Some news items

On Cuba:

Cuba this week condemned the attack on the Boston marathon, with Cuban Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Josefina Vidal expressing ”the most heartfelt condolences of the people and government of Cuba to the people and government of the United States, particularly those directly affected by this tragedy.” http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-foe-cuba-sends-condolences-marathon-attack-18971181#.UXCpXqLCaSo

For anyone bemused by reports of a scientific study supposedly showing health benefits Cubans enjoyed during their country’s  “special period,” the hardship years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, here’s a link to the original article in the British Medical Journal: http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f1515

And the Washington Post has a fascinating profile of Ana Belen Montes, the U.S. Defense Department analyst who was recruited by Cuban intelligence and is currently serving a 20-year sentence for espionage: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/feature/wp/2013/04/18/ana-montes-did-much-harm-spying-for-cuba-chances-are-you-havent-heard-of-her/

and on Chile:

The Economist has an interesting piece on the recent impeachment of Chile’s education minister, Harald Beyer, describing him as an apolitical “educational nerd” who also acted as an independent advisor Socialist President Michelle Bachelet.  The article notes that while he cut the interest rate students pay on their educational loans from 6% to 2% and made more money available for low-income students it was not enough to satisfy more radical reformers. http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2013/04/education-chile

The Financial Times blog Beyond Brics reports on a controversy over Chile’s inflation statistics: http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2013/04/18/in-chile-clothing-prices-cause-statistical-uproar/#axzz2QrdMTXML

The Associated Press reports on the rescue of 97 crew members from a burning Chinese fishing boat near Chile’s Bernardo O’Higgins research base in Antarctica.  The Chilean navy has sent a tugboat to haul away the Chinese craft and prevent an oil spill. http://www.suntimes.com/news/world/19574819-418/chile-rushes-to-aid-ship-in-antarctica-after-fire.html

UPI has a piece on the return of Huemel deer, an endangered species featured on the Chilean coat of arms, to their natural habitat in Patagonia: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2013/04/16/Threatened-iconic-deer-in-Chile-on-the-way-back-to-recovery/UPI-45321366152636/

On the state of U.S.-Cuba relations

The Associated Press reports on U.S. Secretary of State’s forthcoming decision on whether to recommend removing Cuba from a list of countries sponsoring terrorism: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2013-03-23/key-us-decision-on-cuba-terror-designation-coming  The article notes that the decision will have a major impact on bilateral relations, either “ushering in long-stalled detente or slamming the door on rapprochement, perhaps until the scheduled end of the Castro era in 2018.”

Foreign Policy has a blog post about dissident Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, who told an audience at Washington’s Cato Institute that she believed the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba should be lifted: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/03/19/yoani_sanchez_on_why_its_time_to_end_the_embargo

The U.S. State Department’s Bureau for Narcotics Control and International Law Enforcement Affairs annual report on drug trafficking had rather favorable things to say about Cuba, a country the region’s narcotraficantes would just love to bring into their fold.  The report notes that “Cuba’s domestic drug production and consumption remain negligible as a result of active policing, harsh sentencing for drug offenses, and very low consumer disposable income” and the country “maintained a significant level of cooperation with U.S. counternarcotics efforts “The report also praised “the technical skill of Cuba’s security services,” which gave it an edge over drug traffickers attempting to access the island.  http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/204265.pdf

And earlier this month Granma, Cuba’s official newspaper, published an interview with U.S. Consul General Timothy Roche on the procedure for obtaining a U.S. visa. The U.S. Interests Section in Havana requested the interview shortly after Cuban authorities lifted the exit visa requirement for most Cubans wishing to travel abroad.http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2013/03/11/pdf/pagina05.pdf

The dark side of tourism

Has Cuba become a destination for Canadian pedophiles?  A recent joint investigation by the Toronto Star and El Nuevo Herald http://www.elnuevoherald.com/video/index.html?media_id=161053861 says so, and details the arrest of a Canadian accused of “making child pornography, six counts of sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching and committing an indecent act” during trips to Cuba between June 2011 and July 2012.  James McTurk, 78, is said to have made between eight to ten trips to Cuba per year—which raises uncomfortable questions as to how he afforded so much foreign travel on his postal worker’s pension and why neither Canadian nor Cuban officials noticed him for so long.

The report cites a study by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that says

“Cuba appears to be a potential destination for Canadian travelling sex offenders. Seven of the suspected travelling child sex offenders identified in the domestic law enforcement assessment had visited Cuba. This is the second most visited destination country among those whom Canadian law enforcement investigated for travelling child sex offenses.”

The RCMP study also said that Cuba did not appear to have many of the common factors associated with child sex offenses. “Unlike other countries mentioned in this document, Cuba’s population is well-educated and literacy rates are very high. The police and other officials appear to treat sex crimes, particularly those against children, seriously and professionally.” Such crimes usually occur not in tourist resorts where security is relatively good, but in private residences (casas particulares) where pedophiles are able to “access children and locals who are willing to facilitate crimes against children in return for financial compensation.” http://media.elnuevoherald.com/smedia/2013/03/13/10/50/a3cPA.So.84.pdf

It should not be too difficult for Cuban officials to monitor suspicious foreigners in Cuba, for international visitors are photographed upon arrival and departure.  This blogger stayed at two casas particulares in Havana, and my hosts were required to take my tourist card and register my stay with the authorities within 24 hours of my arrival.

Last year I spoke to someone from a child protection NGO who had worked in Cuba.  He said that while child sexual abuse was a problem in the country, it tended to occur along the same lines as in Western countries—that is, such cases usually happened within households and not as the result of human trafficking. Cuba has a low birth rate, which means there aren’t that many cases of impoverished rural families sending children to live with distant relatives in the cities, where they may fall through the cracks of whatever social support system is in place.  The country’s housing shortage means that living quarters are often crowded and sleeping spaces shared in uncomfortable ways.

“It’s a huge problem,” he said, adding that his Cuban hosts would not share any statistics on the issue, “and we quickly learned not to ask.”

A Cuba news roundup

The Miami Herald reports that the Guantanamo Bay Navy Base is being used as a training ground for a possible humanitarian-relief crisis “inspired by the tens of thousands of Haitians and Cubans who overwhelmed this base in the 1990s: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/11/3228062/guantanamo-is-used-for-mass-migration.html

The Huffington Post has a piece by dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez on her country’s famous cigars, now out of reach for most Cubans: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/a-box-of-cigars-cost-a-ye_b_2659579.html

The Global Post has a report by Reuters on Cuban plans to expand its largest oil refinery against a background of uncertainty over joint Cuba-Venezuela projects:  http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/thomson-reuters/130210/amid-uncertainties-cuba-seeks-funding-refinery-expansion

The Toronto Star on Canadians abandoned by Cuban spouses soon after their sponsored arrival in Canada: http://www.thestar.com/news/immigration/2013/02/07/from_cuba_yet_another_broken_heart.html

Berkeleyside, a news site covering Berkeley, California, reports on a sister city program with a town in eastern Cuba and a clean water project: http://www.berkeleyside.com/2013/02/08/berkeley-aims-to-help-sister-city-in-cuba-with-clean-water-plan/

Aftermath of a summit

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera with Cuba’s Raul Castro in Santiago.

Here’s a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMYpdHIpvMU of Raul Castro’s speech at the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the European Union, held this past weekend in Santiago. The Cuban leader has just received the pro tempore presidency of CELAC and had a warm exchange with Chilean President Sebastian Piñera, a conservative and business tycoon.  Castro’s tone makes it clear he’s no softer, gentler version of his brother Fidel. There are brief shots of Venezuela’s acting president Nicolas Maduro talking to someone while Castro is speaking, and of Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega stifling either a yawn or a cough.

Toward the end of his prepared speech Castro looked up and began some improvised comments about drug trafficking in Latin America, insisting there was no such activity in Cuba—aside from marijuana plants some Cubans grow in pots on their balconies.

“When tourism began to increase—and last year we had almost 3 million foreign visitors—Cuba became a target for drug traffickers,” he said. Castro said he met with various government agencies to unleash a “blood and fire” battle against the drug trade, and that more than 250 foreigners were imprisoned in Cuba on drugs charges. He made a reference to Mexico’s narcotraficantes, then began reminiscing about the voyage of the Granma yacht carrying 82 Cuban revolutionaries from Mexico to Cuba in 1956.

Piñera had a private meeting with Castro to discuss the 1991 killing of a Chilean senator, Jaime Guzman, who had worked closely with the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet and helped draft the regime’s 1980 constitution. Chilean investigators have linked five members of the now-disbanded Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodriguez, an armed leftwing group with close ties to Cuba, to Guzman’s murder and at least four of the five men are believed to reside in Cuba. According to Piñera, Castro promised to “study the background details and deliver his best cooperation.”  The story in El Nuevo Herald: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2012/01/28/139769/raul-castro-se-compromete-ayudar.html.

But Cuba’s foreign minister offered a different version of the meeting, telling reporters in Santiago that “no document or specific information was delivered or received” and that Piñera had only offered to approach Cuban authorities.

“The Cuban government is awaiting this information which will be considered by judicial authorities in our country,” said Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla. He said the Castro-Piñera meeting was “fascinating, because a lot of time was spent talking about the insurrectional stage of the Cuban revolution” and that the Chileans showed “a surprising knowledge” of this history. http://cafefuerte.com/cuba/noticias-de-cuba/politica/2527-raul-castro-y-sebastian-pinera-hablan-del-moncada-y-la-sierra-maestra

And here is some background on the Guzman killing, courtesy of the U.S. State Department Electronic Reading Room.

1. A declassified cable from the U. S. Embassy in Santiago describes the scene at Guzman’s funeral—which was attended by both the American and Soviet ambassadors: http://foia.state.gov/documents/StateChile3/000089A7.pdf
2. A declassified Central Intelligence report describes how the Guzman assassination is fueling political tension just as Chile’s new civilian government completed an inquiry into human rights abuses under Pinochet: http://foia.state.gov/documents/Pcia3/00009232.pdf
3. Another, almost completely redacted CIA  report on the case is three pages long and begins with the words, “In mid-April 1991” and then is blacked out until the last page, with a text which reads, [          ] has information indicating that a cell of the dissident faction of the FPMR (FPR/DI, which is infiltrated by former national intelligence director General Manuel Contreras Sepulveda) carried out the April assassination of rightist Senator Jaime Guzman.  [           ]  angrily told [           ] this was disinformation.”: http://foia.state.gov/documents/Pcia3/0000925B.pdf

The Financial Times ran an editorial entitled “Silly in Chile”on the CELAC-EU summit: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9acf0624-663a-11e2-bb67-00144feab49a.html#axzz2JNIWEzY9

And Chilean political scientist Patricio Navia has this column , “An unnoticed absence,” on the summit and U.S. Latin American policy in the Buenos Aires Herald: http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/122858/an-unnoticed-absence

Watching television in Cuba

The Venezuelan television channel Telesur has begun live broadcasts to Cuba.

During my visit to Cuba I watched television whenever I could, trying to get a sense of what Cuban authorities were thinking and what Cuban viewers were seeing.  I was especially interested in public health announcements, such as those advising people to boil their water before drinking and to guard against mosquitoes breeding in and around their homes.

In order to catch these announcements, I had to sit through several old reruns of Little House on the Prairie, which had been retitled “La Familia Ingalls” and presented as “an American family living with austerity.” There was a broadcast on disability awareness that began with a music video of Lionel Richie’s song, “Hello,” in which a teacher falls in love with a blind student. And there were also programs from the Venezuelan channel Telesur, such as a healthy cooking show featuring ingredients Cubans might find difficult to obtain and “USA de Verdad,” a program billed as “stories of the average American citizen” and the “impact of the economic crisis on their lives.”  The episode of “USA de Verdad” that I watched was set in the Bronx, with the intended message was that life was tough in a low-income New York neighborhood. But the images showed buildings, streets and sidewalks in far better condition than in most of Havana, so one can only speculate as to how Cuban viewers reacted.

This week Telesur began direct broadcasts to Cuba for several hours a day. The Los Angeles Times reports http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-cuba-us-president-obama-20130121,0,7160624.story  that Cubans had the chance to watch U.S. President Barack Obama’s inauguration in real-time, though his speech was accompanied by a Telesur commentator who questioned his statements.

 

Cancer care in Cuba

CIMEQ, the Havana hospital where Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is undergoing cancer treatment.

The Centro de Investigaciones Médico Quirúrgicas, CIMEQ (http://www.cimeq.org), the Cuban hospital treating  Hugo Chavez, is the subject of articles by Reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/14/us-cuba-chavez-hospital-idUSBRE90D16920130114 and the Associated Press http://news.yahoo.com/chavez-reportedly-exclusive-cuba-hospital-195249250.html and both news agencies observe there is little outward sign of the Venezuelan leader’s presence there. The hospital has a wing for foreigners and VIPs and its website (http://www.cimeq.org/es) lists 16 medical services, including 24 different cosmetic  surgical procedures.

Another option offered to paying cancer patients is a regime of alternative treatments by the La Coronacion travel agency in Havana. Billed as “the first Touristic Package designed to provide homeopathic natural oncological treatment in Cuba,” the agency offers 7, 15 and 21-day stays that include accommodation at the Hotel Club Acuario, transfers, a medical consultation and a combination of four nutritional and homeopathic remedies http://cuba-yes.com/en/health/cancer-medical-package.php.

One of these products is Vidatox 30CH, a medication derived from scorpion venom produced by the Cuban state biotechnology company Labiofam.  According to Labiofam’s web site (http://www.labiofamcuba.com), “the venom  from the Cuban scorpion Rhopalurus junceus has been shown to have antitumoral and antimetastatic activity on solid tumors” and “represents a potential therapeutic alternative for the treatment of neoplastic disease in humans.”

Some Cuba food links

A rural scene in western Cuba, where the soil is rich but the crop yields are poor.

I’ll begin this post with yet another cab driver conversation, this one following a visit to Cuba’s Jardin Botanico Nacional, where a guide has given  us a detailed tour of some of the country’s botanical riches. The driver usually works outside Havana’s Hotel Nacional and the vehicle we’re in is an old Chaika, a luxury car once made in the former Soviet Union. The car used to belong to Fidel Castro—or so he says. But he doesn’t share foreign visitors’ enthusiasm for vintage automobiles, saying that for him they are a sign of economic backwardness.

Cuba has very fertile soil, doesn’t it, I asked him. He readily agreed. And a long growing season, I add.  He agreed again.  And your population is educated, so shouldn’t Cuba be able to feed itself, I ask. That’s right, he said, but “hay que cambiar mentes.”  Minds have to be changed.

According to the British government’s Trade and Investment web site Cuba’s agricultural sector accounts for less than 5% of GDP and “is particularly inefficient, and as a result up to 80% of food is imported. Once a major sugar exporter, production levels have slumped to lower than a century ago. Cuba’s dependence on imported food and oil leaves it vulnerable to rising world prices, fluctuations in commodity prices (particularly nickel) and the knock-on effects of economic downturns on tourism.”

http://www.ukti.gov.uk/export/countries/americas/caribbean/cuba/overseasbusinessrisk.html

Cuban dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez, in a post entitled New Zealand Butter, asks why her country is importing such basic products from so far away: http://www.desdecuba.com/generationy/?p=3270

This is a report by the Associated Press, printed in the Chicago Daily Herald http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20121111/business/711119879/  on U.S. food producers at the 30^th International Trade Fair in Havana in November of last year.  A Cuban official estimated the country will spend $105 million more than necessary on U.S. imports due to unfavorable credit terms, currency exchanges and logistical losses in shipping.

The Lexington Institute’s Philip Peters, whose blog The Cuban Triangle http://cubantriangle.blogspot.co.uk  is one of the best, has published a paper on Cuban agricultural reforms under Raul Castro: http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/reforming-cuban-agriculture-unfinished-business?a=1&c=1186

On a more optimistic note, here’s an excellent piece by Nick Miroff in the Global Post on a thriving night time produce market in Havana: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/cuba/121221/havana-market-cuban-capitalism

Apples in Cuba

In Habana Vieja, the historic center of the Cuban capital, American apples are on sale for half a convertible peso each.  This blogger bought one from a street vendor, inquiring where the apples came from.  The United States, she told me. What about the trade embargo, I asked.

“Yes, the embargo exists, but I don’t know how these come into the country,” she said.

Here’s a link to a BBC report on the state of Virginia’s apple exports to Cuba: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20802951  One of the apple growers interviewed describes his visit to Cuba, meeting Fidel Castro and describing him as “the smartest politician I’ve ever seen.”

Of course, the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, first enacted in 1960, is not exactly watertight.  In 1999 President Bill Clinton simultaneously tightened and loosened the embargo, prohibiting the foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba while allowing agricultural and medical products to be sold on a cash-up-front, no credit basis..  In addition to apples, here are some more American products I saw on sale in Cuba:

1. Coca-Cola (produced by the company’s Mexican subsidiary).
2. Jack Daniels whiskey
3. Head and Shoulders shampoo
4. Colgate toothpaste (produced in China).

Here’s a link to the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, which advises American exporters on trading with Cuba: http://www.cubatrade.org/

Hanukkah in Havana

American contractor Alan Gross, who has spent three years in a Cuban military prison, was visited this week by two leaders of Cuba’s Jewish community on Monday, December 17, the day after the eight-day festival ended.

“We spent a little more than an hour with him,” Jewish Community Foundation president Adela Dworin told the Spanish news agency EFE. “We lit the eight candles as tradition indicates, and we brought him latkes (potato pancakes), the main dish of the festival and other sweets.” http://www.laprensasa.com/309_america-in-english/1866749_alan-gross-celebrates-hanukkah-with-cuba-s-jewish-community.html

This blogger visited Havana’s Beth Shalom synagogue last month, transported by a cab driver who offered, without being asked, a suspicious amount of information about Fidel Castro’s health.  At the temple a caretaker happily showed his visitors the building, saying there was no anti-Semitism in Cuba and pointing out the photograph of film director Steven Spielberg’s visit in 2002:

And here is a link to a NY Times story on Cuba’s Jewish community:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/travel/04journeys.html?em&ex=1170824400&en=254a263b2686376e&ei=5087%0A&_r=0