Juan Tamayo of El Nuevo Herald has a piece on the 50th anniversary of the Battle at Escambray (the last armed internal combat against the Castro dictatorship.)
Fifty years ago, Rivera was one of up to 4,000 Cubans battling Castro’s brand new government in a little-known, but nasty guerrilla war that raged in parts of the island from roughly 1960 to 1966. The battle is best known for the difficult terrain where the anti-Castro rebels made their stand — in the Escambray, the south central mountain range in Cuba and where the bloodiest fighting took place.
(Image: Escambray guerrillas. By latinamericanstudies.org)
Stephen Johnson of Shadow Government: Notes from the Loyal Opposition (a blog about U.S. foreign policy under the Obama administration, hosted by Foreign Policy magazine) proffers not extending a life safer to Cuba’s moribund regime:
Now facing a cash crunch on the heels of a disastrous sugar harvest, brother Raúl is consulting Fidel’s old playbook — releasing jailed dissidents, ramping up self-employment, and making nice to foreign businesses, which, by the way, must abide by Cuban policies of denying workers’ rights, in violation of International Labor Organization conventions. Meaningful reform? You be the judge.
[...]
Since they came to power in 1959, the Castro brothers’ goal has been the survival of their socialist dream. Adaptability has been the key to success, retreating at critical junctures without altering the regime’s basic structure. Such measures often looked like signs of change because we wanted to see them as such. On close inspection, they were skillful maneuvers to get through a crisis.
[...]
Tempting as it may be to view Cuba’s tactical retreats as reforms, they are stopgaps.
Johnson proposes the following “to sustain leverage over Cuba’s government on the cusp of transition”:
denying financial support and credit until Cuba releases its captive labor force and pays creditors, and
condition normal diplomatic and economic relations on respect for human rights and civil liberties such as freedom of expression, of assembly, movement, and access to due process of law.
The Geriatric-in-Chief, Fidel Castro, gave a 45 minute speech about the dangers of nuclear war before a mass rally of students at the University of Havana earlier today. [EFE]
The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a London-based independent think tank engaged in defense and security research, asks in its analysis of Cuba, how much of a threat does the Communist regime really pose to the world’s only superpower:
Raúl’s position as head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias – FAR), who were greatly bolstered by the controlled economic reforms initiated in 1993, suggested that the new president would be in favour of expanding such open-market conditions to benefit the rest of the country. In reality, however, Raúl’s loyalty may lie less with the introduction of capitalism and more with the military itself. He was in favour of the 1993 reforms because they benefitted the army, not because he saw them as an intrinsically positive development.
This allegiance to the armed forces is not unexpected, but may well be giving the US some cause for alarm. The Cuban military currently manages around 60 percent of the economy, making it the strongest institution in the country. With its former head now in charge, the chances of a military state arising appear to be rather high. Indeed, the military exercises of 2004, shortly after Fidel’s public collapse, were the largest executed in nearly twenty years. It is reasonable to suppose that this was intended as a ‘show of strength’, not just for Cuba, but for Raúl himself (knowing, as he would, that he was the obvious candidate for power after his brother) and an indication of the route down which Cuba will be heading.
The government of Hugo Chávez (Fidel Castro’s protegé and ally) is implementing a “good life card” similar to the rationing booklet used in Cuba, a day after farmer Franklin Brito died from a hunger strike, caused by the Venezuelan government seizing his farm. The creation of the card is taking place in the midst of a two year recession and shortages of food in Venezuela. [ABC]
Julia Sweig, the Council on Foreign Relations resident Cuba expert, accompanied Fidel Castro yesterday to the National Aquarium along with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg from the Atlantic magazine and Adela Dworin, president of the Jewish Community of Cuba.
In October 2008, Cuban spy hunter Lt. Col. Chris Simmons of the Cuban Intelligence Research Centerappeared on journalist Oscar Haza‘s Miami-based public affairs television program, A ManoLimpia, exposing individuals allegedly associated with Cuban intelligence.
Ms. Sweig, according to Lt. Col. Simmons, has an alleged association to the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS).
(Image: In the left photograph, Sweig is seated next to Fidel Castro on his left, and in the right photograph, she is to the right wearing what looks to be a red dress with large circular white patterns. Click on images to enlarge. By Estudios Revolución.]
Hugo Chávez met yesterday with Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl Castro for about five hours during a visit that was not previously announced. [El Universal]
Jerry Brewer of Criminal Justice International Associates pens an op-ed (via Mexidata.info) on whether U.S. concessions are justified in light of the Castro regime’s destabilizing campaign in Latin America and continuous iron grip at home:
As Cuba and Latin America’s leftist regimes continue their efforts to prevent the U.S. from assisting its democratic neighbors with drug interdiction, and in the fight against transnational criminal insurgencies — violence and deaths continue to soar. In Venezuela alone, reports indicate a murder rate of 220 per 100,000 people. This is a higher rate than Mexico’s Ciudad Juarez.
Indeed, Caracas may currently be the most violent city in the world.
The U.S. must remember that Cold War espionage against us, by Cuba, is still alive and well. Too, the Guantanamo base remains a strategic observation hub for Caribbean activities that potentially threaten free people within this hemisphere. And it is clear Fidel Castro wants us out.
President Obama holds the cards. To free the Cuban people is a decision of the Castro regime.
(Image: Front page of August 13 edition of El Nacional showing homicide victims in a Caracas morgue as a result of spiraling violence.)
Raul Castro’s government has allowed farmers of the island to acquire supplies necessary to support limited productivity where they can pay with the national currency for goods in small private shops. This is a step toward modernizing the strongly centralized farming sector. [Europa Press]
The United States is creating conditions to change its foreign policy toward Cuba. [La Jornada]
A newly published book delves into the possibility that Fidel Castro ordered the murder of Chile’s Salvador Allende at the hands of a Cuban diplomat/agent whom Allende’s daughter married. [El Ciudadano]
The Spanish government has gotten into a diplomatic imbroglio because of its conciliatory posture toward the Cuban regime. [ABC]
Brazil and Cuba sign bilateral agreement on agriculture, meteorology and geology. [Prensa Latina]
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at the Aspen Institute on whether the Obama administration should move toward normalizing relations with Cuba. [Aspen Daily News Online]
“IT WAS a surprise. A month ago I had assumed he was dead,” said Hector, an art student in Havana. He had just watched Fidel Castro speak at Cuba’s National Assembly on August 7th. It was the first appearance by the former president on live television since he underwent intestinal surgery in 2006. Mr Castro, who turns 84 this week, had to be helped to his seat at the podium. In contrast to the endless diatribes of the past, this one lasted just 11 minutes, though he stayed for an hour of debate. His theme was his latest apocalyptic vision: that conflict between the United States and Iran could escalate into nuclear war. At times he was difficult to follow. But the message was clear enough. After four years as a near-recluse, Mr Castro is back—and at a time of unusual difficulty for the regime he created.
The speech followed a string of cameo appearances by Fidel, such as visiting an aquarium and talking to biotechnologists. These began the day before the announcement last month that Cuba would free 52 political prisoners. They seemed designed to distract attention from this unusual gesture of weakness from the Communist government, to which it resorted to allay criticism abroad after the death of a hunger striker in February.
In that sense Fidel’s reappearance and recovery is a boost for his younger brother, Raúl, who took over from him and was formally elevated to the presidency in 2008. But in other ways it is a complication. The charisma gene in the Castro family missed out Raúl. Even though he has instigated some timid reforms which Cubans welcome (such as allowing them to own cellphones, and legally to buy building materials), he is not a popular president. That may in part be the result of earlier efforts by the revolution’s propagandists. Since the 1960s, Cubans have been encouraged to see Fidel as the idealist, and Raúl, long the defence minister, as the dour enforcer.
At the National Assembly the two men sat apart, and seemed to avoid eye contact. Fidel Castro, who is still the first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party, made no mention of his brother, or of domestic issues. These had been the subject of Raúl’s own, longer, address to the assembly the previous week. In it he made his most withering criticism yet of the slumbering economy. Whilst making it clear he had no intention of pushing the island towards capitalism, he also said he was determined that Cuba should no longer be seen “as the only country in the world where it is not necessary to work”.
Officials have decided that around a million people, or a fifth of the workforce, are “unproductive”. They may have to seek other jobs. Raúl said the government would make it easier for Cubans to be self-employed, and even to employ others in small businesses. An experiment begun earlier this year, in which hairdressers in state barbers’ shops have been allowed to work for themselves, is likely to be extended to other parts of the economy.
In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union deprived Cuba of its subsidies, Fidel Castro allowed foreign investment and small businesses. But he reversed much of this opening once he found a new benefactor in Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. Raúl Castro is more pragmatic, and as president has taken some steps to decentralise economic decision-making to state firms and regional party leaders. Several economists in Havana argue that Fidel, even while convalescent, has continued to slow the pace of change.
The assumption is that the brothers have worked out a division of labour, in which Fidel will expound on global issues and let his brother govern. In his public appearances he has seemed fit, if doddery and occasionally forgetful. His speech to the assembly referred to the Soviet Union in the present tense.
Fidel has long insisted that “revolutionaries never retire”. He may find it hard to resist a return to centre stage, and that would only undermine Raúl. “Our tragicomedy continues” whispered a waiter in a Havana hotel.
“Jane’s Defense Weekly” reported that U.S. companies take high-resolution digital earth satellite images makes the United States recognized the existence of Chinese underground nuclear submarine base in Cuba, and captured 096 Chinese military is extremely confidential, “Tang” class strategic nuclear submarine (I commented: If a message is true, then this is a super enhanced version of the “Cuban missile crisis!” and I want to draw attention to this is that, since the Chinese nuclear submarine base in Cuba, then it may even is almost certain that Russia has military bases in Cuba and even the nuclear military bases! we know, the issue of Russian troops stationed overseas could be far more positive than China!).
There is no specific reference to the publication date of the JDW article nor the location of the base. A search through JDW‘s website has yielded no article.
However, if true, this significantly poses a major strategic threat to the United States mainland if future hostilities were to arise between the United States and Chinese militaries.
Moreover, China’s naval modernization efforts is to establish a blue water fleet.
Does this mean that Chinese naval power projection aspires outside its natural periphery of the South China Sea1 to also include the Atlantic and Caribbean with possible basing in Cuba?
Notes
1. For further elaboration on the subject, see International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Strategic Comments (Chinese navy’s new strategy in action), Volume 16, Comment 16 – May 2010.
(Image: The Type 096 submarine is a new class of SSBN rumored to be in development for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). By Wikipedia.)
El País gives an overview of Fidel Castro’s speech before the Cuban National Assembly of People’s Power. Not one word was uttered about the internal situation on the island nor the “reforms” announced on August 1st by Army General Raúl Castro.
Fidel’s speech concentrated more on the prognostication that the world is on the verge of a nuclear war and laying blame on U.S. President Barack Obama.
(Image: Fidel Castro (L) talks with his brother, Raúl Castro before addressing the National Assembly. AFP.)
The former president of Cuba, Fidel Castro, is to make his first speech to the national assembly since he stepped down due to ill health four years ago. If, as expected, his brother Raul attends, it will be their first public appearance together since he became leader of the communist state. [BBC]
Konstantin Sonin, a Professor of Economics at the New Economic School in Moscow, penned an article in the Moscow Times where hecompares the economic and political consequences of Moscow’s support of local “tsars:” Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Belarus’ Alexander Lukashenko.
The political life of Cuban leader Fidel Castro goes on and on, thwarting all attempts to draw up a final summary of his reign. Over the course of Castro’s 50 years in power, Cubans’ standard of living has remained practically unchanged — even as living conditions have improved by leaps and bounds in most other countries. Among the many questions I’d like to pose: How was Castro able to maintain control of a small and militarily weak country using the energy of far stronger world powers?
A comprehensive history of Fidel would undoubtedly help us understand the behavior of Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko, who has recently taken a series of steps to spite Russia’s current leadership.
It’s a historical fact that Cuba benefited greatly from the friendship and material support of the Soviet Union from the beginning of the 1960s to the late 1980s. But it is worth remembering that Fidel’s rule began with a friendship of an entirely different sort. Having seized power following the overthrow of the Batista regime, the newfound Cuban prime minister set out on a long visit to the United States in an effort to shore up relations there. It didn’t work out, of course. To draw support from the revolutionary poor while simultaneously defending American special interests at the U.S. government’s behest was a balancing act too difficult for even Castro. Understandably fearing that the United States would interfere in the island’s internal power struggles, Fidel threw himself into the arms of its Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union.
The story of the dramatic confrontation that occurred between the two warring superpowers during the Cuban Missile Crisis is a familiar one: Moscow placed nuclear-tipped rockets in Cuba; the Americans responded by threatening to blockade the island and inspect incoming vessels. Moscow withdrew the rockets and, in exchange, Washington agreed to withdraw its bases from Turkey and Italy and guarantee the safety of the Cuban government. Was it a draw? Yes, unless you count the person who won big at someone else’s expense.
It’s unclear what Moscow gained from all those years of supporting socialist Cuba. Fidel got the ability to consolidate and retain power despite shoddy domestic policies and brash foreign policies. (His country, one of the major economic failures of the 20th century, actually served as a source of “ideas” for others.)
The history of Fidel is not just an isolated case. The 20th century knew many other local “tsars” and socialist leaders who built up their own power and took handouts from all sides. For Russia, the lessons can be applied to Lukashenko. Support for an authoritarian, undemocratically elected leader might bring short-term gains, but it eventually turns a big country into a smaller country’s hostage. Attempts by big countries to use economic levers to pressure little Castros lead to lower standards of living and strengthen the authoritarian leaders’ power. If Lukashenko had to answer to voters, or if his power were restricted by an opposition-led parliament, he would have far fewer opportunities to manipulate us through his foreign policy.
In general, we don’t spend enough time studying the United States’ mistakes in Latin America over the past two centuries. We ought to hit the history books.
The Economist‘s Newsbook blog on Fidel Castro’s comeback:
WITH Fidel Castro returning to public life after a four-year absence, Cuba’s state television has the vexed problem of how to refer to him—and whether he or Raúl Castro, his younger brother who succeeded him as president, comes first in seniority.
Until recently, when the ex-president was a near-recluse in his western Havana home, television announcers tended to use the informal title “Comrade Fidel”. The impression given was that of an almost-never-seen, and most definitely retired, grandfather in an upstairs room.
Fidel’s comeback—on Monday he made his seventh public appearance this month—has changed all that. The title “commander-in-chief” has been resurrected. Fidel is dressing the part once again: the Adidas track suit he frequently sported while convalescing has been replaced by an olive-green military shirt, albeit without the “commander” epaulets.
On Monday, Cuba’s official Revolution Day, over an hour of the main nightly news was dedicated to Fidel’s meeting with foreign activists in Havana. His brother, at a major summit with the Venezuelan government, was given less than ten minutes of airtime.
What might the senior Mr Castro increased presence mean for the direction of the country? Raúl is understood to be keen to give more room to private enterprise within Cuba’s stagnant state-run economy. But Havana-based diplomats say he fears doing anything to upset his brother. There is speculation that on August 1st, when Cuba’s National Assembly holds one of its rare meetings, further reforms may be announced. But before Raúl does anything, he will check with the boss.
Today’s ABC (one of Spain’s influential dailies) has an opinion piece on Raúl Castro’s silence during the 26 of July celebration in Santa Clara on Monday, which is indicative of a “resounding plea for more ferocious inaction”:
Raúl’s silence compared with the speeches he made in previous years, which threw light promises—has been a resounding plea for fiercer inaction. The slogan of the day was that of economic integration with Venezuela, something that cannot comfort anyone since Hugo Chávez—who, incidentally, also came to the appointment of the Castro brothers, is an expert in carrying an oil country to utter ruin.
Jerry Bremer, CEO of Criminal Justice International Associates via Mexidata.com asks whether Cuba continues to pose a security risk to anyone in the Western Hemisphere:
Cuba’s Interior Ministry reportedly consists of approximately 20,000 officials assigned to their security and intelligence apparatus, along with an estimated 50,000 Cuban nationals in various official missions in Venezuela.
Castro’s resource starved revolution has been nurtured generously by President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. The Castro brother’s personal wealth has been estimated as “combined — easily worth $2 billion.” The Chavez Frias family in Venezuela “has amassed wealth on a similar scale since Chavez’s presidency began in 1999.”
[...]
Cuba had been getting approximately $5 billion a year from Venezuela in “oil, cash and kind.” It is further believed that Bolivarian organized crime groups entrenched within Chavez’s administration “have skimmed about $100 billion of the nearly $1 trillion of oil revenues PDVSA Oil has earned since 1999.”
[...]
Both Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez continue to telegraph nervous vibes to true democratic and free nations with their vociferous support of Iran, Syria and North Korea, among others named as state sponsors of world terrorism, this as well as denouncing Israel and the U.S. The Castro and Chavez revolutions are indeed suspect, insofar as neither appears to benefit the suffering of the Cuban nor Venezuelan people.
Cuba is much less armed and resourced to defend a revolution by itself. If the Castro brothers and Chavez truly want to stand up factually to defend a benign threat to the hemisphere, as well as lead their people to a higher standard of survival and living conditions, they must aggressively denounce terrorism, drug trafficking, and related death and violence. Their actions in this positive step might show some genuine sincerity.
The Daily Telegraph on the future Cuban oligarchs awaiting in the wings for change, while Methuselah returns:
But one group is likely to be watching this strange political dance between the two Castro brothers with concern, as well as frustration: those who are preparing to amass vast personal wealth from Cuba’s eventual return to capitalism. They include senior officials within the regime.
[...]
And just as a select few Russians did after the collapse of Soviet communism, well-connected Cuban officials might make fortunes if they are in a position to control the sale of national assets, or hand out contracts for the development of the currently under-exploited, stagnant economy. Land, property, telecommunications rights, sugar and agriculture are among the many sectors which could be worth billions.
[...]
But who are the potential oligarchs? Esteban Morales has only named Mr Acevedo, the disgraced aviation boss. But his criticism appears to be aimed at corrupt government junior ministers and military bosses who manage parts of Cuba’s sprawling state run businesses.
While all government and military officials officially live on government salaries of as little as £25 a month, some already appear to be living far better-funded lifestyles. At a recent big-game fishing competition at the beach resort of Varadero, the Canadian expatriate competitors were surprised when they saw they were competing against some entirely Cuban teams, in motor yachts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
[...]
Yet those who hoped that, under Raul, a capitalist bonanza was about to begin have been disappointed by events over the last two weeks. Fidel Castro’s reappearance seems designed to send the clear message that he is back on the scene – and that, at least for now, real change is not yet in the air.
La Verdad Obrera (LVO), a publication of the Argentine Socialist Workers Party, has an interesting critical piece on the recent political developments in Cuba from a Trotskyist perspective.
The following incisive paragraphs were transcribed from the story:
Bureaucracy and corruption
Accompanying the announcement of prisoners being released and an economic adjustment is the corruption scandal at the highest levels of the state apparatus. Cuban authorities called upon Chilean businessman and Fidel Castro’s friend Max Marambio (ex-MIR militant, custodian to Salvador Allende and Marcos Enriquez Ominami’s presidential campaign director) to appear before them as he is accused of malfeasance and fraud against the Cuban state through his aliment company, Río Zasa. News of this tailspin into a scandal because of the strange death of general manager of the Chilean company Roberto Baudrand. Corruption in the highest levels of government splashed recently upon Cuban ministers Jorge Luis Sierra and Luis Manuel Ávila.
This situation confirms the denouncements reproduced in LVO 382 by Esteban Morales, researcher at the Center of Hemispheric Studies and United States in Havana, who was thrown out of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) for pointing out that “corruption is the true counterrevolution” (Esteban Morales’s blog, July 7) and correctly signals out that state corruption is the way to place capitalist restoration in leadership circles within the state and PCC.
Bureaucracy and power
The public reappearance of Fidel Castro, even though declarations have not been made, expresses the support of the historic leader to his brother and the existing unity in the old guard gerontocracy of the Castroist bureaucracy that is evermore supported by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) to exercise power with an iron hand and keep up under his control the new phase of the Cuban political process. The active reappearance of Fidel looks to put a limit to the conflict between different factions of the governing bureaucracy and discipline them in a time beset by a world crisis and financial upheaval, the regime’s challenge is to diminish the crisis over the masses’ movement of taking new steps on the road to pro-capitalist reforms.
In this sense, the release of anti-Castro opposition prisoners is far from being an expansion of freedoms and political rights of the worker and peasant masses of Cuba, so that they can organize themselves to defend their gains (as we Trotskyists explain) express an attempt by the bureaucratic regime, haunted by the specter of financial ruin, to reinforce a political bargaining and making concessions to imperialist and restorationist forces.
(Image: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.)
Cuba has said it is ready to release more political prisoners, in addition to the 52 it announced it would free earlier this month. The releases are part of a deal between Cuba, the Catholic Church and Spain, which is taking in many of the men after their release. But the US has said prisoners who do travel to Spain will no longer be eligible for asylum in America, where many have relatives. [BBC]
Other releases have lifted people’s hopes in the past. In 1969-70, about 1,300 prisoners were deported. In 1979, after a controversial negotiation with some exiles, 3,600 opponents were set free – and expelled. In 1998, Pope John Paul II’s visit was followed by the release of 40 men – and another mass deportation. Few regimes have played more deftly the sinister game of confining and torturing innocent persons in rat-infested jails only to win praise for using them as bargaining chips in subsequent negotiations.
A couple of things make the latest release potentially more meaningful, as some critics, including the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation, have said. The fact that the decision was made by Raul Castro, an admirer of the “Chinese way” pioneered by Deng Xiaoping, may signify something. The participation of the church, which has gained more recognition these past few days than in the previous half a century, is intriguing. And Cardinal Ortega’s discreet trip to Washington to brief American officials suggests that Raul Castro is interested in some kind of arrangement with the United States. The cardinal, in fact, stressed in his meetings that Raul Castro is serious about reform.
None of which guarantees anything. The safest bet is to assume that the Castros are – for the umpteenth time – taking one step back before taking two steps forward. Raul Castro’s insistence that the prisoners leave the island with their families means he wants to get rid of the independent journalists and the Ladies in White – and abort the embryonic civil society they had painstakingly engendered. But it is not inconceivable, given Raul Castro’s bind, that the regime will try some reform in order to beef up the economy and ensure its survival after Fidel Castro dies – a move that, if it’s to generate international support and investment, will require a degree of political accommodation.
Not even Raul Castro himself knows whether reform will really occur. But one thing is clear: The Black Spring heroes and their Ladies in White have revealed to us, against all odds, that the Castros are not invincible. After 51 years, this is a soothing thought.
Der Spiegel on the political and economic realities facing the Castro regime in its fight for survival:
But the release of the dissidents could also be a message to the Europeans, who have not been entirely sure what to make of the new president since he officially assumed office in February 2008. Raul is believed to be less of a fundamentalist and more of a pragmatist than his brother Fidel. “He is not someone who is out to change the system, but he does show an understanding for the problems,” says one of the Europeans in Havana.
At first, Raul Castro sparked hopes that reforms could be on the way. But so far his fellow Cubans have seen little change, except that they can now own mobile phones and computers with limited Internet access.
Europe, however, wants to see clear signs of liberalization, as a precondition of more intensive cooperation with Havana, especially “progress in the area of human rights and political freedom.” European governments reached this conclusion long ago, in December 1996, and the same conditions are still in place today. However, Castro has forced the Europeans’ hand by releasing the dissidents.
Faced with a catastrophic situation in Cuban agriculture, Raul Castro is urgently in need of aid from Europe. The sugarcane harvest this summer, once an important source of foreign currency, is the worst since 1905. It is even about half a million tons shy of the harvest in 2009, when hurricanes wreaked havoc on the country.
Cuba is now forced to import more than 80 percent of its food, while foreign investment and exports have declined dramatically. At the same time, the sugar island is practically bankrupt and has had to reduce imports of food products and spare parts by at least a third.
Tens of thousands of well-trained young Cubans are leaving the country every year to earn money for their families elsewhere. The numbers would probably be even higher if the government let them go. For this reason, EU diplomats expect more signals from Raul on July 26, a Cuban national holiday: more privatization in agriculture, more freedom to buy homes and a relaxation of restrictions on travel abroad.
Mauricio Vicent wrote in today’s El Paísthat in the official media of Cuba there is talk of “reforms” that will be launched after August.
According to sources consulted by the daily, the Raul Castro government will make ”changes,” which include:
expansion of self-employment and above all the cooperativization of some services;
continuation of reductions in subsidies and social costs with the aim of making the system sustainable;
slowly reduce health services, which will have a social impact;
elimination of a dual currency;
renegotiate debt to cut financial tensions
Even sources of the Catholic Church and Spanish Foreign Ministry have heard Raúl Castro say “of the reforms.”
Vicent further adds, that sources say, Raúl Castro does not bet on Venezuela as a source of financial support and wants to avoid a repeat of what was experienced with the former Soviet Union, and the devastating economic crisis of the 1990s.
This speculation leads to the question, are there profound reforms underway that will encompass economic and political change or are they mere cosmetic changes to give an illusion and bide enough time for the Cuban regime to stay afloat until the next crisis imperils its existence?
Christopher Sabatini, senior director of policy at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas and editor in chief of Americas Quarterly, argues for lifting the communications embargo on Cuba in the July/August 2010 issue of Foreign Policy magazine:
This leaves Washington in a quandary. Last week’s release of the 52 prisoners — independent journalists and human rights activists rounded up in the March, 2003 Black Spring crackdown — may have reduced the number of political prisoners rotting in Cuban jails to the lowest level in decades, but it was still, at best, a superficial act. Restrictions and state control over freedom of association and expression remain and there are still scores of prisoners being held for the inventive and uniquely Cuban offense of peligrosidad — “dangerousness” — often used to round up opponents under vague accusations of espionage. In addition to the now-estimated 120 political prisoners held in Cuban jails, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) contractor Alan Gross, arrested in December for distributing laptops and cell phones to Cuba’s small Jewish community, remains in prison without formal charges brought against him.
Given this, it would be a mistake for Washington to overreact, engaging Havana with open arms over what was, in effect, a publicity stunt by the Castro brothers. On the other hand, intentionally antagonizing the regime by ramping up demands or dismissing the gesture would be equally damaging.
But the United States can respond to this gesture in a way that benefits Cuban society and individuals without legitimizing the regime or provoking a hostile reaction by the anti-Castro lobby in the United States. Ironically, that means doing what President Barack Obama has promised to do all along: follow through on his pledge from last April to loosen restrictions on U.S. telecom activities in Cuba and assist U.S. business in providing the tools for Cubans to communicate beyond the prison walls of the Castros’ island nation.
Unlike lifting the trade embargo on Cuba, which would require an act of Congress, these changes could be made by executive order, avoiding a politically costly battle with pro-embargo legislators. But more importantly, granting greater scope for U.S. telecom companies to sell cell-phones, software, and laptops in Cuba and establish the necessary infrastructure to make them work — such as cell phone towers and routers — would look generous, while loosening the Castro regime’s control over its people.
Earlier today the pro-dialogue/anti-embargo Cuba Study Group founded by Cuban-American businessman Carlos Saladrigas in collaboration with Americas Society/Council of the Americas, and Brookings Institution released a 48-page report on empowering the Cuban people through technology with recommendations for private and public sector leaders.
(Image: Cuban telecommunications monopoly ETECSA telephones. By Ecopolis.)
If the prisoners — who include journalists, community organisers and opposition figures — are indeed set free, this would be a major concession on the part of the Castro government. It appears to be designed for external consumption, however. It could lead to improvements in Cuba’s foreign relations, particularly with Spain and other EU nations. EU foreign ministers will take up the issue of whether to uphold their “common position” on Cuba at their next summit in September. That position requires that the EU conduct an annual assessment of the human-rights situation in Cuba. Spain has been lobbying for some time for that requirement to be dropped.
However, the prisoner releases probably do not signal coming democratisation or any moves to provide Cubans with greater political rights. Moreover, there has been no fundamental shift in the tolerance of opposition. While discussions with Church representatives were under way in early June, the authorities rounded up and briefly detained 37 members of two dissident groups, Agenda para la Transición (Agenda for the Transition) and Unidad Liberal de la República de Cuba (the Cuban Republic’s Liberal Unity). Ostensibly this was to prevent two meetings due to take place in the house of a prominent dissident, Héctor Palacios, although the meetings proceeded any way.
Further, the Cuban Commission on Human Rights claims there are more than 100 additional political prisoners in Cuban jails.
[...]
The administration of President Barack Obama has taken modest steps towards improving relations with Cuba, such as eliminating Bush-era restrictions on travel to the island by Cuban-Americans and on their remittance of funds to their relatives. However, aware that the Cuba problem cannot be solved easily or quickly, the Obama government has decided to make no additional moves on Cuba policy in the approach to the US mid-term elections in November. Nonetheless, a campaign in the US legislature to weaken economic sanctions has continued. Two bills are advancing through Congress, one to facilitate US food sales to Cuba (by eliminating the need for Cuba to pay in cash in advance) and the other to remove restrictions on travel for US citizens. Although improvement on the human-rights front would help these bills’ prospects, final passage is highly uncertain.
[...]
In the absence of normalisation of political and commercial ties with Washington, Cuba’s relations with Venezuela will remain an important source of support for the economy. These are based on favourable terms of trade that link Cuba’s oil imports to the supply of healthcare and education professionals to Venezuela. If Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, were to be forced out of office, there would be a risk that current arrangements might be scaled back.
Partly reflecting this uncertainty, the Cuban authorities will continue to broaden international economic ties with other friendly countries, notably China, Brazil and Russia, which are becoming ever-more important trade partners. Restoring good relations with the EU would also help to mitigate the growing reliance on, and risks associated with, Havana’s links to Venezuela.
A day after giving a rare television interview, Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro made a public appearance at an economic think tank in Havana, state-run television said, showing his photos. [AFP]
Newsweek magazine on the new tactics for an aged regime:
But Havana has already turned the concession to quick advantage. By taking the most obvious human-rights issue off the table, Raúl Castro has driven a new wedge between U.S. and European policies. Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos, who helped broker the deal, crowed that European negotiation, not American confrontation, had triumphed. Besides, the prisoner release is more symbol than substance. Cuba continues to detain critics, often for short periods, with no formal charges. Harassment and censorship have proved adequate to control the populace. Despite growing discontent over corruption, public protest is almost unknown. The Castro regime may be broke, but it’s firmly in control.
The following screen captures of Fidel Castro are from his pre-taped appearance (a video montage?) on the Mesa Redonda (Round Table) television program with Randy Alonso transmitted via Cubavision Internacional at 6:30 P.M. today, which shows him deteriorated, frail-looking and with visible tremors.
Also present in the program were historian Rolando Rodriguez, economist Osvaldo Martínez and Dr. Carlos Gutiérrez, director of the National Center of Scientific Investigation, however, they did not utter a word.
Topic discussion was the Middle East and a future outbreak of war between the United States and Iran. There was no discussion about Cuban issues (e.g. political prisoners’ release or pressing issues facing the country).
Castro’s voice throughout the program has been hoarse (perhaps because of prior intubation), slow and slurred at times.
He paused on occasion to collect his thoughts, which for an octogenarian is understandable, however, he confused the countries of North and South Korean.
Global intelligence agencies, primarily the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), are reviewing the video in detail for Fidel Castro’s present level of cognitive capacity, speech pattern and motor skills.
(Images: First image is of Randy Alonso introducing Fidel Castro; Second image is of Fidel Castro listening to his introduction; Third image is Fidel Castro making a point about the United States involvement in the Middle East. Forth image is of Fidel Castro shuffling papers to reference a cable he is discussing. Screen captures are from the Mesa Redonda television program transmitted via Cubavision Internacional.)
The faceless capitalists of Wall Street have long considered Venezuela a “sell” – the oil producing country’s foreign currency bonds are considered almost twice as risky as Greece’s. But might even Cuba’s revolutionary gerontocracy now believe the same?
For those who like to look at the world through the lens of financial conspiracies, that’s one tentative reading of why Cuba pledged last week to release 52 political prisoners. Yes, the issue was attracting unwelcome international attention. But it is also true that throughout its history, Cuba has been a master at playing its geo-strategic cards. The US and the USSR used to play the role of sugar daddy to the country before. Lately it’s been President Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela. But Venezuela’s economy, like Cuba’s, is now in a mess.
Any move that suggests Cuba wants to improve ties with the US – and freeing political prisoners is one step that could ease the US travel ban and, ultimately, the embargo – therefore represents a hedging of Cuba’s geo-strategic bets. Looked at another way, it is also a tacit recognition by Havana that Caracas, despite its similar ideological outlook and oil wealth, might now be, in traders’ parlance, an “underperform”.
The list of reasons of why Cuba – or Wall Street – might think so is long and growing. Venezuela this year tightened capital controls as it no longer has sufficient reserves to sustain the capital flight of the last year. Oil sector output – according to independent estimates – has fallen considerably over the past decade due to a lack of investment. And the country also faces a large and rising contingent liability in the form of unpaid compensation owed to private business that have been nationalised by Mr Chávez.
There are currently 11 lawsuits and arbitration claims totalling $43.5bn lodged with the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement on Investment Disputes. The bulk of this relates to a $10bn claim by ExxonMobil and a $30bn claim by ConocoPhillips. Looked at another way, according to local consulting firm Ecoanalitica, Mr Chavez has announced nationalizations of some $23bn since 2006, and of that amount, the authorities have paid almost $9bn, leaving $14bn owing.
Lately, brokers only tend to recommend buying Venezuelan bonds on the basis of how long they need to hold them and not lose money. (About 4 years, assuming current 15 per cent yields and a recovery rate of 30 cents on the dollar.) With the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East, and a relatively comfortable foreign reserves position, Venezuela certainly can pay, should it wish to. The question for investors in a country where the government calls its private brokers a “tumor” is: how long will it? The Castro brothers may have given a clue.
(Image: Fidel Castro is seen on 18 June, 2008 in Havana during a meeting with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and his brother Raúl Castro. By AFP/GETTY Images.)
Granma, the Cuban Communist Party’s daily, reports that Fidel Castro will appear this evening at 6:30 P.M. on a special Mesa Redonda television program.
Cuba’s announcement that it will free 52 political prisoners over the next four months is a welcome development, but Spain’s Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos’ claim that this opens a “new phase in Cuba” is ludicrous.
[...]
First, Cuba has a long history of using political prisoners as a bargaining chip, releasing a handful of prisoners in exchange for economic or diplomatic concessions, and later rounding up the next batch.
[...]
Second, even if Cuba keeps its word and releases the 52 dissidents in an effort to get the European investments it desperately needs, that would only be less than a third of the island’s political prisoners.
[...]
Third, we still don’t know whether this will be a prisoners’ release, or a forced deportation. In the past, Cuba has tended to release political prisoners who agree to go into exile. A Roman Catholic Church statement announcing the prisoners’ release last week said they “will be able” to leave the country, but did not specify what will happen with those who want to stay.
Fourth, and most important, the Cuban regime is not even talking about modifying articles 72 and 73 of its criminal code, an Orwellian legislation that allows it to put people behind bars before they committed a crime on the mere suspicion that they may commit one in the future.
[...]
My opinion: I agree. Instead of following Moratinos’ recommendation, the European Union should be a little imaginative, and tell Cuba: “We applaud your move, and we are ready to lift our Common Position, but you must take a few minimal steps to show that you are ready to start abiding by United Nations-sanctioned fundamental rights.”
“Don’t panic, we are not talking about the big things, such as free elections, or a multiparty system, like the U.S. laws demand,” the Europeans could say. “We are just asking for small things, such as allowing all Cubans uncensored access to the Internet, freedom to meet with whomever they want, or allowing dissidents to write and publish on the island.”
Of course, the Cuban regime will not go along because it knows that it would not survive if Cuba ceases to be a police state.
But it would put Cuba’s dictatorship on the spot, and help put the latest headlines about the prisoners’ release in proper perspective.
A frail-looking Fidel Castro visited the National Center of Scientific Investigation in Havana on 7 July 2010. This is his first public visit since 2006. [Juventud Rebelde]
The European Union will revise its “Common Position” which conditions the position of the community over links with Cuba about the human rights situation on the island. [Clarín]
Cuban Catholic Church and the Spanish government set up mechanism to free Cuban political prisoners. [El País]
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is “hopeful” after prisoners release and welcomes agreement between the Cuban Catholic Church and Cuban government. [IPS]
German and European editorials opine over the liberation of Cuban political prisoners. [Deutsche Welle Español]
Despite the liberation of some Cuban dissidents, many stay in prison. [Human Rights Watch]
CUBA’S leadership understands only too well how starving to death can help a cause. In 2000 Fidel Castro, who had apparently been moved by the plight of Irish republican hunger-strikers, approved the construction in Havana of a memorial to Bobby Sands and his fellow prisoners. Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein’s leader, attended its unveiling.
Now, the same form of protest has been turned on Cuba’s rulers. In February Orlando Zapata, a 42-year-old plumber and bricklayer, died after 12 weeks without food. He was demanding better conditions in Cuba’s grim prisons. A second hunger-striker, Guillermo Fariñas, is critically ill. Although not in jail, he is calling for the release of 25 ailing prisoners. In an online letter he said dying would be an “honour”.
The tactic has worked. On July 7th, Cuba’s Catholic church announced that the government had told it that 52 prisoners arrested in 2003 would be freed from jail. Five were set to leave immediately, and the rest are expected to be liberated (but then exiled) in the next few months. If implemented, it will be Cuba’s first mass-release of political prisoners since 1998.
The hunger strikes were probably what prodded Raúl Castro, who became Cuba’s president in 2006, to act. They were attracting unwelcome attention. In May Jaime Ortega, the cardinal of Havana, negotiated the lifting of a ban on marches by the Ladies in White, a group of wives and mothers of political prisoners, and an end to their harassment by government-organised mobs. He later convinced Raúl Castro to free a paraplegic prisoner, Ariel Sigler.
International pressure also grew stronger. The church called in reinforcements from abroad: last month the Vatican’s senior diplomat, Dominique Mamberti, went to Cuba and met the president. That trip was followed on July 6th by a visit from Miguel Ángel Moratinos, Spain’s foreign minister. The timing of the prisoners’ release—as well as the decision to send the first five to Spain—seems to have been aimed at giving Mr Moratinos something to show for his effort.
Official Cuban media damns political prisoners as “mercenaries” in the pocket of the United States. This release will reduce their number by about a third, leaving 100 or so in jail—half the average of recent years. The outbreak of clemency suggests that Raúl Castro may have decided that exiling dissidents is easier than locking them up: as one Western diplomat in Havana says, the president “seems to view [the prisoners] as an unfortunate inheritance from his brother.” Their release will improve relations with the European Union, which will meet in September to discuss Cuba, and encourage those in America who want to loosen trade and travel restrictions on the country.
But Fidel Castro, who is still the power behind the throne in Cuba, may block any attempt to free the remaining prisoners, even if they are sent overseas. In 1955, as a young revolutionary, he was freed from jail by Fulgencio Batista, a dictator, following international pressure. He knows better than anyone what happened next.
For decades, the Castro government has been very effective in repressing dissent in Cuba by, among other things, preventing its critics from publishing or broadcasting their views on the island. Yet in recent years the blogosphere has created an outlet for a new kind of political criticism that is harder to control. Can it make a difference? [New York Review of Books Blog]
The number of political prisoners in Cuba has dropped to 167, the lowest total since the 1959 revolution that put Fidel Castro in power, said the independent Cuban Commission on Human Rights. The decline comes amid possible signs that the Cuban government is preparing to release more jailed dissidents. The 167 prisoners is a decline from 201 at the end of 2009 and is the lowest number in 51 years. [Reuters]
Vatican Foreign MinisterArchbishop Dominique Mamberti will begin his five-day visit to Cuba tomorrow.
Reuters characterizes the Catholic church, in its wire story of the visit, as “flexing its political muscle and calling for change on the communist-led island”:
The concessions by the Cuban government have raised hopes that more prisoners will be freed in a gesture to Mamberti, who is the third Vatican official to come to Cuba since Raul Castro succeeded older brother Fidel Castro as president in 2008.
Mamberti is scheduled to meet with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, as well as take part in a church conference where Cuban intellectuals, including several exiles from the United States, will discuss key issues on the island.
His official reason for coming to Cuba is to mark the 75th anniversary of the start of Vatican-Cuba diplomatic relations.
Archbishop Mamberti’s visit coincides with a four-day conference organised by the Catholic Church in Havana and its current agenda includes issues that go beyond Church questions, e.g. the economy, migration and the relations between Cubans at home and abroad.
Cuban-American academics Carmelo Mesa-Lago and Jorge Domínguez are allowed to attend, while Dagoberto Valdés and Oswaldo Payá are not.
ABC (one of Spain’s national newspapers) on the fall of Hugo Chávez’s popularity that is sparking reinforced presence of Cubans in the Venezuelan military to consolidate his totalitarian project.
The detention of Gregorio “Greg” Sánchez Martínez (a leftist candidate for the Quintana Roo state governorship in Mexico) for money laundering and trafficking in illegal immigrants has exposed the nexus between Cuban intelligence and Mexican narcotraffickers, reports SIPSE.
El Financiero cites José Antonio Pérez Stuart, a columnist and expert on intelligence matters, who believes that the objective of the political association between Cuban intelligence and narcotraffickers is the penetration of Castro agents in Mexican territory in order to infiltrate Mexican politics, control government positions and utilize them to their benefit.
Behind the international campaign against the 2010 Arizona Immigration Law—SB1070 are bands of narco-communists, according to Pérez Stuart, in charge of infiltrating the United States from Mexico with Cuban, Chinese and Russian illegal immigrants.
Havana’s intelligence services are under suspicion for utilizing trafficking channels of illegal Cuban immigrants to infiltrate intelligence agents into the United States because their spy networks have been discovered/dismantled in recent years.
Sánchez Martínez’s wife, Niurka Alba Sáliva Benítez, is none other than the daughter of Cuban Ministry of Interior Colonel José Ángel Sáliva Pino (who works for Castro’s intelligence services and has always been close to Fidel and Raúl.)
She was involved in infiltrating Cubans, Russians and Chinese illegals.
Boris “El Boris” del Valle Alonso, linked to the Mexican criminal organization Los Zetas, worked with Niurka and kept tabs on the income generated from undocumented Cubans, Russians and Chinese.
Del Valle was Sánchez Martínez’s advisor because of his experience as a Cuban soldier in the Angolan civil war. He is also the son of an ex-Minister of the Interior by the name Sergio del Valle, who is the brother-in-law of Sánchez Martínez because he is Niurka Sáliva’s half-brother. El Boris is also related to Fidel Castro’s wife, Dalia Soto del Valle.
A thorough reporting of this Cuban espionage and Mexican narco/illegal immigrants trafficking web of criminal intrigue can be found here and here.
(First image: Gregorio Sánchez Martínez with his wife Niurka Alba Sáliva Benítez in 2007. Novedades De Quintana Roo; Second image: Boris del Valle Alonso. Por Esto! de Quinana Roo.)
Army General Raúl Castro turns 79 today with little celebration fanfare, reports Reuters:
Castro has spoken about future leaders only in general terms, saying in speeches there are many young Cubans who will maintain the revolution in coming years.
But time is becoming a precious commodity for the country’s leaders.
Castro’s immediate successor, first vice president Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, will turn 80 in October and the average age of all six vice presidents on the Council of State is 71.6 years.
They are all younger than Fidel Castro, who is 83 and has not appeared in public since undergoing intestinal surgery in 2006, but remains the head of the party.
Speculation on who will lead once this generation is gone ranges from younger members of the Castro family to younger military men now in high positions.
“But there are no obvious candidates, nor any who are clearly being groomed,” said another western diplomat.
The title of the book is derived from the Chinese proverb: “He who rides a tiger can never get off or the tiger will devour him.”
In his book preview editorial in La Razón, Botin writes, “In the shadow of his brother Fidel, the political life of Raúl Castro has been dark and hard; he has been the executive arm of the maximum leader’s desires.”
Interesting tidbits from the editorial:
GAESA (Grupo de Administración Empresarial, S.A.), the Cuban Armed Forces’ holding company (managed by Raúl’s son-in-law Luis Alberto López Calleja), controls almost 70% of the country’s economy through transient businesses that generate almost 90% of exports, 60% of tourism revenues, around 25% of services revenues, 60% of currency revenues and more than 65% of all minor commerce in currency exchanges. The volume of annual profits surpasses $1B;
Raúl’s daughter Mariela Castro has taken the family’s monies out of the country with ease of travel as she is accompanied by her Italian husband, Paolo;
Raúl Castro visited Italy (after Fidel fell ill in 2006) to deposit millions of pesos, affirms exiled Cuban General José Quevedo;
Leninist machismo enjoys good health in Cuba as the perks of Raulistas within the military working in GAESA companies. They are a privileged class with higher incomes and a much higher standard of living not only to the civilian population but to their own comrades in arms serving a strictly military function in locations far away from the resorts.
Prior to his professorship, he founded and directed the CIA’s Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior (an interdisciplinary behavioral science unit which provided assessments of foreign leadership and decision making for U.S. senior officials) during his 21-year career at the Agency.
He posits (the original assessment was made in the mid-90s—published in the periodical Problems of Post-Communism and updated for the book) on the psyche of Cuba’s longest ruling dictator:
Castro is a unique individual who does not fit into any diagnostic category but a review of his characteristic pattern of functioning suggests that narcissistic elements form a core aspect of his personality.
On the surface narcissist appear totally self-sufficient. But…, under their arrogant, self-confident façade, they are consumed with self-doubt, and feelings of inadequacy, which drive them in a never-ending quest for the attention and approval of an admiring audience.
Dr. Post concludes with the following observation that remains relevant in today’s Cuban regime:
While he will play to the international community, making cosmetic moves to show a loosening of control, he will not relinquish his iron grip on Cuba, as evidenced in the arrests and sentencing of critics in 2003. And, as he suggested in 1994, “he will not go gentle into that good night.”
Raúl Castro, Cuba’s president, has given a nod to the Roman Catholic Church’s desire to play a larger role in solving the communist-run island’s problems, possibly opening the way for the release of political prisoners, leading prelates said, in what experts and diplomats termed his most significant political move since replacing his brother Fidel in early 2008.
[...]
By the weekend the government had informed the church that the prisoners would be moved from far-off locations to jails in their home provinces, and any ill inmates to hospital, according to dissidents and church sources.
[...]
“After much ‘We-will-never-bow-to-pressure’ the Raúl government finally seeks some form of internal dialogue. As with recent economic measures, the steps taken so far can hardly be more than a beginning, and results need to be seen,” said Bert Hoffmann, a Cuba specialist at the German Institute of Global Area Studies in Hamburg.
“But they signal a modest change of climate: It may not be a tropical perestroika in the making, but at least the government shows acceptance that the economic and social crisis demands other responses from the state,” he said.
Reuters wire story on the Cuban government’s decision to move political prisoners closer to their hometowns and transfer sick prisoners to hospitals following talks between Catholic Church leaders and Army General Raul Castro.
HAVANA “Prensa Libre,” the last remaining major critic of the Fidel Castro regime among Cuba’s newspapers, was seized by government-controlled unions yesterday. The pattern of seizure was almost identical to that which silenced two other strongly anti-Castro papers — the “Diario de la Marina,” Cuba’s oldest newspaper, and “Avance.” “Prensa Libre’s” fall leaves only two small independents still operating in Cuba’s once-thriving newspaper field.
KGB Lt. General Nikolay Leonov recounts in this RIA Novosti video interview (in Spanish) how he witnessed and was a participant in Anastas Mikoyan’s visit to Cuba in 1960. Mikoyan was the first Soviet official to visit the island after the revolution.
Leonov tells of the first accords between Fidel Castro and Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union Anastas Mikoyan.
The Financial Times has posted a report on the Cuban government’s medical diplomacy abroad:
Such “medical diplomacy” has been part of Cuba’s foreign policy almost since the revolution – and has grown in intensity over the past few years, fuelled above all by strong demand from Venezuela. In some of the most remote and neglected parts of the world, where western countries have “brain drained” away most of the medical expertise, Cuban personnel are winning friends while helping to fill a desperate need. In the past half century, some 130,000 have worked abroad, and today, 37,000 – half of them doctors, the rest nurses and other specialists – are spread across more than 70 countries. Now Elam is training many more from these nations too.
[...]
There is a more direct incentive for the Cuban doctors to work abroad, too. They earn up to 10 times their local salary, and have the prospect of better housing and jobs on their return. Most of their money is held in escrow until they come back, and they are expected to visit once a year. Their families usually have to stay in Cuba. Yet, in spite of the penalties, several thousand Cuban medics have defected over the years, complaining about repressive supervision, being treated with suspicion while on a posting, or being put under pressure to speak out as political advocates. For most, however, fleeing is not an option.
[...]
Meanwhile, medical services are one of Cuba’s most important sources of foreign currency. Most nations provide a modest return: the host government pays for travel, accommodation and a stipend of up to $200 a month per doctor. Richer countries – from Angola after it found oil in the 1960s, to South Africa under the ANC – contribute more. Cuba has even begun offering medical support for commercial fees in countries such as Qatar. And no partner is more important than Venezuela. The secondments enabled President Hugo Chávez to point to a rapid rise in the numbers of medical specialists when seeking to justify his social revolution. The financial terms are confidential, but the quid pro quo includes heavily subsidised oil supplies to Cuba.
Andres Oppenheimer’s piece on Cubans running Venezuela:
Cuba is increasingly worried about Chávez’s political future in light of Venezuela’s growing food shortages, electricity blackouts, massive corruption and Latin America’s highest inflation rates. Fearing that it could lose the 100,000 barrels of subsidized oil a day that Venezuela sends to the island, Cuba is on a rescue mission to help manage Venezuela’s inefficient and corruption-ridden government offices.
[...]
Venezuela’s growing alliance with Cuba — “Venecuba,” or “Cubazuela,” depending on which country you believe has the upper hand — is a marriage of convenience that may backfire for Chávez.
[...]
Chávez, who has made a religion of “national sovereignty,” may be playing with fire by allowing Cuba to run his country.
But to many others, including this newspaper, he has come to embody a new, post-cold-war model of authoritarian rule which combines a democratic mandate, populist socialism and anti-Americanism, as well as resource nationalism and carefully calibrated repression.
[...]
In Mr Chávez’s case, that claim has been backed up above all by oil. On the one hand, he has deployed oil revenues abroad to gain allies, and to sustain the Castro brothers in power in Cuba.
[...]
He has been elected three times, and won four referendums. He has hollowed out Venezuela’s democracy, subjugating the courts, bullying the media and intimidating opponents. But he has been unable, or unwilling, to disregard or repress opposition to the same degree as Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or even Russia’s Vladimir Putin, let alone the Castro brothers in Cuba.
(Photo: Army General Raúl Castro greets Venezuela President Hugo Chávez upon his arrival in Havana, 20 FEB 2009. AP.)
Italian journalist and international criminal issues expert Luca Rastello has written the book, Yo Soy el Mercado: Teoría, Métodos y Estilo de Vida del Perfecto Narcotraficante (I Am the Market: Theory, Method and Lifestyle of the Perfect Narcotrafficker), that details the ingenious strategies Colombian and Mexican narcotraffickers have implemented for years to grow their business in transporting tons of cocaine. Spanish daily La Razón has published an excerpt (pdf) of the book; describing his work as “a thrilling story about how to transport cocaine from Latin America to the United States and Europe. A business in which the Castros’ Cuba very discretely participates in.”
Roberto Baudrand with his wife and daughter. Image: La Segunda
15APR2010 @ 1128: Roberto Baudrand was sitting beside a bed with his head on the nightstand and at his side were several open remedies boxes when his body was found by a company official, Chilean consul and Cuban police, La Tercerareported this morning. His family rejected the suicide theory, claiming he had a heart attack and was taking medication for his heart problems.
It looks like Baudrand isn’t the only death. Former El Nuevo Herald reporter Wilfredo Cancio Isla revealed in A Mano Limpia (a Miami-based public affairs television program) that according to reliable sources, Ramiro del Río—a Cuban who also worked for one of Max Marambio’s companies under investigation was interrogated by Cuban authorities—died earlier this month in a Cuban prison.
15APR2010 @ 1438: An attorney for Alimentos Río Zaza, the Max Marambio-Cuban government owned food company, ruled out Roberto Baudrand was the object of “persecution” by the Cuban government in reference to the interrogations he was subjected to by the Cuban Prosecutor’s Office.
15APR2010 @ 1452: El Mostrador is reporting Max Marambio’s fall from the good graces of the Cuban government was due to the overpricing of products sold on the island and the government is holding him culpable. A secret report from the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) that the daily had access to details Alimentos Río Zaza committed fraud. There is a link in this unfolding incident to the Cuban aviation corruption scandal. Ofelia Liptak, commercial director of Río Zaza, was one of the Cubans detained and is married to Division General Rogelio Acevedo González, who was sacked as president of the Civil Aeronautical Institute in early March, for being involved in an embezzlement operation.
15APR2010 @ 1631: Reutersreports the preliminary results from an autopsy indicate Roberto Baudrand died of a heart attack, according to sources close to the case.
15APR2010 @ 2313: The Chilean government rejects the cause of death as a heart attack. Chile’s Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno said: “We have verbal information of the causes does not match what has been published, but it’s not definitive and it is not formal either and, therefore, we will not give any information about that until the autopsy is complete and we have a formal response from the Cuban authorities.”
Roberto Baudrand with his wife (left). Image: La Tercera
The Chilean government has asked Cuba for an exhaustive investigation into the death of a Chilean businessman under strange circumstances, informed Chile’s Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno, EFE is reporting. Cuban authorities had prevented businessman Roberto Baudrand from leaving the island, who was found dead in his apartment yesterday in Havana (a possible suicide per La Tercera). Baudrand managed a food company jointly-owned by Max Marambio (also a Chilean businessman, who was a close friend of Fidel Castro and having become a Lt. Colonel in Cuba’s elite Special Troops under Fidel’s command) and the Cuban government, which was the object of investigation whereby several Cuban employees were detained. It seems that another corruption scandal in Cuba is unraveling. On April 8, high ranking officials from the Chilean chancery met with the council minister in the Cuban embassy in Chile “to be consulted over the situation and solicit pertinent charges,” signaled the ministry.
Former Mexican Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Castañeda questions whether this is the beginning of the end of the Castro regime in his El País op-ed, where he formulates three factors precipitating an end: (i) a fierce economic crisis; (ii) the death of Orlando Zapata, Damas de Blanco movement and Guillermo Fariñas hunger strike; and (iii) Fidel Castro is no longer at the helm of day-to-day affairs.
That said, the Castro brothers have failed to implement a strategy to ensure the survival of their regime beyond their lives. Raul had a plan: convoluted Vietnamese-style economic reforms that combines capitalism and communist political control, and the appointment of younger leadership at a party congress to be held this year. But Fidel’s recovery of a botched abdominal surgery that almost killed him in late 2006, changed these plans. The indefinite postponement of the party conference and the freezing of reforms demonstrates Fidel’s veto power continues.
By blocking reform, Fidel has inextricably tied his legacy to the survival of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Without free Venezuelan oil, unrest in a Cuba without reform would reach uncontrollable levels. But Chavez also depends on Fidel: Cuban doctors who staged the primary care program Barrio Adentro have returned to the island, but there are many security officials and Cuban espionage protecting Chavez from political threats.
Today’s The Economist addresses the Cuban government’s failed agricultural reform:
TWO years ago last month Raúl Castro formally took over as Cuba’s president from his convalescent elder brother, Fidel. The switch raised hopes of reforms, especially of the communist country’s long dysfunctional agriculture. But change has been glacial. Official figures show that in the first two months of this year deliveries to the capital’s food markets were a third less than forecast. Nobody starves, but hard-currency supermarkets go for weeks without basics such as milk and bread.
What has gone wrong? Cuba’s state-owned farms are massively inefficient, and rarely provide more than 20% of the country’s food needs. Three hurricanes in 2008 made matters worse. Raúl Castro has acknowledged the problem, and introduced some changes. Idle state land has been leased to private farmers. The government has raised the guaranteed prices it pays for produce. Farmers can now legally buy their own basic equipment such as shovels and boots, without having to wait for government handouts.
[...]
But Raúl continues to move very cautiously. So Cuba will buy much of its food from foreign suppliers. Foreign exchange, never abundant—partly because of the American economic embargo—is again in short supply. The world recession cut Cuba’s earnings from nickel and tourism last year. Imports fell last year by almost 40%.
A foreign businessman in Havana says there have been signs of a further squeeze this year. Transfers abroad by foreign businesses have been blocked, or delayed, for months. The Spanish owner of Vima, a food importer which supplied many hotels and state-run restaurants, made the mistake of publicly criticising delays in getting paid. His contracts were promptly revoked. Foreign companies have been warned that the government may stop selling them staples, such as meat and rice, for their staff canteens. “They told us bluntly that their priority is feeding the general population, that the situation is very serious, and that we should make our own arrangements,” says a manager of one joint-venture.
To date, the Obama administration has dismissed Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez as a pesky, leftist loudmouth, whose verbal eruptions against the United States pose no threat. But a new era of “Cubanization” in Venezuela should warn of a crackdown against Mr. Chávez’s domestic opponents and a stepped-up drive for socialist revolution across Latin America.
Chávez has been importing “advisers” from Cuba. There are now some 30,000 of them, many of them intelligence, security, and political affairs officers, as well as medical personnel.
[...]
Cuba depends on Venezuela’s cheap oil (the US is also a major buyer) and would be disadvantaged if the Chávez regime fell. Havana may be alarmed by the fissures in Chávez’s support and probably welcomed the opportunity to position [Ramiro] Valdes in Caracas to bolster Chávez.
Cuba’s leaders may also have some concerns about their own country’s political stability. Cuban dissidents say word has been passed up the military command that the ailing Fidel Castro may not outlast this year. His succession is by no means certain. Fidel’s brother Raúl, currently managing the country while his brother is incapacitated, is credited with being a better administrator than Fidel, but lacks Fidel’s charisma.
The Obama administration, beset by major problems at home and challenges abroad, may have thought it could delay confronting lesser problems in Latin America. This may prove to have been an unwise calculation.
U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) has published its Joint Operating Environment (JOE) study for 2010, which “provides a perspective on future trends, shocks, contexts, and implications for future joint force commanders and other leaders and professionals in the national security field.”
The JOE report provides two sentences on Cuba and stating the obvious for the island nation’s future:
Hugo Chávez, as he drafts in ever more Cuban aides to shore up his regime, is fulfilling a longstanding dream of Fidel Castro’s.
IN A small fishing village on the Caribbean coast of Venezuela stands a plinth. Unveiled by government officials in 2006, it pays homage to the Cuban guerrillas sent by Fidel Castro in the 1960s to help subvert Venezuela’s then recently restored democracy. Almost entirely bereft of popular support, the guerrilla campaign flopped. But four decades later, and after a decade of rule by Hugo Chávez, Cuba’s communist regime seems finally to have achieved its goal of invading oil-rich Venezuela—this time without firing a shot.
Kenneth Chandler’s (a former editor and publisher of the New York Post) op-ed on the catastrophe in the making for Cuba.
Havana is a city of sorrow — a once elegant and prosperous capital brought to despair by 51 years of deliberate neglect and isolation. A country that has been plundered by a succession of foreign powers, homegrown dictators and mobsters imported from America now languishes in a bizarre time warp where little has changed in more than half a century.
Its people go about their daily routines bereft of consumer goods, nutritious foods, meaningful jobs or adequate housing — most of them born after the revolution that swept Castro to power in 1959 and now, thanks to rigid censorship, largely conditioned to accept their impoverished lot.
To listen to Castro’s cronies — those among the political and business elite whose loyalty is secured with perks unavailable to ordinary Cubans — the economic situation is solely the fault of the US embargo imposed after the revolution.
More thoughtful Cubans discreetly offer a different explanation: They blame Fidel’s feckless experiments with communism — his initial seizure of $25 billion worth of private property from Cubans and the nationalization of all businesses, forcing the middle class to flee to Miami; his bizarre decision to send 300,000 Cubans out of a population of only 11 million to fight wars in Africa in the 1980s; his Cold War alliance with the Russians that left his country bankrupt and saddled with antiquated technology when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Cuba needs money, spare parts for Soviet military equipment and a sense of alliance with a heavyweight player. During President Dmitry Medvedev’s November 2008 visit, Fidel declared that Russia and Cuba were natural partners because both were “constantly threatened by the same adversary of peace.”
A senior U.S. official has stated that Russia “has strategic ties to Cuba again, or at least that’s where they’re going.” Some say the Russians want to refit the listening post in Lourdes, outside Havana, which they abandoned in 2002, for use in cyber-espionage and cyber-warfare. Or the Russians might want a refueling base for their naval vessels and their bombers, which have resumed aggressive patrolling. (Right after Medvedev’s visit, Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Security Council, as well as Alexander Maslov, head of Russia’s air defense, also visited Havana.) But these are secondary, tactical considerations.
Russia’s No. 1 foreign policy objective is to keep Ukraine out of NATO. At the moment, NATO membership hardly seems imminent. Disappointed in liberalism, Ukraine is becoming more pro-Russian, and Europe is relieved not to deal with that troublesome country for the time being.
Cuban bloggers hold meeting called Blogger Journey in May 2009. (Image: Generation Y)
A new revolution is making headway in Cuba. Discreet but unstoppable. Slick and irreverent. It’s called the alternative blogosphere and it is making the Castro brothers nervous, whom last Friday reached 51 years in power. The protagonists are hundreds of young men and women (and some who are a lot older) that have proposed to break a siege of censorship and to ventilate a closed society on the island for half a century. Their weapons are computers and memory sticks. And despite all the obstacles, are managing to weave a network of rebellion that begins to move from cyberspace to the streets. (via El País)
Will 2010 usher in a new "El Maleconazo" (the most significant demonstration of social unrest in the island), which occurred on the streets of Havana's famous seawall in August, 1994.
Infolatam analyzes the precarious economic and political situation be facing the Castro regime the year ahead:
Cuba will live a very difficult year in 2010 due to an economic crisis drowning the Castroite regime. Raúl Castro will introduce cuts to social programs reducing costs that could ultimately cause protests to become a reality. Two great unknowns of the year will center on Fidel Castro’s state of health and how advanced will talks be with the Obama administration.
Latinobarómetro published this week its current survey on the state of democracy in Latin America, however, the Cuban population did not take part in it, but the perception of the regime is object of analysis.
Latin Americans give Cuba a 4.1 on a scale of 10, the lowest score given to the countries measured.
Evaluation of leaders
Fidel Castro is the worst rated leader scoring 4 on a scale of 10 (0 being the worst; 10 very good), only ahead of Hugo Chávez.
Former Cuban President Fidel Castro, who stepped down in February last year, is still an influential figure and remains an ”ethical and political reference point” in the country, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said today in Tokyo.
PINAR DEL RIO, CUBA The death sentence was asked for Frank Austin Young, former Royal Air Force pilot, by the prosecutor early today [Dec. 1] as a military tribunal ended an 18-hour trial of two Americans and 37 Cubans accused of conspiring to overthrow the Fidel Castro regime. The prosecution also demanded the firing squad for Fernando Pruno Bertot, 24-year-old Cuban and former student at Columbia University in New York. A second trial was scheduled to start last night in Havana’s old Cabana Fortress but it was postponed without explanation.
The report “shows how the Raúl Castro government has relied in particular on the Criminal Code offense of “dangerousness,” which allows authorities to imprison individuals before they have committed any crime, on the suspicion that they are likely to commit an offense in the future. This “dangerousness” provision is overtly political, defining as “dangerous” any behavior that contradicts Cuba’s socialist norms.”
Here are segments of the executive summary:
In July 2006, Fidel Castro handed control of the Cuban government over to his brother Raúl Castro. As the new head of state, Raúl Castro inherited a system of abusive laws and institutions, as well as responsibility for hundreds of political prisoners arrested during his brother’s rule. Rather than dismantle this repressive machinery, Raúl Castro has kept it firmly in place and fully active. Scores of political prisoners arrested under Fidel Castro continue to languish in Cuba’s prisons. And Raúl Castro’s government has used draconian laws and sham trials to incarcerate scores more who have dared to exercise their fundamental freedoms.
Raúl Castro’s government has relied in particular on a provision of the Cuban Criminal Code that allows the state to imprison individuals before they have committed a crime, on the suspicion that they might commit an offense in the future. This “dangerousness” provision is overtly political, defining as “dangerous” any behavior that contradicts socialist norms. The most Orwellian of Cuba’s laws, it captures the essence of the Cuban government’s repressive mindset, which views anyone who acts out of step with the government as a potential threat and thus worthy of punishment.
…
While this report documents a systematic pattern of repression, it does not intend to suggest that there are no outlets for dissent whatsoever in Cuba. The last three years have, for example, witnessed the emergence of an independent Cuban blogosphere, critical lyrics by musicians, and most recently a series of government-organized public meetings to reflect on Cuban socialism.
…
The Cuban government has for years refused to recognize the legitimacy of independent human rights monitoring and has adamantly refused to allow international monitors, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and international nongovernmental organizations like Human Rights Watch, to visit the island and investigate human rights conditions. In researching this report, Human Rights Watch made repeated written requests to the Raúl Castro government for meetings with authorities and formal authorization to conduct a fact-finding mission to the island. As in the past, the Cuban government did not respond to any of our requests.
As a result, Human Rights Watch decided to conduct a fact-finding mission to Cuba without official permission in June and July 2009. During this trip, Human Rights Watch researchers conducted extensive interviews in seven of the island’s fourteen provinces. We also conducted numerous interviews via telephone from New York City. In total, we carried out more than 60 in-depth interviews with human rights defenders, journalists, former political prisoners, family members of current political prisoners, members of the clergy, trade unionists, and other Cuban citizens.
Issues covered in the article, which is written by Dr. Terry Maris, Ph.D., include: the Special Period, how the Cuban military quietly embraced the teachings of capitalism, perfeccionamiento empresarial, and military industries, among others.
Maris concludes, “a thorough examination of Cuban history reveals an evolution of the revolution that personifies the principles of both strategic and military management”.
Small though the change is, it is of huge symbolic import. It is the first step in a wider, albeit stealthy, abandonment of Fidel Castro’s half-century effort to forge a “new man” in Cuba by limiting individual reward in favour of all-embracing social provision, with the state imposing its choice of consumption as well as of production. Granma said that after the plan was “perfected” some 3.5m Cubans could expect their 24,700 workplace canteens to close too, and would get a similar wage increase.
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Cuba is close to bankruptcy. Foreign businesses have been waiting for months for permission to transfer abroad hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from joint ventures that are sitting in local banks. The government has slashed imports by more than 30% this year, and budgets for state companies and ministries have also been cut. Cuba does not produce enough and its population is ageing. Theft and absenteeism are rife in workplaces across the island.
Raúl has placed trusted military men in charge of economic policy. Their aim is to save foreign exchange and raise output. They reckon that Cubans do not value the true cost of free services. Workplace canteens used some $350m in imported food last year, according to Granma.
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What nobody is saying publicly is that Raúl is tossing into the dustbin of Cuban history the idea espoused by Ernesto “Che” Guevara, at the start of the revolution that Cuba’s communist economy should be based on “moral incentives”, rather than material ones, and that this process would create a “new man”. Through various zigzags Fidel never wholly relinquished that idea. When opponents criticise Cubans’ derisory wages (averaging $20 per month), officials always point to the additional “social wage” of free housing, health, education, transport and food rations.
Some of this will now go. Raúl, a practical man, has no time for Utopianism. He gives every sign of knowing that if Cuban communism is to survive its founders it will have to supply people with a few more material goods. But he may find it hard to raise wages by much without more radical reform.
Nearly two decades after the end of the Cold War, Cuba remains a policy dilemma for the United States. The transition from Fidel Castro to his brother Raúl, which began when Raúl assumed the responsibilities of the presidency of the Council of State on July 31, 2006, as a result of Fidel’s illness, is still ongoing after three years. Fidel remains alive—perhaps even to a point revived—but with very limited exercise of authority. Raúl has taken charge of government, but he must still contend with Fidel’s legendary presence.
Expectations of change under Raúl Castro have been largely unmet; continuity remains the key theme of his regime. Meanwhile, the election of Barack Obama in the United States has resulted in a reexamination of U.S. policy toward Cuba, including some meaningful, however limited, first steps to reach out to the regime in Havana. The U.S.-Cuba bilateral relationship is likely to remain a work in progress well into the future. This report, which outlines conclusions reached from the seven panel discussions with experts in the field, is intended as a point of reference for decisionmakers in and out of government who deal with Cuba.
Raul Castro says Cuba will cut spending on education and health care, weakening the building blocks of its communist system to try to revive a floundering economy.
But Castro vows that anyone waiting for fundamental political change when he and his brother Fidel are gone is “doomed to failure.”
He told parliament Saturday, “I wasn’t elected president to return capitalism to Cuba or surrender the revolution.”
He said he was “elected to defend, build and perfect socialism, not destroy it.”
UPDATE: Full text of Raul’s speech before the National Assembly whereby the Army General announced the celebration of the VI Party Congress, which will take place next year.
Moreover, he also declared that a National Conference will take place shortly in which a new Politburo, Central Committee and Secretariat will be named before the party congress takes place.
David Ronfeldt, a former senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation who is now retired, has written several reports and monographs on Cuba’s political system and politics dating back to the mid-1970s.
The TIMN model refers to Dr. Ronfeldt’s “review of history and theory, four forms of organization — and evidently only four — lie behind the governance and evolution of all societies across the ages: tribal, institutional, market, and network.” (For further analysis see his working paper from RAND.)
Dr. Ronfeldt states: “I think Cuba is an interesting case for illuminating some theoretical principles that may be important for building the TIMN framework and understanding its implications for how to achieve social evolution.”
He further illustrates:
“One aim of the TIMN framework is to provide clarity as to why systems like Cuba’s are so limited — in fact, self-limiting. The framework also shows how to think about Cuba’s future from an evolutionary standpoint.
Briefly stated: In the name of revolution, Fidel Castro committed a strategic error of devolutionary proportions. He rejected developing Cuba in T+I+M directions, and fell back to construct a hyper T+I system. If this could have served to prepare Cuba for an eventual new transition to a +M system, the outlook for post-Castro Cuba might be promising. But his regime’s practices have not assured that Cuba will get a +M transition right, even though it is the inevitable next phase. Meanwhile, +N forces are even more suborned and restricted, especially among civil-society NGOs.
Fidel represents a supreme contemporary expression of the fusion of T+I ideals and principles. Accordingly, he has believed that if people would just behave like one big family under his chieftaincy, then everything would work fine. He did not see that the organizational forms on which his ideals rested — the tribal and institutional forms — have performance capabilities that are self-limiting, especially with regard to economic growth. Indeed, Cuba’s low level of development today reflects the inherent incapacity of T+I designs to promote and manage increasing levels of economic complexity. As with the feudal and absolutist systems of long ago, as well as recent Soviet systems based on central planning and social exhortation, this design can produce a strong, aggressive state and military, but not an advanced, multi-purpose economy and society.“
Dr. Ronfeldt also addresses current U.S. policy regarding greater channels of information and communication flows.
He argues for sustaining the embargo as evidenced in the following:
“Idealistic notions are sprouting anew — here and here, for example — that ending the embargo would ameliorate Cuba’s hard-line T+I behaviors and induce +M effects: Thus, it is said, lifting the embargo would deprive the regime of an anti-American rationale — a scapegoat — for maintaining its tyranny and explaining away Cuba’s economic woes. It would generate maneuvering room for reformers who want political and social as well as economic liberalization. It would encourage free-market reforms, and a more open, pluralistic civil society.
Yet, there is no evidence — only speculation — that ending the embargo unilaterally would have such positive effects under current circumstances. More likely, it would reinforce Fidel’s sense that he is winning and provide him with extra resources and rationales for staying his course. And there is evidence for this contrary prospect.
The infusion of foreign investments and tourists from Canada, Europe, and elsewhere since the mid-1990s, by providing new income for the regime, actually enabled Fidel to slow or reverse the modest liberalizations he had grudgingly permitted in order to ease the economic shortages following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Little new liberalization has occurred since then. Moreover, European governments that have increased their trade and investment with Cuba have been rebuffed when they have pressed for even modest shifts in the regime’s human-rights behavior.”
Dr. Ronfeldt succinctly sums up his analysis on future perspectives with this viewpoint:
“In sum, Fidel Castro remains committed to a theory of social evolution that is fundamentally erroneous. He is not entirely wrong to rail against the evils of capitalism — it can have detrimental effects, and what’s happening in the United States today provides new evidence. But by failing to see that the market system is essential for continued social evolution, and by not figuring out how to make it apply in a balanced, positive way in Cuba — even so that it deserves a name other than capitalism — he keeps Cuba’s potential arrested in an evolutionary cul-de-sac of his own fabrication.
Eventually a breakout will occur. Odds are, a multitude of U.S. actors will then rush ahead with their usual patterns about promoting democracy and freedom, including free enterprise. But if the objective is to see Cuba turn into a balanced T+I+M system, new kinds of advice and assistance may be needed. The United States has policies and strategies for promoting capitalism — basically saying, open your markets, and we will come. But do we really have adequate policies and strategies for building a properly free, fair market system? I gather not, for that’s never been as major a goal as promoting capitalism. It’s time to rethink. Otherwise, assuming that the post-Fidel regime endures, the model it prefers next may be a mild kind of fascism rather than a potential liberal democracy.”
The once powerful Coordination and Support Staff's offices were located in the Palace of the Revolution (Palacio de la Revolución). Image: Panoramio
“Sources of utmost credibility” have informedPenúltimos Días blog that at the beginning of the week, Fidel Castro’s Grupo de Coordinación y Apoyo al Comandante en Jefe (Coordination and Support Staff — GCA) was dissolved.
According to the blog, several members of the Staff have been reassigned to new posts within the government.
GCA was a parallel structure of government that has been, from its inception, Fidel Castro’s executive staff implementing and executing his policy initiatives for the country.
Most notable Staff members have been recently sacked Carlos Lage (Vice-President) and Felipe Pérez Roque (Foreign Minister), whom respectively served as chief.
For further research on the GCA’s historical and political development, see my paper presented at the 2001 Annual Meeting of Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE).
The stark reality of Monday’s purge was not solely to streamline government structure for efficiency, but in fact, it was also Army General Raul Castro’s mission to rid himself the remnants of Fidel Castro’s loyalists.
The Commander-in Chief (CINC) of the militarized island nation now exercises complete control of the regime’s levers of power — lock, stock and barrel.
He has supplanted key government posts with past and present members of the single most loyal institution to him – the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR).
These military entrepreneurs (retired and active flag officers) are tied to the politico-economic survivability of the regime — more so now than ever, as their ranks have swelled in a host of strategic positions throughout government.
(For further analysis on the military’s involvement in the Cuban economy, click here to read my research on the subject.)
In large part, thanks to Raul, they will make pivotal decisions forging ahead a path for the island nation.
Throughout Cuban history, the military has played a decisive and instrumental role in politics, immersing itself as an arbiter of power in Havana. Tracing its lineage from the colonial period where a Spanish military governor ruled with an iron fist, to army politics during the 1930s and beyond, the armed forces has heavily shaped destiny for the Cuban populace.
However, what cohesion will the military have once the former maximum leader makes his terrestrial departure?
Will we see the status quo prevail — a military elite that manages state enterprises generating wealth for a chosen few?
Or will mid-level officers simmer with discontent in seeing their superiors bask in monetary perks instead of sharing the grand pi
Rodriguez (l); Lage (c); Perez-Roque (r). Image: AP
Via AP:
Cuba abruptly replaced some of its most powerful and visible officials on Monday, including Vice President Carlos Lage and Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque.
The surprise shakeup, involving about 10 top officials, was announced at the end of the midday newscast by Cuba’s supreme governing body, the Council of State.
Among others replaced is Economy Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez.
Lage, 57, was one of five vice presidents below Raul Castro and had served as a de-facto prime minister. He was credited with helping save Cuba’s economy by designing modest economic reforms after the Soviet Union collapsed.
Perez Roque, 43, was previously personal secretary to Fidel Castro and a former leader of the Communist Party youth organization. He had been foreign minister for almost a decade.
Developing…
1640Z – Official Note from the Council of State announcing replacements and structural changes.
USS TARAWA at SEA (Aug. 14, 2008) A 32-ship armada led by the amphibious assault ship USS Tarawa (LHA 1), manuever off the Panamanian Coast as part of the multi-national training exercise Fuerzas Aliadas PANAMAX 2008. Image: U.S. Navy
The Joint Forces Quarterly 2nd Quarter 2009 issue is now available and focuses on a strategic global outlook thematic. The journal is published by the National Defense University Press for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and is the Chairman’s flagship joint military and security studies journal.
One of the articles in this issue titled, “Time to Improve U.S. Defense Structure for the Western Hemisphere,” is written by Dr. Craig A. Deare, Professor of National Security Affairs at the National Defense University, which addresses “U.S. defense policy toward the region as it seeks to explain the primary structural shortcomings associated with both the formulation and execution of policy.”
The article gives a snapshot of concerns for the Department of Defense (DoD) such as transnational threats including terrorism, insurgency and drug trafficking in the hemisphere.
A series of priority countries, e.q. Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil are mentioned in the article including Cuba.
Dr. Deare summarizes Cuba as:
“The question of what happens when the Castro brothers disappear from the scene remains open. This land, the size of Pennsylvania and with 11 million people, is at what the National Security Strategy would describe as a
Admiral Dennis Blair USN (Ret.), new Director of National Intelligence, testified today before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence outlining the annual assessment of national security threats to the United States.
The following section of his written testimony includes Cuba:
The Rand Corporation has published a monograph titled: Domestic Trends in the United States, China, and Iran: Implications for U.S. Navy Strategic Planning, which “investigates current and projected domestic developments in the United States, China, and Iran in the areas of demographics, economics, energy consumption, the environment, and education in order to help the Navy understand how critical near-, mid, and far-term trends in these countries might influence U.S. security decisions in general.”
A section of the monograph looks at future trends and possibilities in the Caribbean and focuses on Cuba with a possible event of semi-chaos/civil war and US intervention:
The biggest near-term variable in the Caribbean is the future of Cuba after Fidel Castro passes from the scene. The Cuban economy has been very weak for decades, and Castro
Avoiding a social explosion is foremost on the minds of the Cuban nomenklatura. "El Maleconazo" which occurred on the streets of Havana's famous seawall in August, 1994 was the most significant demonstration of social unrest in the island.
A chorus of those sympathetic to the Cuban regime and/or part of the nomenklatura are voicing their opinion about the need to reform Cuba’s system or else social instability caused by a lack of change to the status quo will lead to political destabilization through violence.
A member of said chorus is Ignacio Ramonet (penned an autobiography of Fidel Castro and was editor-in-chief of Le Monde Diplomatique) who wrote a revealing article last week giving a purview of the current situation in Cuba.
Ramonet states: “Raul Castro and his team have dedicated themselves to three pressing problems: food, public transportation, and housing. Three domains where shortages, poverty, and dysfunctions favor permanent unrest of the population.”
Still Life with Skull. Painting by Philippe de Champaigne (1602-1674)
Rumors swirl, yet again, Fidel Castro is gravely ill. See reports here, here and here.
This generation of rumors has happened in the past, however, there is certain credence to the rumor.
The online cultural magazine Cuba Encuentro was told by well informed sources, who asked to remain anonymous: “Castro’s life cycle seems totally exhausted and his state is irreversibile.”
These sources affirm, “It has been more than a month that he does not get up from bed,” adding “Fidel has had more than one grave encounter with his brother Ra
The Economist takes a look at the last 50 years of the Cuban revolution:
Half a century on, the euphoria is long gone. Everyday life in Cuba is a dreary affair of queues and shortages, even if nobody starves and violent crime is rare. It is the only country in the Americas whose government denies its citizens freedom of expression and assembly. Cuba
Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro said on Thursday his country could talk to U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, in Havana’s latest overture to the incoming Democratic administration in Washington.
His remarks followed comments from his brother, President Raul Castro, who told a U.S. magazine he could meet Obama in a “neutral place” to try to end the Communist-run island’s four-decade conflict with the United States.
“With Obama, talks could happen anywhere he wants,” Fidel Castro, America’s longtime Cold War enemy, wrote in the latest of a series of columns he has published in state-run media since falling ill in 2006.
U.S. Joint Forces Command (USFCOM) released its Joint Operating Environment 2008 today outlining a strategic framework that forecasts possible threats and opportunities that will challenge the future US joint force.
USJFCOM is one of US Department of Defense’s nine combatant commands and has several key roles in transforming the U.S. military
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev concluded his visit to Havana. He met with Fidel Castro and said that a new bilateral accord will be waiting for President Raul Castro when he visits Russia. Medvedev and Raul Castro signed mining and oil exploration deals and discussed “military technical cooperation.”
Raul Castro said that he is willing to meet with President-Elect Obama on “neutral ground”
This year was indeed historic for Latin America. Fidel Castro finally stepped down from power and handed the reins to his brother Raul. According to a panelist at a recent event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Raul, unlike his brother, is no charismatic political leader; he is a military man, a manager of bureaucracy. Does that matter? Perhaps.
The panelists also made clear Fidel will most certainly not return to power due to deteriorating health, though he still does manage to
Hurricane Gustav and Hurricane Ike inflicted misery on millions of Cubans. But when the Castro dictatorship looks at the devastation, it sees opportunity.
The Cuban government under new leader Raul Castro has reportedly accepted the resumption of formal political dialogue with the EU after it lifted diplomatic sanctions against the island two months ago.
The EU representative in Havana, Javier Nino this week signaled interest in taking up formal talks with Europe in what could be a first step towards normalization of strained relations between the 27-member bloc and Cuba.
In a letter handed over earlier this month at the embassy of France, current holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, Nino said the communist regime was interested in restarting dialogue with the EU
“The Cuban government agrees to begin dialogue. (…) The EU proposal is an unconditional dialogue, mutual benefit, mutual respect on a number of issues such as rights and environmental issues,” Nino told news agency AFP on Tuesday, Sept 16.
“At this moment the two sides are negotiating over when (plans for) the dialogue can be firmed up, but ideally it will be relatively soon,” he said, adding that no date or venue had been set.
EU lifted sanctions against Cuba
Dialogue between Cuba and Europe broke off when the EU imposed diplomatic sanctions against the Caribbean island in 2003, angering Havana, after the Cuban government arrested 75 dissidents.
The sanctions were suspended in 2005, but not formally lifted until July 19.
The EU has said the sanctions will be reviewed annually with an eye on the human rights situation in Cuba. The elimination of sanctions was accompanied by an invitation for the communist-run government to join in a “global political dialogue.”
News of a thaw in relations between EU and Cuba came after the island was battered by Hurricane Gustav and just before Hurricane Ike, which caused an estimated $5 billion in damages.
The day after Hurricane Gustav roared through western Cuba, families were salvaging belongings from their flattened homes when state-television cameras turned up.
Storm victims posing among the rubble soon began chanting “Fidel! Fidel!” Nearly a half-minute went by before anyone realized they were forgetting the man who replaced Fidel Castro as Cuba’s president six months ago.
“And Raul! And Raul!” someone yelled. Then came a revised chant: “Fidel and Raul!”
It was an easy mistake, considering the 77-year-old Raul Castro has not addressed the nation or appeared in public during the past three weeks _ even though a tropical storm and two monster hurricanes have battered the island over the same period.
Tropical Storm Fay crashed ashore near the Bay of Pigs on Aug. 17, two weeks before Gustav slammed into the west, damaging at least 100,000 homes and crippling industry, food production and infrastructure. Then Hurricane Ike hit eastern Cuba on Sunday, killing five people, damaging at least 200,000 homes and forcing nearly a fourth of the population to evacuate as it moved nearly the length of the island before moving into the Gulf of Mexico.
Rather than tour the hardest-hit areas after each storm, Raul has dispatched vice presidents and army generals. Instead of a televised address, he has appeared only in a few shots, speaking by phone to officials in devastated areas and presiding over a closed-door meeting of civil defense leaders as they prepared for Ike in Havana.Read the rest of this entry »
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque visits Mexico on Thursday, in an atmosphere of improving bilateral ties. Close historical ties between the two countries, arising from a shared revolutionary tradition, and similar challenges from close proximity with the United States, had suffered under the administration of former Mexican President Vicente Fox.
Things have changed since. Veteran Cuban leader Fidel Castro has handed over the presidency to his brother, Raul, who is anxious to reduce the country
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 P
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.
La Nueva Cuba has published two articles related to Russia, Cuba and Latin America.
The first is an editorial by Pravada titled “Battle for Ossetia transferred to Latin America,” stating Russia’s support of its allies (Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia) in Latin America. There is no English translation, however, a Spanish one is made by Urgente 24 from Argentina. And the second article is an interview (in Spanish) of Dr. Valdimir Zudarev (Vice-Director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Latin American Institute) by Radio Nederland’s InformaRN, who is quoted as saying: “Moscow wants to return to Latin America.”
Mary Anastasia O’Grady, The Americas columnist for the Wall Street Journal writes about Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez emulating Fidel Castro’s authoritarian trait:
Ever since long-standing Cuban leader Fidel Castro handed power to his brother, Raul, to undergo gastric surgery, expectations have been for change on the island -
Lt. Col. Chris Simmons, former US Army counter-intelligence officer and founder of the Cuban Intelligence Research Center, has revealed the following individuals as agents of influence of the Cuban government in the United States in an interview conducted by journalist Oscar Haza in his Miami-based TV program, A Mano Limpia.
Army General Raul Castro delivered a speech in Santiago de Cuba yesterday commemorating the 55th anniversary of the start of the communist revolution. Castro warned the populace of more hard times ahead.
Relevant parts of the speech:
The majority of our nation has demonstrated sufficient familiarity and maturity to understand these truths, which turn out to be inescapable. On the other hand, other persons stubbornly try to close their eyes before the world’s problems. I repeat that the Revolution has done and will continue to do everything in its power to foster its development and reduce to a minimum the unavoidable consequences of the current international crisis for the population. However, we must inform our people in a timely manner of the difficulties so that they may be prepared to face them. We have to get used to not receiving just good news.
[...]
As great as our desires may be to resolve each problem, we cannot spend more than what we have, and in order take the greatest advantage, it is vital to save everything, primarily fuel.
[...]
As a poor country without easily exploitable large natural resources, which has to work hard to earn a living in a world where most of the people live in the direst poverty, the material objectives of our people cannot be too ambitious.
[...]
Aside from production, our defence will not be ignored regardless of the outcome of the next presidential elections in the United States. Defence preparedness is going well. In November 2007, we carried out the Moncada exercises in the western and central part of the island with good results. In the eastern territory, we carried them out in June because we decided to postpone them in order to not affect the recovery efforts in the aftermath of last year’s heavy rains. We continue the favourable development of Operation Caguairan which has translated into a significant increase of reserve preparedness, who complement active duty and militia troops. At the same time, we have continued developing the military theatre of operations, upgrading of armaments and other of the resources, and developing and training officers; more than 2,000 graduated this year, the highest rate in the last 10 years.
The conditions have been created to carry out the strategic exercise Bastion 2008 with highest quality and rigour in November.
Today’s ABC (one of Spain’s influential dailies) has an opinion piece on Raúl Castro’s silence during the 
Vatican
Spanish journalist 
Dr. Jerrold Post (
Academic with alleged ties to CuIS in Havana
31 August 2010 at 0017 in Commentary, CuIS, Cuban Intelligence Service, Fidel Castro, Intelligence, Nomenklatura by Armando F. Mastrapa 3d | 1 comment
Julia Sweig, the Council on Foreign Relations resident Cuba expert, accompanied Fidel Castro yesterday to the National Aquarium along with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg from the Atlantic magazine and Adela Dworin, president of the Jewish Community of Cuba.
In October 2008, Cuban spy hunter Lt. Col. Chris Simmons of the Cuban Intelligence Research Center appeared on journalist Oscar Haza‘s Miami-based public affairs television program, A Mano Limpia, exposing individuals allegedly associated with Cuban intelligence.
Ms. Sweig, according to Lt. Col. Simmons, has an alleged association to the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS).
(Image: In the left photograph, Sweig is seated next to Fidel Castro on his left, and in the right photograph, she is to the right wearing what looks to be a red dress with large circular white patterns. Click on images to enlarge. By Estudios Revolución.]
Tags: A Mano Limpia, Council on Foreign Relations, Cuban intelligence service, CuIS, Fidel Castro, Julia Sweig, Lt. Col. Chris Simmons, Oscar Haza