It’s been more than ten years since Juan Formell and the band he founded, Los Van Van, Cuba’s most popular salsa band for decades, played a concert in Miami. In 1999, thousands of Cuba exile protestors threw rocks, bottles and eggs at the intrepid concert goers. Last night, Juan Formell and his band returned to Miami, heartened by the overwhelmingly positive reaction in Miami to the Juanes concert in Havana last year. And while three or four hundred protestors showed up, ten times as many were able to attend the concert, in relative peace. Times sure have changed.

Or have they? Writing in yesterday’s Miami Herald, Alina Fernandez Revuelta shows us just how much some few things stay the same.

By Sarah Stephens, Center for Democracy in the Americas

If you're thinking about a vacation this year, may I recommend North Korea?

I am not kidding. If you visit this website, "North Korea 1 on 1," you will see some pretty impressive itineraries. They offer a 13-day trip coinciding with the annual May Day Festival. Other trips enable American tourists the chance to see "card stunts" featuring thousands of school children holding up colored cards, and great displays of choreography and artistic performances by tens of thousands of gymnasts and dancers.

You don't have to worry about U.S. government restrictions. Americans can travel to North Korea freely; scheduling and affordability (tours costing $4,000 per person are not unusual) seem to be the only barriers. And what won't stop American tourists from visiting North Korea are political differences or threats posed to the United States by the North Korean government.

What are those threats? As the World Fact Book published by the CIA summarizes them:

Dr. Mirta Roses, PAHO Director, talks with Cuban medical personnel at the La Paz University Hospital, Port-au-Prince.

By Gail Reed, M.S., International Director, MEDICC
Nearly 1,000 Cuban and Cuban-trained Haitian doctors—already the largest contingent of medical relief workers in Haiti since the January 12th earthquake—are being joined by graduates of Cuba’s Latin American Medical School (ELAM) from the Americas and Africa. Among the first to arrive will be seven US physicians—all young women--who studied at ELAM and are on their way to Haiti today. At least a dozen countries’ ELAM graduates are expected to begin working with the Cuban doctors, nurses, and support staff before month’s end.

12,000 Flags for 12,000 Patriots

Not so in 1993. When a beleaguered President Clinton realized that key members of his own party in the Congress, plus Republicans, would stymie his effort to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, he turned to Powell to get him out of the mess he had created. The result, crafted by the Joint Staff in the Pentagon working for Powell, was DADT.

Why would I broach this subject on The Havana Note?

Because like DADT, U.S. Cuba policy is wrong, overdue for change, and ripe for the beginning of that change.

Image by John Ross available at: http://www.ballet.co.uk/dcforum/DCForumID12/83.html

Remember that kooky yet charming movie starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, Groundhog Day, in which the main characters relive the same day over and over again until, well, I don't really recall what finally broke the spell. But something did, and I'm sure we were all grateful.

That movie came to my mind when I read this:

Members of Russia's Bolshoi Ballet will perform in Havana's Karl Marx theatre this week in their first appearance on the island in 30 years, Cuba's state-run press says.

The return of the Bolshoi comes as part of a renewal of relations between Cuba and Russia, who were Cold War allies for three decades before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Cuban press said dancers from the Bolshoi and the Cuban National Ballet will perform pieces from ballets such as Giselle and The Nutcracker on February 13 in conjunction with the annual Havana International Book Fair, which this year features Russian writers and artists.

Pro and anti-reform sentiments surfaced last week.

Arturo Valenzuela, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs (pictured above), was quoted in Spain:

When asked about the direction U.S. policy would take toward Cuba this year, Valenzuela said that Washington will seek “to resume some of the conversations” held with Havana “on matters of common interest.”

“And in that sense, we have set conversations on immigration issues, postal issues ...” he said, emphasizing the “efforts” of the U.S. administration to “have a direct dialogue with the Cuban government.”

As an example of that dialogue, the official cited the earthquake in Haiti, where the United States has maintained “a conversation directly with the Cubans ... (about) the possibility of directly supporting Cuban doctors working in Haiti.”

Barack Obama’s administration in 2010 also wants “to reverse some of the measures taken by the previous U.S. government not to permit more fluid connections between U.S. citizens and their counterparts in Cuba,” Valenzuela added.

“We’re opening up those measures to have much more communication from one society to the other society,” he said.

If the Administration is finally serious about using its authority to open up non-tourist travel, it needs to move quickly so universities, World Affairs Councils, museums, elder hostel and others can incorporate Cuba into budgets and program plans for the 2010-2011 academic year. The devil will be in the details. Granting general rather than specific licenses to IRS recognized not-for-profits and eliminating the Travel Service Provider monopoly will avoid bureaucratic bottlenecks. Moreover, such a common sense initiative can inspire Congress to finish the job by enacting complete freedom to travel.

Photo source here

In yesterday's New York Times, Helene Cooper writes about the Obama Administration's new take on engagement with countries such as Iran, particularly after Iran in particular has shown so little interest in engaging the United States.

Instead, administration officials say, the biggest benefit of Mr. Obama’s engagement policy now is not dialogue or understanding with adversaries, but simply a defusing of a worldwide view that the United States is part of the problem, a demonstration that the problem is Tehran’s intransigence, not Washington’s pique.

“What the president has achieved is that he has outed Iran,” a senior administration official said Friday. He said Iran, by refusing to respond positively, had exposed itself as uninterested in a better relationship with the United States.

That is now the central point of the new White House outlook on engagement, and it extends, administration officials say, to Venezuela, North Korea and Cuba as well.

Guest Post by Nicholas Maliska

In a letter sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week, eight Republican lawmakers accused the Administration of “trying to appease the Cuban dictatorship” by proceeding with planned migration talks despite the arrest of the USAID subcontractor, Alan Gross last December. The letter further criticized the Administration for the delay of millions of dollars in funding for democracy assistance programs (John McAuliff examines this in another recent post on the Havana Note), and called for the cancellation of the migration talks:

“This policy of acquiescing to the wishes of the Cuban dictatorship emboldens and encourages it to prolong Mr. Gross’ incarceration in the hopes of obtaining further concessions from the United States. We urge you to suspend all talks with the Cuban dictatorship until Mr. Gross is freed, and that you demand that he be immediately released.”

The signers of the letter are generally strong supporters of tighter border security and the prevention of illegal immigration, but a few, like Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, have been more nuanced in their approach. Diaz-Balart is the sponsor of the Dream Act, seeking to provide post-secondary educational opportunities for immigrants that currently are unable to access state funds to help pay for college.

I believe that these economic restrictions − an “embargo” to some and a “blockade” to others − represent a blunder in American policy toward Cuba. Far from suffocating the ruling class of the Island, these trade restrictions create material difficulties for the population and feed the radicalization of the ideological discourse inside Cuba. The embargo has been an argument to justify the unproductive and inefficient state-run economy, including the total ruin of various sectors. Worse than that, it has been used to support the maxim, “in a country under siege, dissent is treason,” which contributes to the lack of freedoms for my fellow citizens. In its nearly 50 years, the “blockade” has done nothing to limit the material arsenal of our authorities, not one of them has ceased to enjoy their privileges. An example is the issue of Internet access. They have always blamed the restrictions on Internet access on the fact that the United States has not allowed Cuba to connect to its underwater cable. The victims of these restrictions are ordinary Cubans; we have had to postpone our enjoyment of the World Wide Web, while the police, the censors and the official media seize the few kilobytes of access available to the whole country. When Barack Obama authorized American telecommunications companies to negotiate with their Cuban counterparts, this alibi for limiting the use of the Internet fell apart. Unfortunately, the government of Raul Castro has ignored his proposal and we continue to be the “Island of the Disconnected.” But on this issue, at least, it is obvious to all that the responsibility does not rest entirely on external forces, but also on internal political will.

Yoani’s answer is as superb a condemnation of U.S. Cuba policy as I have read anywhere. It is eloquent, precise and, best of all, from a Cuban living in Cuba and not in Miami. And it doesn’t let the Cuban regime off the hook either.

But I want to concentrate on one small part of her superb statement—the “Island of the Disconnected.”

Photo credit: U.S. Senate Photo Studio

Sanctions have enormous allure to our Congress. It isn't only the visceral appeal of hammering the bad guy; their popularity also has a lot to do with the fact that they come with powerful lobbies -- and lobbies don't get to be powerful without big money.

MJ Rosenberg wrote a smart piece on dumb sanctions recently, lamenting the Senate passage of a bill that would codify the Treasury Department’s blanket ban on trade with Iran -- except for food, medicine, humanitarian aid and the exchange of information materials. Does that sound familiar? Wait, it gets worse.

A prestigious public relations firm sent out a press packet on Thursday about Alan Gross, a USAID funded detainee in Cuba, including a video appeal from his wife Judy and background materials.

It was timed to have an impact on the bilateral talks on migration taking place in Havana today.

The public relations campaign came after a letter was sent by eight pro-embargo members of the House who demanded the Obama Administration "suspend all talks" with Cuba until Mr. Gross is released.

The press packet includes a letter to the Secretary of State from Maryland Senators Mikulski and Cardin and Representative Van Hollen arguing more reasonably that the negotiations, "create an ideal opportunity to make clear that Mr. Gross' release is a most important priority in our nation's relationship with Cuba."

The public relations firm, Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Associates (CLS), lists many governments and political candidates among its clients, along with prominent universities and the American Red Cross. The release does not say who paid for its work on behalf of the Grosses.

A central point in the background material is:

“Alan was helping Cuba’s tiny Jewish community set up an Intranet so that they could communicate amongst themselves and with other Jewish communities abroad, and providing them the ability to access the Internet.

The Jewish community in Cuba with whom Alan was working with is quite small (the islands Jewish population is estimated to be between 1,000 and 1,500 of a population of 11.4 million people).”

ORT, a prominent international non-governmental organization, has a substantial computer program with the small Jewish community in Cuba which already provides those services. Was Mr. Gross duplicating its efforts or working with ORT?

I find no reference to him in ORT's postings about its work in Cuba.

My request to CLS for clarification has not been answered.

I simply cannot get away from Yoani’s Sanchez’s denunciation of the U.S. embargo on Cuba and from the stranglehold a few citizens, largely from Dade County in Florida, have on American foreign policy. First, Yoani’s extraordinary courage haunts me, a soldier of 31 years who has witnessed some fairly incredible acts of courage. Second, the Cuban-Americans who have created this stranglehold fascinate me, for there seems on the surface no apparent reason for them to be clinging to a policy that should have died along with the Soviet Union.

I went back to this part of Yoani’s denunciation:

I believe that these economic restrictions − an “embargo” to some and a “blockade” to others − represent a blunder in American policy toward Cuba. Far from suffocating the ruling class of the Island, these trade restrictions create material difficulties for the population and feed the radicalization of the ideological discourse inside Cuba. The embargo has been an argument to justify the unproductive and inefficient state-run economy, including the total ruin of various sectors. Worse than that, it has been used to support the maxim, “in a country under siege, dissent is treason,” which contributes to the lack of freedoms for my fellow citizens. In its nearly 50 years, the “blockade” has done nothing to limit the material arsenal of our authorities, not one of them has ceased to enjoy their privileges.

If we closely examine key parts of Yoani’s statement, we see that Yoani believes the embargo actually strengthens the hand of Cuba’s dictators and their rule. Moreover, the embargo severely constrains the Cuban economy, “including the total ruin of various sectors.” It also punishes the largely innocent Cuban people. Finally, the embargo makes possible the perks that the elite who suppress the rest nonetheless enjoy.

Here, now, comes a glimmering of understanding with respect to the second half of my opening statement, i.e., my fascination with the tiny group of Americans who hold U.S. Cuba policy by the throat. Why do they do it?

Photo by Alejandro Ernesto of EFE of Cuban Deputy Minister Rodriguez sending off an earlier (non-State Department sponsored) U.S. delegation headed by Governor Bill Richardson last year

U.S. and Cuban officials met in Havana today for a second round of migration talks. The delegations were headed by U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Craig Kelly and Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister, Dagoberto Rodriguez. We'll have more for you on the bigger picture - why are we talking and what are the stakes, big and small - but just wanted to get you the latest from Havana, a statement from the Cuban Foreign Ministry, which you'll find at the end of this post after the jump.

I'm not sure this statement tells us much about the disposition of the talks, other than that they haven't broken down, and that's good. I note the Cuban request for more consular personnel in Washington, D.C. for assisting Cubans who do migrate to or visit the United States. On its face, seems like a reasonable request to grant - as would a similar request from the U.S. side to grant permission for more U.S. personnel in Havana to process the visa requests. Not to mention all the talk of lifting the U.S. travel ban - if that happens this year, the U.S. Mission in Havana will surely need additional personnel.

Let the tea-leaf reading begin...

Craig Kelly, Principle Deputy Assistant Secretary
of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, led US
negotiators in Cuba at migration talks

As described by Anya Landau French in the previous blog, Friday's bilateral negotiations on migration proceeded reasonably. No announced breakthroughs and irrelevant hits to the bleachers on both sides (Alan Gross, Cuban 5), but the overall tone appeared positive, another small but significant step forward.

The next day we were reminded of the intractable problem that frustrates any serious advance in US-Cuba relations, America's attitude that it is has the right to intervene in a sovereign neighboring country on behalf of its view of democracy.

Despite contrary advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the US delegation met at the official residence with prominent dissidents.

Cuba's positive statement after the bilateral meeting ended is here. It's angry reaction to the meeting with the dissidents is here.

As reported by AP

In a statement published in the Communist Party newspaper Granma, the Foreign Ministry said U.S. leaders' meeting with dissidents, was ''contrary to the spirit of cooperation and understanding showed on Cuba's part'' during the immigration talks and ''demonstrated anew that (U.S.) priorities are more related to supporting the counterrevolution and the promotion of subversion to destabilize the Cuban revolution than with the creation of a climate conducive to real solutions to bilateral problems.''

When Bisa Williams traveled to Cuba for meetings on postal issues, she had lunch with dissidents without provoking the same ire from the government. Was that because she was a lower level diplomat? Or that the lunch took place in the context of a five day visit which included observation of hurricane damage and a farm, additional meetings with the government, and going to the Juanes concert? Or have the Cubans lost faith in Washington's intentions?

Photo at: http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/entries/reaching_out_cuban_people/

Last week in Havana, U.S. and Cuban officials met for a second round of bilateral migration talks - talks which customarily happen twice a year following 1994/1995 accords and had been suspended since January 2004. (U.S. and Cuban officials also discussed direct mail service resumption in New York last fall). With no announcement following these latest talks and the Cuban Foreign Ministry accusing the Americans of provocation following the talks, it might seem like we’ve reached an impasse. But have we really?

What if the two sides are simply communicating the best way they know how? Just the other day, I caught part of the movie Thirteen Days (about the Cuban Missile Crisis) and I was struck by Secretary McNamara’s insistence that the U.S. should not simply employ customary “rules of engagement”; rather, McNamara insisted, Kennedy and Khrushev were “communicating” with each other, and that communication – rather than escalation - needed to be the focus.

Longtime advocate of Cuba policy reform Sam Farr (D-CA) remarked last year that it is a lot easier to get from the United States to Cuba if you're a potato. But if House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson has his way, that will change. Peterson, along with senior Republican Agriculture Committee member Jerry Moran and some thirty of their colleagues, introduced a bill today that would make it easier for American farmers to sell their potatoes and all manner of other produce to Cuba, and also lift the ban on travel that has done more to keep American influence out of Cuba than any Cuban government policy.

The bill would clarify the rules by which Cuba pays cash in advance for agricultural sales to Cuba (made legal in 2000), while enabling Cuba to pay that cash directly to US financial institutions rather than passing them through third country institutions. And, as Mr. Farr will be relieved to see, the Travel Restrictions Reform and Export Enhancement Act would do a lot more than fix a policy that hamstrings American farmers. The act would also correct the more fundamental error in policy that has so long infringed on the rights of Americans to make their own decisions about where they travel and why.

Bobby Sands, the first of ten hunger strikers who died in Northern Ireland

AP reports that Orlando Zapata Tamayo has died as the result of a hunger strike in Cuba. He was designated by Amnesty International as a Prisoner of Conscience after his arrest in 2003.

Hunger strikes deliberately pose a no-win dilemma to all systems of incarceration. In Belfast, ten people regarded as heroes by Irish nationalists and many Irish Americans died resisting their self-described political imprisonment.

The US deals with the same problem at Guantanamo Bay by forcing a tube down the throat of prisoners on hunger strike, an action which has been condemned by human rights advocates.

Last June Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh al Hanashi committed suicide at the east end of Cuba. As reported by the New York Times

“he had been force-fed in a restraint chair…Guantánamo records show that Mr. Hanashi’s weight at one point fell to 87 pounds. Although the death is the first in the Obama administration, there have been five prior deaths at the camp, including four suicides.”

Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a 42 year old political prisoner arrested by Cuban authorities in the crackdown of Spring 2003, has died after an 83 day hunger strike. The Miami Herald reports that Zapata's death marks "the first time in nearly 40 years that an island activist starved himself to death to protest government abuses."

The State Department responded to the death with the following statement:

On Tuesday, February 23, 2010, prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo died following an eleven-week hunger strike. We are deeply saddened to learn of his death, and the U.S. Government extends its heartfelt sympathies to his family, friends, and supporters. Zapata was arrested in 2003 on charges of “contempt for authority.” While in Havana last week, the U.S. delegation for Migration Talks raised Zapata’s incarceration and poor health with Cuban officials and urged them to provide all necessary medical care.

Most ardent Cuba watchers probably read Dan Erikson’s book The Cuba Wars when it first came out in 2008. Beset by many other commitments, I only got around to reading it after Dan gave me a copy a month or so ago when I appeared on a Cuba panel he hosted at the Inter-American Dialogue where Dan is a Senior Associate. In between The Iraq Papers (an excellent compilation of documents related to the 2003 invasion of Iraq) and Joseph Stiglitz’s Freefall, I squeezed in Dan’s superb narrative about modern U.S.-Cuba relations.

As I read, I was well-pleased with the book’s balance, i.e., calling a spade a spade whether the cards were in the Cuban dictatorship’s hand or in Washington’s. Or, too frequently in the hands of those who virtually own U.S. Cuba policy, the tiny but powerful Miami/Dade County crowd.

There are at least these three groups sitting around this poker table and a passive fourth, the bulk of the American people, observing the play on occasion but most often oblivious to the entire game. A fifth group, the eleven million people of Cuba, have the patience of Job and probably, for the most part, don’t like poker.

Guest Post by Nicholas Maliska

As a USAID contractor from Potomac, Maryland, sits in a Cuban jail for – according to Raul Castro – “the illegal distribution of sophisticated satellite communications equipment,” and the U.S. Treasury Department continues to block various platform connections in Cuba, you might wonder what exactly is our policy toward fostering internet connectivity in Cuba? After listening to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's January speech on internet freedom, you might expect that U.S. policies toward Cuba would reflect the following:

“We stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas.... And we know from long experience that promoting social and economic development in countries where people lack access to knowledge, markets, capital, and opportunity can be frustrating and sometimes futile work. In this context, the internet can serve as a great equalizer. By providing people with access to knowledge and potential markets, networks can create opportunities where none exist.”