Category — Government

A possible recovery of Cuba’s sugar industry through foreign investment is discussed in the following report from IPS:

Foreign direct investment in the sugar industry is acceptable to the Cuban government for producing alcohol and other derivatives, but it continues to be a topic that the authorities prefer not to talk about, at least in public, although experts regard it as desirable for the recovery of the industry.

At present there are seven joint ventures involving capital from Spain, Italy, Canada and Mexico, all of which concentrate on the diversification of the sugar industry, Liobel Pérez, the Sugar Ministry’s chief communications officer, told IPS.

Pérez said six of the joint ventures between Cuban and foreign capital are based in this Caribbean island nation, and one is based in Mexico, where it markets technological expertise and technical assistance for optimising sustainable sugar production.

Discreet approaches made some two years ago by foreign companies interested in investing in sugar production did not prosper. “Conversations were held, but they did not produce concrete results,” Deputy Minister Juan Godefoy of the Sugar Ministry responded to an enquiry by IPS, without elaborating. [Read more →]

Related posts

• Anyone for cocktails? (0)
• U.S. is 5th leading trade partner (0)
• Regional security in the Americas (0)
• Twenty-two years of imprisonment (0)
• Spain exported arms to Cuba (1)

International campaign to Free Gorki

Gorki Águila, outspoken lead singer of the Cuban punk band Porno para Ricardo was arrested by the Cuban government on Monday facing charges of dangerousness.

Cuban law defines “social dangerousness” as behavior contrary to “communist morality,” and the police use it to detain offenders before they have a chance to commit a crime.

He faces four years in prison.

His trial is set for Friday at 9am at the Playa Municipal Tribunal, and an international campaign has been launched to secure his freedom.

An open letter to Pablo Milanes and other Cuban musicians has been sent by Penultimos Dias.

Spanish musicians Miguel Bosé y Alejandro Sanz have also added their signatures to the open letter and support for Gorki.

Further updates are available on the band’s web site, Cuba Underground and Penultimos Dias.

Update: A concert was held tonight in Anti-Imperialist Plaza in the Malecon featuring Pablo Milanes in which supporters of Gorki Águila voiced loudly their support for the singer’s freedom. Among the supporters were Porno para Ricardo band members Ciro (guitarist) and Hebert (bassist) as well as the band’s friends along with well-known Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez. They held up signs demanding the release of Gorki, according to Renay Kayrus, the band’s drummer who witnessed the event. Kayrus further added the concert rained chaos at first, then a battle ensued. Cuban state security, comprised of police and paramilitary units, descended on protesters and beat them without compassion causing a massive stampede amongst protesters and concert goers.

Yoani Sánchez had a telephone coversation with Penultimos Dias over her experience of the event.  According to Yoani’s calculation, for every five concert goer, three were part of the repressive force. Upon lifting a sign with Gorki’s name by supporters, instantly a circle of extreme violence was created in which civil police and those dressed in green beat women and men around the sign.

Update 2: Gorki’s trial has been moved to the afternoon, according to Black Sheep of Exile. He is in the detainee area of the tribunal and his defense attorney hasn’t received the case file. Furthermore, Amnesty International has taken up Gorki’s case.

Gorki Aguila is escorted by police officers upon arrival for his trial. Photo: AP

Update 3: The trial began at 5:30pm Havana time.

Update 4: Per Penultimos Dias, Gorki was freed and fined 600 Cuban pesos. He was accused of “disobedience” instead of “dangerousness”.

Related posts

• Without liberty, we cannot advance (0)
• US intel analyzes video of Fidel (0)
• Spain exported arms to Cuba (1)
• Sovereign ratings (0)
• Russia, Cuba and Latin America (0)

Senator Joe Biden’s (D-Deleware), Democrat VP candidate, background on Latin America is examined by the Americas Society, and his Cuba policy is noted:

The issue of U.S. policy toward Cuba has served as a source of debate between Obama and presumptive Republican candidate John McCain. On this matter, Biden has demonstrated support for the U.S. embargo against Cuba and voted in favor of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which opened the door to suing foreign companies that benefit from confiscated American property in Cuba. Following the resignation of longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro, the senator from Delaware proposed easing restrictions on travel and remittances from the United States, establishing direct mail, and supporting the creation of small businesses in the island without relaxing the embargo.

Related posts

• Anyone for cocktails? (0)
• Regional security in the Americas (0)
• Patchy blockade (0)
• Cuban intelligence warns of possible plot against Chavez (0)
• Cuban espionage, threat to the Americas (0)

Word cloud for CUBAPOLIDATA

Related posts

• No related posts.

Jorge Castañeda, former Foreign Minister of Mexico, has written an article (preview only) for Foreign Affairs in which he believes the key to a successful foreign policy in Latin America is to focus on four critical issues — Cuba, immigration, trade, and the “two lefts”.

Related posts

• Russia, Cuba and Latin America (0)
• Regional security in the Americas (0)
• Moscow and Havana (0)
• Midrange Trends: Latin America (0)
• Duma Deputy: Russia may deploy missiles in Cuba (0)

Mara Salvatrucha gang members arrested by Honduran special police. (Photo: Reuters)

Several challenges will be posed to a transitional government once Castroism fades from existence (elements will certainly remain) and a semblance of democracy emerges. Organized crime will be one of them, particularly in the streets of Havana and other cities throughout the island, perpetrated by gangs.

The lessons learned (from strategy and tactics to combat) of the current gang and organized crime phenomena evolving in Central America and Mexico proves invaluable to a future transitional government in how to confront these internal security issues.

Dr. Max Manwaring (Professor of Military Strategy at the U.S. Army War College) has written an article titled: “Sovereignty Under Seige: Gangs and Other Criminal Organizations in Central America and Mexico” published in the Spanish edition of Air and Space Power Journal addressing the current security challenges posed by gangs and organized crime in the Americas.

He also wrote at the end of 2007: “A Contemporary Challenge to State Sovereignty: Gangs and Other Illicit Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) in Central America, El Salvador, Mexico, Jamaica, and Brazil“ published by the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College that is worth a read.

Manwaring points out in his excellent article, Sovereignty Under Seige:

Another kind of war within the context of a “clash of civilizations” is being waged in various parts of the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and everywhere else around the world today. Some of the main protagonists are those who have come to be designated as first-, second-, and third-generation street gangs, as well as the more traditional Trans-National Criminal Organizations (TCOs) such as Mafia families, Illegal Drug Traffickers, Warlords, Terrorists, Insurgents, etc. In this different (“new”) kind of war, TCOs are not sending conventional military units across national borders or building an industrial capability in an attempt to “filch some province” from some country. These non-state actors are more interested in commercial profit and controlling territory (turf) to allow maximum freedom of movement and action. In addition to drug smuggling, these criminal organizations are known to have expanded their activities—among others–to smuggling people, body parts, weapons, and cars; along with associated intimidation, murder, kidnapping, and robbery; money laundering; home and community invasion; and other lucrative societal destabilization activities. That freedom of action within countries and across national frontiers ensures commercial market share and revenues, as well as secure bases for market expansion. The corrosive effects of the associated criminal violence and gratuitous cruelty of that freedom of movement also generates a different kind of clash of civilizations. It is not a clash of Western and Eastern cultures. Rather, it is a clash of values. It is a clash of values between Liberal Democracy and criminal anarchy.

What makes all of this into a new type of war is that the national security and sovereignty of affected countries is being impinged every day, and TCO’s illicit commercial motives are, in fact, becoming an ominous political agenda. Rather than trying to depose a government in a major stroke (golpe or coup) or a prolonged revolutionary war, as some insurgents have done, gangs and other TCOs more subtly take control of turf one street or neighborhood at a time (coup d’ street), or one individual, business, or government office at a time. Thus, whether a gang or another TCO is specifically a criminal or insurgent type organization is irrelevant. The putative objective of all these illegal entities—the common denominator that directly links gangs, other TCOs, and insurgents– is to control people, territory, and government to ensure their own specific ends. That is a good definition of insurgency, a serious political agenda, and a clash of controlling values.

[H/T: SWJ]

Related posts

• Of mobs and revolution (0)
• Bay of Capitalist Pigs (0)
• Without liberty, we cannot advance (0)
• US intel analyzes video of Fidel (0)
• Upsurge in violence (0)