Washington Post Company photo found at http://www.douglasdc3.com/cuba/cuba.htm

Ana Margarita Martinez, who unwittingly married a Cuban spy who had infiltrated the Cuban exile community (and fled the U.S. more than a decade ago), has opened a new chapter in her ongoing battle to make the Cuban government pay for her pain and suffering.

After her husband's betrayal, Martinez sued the Cuban government in U.S. Court and won a multi-million dollar judgment. But the only way to get her settlement of course, was to systematically sue for any Cuban assets over which the U.S. has authority. Which is exactly what her lawyer did in the spring of 2003, when two Cuban planes were hijacked (in one case by holding a knife to the pilot's throat) and landed in Miami, FL, rather than returned to the Cuban government.

The United States and Cuba signed an anti-hijacking accord thirty years ago, when American fugitives would hijack planes and seek political asylum in Cuba (for a tour down memory lane, here's more on 1960s and 1970s Cuba-bound hijackings and steps the U.S. and Cuba took to stop them). So, it was particularly surprising that just two years after the September 11th attacks on America, the U.S. government declined to return the hijacked planes to the island, and instead handed them over to Martinez to auction off and collect on her award.

Now, AP reports Martinez is trying to force U.S. charter companies that fly hundreds of thousands of Cuban Americans home for the holidays each year to pay the bill. The charter companies are fighting it in court. Martinez's suit comes shortly after the charters fought off a Florida state legislative effort to make the charters pay huge - $250,000 - bonds to continue booking flights to Cuba.

There are a few immediate contradictions. For starters, Lieberman believes that the Cuban model works best if it includes an international aspect, such that the United States would "shun foreign firms that continue to do business with Iran." That extraterritorial component was added to our Cuban Embargo in 1996 with the passage of the Helms Burton act. But, perhaps unbeknownst to Lieberman, it has been dutifully waived every six months since, at the behest of our allies.

Mr. Lieberman may also be surprised to know that one of the first countries to suffer the consequences of such a shunning would be Israel, a leading investor in Cuban agriculture. The USDA reports that Israeli capital has driven a reinvigoration of Cuba's citrus sector, to such an extent that an Israeli-Cuban joint venture now produces a third of the total citrus grown on the island. (Well, if they can make the desert bloom, why not Cuba?)

Photo by Anya Landau French, of a Havana art fair where private Cuban entrepreneurs can earn hard currency income selling to foreign tourists

Last Friday, The Washington Post editorial board questioned the value of engaging Cuba, following the death of a hunger-striking Cuban prisoner of conscience last week. In light of Orlando Zapata Tamayo's tragic death, the Post asked advocates of greater contact with Cuba how the ongoing “thaw” with the island nation is working out.

I offered my thoughts to The Washington Post, which published them today:

Why U.S. policy isn’t affecting Cuba

The death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo was an avoidable tragedy, one for which the Cuban government alone is accountable.

Yet the Feb. 26 editorial overlooked many Cuban dissidents’ views that that U.S. sanctions harm the people, not the government, of Cuba. Even if Congress eases travel and food export restrictions on Cuba, the larger trade embargo will remain among our toughest restrictions against any other country in the world.

The effort to remove U.S. restrictions on travel and food exports to Cuba is not driven by love for Fidel or Raúl Castro but instead by three ideas: the fundamental right of Americans to travel freely without our government’s interference, advancing the national interest at a time when America needs job growth and export opportunities, and a belief that we can do far more good in Cuba by reaching out to rather than isolating the people.

(Getty Images)

Post by Nicholas Maliska

No, I am not referring to the U.S.A.’s heartbreaking overtime loss in the Winter Olympics men’s hockey finals against Canada this past Sunday. Rather, I am talking about the recent announcement by the Cuban National Olympic Committee that Cuba will not be participating in the 2010 Central American and Caribbean Games.

Set to take place in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico from July 17 to August 1, the 21st Games sought to bring together athletes from all 32 countries in the region. But Cuba’s participation has been uncertain from the start.

Cuba’s stated requirements prior to this announcement included: visas for their entire delegation, permission to fly directly and land Cubana de Aviación airlines in Puerto Rico and have guarantees that the planes would not be confiscated. They also requested access to housing, transportation, and facilities on par with those of other delegations, conditions of “security and tranquility,” and the assurance that the Cuban delegation would not “be subject to treatment reserved for citizens from countries considered to be terrorist.” The U.S. tried to address these concerns through various meetings with Cuban and Puerto Rican officials over the past year and the State Department stated it would not try to impede Cuba’s participation.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gaylon/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Yesterday, I received a message that really touched me:

"Dear Ms. Landau-French,

I saw your letter to the editor ["Why U.S. Policy Doesn't Affect Cuba"] in the Washington Post of March 4 and was moved so much I wanted to write you a kudos.

I recently spent 2 years living in Havana (my husband worked at the U.S. Interests Section) and I cannot agree with you more on the U.S. 's need to reach out to, rather than isolate, Cuba.

Thank you and the U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative for working for the bettering of relations between the U.S. and Cuba. I applaud your work, and hope that very soon, thanks to the efforts of people like you, things will change for the better between our countries."

Here’s hoping that the writer gets her wish. With her permission I’ve posted her sentiments on The Havana Note because I so often wonder what our diplomats and their families posted in Havana REALLY think.

It’s their job not to tell us. When I travel to Havana, I press our diplomats - we dialogue, we agree and we disagree. (Funny, that happens when I meet with Cuban diplomats too.) But they don’t make the policy – it falls to them to implement the policy. And so I often check myself, reminded that they are nearly as powerless as I am to effect change.

The key value our diplomats bring, especially in a complex posting like Havana, is in their interaction with the host government and people. For as much as our policy hamstrings U.S. diplomats on the island, they are still our eyes and ears. But I wonder, just how often do we get to hear what they really think, and, how often do we listen?

Photo credit: camd's photostream
Roberto Barbon, a Cuban, was the first Latin player in the history of the Japanese professional baseball league. The New York Times told his amazing story this week. He arrived in the mid fifties hoping to perform well enough to attract attention from a U.S. team, but the Cuban Revolution intervened and Barbon remained to continue a Japanese career that was going well -- in 1958 he made the Pacific League All-Star team by stealing 38 bases and hitting 10 triples, among other achievements. He got married and settled down to a long career; in fact the Times says he's probably "the longest continuously serving figure in Japanese baseball."

The Cubans have been sending baseball players abroad for as long as baseball has been played. The U.S. Major Leagues have been enriched by players from all over the world, and particularly by Latin players. But most of them can go home and see their families. Not Cubans, as a rule. Barbon's unique story made me think of all the other Cuban players who can't go home again.

Luis Posada Carriles
Photo credit: Globovision.com

From my time at the State Department (2001-2005), first as a policy planner and later as Secretary Powell’s chief of staff, I came to understand some of the politics of the U.S. terrorism list (State Sponsors of Terrorism—see the Export Administration Act of 1979).

These politics existed prior to 9/11 and took on, understandably, a decidedly more aggressive tone afterward.

“One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist” and vice versa—so well laid out in modern terms by Welsh journalist Phil Rees in his Dining With Terrorists: Meetings with the World’s Most Wanted Militants—is operable here but not fully explanatory.

I found that, with regard to the United States, one has to dig deeper to discover the motivation behind that formulation. And the motivation is not, for example, that Ronald Reagan thought the Contras the descendants of the patriots of the American Revolution and Hezbollah the spawn of the devil (and we know today that he chose to deal with both).

Image credit: A Sure Sign

It's not often I find myself with nothing further to say on the matter. But that's what happened when I read this powerful commentary in today's Miami Herald. Elena Freyre, a Cuban American activist based in Miami, says it all, and says it well:

Try Something New: Lift the Travel Ban

Originally Published in the Miami Herald
BY Elena Freyre
cubaid7@bellsouth.net

"Only in Miami is Cuba so far away.'' On no other issue are the words of Bette Midler's song truer than on the issue of Cuba travel. The 90 miles between Florida and Cuba are the longest distance between two points, both psychologically and objectively.

This issue deserves a truthful and dispassionate examination of the facts.

Supporters of the travel ban argue that there is no law that prohibits travel to Cuba, and that, indeed, only tourism to Cuba is presently forbidden by U.S. law. The truth is that a citizen or a legal U.S. resident cannot buy a ticket to travel to Cuba unless licensed by the government. And anyone traveling to Cuba, even with a license, risks a fine and even jail time for violating the law.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/janpaulyap/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Two days before the House Agriculture Committee holds a hearing on U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba (you can follow the hearing live today at 1pm), the U.S. Treasury Department has (coincidentally?) issued a rule that some observers have greeted with enthusiasm:

Today OFAC released a reinterpretation that is very favorable for US Cuba trade, specifically US agricultural companies and farmers. In simple terms, OFAC has amended the Cuban Assets Control Regulations that contains a rewording of the term “payment of cash in advance” for US agricultural sales to Cuba.

The new rule, issued by the Treasury Department office responsible for enforcing sanctions (oh, and tracking terrorist funding networks), seemingly gives Congress and the agriculture community a victory over a 2005 Bush Administration rule which dampened U.S. agriculture exports to the island.

And yet – it does no such thing. Why? Because the rule is limited to contracts entered into during fiscal year 2010, after which, the rule snaps back to where it was. And that makes this new rule virtually meaningless.

Since I’ve lost most readers already at this point in the post, I might as well feel free to “geek out” and explain exactly what this is all about. (If you bore easily, feel free to skip the next couple paragraphs and tune back in to why this all could lead to you booking a ticket to Havana before the year is out.)

Photo credit: cafepress.com

Post by Nicholas Maliska

The Congressional hearing on H.R. 4645, the legislation seeking to lift restrictions on travel and agricultural sales to Cuba, took place yesterday in the House Agriculture Committee. There was a strong consensus among the members that the U.S. should be doing anything it can to facilitate agricultural sales to Cuba, even among members who questioned allowing all Americans to travel to the island. In case you missed it, here are some of the highlights from the hearing:

Chairman Collin Peterson (MN), who introduced the bill, came out strong:

“The restrictions on agricultural trade with Cuba have failed to achieve their stated goal, and instead they have hand-delivered an export market in our own backyard to the Brazilians, the Europeans, and our other competitors around the world… It’s time we ask ourselves why we have in place policies that simply do not work and that only harm U.S. interests.”

Rep. Jerry Moran (KS), the lead Republican co-sponsor of the bill and a candidate for Sam Brownback’s vacated Senate seat, was clearly in campaign mode and made a forceful case that this bill would help his constituents. He emphasized that the bill was not about (two-way) trade with Cuba, but rather “about sales to Cuba… When we don’t sell, somebody else does.” Moran, who has visited Cuba multiple times believes that more the more interaction between Cubans and Americans will benefit the Cuban people. But he also underscored, “it is about liberty for American citizens" to travel wherever they want. Moran took some of his colleagues to task for questioning reforms that would provide food for the Cuban people, while they support the sale of Boeing aircraft to China, another communist country.

Photocredit: Brettocop's photostream

As the enforcement agency charged with going after rogue states, sponsors of terrorism, illegal arms dealers and drug traffickers, the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the Treasury Department doesn't exactly have a reputation for finesse. So it was a bit incongruous to read that OFAC's director, Adam Szubin, seemed to be arguing in a speech this week that sometimes, a lighter -- or, at least, a brighter -- touch is better.

Rather than endlessly tightening the screws on offending countries, Szubin argued that designing smarter sanctions may be more in line with U.S. goals.

OFAC's recent moves to allow U.S. companies to export social networking technology to Cuba, Iran and Sudan are "exactly what I think OFAC needs to be doing," said Szubin, "not simply designating new targets or tightening sanctions, but also loosening sanctions when it can further our foreign policy goals."

Photo credit: William Booth -- The Washington Post

Post by Nicholas Maliska

Cuba’s Agriculture Minister, Ulises Rosales, recently announced that the Cuban government was shutting down more than 100 inefficient state-run agricultural firms due to tight finances. The closures of the farms is not too surprising considering Raul Castro’s stated plans to reform the agriculture industry, and over the past year, there have been other cutbacks in the sector and pilot projects have been quietly implemented seeking to increase Cuba’s ability to feed itself (Phil Peters looks at some of these programs here).

In the long-term, these closures and reforms are hoped to increase productivity, but at least in the short-term, this move may make the already import-reliant island (Cuba imports roughly 80 percent of its food) further dependent on foreign produce.

Syrian President Bashar al Assad and U.S. Senator Bill Nelson in 2006
Photo: Fox News

Al Kamen's column In the Loop in the Washington Post comments on the fact that Senators Bob Menendez and Bill Nelson don't want congressional staff to go to Cuba. In a letter sent to Senate colleagues last week, the lawmakers argue that in light of the death of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo and the arrest of USAID subcontractor Alan Gross, a staff visit "sends the wrong signal to the Castro regime."

Kamen points out the ironies of the senators' request, so I don't have to. The staff delegation in question is being organized by the Center for Democracy in the Americas, and it is hardly a junket. CDA has conducted many of these serious and exhaustive trips, and they cover a lot of ground. Schedules include discussions with civil society, diplomatic delegations, journalists and Catholic Church officials and they don't shy away from topics the Cubans consider controversial. Kamen adds that the United States bans travel by its citizens to only one country in the entire world: Cuba.

And surely members of congress and their staff, even more than common citizens, should be encouraged to visit countries that we're in conflict with.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/my_own_view/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

More than a year after he took office promising to put a welcoming new face on U.S. foreign policy, President Obama has left allies in higher education increasingly puzzled over one glaring omission.

Cuba.

So began the article in The Chronicle of Higher Education with which fellow blogger Ted Henken takes issue. While many of us agree that the Obama Administration is woefully delinquent on the President's promise to usher in a "new beginning" with Cuba, Henken has another bone to pick, and it's about the merits of educational research and exchange in Cuba.

You need a subscription to read the article in question. But Henken's thoughtful letter to the editor (more like an op-ed, as submitted and shared with readers of his blog) clues you in to debate: Is academic research - and is Cuban academia - in Cuba legitimate? Ted makes fine points, and I hope you'll read them below. Cuba has its warts, for sure. But shame on anyone who feels comfortable dismissing an entire national academic community as illegitimate, or who think two wrongs - U.S. and Cuban limits on academic freedom and exchange - could ever make a right.

The movement to ease draconian restrictions on academic restrictions put in place seven long years ago has at its forefront former U.S. Interests Section chief (and Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University) Wayne Smith, who along with numerous distinguished academics across the country make up the Emergency Coalition to Defend Educational Travel, and NAFSA: The Association of International Educators, who, together, called on the Obama Administration last week to make good on the President's promise to change the U.S. - Cuba relationship, and start with freedom for educational exchange.

Photo: http://www.blog4brains.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/immigration_rally.jpg

The Washington Post's Eva Rodriguez, a daughter of Cuban immigrants, served up some tough love to the illegal immigrant community in "The Mexican Flag Has No Place In Immigration March," following yesterday's Washington, DC march for immigration reform.

Did they not choose to come to this country, and did they not know that they either entered illegally or illegally overstayed visas? Of course they did. Do they not appreciate that one of the things that makes this country great is the rule of law -- unlike, sadly, some of the countries we leave behind? If so, undocumented immigrants must take responsibility for their plight.

I don't intend to debate the broader issue of immigration reform here, though clearly, our system is just as Rodriguez calls it: dysfunctional. (We're happy to have illegal immigrants come and - cheaply - move our lawn, clean our homes, wash our dishes, and gut and package our meat and poultry, until they get caught, sent home, and a new batch arrives.)

Rodriguez points out that she knows all too well the desperation that drives illegal immigrants to America - her parents left Castro's Cuba in 1960, and were lucky to be welcomed here in the United States. And that got me thinking about the one group you won't likely see represented at these marches: Cuban Americans. Why? Whereas all other illegal immigrants run from the law as long as they are in the United States, Cubans run to the law.

Lula with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad Photo: AFP

Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue heralds the visit of President Lula da Silva to the Middle East -- the first by a Brazilian head of state to the region -- as a signal that "the country of the future" has arrived. And Lula's visit had all the trappings of a visit by a major player on the world stage. But it was a bit different, too. The president crisscrossed between Israel and the Palestinian territories, spoke at the Knesset and visited the Holocaust Memorial of Yad Vashem. But, perhaps emboldened by the recent U.S. confrontation of Israel on settlements, he was not timid: after laying a wreath at Yasir Arafat's tomb, he called for a halt to Israeli settlement construction and decried Israeli violence against Gaza's civilian population and the Israelis' separation barrier. Of the Palestinians he only demanded that "brave steps" be taken toward peace. Apparently the Israelis didn't consider Lula out of line. (Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman did boycott the President's speech to the Knesset, but anyone who follows Israeli politics knows that Lula can only be thankful for that.)

In fact, at Lula's request, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to biennial talks between their goverments -- and more frequent meetings of economists from both countries.

And while economics are surely a big motivation for this visit and the forthcoming trips to Iran and Syria, Lula and Brazil are also staking out a global role in which they bear the responsibility that comes with power -- including for peacemaking. The world, the President said, needs "the intervention of new elements, and we can help with this."

President Obama’s criticism of Cuba on human rights (see statement below) is not surprising, and may give him space to act more positively, but raises three problems of consistency:

1) The human rights of Americans are grossly restricted by our own government as long as we are forbidden to freely travel to Cuba.

Most importantly and urgently, by executive order Obama can undo harsh politically motivated Bush obstacles to travel for educational, cultural, humanitarian, sports and other non-tourist purposes. April, the one year anniversary of the announcement of unlimited Cuban American travel, is a fitting moment to provide equal rights to the rest of us.

2) The Obama administration holds the keys to open cell doors in Cuba.

All prisoners described as political in both countries will be free as soon as the US takes seriously Cuba’s offer of full reciprocity. More than two hundred victims of the pointless conflict between our countries can be immediately released from Cuban jails and five from American jails.

Both countries can continue to self-righteously insist that the cases are not equivalent morally or legally, but they should no longer delay a mutually respectful humanitarian solution for political reasons.

Photo Credit

Yesterday, President Obama released a strongly worded statement both in support of human rights activists in Cuba and to condemn what he calls Cuba's "clenched fist" response to the demonstrations of the Ladies in White last week, to mark the 7 year anniversary of the jailing of 75 dissident activists.

On this blog, John McAuliff finds inconsistency in U.S. rights policy, which inhibits the basic freedom of our own citizens - to whom our elected leaders first answer - to travel to Cuba (and only Cuba, I must remind readers). I couldn't agree more. But I must respectfully but strongly disagree with my fellow blogger when he says that the U.S. government "holds the keys" to Cuban jail cells.

John is referring to Raul Castro's public offer last year to trade the remaining 55 or so dissidents jailed in 2003 in exchange for the "Cuban Five" - five unregistered Cuban counterintelligence agents who received unusually harsh sentences, have been subjected to long periods of isolation, and two of whom have not been allowed visits by their closest kin. The Cuban government views these five men as heroes who were trying to protect their country, and, by contrast, views the dissidents as "mercenaries" who were acting in the pay of or at the behest of a hostile foreign power (guess who?).

One of the strengths of thehavananote is that it has multiple voices. Not everyone thinks or writes the same way about the path to a more normal and rational relationship with Cuba. We each bring our own histories to the debate. I will explore mine below the break.

Anya Landau French and I don't really disagree, but there are two points in her post that merit clarification.

The first version of the Cuban prisoner proposal was communicated privately during the Bush administration through European diplomats, including the visiting papal Secretary of State. It was, as Anya writes, limited to mutual gestures regarding only the still incarcerated victims of the "Black Spring" of 2003 and the Cuban five. When President Raul Castro spoke publicly about the matter in Brazil at the beginning of the Obama administration he offered to release all prisoners the US considers political in exchange for the "five heroes". The same sentiment has been repeated by him and by National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon.

Raul Castro did speak of the prisoners and their families leaving the country. As far as I know he has not been asked whether that is an expectation or a condition. Past Cuban practices, and my discussions with Cuban diplomats, suggest exile is not a required part of the package. Most of the prisoners may well prefer to leave and they should be given that option. My guess is that Cuba at the end of the day will not insist on exile if the US Interests Section in Havana limits its relationship to them to normal diplomacy rather than the virtual sponsorship of the Bush era. Clarifying that question is an agenda item for serious negotiations.

Cubans have recognized in the past that not all dissidents are mercenaries, i.e. motivated largely by financial and other support received from a hostile US government and Interests Section. Under stress Cuba's defensive mode is to fall back on the rhetorical equation that organized opposition equals foreign-linked disloyalty, not unlike the situation in the US during the red scares of the McCarthy era. From that mind set, exile is assumed to be the preference of the prisoners and reinforces the stereotype of who they are. (This is not unlike the teapartiers or their predecessors telling leftists, or even the supporters of health care reform, to "go home to Russia".)

President Obama Signing the Health Care Bill
Photo Credit: McNamee/Getty

Post by Nicholas Maliska

It appears the health care reform saga is finally coming to a close. The House of Representatives passed the Senate version of the reform bill last Sunday night along with a package of changes known as a budget reconciliation bill. On Tuesday, President Obama signed the year-in-the-making bill into law, and the Senate approved the reconciliation bill on Thursday. Now all that is left is for the House to re-pass the reconciliation bill (there were two minor parliamentary mistakes in the original), which should be no problem, and then it will go to the President’s desk.

Health care reform has consumed the vast majority of Washington’s attention over the past year and little else has moved in Congress (or at least in the Senate). Now the question on everybody’s mind is what is next. Comprehensive immigration reform, a climate change and energy bill, financial reform, and of course jobs, jobs, jobs, remain high on the agenda. With these major initiatives and the midterm elections approaching in November, Congress certainly has its plate full. So, what of Cuba?

Barack Obama in Berlin, from Matthias Winkelmann's photostream

The Washington Post was pleased that President Obama issued a statement critical of Cuba last Wednesday, in which he said: "Today I join my voice with brave individuals across Cuba and a growing chorus around the world in calling for an end to the repression, for the immediate, unconditional release of all political prisoners in Cuba, and for the respect for the basic human rights of the Cuban people." But the Post was left wanting more. "Those were the right words; what remains to be seen is whether -- and when -- the administration will follow up on them." The editorial board wants action!

And what would appropriate action look like, according to Washington's paper of record? They think the United States government should promptly resume feeding quarters into USAID's so called "Cuban democracy" program. In addition to being consistently mismanaged since they were inaugurated in 1996, these programs have become dramatically obsolete and even counterproductive in the age of the Cuban blogger. But they do feed ample channels of patronage for the members of Congress who now loudly demand they be continued. They also, as Phil Peters demonstrated in Foreign Policy recently, "play naively and directly into the hands of Cuban state security."

Photo credit: Reuters

In Sunday's Miami Herald, reporter Juan Tamayo has a theory:

“The recent brutish crackdown on the Ladies in White protest marchers, the latest in a string of abuses in Cuba, might delay or derail congressional efforts to ease sanctions on the Castro government, even supporters of a thaw acknowledge.”

Tamayo cites President Obama’s disapproving comment last week on the human rights situation in Cuba, and a letter from 40 members of Congress urging the release of USAID subcontractor Alan Gross, who has been in prison in Cuba since December as evidence that the U.S. government is getting cold feet on Cuba.

Even Senator Byron Dorgan, who has nearly 40 senators on his bill to lift the U.S. travel ban on Cuba, has remarked that it sure would help if Cuba would release Mr. Gross. [Of course it would be helpful if Mr. Gross were released, or at least able to hear and defend charges against him in a court of law.] But do Dorgan and the majority in Congress, as the Herald article seems to suggest, now turn back from their efforts to change our policy?

That depends on what their motives really are, and what “easing sanctions” really means in this case. If the drive to lift travel and food trade restrictions were simply intended as a gesture toward the Cuban government, whether to apply the brakes might be a legitimate question to ask, along with questions like, what is in the U.S. interest, and how are our interests best served?