In the Middle of Things
Niall O'Leary from New York teaches Irish dancing to the company of Danzas Retazos, an FfRD people to people program
I have been away from thehavananote for too long.
It was great when OFAC finally gave us a people-to-people license, but making sure our trips to Cuba went well during the winter/spring high season became all consuming. (Our next one is an introduction to Cuban universities, June 14-24).
I find that on a time sensitive basis most of my writing has tended to be in the comment section of mainstream media articles. My presumption has been that one gets to a different audience, even if the level of discourse is too often at the level of repetition and name calling.
I am posting below with minimal editing selected recent comments and the link to the original article in hope they have some broader interest to readers.
We also published a newsletter last week that is available here.
And if you have not read it, take a look at an article by Patrick Ryan a former U.S. diplomat who authored the 2007-09 Country Reports on Terrorism for Nigeria and visited Cuba many times on official business. He is not particularly sympathetic to the government, but argues:
I believe keeping Cuba on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism is absurd and highly political
John McAuliff
Fund for Reconciliation and Development
In Memorium
We lost a friend and a courageous advocate for US democracy with the untimely passing of former Representative Bob Edgar, the President of Common Cause. When Bob was President of the National Council of Churches, he played an important role in the return of Elian to his father. More recently, with the support of the Ford Foundation, he became a leader in the effort to acknowledge the long term impact of the defoliant Agent Orange which the US sprayed widely in Vietnam.
Havana Trumps Washington
[Assistant Secretary of State] Jacobson also noted that the Universal Declaration on Human Rights requires governments to recognize their citizens’ right to travel freely, a right “that we have certainly long sought for Cuban citizens along with all others in the world.”“So it is a good thing that it is being announced, that some of the restrictions on Cubans to travel hopefully will be reduced, if not done away with,” she added.Miami Herald, 10/20/12
1) It is long past time for the US to suspend or repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act. Cubans who claim political asylum must meet the same case by case requirements as other nationalities.In the interim Cubans who enter with a legal visa must be deemed ineligible to claim permanent residence.
Eight New Year's Resolutions
Through Shift of Blame Alan Gross Case Moves Closer to Resolution
MIAMI (Reuters) - The wife of Alan Gross, the U.S. contractor jailed in Cuba for crimes against the state, said she hopes President Barack Obama's re-election will soon help lead to her ailing husband's release from the communist-ruled country....
"The U.S. government sent him there, they sent him on a project, and they need to take responsibility for getting this man home," Judy Gross told Reuters in an interview late on Friday.
Calling her husband a "pawn" in an unfortunate game between two countries just 90 miles apart, she said she believed Obama's re-election could now help his administration push harder for Gross's freedom, even if it means making possible concessions to Cuba that are opposed by conservative Cuban-American lawmakers....
The United States needs to sit down with Cuba, even if they're saying 'we only want the Cuban Five,'" Gross said.
"They can't leave him there. They have to keep trying, and we'll keep pushing them," she said.
Push indeed. A week later, Alan and Judy filed suit against the US government and Development Alternatives Incorporated for $60 million, as reported by Reuters, “blaming them for his imprisonment and not warning him about the risks he faced”.
I have been fairly harsh here and elsewhere about the irresponsible attitude of the State Department and DAI regarding the fate of their contract agent Alan Gross. However my language was mild compared to charges by Alan and Judy:
“since December 3, 2009. Mr. Gross is imprisoned in Cuba due to his work on a project that Defendant United States negligently directed, organized, and oversaw”
“Defendant DAI engaged in this behavior – putting profits before safety”
“One of its objectives is to '[d]evelop and . . . activate plans for launching a rapid-response programmatic platform that will meet USAID’s interest for having and coordinating an on-island presence.'”
“Defendants also ignored Mr. Gross’ own expressions of concern about the Project, opting instead to continue an operation from which Defendant DAI stood to benefit financially and that Defendant United States was committed to ideologically.”
“using Mr. Gross as a pawn in its overall Cuban policy efforts”
“Defendant United States’ breaches of its duties were a direct and proximate cause of Mr. Gross’ detention and imprisonment in Cuba”
“Defendant DAI’s breaches of its duties were a direct and proximate cause of Mr. Gross’ detention and imprisonment in Cuba”
(More extended excerpts with citations are here, as well as links to the full complaint.)
Watch the Cuban Vote in Florida
A factor in President Obama's potential victory in Florida are Cuban Americans who wish to preserve their normal liberty to travel and send remittances/investments. More than 25% of the Cuban community returned last year and an even larger percentage presumably contribute to the estimated $2 billion in annual assistance to their families, and their own future stake in Cuba.
Although not all have become citizens and vote, enough more have since 2008 that Obama can expect to increase his percentage above the 5% gain over Kerry. In addition Cuba's migratory reforms have significantly broadened the population who benefit from freedom of travel. In particular, the second phase announcement allowing return of previously excluded categories of illegal emigres affects 70,000 to 300,000 people who have lived in the US for a longer time. With little hope of visiting Cuba, they were probably more inclined to citizenship. Will they want to give up the opportunity suddenly afforded them to return?
All these folks know that a Romney/Rubio/Diaz-Balart/Ros-Lehtinen victory will slam the door shut, returning to at least the Bush era level of restriction of travel (once every three years) and very stingy remittances.
Romney's campaign has run a scurrilous Spanish language ad in south Florida linking Obama to Presidents Chavez and Castro. Havana's denunciation of the semi-embassy US Interests Section for meddling in domestic politics is a way to say publicly that it does not have a dog in the US race.
Havana One-Ups Washington on Travel. Can Obama and Romney Avoid the Issue?
Cuba's welcome announcement of the end of the exit visa travel restriction poses two challenges to the Obama Administration:
1) Political
Cuba is giving its citizens more freedom to travel to the US than the US gives its citizens to travel to Cuba. The White House should respond by using its power to allow all non tourist travel to Cuba without applying for a license, our equivalent of the White Card. It must also press Congress to abolish all travel restrictions.
2) Legal
The Cuban Adjustment Act and wet foot dry foot policy must be suspended and repealed. With Cubans free to travel to Mexico and Canada, 'step across the border' economic migration will become a bigger problem.
I wonder whether this increases the likelihood of Cuba coming up during next Monday's Presidential debate in Florida on foreign policy .
A general question will produce similar anti-regime boilerplate from both candidates. The glaring contrast is on travel .
Missing An Opportunity at the Summit of the Americas
“For the most part, the tension over Cuba seems mostly to be behind Mr. Obama — a not insignificant consideration in a presidential election year in which Florida, the bastion of anti-Castro sentiment, could be a critical swing state.” --New York Times, 4/13/12
The White House projected a lot of self-satisfaction on the eve of the summit of the Americas.
It is hard to tell whether that is just the normal spin (accentuated by the pre-election dynamic), based on diplomatic assurances from the major players, or just the normal disregard about how we are seen by our neighbors.
Bottom line, the Administration could have used the Summit to increase US stature by showing we have finally moved beyond the Cold War, neoconservative agendas and the Monroe Doctrine. Instead we are at best going to stay even.
To preclude a photo opportunity of Barack Obama shaking Raul Castro's hand, the US has assured the Summit will be shaped by the absence of Cuba and debate over how to address the problem.
Instead of throwing its weight around and using consensus as a veto mechanism, Washington should have adopted the Quaker practice of "standing aside". We could have maintained our opposition, whether due to principle or electoral calculation, but not blocked the overwhelming sentiment of other participants--among whom there was certainly no consensus to exclude Cuba.
In addition to upping Cuba's sympathetic profile, we have strengthened the case for CELAC, a regional organization designed to separate the hemisphere from the asymetric power and wealth of the US, similar to how the Association of South East Asian Nations functions in relation to China, India and Japan.
Washington Post Continues to Obfuscate the Alan Gross Case
CeltFest Cuba (see link at end)
The Washington Post has played a shameful role in the Alan Gross affair, providing only incomplete coverage of what he was doing and why and publishing editorials that were defense briefs at best. By amplifying the official US line it constrains the State Department's ability to find a reasonable diplomatic solution.
Its latest effort was a long story yesterday in the Lifestyle section that was appropriately sympathetic to the hardship of Judy Gross.
Readers who want to know more than the Post spin about the case should look at the Associated Press story based on Alan's own leaked reports. Perhaps most damning is that on his final trip he was carrying SIM cards that are normally available only for military and intelligence purposes to hide the location of the BGAN transmitters that the Post only half acknowledges he was distributing.
Alan's case has never been helped by denial of the serious illegality of his actions under Cuban law, or for that matter under US law had he been an unregistered agent of a hostile foreign power operating covertly here.
The bottom line is that sectors of the US government believe we have the right to intervene in Cuba and other countries if we disagree with their political systems, in this case to create an independent satellite linked encryptable internet node that was accessible to anyone in the vicinity, not just the announced recipients in the Jewish community.
In the case of Cuba the presumption of a right to intervene is a problem that has plagued our relationship for more than a century and is exacerbated by the agenda of the diminishing minority of vengeful exiles who exploit the power of the state for their self interest.
In the Weeds in Miami, Unpublished Letters
Poster from exhibit at Casa de las Americas, Havana
An analysis of Cuban American opinion and voting behavior has been released which seems generally consistent with the annual poll by Florida International University. However. “The Political Incorporation of Cuban Americans: Why Won’t Little Havana Turn Blue?” may underestimate the transitional moment.
The study was published by Benjamin G. Bishin, associate professor of political science at UC Riverside, and Casey A. Klofstad, associate professor of political science at the University of Miami. They observed
Post-Mariel immigrants, who are more progressive on U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba than those who fled immediately following Fidel Castro’s revolution in 1959, accounted for slightly more than half of foreign-born Cubans in South Florida in the 2008 election; however, 78.6 percent of the Cuban American electorate consisted of pre-Mariel immigrants. About 90 percent of those who immigrated before Mariel are eligible to vote; less than 46 percent of those who immigrated after 1980 are similarly eligible.
Their data precedes President Obama's policy of unrestricted travel and remittances and the failed legislative push-back by the Cuban American caucus to restore the discredited Bush policy.
One Year On: The Semi-opening of Cuba Travel
Photo by David Garten
On the first anniversary of President Obama's announcement of new provisions for purposeful travel (1/17/11), the picture is hopeful but murky. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) led by Adam Szubin, a career civil servant appointed during the Bush Administration, does not publish a monthly updated list of licensees on its web site as it does of Travel Service Providers, nor does it even furnish periodic statistical data.
Based on a data base provided by OFAC to blogger Tracey Eaton under the Freedom of Information Act, it appears that in 2011 OFAC approved 440 applications from 289 organizations, about 1/3 of the total submitted or resubmitted. Good governance or an overly restrictive mind-set? (The data base is here and a list of licensed organizations here. )
Some are not for profits with decades of involvement like the Center for Cuban Studies. Others, like National Geographic, are broad based tour operators reincorporating Cuba in their portfolio. A few offer frequent open enrollment trips, most notably Insight Cuba. More take only their own members like university alumni associations and chambers of commerce. Not even OFAC knows how many universities and religious organizations have taken advantage of the general license as these groups have no obligation to request its approval or report their trips. The result is that every American can, with diligence, find a legal albeit costly way for purposeful travel to Cuba.
The President’s announcement permitted any US airport that handles international flights to serve as a gateway to Cuba for charter flights. About a dozen have been approved by US and Cuban authorities. Tampa has proven most successful and its officials are proactive, in contrast to Miami which grudgingly profits from its primacy. However, charter flights from Atlanta, Chicago and a second one from JFK have been suspended and those from other cities without a large Cuban American population have never begun. The weekly Baltimore-Havana flight that starts March 21 will find it challenging to sustain itself unless the White House further liberalizes travel for the rest of us. (Full schedule of flights prepared by Marazul here.)
A major error by the White House was to leave too much discretion in the hands of OFAC, the understaffed inherently distrustful embargo enforcement arm of the Treasury Department. OFAC is proving to be a choke point rather than a facilitator, perhaps made ever more cautious by rising complaints from hard line opponents of travel in Congress.