From The Economist print edition

Pointers to a coming liberalisation

“WE HAVE a system in which anything you do is either forbidden or compulsory,” complains Miguel, an academic and a member of Cuba’s ruling Communist Party. “Perhaps we need to change that to become more efficient.” He notes angrily that what he earns in a month, a trainee waiter can pick up in tips in a day in the island’s tourist hotels. It is a common complaint, and only one of many. But now it is Cuba’s government that is encouraging everyone to grumble.

Though independent economists doubt official claims that Cuba’s economy is growing at around 10% a year, they agree that it is expanding again after a decade of privation. That is mainly thanks to aid from Venezuela and trade with China. There are fewer power cuts and more buses on the streets. But wages are still below their level of 1989. Food is rationed or expensive and medicines are often in short supply. This week the education minister admitted that low pay was prompting an “exodus” of teachers from schools.

Raúl Castro, who took over as Cuba’s acting president in July 2006 when his elder brother, Fidel, had intestinal surgery, seems to be aware of the popular frustration. Acknowledging that the economy needed “structural and conceptual changes”, in July he called for an “open debate” on what to do. Nothing should be off the agenda, he insisted.

The debate has taken place at local branches of the Communist Party, as well as trade unions and other mass organisations. At each meeting, a notetaker has recorded without attribution the criticisms and suggestions. Over the next two months the results will be analysed. Cuba-watchers reckon that, after a slow start, the debate has been franker and more wide-ranging than the last such exercise held in the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the island’s sponsor.

Apart from petty corruption and slovenly officials, the main gripes have been low pay, rising income inequality, inefficiency, waste and asphyxiating bureaucracy. Loyal Communist militants have joined ordinary people in criticising defects in the prized health and education systems, including Cuba’s policy of sending some 25,000 doctors and other specialists to support Hugo Chávez’s “Bolivarian Revolution” in Venezuela. (Mr Chávez pays Cuba some $3 billion-4 billion a year, partly in oil, for their services.)

How will Raúl Castro respond to all this? Unlike Fidel, he is thought to favour the course pursued by China and Vietnam, in which markets and private investment have been combined with Communist political control. Even before the debate began, government economists had been studying measures such as allowing more self-employment and private or co-operative ownership of small and medium-sized businesses, as well as reforming land tenure and freeing agricultural markets.

Under Raúl Castro the government has already been a bit more welcoming of foreign investment. He has also said that wages need to rise, though that will have to be accompanied by changes in prices and the official exchange rate.

How much will really change? The first announcements are expected by the end of December. They are likely to include a bit more scope for private initiative and for markets and prices, but all within an economy and society still dominated by the state. Officials insist that what Fidel Castro calls the “pure poison” of “neo-liberal formulae” will not be swallowed. The official mantra is that rather than copying any foreign model, policy changes will comprise “a Cuban response to the Cuban reality”. As long as Fidel continues to hover in the background—in a recent video with Mr Chávez he seemed stronger—he may inhibit any real liberalisation.

But the direction seems clear. Even some of the dissidents on the island, such as Oscar Espinosa Chepe, an economist, foresee gradual economic liberalisation, though others are more sceptical. “A turning point has been reached,” says Anicia García, director of the University of Havana’s Centre for the Study of the Cuban Economy. Most Cubans seem to think so, and even more hope so.

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Via Washington Times:

A defense intelligence official said yesterday that Cuba’s spies have sold American intelligence secrets to other U.S. enemies, and that the communist island’s spies even now could be involved in long-term operations in the FBI, CIA, Congress and the White House.

Christopher Simmons, a Cuban counterintelligence officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency, cited in a Heritage Foundation speech the case of Ana Montes, a former DIA analyst who pleaded guilty to 16 years of spying for Fidel Castro’s dictatorship.

“Based on my estimates, there could be at least six others like her involved in long-term penetrations of U.S. government at the highest level,” Mr. Simmons said. Agents for the Cuban regime “have had over 50 years to get this right. They understand America better than some Americans do.”

Mr. Simmons said Havana has sold any U.S. intelligence secrets it can get to such foreign countries as Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, and also makes money through terrorist-training programs. All told, these activities earn the communist regime hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

“Castro has spent years strengthening ties and supporting other terrorist groups and organizations around the world. He still continues to do so right now,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, Florida Republican and a Cuban-American, said during the same Heritage forum. “This guy has been extremely successful in infiltrating our intelligence community here in the United States.”

American military intelligence has been compromised by Cuban agents in every U.S. military mission since 1983, including Grenada and the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War.

U.S. prosecutors said Montes, who spied for ideological reasons, was arrested within days of the September 11, 2001, attacks to prevent that from happening again because she was privy to classified plans to attack the Afghan regime that harbored Osama bin Laden.

The United States needs to keep close tabs on its defense intelligence information, the congressman said, because Cuba is still spreading anti-Americanism in Latin America and forging a strong relationship with Iran.

“Iran is Cuba’s strongest ally,” Mr. Diaz-Balart said. “Nut cases bond together.”

(H/T: La Nueva Cuba)

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From the Financial Times:

Cubans go to the polls on Sunday as the western hemisphere’s only one-party state begins an electoral cycle that may well result in a new president for the first time since Fidel Castro was named to the post in 1976. Cuba’s tiny illegal but tolerated opposition groups are boycotting the process, calling it a fraud because citizens have a direct choice only at the neighborhood level and the government controls the media. There are no presidential candidates or political campaigns, no public discussion over who might take over from Mr Castro, and turnout is traditionally more than 95 per cent. Elections are about character, not politics, according to the Communist party, which insists it is banned from organized participation, though members can run and take most seats at all levels of government. “I’ll vote for whoever is running. All are good and will have the same possibility and problems accomplishing anything,” said university student Rebeca Durrsy, shopping at a produce market within sight of Revolution Palace, headquarters of both the Communist party and the Council of State. Another shopper, 40-year old Roberto, did not give his full name. “I don’t care who wins … I’ll vote anyway to avoid being seen as a problem where I live,” he said. President Castro, 81, “temporarily” ceded power to his brother Raúl, five years his junior, in July 2006 to undergo the first of at least three major abdominal surgeries for an undisclosed illness. Fidel appeared alert, but frail and in no shape to govern in a 17-minute video released last weekend from whereabouts unknown. Analysts say he may not be healthy enough to seek re-election next year, although any political uncertainty around the presidential vote will be stripped out of the process through layers of representation before then. “It seems the perfect moment, and only moment for five more years, for the party to make the changes in the government nature has forced upon it. The question is will they, and if so what happens to Fidel? Will Raúl or someone else replace him? And who now becomes first vice president?” a European diplomat said. But few analysts believe a change at the top will result in a political opening. Despite official encouragement of discussion of the country’s economic problems at tens of thousands of grass roots meetings across the country in recent months, the debate did not spill over into September’s ward delegate nomination meetings which were dull early evening affairs where residents nominated their candidates with a show of hands. “Since Raúl Castro has opened the door to dialogue about Cuba’s economic problems, many Cubans have increased hopes for change but remain unable to register their true feelings at the ballot box,” says Daniel Erickson, who heads up Caribbean affairs at the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue group. “Still, the ward elections will set in motion a process to reshuffle Cuba’s communist leadership at a moment when Fidel Castro’s illness has generated huge doubts about the country’s future - which makes them a significant political event despite their democratic deficit,” he said.

Other “election” coverage from Reuters, BBC, BBC Mundo, Guardian, and VOA

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The Cuban Missile Crisis began on Oct. 16, 1962 — the first of the “Thirteen Days of October.” On that day, President John F. Kennedy was informed that a U-2 mission flown over western Cuba two days before had taken photographs of Soviet nuclear missile sites. The event was a watershed for the Intelligence Community (IC) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in particular. It demonstrated that the technological collection capabilities so painstakingly constructed to monitor the Soviet Union had matured to give the IC an unmatched ability to provide policymakers with sophisticated warning and situational awareness.

Continue reading… 

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Marc Frank of the Financial Times writes from Havana about the current campaign from the Cuban Government:

Debate in Cuba has been circumscribed for decades. All media is government- controlled and the occasional public policy discussions under president Fidel Castro were often dismissed as formal processes.

But since his younger brother Raúl took over as acting president last year, following Fidel’s hospitalisation with intestinal problems, many believe there is a new spirit in the air.

In tens of thousands of meetings in workplaces, communities and Communist party clubs in recent months, ordinary Cubans have been encouraged to discuss the direction of the country in a spirit of openness.

Although debate has been officially encouraged in the past, most recently during the “workers’ parliaments” during the country’s economic crisis following the collapse of the Soviet Union, people have been unsure about how much criticism would be tolerated.

Many hope that may now be changing. “The meeting was great. Everyone said what they really thought for once, even me,” said a Communist party member who had complained for years that her monthly meetings were formal and useless.

The spark for the latest debate was the state of the union speech delivered by Raúl Castro in July.

In the speech, Raúl said Cubans faced economic hardship and social problems that would take time to fix . He admitted wages were too low compared with prices in the state-dominated economy, and agriculture needed structural reform.

Communist party members have been encouraged to hold meetings to discuss the speech with the public. “A profound debate should be carried out in an atmosphere of absolute liberty and sincerity,” states a guide distributed to party members leading the public meetings and seen by the FT.

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From Slate, How a Western changed the way Cubans speak:

For most American fans of classic Western cinema, Delmer Davies’ 3:10 to Yuma (1957) is simply a cult favorite, one recently rescued from obscurity by the $55 million remake that is packing multiplexes from coast to coast. In Cuba, however, the original 3:10 to Yuma has had a major impact on everyday conversation. Take a walk down any of Havana’s main thoroughfares and you’ll hear American visitors hailed as yumas, while the United States itself is affectionately dubbed La Yuma. You won’t find those phrases in any state-issued dictionary, and Cuban leader Fidel Castro stubbornly opts for the more derisive yanqui in his own public speeches, but outside of bureaucratic circles it’s yuma that holds sway.

How on earth did this happen?

During the late 1950s, American-owned “United” firms such as the United Fruit Company maintained high-profile holdings in Cuba. Since the word united doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue in Spanish, Cubans adopted the moniker La Yunay. Likewise, when referring to their neighbor across the Florida Straits, Cubans sometimes opted for a Spanglish version of United States—Yunay Estey—rather than the formal Estados Unidos. When the original 3:10 to Yuma hit Cuban cinemas, it inspired a spin on the already extant yunay, and the new slang term quickly took off.

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Western Hemisphere Policy Watch argues that there is a weakness in the US projecting its power in the Western Hemisphere.

Some relevant observations to such a reality:

We have come to a realization that as far as projecting U.S. power in the Western Hemisphere, or mainly in Latin America and the Caribbean, the dodo bird lives. Too harsh you say? We shall take this one step further and add that the dodo should be replace the bald eagle on the great seal of the Department of State’s Western Hemisphere Affairs desk.

Distance offers perspective. Indeed, for the past few weeks WHPW Editors have been posting from faraway places where DC and its ways matter not a whole bloody lot. Political tumbleweed has replaced the cackling voices of the talking heads and beltway bandits. Our minds clear from clutter and cobwebs, just like on a clear summer blue-sky day. And when we think about things back home, the image of the now extinct dodo birds pops to mind.

A dictator just 90 miles from our shores just atop a system deemed a state sponsor of terrorism since the 1980s. Or, just south of the Potemkim Cuba, another madman spawned of the same jackal that are the Castro Brothers, has created a beachhead for Castroism in South America. You see, if we failed to deal with one why do we shift and focus on the weaker foe?

The Colombian drug war rages and the terrorists in the that country divide it, but rather than focus our efforts in Congress on winning the fight there, we open another front in Mexico. Ahh, yes, that Mexican government that is rich with oil, poor in everything else. More U.S. taxpayer monies headed to that mess where even the Zapatistas and other terrorist groups spread from the remote areas.

The Sandinistas are back in power in Nicaragua, embracing not only Cuba, but another more sinister terrorist state, Iran. Brazil seeks nuclear power just for “civilian” purposes and serves as the proxy for the Foro de Sao Paolo, but we choose to talk about corn and ethanol on our most recent high-level visit to the region.

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