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.
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.)
In early May, the Brookings Institutionpublished a study on U.S.-Cuba environmental cooperation when dealing with the potential risks of oil exploration in shared ocean waters:
As Cuba continues to develop its deepwater oil and natural gas reserves, the consequence to the United States of a similar mishap occurring in Cuban waters moves from the theoretical to the actual. The sobering fact that a Cuban spill could foul hundreds of miles of American coastline and do profound harm to important marine habitats demands cooperative and proactive planning by Washington and Havana to minimize or avoid such a calamity. Also important is the planning necessary to prevent and, if necessary, respond to incidents arising from this country’s oil industry that, through the action of currents and wind, threaten Cuban waters and shorelines.
(Image: Repsol offshore oil exploration rig. Spanish oil giant Repsol YPF has contracted with a unit of Italian oil company Eni SpA for a drilling rig that some sources said was bound for operation in Cuba’s still untapped offshore fields. 5 May 2010.)
However disgruntled they are with the everyday failures of the communist government, few Cubans dare brave the harassment meted out to active opponents. Those in the United States who argue that the American economic embargo merely serves to shore up the Castro regime hoped that Mr Obama’s team would agree with them. But it has become clear that the administration is not prepared to do battle with supporters of the embargo in Congress. Attempts to lift the ban on Americans travelling to the island have bogged down. “We made a big initial effort, but got nothing back” from the Cuban government, a State Department official said. Mr Castro has been emphatic that Cuba’s communist system is not up for negotiation with the United States.
Last September, Gen. Michael Hayden (Director, Central Intelligence Agency) addressed the ODNI Open Source Conference in Washington, D.C. about the importance of open source intelligence collection.
General Hayden made an interesting anecdote (as follows) about his visit to a Key West open source facility wherein he watched a Cuban program and observed what analysts were able to extract from broadcasts on the island.
“In addition to that, we made a special effort to visit the outposts in the open source enterprise as well, and I think I we’ve got four of those already in terms of notches on my belt. One stop that meant a great deal to me was designed to be a courtesy call. I was in Key West, not on business. (Chuckles.) And there is an open source facility there that looks at that island about 90 miles just off the southern marker buoy there.
It was going to be a 20-minute courtesy call. I was there for three hours because, talk about time on target, the people in this little cinderblock shack on the extreme southern reaches of Key West knew so much about what was happening in Cuba. And for me as the Director of CIA to sit with them and watch Cuban soap operas and have them tell me what they were extracting from watching these soap operas was quite remarkable.
They gave me a videotape, DVD, of a program that they had captured from the Internet. And it had a Cuban soap-opera star starring in it, and there are only two other players. And his name is Nicanor (sp) and he’s making a fine brew of coffee and there’s a knock at his door. And it’s two individuals from the security service to install the microphones. (Laughter.)
We’re here to install the microphones. He says, what do you mean, microphones? And it goes for about 17 minutes of some of the most subtle satiric commentary on a totalitarian state I have ever seen. He mentions that they have to decide where to put the microphones and they can t put them in the kitchen because it s too noisy and the bedroom air conditioner interferes with it. So, finally, they say, we have to put the microphones in the bathroom. (Laughter.)
So he says, when I criticize the government, I must go into the bathroom? (Laughter.) And he said, why don’t we put another microphone over here? And then they begin to criticize him. What kind of person are you? There are only a limited number of microphones in Cuba! (Laughter.) There’s a family down the street that criticizes the government day and night. They have 11 kids and they’re only allotted one microphone.
It gave me a new appreciation for life and thought and the situation on the island.”
It looks like Gen. Hayden is referring to Monte Rouge, a Cuban satirical short, which spoofs state security. (Click video above to see the short.)
Many of the legacies left by George W. Bush will focus on the War on Terror and Iraq. In Latin America, however, his legacy will be one that always remembers how Latin America was lost on his watch. As President Bush closes out his final months in office, many in Washington lament that the Monroe Doctrine, the foundation of Washington
Hurricane Gustav and Hurricane Ike inflicted misery on millions of Cubans. But when the Castro dictatorship looks at the devastation, it sees opportunity.
Moscow is ready to help Cuba develop its own space center, Russia’s space agency chief said on Wednesday after talks in Caracas with Venezuelan and Cuban officials, Itar-Tass news agency reported.
Russia has stepped up efforts to develop closer links with both countries, which are ideological enemies of Washington, including sending Russian strategic bombers on a mission to Venezuela this month.
“We have held preliminary discussions about the possibility of creating a space center in Cuba with our help,” the chief of Russia’s Federal Space Agency Anatoly Perminov was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass in Caracas.
“With our Cuban colleagues, we discussed the possibilities of joint use of space equipment … and the joint use of space communications systems,” Perminov was quoted as saying.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin visited Cuba this week and together with representatives from several Russian ministries and large Russian companies looked at ways to help Cuba recover from hurricanes Gustav and Ike.
Renewed Russian links to the Caribbean island will stir memories in Washington of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when the United States and Soviet Union almost went to war over Soviet missile bases on Cuba, which is 90 miles from U.S. shores.
Russian officials have said they want to renew Cuban ties that were neglected after the Soviet Union’s collapse.
ISN Security Watch has an article addressing Cuba’s international relations leverage and foreign investment:
When Russian daily Izvestia reported on 21 July that Russian Tu-160 and Tu-95MS bombers had landed in Cuba, it set off a sprint in Washington as analysts and military leaders struggled to understand the situation.
At first, it appeared that Moscow had made a very serious gesture. Russia’s perceived geopolitical maneuver in Cuba, many thought, was in response to the US’ plans for an anti-missile shield defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
By 24 July, after three days of media hype and speculation over Russia’s true intentions, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Ilshat Baichurin, dismissed any intention for a strategic deployment in Cuba.
Two events quickly followed up this announcement. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin arrived in Cuba on 30 July for extended talks with Raul and Fidel Castro. A former KGB operative and known confidant of now-Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Sechin was an active operative during the Cold War and enjoyed a deep relationship with the Castros.
Putin then followed up Sechin’s visit with a 5 August announcement that Russia ought to “restore [its] position in Cuba and other countries.”
Observers agree a military presence in Cuba is not in Moscow’s best interests; rather, closer economic ties would behoove both nations. Sechin’s recent visit underlines the latter observation and coaxes Washington into a more open posture toward Cuba, an island nation the next US presidential administration would likely prefer not to lose again to the Russians. Read the rest of this entry »
Time posits the question whether a new Cold War is brewing in the Western Hemisphere:
The headlines of the past week have underscored the extent to which U.S. hegemony in the Caribbean has faded. Whether it’s Russia reportedly threatening to reestablish a military presence in Cuba, Iran cozying up to U.S. nemeses like Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega or U.S. free-trade partners such as the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica jumping into energy alliances with left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Ch
On the surface, this looks like any old state visit between the Russians and the Cubans. But there are a number of reasons why this visit in particular caught Stratfor
I’m about to receive an advance copy of the book and will post a review.
Here’s a description:
In January 1959, as Fidel Castro entered Havana in triumph, Americans hailed the revolutionary as a hero. Then came Castro’s increasingly anti-American talk, the rise in his regime of the openly Marxist Che Guevara and Raul Castro, and seizures of American-owned assets. In little more than a year, President Dwight D. Eisenhower concluded that Castro must go.
In The Bay of Pigs , Howard Jones provides a concise, incisive, and dramatic account of the disastrous attempt to overthrow Castro. He deftly examines the train of missteps and self-deceptions that led to the invasion of U. S.-trained exiles at the Bay of Pigs. Ignoring warnings from the ambassador to Cuba, the Eisenhower administration put in motion an operation that proved nearly unstoppable even after the inauguration of John F. Kennedy. The CIA and Pentagon, meanwhile, both voiced confidence in the outcome of the invasion, especially after coordinating previous successful coups in Guatemala and Iran. As a vital part of the Cuban effort, the CIA sought to incite a popular insurrection by recruiting the Mafia’s help in engineering Castro’s assassination on the eve of the invasion. And so the Kennedy administration launched the exile force toward its doom in Cochinos Bay on April 17, 1961. Jones gives a riveting account of the battle–and the confusion in the White House–before moving on to explore its implications. The Bay of Pigs, he writes, set the course of Kennedy’s foreign policy. It was a humiliation for the administration that fueled fears of Communist domination and pushed Kennedy toward a hardline cold warrior stance. But at the same time, the failed attack left him deeply skeptical of CIA and military advisers and influenced his later actions during the Cuban missile crisis.
Richly researched, vividly written, The Bay of Pigs offers an engaging and thoughtful account of the turning point in Kennedy’s foreign policy and indeed in foreign policy for decades to come.
Outsiders bet that bigger changes are on their way
THE diplomatic sanctions imposed by the European Union after Cuba jailed 75 dissidents in 2003 were hardly painful. They mainly consisted of restricting political contacts and inviting dissidents to embassy functions, prompting a boycott by Cuban officials that became known as the
The following are internal Stratfor documents produced to provide high-level guidance to our analysts. These documents are not forecasts, but rather a series of guidelines for understanding and evaluating events, as well as suggestions on areas for focus.
Analysis
All guidance from last week remains in place. Supplemental guidance:
3. Venezuela and Cuba: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez tried to create a police state then backed off. Next thing we hear are stories the he is giving sanctuary to Hezbollah, which we assume is psychological pressure from Washington. Then he turns up in Havana for talks with Fidel and Raul Castro. In the meantime the European Union drops whatever sanctions are left on Cuba. Cuba needs Venezuelan help on oil. But it also seems to want to get out of its isolation. It
The U.S. Army War College‘s Strategic Studies Institute published last month a monograph authored by Colonel (Ret.) Dennis E Keller, entitled “U.S. Military Forces and Police Assistance in Stability Operations: The Least-Worst Option to Fill the U.S. Capacity Gap.” Col. Keller gives a historical overview of U.S. foreign police training, where the “U.S. government is poorly [...]
The Spanish Embassy’s Office for Economic & Commercial Affairs in Havana published an informative 118-page study earlier this year on the administrative structure of Cuban state enterprise groups. This study provides an outline of the Cuban economic system controlled by the state and a general understanding of how the Cuban enterprise system functions. (Image: Embajada de España—Oficina Económica y [...]
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 [...]
CIA director and Cuban soap operas
27 July 2009 at 0007 in Commentary, Cuban Intelligence Service, Intelligence, Security by Armando F. Mastrapa 3d
Last September, Gen. Michael Hayden (Director, Central Intelligence Agency) addressed the ODNI Open Source Conference in Washington, D.C. about the importance of open source intelligence collection.
General Hayden made an interesting anecdote (as follows) about his visit to a Key West open source facility wherein he watched a Cuban program and observed what analysts were able to extract from broadcasts on the island.
It looks like Gen. Hayden is referring to Monte Rouge, a Cuban satirical short, which spoofs state security. (Click video above to see the short.)
[H/T: Danger Room]
Tags: CIA, Cuba, Cuban, Cuban soap operas, DA, DI, DIA, Government, Intelligence, IT, Key West, land, NAM, ODNI, PLA, Security, state, state security, US, Washington