The Havana Notetag:thehavananote.com,2010://12010-03-10T00:51:46ZMovable Type 3.35Long Way Hometag:thehavananote.com,2010://1.3552010-03-09T23:12:56Z2010-03-10T00:51:46Z Photo credit: camd's photostream Roberto Barbon, a Cuban, was the first Latin player in the history of the Japanese professional league. The New York Times told his amazing story this week. He arrived in the mid fifties hoping to...Tom Garofalohttp://thehavananote.com/tomgarofalo.html
Photo credit: camd's photostream
Roberto Barbon, a Cuban, was the first Latin player in the history of the Japanese professional 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.
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adjustment to the United States and the Cincinnati Reds. Another Cuban player, Yonder Alonso, the same age as Chapman but not a new arrival, has taken him under his wing. Alonso’s father Luis had been a player and coach for the Industriales, a storied Havana club, who left Cuba with his wife and their two children when Yonder was eight.
“My father…had the temptation of leaving the island [as a player], but he didn’t do it because he didn’t want to leave us…I don't think people really understand how hard it is to leave your family. I never saw my grandmother or grandfather after I left... Here, you can have favorite cousins or uncles or aunts, but you don't get that when you leave Cuba. You are gone and they are gone and you maybe never see them again."
More than 200 Cubans have left the island to play baseball professionally in the Majors since 1980, according to the blog BaseballdeWorld. (The site even has a list of all Cuban-born players struggling to make it in the show.) Twenty one left the island in 2009 alone. Aroldis Chapman has received most of the attention, but others are mentioned here.
Peter Bjarkman doesn't like to use the term "defector" for the Cubans who struggle to escape the island at great personal cost. He's got a point that players from across Latin America and the Caribbean are motivated by the same desire to test themselves against the best and to make as much money as they can playing baseball. That leads them to the Major Leagues, even at the risk of severe sanction by the Cuban government if they try to leave without the required tarjeta blanca.
But it isn't just the Cuban government that gives baseball migrants from the island special treatment. Before a Cuban can play with a Major League team, the Department of the Treasury has to certify that the player won't share their signing bonus with their family back home in violation of Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations. It must be yet another hard lesson for the Cuban immigrant: we welcome them as defectors from a centrally planned economy, and then we tell them what they can or can't do with their money. Welcome to America.
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In the Mailtag:thehavananote.com,2010://1.3542010-03-09T04:18:09Z2010-03-09T13:54:40Z 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...Anya Landau Frenchhttp://thehavananote.com/anyalandaufrench.htmlhttp://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?]]>
An Olympic Disappointmenttag:thehavananote.com,2010://1.3532010-03-05T15:54:15Z2010-03-05T16:24:41Z (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...Anya Landau Frenchhttp://thehavananote.com/anyalandaufrench.html
(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. ]]>
announcement, the Cuban Olympic Committee cited “constant aggression, provocations, insults and permanent pressure by Cuban counterrevolutionary groups” in past sporting visits to Puerto Rico, restrictions on visas, and other obstacles to entering the U.S. territory as reasons for their decision.
One could view this as a signal that Cuba is further isolating itself from the U.S. Especially considering the recent meeting of the Rio Group, with its stated intention of creating a regional diplomatic body excluding the U.S. and Canada, some might see this as the Cuban government rejecting U.S. overtures again. There’s also the longstanding issue of Cuba’s inclusion on the State Department’s State Sponsors of Terrorism List and the extra security checks that might have been required on their delegation if they traveled to Puerto Rico.
But it could also be that the U.S. had nothing to do with Cuba’s decision. The Cuban government may have wanted to avoid the bad publicity of further defections. When the games last took place in Ponce, Puerto Rico in 1993, forty Cuban athletes, coaches, and referees failed to return home. And its possible that the high cost of sending the large delegation of 800 Cuban participants was a factor (foreign governments have helped to pay the way of Cubans at past Olympics), although there is no evidence to suggest this was the case here.
Cuba’s athletes include the region’s top competitors, and they’ll be missed at the Games. Both the U.S. and Cuba should take some of the blame for this failure, not because they did not try to facilitate Cuba’s participation, but because relations are still at the level where there has to be such extensive negotiating just to have a Cuban sports delegation attend an event on U.S. soil. Hardly an Olympic moment.
Post by Nicholas Maliska]]>
In The Washington Post: Why U.S. Policy Isn't Affecting Cubatag:thehavananote.com,2010://1.3522010-03-04T13:50:56Z2010-03-04T14:38:02Z 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...Anya Landau Frenchhttp://thehavananote.com/anyalandaufrench.htmlPhoto 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.
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Another reader wrote to echo the Post’s earlier viewpoint, and called President Obama’s “Castro-friendly” approach naïve. But what exactly has been so friendly? Other than easing restrictions on private humanitarian donations and families’ travel, allowing U.S. communications providers to try to service the Cuban population, and resuming migration talks held by Presidents Reagan, Clinton and G.W. Bush, what, exactly, has been so friendly toward Castro? (And besides, isn't our policy supposed to be about the Cuban people? The U.S. laser-like focus on the two Castro brothers always seems to come at the expense of 11 million Cubans.)
One year into this Administration, U.S. policy is still far cooler toward Cuba after than anyone expected. (In 2004, Barack Obama called for lifting the entire embargo because, he reasoned, it was harming the innocents in Cuba.)
The President who as a candidate called U.S. policy a failure and said he would be willing to meet Raul Castro is largely running the same Cuba policies he inherited from President Bush. The vast majorities of Americans are still not free to visit Cuba when they wish – and draconian restrictions remain on educational, cultural and professional travel that we encouraged fully a decade ago. And, the United States continues to hamstring food sales to the island in nearly every way imaginable, despite real hardship on the island (does it matter who inflicted it?) and despite a 38% drop in American farm income last year. This more aptly dubbed "South Florida-friendly" policy hardly constitutes tearing down the wall between our two countries.
Those of us who advocate freer contact with the Cuban people do so because we believe it will be good for us and good for the Cuban people. But the fact is, if you can’t see measurable results for U.S. engagement with Cuba, that’s because it hasn’t happened yet. Until we really try engaging Cuba, there’s nothing to judge.
With Allies Like This...tag:thehavananote.com,2010://1.3512010-03-03T18:56:21Z2010-03-03T21:34:52Z http://www.flickr.com/photos/stewf/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Israel's controversial Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman suggested a not-so-novel approach to the problem of Iran's nuclear ambitions recently. He wants to apply what he calls the Cuban model, in which "the United States alone...Tom Garofalohttp://thehavananote.com/tomgarofalo.html
Israel's controversial Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman suggested a not-so-novel approach to the problem of Iran's nuclear ambitions recently. He wants to apply what he calls the Cuban model, in which "the United States alone can do everything in order to stop this (Iranian) program."
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?)
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talks with them under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the hope of reaching a peace agreement.
Like Israel, the United States did come around to a different view of things in Syria. As David Broder points out in Congressional Quarterly this week:
By the end of Bush's presidency, it became clear to many in Washington -- both on and off Capiol Hill -- that his policy of isolating Syria had failed. Jeffrey D. Feltman, the assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, notes that French President Nicolas Sarkozy was openly engaging the Syrians, as were the Saudis. Even the Israelis were talking unofficially to the Syrians. "So you ended up at a point when it was no longer Syria being isolated; it was the United States that was being isolated," Feltman told a Washington audience at the conservative Hudson Institute in January.
Last month President Obama named career diplomat Robert Ford to be the first U.S. ambassador in Damascus since 2005, bringing a relatively swift end to an abject policy failure. But at least it is a failure that we learned from, without fifty years of trying it in different ways.
To be sure, our new engagement of Syria has not solved our problems: The previous US ambassador in Syria, Margaret Scobey, was withdrawn after former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in an operation presumed to have been set in motion in Damascus. Today, blame for that act has still not been officially assigned. And Syria and Israel are unlikely to come to a peace agreement (which would necessarily involve Israel's returning part or all of the Golan Heights) with the kind of right wing government in place that would have the likes of Lieberman in the position of foreign minister.
But even if engagement with Syria won't achieve all our policy goals in the region, there are concrete advantages to sending an ambassador to Damascus. As a Middle East expert points out in the CQ story, Ambassador Ford is now engaged in high-level contact with the Syrian government, which will give us insight into the country that we've lacked. And the fact that our policy is no longer all stick and no carrot can only help us in our effort to be more informed about all the other issues at play there, from Turkey to Afghanistan and beyond.
Lieberman's invocation of Cuba is instructive, though not in the way he probably hoped: it points out the futility of unilateral sanctions, wherever they unfortunately are deployed.
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Spy's Wife Goes After Planes, Againtag:thehavananote.com,2010://1.3502010-03-02T01:02:34Z2010-03-04T03:47:14Z 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...Anya Landau Frenchhttp://thehavananote.com/anyalandaufrench.htmlWashington 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. ]]>
Mixed Messages on Internet Freedomtag:thehavananote.com,2010://1.3462010-02-26T13:58:22Z2010-02-26T14:25:33Z http://www.flickr.com/photos/llimaorosa/ / CC BY-ND 2.0 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...Anya Landau Frenchhttp://thehavananote.com/anyalandaufrench.html
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.”
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said, "[if] anyone is standing in the way of the Cuban people getting information it is the Cuban government…"
But is this really true? Despite all of its rhetoric of promoting a “single internet” with no government-imposed barriers, the U.S. government still restricts the Cuban population’s access to Internet services as a part of its wide-reaching embargo.
Under the trade embargo, the U.S. forbids nearly all U.S. companies and their foreign subsidiaries from doing business with Cuba. The island's access to basic internet applications like Microsoft Instant Messenger and open-source software sharing sites has therefore been blocked. The Center for Democracy in the Americas first questioned the reasoning of this policy in a letter to the Treasury Department in the summer of 2009, after Microsoft withdrew their service from Cuba and several other countries such as Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria that are on the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) sanctions list. As recently as this January (around the time Sec. Clinton gave her speech on internet freedom), sourceforge.net, an open source software sharing network was also forced to stop providing service to Cubans by the U.S. authorities.
The irony of Washington's policy of blocking Cubans’ access to certain sites and applications is compounded by the fact that the U.S. insists on bringing the technology to some select groups of Cuban through USAID's “democracy assistance programs.” On top of the demonstrable ineffectiveness of these programs, their existence allows the Cuban government to depict the U.S. as the meddling imperial neighbor. Yoani Sanchez, a leading blogger often critical of the Cuba government, puts it well:
“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.”
U.S. policies like the USAID program have had little success in achieving their goal of helping Cubans connect more broadly to the world. Meanwhile, the embargo’s restrictions on trade have kept vital internet communication tools from the Cuban people. The U.S. should do more to make its rhetoric become a reality.
Guest Post by Nicholas Maliska]]>
For the Sake of the People, Let’s Stop the Gametag:thehavananote.com,2010://1.3492010-02-25T17:37:17Z2010-02-26T14:25:33Z 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...Lawrence Wilkersonhttp://thehavananote.com/lawrencewilkerson.html
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. ]]>
Lopez-Levy’s sense of betrayal extended to both sides of the Straits of Florida. ‘These people in both places put their interests before the pragmatic necessities of solving the problems of the country. And I think the problems of the country are the problems of the Cuban people.’
Like I do, Lopez-Levy seems to believe that none of the players in the poker game care about anything but the game. There is no interest whatsoever in the Cuban people—lots of high-toned rhetoric addressed to them and about them but no substantive concern whatsoever. If there were such concern, the game would have ended long ago—at the end of the Cold War, for example, when Cuba stopped exporting revolution and began to export low-cost and high-quality medical care for poor people.
Perhaps the most surprising indicator of this insidious nature of the poker game occurs in another spot in Dan’s book. It’s when he quotes from Raúl Castro’s speech on July 26, 2007, his last major address to the Cuban people before he was elevated to the presidency. Raúl is looking forward to the 2008 presidential election in the United States and he says:
"[T]he elections will also have taken place in the United States and the mandate of the current president of that country [George W. Bush] will have concluded along with his erratic and dangerous administration.” (As a member of that administration, I can confirm Raul’s characterization of it, whether one wants to talk wars of aggression, torture, failure to enforce the law, ignoring the Constitution, or sheer criminal activity.)
Raúl goes on to make an offer related to the poker game. As Dan describes it, quoting from the speech, “He reasserted the Cuban government’s ‘willingness to discuss on an equal footing the prolonged dispute with the government of the United States, convinced that this is the only way to solve the ever more complex and dangerous problems of the world.’”
Quite an offer to, if not end, at least suspend the poker game and get down to real business, the standard of living of the Cuba people.
Unfortunately to date, the lackluster response from the Obama administration has left that offer flailing in the wings as, on stage, the poker game continues—with Ileana and Mario and Lincoln and a few others of the tiny group that owns U.S. Cuba policy claiming they hold all the aces, hearts, spades, clubs and diamonds—and from time to time a fifth or a sixth of the devil knows what suit that they magically conjure from their sleeves.
Dan sums it this way in his Afterword: “It remains an open question whether Raúl Castro and Barack Obama will be able to heal the tormented relationship between their countries.”
The Cuban people—far and away the most important aspect of this “tormented relationship”—are waiting for the answer to that question.
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Orlando Zapata Tamayo, 1967-2010tag:thehavananote.com,2010://1.3472010-02-24T20:02:10Z2010-02-26T14:25:33ZOrlando 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...Tom Garofalohttp://thehavananote.com/tomgarofalo.html
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.
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Representative Jim McGovern offered this comment:
Sorrow and outrage at the death of Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo
Mr. Speaker, I want to express my deepest sorrow and outrage at the death of Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo. Imprisoned since 2003, he had been on a hunger strike for several weeks. We first heard he was seriously ill last week. Yesterday, he died at the prison clinic.
Zapata Tamayo paid the ultimate sacrifice for his commitment to changing Cuba’s system. He commands our respect. No one has starved himself to death in a Cuban prison in over forty years. Surely the Cuban government could have and should have intervened earlier to prevent this tragedy. His death is on their conscience.
I have always felt – and continue to believe – that if we are truly going to do a better job of standing with the Cuban people, then we need to be closer to them and in greater numbers. We need to travel freely to the island to meet and learn from them, and they from us. I hope that day comes soon so we can tell all the Cuban people that we remember the sacrifice of Orlando Zapata Tamayo.
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A Sad and Unnecessary Deathtag:thehavananote.com,2010://1.3452010-02-24T17:47:29Z2010-02-26T14:25:33Z 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...John McAuliffhttp://thehavananote.com/johnmcauliff.html
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.”
When three prisoners died in 2006 the prison commander Rear Admiral Harry Harris stated: "This was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetric warfare committed against us."]]>
speak out.
Political opponents like Tamayo should not still be in jail but the blame is not solely Cuba’s. His imprisonment was part of the “black spring” of 2003, precipitated if not deliberately provoked under the regime change agenda of then head of the US Interests Section James Cason.
Tamayo and other victims of Cuba’s crackdown could have been freed more than two years ago if the US responded to signals sent privately to the Bush Administration through European diplomats including the Papal Secretary of State.
The same proposal of mutual gestures was later made publicly by Assembly Speaker Ricardo Alarcon and President Raul Castro. If the US releases the five “heroes” Cuba considers to be political prisoners, Cuba will release the 50 still imprisoned from 2003 as well as all others the US views as political prisoners.
Cuba needs to clarify whether those released will have the option of remaining in the country as well as to emigrate, but that should not be impossible if the US pledges to relate to them in a normal diplomatic fashion.
In the meantime, heartfelt condolences are to be expressed to the family of Mr. Tamayo and numerous other casualties of the pointless hostility and travel and trade embargo afflicting both nations, not least the deaths perpetrated by the still unpunished Luis Posada Carriles.
John McAuliff
Fund for Reconciliation and Development
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Update
AP reports: "Cuban President Raul Castro issued an unprecedented statement of regret on Wednesday over the death of a jailed dissident after a lengthy hunger strike that has sparked condemnation in Washington and in European capitals."]]>
Enhancing Exports, Ending the Travel Bantag:thehavananote.com,2010://1.3442010-02-23T19:43:12Z2010-02-26T14:25:33Z http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurapadgett/ / CC BY-ND 2.0 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...Tom Garofalohttp://thehavananote.com/tomgarofalo.html
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.]]>
overwhelmingly support all Americans' right to travel to Cuba. At long last, the Peterson Moran bill would end what a prominent Cuban American has called an Orwellian overreach on the part of our government into American lives.
Fifty years of trying to starve Cubans into submission has hurt our image abroad while failing to move the Cuban government an inch. The United States should be selling to Cuba, not engaging in a futile, Cold War standoff. By lifting the ban on travel, the American people would exert more influence on Cuba than our government has done in decades.
These days, there's no such thing as small potatoes when we're talking about jobs. But the bill introduced today can do America's farmers a world of good while righting a wrong that has been allowed to persist for far too long.]]>
Just Keep Talkingtag:thehavananote.com,2010://1.3422010-02-22T13:11:37Z2010-02-26T14:25:33Z 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....Anya Landau Frenchhttp://thehavananote.com/anyalandaufrench.htmlPhoto 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. ]]>
statement immediately afterward, that offered no concrete progress but noted that the talks had taken place in climate of respect.
But then, on Saturday, MINREX released another, longer statement, and this one exposed the fault line in the bilateral relationship: Cuba’s insistence that the United States not interfere in its internal affairs and U.S. insistence on being supportive of internal democracy and human rights activists.
In its second official statement on the just-completed talks, MINREX fixed this criticism on the U.S. side: (and I’m paraphrasing from Spanish), no sooner than the bilateral talks were finished, than the U.S. delegation convened a group of dozens of dissidents at the U.S. Residence. Prior to the talks, the Cuban Foreign Ministry had urged the U.S. not to use the occasion of the talks to meet with dissidents, which the Cuban side would view as “provocative”. Indeed, MINREX called the U.S. action “offensive” and accused the U.S. delegation of being more interested in “subversion” than in creating a climate in which to address the bilateral concerns at hand.
The State Department has released no comment so far on the talks or Cuba’s statements (other than to confirm that the U.S. delegation called for the immediate release of an American contractor in jail since December).
Despite the angry tone of Cuba’s second statement, MINREX laid out Cuba’s short and mid-range priorities for the relationship, and reaffirmed its commitment to continuing to dialogue with the United States in a climate respectful the countries’ sovereignty. Some will conclude that Cuba is just looking for any excuse not to make progress. Perhaps that is the case. But what if it’s not?
The U.S. and Cuba are just embarking on what will be a long road to improved relations and cooperation. Some things are best said in private, but others must be communicated in public. The key is to make sure that taken together, the messages we send makes sense. Cuba seems to be sending the message, we’re willing to talk but not to negotiate our internal system. The U.S. message prioritizes advancing dialogue and also improving human rights in Cuba – what’s still unclear is how to do both.
In total, U.S. and Cuban officials have dialogued three times in nine months, and this is perhaps the most tangible progress the Obama Administration can point to in the relationship. The next round of talks should take place this summer in Washington, and the United Nations General Assembly meeting next fall offers another opportunity.
No matter the stern posturing of either side, and apparent lack of measurable progress, we simply do not know what goes on behind closed doors. It may be that no agreements are being signed because we’re at an impasse, or it may be that the two sides are slowly coming to understand the parameters for progress to which they are constrained and are even mapping out ways forward. So while we wring our hands and worry that U.S.-Cuban relations have stalled, let’s remember, nothing’s truly stalled so long as we keep talking.]]>
Ashes in Our Mouth or a Hiccup?tag:thehavananote.com,2010://1.3412010-02-21T17:15:38Z2010-02-26T14:25:33Z 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...John McAuliffhttp://thehavananote.com/johnmcauliff.html
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?
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A senior State Department official confirmed that the meeting took place on Friday, but defended it as part of U.S. policy to promote human rights globally, not just in Cuba.
"President (Barack) Obama and Secretary (of State Hillary) Clinton have made clear that our diplomacy not only in this region, but around the world is not only about connecting governments, but about connecting societies," the official told reporters. "So as part of our normal work we try to meet with various sectors of society."
How can a senior US official be so a-historical and tone-deaf? US relations with dissidents in Cuba are a fundamental bilateral issue, and from that country's perspective the latest manifestation of a century of interference in its domestic political affairs. The issue is not only the US magnifying the importance and saying nice things about marginal political opponents of a government everyone else in the world but we recognize, but also that it subsidizes them while maintaining a harsh embargo on travel and trade.
"Connecting societies" is a bit hypocritical from an administration that refuses to allow unrestricted travel for educational, cultural, religious and humanitarian purposes. Meeting with "various sectors of society" is part of the work of an embassy when countries have normal diplomatic relations. However a visiting high level delegation getting together with opponents whom it knows are characterized as "mercenaries" in the midst of sensitive negotiations that have the ostensible goal of moving beyond a hostile past will be seen around the world as not serious.
A high ranking Vietnamese diplomat tells me that meetings between US embassy personnel and Vietnamese "dissidents" are rare, working level and negotiated beforehand. The precondition is that they be low profile, not discussed in the press and exclude Vietnamese government and party affairs. He was unaware of any instance in which an important visiting US delegation met with people who are comparable to Cuban dissidents.
Obviously that approach has not spared overt political opponents in Vietnam from sharing the unpleasant lot of their Cuban counterparts, including imprisonment, but it does allow other aspects of our bilateral relationship to progress, and, in my view, realistically engages Vietnam over time in a more democratic process.
Symbolism and self-righteousness too often replace substance in difficult international relationships but declining to act in this way subjects an administration to charges of abandoning principle--regardless of the counterproductive effect on achieving its goal.
Hopefully having satisfied anti-reform camps in their respective polities, the two governments can now move ahead in real terms. The Cubans offered some hopeful words:
"The Ministry of Foreign Relations reiterates the disposition already expressed by the Cuban government to maintain a respectful dialogue about any topic with the government of the United States, as long as it be held between equals, without detriment to independence, sovereignty and self-determination."
John McAuliff
Fund for Reconciliation and Development ]]>
Cuba Issues Statement After Today's Migration Talkstag:thehavananote.com,2010://1.3392010-02-19T22:15:33Z2010-02-26T14:25:33Z 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...Anya Landau Frenchhttp://thehavananote.com/anyalandaufrench.htmlPhoto 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...]]>
PRESS RELEASE ISSUED BY THE CUBAN DELEGATION TO THE MIGRATION TALKS WITH THE UNITED STATES.
HAVANA, FEBRUARY 19, 2010.
On February 19, 2010, a new round of migration talks was held between the Governments of the United States and Cuba. The US delegation was headed by Craig Kelly, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs; and the Cuban delegation was presided over by Dagoberto Rodríguez, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs.
The meeting took place in an atmosphere of respect. Both delegations evaluated the evolution of the migration accords in force between the two countries. They also discussed some of the aspects contained in the new draft migration accord submitted by Cuba during the round of talks held on July, 2009, in New York, aimed at ensuring a legal, safe and orderly migration between the two countries and a more effective cooperation to combat illegal alien smuggling.
In this new round of talks, the Cuban delegation reiterated the request so that the opening of new vacancies at the Interest Section of Cuba in Washington is authorized in order to optimize the consular services offered to Cuban citizens residing in the United States.
Deputy Foreign Minister Dagoberto Rodríguez ratified Cuba’s unequivocal commitment with the implementation of the migration accords in force between the two countries and further stated: “The meeting reaffirmed the importance and usefulness of this mechanism.”
The Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister reaffirmed that Cuba is strictly complying with the letter and the spirit of the migration accords. However, he reiterated Cuba’s permanent concern that a legal, safe and orderly migration –as established in the migration accords- would not be achieved as long as the United States continues to implement the Cuban Adjustment Act and the wet foot/dry foot policy which encourage illegal departures and human smuggling, since they ensure a differential treatment to Cubans arriving illegally in U.S. territory, regardless of the ways and means used to accomplish this purpose.
The Cuban delegation expressed Cuba’s willingness to continue having these exchanges in the future.
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Why They Do Ittag:thehavananote.com,2010://1.3372010-02-19T21:36:27Z2010-02-26T14:25:33Z http://www.flickr.com/photos/ceslava/ / CC BY-SA 2.0 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,...Lawrence Wilkersonhttp://thehavananote.com/lawrencewilkerson.html
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?
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“Should Americans Be Free To Visit Cuba?”, we find this prediction: “When the travel ban is lifted and large numbers of Americans arrive, the impact will be explosive.” (Incidentally, Colin Powell said almost the exact same thing to me on several occasions.)
I agree and I believe that Yoani Sanchez would agree. I know the tiny group of hardcore elements does not agree. The reason is that in such an explosion its reign over U.S. Cuba policy would be destroyed.
As to the economy and keeping it constrained, I probably don’t need to say much there, as we all understand how the economics of sugar, nickel, and rum (ahhh, 17-year-old Havana Club!), and tobacco (think those lovely Havana cigars!), and other such crops and commodities work. Of course, there are some business people in the U.S. who want to lift the embargo because it would profit their particular line of business; on the other hand, there are those business people in the U.S. for whom Cuba might be a competitor, so they provide money to the coffers of the hardcore types in Congress as well. This is all very understandable. This is capitalism.
Punishing the Cuban people is a bit more difficult to decipher until we consider the general lack of concern on the part of the United States when it comes to Cuba. No one thinks of the Cuban people, is the truth of it. And certainly not the hardcore supporters of the U.S. embargo. What they want is power, plain and simple. The Cuban people are simply not a part of their calculations. Those of us who do, on occasion, think of the Cuban people are often too busy with other crises to let that thought prompt us to much action on their behalf. That’s very understandable as well because it is such a reflection of basic human nature. Therefore, the hardcore types most often have a clear field of action featuring no substantive opposition and, clearly and importantly, no real money to match theirs.
Finally, there is the case of the perks. Fidel, Raúl, Ricardo, et al, and their privileges—not unlike the privileges of the elite in China, Vietnam, North Korea, or Burma. Or, for that matter, the royal family in Saudi Arabia, the Mubarak clan in Egypt or, if we want to admit the bald-faced truth, the Karzai brothers in Afghanistan.
Why on earth would maintaining these perks be an objective of the hardcore types in America?
Sorry, folks, I just don’t have an answer to that one. I simply put it in the box with all the rest of my “inexplicables” when it comes to these hardcore, Joe McCarthy types. I suppose that they believe that such privileges are acceptable collateral damage.
I wonder how Yoani sees it?
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