Tag Archives: US-Cuba Normalization

OBAMA’S FAVOURITE CASTRO

Posted on August 20, 2015 by Arch Ritter

Raul 2015By ANN LOUISE BARDACH

August 13, 2015

POLITICO: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/obamas-favorite-castro-121342.html#ixzz3jMpKkKZ8

As far back as 1980, Raúl Castro began to harbor doubts about Cuba’s long-term sustainability. By 1990, with the loss of their Soviet patron and its $5 billion annual subsidy, Raúl’s doubts crystallized into alarm even while his brother Fidel hunkered down, resisting reform. And though Raúl took power in 2006, it would be six years before he could finally overrule his ailing brother, who turned 89 years old on Thursday.

 “There has been a sibling tug of war between Raúl and Fidel since childhood,” Domingo Amuchastegui, a former Cuban intelligence officer, tells me over lunch this summer at Versailles, the restaurant that serves as the mecca of Cuban life in Miami. Versailles bills itself as the “most famous Cuban restaurant in the world,” and Amuchastegui is no stranger to its mirrored dining room. Domingo and I had originally met not long after his defection in the 1990s, and I’ve learned over more than two decades of covering Cuba that he has uncommon insights into the Caribbean island that has bedeviled every American president since Dwight Eisenhower. Indeed, he is that rare breed of defector who somehow manages to regularly visit his homeland. As Amuchastegui carefully parses it over lunch, Raúl has always contended with “Fidel as the No. 1 braking system.”

For more than a half century, Raúl Castro, Fidel’s comrade-for-life and chief of the Cuban Armed Forces, lived and worked cheerfully in the shadow of his elder sibling. Not only was Raúl the rare politician contented to be No. 2, he bolted from the limelight—his brother’s oxygen—like a vampire escaping the dawn. “Raúl always consults with me about all the important questions,” Fidel Castro assured an American journalist in 1964, lest anyone doubt who was the boss. “Of course,” he hastened to add, “the constant presence of one outstanding leader tends to obscure the rest.”

And so it was. Or, at least, so it was for most of Raúl’s life.

The chance to override Fidel’s brake finally came last October—amid secret negotiations between the U.S. and Cuba—when a wobbly Venezuela slashed its daily oil subsidy to the island nation. The writing was on the wall: The island was running out of patrons. But the fates once again favored Cuba. President Barack Obama told his negotiating team he wanted a deal (just about any deal, his critics contend).

For 18 months, American and Cuban officials had rendezvoused in cloak-and-dagger meetings in Toronto, Ottawa and the Vatican, pulling off what many believed was unthinkable while the Castro brothers lived—a restoration of relations between the longtime enemies. (Almost as astonishing was that both sides, famously indiscreet, kept their year-and-a-half-long negotiations a secret.) It was a seismic shift in geopolitics, one that awakened an astonished world that had become resigned to frozen non-relations between U.S. and Cuba.

On July 20, the Cuban flag rose over its newly restored Embassy on 16th Street, NW, in Washington with Secretary of State John Kerry among the 500 attendees—a ceremony that will reprise on Friday morning when the American flag will be hoisted over the newly re-christened U.S. Embassy in Havana.

The twin moments highlight the remarkable political transformation of Raúl Castro—a zealot communist (and unrepentant Stalinist) throughout the 1970s who has morphed into a formidable agent of change, deftly negotiating an end to the Cold War with his northern nemesis. “I don’t think we have so much a new Raúl,” says John Caufield, the U.S.’s top diplomat in Havana at the nation’s Interests Section (now the embassy) from 2010 to 2014, “as Raúl being able to be himself, not being in the shadow of Fidel.”

And what a deal he has made with the United States, scoring the big-ticket items on his wish list: the release of the remaining Cuban Five prisoners, an avalanche of American tourists and their cash, a huge uptick in remittances and investment capital, while sliding off the U.S.’s state-sponsored terrorist list.

At the same time, he kiboshed most of the U.S. demands—open elections, human rights’ guarantees, $7 billion in U.S. property claims, an independent media and accessible Internet. Nor will any dissidents be allowed to attend the embassy ceremony on Friday, a move widely viewed as a capitulation. (A senior State Department official explained Wednesday, somewhat improbably, that the absence of dissidents was due to “limited space,” while declining to give the number of invitees.

While America can merely claim that it has finally removed Cuba as a hot potato irritant for itself, its allies and neighbors—and retrieved the hapless USAID contractor Alan Gross—Raúl Castro has rescued his island-nation from bankruptcy, collapse and isolation.

This summer has seen minor and major steps forward in the relationship: Ahead of Kerry’s visit to Havana this week, Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, made a call on the Cuban Mission in New York City on August 3. And rumors abound that President Barack Obama has chosen January to become the first sitting American president to visit Cuba since Calvin Coolidge disembarked in 1928.

As America grapples with its new relationship with a new Castro and a new Cuba, the kingmakers of Washington and Wall Street are keen to suss out the island’s reigning powers that be. One thing is headline clear: As of December 17, 2014, the Castro to be reckoned with was no longer Fidel. When John Kerry alights in Havana this week for his history-making visit, he will be landing in Raúl Castro’s Cuba.

While lacking his brother Fidel’s gravitas, erudition and ambition, Raúl has proven to be the more complex and less predictable of Cuba’s ruling siblings for 56 years—the most successful political brother act in history. He is a man of two seemingly contradictory impulses: hard-line enforcer and conciliatory pragmatist, a man who has steered Cuba into the future even as he fought fiercely, at times, to keep it in the past.

On one level, Raúl’s power is a logical outcome: For a half-century, he’s held the ultimate trump card, control of the army, the FAR (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios), which has been the single most important organ of the government and a respectable fighting force. “In the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. lost the war in Vietnam and the Soviet Union lost the war in Afghanistan,” points out Jorge Dominguez, Harvard’s resident Cuba scholar. During the same period, however, “the Cuban Armed Forces won the three wars, [that] they fought far from home in Angola and Ethiopia.” Then there are its domestic successes—such as tourism and the farmers markets—that elevate the Army and its myriad divisions—into the most efficient and reliable pillar of Cuban life.

These days, Raúl is building an even deeper legacy, one that will likely outlast both him and his brother—ensuring that the Castro family will hold the reins of power for some years to come.

Partial to practical jokes, rum and cockfighting, Raúl Modesto Castro barely made it through school, earning the nickname—el pulguita—the flea. In 1951, he dropped out of the University of Havana.

In the early 1950s, Raúl, tutored by Fidel, became enamored with left-wing politics. “Fidel was always an influence on Raúl,” their younger sister, Juanita, who—disillusioned with her brothers’ revolution—fled to Miami in 1964, told me at our first meeting in 2000. “They’ve always been very close.”

Fidel often sought to give the impression that his sibling was more of a hard-liner than himself. “Raúl was already quite left-leaning,” he said at one point, then conceding in 2005, “Actually, I was the one who introduced him to Marxist-Leninist ideas.”

In March 1953, a 21-year-old Raúl attended a Communist Party conference in Vienna representing Cuba. Quick to make friends, it was the personable Raúl who lassoed an invaluable contact while there—KGB agent Nikolai Leonov, who would play a central role in the 35-year Cuban-Soviet alliance. Indeed, it was Raúl, not Fidel, who deeply bonded with Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev, the two passing more than one night drowning their enmity to the U.S. in pails of Russian vodka. (Raúl also drank their Cold War Kool-Aid, reportedly telling Life magazine in July 1960: “My dream is to drop three atom bombs on New York”).

Ann Louise Bardach is the author of Cuba Confidential (2002) and Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana and Washington (2009), as well as the editor of The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro and Cuba: A Travelers Literary Companion. She interviewed Fidel Castro in 1993 and 1994 and met Raúl Castro in 1994.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/obamas-favorite-castro-121342.html#ixzz3jMpKkKZ8

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WE KNOW WHY OBAMA CHANGED U.S. POLICY TOWARD CUBA. BUT WHY DID CUBA CHANGE ITS POLICY TOWARD THE U.S.?

Posted on July 28, 2015 by Arch Ritter

Matt Jacobs / History News Network @myHNN

July 25, 2015, History News Network

To understand the change we need to acknowledge that Castro has always followed a policy of “revolutionary pragmatism”

obama-castro

 The restoration of U.S. and Cuban diplomatic ties is quite an event, particularly given the hostility that defined relations between the two countries for so long. President Obama’s decision to re-open an embassy in Havana and Raul Castro’s agreement to do the same in Washington continues the thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations. The steps taken by both countries have generated much publicity over the past few months. Numerous U.S. media outlets have produced stories on the implications for Obama’s legacy and the potential fallout for 2016 presidential candidates. As usual Washington politicians and pundits have focused their attention on the reasons for the U.S. shift. Yet, it is not President Obama’s decision to seek a normalization that warrants the most attention, but rather the Castro government’s reasoning behind their determination to chart a new course in U.S.-Cuban relations. In fact, much more can be learned from concentrating instead on what is behind the Cuban leadership’s thinking.

Havana’s recent decisions are deeply rooted in what can best be termed as Cuba’s “revolutionary pragmatism.” Though the Castro government continually speaks the language of revolutionary change, it also has also taken a sensible view to foreign policy matters when necessary. Such an approach has guided Cuban engagement with the world from the 1960s to the present.

“Revolutionary pragmatism” traces back to the very beginning of the Castro regime. In the years immediately following the Cuban Revolution, for example, a top issue in US-Cuban relations included Fidel Castro’s support for anti-US guerilla movements throughout Latin America. Castro repeatedly challenged Latin Americans and others around the world to stand up to the United States. He famously declared in 1962 that it was “the duty of every revolutionary to make the revolution. In America and the world, it is known that the revolution will be victorious, but it is improper revolutionary behavior to sit at one’s doorstep waiting for the corpse of imperialism to pass by.”

Yet, privately, Castro proved willing to develop a foreign policy based on practical considerations. On a recent research trip to Cuba I gained access to the Foreign Ministry Archive in Havana and was surprised at what I found. Many detailed reports from the early 1960s discussed the prospects for revolution in Central and South America, but concluded that conditions were not ripe in many nations for radical change. This reality led to a more pragmatic position being taken by leaders in Havana as they approached Latin America.

The most documented aid came in the form of training young Latin Americans in guerilla tactics who traveled to Cuba. As historian Piero Gliejeses’s excellent studies demonstrate, Castro turned his attention to Africa as early as 1964. Havana’s decision to abandon any large-scale support for revolutionary groups in Latin America was not made due to a lack of enthusiasm for challenging Washington’s traditional sphere of influence, but owed instead to practical considerations.

Similarly, in the 1980s when the Sandinista triumph in Nicaragua offered Havana an ally in Latin America, Castro held to “revolutionary pragmatism.” He counseled Daniel Ortega not to antagonize elite economic interests too much. On a visit to Managua, Castro even declared that allowing some capitalism in the Nicaraguan economy did not violate revolutionary principles. He bluntly told Nicaraguan leaders that they did not have to follow the path taken by Cuba, “Each revolution is different from the others.”

Perhaps the greatest illustration of Cuban flexibility was the Castro regime’s response to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In June 1990, after receiving word that aid from Moscow would no longer flow to Havana, Fidel Castro announced a national emergency. He called his initiative “the Special Period in Peacetime.” Cuba welcomed foreign investment, tourism, the U.S. dollar, and allowed small-scale private businesses. While many prognosticators predicated a complete collapse of the Castro regime, the revolutionary government endured due to its ability to adapt.

Thus, recent developments must be viewed within their proper historical context. As it has in the past, Castro’s regime is pursuing “revolutionary pragmatism.”

The impetus for changes in Cuba’s approach owes to several reasons. First, since the death of Hugo Chávez in 2013 Venezuela has become a questionable economic ally. Political instability coupled with a crumbling economy has likely caused Havana to view a key economic patron in Caracas as increasingly unreliable. A complete breakdown of order in Venezuela would greatly affect the Cuban economy in a negative way. Thus, a better economic relationship with the United States is one way of protecting the island from a changing relationship with Venezuela.

Other reasons for Cuba’s rapprochement with the United States owe to domestic concerns. Since taking power in 2008, Raul Castro has been open to reforms in an attempt to make socialism work for the twenty-first century. Over the last few years the Cuban government has relaxed controls over certain sectors of the economy, but reforms have been slow and halting. Anyone who has spent time in Havana cannot help but notice the aging infrastructure and inefficient public transportation system. A key to any reform agenda is attracting foreign investment, and the United States stands as an attractive partner.

Furthermore, as Raul is poised to step down from power in 2018, Cuba is starting to make preparations for a successful turnover. An improving relationship with Washington may help his likely successor, Miguel Díaz-Canel, better navigate the transfer. In sum, at this point and time, normalization of U.S.-Cuban relations serves Havana’s best interests.

It remains to be seen just how far the Cuban government will go regarding changes in policy. Going back to 2010, Raul Castro declared during a national address that “we reform, or we sink.” His recent push for renewed relations with the United States will likely create an influx of U.S. tourists and more capital from American businesses. In turn, this could place Cuba down the path of other communist nations who embraced elements of capitalism, China and Vietnam notably. Just how far Raul will go with his reform agenda remains to be seen.

Ultimately, a U.S.-Cuban thaw is a positive step. Antagonism between the two countries serves no one, especially the Cuban people. Yet, we should not see the recent shifts as merely Washington changing course. The steps taken by Havana are equally important and should be viewed as part of a long history of shrewd diplomacy. While Cuban foreign policy has traditionally been revolutionary in rhetoric, it has proven once again to be pragmatic in practice.

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AMERICAN FOOD PRODUCERS SEE BONANZA IN CUBA, BUT STEEP BARRIERS REMAIN

Posted on June 19, 2015 by Arch Ritter

Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, June 18, 2015

Original here: Us Food Exports: Bonanza In Cuba

Before the U.S. embargo, Cuba bought more American rice than any other country in the world. Now, most Cuban rice comes from Vietnam. Last year, Cuba imported $200 million worth of wheat — virtually all of it from Europe and Canada and none from the United States, the largest global exporter.

Many U.S. agricultural producers thought those facts would begin to change this year, as U.S. relations with Cuba improved.  But in the six months since President Obama announced a new opening to the island, sales of U.S. foodstuffs — among the few U.S. products allowed, with restrictions, under the embargo — have dropped by half, from $160 million in the first quarter of 2014, to $83 million this year.  Even frozen chicken, which has led U.S. food exports to Cuba for years, had lost favor in Havana long before fears of the U.S. bird flu epidemic led this month to a ban on all poultry purchases.

Cuba Nov 2008 009Silver Creek, Seaman’s Orchards Apples from Tyro Virgina, arriving in the “Barrio Chino”, Havana, November 2008, Photo by A. Ritter

As the administration wraps up negotiations with Cuba that are expected to lead to restored diplomatic ties this summer, only Congress can lift the embargo that still prevents nearly all financial and trade relations and severely limits even the few permitted exports.

Obama has said he wants that to happen, and U.S. producers from major agribusiness  companies to small farmers have joined a bipartisan force of farm state governors and lawmakers to help overturn restrictions they say are keeping them out of a $2 billion annual market.

“Opening a new export market means a new source of revenue,” said Devry Boughner, vice president at Cargill Inc., the Minnesota-based agribusiness giant and a co-founder in January of the U.S. Agriculture Coalition for Cuba.

While Cuba’s 11 million people are not the world’s biggest market, Boughner said in an interview, “it’s a market that’s right in our target zone.” With Cuba only 90 miles away, she said, it makes little sense “to be losing out to competitors who take longer to ship it there, who might not even have the same quality” as U.S. products.

Cubans rival Southeast Asians as prodigious consumers of rice. Within two years, Riceland Foods vice president Terry Harris told the Senate Agriculture Committee in April, American rice could be providing up to 135,000 metric tons, 30 percent of the Cuban market. Within a decade, he said, that figure could rise to 75 percent or more.

Doug Keesling, a fifth generation Kansas wheat farmer, told the panel he saw no “compelling reason” for Congress to “restrict the freedom of Americans to engage in commerce, especially for those who are just trying to sell wholesome, American-grown food.” “I can put my wheat in an elevator in Kansas, send it by rail down to the Gulf, put it on a ship that’s a couple days away from Havana harbor,” Keesling said. “But my wheat’s still going to lose out to wheat that has been on a boat for a week from Canada, or even two weeks from France.”

Yet despite a series of hearings, conferences, concerted lobbying and a stream of trade delegations to Cuba from both Republican and Democratic states this year, the embargo remains firmly in place, with little promise of early action.

Many lawmakers are receptive to Obama’s call to jettison a policy he says has failed for more than a half century to effect change in Cuba. But for most, lifting the sanctions remains just one more unwelcome controversy in a contentious Congress. Others want to retain congressional power to block a White House initiative they deeply oppose. They include GOP presidential candidates Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), who has accused Obama of turning his back on Cubans oppressed by their communist government, and Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), both sons of Cubans who emigrated before Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.  Obama, Cruz charged, had thrown an “economic lifeline” to Cuba just as the embargo and diplomatic freeze had left its communist regime “gasping for air.”

Malnutrition rates in Cuba are “very low,” according to the World Food Program, on par with the United States and the rest of the highly developed world. Staples are guaranteed via government-issued ration cards. But domestic agricultural production rates are abysmal, equipment and farming methods are antiquated, and up to 80 percent of Cuban food is imported.  Subsidies from the then-Soviet bloc helped fill the food gap for decades after the U.S. embargo was first imposed in 1960. The Soviet collapse left Cuba in deep recession in the early 1990s, and Havana welcomed the lifting of some U.S. restrictions on food and medical exports in 2000.

Despite permitting cash-only transactions, U.S. food sales rose to a 2008 peak of $710 million before starting a downward trajectory that appears this year to have gone off a cliff, according to figures compiled by the New York-based U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.

When current President Raul Castro took over nearly a decade ago he adopted more pragmatic policies than his older brother, and U.S exports increased. But the complication and high expense of buying American in recent years has diminished Cuban zeal. U.S. prices may be competitive and transportation cheaper over the short distance, but the cost of doing business with the United States is high.

Cash-only limits remain, although Obama has eased the restriction somewhat by requiring payment when title to the goods is transferred in Cuba, rather than up-front before goods are shipped.  But Cuba’s lack of cash makes that a rarely used option. Most purchases are made on credit, and the embargo allows no U.S. financing. Instead, Cuba must go through third countries, with Havana obtaining a loan from a foreign bank. That bank then communicates with the bank of a U.S. producer, which arranges the sale with the producer himself. The process is then reversed, with each stage involving lengthy bureaucracy and significant fees.

Cubans “are not going hungry; they’re just buying wheat from other countries,” said farmer Keesling. “That may be more expensive than mine in a free market, but it is now a much better value because there aren’t massive compliance costs accompanying every purchase.”

Some opponents of lifting the embargo maintain that increased U.S. sales will only benefit the Cuban government, since all agricultural imports must go through the state agency, called Alimport.

Boughner and others point out that Cuba is not unique in that regard. Until recently, both Canada and Australia handled all of their wheat imports with state boards. “We’ve had examples through history where states have been involved in trading, but it doesn’t mean we don’t trade with them,” Boughner said. The U.S. food business also sees potential in the eventual lifting of remaining restrictions on American travel to Cuba. In addition to sampling Cuban cuisine, tourists will want to eat and drink what they are used to from home, industry analysts believe.

 

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U.S.-CUBA NORMALIZATION AND MIGRATION POLICY: CHANGING THE CUBAN ADJUSTMENT ACT

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Arch Ritter

Richard N. Gioioso, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, focusing on Latin American migration to the U.S.

 Huffington Post, June 18, 2015

Original here: Changing the Cuban Adjustment Act

On a plane ride back from Havana in June 2013, I sat next to a passenger, dressed from head-to-toe in white, and we struck up a conversation. He explained to me that he had lived in Florida for the past five years. He had normalized his status in the U.S. through the Cuban Adjustment Act, which granted him a fast track method to legal residency. For the past year or so, he had been traveling back and forth between Miami and Havana every other weekend to see his fiancé as well as to solidify his religious practice with his spiritual guide and finish his initiation into Santería. He, I thought to myself, certainly did not seem to be a Cuban who feared political persecution on the island and therefore deserved asylum in the United States. He seemed more like a transnational migrant.

On December 17, 2014, President Barack Obama announced a policy change that has reinitiated formal diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba, begun to open financial and trade opportunities, and expanded American travel to the island. By normalizing relations with Cuba, he has stirred up emotions among both Cuban and non-Cuban Americans, and the person I met on that plane ride comes into mind. Indeed, the migration status of Cubans who enter the United States as political refugees is one of the many policies that will change and bring consequences to both Cuba and the United States when the cold relations between the two countries finally thaw.

In 1960, President Dwight Eisenhower first categorized all Cubans as political refugees. The 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson, grants all Cubans an exceptional status compared to other nationalities. It grants eligibility to any Cuban who arrives on U.S. soil permanent residence after a parole period of one year and a day.

For most Cubans, however, leaving Cuba is more about finding economic freedom than about escaping direct political persecution. In fact, many, if not most, Cubans who have left the island since 1991 resemble economic migrants rather than political refugees. The Cuban government is still an authoritarian one-party system under the Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC). Nonetheless, politics seem to have become at least minimally more inclusionary. The government has relaxed norms for individuals to strictly align with and participate in the PCC. Some non-aligned individuals have been elected to representative positions in government. At the same time, what has surfaced in some recent research, is that perception of and participation in explicit political behavior has changed and continues to change, especially for Cuban youth, such that other concerns and obligations outweigh the expressly political ones. In short, their primary concern revolves around gaining more economic opportunities as opposed to demanding explicit political freedom.

The expanding tourism sector currently provides the bulk of the economic opportunities on the island. Those who are linked to this sector, do, in fact, seem to be prospering. The many new bars and restaurants in Havana, especially, but not exclusively, in the more affluent El Vedado neighborhood and touristy la Habana Vieja, are clear signs of a “middle class” of Cubans who live relatively comfortably on the island.

For many others, migration is the solution to increased economic opportunities. Florida’s proximity and the Cuban Adjustment Act are two factors that motivate Cubans to leave. Some leave the island legally with some variety of visa, then declare their asylum status once they arrive in the U.S. Many other Cubans, however, leave the island through irregular manners and arrive at the U.S. border, over air, land or sea, declare their “Cuban” status to the authorities and begin the parole process on the spot.

The irregular migrant sneaks off the Cuban shoreline at night through some manner of sea vessel, usually in small groups or through a human smuggler. Cuban and U.S. authorities have recognized that irregular departures from Cuba are often treacherous and hazardous and have tightened control and cooperation around unauthorized exits and entries. There are also serious concerns over the notable presence of Cubans who opt to travel first to Mexico, and from there make their way to the U.S.-Mexico border to enter. Ultimately, the incentives to leave Cuba for the U.S. are clear and convincing, but no longer reflect the conditions that led to the Cuban Adjustment Act. This raises doubts about the Act’s continued validity.

The Obama Administration has announced that it has no intention of changing the migratory status of Cubans in the short term. An active “thaw” in the U.S.-Cuba relationship will lead U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to advocate for ending the trade embargo and bring migration policy to Cuba in line with other countries. Furthermore, efforts to make explicit changes to the Cuban Adjustment Act are currently under way. In short, the realities of normalization will eventually dismantle the law as it currently stands, and Cubans will cease to be an exceptional group of political refugees.

Fears over the elimination of Cubans’ exceptional refugee status and uncertainty over when that will happen will motivate many to contemplate and attempt an exit from Cuba for the United States in irregular ways. Since Obama’s announcement, reports have shown an uptick of Cubans caught at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard.

In the intermediate to long term, ending the Cuban Adjustment Act will hopefully contribute to the type of political change the U.S. government and most Cuban citizens on the island ultimately desire. For decades, presidential administrations, lawmakers, and anti-Castrista activists have tried to ferment discontent among Cubans using a variety of strategies to try and pressure the Castro administration to reform. Past and present tactics include broadcasts by Radio and Televisión Martí, USAID sponsored programs – including the recently uncovered Zunzuneo [Cuban Twitter] scandal, as well as a people-to-people exchange program established in 1999 to enhance cross-cultural relations between Americans and Cubans.

A flaw to the logic of the Cuban Adjustment Act, however, is precisely the wholesale categorization of all Cuban citizens as political refugees, because, if indeed any pressure for change would build through the tactics mentioned above, it could be relieved when Cubans leave Cuba to the United States for good. By removing the Cuban Adjustment Act and no longer granting all Cubans the status of political refugees, the U.S. immigration authorities will instead issue more and more visas – especially for tourism and educational purposes – and increase the amount and quality of exchange between the countries. Cuban travelers, who, for the most part, will no longer be able seek political asylum, will have to return to Cuba to live, with greater demands for change within Cuba having experienced U.S. society.

Nobody wants to lose a special privilege. However, American foreign and migration policy should reflect Cuba in 2015, not in 1960. Changing migration policy to Cubans recognizes those who are truly politically persecuted or fear persecution to become refugees or seek asylum. It will expand the currently small class of Cuban travelers to the U.S. who, as members of and stakeholders in the Cuban polity, will return the island with greater motivation, know-how, and support for more political and economic change. A new official U.S. migration policy for Cubans will be a fresh approach to stimulating the political and economic reforms through openness and exchange that five and a half decades of isolation have failed to achieve.

24327_1371008365655_1545135432_919317_733453_n 24327_1371008405656_1545135432_919318_8061963_n 24327_1371008445657_1545135432_919319_1805493_n balseros18 CUBAN MIGRANTS (FOR RELEASE)

 

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FINANCIAL TIMES SPECIAL REPORT ON CUBA, June 16, 2015

Posted on June 16, 2015 by Arch Ritter

Financial Times, June 16, 2015

Document here: Financial Times SPECIAL REPORT on CUBA June 16 2015

Authors:

John Paul Rathbone, Latin America Editor; Geoff Dyer, US diplomatic correspondent; Richard Feinberg, Professor, UCLA San Diego; Marc Frank, Journalist based in Cuba; Cardiff Garcia, FT Alphaville reporter

obama-castroTHAW IN US RELATIONS RAISES EXPECTATIONS; Tentative signs of openness heighten hopes, but is the island ready to do business?

NEW CONNECTION DIVIDES OPINION; President Obama’s overtures play better than expected at home — although not with everyone

STRAITS DEALING BRIDGES MANY GAPS; Retailers in Florida cash in on items needed by customers across the water

GLIMMERS OF GLASNOST BEGIN TO WARM ISLAND; Government retains a firm grip, but there are signs it is loosening a little

NEW PORT ZONE HARBOURS BIG AMBITIONS; A would-be capitalist enclave in a socialist state, the Mariel project is emblematic of change

STATE EXPERIMENTS WITH CO-OPERATIVE THINKING; From garages and restaurants to dealers in exotic birds, co-ops are expanding

CUBA’S NASCENT KNOWLEGE ECONOMY; The island could capitalise on a wealth of expertise in science

US COMPANIES STILL FACE INVESTMENT HURDLES; Bureaucracy, eroded infrastructure and regulatory risk are among hurdles

GOVERNMENT LIKELY TO END TO DUAL CURRENCY; Change would be part of reforms to remove price distortins

COMPENSATION IS KEY TO FUTURE RELATIONS; What now for legal claims by those who lost property in the revolution?

OPINION: WHAT CUBA CAN LEARN FROM VIETNAM; The island has the resources and location to create a balanced economy

 There is a new entry among Cuba’s roll of important dates. Alongside Fidel Castro’s 26th of July movement and the January 1 1959 “triumph of the revolution”, there is now December 17 2014. That was the day when Barack Obama and Raúl Castro, the US and Cuban presidents, announced that they wanted to normalise bilateral relations and end more than 50 years of cold war enmity.

 To be sure, communist Cuba was already changing. After formally becoming president in 2008, Mr Castro began a tentative economic liberalisation process to boost the country’s flagging economy — especially urgent now that Venezuela’s growing crisis jeopardises the $1.5bn of aid it sends every year. But the December 17 announcement lit a bonfire of expectations among US businesses — even if Cuba’s $80bn economy, for all its exotic allure, is much the same size as the Dominican Republic’s. “There is a new sense of excitement, of US companies coming to look and thinking of starting seed businesses,” says one long-established European investor in Havana. “It makes sense. Start small, learn how the system works and then see how it all goes.”

 So, how might it all go? Continue reading:  Financial Times SPECIAL REPORT on CUBA June 16 2015

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WASHINGTON REMOVES CUBA FROM US LIST OF TERRORISM SPONSORS

Posted on June 1, 2015 by Arch Ritter

29 May 2015 – AP – ANDREA RODRIGUEZ AND MATTHEW LEE

Original here: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/UNITED_STATES_CUBA?S

HAVANA (AP) — The Obama administration formally removed Cuba from the U.S. terrorism blacklist Friday, a decision hailed in Cuba as the healing of a decades-old wound and an important step toward normalizing relations between the Cold War foes.

Secretary of State John Kerry signed off on rescinding Cuba’s “state sponsor of terrorism” designation exactly 45 days after the Obama administration informed Congress of its intent to do so on April 14. Lawmakers had that amount of time to weigh in and try to block the move, but did not do so.

“The 45-day congressional pre-notification period has expired, and the secretary of state has made the final decision to rescind Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, effective today, May 29, 2015,” the State Department said in a statement.

“While the United States has significant concerns and disagreements with a wide range of Cuba’s policies and actions, these fall outside the criteria relevant to the rescission of a state sponsor of terrorism designation,” the statement said.

The step comes as officials from the two countries continue to hash out details for restoring full diplomatic relations, including opening embassies in Washington and Havana and returning ambassadors to the two countries for the first time since the U.S. severed diplomatic relations with the island in January 1961. The removal of Cuba from the terrorism list had been a key Cuban demand.

The Cold War-era designation was levied mainly for Cuba’s support of leftist guerrillas around the world and isolated the communist island from much of the world financial system because banks fear repercussions from doing business with designated countries. Even Cuba’s Interests Section in Washington lost its bank in the United States, forcing it to deal in cash until it found a new banker this month.

Banks continue to take a cautious tone about doing business with Cuba since U.S. laws still make the island off limits for U.S. businesses. Leaders of the Republicans-controlled House have shown zero interest in repealing the laws from the 1990s that codified the U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba.

“Taking Cuba off the terrorism list is one step toward normalization, but for doing business down there, we have a long way to go,” said Rob Rowe, vice president and associate chief council at the American Bankers Association.

In a blog post, the White House called the decision on the terrorism list another step toward improving relations with Cuba.

“For 55 years, we tried using isolation to bring about change in Cuba,” it said. “But by isolating Cuba from the United States, we isolated the United States from the Cuban people and, increasingly, the rest of the world.”

The terrorism list was a particularly charged issue for Cuba because of the U.S. history of supporting exile groups responsible for attacks on the island, including the 1976 bombing of a Cuban passenger flight from Barbados that killed 73 people aboard. The attack was linked to Cuban exiles with ties to U.S.-backed anti-Castro groups and both men accused of masterminding the crime took shelter in Florida, where one, Luis Posada Carriles, currently lives.

“I think this could be a positive act that adds to hope and understanding and can help the negotiations between Cuba and the United States,” said director Juan Carlos Cremata, who lost his father in the 1976 bombing.

“It’s a list we never should have been on,” said Ileana Alfonso, who also lost her father in the attack.

Top U.S. Republicans criticized the move, with House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio saying the Obama administration had “handed the Castro regime a significant political win in return for nothing.”

“The communist dictatorship has offered no assurances it will address its long record of repression and human rights at home,” Boehner said in a statement.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said the decision was a mistake and called it “further evidence that President Obama seems more interested in capitulating to our adversaries than in confronting them.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, praised the move, saying it is a “critical step forward in creating new opportunities for American businesses and entrepreneurs, and in strengthening family ties.”

U.S. and Cuban officials have said the two sides are close to resolving the final issues needed for restoring diplomatic relations, but the most recent round of talks ended May 22 with no announcement of an agreement.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Friday that “there continue to be issues that need to be worked out.” He said important progress had been made, but would not give a time frame for an announcement. “That’s obviously among the next milestones,” he said.

Washington and Havana are wrangling over U.S. demands that its diplomats be able to travel throughout Cuba and meet with dissidents without restrictions. The Cubans are wary of activity they see as destabilizing to their government.

Both the U.S. and Cuba say reopening embassies would be a first step in a larger process of normalizing relations. That effort would still have to tackle bigger questions such as the trade embargo as well as the future of the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay and Cuba’s democracy record.

RENOVATION AND REPAIR Cuba Mar 2014 002 United_States_Capitol_building_under_renovation_November_2014_photo_D_Ramey_Logan

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ANALYSIS: CUBA POLL — HANDLE WITH CARE

Posted on May 31, 2015 by Arch Ritter

 Original Here: Kunzman on Cuba Poll

By Marcel Kunzmann

from Cuba Feute via The Cuba Standard

Bendixen-normalizationThe vast majority of Cubans welcome the current rapprochement with the United States and are optimistic about their future, according to a recent survey conducted in March on the island. On behalf of The Washington Post, Miami-based public opinion research firm Bendixen & Amandi International surveyed 1,200 Cubans on a wide variety of topics.

The survey produced a unique mosaic of opinions from the country. However, the results have to be looked at carefully.

Cuba – a difficult place for public opinion researchers

Opinion surveys are nothing new to most Cubans. The government has been using the methods of empirical social research for decades, to gather the mood of the population and identify specific problems to adapt their policies. For public researchers from other countries, however, Cuba is a tough environment. Government institutions are extremely suspicious of foreigners walking from door to door with questionnaires. In the case of Bendixen & Amandi, this made the hidden recruitment of Cuban interviewers obligatory.

“About three or four days into it, we got word that three of our interviewers had been detained,” said Fernand Amandi, who headed the Cuba poll. Still, the team managed to finish all interviews as scheduled between March 17-27. Although other public opinion institutes conduct Cuba polls on a more or less regularly base, the recent Bendixen poll stands out in the context of the diplomatic thaw between Cuba and the United States, and shines with its broad extent of aspects. Cuba pollsters from the exterior rarely manage to conduct 1,000 Interviews with such a wide variety of topics, so it is not surprising that international media gave broad coverage to the poll.

A closer look at the results is definitely useful.

Prevailing optimism and the desire for prosperity

First of all, it is striking that most Cubans draw a bright picture of their future. Seventy-two percent of respondents considered themselves optimistic about their own and their family’s future. Fifty-five percent assume that their wishes will become reality within the next five years. Asked about what they desire, 64% said they want to travel to another country, while 37% want to open their own business, followed closely by 34% who want to buy a car — multiple responses were possible here.

On the question, “In your opinion, what do the people of Cuba need the most at this time?”, 24% demand an open political system, while exactly as many want an improved quality of life. Far ahead in first place was, however, an improved economy, which 48% said Cubans need most. Only 19% claimed to be satisfied with their current economic system, which underlines the predominant perception of economic struggles.

The political system of Cuba — a bit of context

At least 39% of Cubans stated to be satisfied with their political system, while 34% said they weren’t satisfied at all with politics in their country. For 49% of those, the reason was a lack of freedom, while in second place 26% named the lack of economic development. Nineteen percent, however, stated the abstract slogan “We need change” as reason for their political discontent.

In a wider Latin American context, the political system of Cuba doesn’t perform as badly as these numbers suggest on first sight. According to recent Gallup polls, only 34% of Latin Americans trust their respective parliaments. In Peru, only 25% of the interviewees said they trust their government, while only 28% of Peruvians are satisfied with the state of democracy in their country. To give some other examples: In Colombia, 39% are satisfied with their democracy, in Argentina and Brazil 49%, and in Ecuador 56%.

Cubans rated their social system above-average, although the approval turned out slightly worse than in previous polls. Today, 68% of Cubans are satisfied with their healthcare system. This coincides with a 2007 Gallup poll, where 75% of Cubans said they trust their healthcare system — in contrast to 57% in the rest of Latin America. With 72% satisfaction, the Cuban education system was rated slightly better than healthcare. In 2007, Cuba already performed well with a 78% satisfaction in contrast to a 59% Latin American average. At that time, only a meager half of Latin Americans stated that education is accessible for all in their country, while 98% of Cubans affirmed this for their island.

Russia still more popular than the United States

Asked about their stance towards other countries, Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela were rated highly positive; more than 90% of respondents considered these countries a “friend of Cuba”. The United States ended up with 53%, far behind Russia (71%), although still ahead of North Korea (43%).

An overwhelming majority of Cubans (97%) share the opinion that diplomatic normalization with the United States is good for their country. Sixty-four percent expect economic changes, while 37% are expecting changes in the political sphere. Although 52% of respondents would like a multi-party system for Cuba, only 19% expect that this will be realized.

Not surprisingly, 96% of Cubans oppose the U.S. embargo against the island, but 83% would appreciate Raúl Castro visiting the United States. Their views of the United States also emphasize the economic priorities of many Cubans: Asked what they expect from the Cuba-U.S. thaw, 43% would like to have U.S. supermarkets, which places consumption on the first place in their wish list, followed closely by apartment buildings (41%), pharmacies (40%) and cars (35%). Meanwhile, most Cubans seem not to fear the side effects of a tourist boom, with 96% claiming that tourism would benefit their country.

Cubans favor Raúl Castro over his brother Fidel

Asked about the popularity of personalities, Pope Francis and Barack Obama seem to be the most popular international leaders in Cuba. Eighty percent of respondents had a positive opinion of them. Naturally, this wasn’t the case when it comes to their own head of government: Only 47% of Cubans have a positive opinion about Raúl Castro, giving him the same approval rating that Obama currently holds among Americans. However, Raúl is slightly more popular than his brother Fidel, who received a 44% approval rating. In a Latin American perspective, Raúl Castro actually enjoys the same approval rating as Rafael Correa in Ecuador (45.5%), but is far more popular than his close Venezuelan ally Nicolás Maduro who currently has to deal with a lowly 25%. Maduro is faring much better among Cubans, enjoying a solid 62% approval.

It’s also interesting to put a closer look at the demographic composition of these results. While in the group of 18-49 year olds 75% view their future optimistic, only 68% of those 50 years and older share this attitude. Even more striking is the obvious racial gap. Seventy-seven percent of the self-described white population are optimistic of their future, in contrast to only 57% of Afro Cubans. Nevertheless, support for the political and economic system of the island is above average within the black population.

Approval of the single-party system in Cuba is highly age dependent: While 59% of 18-49 year olds wish to have a choice of parties, only 37% of those 50 and older, and 27% of Cubans older than 65 do so. On the other hand, only 27% of 18-34 year olds hold a positive attitude towards the ruling Communist Party, while 44% of the 50-64 year olds do.

The same is true for the popularity of Raúl Castro, although the age gap is much smaller here. Only 43% of the 18-34 year olds have a positive opinion of their president, while Castro is enjoying the support of the majority (55%) of Cubans older than 65 years. The situation is similar for Fidel Castro, who enjoys the highest backing in the group of 50-64 year olds (51%), while only 40% of white Cubans but 51% of Afro Cubans have a positive opinion about their ex-president.

Also, there is a noticeable regional spread: While Raúl Castro enjoys his highest approval (57%) in central Cuban provinces, Fidel Castro is quite more popular in western Cuba and Havana, where 58% do have a positive opinion of the historic leader of the Revolution. Obviously, their origin doesn’t play a role, since both Castros were raised in eastern Cuba, where their popularity is lowest.

How representative is the composition of the poll?

Speaking about demographics, some methodical weaknesses of the poll are obvious. Asked by Cuba heute, the Washington Post stated that “researchers did compare the demographic makeup of respondents to the overall population on sex, region and race, and found they were very close to government estimates”, but “the sample was somewhat younger than the overall population.” Although one can approve this statement when looking at the final results, there is some evidence for a lack of representation when it comes to the social composition of the group of respondents.

It stands out that 57% of respondents claimed to have access to their own landline phone in their home. Official figures show that there are only 29 phone lines per 100 inhabitants (including cell phones) in Cuba. After speaking with the pollsters of Bendixen & Amadi, the Washington Post found a plausible explanation for this phenomenon, telling Cuba heute that the interviewers themselves already noticed this bias: “Like you, they were surprised by the result on phone usage, and sought an explanation from their field team in Cuba. They reported that many respondents did not comprehend this question as it was intended, and seemed to interpret having access to a phone at home as having access to a phone in their community (i.e. in a neighbor’s home). Some interviewers observed homes having no visible telephone but nonetheless reporting that they did.”

It gets more complicated when you take a look at the employment of the respondents. The pollsters of B&A surveyed as many state as private-sector employees in Cuba; every third person was apparently working for the private sector, according to the results. This definitely is not a representative composition in a country where only 22% of all employees (including farmworkers) work in the private sector. This sums up to only 12% of the adult Cuban population, the target group of the survey. This possibly points to an urban bias within the set of respondents, where an obviously disproportional number of private-sector employees was included. Other polls, like the annual Cuba Survey of the International Republican Institute (IRI), did a much better job when it comes to the selection of a representative group of participants. The Washington Post has yet to answer a question about that subject.

Opinion polls in Cuba always have to overcome many obstacles. On the one hand, the country lacks the appropriate infrastructure to conduct modern randomized telephone surveys. On the other hand, the old-style survey process itself seems to be even more difficult in Cuba than in other places. Especially with controversial political topics (e.g. the question of the one-party system), more than 20% of respondents declined to make a statement. In addition to that, it is perfectly conceivable that many supporters of the Revolution do not participate at all in foreign surveys, as a matter of principle. Even for major polling institutes seem to fail in the selection of a representative group of participants. Last but not least, some questions suffer from a huge range of different interpretations, as the example of the telephone landlines shows.

Despite their methodical weaknesses, the Bendixen & Amandi survey gives us a first insight into the thinking of some Cubans. Despite the usual margin of error of 5% and a not fully representative audience, one can at least on the clearly unequivocal questions draw some conclusions about the attitude of the overall population. Even so, this survey represents a snapshot. Especially on controversial issues a high grade of uncertainty remains, which is why the results should always be treated with caution.

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Cuba heute is a German-language blog about political and economic trends in Cuba with emphasis on the ongoing reform process. The author is studying politics and history at the University of Jena (Germany) and plans to spend a semester in Havana this winter

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WILL A (REPUBLICAN-DOMINATED) US CONGRESS’S OMNIBUS BILL FORCE PRESIDENT OBAMA TO CHOOSE BETWEEN REVERSING HIS CUBA POLICY AND SHUTTING DOWN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT?

Posted on May 23, 2015 by Arch Ritter

From the “Cuba Central Team”, May 22, 2014

Original article here: US CONGRESS’S OMNIBUS BIDGET BILL AND CUBA POLICY

 Step-by-step, legislation is working its way through Congress to curtail much of the progress President Obama is making in U.S.-Cuba relations by cutting the funds needed by federal agencies to implement his new policies.

 Today, we ask: Will those who benefit most from the new policies that encourage travel and trade with Cuba do nothing but stand on the sidelines in the expectation that President Obama will veto the bills that reverse them?

 In 2011, after President Obama reinstated the rules allowing Cuban Americans to visit their relatives on the island and permitting all Americans to send remittances to Cubans, hardliners used the budget process to prevent the policies from being implemented.

 Back then, the White House issued a policy statement promising to veto the legislation unless the budget riders on Cuba were removed. The President’s supporters, who comprised the majority in the Senate, kept the provisions out of the big budget bills that finally emerged from paralysis and delays on Capitol Hill. Legislation reversing the modest but hopeful travel and remittance reforms never reached the President’s desk.

As a result, hundreds of thousands of journeys between the United States and Cuba have taken place every year reuniting families, while increasing numbers of Cubans receiving the economic support they needed to run their own businesses and lead more independent lives.

This is a different time. On December 17th, the President changed the whole intent of U.S. policy and the architecture of U.S.-Cuba relations.

For the first time in six decades, the U.S. government is encouraging citizen diplomacy, greater travel and trade, the telecommunications, travel, and other industries, to build relationships and stronger ties with Cuban counterparts — putting our country on the side of Cubans succeeding, rather than rooting for the Cuban government and system to fail.

That is why Jet Blue and other airlines are expanding charter services and planning commercial routes, why ferry companies are planning to set sail for Havana, why Airbnb and Netflix are hoping to build real businesses in the Cuban market, why Governors like Andrew Cuomo are trying to position companies in their states to succeed.

It is why Americans across the country, and Cuban Americans in the communities where they live, are so deeply committed to a policy that puts the Cold War behind us and puts our country on the right side of history.

Unless the Congress pulls the plug with the budget riders they’ve put into play. The House Appropriations Committee has already voted to ground new commercial or charter flights that come into being after March 15, 2015 in the transportation department budget bill.  Jet Blue and Tampa International Airport — that means you.

A similar set of restrictions in the same measure would stop the new ferries from ever leaving port, despite one estimate that says every ship put into service would provide as much as $340 million back into Florida’s economy.   Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Orlando, Miami? Don’t spend it yet.

 Then, there’s the Commerce Department bill shutting down U.S. exports to Cuba. Telecommunications firms? Others? Better dial 9-11.

 Even worse, as USA Today reports, there are budget restrictions yet to be voted on: restoring the limits on travel and restricting the use of American dollars on the island — take that MasterCard and American Express.

Where are the adults? Not in the House. Speaker John Boehner, as the Washington Post reported this morning is giving the greenlight to hardliners who are “interested in stopping this progression toward normal relations with Cuba.”

Certainly not in the Senate, where hardliners won’t allow an Ambassador to be confirmed to represent our country and its interests in the new embassy in Havana, should they allow it the funds to open at all.

Here’s the bottom line. Whether Congress follows the regular order and starts enacting bills to finance Cabinet departments separately — or it wraps them all together in one giant package — sooner or later all these restrictions are going to land with a thump and a thud on President Obama’s Oval Office desk.

Congress may even force him to choose between closing down his Cuba policy and shutting down the federal government.

 We think the President will warm up his veto pen and choose to save a policy that is good for our country, good for Cubans, and a cornerstone of his foreign policy legacy.

And so we ask again, as we did at the outset: will those who stand to benefit most from his decisions make him face that choice alone?

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TWO VIEWS ON THE FUTURE OF GUANTANAMO:

Posted on May 20, 2015 by Arch Ritter

II.   Peter McKenna, THE FUTURE OF GITMO

Ottawa Citizen, May 15, 2015

Original here: Gitmo

Guantanamo_bay_satellite_imageI’ve just returned from a visit to Guantanamo City and its outskirts. It is blistering hot in and around Guantanamo City, which surely doesn’t minimize the harsh prison conditions for the remaining 120 or so detainees at the U.S. naval facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It is not clear what their fate will be if the U.S. base is eventually returned to the Cubans.

Taking up 117 square kilometres, which includes over 1,000 buildings and two airfields, it’s hard to miss in south-eastern Cuba. But will it prove to be a major stumbling block in the way of a normalized U.S.-Cuba relationship?

Interestingly, it is a self-contained U.S. military facility (or reservation) — replete with its own grocery store, movie theatre, church and golf course. It even has its own McDonald’s restaurant, the only one on the island.

The initial 1903 Cuban-American Treaty, which laid out the terms of the lease agreement, put the annual rental fee at 2,000 U.S. gold coins. The 1934 Lease Agreement set the current cost at US$4,085 and essentially gave the U.S. government a lease in perpetuity for the territory around Guantanamo Bay (for use as only a naval coaling station).

It is said in Cuba that the Castro brothers have either sent the lease cheques back to the Americans or left them un-cashed in a desk drawer somewhere. The Castro governments have always maintained that the lease component of the 1934 revised treaty is illegal.

Since the 1959 Cuban Revolution and the coming to power of Fidel Castro, Cuba has seen the U.S. base as “occupied territory” and has consistently demanded its return. To this day, Cuba’s political leadership views Guantanamo as a matter of national sovereignty and as rightful Cuban territory. And just about every Cuban whom I spoke with feels that same ways about the base, its tarnished colonial legacy, and its connection to Cuba’s identity.

Just in case, the Cubans have military bases (at least three) near and around the U.S. naval facility. There are other trenches, prickly cacti, fences and observation/guard posts to repel the Americans — to say nothing of the deadly minefield.

For the U.S. government, the domestic politics of relinquishing control of Guantanamo would suggest an American resistance to even broaching negotiations over its return. It also still has strategic importance in terms of the Caribbean (and China’s growing involvement in the region), value as a naval training facility, and as a means of keeping a watchful eye on Cuba. Notwithstanding a substantial financial operating cost, it will certainly not be easy for the U.S. to walk away from Guantanamo.

That explains why the Barack Obama White House said plainly in early 2015: “The president does believe that the prison at Guantanamo Bay should be closed down. But the naval base is not something that we believe should be closed.”

However, at a regional summit meeting in Costa Rica in late January, Cuban President Raul Castro was adamant about the transfer of Guantanamo back to Cuban hands. He noted that normal bilateral relations “will not be possible while the blockade still exists, while they don’t give back the territory illegally occupied by the Guantanamo naval base.”

Most Cubans know that the issue of Guantanamo is complicated and not likely to be resolved easily. But they are determined to get it back, which might make it a diplomatic deal-breaker.

Both sides may simply continue to agree to disagree about the base. Or, the prison could be closed down and the U.S. military presence further reduced (or wound down entirely over a set period of time). It is also possible that the stalemate over Guantanamo remains frozen in time — at least in the short to medium term — while an improvement in bilateral relations limps along.

One hopes that a normalization of U.S.-Cuban relations doesn’t get torpedoed by an antiquated lease agreement. But if Cuba and the United States are unable to come to a meeting of the minds on Guantanamo (e.g., essentially a complete transfer back to Cuba), it’s hard to see how a full-fledged rapprochement can take place.

Peter McKenna is professor and chair of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.Aerial-view-bay-ships-bw DN-ST-95-01300 BE070079.

II.   Nick Miroff, WHY THE US BASE AT CUBA’S GUANTANAMO BAY IS PROBABLY DOOMED

The Washington Post, May 18, 2015

Original here: Us Base at Guantanamo  Probably Doomed

HAVANA — If the United States and Cuba restore diplomatic ties in the coming weeks, as anticipated, the two countries will still be a long way from anything resembling a “normal” relationship, Cuban President Raul Castro has said repeatedly. His list of grievances is lengthy. But this week Castro said it boils down to two big issues.

The first, of course, is the U.S. trade embargo. The other is the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, the oldest overseas American Navy base in the world, which the United States has occupied for 116 years.

That one isn’t up for debate, the Obama administration says. But, one can only wonder, for how long?

Scholars and military experts say it’s difficult to see how United States can overhaul its relationship with Havana while hanging on to a big chunk of Cuban territory indefinitely, especially if relations warm significantly in a post-Castro era.

While there are plenty of examples in the world of disputed borders or contested islands, the 45-square-mile American enclave at Guantanamo is something of a global geopolitical anomaly. There is no other place in the world where the U.S. military forcefully occupies foreign land on an open-ended basis, against the wishes of its host nation.

“It’s probably inevitable that we’ll have to give it back to Cuba, but it would take a lot of diplomatic heavy-lifting,” said retired Adm. James Stavridis, a former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and now dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Stavridis was head of the U.S. military’s Southern Command between 2006 and 2009, putting him in charge of the Guantanamo base, which he said remains a “strategic, and highly useful” U.S asset. “It’s hard to think of another place with the combination of a deep water port, decent airstrip and a lot of land,” Stavridis said.

The controversial American detention camp for global terrorism suspects is just one of the base’s conveniences. It is a logistical hub for the Navy’s Fourth Fleet, as well as counter-narcotics operations and disaster-relief efforts. It also functions as a detention center for north-bound migrants intercepted at sea. The base’s location on Cuba’s south coast allows the U.S. military to project power across the entire Caribbean basin. And it’s strategically located next to Haiti, a place that often needs U.S. help.

As a military installation, though, Guantanamo — Gitmo is its nickname — is no longer essential in a modern era of aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and drones, Stavridis said. “You wouldn’t launch a large-scale military operation from there,” he explained, adding that many of the other uses Guantanamo provides could be fulfilled by existing U.S. military facilities in Puerto Rico or south Florida.

“I don’t think it’s irreplaceable,” Stavridis said.

U.S. warships sailed into Guantanamo Bay in 1898, and together with Cuban rebels, defeated the Spanish fleet. The Americans essentially never left, conditioning Cuban independence on constitutional provisions allowing the U.S. Navy to occupy the area “for the time required.” Rent was set at $2,000 a year, paid in gold.

A new lease increased the amount to $4,000 in 1934, according to this history of the base by scholar Paul Kramer. But there was no cut-off date for the Americans to leave.

The U.S. government still dutifully sends rent checks to the Cuban government, but the Castros don’t cash them. They don’t recognize the lease, and — like landlords in a rent-controlled Brooklyn apartment — want their tenants to leave. Fidel Castro is said to keep the checks piled up in his desk drawer, using them as a kind of political prop. It’s hard to imagine a more ready-made symbol of U.S. imperialism than a military base whose history is so wrapped up in late 19th-century attempts at American empire.

After Castro’s revolution, the United States had no intention of letting the base fall under communist control. At times of peak tensions during the Cold War, such as the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the base’s fences became a front line for the Soviet-American standoff. Volleys of gunfire were occasionally exchanged between U.S. and Cuban troops. One such event was dramatized in the 1992 film “A Few Good Men,” in which an agitated Jack Nicholson memorably told Tom Cruise he wouldn’t be able to handle the pressures of living under constant threat at Guantanamo.

Castro shut off the water and electricity in 1964, and today the base is completely isolated from the rest of Cuba. Visitors say it resembles a small American city, with the island’s only McDonald’s franchise, as well as a Taco Bell, a Subway and other American chains. The divide from the rest of the island is lethally enforced by land mines, concertina wire and thickets of thorny cactus.

In recent years, President Barack Obama’s unsuccessful attempts to close the base’s prison camp have inspired several dream scenarios of a post-military future for the base. One would converted it to a research center and treatment facility for tropical diseases and epidemics. If returned to Cuban control, it could become a second campus of Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine, where students from around the world get free medical training from the Cuban government.

Stavridis said a proposal along these lines to “internationalize” the base that retains its value as a logistical center for humanitarian relief would probably be an acceptable future within the Pentagon — at least in the long run. Other optimists say the base’s transformation could serve as an exercise in trust-building between Cuba and the United States as hostilities ease.

Such a move wouldn’t be without precedent. The U.S. reluctantly gave up the Panama Canal Zone, a place far more strategic to military operations and U.S. commercial interests than Guantanamo Bay. Panama converted the military installations into a “City of Knowledge,” a cluster of research labs and campus facilities in partnership with several U.S. universities.

Miroff is a Latin America correspondent for The Washington Post, roaming from the U.S.-Mexico borderlands to South America’s southern cone. He has been a staff writer since 2006.

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CUBA’S HAD A LUNG CANCER VACCINE FOR YEARS, AND NOW IT’S COMING TO THE U.S.

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Arch Ritter

The Huffington Post | By Erin Schumaker

 Posted: 05/14/2015

Original here: Cuba’s Cancer Vaccine

 When New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) headed to Havana on a historic trade mission in April, he returned with the promise of an important commodity: a Cuban-developed lung cancer vaccine.

The vaccine, called CimaVax, has been researched in Cuba for 25 years and became available for free to the Cuban public in 2011. The country’s Center for Molecular Immunology signed an agreement last month with Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York to import CimaVax and begin clinical trials in the United States.

“We’re still at the very early stages of assessing the promise of this vaccine, but the evidence so far from clinical trials in Cuba and Europe has been striking,” Dr. Kelvin Lee, Jacobs Family Chair in Immunology and co-leader of the Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy Program at Roswell Park, told The Huffington Post.

When President Obama loosened the United States’ 55-year long trade embargo against the island nation in December, he allowed for such joint research deals to be finalized. Similar programs might have been impossible just a few years ago.

Cuba has long been known for its high-quality cigars, and lung cancer is a major public health problem and the fourth-leading cause of death in the country. A 2007 study of patients with stages IIIB and IV lung cancer, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, confirmed the safety of the CimaVax and showed an increase in tumor-reducing antibody production in more than half of cases. It proved particularly effective for increased survival if the study participant was younger than 60.

So far, 5,000 patients worldwide have been treated with CimaVax, including 1,000 patients in Cuba. Lee said the latest Cuban study of 405 patients, which has not yet been published, confirms earlier findings about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. What’s more, the shot is cheap — it costs the Cuban government just $1, Wired reported. And studies have found there are no significant side effects.

“We think it may be an effective way to prevent cancer from developing or recurring, so that’s where a lot of our team’s excitement comes in,” Lee said. “There’s good reason to believe that this vaccine may be effective in both treating and preventing several types of cancer, including not only lung but breast, colorectal, head-and-neck, prostate and ovarian cancers, so the potential positive impact of this approach could be enormous.”

Preclinical investigations of CimaVax at Roswell Park and the unpublished findings of the 405-patient Cuban study are promising, according to Lee. CimaVax works by blocking a hormone that causes lung cancer tumors to grow, a method which has also been shown to be effective in treating colon cancer. That fuels researchers’ hope that the vaccine will be an effective treatment for other types of cancer as well.

Still, he acknowledged that the vaccine needs rigorous testing in each of these different disease areas to know whether or not the drug will work as well as the scientists at Roswell Park hope. To be clear, the CimaVax doesn’t cure cancer. It’s a therapeutic vaccine that works by targeting the tumor itself, specifically going after the proteins that allow a tumor to keep growing. (And as PBS points out, a person can’t just take a shot of CimaVax and continue to smoke without fear of lung cancer.)

“We hope to determine in the next few years whether giving CimaVax to patients who’ve had a lung cancer removed, or maybe even to people at high risk of developing lung or head-and-neck cancers because of a history of heavy smoking, may be beneficial and may spare those people from having a cancer diagnosis or recurrence,” Lee said.

The United States is currently at work developing two lung cancer vaccines of its own, GVAX and BLP 25, though neither has been studied for as long as CimaVax.

How does a tiny island nation with limited economic resources pioneer a powerhouse cancer vaccine? “They’ve had to do more with less,” Candace Johnson, CEO of Roswell Park, told Wired. “So they’ve had to be even more innovative with how they approach things. For over 40 years, they have had a preeminent immunology community.”

Despite decades of economic problems and the U.S. trade embargo, Cuba has been a model of public health. According the New York Times, life expectancy for Cubans is 79 years, on par with the United States, despite the fact that its economy per person is eight times smaller. While many drugs and even anesthesia have been hard to come by over the years, Cuba has one of the best doctor to patient ratios in the world. Moreover, the Cuban government’s investment in primary care for residents and preventative health measures like public education, housing and nutrition have paid huge dividends in the health of citizens, especially relative to similarly poor countries.

Looking forward, ongoing research collaborations between the two nations are almost certainly on the horizon as relations between Cuba and the U.S. continue to thaw. For now, Lee says the researchers at Roswell Park have their eyes trained on about 20 cancer treatment and prevention technologies in Cuba — including another lung cancer vaccine called racotumomab that the group hopes to study in clinical trials at Roswell. Cuba - CIMCentro de Inmunología Molecular – Cuba

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