
"Without the appearance of neutrality," he said, "few things USAID wants
to do internationally can be achieved."
Drawing on documents and interviews worldwide, the AP found the
travelers program went to extensive lengths to hide the workers'
activities. They were to communicate in code: "I have a headache" meant
they suspected they were being monitored by Cuban authorities; "Your
sister is ill" was an order to cut their trip short.
To evade Cuban authorities, travelers installed innocent-looking content
on their laptops to mask sensitive information. They used encrypted
memory sticks to hide their files and sent obviously encrypted emails
using a system that might have drawn suspicion.
"These programs are in desperate need of adult supervision," said Sen.
Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican and longtime critic of USAID's Cuba
projects. "If you are using an AIDS workshop as a front for something
else, that's — I don't know what to say — it's just wrong."
Both the travelers program and ZunZuneo were part of a larger,
multimillion-dollar effort by USAID to effect change in politically
volatile countries, government data show. But the programs reviewed by
the AP didn't appear to achieve their goals and operated under an agency
known more for its international-aid work than stealthy operations.
The travelers' project was funded under the same pot of federal money
that paid for ZunZuneo. But USAID has yet to provide the AP with a
complete copy of the Cuban contracts despite a Freedom of Information
Act request filed more than three months ago.
---
Orsi reported from Havana, and Rodriguez from Santa Clara, Cuba.
Associated Press writers Hannah Dreier in Caracas, Venezuela; Peter Orsi
in Havana; Frank Bajak in Lima, Peru; Raphael Satter in Dublin; Alberto
Arce in San Jose, Costa Rica; and Monika Mathur in Washington
contributed to this report.
---
Contact the AP's Washington investigative team at
DCinvestigations@ap.org. On Twitter, follow Butler at
https://twitter.com/desmondbutler; Gillum at
https://twitter.com/jackgillum; Orsi at https://twitter.com/peter-orsi;
and Rodriguez at https://twitter.com/arodriguezap.
---
Online:
Documents about the program at http://apne.ws/UxJ05x
Link to the unabridged story: http://apne.ws/1v2xBLO
Another in a series of stories detailing secret American political
activity in Cuba under the Obama administration, including the creation
of a secret U.S.-backed "Cuban Twitter" program.
Source: WASHINGTON: Groups: US political effort in Cuba hurts aid work -
Florida Wires - MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/04/4270760/us-sent-latin-youth-undercover.html
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Analysts debate proper role of U.S. democracy programs in Cuba
Posted on Monday, 08.04.14
Analysts debate proper role of U.S. democracy programs in Cuba
An Associated Press report that the U.S. secretly sent young Latin
Americans to Cuba to provoke political change fans debate.
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
JTAMAYO@ELNUEVOHERALD.COM
The U.S. government has a right to finance pro-democracy programs in
Cuba but must ensure they are not so aggressive that they wind up
hurting dissidents and strengthening the hand of Havana hardliners,
analysts and political figures said Monday.
"U.S. policy has long been to bring about or hasten a democratic
transition in Cuba," said Carl Meacham, former senior staffer on Latin
America for the Republican side of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. "This is consistent with that policy."
Meacham was reacting to a Monday report by the Associated Press that a
U.S. Agency for International Development program sent young people from
Venezuela, Costa Rica and Peru to recruit young Cubans to
anti-government activism … under the guise of civic programs from 2009
to 2011.
USAID said the program, which was run by Washington-based Creative
Associates International working under a grant from the agency, was
designed to "empower (Cuban) citizens to tackle a community or social
problem, win a 'small victory' and ultimately realize that they could be
the masters of their own destiny."
But the AP report poured fresh fuel on the long-running debate over the
U.S. government's Cuba programs. USAID says they are designed to promote
democracy on the island but the Cuban government views them as attempts
to topple its communist system.
Phil Peters, president of the Cuba Research Center in suburban
Washington D.C. and a proponent of easing U.S. sanctions on Havana, said
USAID efforts like the Creative Associates program can increase Cuban
government suspicions.
"This kind of activity can hurt people who are trying to do good work in
Cuba, put them under suspicion that they are working on a political
program — to say nothing of the possible damage to USAID itself around
the world," Peters said.
But Mauricio Claver-Carone, an anti-Castro activist in Washington D.C.,
defended such programs. "The United States should never apologize for
helping the victims of brutal dictatorships throughout the world. To the
contrary, it's emblematic of our nation's finest moments," he wrote.
"All countries do this," Meacham said of the Creative Associates
International program.
Cuban dissident Jose Daniel Ferrer said the U.S. government is right to
help opposition and civil society activists because the Cuban government
controls every aspect of their lives, denies them the right to speak
freely and even fires them from their jobs.
Opposing the government "would be impossible without the help of
friendly democratic nations and Cubans abroad" who pay for items such as
printers, cell phones and taxis to meetings, said Ferrer, head of the
Cuban Patriotic Union.
Said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican: "The fact that USAID
is using measures to promote democracy in Cuba is no secret. We must
continue to pressure the Castro regime and support the Cuban people, who
are oppressed on a daily basis."
In a statement Monday, USAID said that the U.S. Congress "funds
democracy programming in Cuba to empower Cubans to access more
information and strengthen civil society … The work is not secret; it is
not covert, nor is it undercover."
The AP reported that the young travelers to Cuba worked undercover and
often posed as tourists.
In its statement, USAID said the Associated Press included a paragraph
in its report that correctly described the program but "then goes on to
make sensational claims against aid workers for supporting civil society
programs … This is wrong."
But some analysts cautioned that Cuba democracy programs run the risk of
becoming too aggressive, counterproductive and might even further
complicate the already fractious debate on how to improve U.S.-Cuba
relations.
The latest report could strengthen hardliners in Havana who oppose
economic reforms, and others in the U.S. who support sanctions on Cuba,
said Meacham, now Americas program director at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies.
Teo Babun, executive director of EchoCuba, a Miami non-profit that has
received U.S., government dollars in the past to assist churches in
Cuba, said the USAID program, as described, was too "aggressive" for his
taste.
"It is clear that USAID supports democracy building programs," he said.
"But it is wrong to engage with or to try to introduce programs that are
so aggressive against the (Cuban) government. We cannot be supportive of
that."
Babun added, however, that he hadn't ever encountered a USAID Cuba
program that was as aggressive as that described in the AP report. "Not
in one instance did we see this type of program," he said.
In April, the AP sparked another aid controversy with a report on a
previously unknown USAID program — a Twitter-like social media platform
for Cubans known as ZunZuneo.
Source: Analysts debate proper role of U.S. democracy programs in Cuba -
Cuba - MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/04/4271951/analysts-debate-proper-role-of.html
Analysts debate proper role of U.S. democracy programs in Cuba
An Associated Press report that the U.S. secretly sent young Latin
Americans to Cuba to provoke political change fans debate.
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
JTAMAYO@ELNUEVOHERALD.COM
The U.S. government has a right to finance pro-democracy programs in
Cuba but must ensure they are not so aggressive that they wind up
hurting dissidents and strengthening the hand of Havana hardliners,
analysts and political figures said Monday.
"U.S. policy has long been to bring about or hasten a democratic
transition in Cuba," said Carl Meacham, former senior staffer on Latin
America for the Republican side of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. "This is consistent with that policy."
Meacham was reacting to a Monday report by the Associated Press that a
U.S. Agency for International Development program sent young people from
Venezuela, Costa Rica and Peru to recruit young Cubans to
anti-government activism … under the guise of civic programs from 2009
to 2011.
USAID said the program, which was run by Washington-based Creative
Associates International working under a grant from the agency, was
designed to "empower (Cuban) citizens to tackle a community or social
problem, win a 'small victory' and ultimately realize that they could be
the masters of their own destiny."
But the AP report poured fresh fuel on the long-running debate over the
U.S. government's Cuba programs. USAID says they are designed to promote
democracy on the island but the Cuban government views them as attempts
to topple its communist system.
Phil Peters, president of the Cuba Research Center in suburban
Washington D.C. and a proponent of easing U.S. sanctions on Havana, said
USAID efforts like the Creative Associates program can increase Cuban
government suspicions.
"This kind of activity can hurt people who are trying to do good work in
Cuba, put them under suspicion that they are working on a political
program — to say nothing of the possible damage to USAID itself around
the world," Peters said.
But Mauricio Claver-Carone, an anti-Castro activist in Washington D.C.,
defended such programs. "The United States should never apologize for
helping the victims of brutal dictatorships throughout the world. To the
contrary, it's emblematic of our nation's finest moments," he wrote.
"All countries do this," Meacham said of the Creative Associates
International program.
Cuban dissident Jose Daniel Ferrer said the U.S. government is right to
help opposition and civil society activists because the Cuban government
controls every aspect of their lives, denies them the right to speak
freely and even fires them from their jobs.
Opposing the government "would be impossible without the help of
friendly democratic nations and Cubans abroad" who pay for items such as
printers, cell phones and taxis to meetings, said Ferrer, head of the
Cuban Patriotic Union.
Said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican: "The fact that USAID
is using measures to promote democracy in Cuba is no secret. We must
continue to pressure the Castro regime and support the Cuban people, who
are oppressed on a daily basis."
In a statement Monday, USAID said that the U.S. Congress "funds
democracy programming in Cuba to empower Cubans to access more
information and strengthen civil society … The work is not secret; it is
not covert, nor is it undercover."
The AP reported that the young travelers to Cuba worked undercover and
often posed as tourists.
In its statement, USAID said the Associated Press included a paragraph
in its report that correctly described the program but "then goes on to
make sensational claims against aid workers for supporting civil society
programs … This is wrong."
But some analysts cautioned that Cuba democracy programs run the risk of
becoming too aggressive, counterproductive and might even further
complicate the already fractious debate on how to improve U.S.-Cuba
relations.
The latest report could strengthen hardliners in Havana who oppose
economic reforms, and others in the U.S. who support sanctions on Cuba,
said Meacham, now Americas program director at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies.
Teo Babun, executive director of EchoCuba, a Miami non-profit that has
received U.S., government dollars in the past to assist churches in
Cuba, said the USAID program, as described, was too "aggressive" for his
taste.
"It is clear that USAID supports democracy building programs," he said.
"But it is wrong to engage with or to try to introduce programs that are
so aggressive against the (Cuban) government. We cannot be supportive of
that."
Babun added, however, that he hadn't ever encountered a USAID Cuba
program that was as aggressive as that described in the AP report. "Not
in one instance did we see this type of program," he said.
In April, the AP sparked another aid controversy with a report on a
previously unknown USAID program — a Twitter-like social media platform
for Cubans known as ZunZuneo.
Source: Analysts debate proper role of U.S. democracy programs in Cuba -
Cuba - MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/04/4271951/analysts-debate-proper-role-of.html
Monday, August 4, 2014
Copa Airlines announces two new destinations, strengthening its route network
Copa Airlines announces two new destinations, strengthening its route
network
August 4, 2014
Copa Airlines, subsidiary of Copa Holdings, SA, has announced
accomplishments for the first half of 2014 and growth plans for the
second half, including the addition of two new direct flights, from
Panama to Campinas, Brazil and Cayo Santa Maria, Cuba.
The additions reflect the airline's continued leadership in the region,
and offer passengers from the two new destinations the fastest and most
convenient way to connect through the Hub of the Americas in Panama with
the rest of the continent.
"Through the years, Copa Airlines has demonstrated its dedication to
world-class service, providing passengers the most efficient
connectivity on travel to and from North, Central, and South America and
the Caribbean", said Pedro Heilbron, Copa CEO. "These two new
destinations will strengthen Copa's extensive route network, fostering
business growth in Campinas and increasing regional tourism in the
spectacular Cayo Santa Maria".
For the first half of 2014, the airline showed a capacity increase,
measured in available seat miles, of 11 percent, and transported 5.7
million passengers, airline officials announced.
During the first six months of 2014, Copa Airlines added four new Boeing
Next Generation 737-800 aircraft equipped with the innovative Split
Scimitar Winglets to its fleet, bringing its total to 94 aircraft.
FlightStats named Copa the airline with the best on-time record in South
America, and Aviation Week magazine named Copa "2013 Airline of the
Year" for its performance, efficiency and the effectiveness of its
business model.
During the second half of 2014, Copa will add four new high-tech Boeing
737-800 Next Generation aircraft, bringing its fleet total to 98
aircraft and increasing the number of available seats by 10 percent over
2013. In addition, the airline will inaugurate a fourth flight simulator
and launch a new Aviation Maintenance Technicians internal development
program.
Copa Airlines continues to strengthen its contribution to Panama's
economic and social development, airline officials state, translating
directly and indirectly to more than 38,000 jobs and an approximately
4.1 percent share of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP),
according to an International Air Transport Association (IATA) study on
Economic Benefits of Panama Air Transport.
New destinations:
- Campinas, Brazil: Copa Airlines will offer one daily flight to
Campinas, its eighth destination in Brazil. Called the "Silicon Valley"
of Brazil, Campinas is home to the second largest concentration of
research and development centres in the country. It is also boasts
Brazil's fourth-largest financial sector. The new flight will begin
operating in December 2014.
- Cayo Santa María, Cuba: Copa Airlines will offer two weekly flights to
its second destination in Cuba, increasing tourist access to beautiful
beaches; hotel accommodations including many "all inclusive" hotels,
approximately 12,500 rooms, 5-star hotels and the the Pedraplén de
Caibarién, an impressive 48km road stretching across the sea to Cayo
Santa Maria, awarded the international "Puente de Alcántara" prize for
best Latin American civil works. This new flight will also begin
operation in December 2014.
With the addition of these new destinations, by the end of 2014 Copa
Airlines will offer flights to 69 destinations in 30 countries in North,
Central, and South America and the Caribbean from its Hub of the
Americas at Tocumen International Airport in Panama City, Panama. The
Hub of the Americas continues to offer more international flights to
destinations in Latin America than any other airline.
Source: Copa Airlines announces two new destinations, strengthening its
route network |ETB News Australia -
http://australia.etbnews.com/219430/copa-airlines-announces-two-new-destinations-strengthening-route-network/
network
August 4, 2014
Copa Airlines, subsidiary of Copa Holdings, SA, has announced
accomplishments for the first half of 2014 and growth plans for the
second half, including the addition of two new direct flights, from
Panama to Campinas, Brazil and Cayo Santa Maria, Cuba.
The additions reflect the airline's continued leadership in the region,
and offer passengers from the two new destinations the fastest and most
convenient way to connect through the Hub of the Americas in Panama with
the rest of the continent.
"Through the years, Copa Airlines has demonstrated its dedication to
world-class service, providing passengers the most efficient
connectivity on travel to and from North, Central, and South America and
the Caribbean", said Pedro Heilbron, Copa CEO. "These two new
destinations will strengthen Copa's extensive route network, fostering
business growth in Campinas and increasing regional tourism in the
spectacular Cayo Santa Maria".
For the first half of 2014, the airline showed a capacity increase,
measured in available seat miles, of 11 percent, and transported 5.7
million passengers, airline officials announced.
During the first six months of 2014, Copa Airlines added four new Boeing
Next Generation 737-800 aircraft equipped with the innovative Split
Scimitar Winglets to its fleet, bringing its total to 94 aircraft.
FlightStats named Copa the airline with the best on-time record in South
America, and Aviation Week magazine named Copa "2013 Airline of the
Year" for its performance, efficiency and the effectiveness of its
business model.
During the second half of 2014, Copa will add four new high-tech Boeing
737-800 Next Generation aircraft, bringing its fleet total to 98
aircraft and increasing the number of available seats by 10 percent over
2013. In addition, the airline will inaugurate a fourth flight simulator
and launch a new Aviation Maintenance Technicians internal development
program.
Copa Airlines continues to strengthen its contribution to Panama's
economic and social development, airline officials state, translating
directly and indirectly to more than 38,000 jobs and an approximately
4.1 percent share of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP),
according to an International Air Transport Association (IATA) study on
Economic Benefits of Panama Air Transport.
New destinations:
- Campinas, Brazil: Copa Airlines will offer one daily flight to
Campinas, its eighth destination in Brazil. Called the "Silicon Valley"
of Brazil, Campinas is home to the second largest concentration of
research and development centres in the country. It is also boasts
Brazil's fourth-largest financial sector. The new flight will begin
operating in December 2014.
- Cayo Santa María, Cuba: Copa Airlines will offer two weekly flights to
its second destination in Cuba, increasing tourist access to beautiful
beaches; hotel accommodations including many "all inclusive" hotels,
approximately 12,500 rooms, 5-star hotels and the the Pedraplén de
Caibarién, an impressive 48km road stretching across the sea to Cayo
Santa Maria, awarded the international "Puente de Alcántara" prize for
best Latin American civil works. This new flight will also begin
operation in December 2014.
With the addition of these new destinations, by the end of 2014 Copa
Airlines will offer flights to 69 destinations in 30 countries in North,
Central, and South America and the Caribbean from its Hub of the
Americas at Tocumen International Airport in Panama City, Panama. The
Hub of the Americas continues to offer more international flights to
destinations in Latin America than any other airline.
Source: Copa Airlines announces two new destinations, strengthening its
route network |ETB News Australia -
http://australia.etbnews.com/219430/copa-airlines-announces-two-new-destinations-strengthening-route-network/
US sent Latin youth undercover in anti-Cuba ploy
Posted on Monday, 08.04.14
US sent Latin youth undercover in anti-Cuba ploy
BY DESMOND BUTLER AND JACK GILLUM AND ALBERTO ARCE AND ANDREA RODRIGUEZ
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON -- An Obama administration program secretly dispatched young
Latin Americans to Cuba using the cover of health and civic programs to
provoke political change, a clandestine operation that put those
foreigners in danger even after a U.S. contractor was hauled away to a
Cuban jail.
Beginning as early as October 2009, a project overseen by the U.S.
Agency for International Development sent Venezuelan, Costa Rican and
Peruvian young people to Cuba in hopes of ginning up rebellion. The
travelers worked undercover, often posing as tourists, and traveled
around the island scouting for people they could turn into political
activists.
In one case, the workers formed an HIV-prevention workshop that memos
called "the perfect excuse" for the program's political goals — a gambit
that could undermine America's efforts to improve health globally.
But their efforts were fraught with incompetence and risk, an Associated
Press investigation found: Cuban authorities questioned who was
bankrolling the travelers. The young workers nearly blew their mission
to "identify potential social-change actors." One said he got a paltry,
30-minute seminar on how to evade Cuban intelligence, and there appeared
to be no safety net for the inexperienced workers if they were caught.
"Although there is never total certainty, trust that the authorities
will not try to harm you physically, only frighten you," read a memo
obtained by the AP. "Remember that the Cuban government prefers to avoid
negative media reports abroad, so a beaten foreigner is not convenient
for them."
In all, nearly a dozen Latin Americans served in the program in Cuba,
for pay as low as $5.41 an hour.
The AP found USAID and its contractor, Creative Associates
International, continued the program even as U.S. officials privately
told their government contractors to consider suspending travel to Cuba
after the arrest of contractor Alan Gross, who remains imprisoned after
smuggling in sensitive technology.
"We value your safety," one senior USAID official said in an email. "The
guidance applies to ALL travelers to the island, not just American
citizens," another official said.
The revelations of the USAID program come as the White House faces
questions about the once-secret "Cuban Twitter" project, known as
ZunZuneo. That program, launched by USAID in 2009 and uncovered by the
AP in April, established a primitive social media network under the
noses of Cuban officials. USAID's inspector general is investigating
that program, which ended in September, 2012.
Officials said USAID launched "discreet" programs like ZunZuneo to
increase the flow of information in a country that heavily restricts it.
But the AP's earlier investigation found ZunZuneo was political in
nature and drew in subscribers unaware that the service was paid for by
the U.S. government.
"USAID and the Obama administration are committed to supporting the
Cuban people's desire to freely determine their own future," the agency
said in response to written questions from the AP. "USAID works with
independent youth groups in Cuba on community service projects, public
health, the arts and other opportunities to engage publicly, consistent
with democracy programs worldwide."
In a statement late Sunday, USAID said the HIV workshop had a dual
purpose: It "enabled support for Cuban civil society while providing a
secondary benefit of addressing the desire Cubans expressed for
information and training about HIV prevention."
Creative Associates declined to comment, referring questions to USAID.
Both ZunZuneo and the travelers program were part of a larger,
multimillion-dollar effort by USAID to effect change in politically
volatile countries, government data show. But the programs reviewed by
the AP didn't appear to achieve their goals and operated under an agency
known more for its international-aid work than stealthy operations. The
CIA recently pledged to stop using vaccine programs to gather
intelligence, such as one in Pakistan that targeted Osama bin Laden.
The travelers program was launched when newly inaugurated President
Barack Obama's administration was talking about a "new beginning" with
Cuba after decades of mistrust, raising questions about whether the
White House had a coherent policy toward the island nation.
Drawing on documents and interviews worldwide, the AP found the
travelers program went to extensive lengths to hide the workers'
activities. They were to communicate in code: "I have a headache" meant
they suspected they were being monitored by Cuban authorities; "Your
sister is ill" was an order to cut their trip short.
"We worked it so that the government here didn't know we were traveling
to Cuba and helping these groups," said Yajaira Andrade, a former
administrator with a Venezuelan organization. "Because that was when
(President Hugo) Chavez was in power, and if he had known about us —
that some Venezuelans were working to stir rebellion — we would have
been thrown in jail."
To evade Cuban authorities, travelers installed innocent-looking content
on their laptops to mask sensitive information they were carrying. They
also used encrypted memory sticks to hide their files and sent obviously
encrypted emails using a system that might have drawn suspicion.
It is illegal in Cuba to work with foreign democracy-building programs.
Nevertheless, one contract was signed days after Gross' detention.
"They arrested a contractor from another agency. That could be
dangerous," one Skype message between two project workers would later
read. "Thank God he's not one of ours."
Documents show Creative Associates approved the use of the travelers'
relatives to carry cash to the Cuban contacts. But the family members
weren't to be told that the funds were from the U.S. government.
Hector Baranda, who was a college student in Cuba when he was befriended
by a group of traveling Venezuelans, said he was surprised to hear from
the AP they were working for the U.S. government and had profiled him.
"How would you feel if you offered your sincere friendship and received
this kind of news?" Baranda asked.
The travelers' project was paid for under the same pot of federal money
that paid for the ZunZuneo program. But USAID has yet to provide the AP
with a complete copy of the Cuban contracts under a Freedom of
Information Act request filed more than three months ago.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was in office
during the program and is a likely Democratic presidential candidate in
2016, said in her new book "Hard Choices" that she was pleased "to see
change slowly creeping into the country."
---
Arce reported from San Jose, Costa Rica, and Rodriguez from Santa Clara,
Cuba. Associated Press writers Hannah Dreier in Caracas, Venezuela;
Peter Orsi in Havana; Frank Bajak in Lima, Peru; Raphael Satter in
Dublin; and Monika Mathur in Washington contributed to this report.
---
Contact the AP's Washington investigative team at
DCinvestigations@ap.org. On Twitter, follow Butler at
https://twitter.com/desmondbutler; Gillum at
https://twitter.com/jackgillum; Arce at https://twitter.com/alberarce;
and Rodriguez at https://twitter.com/arodriguezap.
Source: WASHINGTON: US sent Latin youth undercover in anti-Cuba ploy -
Florida Wires - MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/04/4270760/us-sent-latin-youth-undercover.html
US sent Latin youth undercover in anti-Cuba ploy
BY DESMOND BUTLER AND JACK GILLUM AND ALBERTO ARCE AND ANDREA RODRIGUEZ
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON -- An Obama administration program secretly dispatched young
Latin Americans to Cuba using the cover of health and civic programs to
provoke political change, a clandestine operation that put those
foreigners in danger even after a U.S. contractor was hauled away to a
Cuban jail.
Beginning as early as October 2009, a project overseen by the U.S.
Agency for International Development sent Venezuelan, Costa Rican and
Peruvian young people to Cuba in hopes of ginning up rebellion. The
travelers worked undercover, often posing as tourists, and traveled
around the island scouting for people they could turn into political
activists.
In one case, the workers formed an HIV-prevention workshop that memos
called "the perfect excuse" for the program's political goals — a gambit
that could undermine America's efforts to improve health globally.
But their efforts were fraught with incompetence and risk, an Associated
Press investigation found: Cuban authorities questioned who was
bankrolling the travelers. The young workers nearly blew their mission
to "identify potential social-change actors." One said he got a paltry,
30-minute seminar on how to evade Cuban intelligence, and there appeared
to be no safety net for the inexperienced workers if they were caught.
"Although there is never total certainty, trust that the authorities
will not try to harm you physically, only frighten you," read a memo
obtained by the AP. "Remember that the Cuban government prefers to avoid
negative media reports abroad, so a beaten foreigner is not convenient
for them."
In all, nearly a dozen Latin Americans served in the program in Cuba,
for pay as low as $5.41 an hour.
The AP found USAID and its contractor, Creative Associates
International, continued the program even as U.S. officials privately
told their government contractors to consider suspending travel to Cuba
after the arrest of contractor Alan Gross, who remains imprisoned after
smuggling in sensitive technology.
"We value your safety," one senior USAID official said in an email. "The
guidance applies to ALL travelers to the island, not just American
citizens," another official said.
The revelations of the USAID program come as the White House faces
questions about the once-secret "Cuban Twitter" project, known as
ZunZuneo. That program, launched by USAID in 2009 and uncovered by the
AP in April, established a primitive social media network under the
noses of Cuban officials. USAID's inspector general is investigating
that program, which ended in September, 2012.
Officials said USAID launched "discreet" programs like ZunZuneo to
increase the flow of information in a country that heavily restricts it.
But the AP's earlier investigation found ZunZuneo was political in
nature and drew in subscribers unaware that the service was paid for by
the U.S. government.
"USAID and the Obama administration are committed to supporting the
Cuban people's desire to freely determine their own future," the agency
said in response to written questions from the AP. "USAID works with
independent youth groups in Cuba on community service projects, public
health, the arts and other opportunities to engage publicly, consistent
with democracy programs worldwide."
In a statement late Sunday, USAID said the HIV workshop had a dual
purpose: It "enabled support for Cuban civil society while providing a
secondary benefit of addressing the desire Cubans expressed for
information and training about HIV prevention."
Creative Associates declined to comment, referring questions to USAID.
Both ZunZuneo and the travelers program were part of a larger,
multimillion-dollar effort by USAID to effect change in politically
volatile countries, government data show. But the programs reviewed by
the AP didn't appear to achieve their goals and operated under an agency
known more for its international-aid work than stealthy operations. The
CIA recently pledged to stop using vaccine programs to gather
intelligence, such as one in Pakistan that targeted Osama bin Laden.
The travelers program was launched when newly inaugurated President
Barack Obama's administration was talking about a "new beginning" with
Cuba after decades of mistrust, raising questions about whether the
White House had a coherent policy toward the island nation.
Drawing on documents and interviews worldwide, the AP found the
travelers program went to extensive lengths to hide the workers'
activities. They were to communicate in code: "I have a headache" meant
they suspected they were being monitored by Cuban authorities; "Your
sister is ill" was an order to cut their trip short.
"We worked it so that the government here didn't know we were traveling
to Cuba and helping these groups," said Yajaira Andrade, a former
administrator with a Venezuelan organization. "Because that was when
(President Hugo) Chavez was in power, and if he had known about us —
that some Venezuelans were working to stir rebellion — we would have
been thrown in jail."
To evade Cuban authorities, travelers installed innocent-looking content
on their laptops to mask sensitive information they were carrying. They
also used encrypted memory sticks to hide their files and sent obviously
encrypted emails using a system that might have drawn suspicion.
It is illegal in Cuba to work with foreign democracy-building programs.
Nevertheless, one contract was signed days after Gross' detention.
"They arrested a contractor from another agency. That could be
dangerous," one Skype message between two project workers would later
read. "Thank God he's not one of ours."
Documents show Creative Associates approved the use of the travelers'
relatives to carry cash to the Cuban contacts. But the family members
weren't to be told that the funds were from the U.S. government.
Hector Baranda, who was a college student in Cuba when he was befriended
by a group of traveling Venezuelans, said he was surprised to hear from
the AP they were working for the U.S. government and had profiled him.
"How would you feel if you offered your sincere friendship and received
this kind of news?" Baranda asked.
The travelers' project was paid for under the same pot of federal money
that paid for the ZunZuneo program. But USAID has yet to provide the AP
with a complete copy of the Cuban contracts under a Freedom of
Information Act request filed more than three months ago.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was in office
during the program and is a likely Democratic presidential candidate in
2016, said in her new book "Hard Choices" that she was pleased "to see
change slowly creeping into the country."
---
Arce reported from San Jose, Costa Rica, and Rodriguez from Santa Clara,
Cuba. Associated Press writers Hannah Dreier in Caracas, Venezuela;
Peter Orsi in Havana; Frank Bajak in Lima, Peru; Raphael Satter in
Dublin; and Monika Mathur in Washington contributed to this report.
---
Contact the AP's Washington investigative team at
DCinvestigations@ap.org. On Twitter, follow Butler at
https://twitter.com/desmondbutler; Gillum at
https://twitter.com/jackgillum; Arce at https://twitter.com/alberarce;
and Rodriguez at https://twitter.com/arodriguezap.
Source: WASHINGTON: US sent Latin youth undercover in anti-Cuba ploy -
Florida Wires - MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/04/4270760/us-sent-latin-youth-undercover.html
5 findings about USAID travelers' program in Cuba
Posted on Monday, 08.04.14
5 findings about USAID travelers' program in Cuba
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
In April, The Associated Press revealed that the U.S. Agency for
International Development had overseen the creation of a secret "Cuban
Twitter" program to stir political dissent on the island and bypass
Cuba's stranglehold on the Internet. But that program was part of a
larger operation.
A new story by the AP reveals the agency secretly dispatched young Latin
Americans to Cuba using health and civic programs to provoke political
change. The operation began just as American contractor Alan Gross was
sent to jail in December 2009 while working for another USAID-sponsored
project.
The traveler's program posed significant risk for its young recruits as
well as for USAID itself. Its effectiveness is unclear.
Here are five things to know:
1."THE PERFECT EXCUSE": The young spies from Costa Rica created an
HIV-prevention workshop that they called "the perfect excuse" to recruit
political activists, a ruse that could undermine USAID's credibility in
critical health work around the world.
2.THEIR EFFORTS WERE FRAUGHT WITH INCOMPETENCE AND RISK. Cuban
authorities questioned who was bankrolling the travelers, and there was
no safety net for the young Latin Americans, who were doing work that
was explicitly illegal in Cuba.
3.VENEZUELANS AND PERUVIANS WERE DEPLOYED TO CUBA'S COLLEGE CAMPUSES.
The objective was to recruit university students with the long-term goal
of turning them against their government. Potential recruits were listed
by name, and then profiled, their leadership qualities assessed in a
spreadsheet.
4.WHETHER ANY OF THE POLITICAL OBJECTIVES WERE EVER REALIZED IS UNCLEAR.
In fact, their Cuban contacts in recent interviews with the AP said they
were astonished to discover that their foreign friends were acting on
behalf of the U.S. government.
5.THE CONTRACTOR, CREATIVE ASSOCIATES INTERNATIONAL, CHANGED ITS
STRATEGY. In September 2010, Creative Associates shifted from sending
outsiders into Cuba to develop dissidents among college students to
getting exit visas for the new leaders and training them off the island.
Other beneficiaries in Cuba would receive cash payments to run the
recruitment efforts.
Source: 5 findings about USAID travelers' program in Cuba - Nation Wires
- MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/04/4270229/5-findings-about-usaid-travelers.html
5 findings about USAID travelers' program in Cuba
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
In April, The Associated Press revealed that the U.S. Agency for
International Development had overseen the creation of a secret "Cuban
Twitter" program to stir political dissent on the island and bypass
Cuba's stranglehold on the Internet. But that program was part of a
larger operation.
A new story by the AP reveals the agency secretly dispatched young Latin
Americans to Cuba using health and civic programs to provoke political
change. The operation began just as American contractor Alan Gross was
sent to jail in December 2009 while working for another USAID-sponsored
project.
The traveler's program posed significant risk for its young recruits as
well as for USAID itself. Its effectiveness is unclear.
Here are five things to know:
1."THE PERFECT EXCUSE": The young spies from Costa Rica created an
HIV-prevention workshop that they called "the perfect excuse" to recruit
political activists, a ruse that could undermine USAID's credibility in
critical health work around the world.
2.THEIR EFFORTS WERE FRAUGHT WITH INCOMPETENCE AND RISK. Cuban
authorities questioned who was bankrolling the travelers, and there was
no safety net for the young Latin Americans, who were doing work that
was explicitly illegal in Cuba.
3.VENEZUELANS AND PERUVIANS WERE DEPLOYED TO CUBA'S COLLEGE CAMPUSES.
The objective was to recruit university students with the long-term goal
of turning them against their government. Potential recruits were listed
by name, and then profiled, their leadership qualities assessed in a
spreadsheet.
4.WHETHER ANY OF THE POLITICAL OBJECTIVES WERE EVER REALIZED IS UNCLEAR.
In fact, their Cuban contacts in recent interviews with the AP said they
were astonished to discover that their foreign friends were acting on
behalf of the U.S. government.
5.THE CONTRACTOR, CREATIVE ASSOCIATES INTERNATIONAL, CHANGED ITS
STRATEGY. In September 2010, Creative Associates shifted from sending
outsiders into Cuba to develop dissidents among college students to
getting exit visas for the new leaders and training them off the island.
Other beneficiaries in Cuba would receive cash payments to run the
recruitment efforts.
Source: 5 findings about USAID travelers' program in Cuba - Nation Wires
- MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/04/4270229/5-findings-about-usaid-travelers.html
American imprisoned in Cuba says goodbye to family
Posted on Monday, 08.04.14
American imprisoned in Cuba says goodbye to family
BY JESSICA GRESKO
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON -- A lawyer for an American who has spent more than four
years imprisoned in Cuba said Monday that his client cannot take life in
prison much longer and has said his goodbyes to his wife and a daughter.
Alan Gross was arrested in Cuba in 2009 while working covertly in the
Communist-run country to set up Internet access. His attorney, Scott
Gilbert, said in a statement Monday that his client "has withdrawn" and
told him "life in prison is not a life worth living." Gross has
previously said through his lawyer that his 65th birthday, which took
place in May, would be the last one that he "celebrates in Havana, one
way or the other."
Gross said goodbye to his wife and youngest daughter during a recent
visit. Gross, who lived in Maryland before his arrest, had previously
told his two daughters not to come see him in prison.
Gross has stopped exercising and his health is not good, said Gilbert,
who plans to visit his client this week. His hips are failing and he has
lost most of the vision in his right eye. Gross' "emotional
deterioration has been severe," Gilbert said, particularly following the
death in June of his 92-year-old mother.
Gross and his mother talked frequently by phone, and when Gross went on
a nine-day hunger strike in April it was his mother who persuaded him to
end it. Gross had asked the Cuban government to be able to return to the
United States for her funeral, but the request was denied.
Gross' wife, Judy Gross, said in Monday's statement that she has never
seen her husband in such bad shape during the time he has spent in
prison. She wrote that "his decision to say goodbye to us was wrenching."
Gross is also now refusing to see officials from the U.S. Interests
Section in Havana, which Washington maintains instead of an embassy
since the two countries do not have formal diplomatic relations.
At the time Gross was arrested he was working as a subcontractor for the
U.S. government's U.S. Agency for International Development, which
promotes democracy on the island. Cuba considers USAID's programs
illegal attempts by the U.S. to undermine its government, and Gross was
tried and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Also on Monday, Gross' lawyer released a letter from a group of 300
rabbis to President Barack Obama urging him to take action to secure
Gross' release. Gross, who is Jewish, was working with Cuba's small
Jewish community on Internet access when he was arrested.
Follow Jessica Gresko at http://twitter.com/jessicagresko
Source: WASHINGTON: American imprisoned in Cuba says goodbye to family -
Politics Wires - MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/04/4270670/american-imprisoned-in-cuba-says.html
American imprisoned in Cuba says goodbye to family
BY JESSICA GRESKO
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON -- A lawyer for an American who has spent more than four
years imprisoned in Cuba said Monday that his client cannot take life in
prison much longer and has said his goodbyes to his wife and a daughter.
Alan Gross was arrested in Cuba in 2009 while working covertly in the
Communist-run country to set up Internet access. His attorney, Scott
Gilbert, said in a statement Monday that his client "has withdrawn" and
told him "life in prison is not a life worth living." Gross has
previously said through his lawyer that his 65th birthday, which took
place in May, would be the last one that he "celebrates in Havana, one
way or the other."
Gross said goodbye to his wife and youngest daughter during a recent
visit. Gross, who lived in Maryland before his arrest, had previously
told his two daughters not to come see him in prison.
Gross has stopped exercising and his health is not good, said Gilbert,
who plans to visit his client this week. His hips are failing and he has
lost most of the vision in his right eye. Gross' "emotional
deterioration has been severe," Gilbert said, particularly following the
death in June of his 92-year-old mother.
Gross and his mother talked frequently by phone, and when Gross went on
a nine-day hunger strike in April it was his mother who persuaded him to
end it. Gross had asked the Cuban government to be able to return to the
United States for her funeral, but the request was denied.
Gross' wife, Judy Gross, said in Monday's statement that she has never
seen her husband in such bad shape during the time he has spent in
prison. She wrote that "his decision to say goodbye to us was wrenching."
Gross is also now refusing to see officials from the U.S. Interests
Section in Havana, which Washington maintains instead of an embassy
since the two countries do not have formal diplomatic relations.
At the time Gross was arrested he was working as a subcontractor for the
U.S. government's U.S. Agency for International Development, which
promotes democracy on the island. Cuba considers USAID's programs
illegal attempts by the U.S. to undermine its government, and Gross was
tried and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Also on Monday, Gross' lawyer released a letter from a group of 300
rabbis to President Barack Obama urging him to take action to secure
Gross' release. Gross, who is Jewish, was working with Cuba's small
Jewish community on Internet access when he was arrested.
Follow Jessica Gresko at http://twitter.com/jessicagresko
Source: WASHINGTON: American imprisoned in Cuba says goodbye to family -
Politics Wires - MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/04/4270670/american-imprisoned-in-cuba-says.html
Sunday, August 3, 2014
The Current State of Cuba’s Offshore Oil Development
The Current State of Cuba's Offshore Oil Development
Business Insights: Cuba
July 2014
While Cuba produces some energy – principally heavy oil and associated
natural gas – its domestic production does not meet its requirements for
daily energy consumption. Once dependent on the Soviet Union for energy
imports, Cuba now relies on Venezuela for oil to keep its economy
afloat. According to experts, Cuba's arrangement with Venezuela is
unsustainable over the long-term.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that offshore reserves in the North
Cuba Basin could contain an additional five billion barrels of
undiscovered technically recoverable crude oil. Cuba estimates its
reserves in 20 billion barrels. However, all exploratory results have
been a blow to Cuban hopes of finding oil. Some attempts came up dry or
resulted in the discovery of a field devoid of commercial value.
Now, Cuba is asking for Russia's help with the support of President
Putin. Russian companies Rosneft and Zarubezhneft signed an energy
agreement with Cuba in May 2014 to explore offshore oil deposits. The
drilling area north of Havana straddles the Gulf Stream, a powerful
ocean current that rushes north to the Florida coast. Oceanographers
warn that an oil slick caused by a major spill could reach Florida's
beaches, reefs and marine sanctuaries in about a week.
Former U.S. Senator Bob Graham, who also served two terms as governor of
Florida and co-chaired a presidential commission on the 2010 Deepwater
Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, met with Cuban officials in
January 2014. Senator Graham and energy experts said the Russians have
little experience with deep-water drilling and that the U.S. embargo of
Cuba prohibits the use of American technology to prevent or respond to a
spill.
A State Department spokesperson said U.S. officials "have expressed our
concerns" to Cuba and its partners, but the United States can do nothing
to stop drilling in Cuban waters. While the embargo limits the use of
American products, U.S. companies have been licensed to respond in case
of a spill.
U.S. Embargo – Cuba Drilling
The embargo against Cuba denies access to Cuba of U.S. equipment for
drilling and environmental protection. Exports and re-exports to Cuba of
foreign made items incorporating, commingled with or drawn from
controlled U.S. origin items exceeding 10 percent of U.S. components and
technology – the so-called De Minimis Rule under Sections 734.4 and
736.2(b)(2) of Export Administration Regulations (EARs) – are prohibited
by the Embargo.
Several experts have said that the only country that produces the
necessary equipment is the United States. Therefore, Cuba would not have
access to U.S. equipment unless the embargo is lifted or altered. At the
very least, coordination between Cuba and the United States would be
necessary to prevent any potential oil spill.
Members of Congress have presented several proposals to deny oil and gas
leases and permits "to persons who engage in activities with the
government of any foreign country that is subject to any sanction or an
embargo" by the U.S. government.
Conclusion
A "safe" and "monitored" approach to Cuba's oil offshore development is
in the national interest of the United States, which should work
together with Cuba and use multilateral agreements with Mexico to
facilitate oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.
Source: The Current State of Cuba's Offshore Oil Development | Fox
Rothschild LLP -
http://foxrothschild.com/newspubs/newspubsArticle.aspx?id=15032395046
Business Insights: Cuba
July 2014
While Cuba produces some energy – principally heavy oil and associated
natural gas – its domestic production does not meet its requirements for
daily energy consumption. Once dependent on the Soviet Union for energy
imports, Cuba now relies on Venezuela for oil to keep its economy
afloat. According to experts, Cuba's arrangement with Venezuela is
unsustainable over the long-term.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that offshore reserves in the North
Cuba Basin could contain an additional five billion barrels of
undiscovered technically recoverable crude oil. Cuba estimates its
reserves in 20 billion barrels. However, all exploratory results have
been a blow to Cuban hopes of finding oil. Some attempts came up dry or
resulted in the discovery of a field devoid of commercial value.
Now, Cuba is asking for Russia's help with the support of President
Putin. Russian companies Rosneft and Zarubezhneft signed an energy
agreement with Cuba in May 2014 to explore offshore oil deposits. The
drilling area north of Havana straddles the Gulf Stream, a powerful
ocean current that rushes north to the Florida coast. Oceanographers
warn that an oil slick caused by a major spill could reach Florida's
beaches, reefs and marine sanctuaries in about a week.
Former U.S. Senator Bob Graham, who also served two terms as governor of
Florida and co-chaired a presidential commission on the 2010 Deepwater
Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, met with Cuban officials in
January 2014. Senator Graham and energy experts said the Russians have
little experience with deep-water drilling and that the U.S. embargo of
Cuba prohibits the use of American technology to prevent or respond to a
spill.
A State Department spokesperson said U.S. officials "have expressed our
concerns" to Cuba and its partners, but the United States can do nothing
to stop drilling in Cuban waters. While the embargo limits the use of
American products, U.S. companies have been licensed to respond in case
of a spill.
U.S. Embargo – Cuba Drilling
The embargo against Cuba denies access to Cuba of U.S. equipment for
drilling and environmental protection. Exports and re-exports to Cuba of
foreign made items incorporating, commingled with or drawn from
controlled U.S. origin items exceeding 10 percent of U.S. components and
technology – the so-called De Minimis Rule under Sections 734.4 and
736.2(b)(2) of Export Administration Regulations (EARs) – are prohibited
by the Embargo.
Several experts have said that the only country that produces the
necessary equipment is the United States. Therefore, Cuba would not have
access to U.S. equipment unless the embargo is lifted or altered. At the
very least, coordination between Cuba and the United States would be
necessary to prevent any potential oil spill.
Members of Congress have presented several proposals to deny oil and gas
leases and permits "to persons who engage in activities with the
government of any foreign country that is subject to any sanction or an
embargo" by the U.S. government.
Conclusion
A "safe" and "monitored" approach to Cuba's oil offshore development is
in the national interest of the United States, which should work
together with Cuba and use multilateral agreements with Mexico to
facilitate oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.
Source: The Current State of Cuba's Offshore Oil Development | Fox
Rothschild LLP -
http://foxrothschild.com/newspubs/newspubsArticle.aspx?id=15032395046
Cuban LGBTI take their demands to the Attorney General
Cuban LGBTI take their demands to the Attorney General
August 2, 2014
Isbel Díaz Torres
HAVANA TIMES – In the name of the Rainbow Project (Proyecto Arcoíris), I
delivered a letter last Thursday to the Cuban Attorney General's Office.
The letter is a denunciation of violations committed by the "Style and
Contents Commission" of the National People's Power Assembly who were
responsible for the final draft of the Labor Code.
This Commission, directed by José Luis Toledo Santander, president of
the Parliament's Commission for Constitutional and Judicial Issues,
failed to fulfill the mandate they received in December of 2013; their
draft completely disregarded the proposals of the LGBT workers, several
deputies and even those of President Raul Castro, First Vice-President
Miguel Díaz-Canel, and those of the President of the National Assembly,
Esteban Lazo.
The Commission was supposed to have "harmoniously" integrated into the
final text the concept that gender identity and negative or positive HIV
status comprise totally inadmissible motives for discrimination against
any human being in the realm of employment or workplaces, as part of the
fundamental principles that compose the right to work in Article 2,
Subsection B of the Code.
Towards that end, the DA's office was urged to investigate fully the
violations and arbitrary actions of the said Commission, as well as
those of all the institutions and persons involved in the final draft of
the Labor Law.
The grievance was made public this past July 26th in a declaration of
the LGBT collective entitled "LGBTI community of Cuba in national
rebellion." The declaration concludes:
"As citizens of this country and also in our role as activists for human
and sexual rights who defend the idea of an anti-capitalist,
revolutionary and democratic society, we demand that exemplary measures
be taken and that all existing judicial procedures be exhausted with an
eye to submitting once again to the vote of Parliament a measure
incorporating non-discrimination for gender identity or for having a
positive or negative HIV/AIDS status into the Labor Code.
The letter was delivered to the seat of the Attorney General's Office of
the Republic, located at the corner of 1st and 18th St. in the Playa
district in the afternoon of this past Thursday. The State office
legally has 60 days to present a written response.
Source: Cuban LGBTI take their demands to the Attorney General - Havana
Times.org - http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=105294
August 2, 2014
Isbel Díaz Torres
HAVANA TIMES – In the name of the Rainbow Project (Proyecto Arcoíris), I
delivered a letter last Thursday to the Cuban Attorney General's Office.
The letter is a denunciation of violations committed by the "Style and
Contents Commission" of the National People's Power Assembly who were
responsible for the final draft of the Labor Code.
This Commission, directed by José Luis Toledo Santander, president of
the Parliament's Commission for Constitutional and Judicial Issues,
failed to fulfill the mandate they received in December of 2013; their
draft completely disregarded the proposals of the LGBT workers, several
deputies and even those of President Raul Castro, First Vice-President
Miguel Díaz-Canel, and those of the President of the National Assembly,
Esteban Lazo.
The Commission was supposed to have "harmoniously" integrated into the
final text the concept that gender identity and negative or positive HIV
status comprise totally inadmissible motives for discrimination against
any human being in the realm of employment or workplaces, as part of the
fundamental principles that compose the right to work in Article 2,
Subsection B of the Code.
Towards that end, the DA's office was urged to investigate fully the
violations and arbitrary actions of the said Commission, as well as
those of all the institutions and persons involved in the final draft of
the Labor Law.
The grievance was made public this past July 26th in a declaration of
the LGBT collective entitled "LGBTI community of Cuba in national
rebellion." The declaration concludes:
"As citizens of this country and also in our role as activists for human
and sexual rights who defend the idea of an anti-capitalist,
revolutionary and democratic society, we demand that exemplary measures
be taken and that all existing judicial procedures be exhausted with an
eye to submitting once again to the vote of Parliament a measure
incorporating non-discrimination for gender identity or for having a
positive or negative HIV/AIDS status into the Labor Code.
The letter was delivered to the seat of the Attorney General's Office of
the Republic, located at the corner of 1st and 18th St. in the Playa
district in the afternoon of this past Thursday. The State office
legally has 60 days to present a written response.
Source: Cuban LGBTI take their demands to the Attorney General - Havana
Times.org - http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=105294
Cuba politics and economics converge at Miami Conference
Cuba politics and economics converge at Miami Conference
August 2, 2014
Vincent Morin Aguado
HAVANA TIMES — A close look at the island's economy, both from Cubans
residing in the country and those living abroad, marked the second day
of discussions at the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy
conference in Miami. An overriding conclusion was that the urgent need
for expanding the changes in motion requires political decisions still
forthcoming.
Dariela Aquique Luna, a freelance reporter from Santiago de Cuba spoke
on the theme "Cuba, a new economic model or capitalize on the excitement
of Latin American integration?" She delves into the origins of the
so-called "Updating" process, seen as a political move attempting to
once again save the prevailing power in Cuba, taking advantage of the
progress of the political forces of the left in Latin America,
especially Venezuela and Brazil.
Aquique, who writes for both Havana Times and Diario de Cuba, leads us
to believe that the current Cuban government will continue the political
game started by the "updating" process but without further reforms. As
such, she thinks it will be unable to unleash the country's productive
forces.
Jorge Ignacio Guillen Martinez, a student at the University of Havana,
described a grim reality experienced today in Cuba, based on a survey
revealing an apparent deterioration process observed when evaluating the
relationship between the changes, their direction and what should be the
objective of any economic reform: improving the human condition.
Over 75% of those responding said the current process of changes has not
meant an improvement for them. The existence of a deep anthropological
damage in Cubans is the main conclusion of this young man from Pinar del
Rio. He sees a pressing need to release the forces of stagnation in the
economy, promoting private ownership and business development, if they
want to rescue the society from its current debacle.
Dariela Aquique and Vicente Morín at the ASCE conference.
Another panel discussed the crucial issue of labor rights within the
economic changes, and the need for the contribution of independent Cuban
unionism. Also analyzed was the Mariel Port mega project, considering
the variables of its limited success thus far in the context of
international trade.
The day's panel sessions then ended with a plenary and the presentation
by former Cuban diplomat Miriam Leyva, widow of the economist and human
rights activist Oscar Espinosa Chepe. Miriam analyzed the transition
taking place in Cuba and relations with the United States. She opted for
a new political approach based on constructive steps that abandon old
dogmas, such as the Yes or No on the controversial issue of the embargo.
The fact is that changing Cuba requires a continued exchanging of ideas,
expanding the ability of Cubans to learn about experiences beyond the
island's borders, facilitating visits to the country by US citizens, as
well as training entrepreneurs. In summarizing, opening doors and
building bridges.
The XXIV Annual Conference of ASCE ends today with an emphasis on issues
related to foreign investment and the new legal framework as well as the
mass media and culture. Undoubtedly, the event is planting a seed for a
future harvest.
vicentemorin@yahoo.com
Source: Cuba politics and economics converge at Miami Conference -
Havana Times.org - http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=105284
August 2, 2014
Vincent Morin Aguado
HAVANA TIMES — A close look at the island's economy, both from Cubans
residing in the country and those living abroad, marked the second day
of discussions at the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy
conference in Miami. An overriding conclusion was that the urgent need
for expanding the changes in motion requires political decisions still
forthcoming.
Dariela Aquique Luna, a freelance reporter from Santiago de Cuba spoke
on the theme "Cuba, a new economic model or capitalize on the excitement
of Latin American integration?" She delves into the origins of the
so-called "Updating" process, seen as a political move attempting to
once again save the prevailing power in Cuba, taking advantage of the
progress of the political forces of the left in Latin America,
especially Venezuela and Brazil.
Aquique, who writes for both Havana Times and Diario de Cuba, leads us
to believe that the current Cuban government will continue the political
game started by the "updating" process but without further reforms. As
such, she thinks it will be unable to unleash the country's productive
forces.
Jorge Ignacio Guillen Martinez, a student at the University of Havana,
described a grim reality experienced today in Cuba, based on a survey
revealing an apparent deterioration process observed when evaluating the
relationship between the changes, their direction and what should be the
objective of any economic reform: improving the human condition.
Over 75% of those responding said the current process of changes has not
meant an improvement for them. The existence of a deep anthropological
damage in Cubans is the main conclusion of this young man from Pinar del
Rio. He sees a pressing need to release the forces of stagnation in the
economy, promoting private ownership and business development, if they
want to rescue the society from its current debacle.
Dariela Aquique and Vicente Morín at the ASCE conference.
Another panel discussed the crucial issue of labor rights within the
economic changes, and the need for the contribution of independent Cuban
unionism. Also analyzed was the Mariel Port mega project, considering
the variables of its limited success thus far in the context of
international trade.
The day's panel sessions then ended with a plenary and the presentation
by former Cuban diplomat Miriam Leyva, widow of the economist and human
rights activist Oscar Espinosa Chepe. Miriam analyzed the transition
taking place in Cuba and relations with the United States. She opted for
a new political approach based on constructive steps that abandon old
dogmas, such as the Yes or No on the controversial issue of the embargo.
The fact is that changing Cuba requires a continued exchanging of ideas,
expanding the ability of Cubans to learn about experiences beyond the
island's borders, facilitating visits to the country by US citizens, as
well as training entrepreneurs. In summarizing, opening doors and
building bridges.
The XXIV Annual Conference of ASCE ends today with an emphasis on issues
related to foreign investment and the new legal framework as well as the
mass media and culture. Undoubtedly, the event is planting a seed for a
future harvest.
vicentemorin@yahoo.com
Source: Cuba politics and economics converge at Miami Conference -
Havana Times.org - http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=105284
New revelations about Cuban spy Ana Montes
Posted on Saturday, 08.02.14
New revelations about Cuban spy Ana Montes
Details about Cuban spy Ana Montes from the Department of Defense
Inspector General's 2005 report — only now declassified — shed new light
on the case.
BY BRIAN LATELL
SPECIAL TO THE MIAMI HERALD
For 16 years, Ana Belen Montes spied for Cuba from increasingly
responsible positions at the Defense Intelligence Agency. If Havana has
ever run a higher level or more valuable mole inside the American
defense establishment, that has never been revealed.
When she was arrested in late September 2001, Montes was about the
equivalent in rank of a colonel. She had access to sensitive
compartmented intelligence. Strangely, for one so openly enamored of
Fidel Castro, her superiors considered her one of the best Cuba analysts
anywhere in government.
Despite the importance of her case, some of the most tantalizing
questions about her spying have never been publicly answered. Could the
calamity of her treason have been avoided? What was learned about Cuban
intelligence tradecraft? How was she discovered? And, of enduring
concern, did she work with other American spies thus far undetected or
not prosecuted?
Thanks to researcher Jeffrey Richelson and the National Security
Archive, new light has finally been shed on the Montes case. Because of
their efforts, a 180 page study completed by the Department of Defense
Inspector General in 2005 has recently been declassified. It is heavily
redacted; many pages, including the CIA's extensive comments, blacked
out. Yet, a quantity of surprising new details are now on the public record.
Montes's decision to spy for Cuba was "coolly deliberate." Enticed by a
Cuban access agent in Washington, they traveled together to New York in
December 1984. Montes met with intelligence officers posted under cover
at the Cuban mission to the United Nations.
She "unhesitatingly agreed" to work with them and travel clandestinely
to Cuba as soon as possible. The following March, she went there via
Spain and Czechoslovakia. The Pentagon report does not state the
obvious: while there, she must have received specialized training in
intelligence tradecraft.
Then, with Cuban encouragement, she applied for a job at DIA. A standard
background investigation was conducted, but we now know that serious
concerns about her suitability were raised. Without elaboration, the
Pentagon report indicates that they included "falsification of her
Master of Arts degree from Johns Hopkins (University) and her
trustworthiness."
DIA did not require applicants to submit to a pre-employment polygraph
exam. So, Montes, a trained Cuban espionage agent with a problematic
past was cleared and hired. She began her double duties in September 1985.
After her arrest, Montes insisted that she had the "moral right" to
provide information to Cuba. In her view, she did not work for Cuba, but
with Cuban officials. They felt "mutual respect and understanding" she
thought, as "comrades in the struggle."
The Cubans were skilled in manipulating and controlling her. She told
interrogators after her apprehension that she considered herself the
equal of her "Cuban comrades, not a menial espionage tool." They let her
believe she "maintained significant control," although she consistently
left "security matters, including meeting site security,
countersurveillance, and transmission security" to her handlers.
Montes said they were "thoughtful, sensitive to her needs, very good to
me." They went to "special lengths to assure her they had complete
confidence in her." They allowed her a long, loose leash, easier because
they were not paying for her extraordinary services.
Initially in New York, and later at her request in the Washington area,
she met with her handlers as often as once every two or three weeks,
usually on weekends. Everything about her second covert trip to Cuba is
redacted in the Pentagon report.
In 1991, Montes underwent a seemingly routine security reinvestigation.
She was asked about foreign travel, and lied. Questioned about
inaccuracies in her original application for employment, she confessed
that she had misrepresented an incident in her past. Feigning innocence,
Montes claimed that she "did not understand the seriousness of being
truthful and honest at the time."
Her questionable case was then reviewed at a higher level. The
adjudicator reported that "while Montes seemed to have a tendency 'to
twist the truth' to her own needs and her honesty was still a cause of
concern, adverse security action was unlikely." Again, she had slipped
through. Her high level clearances were recertified.
Soon after, she brazenly submitted a freedom of information request for
her own government records. She must have been concerned that something
adverse had been discovered. Investigative material was released. She
gave the surprised Cubans copies.
She apparently visited Cuba a third time after being selected to
participate in the prestigious Director of Central Intelligence
"Exceptional Analyst Program" in 1992. This time her travel to the
island, purportedly to conduct research, was legal.
In 1996, she was questioned by a DIA special agent after another DIA
employee reported concerns about her. Serious doubts were raised about
her veracity, but the allegations could not be substantiated.
None of this seems to have contributed to her eventual unmasking. So,
how was she discovered? Surprisingly, revealing information seeps
through the Pentagon's report. "We got lucky," a counterintelligence
official observed. An entirely blacked-out section entitled
"Serendipity" suggests the same.
By April 1998, a coordinated search for a Cuban spy was underway,
according to the report. At first it was thought most likely the quarry
was a CIA employee. Investigators were following a crucial clue: the
unknown spy had apparently traveled to the Guantanamo naval base as
Montes had apparently done on official DIA business.
The breakthrough had seemingly come earlier, however. According to the
Pentagon report, Montes was informed shortly after her arrest that
investigators "had information from a senior official in the Cuban
intelligence service concerning a Cuban penetration agent that
implicated Montes." It appears that this information propelled the
investigation that resulted in her arrest.
Who was this mysterious, previously unacknowledged source? From the
language of the Pentagon report, it was probably not a defector, but
more likely a renegade or compromised Cuban intelligence officer. If so,
Montes was done in by one of her own so-called "comrades."
Did she work with other American spies? The report is ambiguous; it
states that after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 pressure
intensified to arrest Montes. The FBI preferred to wait, however, in
order "to monitor Montes's activities with the prospect that she may
have eventually led the FBI to others in the Cuban spy network."
Did government censors inadvertently confirm the existence of a larger
spy ring? If in fact there was evidence of one, it may be a long time
before more is known.
It is now clear, however, that Montes's apprehension was not just the
result of excellent intelligence work. She told investigators after her
arrest that a week earlier she had learned that she was under
surveillance. She could have decided then to flee to Cuba, and probably
would have made it there safely.
But she said that "she couldn't give up on the people (she) was
helping." Montes is serving a 25 year prison sentence.
Latell is the author of "Castro's Secrets: Cuban Intelligence, the CIA,
and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy." He is a research associate in
Cuban studies at the University of Miami.
Source: New revelations about Cuban spy Ana Montes - Issues & Ideas -
MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/02/4267428/new-revelations-about-cuban-spy.html
New revelations about Cuban spy Ana Montes
Details about Cuban spy Ana Montes from the Department of Defense
Inspector General's 2005 report — only now declassified — shed new light
on the case.
BY BRIAN LATELL
SPECIAL TO THE MIAMI HERALD
For 16 years, Ana Belen Montes spied for Cuba from increasingly
responsible positions at the Defense Intelligence Agency. If Havana has
ever run a higher level or more valuable mole inside the American
defense establishment, that has never been revealed.
When she was arrested in late September 2001, Montes was about the
equivalent in rank of a colonel. She had access to sensitive
compartmented intelligence. Strangely, for one so openly enamored of
Fidel Castro, her superiors considered her one of the best Cuba analysts
anywhere in government.
Despite the importance of her case, some of the most tantalizing
questions about her spying have never been publicly answered. Could the
calamity of her treason have been avoided? What was learned about Cuban
intelligence tradecraft? How was she discovered? And, of enduring
concern, did she work with other American spies thus far undetected or
not prosecuted?
Thanks to researcher Jeffrey Richelson and the National Security
Archive, new light has finally been shed on the Montes case. Because of
their efforts, a 180 page study completed by the Department of Defense
Inspector General in 2005 has recently been declassified. It is heavily
redacted; many pages, including the CIA's extensive comments, blacked
out. Yet, a quantity of surprising new details are now on the public record.
Montes's decision to spy for Cuba was "coolly deliberate." Enticed by a
Cuban access agent in Washington, they traveled together to New York in
December 1984. Montes met with intelligence officers posted under cover
at the Cuban mission to the United Nations.
She "unhesitatingly agreed" to work with them and travel clandestinely
to Cuba as soon as possible. The following March, she went there via
Spain and Czechoslovakia. The Pentagon report does not state the
obvious: while there, she must have received specialized training in
intelligence tradecraft.
Then, with Cuban encouragement, she applied for a job at DIA. A standard
background investigation was conducted, but we now know that serious
concerns about her suitability were raised. Without elaboration, the
Pentagon report indicates that they included "falsification of her
Master of Arts degree from Johns Hopkins (University) and her
trustworthiness."
DIA did not require applicants to submit to a pre-employment polygraph
exam. So, Montes, a trained Cuban espionage agent with a problematic
past was cleared and hired. She began her double duties in September 1985.
After her arrest, Montes insisted that she had the "moral right" to
provide information to Cuba. In her view, she did not work for Cuba, but
with Cuban officials. They felt "mutual respect and understanding" she
thought, as "comrades in the struggle."
The Cubans were skilled in manipulating and controlling her. She told
interrogators after her apprehension that she considered herself the
equal of her "Cuban comrades, not a menial espionage tool." They let her
believe she "maintained significant control," although she consistently
left "security matters, including meeting site security,
countersurveillance, and transmission security" to her handlers.
Montes said they were "thoughtful, sensitive to her needs, very good to
me." They went to "special lengths to assure her they had complete
confidence in her." They allowed her a long, loose leash, easier because
they were not paying for her extraordinary services.
Initially in New York, and later at her request in the Washington area,
she met with her handlers as often as once every two or three weeks,
usually on weekends. Everything about her second covert trip to Cuba is
redacted in the Pentagon report.
In 1991, Montes underwent a seemingly routine security reinvestigation.
She was asked about foreign travel, and lied. Questioned about
inaccuracies in her original application for employment, she confessed
that she had misrepresented an incident in her past. Feigning innocence,
Montes claimed that she "did not understand the seriousness of being
truthful and honest at the time."
Her questionable case was then reviewed at a higher level. The
adjudicator reported that "while Montes seemed to have a tendency 'to
twist the truth' to her own needs and her honesty was still a cause of
concern, adverse security action was unlikely." Again, she had slipped
through. Her high level clearances were recertified.
Soon after, she brazenly submitted a freedom of information request for
her own government records. She must have been concerned that something
adverse had been discovered. Investigative material was released. She
gave the surprised Cubans copies.
She apparently visited Cuba a third time after being selected to
participate in the prestigious Director of Central Intelligence
"Exceptional Analyst Program" in 1992. This time her travel to the
island, purportedly to conduct research, was legal.
In 1996, she was questioned by a DIA special agent after another DIA
employee reported concerns about her. Serious doubts were raised about
her veracity, but the allegations could not be substantiated.
None of this seems to have contributed to her eventual unmasking. So,
how was she discovered? Surprisingly, revealing information seeps
through the Pentagon's report. "We got lucky," a counterintelligence
official observed. An entirely blacked-out section entitled
"Serendipity" suggests the same.
By April 1998, a coordinated search for a Cuban spy was underway,
according to the report. At first it was thought most likely the quarry
was a CIA employee. Investigators were following a crucial clue: the
unknown spy had apparently traveled to the Guantanamo naval base as
Montes had apparently done on official DIA business.
The breakthrough had seemingly come earlier, however. According to the
Pentagon report, Montes was informed shortly after her arrest that
investigators "had information from a senior official in the Cuban
intelligence service concerning a Cuban penetration agent that
implicated Montes." It appears that this information propelled the
investigation that resulted in her arrest.
Who was this mysterious, previously unacknowledged source? From the
language of the Pentagon report, it was probably not a defector, but
more likely a renegade or compromised Cuban intelligence officer. If so,
Montes was done in by one of her own so-called "comrades."
Did she work with other American spies? The report is ambiguous; it
states that after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 pressure
intensified to arrest Montes. The FBI preferred to wait, however, in
order "to monitor Montes's activities with the prospect that she may
have eventually led the FBI to others in the Cuban spy network."
Did government censors inadvertently confirm the existence of a larger
spy ring? If in fact there was evidence of one, it may be a long time
before more is known.
It is now clear, however, that Montes's apprehension was not just the
result of excellent intelligence work. She told investigators after her
arrest that a week earlier she had learned that she was under
surveillance. She could have decided then to flee to Cuba, and probably
would have made it there safely.
But she said that "she couldn't give up on the people (she) was
helping." Montes is serving a 25 year prison sentence.
Latell is the author of "Castro's Secrets: Cuban Intelligence, the CIA,
and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy." He is a research associate in
Cuban studies at the University of Miami.
Source: New revelations about Cuban spy Ana Montes - Issues & Ideas -
MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/02/4267428/new-revelations-about-cuban-spy.html
Saturday, August 2, 2014
The Many Faces of the Buquenque
The Many Faces of the Buquenque / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar
Posted on August 2, 2014
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, 1 August 2014, Havana – When you walk
through Fraternity Park, amid the bustle of Havana, you hear the cries
of masculine voices calling out possible destinations for trips to
diverse places in the capital. Near the Aldama Palace they shout out
that there are two spaces left for Boyeros and Santiago de las Vegas. A
little further on to the left, under the shade of the laurels, they
invite you to go to Cotorro, and on nearly reaching the Capitol they
announce cars for Alamar. For the most part they are American cars,
Chevrolet, Ford, Plymouth, Oldsmobile, made before 1960, with the
exception of the odd Lada or Moskvitch, devoted to the singular
transport that combines the characteristics of a taxi and a bus.
This type of transport is popularly called almendrones [almonds], which
for 10 or 20 Cuban pesos (depending on the distance) run on fixed
routes. At the origin points a new figure appeared one day, a character
whose job it is to attract clients for the almendrones and whom everyone
knows as a "buquenque."
For a long time buquenques thrived outside the law, charging (chiseling,
some say) each driver 5 national pesos for the service of bringing him
passengers, but recently the legislation that protects self-employment
opened a space for them. Of course it didn't call them buquenques, but
the job appears as number 53 on a list of 201 activities as "Taxi trip
manager." In the "description of scope" the law defines the work content
as: "Manages passengers to fill the capacity of vehicles at stops
authorized by the corresponding Administrative Board." If properly
registered they should pay the national treasury 80 Cuban pesos every month.
Put this way, one imagines a coat and tie and even a web page to make
reservations, but it's not like that, rather it's a shouted offer, often
unnecessarily loud, where the volume of the shouts, and a certain
authoritarian air, almost orders the passenger to get in the car.
A character whose job it is to attract clients for the almendrones and
whom everyone knows as a "buquenque."
The Cuban scholar Argelio Santiesteban, in his singular dictionary The
Popular Cuban Speech Today (Editorial Ciencias Sociales, 1997), defines
the word buquenque as "pimp, flatterer," but some of the drivers might
define them as a plague of parasites. At least that's what Agustín Pérez
thinks: "When I get to the end of the trip, I don't stop at the initial
stop, rather I pick up passengers along the road, there are always
people who need to make a trip between intermediate places. That way I
save five pesos and avoid dealing with those guys."
Oscar Rodriguez doesn't pay for a license as a taxi driver and so he
avoids the inspectors, although he's calculated that there's more
business along the authorized routes. "The buquenques don't care if I
have a license or if I'm working under the table, what they care about
is that I give them five pesos and what I care about is not hanging
around the stop."
The activity of the "passenger manager" extends to the interprovincial
environment. So, next to the Havana Bus Terminal you can see them
shouting out cities in the interior. The most popular are Pinar del Río,
Santa Clara and Matanzas, any further and the trip isn't profitable. The
buquenques are apparently more organized there and when coordinating
travel to Pinar del Río, if they discover a passenger wants to go to
Cienfuegos or Varadero, they advise the appropriate buquenque, more out
of hope of reciprocity than solidarity.
Begging for trouble with drivers and passengers, the buquenque spends
hours in the street, often without being able to count on a nearby
public bathroom and having to eat whatever comes to hand. He is one of
those characters of current times in which the slightest government
opening has created mediocre escape valves.
Some accept it as a more or less entertaining opportunity in which they
can show off their talent for marketing, as is the case with Leopoldo.
"Fifteen days after leaving Guantanamo and without even having a place
to sleep here in Havana, I found this job and I wouldn't give it up for
anything. Now I'm renting a room and by the end of a year I'm going to
buy something. Then I'll bring the rest of the family. Here, among these
wolves, I've learned to defend myself."
Pedestrians pass by indifferent to the dramas and comedies that are
woven behind the curtains of this profession, where you have to know how
to show a fierce face to your competitors and another, friendly one, to
your customers, without ever confusing the roles.
Source: The Many Faces of the Buquenque / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar |
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-many-faces-of-the-buquenque-14ymedio-reinaldo-escobar/
Posted on August 2, 2014
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, 1 August 2014, Havana – When you walk
through Fraternity Park, amid the bustle of Havana, you hear the cries
of masculine voices calling out possible destinations for trips to
diverse places in the capital. Near the Aldama Palace they shout out
that there are two spaces left for Boyeros and Santiago de las Vegas. A
little further on to the left, under the shade of the laurels, they
invite you to go to Cotorro, and on nearly reaching the Capitol they
announce cars for Alamar. For the most part they are American cars,
Chevrolet, Ford, Plymouth, Oldsmobile, made before 1960, with the
exception of the odd Lada or Moskvitch, devoted to the singular
transport that combines the characteristics of a taxi and a bus.
This type of transport is popularly called almendrones [almonds], which
for 10 or 20 Cuban pesos (depending on the distance) run on fixed
routes. At the origin points a new figure appeared one day, a character
whose job it is to attract clients for the almendrones and whom everyone
knows as a "buquenque."
For a long time buquenques thrived outside the law, charging (chiseling,
some say) each driver 5 national pesos for the service of bringing him
passengers, but recently the legislation that protects self-employment
opened a space for them. Of course it didn't call them buquenques, but
the job appears as number 53 on a list of 201 activities as "Taxi trip
manager." In the "description of scope" the law defines the work content
as: "Manages passengers to fill the capacity of vehicles at stops
authorized by the corresponding Administrative Board." If properly
registered they should pay the national treasury 80 Cuban pesos every month.
Put this way, one imagines a coat and tie and even a web page to make
reservations, but it's not like that, rather it's a shouted offer, often
unnecessarily loud, where the volume of the shouts, and a certain
authoritarian air, almost orders the passenger to get in the car.
A character whose job it is to attract clients for the almendrones and
whom everyone knows as a "buquenque."
The Cuban scholar Argelio Santiesteban, in his singular dictionary The
Popular Cuban Speech Today (Editorial Ciencias Sociales, 1997), defines
the word buquenque as "pimp, flatterer," but some of the drivers might
define them as a plague of parasites. At least that's what Agustín Pérez
thinks: "When I get to the end of the trip, I don't stop at the initial
stop, rather I pick up passengers along the road, there are always
people who need to make a trip between intermediate places. That way I
save five pesos and avoid dealing with those guys."
Oscar Rodriguez doesn't pay for a license as a taxi driver and so he
avoids the inspectors, although he's calculated that there's more
business along the authorized routes. "The buquenques don't care if I
have a license or if I'm working under the table, what they care about
is that I give them five pesos and what I care about is not hanging
around the stop."
The activity of the "passenger manager" extends to the interprovincial
environment. So, next to the Havana Bus Terminal you can see them
shouting out cities in the interior. The most popular are Pinar del Río,
Santa Clara and Matanzas, any further and the trip isn't profitable. The
buquenques are apparently more organized there and when coordinating
travel to Pinar del Río, if they discover a passenger wants to go to
Cienfuegos or Varadero, they advise the appropriate buquenque, more out
of hope of reciprocity than solidarity.
Begging for trouble with drivers and passengers, the buquenque spends
hours in the street, often without being able to count on a nearby
public bathroom and having to eat whatever comes to hand. He is one of
those characters of current times in which the slightest government
opening has created mediocre escape valves.
Some accept it as a more or less entertaining opportunity in which they
can show off their talent for marketing, as is the case with Leopoldo.
"Fifteen days after leaving Guantanamo and without even having a place
to sleep here in Havana, I found this job and I wouldn't give it up for
anything. Now I'm renting a room and by the end of a year I'm going to
buy something. Then I'll bring the rest of the family. Here, among these
wolves, I've learned to defend myself."
Pedestrians pass by indifferent to the dramas and comedies that are
woven behind the curtains of this profession, where you have to know how
to show a fierce face to your competitors and another, friendly one, to
your customers, without ever confusing the roles.
Source: The Many Faces of the Buquenque / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar |
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-many-faces-of-the-buquenque-14ymedio-reinaldo-escobar/
Soldiers of Information
Soldiers of Information / Rosa Maria Rodriguez
Posted on August 1, 2014
March 14 turned out to be yet another Cuban press day with more shame
than triumph. As in previous years there were media warriors who
committed themselves to forging a more critical form of journalism. I
ask myself, With whom? With society and its leaders? That doesn't work!
Criticizing anything except those responsible for Cuba's devastation
seems to be the currency of today's media soldiers, none of whom want to
risk their perks and privileges, which in post-1959 language means
"letting someone else take the fall."
In general the key problem is the fifty-five-year-old Castro
dictatorship, or more specifically the forty-seven year rule of its
original dictator, a caudillo who has left a scar on the nation with his
"do as I say" mentality. It has been a period marked by verbal violence,
disrespect and discrimination against anyone who thinks differently. So,
what or who is there to criticize? Capitalism and the United States, of
course, as well as anyone who does not fall in line or sympathize with
its so-called revolution.
The group in power has always been sensitive to its own interests but
deaf to the real demands of society. The monopoly on information in Cuba
is in the hands of the state, which officially prohibits the circulation
of independent publications, freedom of association and a multiparty
political system.
The most chilling example occurred on camera sometime around 2005, after
the price of electricity had gone up, and featured the journalist Arleen
Rodriguez. During a visit by Fidel Castro to the program Mesa Redonda
(or Roundtable), in which Rodriguez participated, she raised complaints
about the increase in electrical rates. With obvious annoyance, he
issued a veiled threat: "Your husband is a friend of mine."
On the following day she was forced to appear at the start the program
with a prepared text — written so to avoid any mistakes and to be read
without so much as one letter more than what was proscribed — to clarify
that "what she meant to say was …"
Then there was the writer and poet Heberto Padilla, founder of the
organization Origenes (Origins). In the 1960s he was forced to publicly
denounce his colleagues and made to commit hara-kiri with the well-worn
blade of extortion.
As I have said on other occasions, I personally believe that our
communication professionals neither have nor feel the freedom to express
what they truly desire or what is of concern to much if not all of the
population. Thus there can be no true transparency of information to
facilitate and encourage freedom of expression for industrial workers or
for society in general.
Unless they themselves turn away from the violence that destroyed Cuba's
democratic institutions, which now exist to perpetuate power and to
maintain a dependent and manipulated press, they will not be able to
achieve what government leaders have wanted for a long time. By
"resorting to political flirtatiousness" when talking about the current
system, as is routine in the Cuban media, they rely on theatrical props
to give the false impression that in Cuba there is freedom.
25 March 2014
Source: Soldiers of Information / Rosa Maria Rodriguez | Translating
Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/soldiers-of-information-rosa-maria-rodriguez-2/
Posted on August 1, 2014
March 14 turned out to be yet another Cuban press day with more shame
than triumph. As in previous years there were media warriors who
committed themselves to forging a more critical form of journalism. I
ask myself, With whom? With society and its leaders? That doesn't work!
Criticizing anything except those responsible for Cuba's devastation
seems to be the currency of today's media soldiers, none of whom want to
risk their perks and privileges, which in post-1959 language means
"letting someone else take the fall."
In general the key problem is the fifty-five-year-old Castro
dictatorship, or more specifically the forty-seven year rule of its
original dictator, a caudillo who has left a scar on the nation with his
"do as I say" mentality. It has been a period marked by verbal violence,
disrespect and discrimination against anyone who thinks differently. So,
what or who is there to criticize? Capitalism and the United States, of
course, as well as anyone who does not fall in line or sympathize with
its so-called revolution.
The group in power has always been sensitive to its own interests but
deaf to the real demands of society. The monopoly on information in Cuba
is in the hands of the state, which officially prohibits the circulation
of independent publications, freedom of association and a multiparty
political system.
The most chilling example occurred on camera sometime around 2005, after
the price of electricity had gone up, and featured the journalist Arleen
Rodriguez. During a visit by Fidel Castro to the program Mesa Redonda
(or Roundtable), in which Rodriguez participated, she raised complaints
about the increase in electrical rates. With obvious annoyance, he
issued a veiled threat: "Your husband is a friend of mine."
On the following day she was forced to appear at the start the program
with a prepared text — written so to avoid any mistakes and to be read
without so much as one letter more than what was proscribed — to clarify
that "what she meant to say was …"
Then there was the writer and poet Heberto Padilla, founder of the
organization Origenes (Origins). In the 1960s he was forced to publicly
denounce his colleagues and made to commit hara-kiri with the well-worn
blade of extortion.
As I have said on other occasions, I personally believe that our
communication professionals neither have nor feel the freedom to express
what they truly desire or what is of concern to much if not all of the
population. Thus there can be no true transparency of information to
facilitate and encourage freedom of expression for industrial workers or
for society in general.
Unless they themselves turn away from the violence that destroyed Cuba's
democratic institutions, which now exist to perpetuate power and to
maintain a dependent and manipulated press, they will not be able to
achieve what government leaders have wanted for a long time. By
"resorting to political flirtatiousness" when talking about the current
system, as is routine in the Cuban media, they rely on theatrical props
to give the false impression that in Cuba there is freedom.
25 March 2014
Source: Soldiers of Information / Rosa Maria Rodriguez | Translating
Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/soldiers-of-information-rosa-maria-rodriguez-2/
Campaign for Another Cuba Delivers Request to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
Campaign for Another Cuba Delivers Request to UN Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon
Posted on July 31, 2014
Antonio Rodiles delivers Campaign for Another Cuba documents to Ban Ki-moon
The director of the independent project Estado de Sats, Antonio Rodiles,
delivered documents for the Campaña por Otra Cuba (Campaign for Another
Cuba) to the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this Wednesday
in Costa Rica. The Campaign demands that the Cuban regime ratify and
implement the Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights signed by the regime at the United Nations in
2008.
The meeting between Rodiles and Ban took place at the National Theater,
where the UN Secretary-General was attending a dinner with the with the
president of Costa Rica Luis Guillermo Solís and his wife Mercedes
Peñas, according to activists of the Campaña por Otra Cuba.
They added that Ban received the documents "with interest."
During his visit to the Island last January, during the Second Summit of
the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Ban called
on Raul Castro to ratify the Covenants.
Complaint and Petition
The activists of campaign, on the other hand, have asked that the
implementation of the human rights covenants to be included in the
current negotiations between the European Union and Havana for a
bilateral agreement.
Campaña por Otra also promotes the use of legal action of complaint and
petition on the part of Cuban citizens, as a way of demanding a response
from their government
"Cuban citizens can file the complaint and petition the State Council,
either personally or by certified mail. Those who reside outside the
Island can also participate in the campaign by directing their complaint
to the nearest Cuban Consulate," activists explained in a note sent to
Diario de Cuba.
Interested parties can use a model complaint and petition posted online
by the campaign in PDF format.
Activists who have submitted a demand to the regime can also send a copy
to info@porotracuba.org.
Mailing address for the campaign:
Por otra Cuba
www.estadodesats.org
Estado de SATS
La Habana 11300
Cuba
31 July 2104
Source: Campaign for Another Cuba Delivers Request to UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/campaign-for-another-cuba-delivers-request-to-un-secretary-general-ban-ki-moon/
Ki-moon
Posted on July 31, 2014
Antonio Rodiles delivers Campaign for Another Cuba documents to Ban Ki-moon
The director of the independent project Estado de Sats, Antonio Rodiles,
delivered documents for the Campaña por Otra Cuba (Campaign for Another
Cuba) to the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this Wednesday
in Costa Rica. The Campaign demands that the Cuban regime ratify and
implement the Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights signed by the regime at the United Nations in
2008.
The meeting between Rodiles and Ban took place at the National Theater,
where the UN Secretary-General was attending a dinner with the with the
president of Costa Rica Luis Guillermo Solís and his wife Mercedes
Peñas, according to activists of the Campaña por Otra Cuba.
They added that Ban received the documents "with interest."
During his visit to the Island last January, during the Second Summit of
the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Ban called
on Raul Castro to ratify the Covenants.
Complaint and Petition
The activists of campaign, on the other hand, have asked that the
implementation of the human rights covenants to be included in the
current negotiations between the European Union and Havana for a
bilateral agreement.
Campaña por Otra also promotes the use of legal action of complaint and
petition on the part of Cuban citizens, as a way of demanding a response
from their government
"Cuban citizens can file the complaint and petition the State Council,
either personally or by certified mail. Those who reside outside the
Island can also participate in the campaign by directing their complaint
to the nearest Cuban Consulate," activists explained in a note sent to
Diario de Cuba.
Interested parties can use a model complaint and petition posted online
by the campaign in PDF format.
Activists who have submitted a demand to the regime can also send a copy
to info@porotracuba.org.
Mailing address for the campaign:
Por otra Cuba
www.estadodesats.org
Estado de SATS
La Habana 11300
Cuba
31 July 2104
Source: Campaign for Another Cuba Delivers Request to UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/campaign-for-another-cuba-delivers-request-to-un-secretary-general-ban-ki-moon/
Nostalgia for "The Special Period"?
Nostalgia for "The Special Period"? / 14ymedio
Posted on July 31, 2014
14ymedio, JOSÉ GABRIEL BARRENECHEA, Havana, 31 July 2104 — I knew about
nostalgia for the colonial era, the Republican era and even for the
"marvelous" eighties, what I never could imagine was that anyone could
be nostalgic for the Special Period. But everything is possible on this
island and if you don't believe me, then read the June 23rd article in
Juventud Rebelde, "The happiest children in the world," by Glenda Boza
Ibarra.
This young Cuban from the east recounts with great candor her childhood
full of "good and nice" times, in which she dedicated herself – as a
form of entertainment – to counting the few cars circulating in her
neighborhood. Eventually, the journalist says: "I can't complain,
because I was born in this country, a place where children have
everything they need to be the happiest in the world."
To a great extent the conditions we are raised in determine our tastes,
needs and aspirations. A native indigenous to our island would have
perceived the disgusting Paris of 1492 as a dazzling paradise, and a
pigsty like the suite of a three star hotel.
The aspirations, tastes and evaluation criteria of this young woman from
Las Tunas were curtailed by the circumstances in which her childhood
unfolded in the midst of the Special Period, particularly bleak in
eastern Cuba. It is precisely because of these circumstances that she no
longer sees the barefoot children who once again occupy our streets,
terraces and paths, nor the tremendous cultural decline that has
occurred between my generation and hers.
However, there seems to be a glimmer of hope for Glenda. Nostalgia is
nothing more than the desire to escape a troubled present to a past in
which we had not yet suffered the difficulties we are now subject to.
She confesses the strange naivety of her childhood when she writes "we
weren't worried about the fall of the Berlin Wall, nor the
disintegration of the USSR," a reflection that she has already begin to
expand her range of expectations, that her new circumstances have raised
her cultural level and her aspirations.
Will there be such a change that Glenda will reject, outraged, the
pigsty, or on the contrary will she become one more member of the sect
of pig farmers? Only time will tell.
Source: Nostalgia for "The Special Period"? / 14ymedio | Translating
Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/nostalgia-for-the-special-period-14ymedio/
Posted on July 31, 2014
14ymedio, JOSÉ GABRIEL BARRENECHEA, Havana, 31 July 2104 — I knew about
nostalgia for the colonial era, the Republican era and even for the
"marvelous" eighties, what I never could imagine was that anyone could
be nostalgic for the Special Period. But everything is possible on this
island and if you don't believe me, then read the June 23rd article in
Juventud Rebelde, "The happiest children in the world," by Glenda Boza
Ibarra.
This young Cuban from the east recounts with great candor her childhood
full of "good and nice" times, in which she dedicated herself – as a
form of entertainment – to counting the few cars circulating in her
neighborhood. Eventually, the journalist says: "I can't complain,
because I was born in this country, a place where children have
everything they need to be the happiest in the world."
To a great extent the conditions we are raised in determine our tastes,
needs and aspirations. A native indigenous to our island would have
perceived the disgusting Paris of 1492 as a dazzling paradise, and a
pigsty like the suite of a three star hotel.
The aspirations, tastes and evaluation criteria of this young woman from
Las Tunas were curtailed by the circumstances in which her childhood
unfolded in the midst of the Special Period, particularly bleak in
eastern Cuba. It is precisely because of these circumstances that she no
longer sees the barefoot children who once again occupy our streets,
terraces and paths, nor the tremendous cultural decline that has
occurred between my generation and hers.
However, there seems to be a glimmer of hope for Glenda. Nostalgia is
nothing more than the desire to escape a troubled present to a past in
which we had not yet suffered the difficulties we are now subject to.
She confesses the strange naivety of her childhood when she writes "we
weren't worried about the fall of the Berlin Wall, nor the
disintegration of the USSR," a reflection that she has already begin to
expand her range of expectations, that her new circumstances have raised
her cultural level and her aspirations.
Will there be such a change that Glenda will reject, outraged, the
pigsty, or on the contrary will she become one more member of the sect
of pig farmers? Only time will tell.
Source: Nostalgia for "The Special Period"? / 14ymedio | Translating
Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/nostalgia-for-the-special-period-14ymedio/
What the Soviet Union Left Cubans
What the Soviet Union Left Cubans / Ivan Garcia
Posted on July 31, 2014
To this day, in the universal history books in junior high or high
schools in Cuba, the Soviet theme is handled with kid gloves.
They recall its founding father Vladimir Illych Lenin, the epic of the
Second World War with its 20 million dead (old data, it was 27 million
and more than a few died from a bullet in the neck from their own
comrade, or in a dark Gulag), and the selfless help of the USSR in the
first years of the olive green revolution.
To Zoraida, a third year high school student and a lover of history,
when I ask her about that nation made up of fifteen European and Asian
republics, without hardly taking a breath, let loose with a tirade right
out of the school books.
"The October Revolution was founded in 1917 by Lenin, and despite the
aggression of the western nations, it established itself as a great
world power. It was the country with the most deaths in World War II, 20
million (the error persists), and it had to fight alone against the
fascist hordes. The United States and its allies were forced to open the
Second Front in Normandy, faced with the rapid advance of the Red Army,"
she responds with the usual pride of a student who applies herself.
She doesn't know what her future vocation will be. But, in he,r the
Party has a good prospect of a political commissar. Wanting to
investigate other aspects less publicized in the national media, I posed
the following questions.
What could you tell me about Stalin's brutal purges, that cost the
Soviet people millions of lives? Did you know that the application of
agricultural collectivization caused a famine and between 7 and 10
million deaths in Ukraine, the so-called Holodomor? Have you read about
the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact where in a secret clause
Hitler and Stalin shared out the Baltic republics and the Eastern
European zone?
Have you read or heard about the Katyn Forest massacre of Polish
soldiers by elite Soviet troops. Did you know that the writer Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970, like many
other intellectuals, was imprisoned in the Gulag just for thinking
differently?
Don't you think that the Soviet Union was an imperialistic nation,
because it occupied a part of Eastern Europe as a trophy of war and
installed puppet governments? Have you studied the Soviet aggression in
Czechoslovakia in 1968, or Afghanistan in 1970?
Did they ever tell you that by the decision by Nikita Kruschhev and
Fidel Castro, 42 medium-range atomic missiles that would have provoked a
nuclear war were installed in Cuba? Did you know that, just like the
United States has a military base against the will of the Cuban people,
Fidel Castro without consulting the people authorized a military
training center with Soviet troops and an electronic espionage base on
the outskirts of Havana?
To each of the questions, the young woman answered evasively, "No, I
don't know that. No, I haven't read that or they didn't teach us that in
school?"
It's well-known that the teaching methods in Cuba try to equip its
students with a Marxist vision and exalt Fidel Castro and his
Revolution. In rigorously tested subjects, the method used is not lying,
but no admitting that you have the information or not telling the whole
truth.
Although the Soviet Union disappeared from the map more than 20 years
ago, and said adios to its bizarre ideology, the education on the island
continues to zealously hold to the Soviet narrative.
Manuel, who graduated in philosophy, recognizes that in his university
history studies there was no emphasis on Perestroika and Glastnost. "The
teachers slide over that stage. They tell us that Gorbachev was a
traitor, that he dismantled the Soviet power and influence stone by
stone. Communism's undertaker. A pariah."
In the Cuban power structure there is a powerful nucleus that still
remembers the Soviet period with nostalgia. General Raul Castro, at the
head of Cubans' destiny, is a great admirer of Russian communism.
In a visit to the apartment of Juan Juan Almeida, soneof the guerrilla
commander, when he lived in Neuvo Vedado, Juan Juan told me that in the
anteroom of General Castro's office at the Ministry of the Armed Forces,
there was a painting of Stalin, the butcher of Georgia.
In the discourse of the old "apparatchiks" (leaders), raised in the
severe Party schools, the old Soviet Cuba persists.
Joel, a retired officer, longs for the trips to Moscow and visit the
Kremlin mausoleum, where Lenin lies embalmed. At his house, on a wooden
shelf, there's a collection of books by Boris Polevoi, Nicolai Ostrovski
and Iliá Ehrenburg, among others who wrote about the exploits of the Red
Army in the Great Patriotic War.
Carlos, sociologist, considers "that the Soviet Union might seem like an
old newspaper, but it is not dead yet. People no longer remember the
corned beef, the applesauce or the nesting dolls. It is in the power
structure where the Soviet era is missed.
The love story toward the USSR among the intellectual and political
sector is long-standing in the country. Many who swear to be
nationalists standing firm, accuse people who admire the lifestyle and
institutional structure of the United States of being annexationists.
But where annexationism really exists is in Communism. Not only did they
import the ideology, they also tried to clone the Soviet model in a
Caribbean archipelago 6,000 miles away.
And those who applauded the theory of a Soviet Cuba weren't stupid or
illiterate. Among them were intellectuals of stature like Nicolás
Guillen, Salvador García Agüero and Juan Marinello, members of the
People's Socialist Party.
With the coming to power of Fidel Castro, the political opportunism of
the bearded ones coupled with the communist imagery of skilled men in
labor unions and the Marxist proselytizing in various academic and
intellectual sectors of the nation.
Despite the Cuban government's affinity for the Soviets, among a wide
segment of the citizenry, the Russian culture doesn't go down well. Nor
are they cool with their fashions and customs, their food and religious
beliefs.
What the Soviet Union left was were hundreds of marriages between
Russians and Cubans. And names like Ivan, Tatiana, Vladimer, Irina,
Boris, Natasha… Little else.
Although the stale political dinosaurs treat Russia royally in the
media, and the nomenklatura endeavors to reactivate new pacts, the
Eurasian company remains a distant and exotic music for ordinary people.
But, by geography and culture, Cubans continue to look north.
Ivan Garcia
Photo: Pro-Soviet books by the English Dean Hewlett Johnson (1874-1966)
and the American communist politician Earl Browder (1891-1973), on sale
in bookstores in Havana, taken in Cuba in 1945
25 July 2014
Source: What the Soviet Union Left Cubans / Ivan Garcia | Translating
Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/what-the-soviet-union-left-cubans-ivan-garcia/
Posted on July 31, 2014
To this day, in the universal history books in junior high or high
schools in Cuba, the Soviet theme is handled with kid gloves.
They recall its founding father Vladimir Illych Lenin, the epic of the
Second World War with its 20 million dead (old data, it was 27 million
and more than a few died from a bullet in the neck from their own
comrade, or in a dark Gulag), and the selfless help of the USSR in the
first years of the olive green revolution.
To Zoraida, a third year high school student and a lover of history,
when I ask her about that nation made up of fifteen European and Asian
republics, without hardly taking a breath, let loose with a tirade right
out of the school books.
"The October Revolution was founded in 1917 by Lenin, and despite the
aggression of the western nations, it established itself as a great
world power. It was the country with the most deaths in World War II, 20
million (the error persists), and it had to fight alone against the
fascist hordes. The United States and its allies were forced to open the
Second Front in Normandy, faced with the rapid advance of the Red Army,"
she responds with the usual pride of a student who applies herself.
She doesn't know what her future vocation will be. But, in he,r the
Party has a good prospect of a political commissar. Wanting to
investigate other aspects less publicized in the national media, I posed
the following questions.
What could you tell me about Stalin's brutal purges, that cost the
Soviet people millions of lives? Did you know that the application of
agricultural collectivization caused a famine and between 7 and 10
million deaths in Ukraine, the so-called Holodomor? Have you read about
the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact where in a secret clause
Hitler and Stalin shared out the Baltic republics and the Eastern
European zone?
Have you read or heard about the Katyn Forest massacre of Polish
soldiers by elite Soviet troops. Did you know that the writer Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970, like many
other intellectuals, was imprisoned in the Gulag just for thinking
differently?
Don't you think that the Soviet Union was an imperialistic nation,
because it occupied a part of Eastern Europe as a trophy of war and
installed puppet governments? Have you studied the Soviet aggression in
Czechoslovakia in 1968, or Afghanistan in 1970?
Did they ever tell you that by the decision by Nikita Kruschhev and
Fidel Castro, 42 medium-range atomic missiles that would have provoked a
nuclear war were installed in Cuba? Did you know that, just like the
United States has a military base against the will of the Cuban people,
Fidel Castro without consulting the people authorized a military
training center with Soviet troops and an electronic espionage base on
the outskirts of Havana?
To each of the questions, the young woman answered evasively, "No, I
don't know that. No, I haven't read that or they didn't teach us that in
school?"
It's well-known that the teaching methods in Cuba try to equip its
students with a Marxist vision and exalt Fidel Castro and his
Revolution. In rigorously tested subjects, the method used is not lying,
but no admitting that you have the information or not telling the whole
truth.
Although the Soviet Union disappeared from the map more than 20 years
ago, and said adios to its bizarre ideology, the education on the island
continues to zealously hold to the Soviet narrative.
Manuel, who graduated in philosophy, recognizes that in his university
history studies there was no emphasis on Perestroika and Glastnost. "The
teachers slide over that stage. They tell us that Gorbachev was a
traitor, that he dismantled the Soviet power and influence stone by
stone. Communism's undertaker. A pariah."
In the Cuban power structure there is a powerful nucleus that still
remembers the Soviet period with nostalgia. General Raul Castro, at the
head of Cubans' destiny, is a great admirer of Russian communism.
In a visit to the apartment of Juan Juan Almeida, soneof the guerrilla
commander, when he lived in Neuvo Vedado, Juan Juan told me that in the
anteroom of General Castro's office at the Ministry of the Armed Forces,
there was a painting of Stalin, the butcher of Georgia.
In the discourse of the old "apparatchiks" (leaders), raised in the
severe Party schools, the old Soviet Cuba persists.
Joel, a retired officer, longs for the trips to Moscow and visit the
Kremlin mausoleum, where Lenin lies embalmed. At his house, on a wooden
shelf, there's a collection of books by Boris Polevoi, Nicolai Ostrovski
and Iliá Ehrenburg, among others who wrote about the exploits of the Red
Army in the Great Patriotic War.
Carlos, sociologist, considers "that the Soviet Union might seem like an
old newspaper, but it is not dead yet. People no longer remember the
corned beef, the applesauce or the nesting dolls. It is in the power
structure where the Soviet era is missed.
The love story toward the USSR among the intellectual and political
sector is long-standing in the country. Many who swear to be
nationalists standing firm, accuse people who admire the lifestyle and
institutional structure of the United States of being annexationists.
But where annexationism really exists is in Communism. Not only did they
import the ideology, they also tried to clone the Soviet model in a
Caribbean archipelago 6,000 miles away.
And those who applauded the theory of a Soviet Cuba weren't stupid or
illiterate. Among them were intellectuals of stature like Nicolás
Guillen, Salvador García Agüero and Juan Marinello, members of the
People's Socialist Party.
With the coming to power of Fidel Castro, the political opportunism of
the bearded ones coupled with the communist imagery of skilled men in
labor unions and the Marxist proselytizing in various academic and
intellectual sectors of the nation.
Despite the Cuban government's affinity for the Soviets, among a wide
segment of the citizenry, the Russian culture doesn't go down well. Nor
are they cool with their fashions and customs, their food and religious
beliefs.
What the Soviet Union left was were hundreds of marriages between
Russians and Cubans. And names like Ivan, Tatiana, Vladimer, Irina,
Boris, Natasha… Little else.
Although the stale political dinosaurs treat Russia royally in the
media, and the nomenklatura endeavors to reactivate new pacts, the
Eurasian company remains a distant and exotic music for ordinary people.
But, by geography and culture, Cubans continue to look north.
Ivan Garcia
Photo: Pro-Soviet books by the English Dean Hewlett Johnson (1874-1966)
and the American communist politician Earl Browder (1891-1973), on sale
in bookstores in Havana, taken in Cuba in 1945
25 July 2014
Source: What the Soviet Union Left Cubans / Ivan Garcia | Translating
Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/what-the-soviet-union-left-cubans-ivan-garcia/
Imagining Cuba's future
Imagining Cuba's future
Aug 01, 2014 by Philip Jenkins
Cuba is nothing like as central to U.S. policy as it once was, but that
may change when the current regime either implodes or accelerates its
tentative steps toward liberalization.
At present, Cuba survives only on massive handouts from Venezuela,
which could be curtailed overnight. If and when Cuba leaves its bubble,
it will undergo a rapid social and political transformation. What
intrigues me is the question of how the nation's religious landscape
will change and how much we can learn about that from the experience of
comparable societies.
When Fidel Castro began his rule, he declared Cuba an atheist state.
Religious persecution has been commonplace ever since, though never as
bloodthirsty as in, say, North Korea, and the degree of official
intolerance has fluctuated over time. Pope John Paul II's visit in 1998
significantly improved official relations with the Roman Catholic Church.
Unregistered groups, however, continue to suffer. The best statistics we
have—and estimates vary widely—suggest that half of Cubans identify as
Catholic, 40 percent are nonreligious or unaffiliated, and non-Catholic
Christians make up 7 percent. Complicating the statistics is the issue
of dual affiliation: at least 17 percent adhere to Afro-Cuban religions,
chiefly Santería.
Just how matters would change in a postcommunist age depends largely on
how the new era comes about. Will the change involve violence? Should we
expect a massive return of exiles?
At the least, liberalization is likely to involve breakneck economic
development, the end of foreign embargoes, and the collapse of rigid
government controls and rationing. The immediate consequences would no
doubt be a huge influx of foreign investment, an epochal building boom,
and increased urbanization.
Cuba in five or ten years could pass through processes of development
and globalization that elsewhere in Latin America have taken half a
century. The winners and losers in this revolution would provide,
potentially, the membership of revived churches.
Catholicism still retains a cultural hegemony. Traditional practices and
pilgrimages—above all devotion to Cuba's special version of the Blessed
Virgin, the Virgin of La Caridad del Cobre—have never lost popularity.
But if cultural Catholicism still flourishes, that does not mean the
church will continue to attract worshipers. Attendance at mass and
religious vocations have fallen dramatically across Latin America, and
the Cuban church would have to struggle to avoid a similar fate.
By far the greatest mystery in Cuba's future concerns the evangélicos,
the Protestant and Pentecostal churches that have been so dazzlingly
successful in such countries as Brazil, Chile, and Guatemala. By all
rights, Cuba should join this list, for it possesses the conditions
often cited to explain Pentecostal growth. Pentecostal congregations
flourish during times of rapid social change and economic turmoil, and
they appeal especially to excluded ethnic groups. At least half of
Cubans claim African ancestry. And recent experience in China shows how
attractive the Christian faith can be following the sudden evaporation
of communist ideology.
Churches could play a vital role if working-class people suddenly found
themselves cut off from a rationed economy and thrust into the rigors of
a market system. Through social outreach programs, Cuban evangélico
churches could well win support by supplying economic aid. Such efforts
would likely be supported by well-funded foreign groups, chiefly from
the United States, but also from Brazilian and other Latin American
churches.
Cuban evangélico churches have grown powerfully in recent years, and
some, like the Apostolic Movement, have experienced harassment from the
government. It is likely that these groups would flourish in a free
Cuba. In religious terms, then, the best analogy for a future Cuba would
be what's happened in Brazil, where Protestant churches are thriving.
But perhaps a better model for projecting the future of Cuba is to be
found outside Latin America in a postcommunist society like the former
East Germany. Secularization advanced to such a degree there that
religious faith could not be reconstructed, and it still shows no signs
of returning. It is possible that future Cuban churches would never be
able to win back the loyalty of that sizable minority of people who
presently affirm no religion. Also pointing to a secular future is
Cuba's extremely low fertility rate, a figure that often correlates to
the decline of institutional religion.
The question, then, for anyone trying to project Cuba's religious
future, is whether to look to Pentecostals or secularists, to Brazil or
Berlin.
Source: Imagining Cuba's future | The Christian Century -
http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2014-07/imagining-cuba-s-future
Aug 01, 2014 by Philip Jenkins
Cuba is nothing like as central to U.S. policy as it once was, but that
may change when the current regime either implodes or accelerates its
tentative steps toward liberalization.
At present, Cuba survives only on massive handouts from Venezuela,
which could be curtailed overnight. If and when Cuba leaves its bubble,
it will undergo a rapid social and political transformation. What
intrigues me is the question of how the nation's religious landscape
will change and how much we can learn about that from the experience of
comparable societies.
When Fidel Castro began his rule, he declared Cuba an atheist state.
Religious persecution has been commonplace ever since, though never as
bloodthirsty as in, say, North Korea, and the degree of official
intolerance has fluctuated over time. Pope John Paul II's visit in 1998
significantly improved official relations with the Roman Catholic Church.
Unregistered groups, however, continue to suffer. The best statistics we
have—and estimates vary widely—suggest that half of Cubans identify as
Catholic, 40 percent are nonreligious or unaffiliated, and non-Catholic
Christians make up 7 percent. Complicating the statistics is the issue
of dual affiliation: at least 17 percent adhere to Afro-Cuban religions,
chiefly Santería.
Just how matters would change in a postcommunist age depends largely on
how the new era comes about. Will the change involve violence? Should we
expect a massive return of exiles?
At the least, liberalization is likely to involve breakneck economic
development, the end of foreign embargoes, and the collapse of rigid
government controls and rationing. The immediate consequences would no
doubt be a huge influx of foreign investment, an epochal building boom,
and increased urbanization.
Cuba in five or ten years could pass through processes of development
and globalization that elsewhere in Latin America have taken half a
century. The winners and losers in this revolution would provide,
potentially, the membership of revived churches.
Catholicism still retains a cultural hegemony. Traditional practices and
pilgrimages—above all devotion to Cuba's special version of the Blessed
Virgin, the Virgin of La Caridad del Cobre—have never lost popularity.
But if cultural Catholicism still flourishes, that does not mean the
church will continue to attract worshipers. Attendance at mass and
religious vocations have fallen dramatically across Latin America, and
the Cuban church would have to struggle to avoid a similar fate.
By far the greatest mystery in Cuba's future concerns the evangélicos,
the Protestant and Pentecostal churches that have been so dazzlingly
successful in such countries as Brazil, Chile, and Guatemala. By all
rights, Cuba should join this list, for it possesses the conditions
often cited to explain Pentecostal growth. Pentecostal congregations
flourish during times of rapid social change and economic turmoil, and
they appeal especially to excluded ethnic groups. At least half of
Cubans claim African ancestry. And recent experience in China shows how
attractive the Christian faith can be following the sudden evaporation
of communist ideology.
Churches could play a vital role if working-class people suddenly found
themselves cut off from a rationed economy and thrust into the rigors of
a market system. Through social outreach programs, Cuban evangélico
churches could well win support by supplying economic aid. Such efforts
would likely be supported by well-funded foreign groups, chiefly from
the United States, but also from Brazilian and other Latin American
churches.
Cuban evangélico churches have grown powerfully in recent years, and
some, like the Apostolic Movement, have experienced harassment from the
government. It is likely that these groups would flourish in a free
Cuba. In religious terms, then, the best analogy for a future Cuba would
be what's happened in Brazil, where Protestant churches are thriving.
But perhaps a better model for projecting the future of Cuba is to be
found outside Latin America in a postcommunist society like the former
East Germany. Secularization advanced to such a degree there that
religious faith could not be reconstructed, and it still shows no signs
of returning. It is possible that future Cuban churches would never be
able to win back the loyalty of that sizable minority of people who
presently affirm no religion. Also pointing to a secular future is
Cuba's extremely low fertility rate, a figure that often correlates to
the decline of institutional religion.
The question, then, for anyone trying to project Cuba's religious
future, is whether to look to Pentecostals or secularists, to Brazil or
Berlin.
Source: Imagining Cuba's future | The Christian Century -
http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2014-07/imagining-cuba-s-future
Cuba's mangroves under threat
Cuba's mangroves under threat
Tangled thickets island nation's first line of defence against rising
sea levels
BY ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AUGUST 1, 2014
Many people in this hamlet on the southern coast of Cuba remember when
the shore lay about 100 metres further out. That was four decades ago.
Since then, rising waters have gradually swallowed up rustic homes, a
narrow highway that once paralleled the coast, even an old military tank
that people now use to measure the sea's yearly advance.
"There was a road there," said Jose Manuel Herrera, 42, a fisherman and
former charcoal harvester, pointing toward the gentle waves. "You could
travel from here all the way to Mayabeque."
Worried by forecasts of rising seas from climate change, the effects of
hurricanes and the salinization of farmlands, authorities say they are
beginning a forced march to repair Cuba's first line of defence against
the advancing waters - its mangrove thickets, which have been damaged by
decades of neglect and uncontrolled logging.
In the second half of 2013, a moratorium was declared on mangrove
logging. Now, the final touches are being put on a sustainable
management master plan that is expected to be in place before the end of
the year. Cuban President Raul Castro has said the plan is a top priority.
What makes the effort vital and closely monitored by environmentalists
is that Cuba is one of the few places left in the Caribbean with
extensive mangrove forests. Cuba accounts for about 69 per cent of the
region's current mangroves, the New York-based Environmental Defense
Fund says.
Mangroves act as both a barrier to the sea and a saltwater filter,
making them important for coastal health.
Even in Cuba, experts say the situation is critical.
"The situation is bad.
More than 30 per cent of the mangroves are in a critical state,"
government forest scientist Reynier Samon said on a recent tour of
Surgidero de Batabano, an area where deforestation has been extreme. The
rest, he said, are in a state of medium deterioration. Mangroves
historically have been harvested heavily, for textile dyes, tannins used
in the pharmaceutical industry, lumber for furniture and charcoal that
rural Cubans rely on to fire their kitchens.
But healthy mangrove stands are important to alleviating one of the
island's biggest headaches: Rising seas stand to wipe 122 towns off the
map and penetrate up to two kilometres inland in low-lying areas by
2100, posing a serious threat to coastal communities and agriculture,
according to a government study last year.
Efrain Arrazcaeta, who runs a local environmental non-profit, has
witnessed the phenomenon with growing alarm. His group estimates a
two-metre maritime advance each year, using the submerged tank as a
reference point. "If the mangroves are restored, the mitigation of these
effects will be notable," Arrazcaeta said.
No details of the mangrove plan have been made public. It will
apparently include sustainable exploitation measures with some logging
for the pharmaceutical industry under study, though the moratorium will
remain more or less in place.
Officials are also waging a public awareness campaign to educate coastal
residents to be caretakers of the tangled, mosquitoinfested thickets.
The campaign shows them how their homes and farms are at stake and urges
them to protect freshwater streams vital for maintaining proper saline
levels.
"The perception of the importance of this ecosystem for these
communities is low. They see it as something to exploit," said Samon.
Extensive reforestation isn't easy. There's no way of mechanizing the
process, which means brigades of workers will have to wade into the
swampy terrain and plant each mangrove by hand.
Even deciding what to plant where requires careful study. Red mangroves
thrive next to the sea, black mangroves a few metres inland, "yana"
mangroves beyond that. If you plant any variety in a place that's too
salty or not salty enough, it will die.
Financing for the plan comes from various ministries as well as a UN
program on climate change adaptation. Officials declined to give budget
figures, but said it's in the millions of dollars.
Samon said in the past year some 36,000 hectares (89,000 acres) of
mangroves have been successfully replanted nationwide. The measure
complements other programs to relocate coastal buildings, protect sand
dunes and regulate how close hotels can be to the sea.
In Surgidero, residents say the logging moratorium and some small
initial reforestation have already had a noticeable effect. Seen from
the sea, the coastline looks greener, they say.
"There is a cay that formed just from the (new) mangroves and in one
year it grew to a good size," said Alexis Duarte, a fisherman.
Studies show while mangrove loss across the Americas is about 3.6 per
cent per year, Cuba has recorded net gains in recent years.
Dan Whittle, Cuba program director for the Environmental Defense Fund,
said Cuba "is probably the model for other countries" in the region for
the coastal protection measures it has taken over the past decade or so.
However, he said, much work remains and Cuba has a mixed record
implementing its protective laws and policies.
Samon says the political will is there to address the challenge. "Now we
are in the phase of implementation and boots on the ground. It's urgent."
Source: Cuba's mangroves under threat -
http://www.leaderpost.com/Cuba+mangroves+under+threat/10085637/story.html
Tangled thickets island nation's first line of defence against rising
sea levels
BY ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AUGUST 1, 2014
Many people in this hamlet on the southern coast of Cuba remember when
the shore lay about 100 metres further out. That was four decades ago.
Since then, rising waters have gradually swallowed up rustic homes, a
narrow highway that once paralleled the coast, even an old military tank
that people now use to measure the sea's yearly advance.
"There was a road there," said Jose Manuel Herrera, 42, a fisherman and
former charcoal harvester, pointing toward the gentle waves. "You could
travel from here all the way to Mayabeque."
Worried by forecasts of rising seas from climate change, the effects of
hurricanes and the salinization of farmlands, authorities say they are
beginning a forced march to repair Cuba's first line of defence against
the advancing waters - its mangrove thickets, which have been damaged by
decades of neglect and uncontrolled logging.
In the second half of 2013, a moratorium was declared on mangrove
logging. Now, the final touches are being put on a sustainable
management master plan that is expected to be in place before the end of
the year. Cuban President Raul Castro has said the plan is a top priority.
What makes the effort vital and closely monitored by environmentalists
is that Cuba is one of the few places left in the Caribbean with
extensive mangrove forests. Cuba accounts for about 69 per cent of the
region's current mangroves, the New York-based Environmental Defense
Fund says.
Mangroves act as both a barrier to the sea and a saltwater filter,
making them important for coastal health.
Even in Cuba, experts say the situation is critical.
"The situation is bad.
More than 30 per cent of the mangroves are in a critical state,"
government forest scientist Reynier Samon said on a recent tour of
Surgidero de Batabano, an area where deforestation has been extreme. The
rest, he said, are in a state of medium deterioration. Mangroves
historically have been harvested heavily, for textile dyes, tannins used
in the pharmaceutical industry, lumber for furniture and charcoal that
rural Cubans rely on to fire their kitchens.
But healthy mangrove stands are important to alleviating one of the
island's biggest headaches: Rising seas stand to wipe 122 towns off the
map and penetrate up to two kilometres inland in low-lying areas by
2100, posing a serious threat to coastal communities and agriculture,
according to a government study last year.
Efrain Arrazcaeta, who runs a local environmental non-profit, has
witnessed the phenomenon with growing alarm. His group estimates a
two-metre maritime advance each year, using the submerged tank as a
reference point. "If the mangroves are restored, the mitigation of these
effects will be notable," Arrazcaeta said.
No details of the mangrove plan have been made public. It will
apparently include sustainable exploitation measures with some logging
for the pharmaceutical industry under study, though the moratorium will
remain more or less in place.
Officials are also waging a public awareness campaign to educate coastal
residents to be caretakers of the tangled, mosquitoinfested thickets.
The campaign shows them how their homes and farms are at stake and urges
them to protect freshwater streams vital for maintaining proper saline
levels.
"The perception of the importance of this ecosystem for these
communities is low. They see it as something to exploit," said Samon.
Extensive reforestation isn't easy. There's no way of mechanizing the
process, which means brigades of workers will have to wade into the
swampy terrain and plant each mangrove by hand.
Even deciding what to plant where requires careful study. Red mangroves
thrive next to the sea, black mangroves a few metres inland, "yana"
mangroves beyond that. If you plant any variety in a place that's too
salty or not salty enough, it will die.
Financing for the plan comes from various ministries as well as a UN
program on climate change adaptation. Officials declined to give budget
figures, but said it's in the millions of dollars.
Samon said in the past year some 36,000 hectares (89,000 acres) of
mangroves have been successfully replanted nationwide. The measure
complements other programs to relocate coastal buildings, protect sand
dunes and regulate how close hotels can be to the sea.
In Surgidero, residents say the logging moratorium and some small
initial reforestation have already had a noticeable effect. Seen from
the sea, the coastline looks greener, they say.
"There is a cay that formed just from the (new) mangroves and in one
year it grew to a good size," said Alexis Duarte, a fisherman.
Studies show while mangrove loss across the Americas is about 3.6 per
cent per year, Cuba has recorded net gains in recent years.
Dan Whittle, Cuba program director for the Environmental Defense Fund,
said Cuba "is probably the model for other countries" in the region for
the coastal protection measures it has taken over the past decade or so.
However, he said, much work remains and Cuba has a mixed record
implementing its protective laws and policies.
Samon says the political will is there to address the challenge. "Now we
are in the phase of implementation and boots on the ground. It's urgent."
Source: Cuba's mangroves under threat -
http://www.leaderpost.com/Cuba+mangroves+under+threat/10085637/story.html
Cuba Copies the Eritrean Model of Closed Airports
Cuba Copies the Eritrean Model of Closed Airports
July 31, 2014
Fernando Ravsberg*
HAVANA TIMES — The Jose Marti airport administrator told Granma
newspaper that there are many other airport terminals in the world where
entry is forbidden to persons accompanying a passenger, but did not name
any of them.
A reader of this blog agrees: "There is at least one other airport that
shares this rare privilege, that of Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. The
difference there is that in front is a restaurant where you can hang out
and entertain yourself while saying goodbye or waiting for a passenger."
I'm not an expert on the subject but I guess that Eritreans must be
considered a top authority on airport administration. Otherwise Cuba
would not have decided to copy their practices and restrictions.
Copying is not shameful but copying wrong, putting the cart before the
horse, is a pain. The managers of the Havana Airport applied the
prohibition of entry first and left the opening of a restaurant for an
uncertain future.
Meanwhile, while they plan the construction of a space in front of the
airport terminal, those sending off relatives or friends have to say
goodbye in the middle of the street or wait for incoming passengers in
the same place. Something that, as we see, does not even occur in Eritrea.
They say that the restriction "is about providing better service and
attention to those arriving or leaving Cuba, as required when they pay
for a ticket. Do not forget that the airport is the first impression
that many tourists will have of the country."
However, after restricting entry into the airport building the chief
complaint of passengers has not changed, as they often have to wait for
2 to 3 hours for their bags to come out. One wonders if such delays are
within "the recommended international standards" mentioned in Granma?
Apparently the delays within the airport are not very important to the
airport administrators because it's been going on for many years.
However, they do take radical measures to eject their fellow citizens
from the facilities.
They should realize that because of their own administrative
inefficiency, the family or friends that greet visitors has to wait
those same three hours in the street without a place to sit, get a glass
of water, or without even a bathroom.
"Do not forget that the airport is the first impression that many
tourists will have of the country", they remind us and almost make us
feel guilty of the bad image of Cuba visitors would have if they see us
drinking a coffee inside the terminal.
Actually the bad impression to the traveler happens when suitcases don't
appear for hours; when they unload the baggage from the same flight on
two different carousels; when no one can find a baggage cart; and when
the baggage assistants offer to get you out of there "quickly" for
money, and nobody can explain what's happening.
Then the bad impression increases upon setting foot on the street. After
hours of a grueling wait you find hundreds of sweaty and tired people,
bunched together behind a fence like cattle, who must urinate in the
parking lot for a lack of a better place.
This situation also affects the image that the Cubans themselves have of
their country and themselves. Many wonder how they can be treated that
way by public officials when they themselves pay their wages.
The intellectual Esteban Morales went to all corners of the airport
looking for an explanation without success. He concluded that it
"appears to be a bad joke or the whim of some bureaucrat, who came up
with such a solution?"
A renowned filmmaker told me that "After two hours of waiting, my wife
and I entered the building without permission. After going to the
bathroom in shifts, we sat down at the table of one of the cafeterias
(she ordered a bottle of water and I a beer). "
He added: "An airport employee came over and told us we had to wait
outside. I responded that the waiting rooms of airports are public
places – and told the comrade that only by force could he make us leave.
Of course we stayed. "
Source: Cuba Copies the Eritrean Model of Closed Airports - Havana
Times.org - http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=105244
July 31, 2014
Fernando Ravsberg*
HAVANA TIMES — The Jose Marti airport administrator told Granma
newspaper that there are many other airport terminals in the world where
entry is forbidden to persons accompanying a passenger, but did not name
any of them.
A reader of this blog agrees: "There is at least one other airport that
shares this rare privilege, that of Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. The
difference there is that in front is a restaurant where you can hang out
and entertain yourself while saying goodbye or waiting for a passenger."
I'm not an expert on the subject but I guess that Eritreans must be
considered a top authority on airport administration. Otherwise Cuba
would not have decided to copy their practices and restrictions.
Copying is not shameful but copying wrong, putting the cart before the
horse, is a pain. The managers of the Havana Airport applied the
prohibition of entry first and left the opening of a restaurant for an
uncertain future.
Meanwhile, while they plan the construction of a space in front of the
airport terminal, those sending off relatives or friends have to say
goodbye in the middle of the street or wait for incoming passengers in
the same place. Something that, as we see, does not even occur in Eritrea.
They say that the restriction "is about providing better service and
attention to those arriving or leaving Cuba, as required when they pay
for a ticket. Do not forget that the airport is the first impression
that many tourists will have of the country."
However, after restricting entry into the airport building the chief
complaint of passengers has not changed, as they often have to wait for
2 to 3 hours for their bags to come out. One wonders if such delays are
within "the recommended international standards" mentioned in Granma?
Apparently the delays within the airport are not very important to the
airport administrators because it's been going on for many years.
However, they do take radical measures to eject their fellow citizens
from the facilities.
They should realize that because of their own administrative
inefficiency, the family or friends that greet visitors has to wait
those same three hours in the street without a place to sit, get a glass
of water, or without even a bathroom.
"Do not forget that the airport is the first impression that many
tourists will have of the country", they remind us and almost make us
feel guilty of the bad image of Cuba visitors would have if they see us
drinking a coffee inside the terminal.
Actually the bad impression to the traveler happens when suitcases don't
appear for hours; when they unload the baggage from the same flight on
two different carousels; when no one can find a baggage cart; and when
the baggage assistants offer to get you out of there "quickly" for
money, and nobody can explain what's happening.
Then the bad impression increases upon setting foot on the street. After
hours of a grueling wait you find hundreds of sweaty and tired people,
bunched together behind a fence like cattle, who must urinate in the
parking lot for a lack of a better place.
This situation also affects the image that the Cubans themselves have of
their country and themselves. Many wonder how they can be treated that
way by public officials when they themselves pay their wages.
The intellectual Esteban Morales went to all corners of the airport
looking for an explanation without success. He concluded that it
"appears to be a bad joke or the whim of some bureaucrat, who came up
with such a solution?"
A renowned filmmaker told me that "After two hours of waiting, my wife
and I entered the building without permission. After going to the
bathroom in shifts, we sat down at the table of one of the cafeterias
(she ordered a bottle of water and I a beer). "
He added: "An airport employee came over and told us we had to wait
outside. I responded that the waiting rooms of airports are public
places – and told the comrade that only by force could he make us leave.
Of course we stayed. "
Source: Cuba Copies the Eritrean Model of Closed Airports - Havana
Times.org - http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=105244
Support religious freedom in Cuba
Posted on Thursday, 07.31.14
Support religious freedom in Cuba
BY KATRINA LANDOS SWETT AND MARY ANN GLENDON
MEDIA@USCIRF.GOV.
This year marks the 55th anniversary of Cuba's current government and
July 26 commemorated the 61st anniversary of the revolution which swept
it into power. After coming to power, the Castro government broke its
pro-democracy pledges and, despite recent improvements, maintains a
problematic record on human rights, including religious freedom.
This was confirmed by the State Department's international religious
freedom annual report, which was released this week. It also was
exhibited when the government recently detained more than 100 members of
the Ladies in White, relatives of imprisoned dissidents who draw
inspiration from their Catholic faith.
Religious freedom and other rights are spelled out in international
documents — including the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR) — which most nations, including Cuba, endorsed. It was a Cuban
diplomat, Guy Perez-Cisneros, who together with other Latin Americans
helped drive its drafting and passage. Thus, whenever Havana violates
human rights, it betrays not only its past promises, but Cuba's legacy
of liberty. The world should affirm this legacy by standing steadfastly
for Cuban religious freedom and related rights.
The seeds for that legacy already were being sown in early 1945, just
prior to the San Francisco conference that founded the United Nations,
when Latin American delegates meeting in Mexico adopted a resolution
supporting a human rights declaration for the U.N. Charter. They lobbied
for it vigorously once the conference opened.
The Charter mentioned human rights seven times, along with an agreement
to establish a Human Rights Commission. This commission prepared an
international bill of rights which became the UDHR and Perez-Cisneros
spoke eloquently for the pro-freedom coalition that made it possible.
As detailed by the independent U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a bipartisan federal body on which we serve,
the Castro government has yet to own this heritage. Instead, it controls
and monitors religious activities and requires an invasive registration
process.
What happens when a religious community refuses to register? It cannot
receive foreign visitors, import religious materials, meet in approved
places of worship, or apply for travel abroad for religious purposes.
What happens when it agrees to register? Local communist officials must
approve its activities and the government interferes with its leadership
and internal affairs. Havana often seeks to change church structure,
freeze church assets, close churches, and intimidate pastors of churches
such as the Western Baptist Convention.
Independent religious communities often suffer the most. The
fast-growing Apostolic Reformation faces government harassment,
including arrests of leaders; confiscation or destruction of property;
aggressive surveillance of church members and relatives; heavy fines;
and potential loss of job, housing, and educational opportunities.
It is not just religious communities that authorities often target. They
also interfere with human rights activists exercising religious freedom,
denying them access to religious services and pressuring church leaders
to do likewise. They regularly detain Ladies in White members on their
way to Sunday services, block their entry, and send others to harass and
intimidate them.
As in prior years, the past year saw signs of improvement.
The government eased some restrictions, allowed registered groups to
build or expand houses of worship, and permitted churches more
opportunities for charity work. But the question remains whether it
still views religious practices as privileges to be granted or withheld,
rather than inherent rights to be affirmed or protected. At stake is the
legacy of an entire generation, led by Guy Perez-Cisneros, who helped
bring the world the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
It is time to honor this great gift that Cubans helped bestow on
humanity. While people disagree on how to deal with Cuba on various
fronts, including the U.S. embargo, all should agree that the United
States must press Havana to cease interfering with religious activities;
allow unregistered religious groups to operate freely and legally;
refrain from mistreating human rights activists and blocking them from
attending churches; and cease arresting and harassing religious leaders.
USCIRF would also welcome Cuba's allowing its members a visit. Other
countries, including Latin American and European nations, should weave
human rights, including religious freedom, into discussions with Cuba.
Cuba once stood for the world's freedom; the world should do likewise
for Cubans.
Katrina Lantos Swett serves as chair of the U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom. Mary Ann Glendon serves as a USCIRF
Commissioner.
Source: Support religious freedom in Cuba - Other Views -
MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/07/31/4265558/support-religious-freedom-in-cuba.html
Support religious freedom in Cuba
BY KATRINA LANDOS SWETT AND MARY ANN GLENDON
MEDIA@USCIRF.GOV.
This year marks the 55th anniversary of Cuba's current government and
July 26 commemorated the 61st anniversary of the revolution which swept
it into power. After coming to power, the Castro government broke its
pro-democracy pledges and, despite recent improvements, maintains a
problematic record on human rights, including religious freedom.
This was confirmed by the State Department's international religious
freedom annual report, which was released this week. It also was
exhibited when the government recently detained more than 100 members of
the Ladies in White, relatives of imprisoned dissidents who draw
inspiration from their Catholic faith.
Religious freedom and other rights are spelled out in international
documents — including the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR) — which most nations, including Cuba, endorsed. It was a Cuban
diplomat, Guy Perez-Cisneros, who together with other Latin Americans
helped drive its drafting and passage. Thus, whenever Havana violates
human rights, it betrays not only its past promises, but Cuba's legacy
of liberty. The world should affirm this legacy by standing steadfastly
for Cuban religious freedom and related rights.
The seeds for that legacy already were being sown in early 1945, just
prior to the San Francisco conference that founded the United Nations,
when Latin American delegates meeting in Mexico adopted a resolution
supporting a human rights declaration for the U.N. Charter. They lobbied
for it vigorously once the conference opened.
The Charter mentioned human rights seven times, along with an agreement
to establish a Human Rights Commission. This commission prepared an
international bill of rights which became the UDHR and Perez-Cisneros
spoke eloquently for the pro-freedom coalition that made it possible.
As detailed by the independent U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a bipartisan federal body on which we serve,
the Castro government has yet to own this heritage. Instead, it controls
and monitors religious activities and requires an invasive registration
process.
What happens when a religious community refuses to register? It cannot
receive foreign visitors, import religious materials, meet in approved
places of worship, or apply for travel abroad for religious purposes.
What happens when it agrees to register? Local communist officials must
approve its activities and the government interferes with its leadership
and internal affairs. Havana often seeks to change church structure,
freeze church assets, close churches, and intimidate pastors of churches
such as the Western Baptist Convention.
Independent religious communities often suffer the most. The
fast-growing Apostolic Reformation faces government harassment,
including arrests of leaders; confiscation or destruction of property;
aggressive surveillance of church members and relatives; heavy fines;
and potential loss of job, housing, and educational opportunities.
It is not just religious communities that authorities often target. They
also interfere with human rights activists exercising religious freedom,
denying them access to religious services and pressuring church leaders
to do likewise. They regularly detain Ladies in White members on their
way to Sunday services, block their entry, and send others to harass and
intimidate them.
As in prior years, the past year saw signs of improvement.
The government eased some restrictions, allowed registered groups to
build or expand houses of worship, and permitted churches more
opportunities for charity work. But the question remains whether it
still views religious practices as privileges to be granted or withheld,
rather than inherent rights to be affirmed or protected. At stake is the
legacy of an entire generation, led by Guy Perez-Cisneros, who helped
bring the world the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
It is time to honor this great gift that Cubans helped bestow on
humanity. While people disagree on how to deal with Cuba on various
fronts, including the U.S. embargo, all should agree that the United
States must press Havana to cease interfering with religious activities;
allow unregistered religious groups to operate freely and legally;
refrain from mistreating human rights activists and blocking them from
attending churches; and cease arresting and harassing religious leaders.
USCIRF would also welcome Cuba's allowing its members a visit. Other
countries, including Latin American and European nations, should weave
human rights, including religious freedom, into discussions with Cuba.
Cuba once stood for the world's freedom; the world should do likewise
for Cubans.
Katrina Lantos Swett serves as chair of the U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom. Mary Ann Glendon serves as a USCIRF
Commissioner.
Source: Support religious freedom in Cuba - Other Views -
MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/07/31/4265558/support-religious-freedom-in-cuba.html
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