Niall O'Leary from New York teaches Irish dancing to the company of Danzas Retazos, an FfRD people to people program

I have been away from thehavananote for too long.

It was great when OFAC finally gave us a people-to-people license, but making sure our trips to Cuba went well during the winter/spring high season became all consuming.  (Our next one is an introduction to Cuban universities, June 14-24).

I find that on a time sensitive basis most of my writing has tended to be in the comment section of mainstream media articles.  My presumption has been that one gets to a different audience, even if the level of discourse is too often at the level of repetition and name calling.

I am posting below with minimal editing selected recent comments and the link to the original article  in hope they have some broader interest to readers.

We also published a newsletter last week that is available here.

And if you have not read it, take a look at an article by Patrick Ryan a former U.S. diplomat who authored the 2007-09 Country Reports on Terrorism for Nigeria and visited Cuba many times on official business.  He is not particularly sympathetic to the government, but argues:

I believe keeping Cuba on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism is absurd and highly political 

John McAuliff

Fund for Reconciliation and Development

In Memorium

We lost a friend and a courageous advocate for US democracy with the untimely passing of former Representative Bob Edgar, the President of Common Cause. When Bob was President of the National Council of Churches, he played an important role in the return of Elian to his father.  More recently, with the support of the Ford Foundation, he became a leader in the effort to acknowledge the long term impact of the defoliant Agent Orange which the US sprayed widely in Vietnam.

 

Two news stories have dominated the U.S.-Cuba policy debate in the last couple of weeks, the whirlwind U.S. tour of Cuban critic and blogging sensation Yoani Sanchez, and the surprise trip to the island nation by celebrity musicians Beyonce Knowles and Jay-Z Carter, while one story illustrative of the true potential of U.S.-Cuban relations is likely to go largely unnoticed.

Yoani’s appearances in New York, Washington and Miami, served as a valuable – and perhaps unprecedented – bridge between among politicians, analysts and Cuban Americans. Yoani Sanchez has no doubt had a groundbreaking impact on independent bloggers in Cuba, and has surely influenced the perspectives of those both critical and supportive of the Cuban government. But at the same time, it can be a little too easy to equate Yoani’s incisive perspective as “the” perspective of all Cubans, and in particular, of Cubans who disagree with their government’s policies.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Yoani’s visit to the U.S. was the fact that all of the most hard-line politicians felt the need to be seen with her, in spite of her oft-repeated opposition to the U.S. embargo, which she believes just offers her government a handy excuse for its failings. Surely I am not the only one to notice that Cuban dissidents who support the U.S. embargo have long been the only kind to be featured at Congressional events headed by hardliners such as Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen or Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.  I well remember the visit several years ago of Hector Palacios, a former politicial prisoner who often criticized U.S. policy and who was denied meetings on Capitol Hill and at the White House. And the late Oswaldo Paya, architect of the Varela Project, received his fair share of disapproval in Miami, for his petition drive was seen as legitimizing the Cuban government, by using its constitution to demand reforms. Overall, Yoani’s visit to the U.S. helped bring Americans divided over Cuba just a little closer, if only for this photo op.

But it was the furor over Beyonce and Jay-Z’s trip to Cuba that so handily illustrates the way in which the U.S.-Cuba relationship truly gets overdramatized. In the days following the much-publicized trip, everal very prominent (Cuban American) politicians, including Senator Marco Rubio and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen are up in arms over the trip, demanding answers about who authorized the trip and why. These Members of Congress seem to miss the irony in their engaging in the very sort of Big Brother-type bullying that they insist the Cuban government they so abhor does.  

The story that is most likely to go largely unnoticed, however, is the case of the Hakken family, which has been located in Cuba and will be returned to the U.S. thanks to the immediate cooperation of the Cuban government. Apparently, Joshua and Sharyn Hakken, who had previously lost custody of their two children (who were living with their grandparents), kidnapped the two boys and sailed off for Cuba, where presumably they imagined they’d be free from U.S. law enforcement. But the Cuban Foreign Ministry has already confirmed that the family has been located in Cuba and will be returned to the U.S.

Without harboring illusions about the level of cooperation that exists between U.S. and Cuban law enforcement agencies today (very little, mostly on a case-by-case basis between the U.S. and Cuban Coast Guards), it’s quite clear there is more we could be doing on a bilateral basis. Though it is often reported that there is no extradition treaty with Cuba, there in fact is one, and it has never been abrogated, it is just essentially non-operative.

Every once in a while something happens to remind us just how far U.S.-Cuba relations have deviated from what they should be. Last week, superstars Beyonce Knowles-Carter and Jay-Z strolled through Havana, engulfed in a sea of people. The couple went to Cuba to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary but could not pass through the city unnoticed like they may have wished. They are at the peak of their artistic careers and my adolescent niece Sophia, to whom I have tried to explain the poetry of Bob Dylan, cannot believe that I don't know any Beyonce songs.

Could someone please explain to me why multiple outlets (The Hill, The Washington Times, Politico) consider criticism from Cuban American Senator Marco Rubio - at a recent pro-embargo fundraiser, no less - of Senate colleagues and other Americans who travel to Cuba to be actual news on which they need to report?

(Not) Surprisingly, Rubio offered the following:

“Cuba is not a zoo where you pay an admission ticket and you go in and you get to watch people living in cages to see how they are suffering,” Rubio added. “Cuba is not a field trip. I don’t take that stuff lightly. You just went to Cuba and to fulfill your curiosity — which I could’ve told you about if you’d come seen me for five minutes — you’ve left thousands of dollars in the hands of a government that uses that money to control these people that you feel sorry for.”

It's not news that Rubio strongly supports continuing U.S. sanctions on and isolation of Cuba. Neither is it news that he doesn't want Americans - nor even Cuban Americans - visiting the island, because he believes those visits help the Cuban government.

I suppose it might actually be news to some readers out there that while Rubio's parents came from Cuba, Rubio himself has never set foot on the streets of any Cuban city or town to more fully inform his opinions. Rubio is of course entitled to his opinions. But his complete lack of experience - his utter lack of curiosity - might explain why Rubio so blithely dismisses all of the good that can come of economic activity spurred by these very same visits, aiding families and budding entrepreneurs on the island that previously had to depend on the Cuban government for everything.

If there was any news associated with the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC's latest fundraiser, might I suggest a quick look at the numbers over at OpenSecrets.org for a clue? Because while Rubio's fervent support for the U.S. embargo of Cuba is common knowledge in Washington, it is less known that the US-Cuba Democracy PAC juggernaut that has won the hearts if not the minds of countless members of Congress since 2004 has been steadily raising less and less cash from its donor community. In the 2007-2008 the PAC raised over $800,000. In the 2009-2010 cycle, it raised just $636,000. And, by 2011-2012, that number was down to just over $500,000. Given the unprecedented split in the Cuban American vote in last November's election, which was indeed news, this downward trend in pro-embargo donations to the U.S. Cuba Democracy PAC might have been worth a mention when covering Rubio's speech to the PAC luncheon - especially when Rubio himself opened the door to the question of whether Cuban American community has shifted. (He's not so sure it has.)

Senator Rubio is of course entitled to his opinions, no matter how degrading to Cubans or his fellow Americans they are, and no matter how well-informed they may or may not be. But the American people should also be entitled to their opinions, even if they don't make headlines. After more than 50 years of isolating the Cuban people, and after spending millions of of our hard-earned dollars in service of a policy that has made zero progress, the American people are surely also entitled to their curiosity. Most of all, I imagine they might be curious about why our government has maintained this policy and what impacts we may or may not have on the Cuban people in more than fifty years of pursuing it. The only way to find answers is to visit the island and talk to the people living there.

As Venezuelans and foreign observers examine the legacy – both the accomplishments and failures – of the charismatic and bombastic Hugo Chavez, discussion inevitably turns to the implications for allies on which he lavished generous aid and trade benefits. Perhaps none is quite so vulnerable in the wake of Chavez’s death as Cuba, an island nation of some 12 million people whose Socialist Revolution, with Chavez’s mentor Fidel Castro at the helm for more than 45 years, managed to hang on and hang on in spite of U.S. disapproval and interference. Indeed, Socialist Cuba hung on in spite of itself, achieving inspirational heights in public health and education, and enjoying international influence far beyond its means, but never achieving the most crucial change of all: economic sustainability. In the past twenty years, Cuba has experienced one crisis after another.

After one such crisis is where Hugo Chavez came in, following the worst, broadest felt economic crisis Cubans have known, when Cuba’s ally and patron, the Soviet Union, collapsed, and the island’s economy shrank by more than one-third, and imports dropped by 85%. In those dark years, the Cuban people suffered crippling food shortages (and many were malnourished), extended blackouts and all the other indignities that come from a sudden withdrawal of creature comforts and basic necessities they’d become so accustomed to. Reluctantly, Fidel Castro adopted a few limited measures – most importantly, embracing tourism – to stop the free fall, but it was his mentee, Hugo Chavez, whose increasingly generous trade and aid, who helped re-stabilize the Cuban economy at the turn of the 21^st century. Cubans were no longer starving, but the vast majority would never recover the living standards they’d enjoyed before. As the cracks in the Cuban economy widened  (and the gains of the Cuban Revolution slowly degenerated) Hugo Chavez filled them in with cut rate Venezuelan oil.

At the same time, it became clear to any honest observer inside or outside Cuba that the nation was headed for serious trouble; relying so singularly on the largesse of Hugo Chavez could have perilous consequences. When Raul Castro took the reins from his ailing older brother provisionally in 2006 and then formally in 2008, he focused, for the first time publicly, on the need for deep changes. The economic downturn of 2008, coming as it did with soaring world food prices and a punishing hurricane season (in which Cuba was walloped by four major storms that wipes out food stores and hundreds of thousands of homes), brought the reality starkly home.

The younger Castro’s rhetoric has been consistent and tough on economic mismanagement and corruption, but his apparent desire for consensus building (and avoiding destabilizing shocks that could jeopardize power) coupled with his inability to rein in a reluctant bureaucracy meant that Cuba’s economic restructuring has been slow and largely ineffectual – so far. Key reforms in real estate and migration, which offer many Cubans unprecedented potential economic empowerment and mobility, and also leverage an increasingly reconnected diaspora, offer hope of more and deeper reform, but other reforms, such as in expanding the non-state sector and reforming the tax code, have been too piecemeal or conservative so far.

Not unsurprisingly, many in and out of Cuba now wonder if the loss of Chavez is the death knell of the Castros’ Revolution, or, perhaps could it inject urgent momentum into Raul Castro’s reform agenda, just in the nick of time? In some ways, the loss of Hugo Chavez, on its face so devastating for Cuba, might actually be a good thing for the island.

As we travel back and forth to Cuba, often with delegations of U.S. policymakers, we focus our research and reporting on issues that the broader American public can relate to, that can help us strip away mysteries surrounding Cuba, and press our case for changing Cuba policy and normalizing relations.

That’s the goal behind our report, “Women’s Work: Gender Equality in Cuba and the Role of Women Building Cuba’s Future,” that we release this week in time for International Women’s Day.

Rather than making the false choice common to narratives about Cuba –everything is either paradise or lying in ruins – our report depicts just how complicated this problem is, by being honest about the successes and failures of Cuba’s revolutionary commitment to equality for women. 

It begins with the findings of global organizations, from Save the Children to the World Economic Forum, which give Cuba high marks for making all its citizens healthier and more literate, bringing girls out of their homes and into the classroom, tripling the number of women at work, and providing the strongest protections of reproductive rights and producing the lowest incidence of HIV/AIDS in all of Latin America.

But these numbers don’t tell the whole story.  There are key objectives of equality– equality at work, equal sharing of burdens at home, and equal access to positions in which women can exercise real power –where Cuba falls short.

This past week was uncommonly full of Cuba news.

At the top of the list has to be this weekend's selection of a new First Vice President in Cuba, Manuel Diaz Canel, age 52, the first person to occupy that post that did not fight in the Revolution. The outgoing First Vice President apparently stepped aside to make room for the next generation of Cuban leaders. Diaz Canel is presumed to be Raul Castro’s successor, a prospect made all the more clear by Raul Castro’s reiteration that this will indeed be his final term in office, as he promised in 2008 when he began his first full term as president. Castro also endorsed term (and age!) limits for top government officials, and insisted that he will press ahead with his reform agenda. Two of the country’s five vice presidents are now women, and just one leader of the Revolution, Ramiro Valdes, remains.

Interestingly, Fidel Castro, who made a rare appearance at the National Assembly session today and gave a wide-ranging interview to Cuba's Communist Party daily Granma earlier this month, does not exactly seem bowled over by his brother’s big change agenda, referring to the Revolution as the “change” that matters most. While the elder Castro assures this is all just a bit of fine –tuning, the consistent message to the Cuban people from the younger Castro now in charge is clear: Cuba is changing, it is (slowly) modernizing, and perhaps most important of all, that Raul Castro himself can be trusted to follow through – however slowly at times – with the reformist policies he endorses. While there will no doubt be ingrained skepticism among many Cubans - and Raul Castro himself makes sure not to take it too far, promising no return to capitalism in Cuba, for example - many Cubans will see the leadership changes that took place this week as a sign that more changes still are on the way.

It’s thus jarring to see how disconnected U.S. policy is from the changes afoot in Cuba today. As one of the Cuban government’s most vocal critics, blogging sensation Yoani Sanchez (who is now traveling in Brazil, thanks to Raul Castro’s migration reforms), put it: “[The U.S. embargo of Cuba is “a fossil of the Cold War that does not have any sense in the modern world in which we live.

Talking about terrorism

This week in Washington, sparks flew around one of those fossilized elements of U.S. Cuba policy, designating Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. Cuba has been on the list since 1982, originally for its support of armed leftist groups in the Americas. But since the collapse of the Soviet Union more than 20 years ago, whose patronage made such Cuban adventures abroad possible, the State Department has repeatedly admitted that Cuba was no longer providing such support. While many analysts have repeatedly called for its removal, no administration has dared take that step. And then there was this story out last week, which suggested the Obama administration might actually be preparing to take that step soon:

“There is a pretty clear case . . . that they don’t really meet the standard anymore,” said a senior administration official with direct knowledge regarding US-Cuba policy who was not authorized to speak publicly. “They have neither the wherewithal nor are they doing much.”

The Boston Globe, which cited “top U.S. diplomats” in breaking the story, emphasized that no formal decision had been taken, and noted that Kerry was reviewing U.S. policy toward Cuba.

For the first time in over half a century, an American president may well have two cabinet secretaries who have been publicly and repeatedly critical of our stubbornly isolationist (and anachronistic) policy toward the island of Cuba. Though he got a bit of cold feet during his own run for president in 2004, President Obama’s new Secretary of State, former senator John Kerry has long criticized U.S. Cuba policy. His nominee for Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, has never minced words when it came to our “outdated” approach to Cuba. Both men walk in (or hope to walk in) to their new jobs with long and clear records opposing U.S. sanctions on Cuba.

So should embargo opponents be getting their hopes up? Perhaps yes, perhaps no.

If Chuck Hagel is confirmed, he obviously has very, very big and pressing matters to deal with, not least being how to respond to looming existential budget pressures. But it’s not such a stretch to envision this SecDef increasing military to military cooperation with Cuba where it makes sense and increases U.S. security. Security cooperation is a key area in the bilateral relationship that we can and should be increasing in our own interest, and it need not be tied to diplomatic breakthroughs. In fact, it is paramount that security cooperation that serves our interest not be bogged down by diplomatic considerations. De-linking our vital interests from diplomacy is something Chuck Hagel undoubtedly sees.

It is Kerry who has more of a minefield to navigate, if he chooses to navigate it at all, amidst all the other far more pressing concerns now on his plate.

On the one hand, he’s been a vocal critic not only of our general approach on Cuba but he’s identified specific programs that he considers non- or even counterproductive, including U.S. taxpayer-backed Radio and TV Marti broadcasting and USAID’s democracy promotion programs, which Kerry has suggested “provoked” the Cuban government to jail a U.S. government subcontractor, Alan Gross. There’s no telling how deep the new secretary plans to dig on the next budget, but it would be odd for these programs to continue business-as-usual under Kerry. Unless, that is, the White House intervenes. Given the outcome of the 2012 elections, which finally dispelled the myth that no president – especially a Democrat – could ease sanctions on Cuba and be re-elected to tell about it, it’s hard to imagine the White House doing so.

On the other hand, what does Kerry get for his trouble if he does drill deep enough into the Cuba programs under his purview?

The worst managed issue between Cuba and the United States during Obama and Raul Castro’s first terms has been the detention of USAID subcontractor Alan Gross, who has been imprisoned in a Cuban military hospital since December 3, 2009. Shirking the first requirement of pragmatism, namely “facing the facts,” the Obama Administration has created its own fictional narrative that contradict even its own documents now available to the public.

Beginning today, the Cuban policy of requiring citizens to obtain an invitation to visit abroad and permission from domestic authorities to exit the country, is no more. This is a profoundly significant change. Given that Cubans will still need to procure visitor or immigrant visas to most other countries and most without family abroad will have a hard time coming up with the money for the trip, it won’t likely cause a rush for the exits. But the new rules pave the way for a new relationship between country and citizen, and between those who stay and those who have left. The door will now remain open between each, both emotionally and financially.

Though millions of Cubans can now, in principal if not in practical terms, leave the island as they sit fit, there are exceptions for national security and other reasons, and it remains to be seen how Cuban authorities intend to apply them. Last week we learned that Cuban doctors – in whom the Cuban government invests much and expects to return the investment either at home or abroad (on behalf of the Cuban government which contracts them out) – will in fact be free to travel under the new rules. But will critics of the government be free to come and go? The more broadly these new rules extend to Cubans, the more pressure it could put on the United States to change its migration policies toward the island.

If optics matter, we may soon see the administration use its executive authority to further loosen its own restrictions on Americans’ travel to Cuba (to the extent it can). Yes, you might have heard, Americans must seek  permission from the U.S. Department of Treasury in order to be allowed to use our passports to travel to Cuba. The irony of the U.S. “[welcoming] any reforms that allow Cubans to depart from and return to their country freely,’’ as a State Department spokesman put it last week, without doing the same for our own population, will now be painfully obvious.

But it’s not just about optics. It’s about opportunity and the political space to seize it. These Cuban travel reforms provide the Obama administration with an historic opportunity to end our open-door migration policy for Cubans that with every passing year becomes more untenable – especially in a political cycle likely to see action on immigration reform. No other nationality on Earth enjoys the benefits Cubans do, including the right to step foot on U.S. soil illegally and qualify for a green card one year after doing so, and collecting generous adjustment benefits at taxpayer expense to boot.