Cuba File

Aña La MAGIA del TAMBOR (1994 Cuban documentary)

2012-02-12T21:14:00.001-08:00

Story on New Housing Regulations in Cuba

2011-11-03T23:23:00.000-07:00

Cuba legalizes sale, purchase of real estate
Much-despised ban on these transactions took effect in stages over the first years after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959
MSNBC

By PAUL HAVEN
HAVANA — For the first time in a half-century, Cubans will be allowed to buy and sell real estate openly, bequeath property to relatives without restriction and avoid forfeiting their homes if they abandon the country.

The highly anticipated new rules instantly transform islanders' cramped, dilapidated homes into potential liquid assets in the most significant reform yet adopted by President Raul Castro since he took over the communist country from his brother in 2008.

But plenty of restrictions remain.

Cuban exiles continue to be barred from owning property on the island, though they can presumably help relatives make purchases by sending money. And foreigners can also hold off on dreams of acquiring a pied-a-terre under the Caribbean sun, since only citizens and permanent residents are eligible.

The law, which takes effect Nov. 10, limits Cubans to owning one home in the city and another in the country, an effort to prevent speculative buying and the accumulation of large real estate holdings. While few Cubans have the money to start a real estate empire, many city dwellers have struggled over the years to maintain title to family homes in the countryside, and the new law legalizes the practice.

The change follows October's legalization of buying and selling cars, though with restrictions that still make it hard for ordinary Cubans to buy new vehicles. The government has also allowed citizens to go into business for themselves in a number of approved jobs — everything from party clowns to food vendors and accountants — and permitted them to rent out rooms and cars.

While Castro has stressed that there will be no departure from Cuba's socialist model, he has also pledged to streamline the state-dominated economy by eliminating hundreds of thousands of state jobs and ending generous subsidies the state can no longer afford.

Cuba's government employs about 80 percent of the workforce, paying wages of just $20 a month in return for free education and health care, and nearly free housing, transportation and basic foods.

Economists and Cuba experts say the new property law will have a profound impact on people's lives, though probably will not be enough by itself to transform the island's limping economy.
>>>>>>>>

Read the full post HERE.

Viva la evolucion (Cuban private market story)

2011-10-13T10:26:00.000-07:00

Globe and Mail

Capitalism
In Cuba, it's Viva la evolucion!
sonia verma
HAVANA— From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011 8:42PM EDT
Last updated Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011 9:49PM EDT

Barbershops, beauty salons, restaurants and car washes have sprung up across Cuba in the year since the Communist Party allowed citizens to open small, private businesses in an effort to save the country from ruin.

The government says more than 157,000 people have qualified for business permits and are currently self-employed. This new generation of Cuban entrepreneurs is quietly reshaping the island’s stagnant revolution in a way that was inconceivable when Fidel Castro was in control. The economic changes brought about by his brother Raul, however, are proving slow to take hold.

Many are being implemented by young Cubans with virtually no memory of life before communism. Some new entrepreneurs are struggling to understand how to pay small-business taxes or navigate the country’s labyrinthine bureaucracy. With virtually no access to bank loans or credit, most are relying on family living abroad to float their new ventures.

Still, Cuba is buzzing with new energy as people attempt, for the first time in their lives, to make money outside of the underground economy. Business owners are experimenting with novel concepts, such as advertising and open competition. It’s unclear, however, how far the Cuban authorities will allow the reforms to go – whether small business owners will be permitted to accumulate vast amounts of wealth, for example, or build empires.

At the moment, however, these new entrepreneurs seem content enough to turn a profit they can officially pocket.

Read the four profiles HERE.

Al Jazeera English story on Cuba

2011-09-05T19:08:00.000-07:00

NYT: The Stomachs of Strongmen

2011-09-04T14:20:00.000-07:00

NYTAugust 20, 2011The Stomachs of StrongmenBy ANN LOUISE BARDACHAnn Louise Bardach is a writer at large for Newsweek and the author of “Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana and Washington.”Santa Barbara, Calif.THE tribute concert Aug. 12 for Fidel Castro’s 85th birthday, at the Karl Marx Theater in Havana, was billed as the Serenata de la Fidelidad (the Serenade to Fidelity). In terms of flat-footed plays on the name of Cuba’s maximum leader, I prefer “The Fideliad” — which speaks to his epic, exhausting and endless run, which began in 1959.Some 5,000 concertgoers turned out for the homage by 22 singers, including Omara Portuondo of the Buena Vista Social Club, but the guest of honor was not present. Instead, he settled for a quiet celebration with family, his 80-year-old brother and presidential successor, Raúl, and his devoted disciple, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. The irrepressible Mr. Chávez broke the news on Twitter late Saturday: “Here with Fidel, celebrating his 85th birthday! Viva Fidel!”Over the last decade, the two leaders have celebrated quite a few birthdays together. For his 75th in 2001, Mr. Castro trooped to Caracas for a bash with Mr. Chávez, who hosted a Champagne gala, followed by a nautical tour of Venezuela’s rainforests. The visit, Mr. Chávez said, “gives us an opportunity to let him know how much we love him.”It’s unclear how many birthdays are left for either leader. Both are now facing their greatest challenges yet, not from opposition movements or dissidents, but from their own failing bodies. Mr. Castro nearly died in 2006 during a botched colon surgery to treat a pernicious case of chronic diverticulitis. He passed his 80th birthday lying in a hospital bed, connected to an antibiotic and nutrient drip. Sitting beside him was Hugo Chávez, who has been there at every stage of Mr. Castro’s five-year convalescence, casually jetting into Havana as if it were a stroll around the block.Now the 57-year-old Venezuelan is fighting for his own life, after a baseball-size tumor was removed from his abdomen in Havana’s top hospital in June. It was Fidel Castro, not an oncologist, surgeon or family member, who delivered the bad news to Mr. Chávez post-surgery, and who outlined his prognosis and treatment — along with his usual tips on public relations and political strategies. It is likely, based on his surgeries, symptoms and treatment, that Mr. Chávez has metastasized colorectal cancer. After surgery and radiation, he is probably undergoing at least six months of chemotherapy, again in Havana, where he just finished his second round.As it turned out, Mr. Castro spent much of his birthday giving his friend a pep talk. “We spoke about everything,” Mr. Chávez related upon his return to Caracas. “He said to me: Chávez, ‘You yourself can begin to convince yourself that everything’s over. ... No, no, it’s not over.’ ”Ironically, the hemisphere’s most indomitable strongmen and determined foes of the United States and free market economics have both been felled, at least for now, by abdominal woes — their guts, as it were. It’s just one more anomaly shared by the leader of the country with the world’s largest reserve of oil and that of a debt-saddled island in the Caribbean.The symbiosis between Cuba’s emeritus or former (and in most ways, still de facto) commander in chief and the Venezuelan colonel-turned-oil-sultan is the most powerful and fascinating political alliance in the Americas. Five years before becoming president in 1999 and two years after a failed coup attempt, Mr. Chávez was released from prison and flew to Havana in hopes of meeting his revolutionary hero. Waiting to welcome him at the airport was the man himself. It’s been a lovefest ever since, with Mr. Chávez declaring that Venezuela is sailing in Cuba’s “sea of happiness.”More crucially, after Cuba lost its Russian patron and plummeted into economic free fall, Mr. Chávez gave his friend one of the most magnanimous gifts in history — around 100,000 barrels of oil every day, gratis, with no strings attached — for as long as Cuba wanted it. In exchange, Mr. Castro sent thousands of doctors to Caracas — a deal derided by some critics as “oil for ointment.” No one doubts who got the better deal.Unlike the quid-pro-quo-demanding Soviets, who picked up most of Cuba’s tab for three decades, Mr. Castro now receives adoration from a leader who happily calls him “mi padre.”Not without reason. In 2002, when a coup appeared to have dislodged Mr. Chávez from power, it was Mr. Castro who spent night after night on the phone, tutoring his charge in a strategy to regain power and dispatch his enemies. “Don’t resign! Don’t resign! I kept telling him,” Mr. Castro recounted in his autobiography.Since then, Ramiro Valdés, Cuba’s pre-eminent policeman and spymaster, has made Caracas a second home, reorganizing Venezuela’s military, police force and Internet services (a fiber-optic cable connects the two countries like an umbilical cord). Cuban advisers are dotted throughout Venezuela’s ministries, offering counsel on everything from literacy to opposition movements and elections. There will not be another coup, or many more elections.“Deep down,” says the Venezuelan convalescent in chief, “we are one government.” They don’t call it “Venecuba” for nothing.Hence, if the health of either man further fails — and both are walking the razor’s edge — all bets are off.Read the full story HERE.

Cuba's black-market housing trade to go legit

2011-07-24T21:05:00.000-07:00

MNBC/AP
Cuba's black-market housing trade to go legit:
Castro vows to end law prohibiting sale of private property
updated 7/24/2011 5:30:26 PM ET
By Peter Orsi

Each morning before the sun rises too high, Cubans gather at a shaded corner in central Havana, mingling as though at a cocktail party. The icebreaker is always
the same: "What are you offering?"

This is Cuba's informal real-estate bazaar, where a chronic housing shortage brings everyone from newlyweds to retirees together to strike deals that often involve thousands of dollars in under-the-table payments. They're breaking not just the law but communist doctrine by trading and profiting in property, and now their government is about to get in on the action.

President Raul Castro has pledged to legalize the purchase and sale of homes by the end of the year, bringing this informal market out of the shadows as part of an economic reform package under which Cuba is already letting islanders go into business for themselves in 178 designated activities, as restaurateurs, wedding planners, plumbers, carpenters.

An aboveboard housing market promises multiple benefits for the cash-strapped island: It would help ease a housing crunch, stimulate construction employment and generate badly needed tax revenue. It would attack corruption by officials who accept bribes to sign off on illicit deals, and give people options to seek peaceful resolutions to black-market disputes that occasionally erupt into violence.

It's also likely to suck up more hard currency from Cubans abroad who can be counted on to send their families cash to buy, expand and remodel homes, especially since President Barack Obama relaxed the 50-year-old economic embargo to allow unlimited remittances by Cuban-Americans.

"All these things are tied in," said Sergio Diaz-Briquets, a U.S.-based demography expert. "They want expatriate Cubans to contribute money to the Cuban state, and this is one big incentive for people who want to help their families."

But few changes are likely to be as complex and hard to implement as real estate reform.

Read the full post HERE.

Racism remains an issue in Cuba

2011-06-06T21:44:00.000-07:00

Miami Herald
Posted on Fri, Jun. 03, 2011
Racism remains an issue in Cuba, officials say

Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@elnuevoherald.com
WASHINGTON The Cuban government will soon cast a media spotlight on the issue of racism on the island, although some programs to improve the lives of black Cubans had to be cut because of economic restraints, a Havana official said Thursday.

Heriberto Feraudy, who heads the quasi-official Cuban Commission against Racism, also said the popularity of Afro-Cuban religions is soaring and indicated that Raúl Castro’s economic reforms may not help blacks as much as whites.

Feraudy, who served 15 years as ambassador to five African nations, and Esteban Morales, a well-known Havana economist who writes often on race, addressed a conference on the issue sponsored by the Center for International Policy, a think tank.

Their unusually frank comments — for decades Cuba officially denied the existence of discrimination on the island — seemed to reflect the growing concern over race issues as the country drops some of its socialist policies and embraces more private enterprise.

Feraudy and Morales — both black — argued that the Fidel and Raúl Castro governments have done more for Cuban blacks since 1952 than any other government in the previous centuries.

“The problem of a division in Cuba (due to racial issues) is not possible,” said Morales, who was reportedly suspended from the Communist Party last year after he wrote a column complaining about the island’s burgeoning official corruption.

But both also agreed that racism persists on the island, and that the issue needs to be discussed and confronted even though “many people” in Cuba argue that the Castro revolution did away with racial discrimination.

Feraudy said some programs adopted under Fidel Castro to help blacks “had to be terminated” because of a shortage of resources — he gave no further details — but added that his commission is pushing for a broad discussion of the race issue.

Read the full story HERE.

Golf Courses Return to Cuba

2011-05-26T22:06:00.000-07:00

NYT
May 24, 2011
Revolutionary Cuba Now Lays Sand Traps for the Bourgeoisie
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

MEXICO CITY — One of Fidel Castro’s first acts upon taking power was to get rid of Cuba’s golf courses, seeking to stamp out a sport he and other socialist revolutionaries saw as the epitome of bourgeois excess.

Now, 50 years later, foreign developers say the Cuban government has swung in nearly the opposite direction, giving preliminary approval in recent weeks for four large luxury golf resorts on the island, the first in an expected wave of more than a dozen that the government anticipates will lure free-spending tourists to a nation hungry for cash.

The four initial projects total more than $1.5 billion, with the government’s cut of the profits about half. Plans for the developments include residences that foreigners will be permitted to buy — a rare opportunity from a government that all but banned private property in its push for social equality.

Mr. Castro and his comrade in arms Che Guevara, who worked as a caddie in his youth in Argentina, were photographed in fatigues hitting the links decades ago, in what some have interpreted as an effort to mock either the sport or the golf-loving president at the time of the revolution, Dwight D. Eisenhower — or both.

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, who maintains close ties with Cuba, has taken aim at the pastime in recent years as well, questioning why, in the face of slums and housing shortages, courses should spread over valuable land “just so some little group of the bourgeois and the petit bourgeois can go and play golf.”

But Cuba’s deteriorating economy and the rise in the sport’s popularity, particularly among big-spending travelers who expect to bring their clubs wherever they go, have softened the government’s view, investors said. Cuban officials did not respond to requests for comment, but Manuel Marrero, the tourism minister, told a conference in Europe this month that the government anticipates going forward with joint ventures to build 16 golf resorts in the near future.

For the past three years, Cuba’s only 18-hole course, a government-owned spread at the Varadero Beach resort area, has even hosted a tournament. It has long ceased to be, its promoters argued, a rich man’s game.

“We were told this foray is the top priority in foreign investment,” said Graham Cooke, a Canadian golf course architect designing a $410 million project at Guardalavaca Beach, along the island’s north coast about 500 miles from Havana, for a consortium of Indians from Canada. The company, Standing Feather International, says it signed a memorandum of agreement with the Cuban government in late April and will be the first to break ground, in September.

Andrew Macdonald, the chief executive of London-based Esencia Group, which helps sponsor the golf tournament in Cuba and is planning a $300 million country club in Varadero, said, “This is a fundamental development in having a more eclectic tourist sector.”
...
Read the full story HERE in the NYT.

Havana: The State Retreats

2011-05-10T21:41:00.000-07:00

New York Review of Books
Havana: The State Retreats
May 26, 2011
José Manuel Prieto, translated from the Spanish by Esther Allen

1.

When I picked up my ticket for the only nonstop New York–Havana flight, I was given a list of the goods I could take: ten kilos of medicine and up to twenty kilos of food, duty free. While it’s true that Cuba suffers from the US embargo, it’s also the US and its Cuban exile community that keep the country afloat. The day of the flight, many of my fellow passengers were loaded down with heavy bundles of food and medicine, plasma TV sets in their original packaging, audio equipment, and domestic appliances. In 2010, 324,000 visitors arrived in Cuba on direct flights from the United States like this one, and several economists calculate that remittances to Cuba from the US total more than a billion dollars annually, about 35 percent of the country’s annual foreign exchange inflow.

All that help still isn’t enough. After landing at José Martí International Airport, I find the city in a virtual state of blackout, the celebrated corner of 23rd and L, Havana’s Times Square, empty at 10 PM. It’s as if a catastrophe has struck. There is a constant, ominous feeling of abandonment and crisis. My impression doesn’t much differ from the diagnosis delivered on December 18—days after my arrival—to the Cuban Parliament by the country’s current leader, Raúl Castro: “Either we rectify our course or the time for teetering along on the brink runs out and we go down. And we will go down…[with] the effort of entire generations.”

Certainly the signs of this deep crisis have been in the air for at least twenty years. What’s clear now is that it’s not enough to go on blaming the American bloqueo or the fall of the Soviet Union. Something is wrong with the system itself. This could be glimpsed in the startling comment made by Fidel Castro to the US journalist Jeffrey Goldberg and the Latin American scholar Julia Sweig last August: “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.”
NYR / NYR Tote Bag

Advertisement

What model is he talking about? The Soviet model of forced nationalization. The Cuban Revolution was among other things a cure for the chronic weakness of the Cuban state prior to 1959. The new, postrevolutionary state would take upon itself all that previous governments of Cuba had done so badly. The example of the Soviet Union, with triumphs such as the 1957 launch of Sputnik, seemed to indicate that this was a promising way forward, and it had the added appeal to Cuba’s unelected rulers of calling for government by a single party, virtually without opposition, and the pulverization of civil society.

Now, on my first visit to Cuba in ten years, I had the chance to observe the first signs of the inverse process: the dismantling of this gigantic state, visibly in retreat. I saw the detritus left behind: the disaster of a dysfunctional economy and a deep financial crisis aggravated by a dual currency system. All amid the growing discontent of the population and surging dissidence.
2.

In Havana I buy every bit of printed news on sale at the kiosk near the casa particular where I’m renting a room. Such an unusual interest in publications almost no one reads immediately gives me away as a visitor from abroad. I ask for the recently released official publication “Proyecto de Lineamientos de la Política Económica y Social” (“Draft Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy”), but it’s sold out, the elderly vendor informs me: “All Havana is reading it.” In the end, I buy it secondhand, for ten times the original price, from a passerby who has overheard the conversation.

It’s a twenty-nine-page pamphlet whose 291 points set forth the coming “update” of the Cuban model. These points, the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma affirms, were distilled from the vast consulta, or survey, Raúl Castro declared would take place on July 26, 2007, when “more than four million Cubans raised more than a million points.” By and large, the guidelines attempt to reduce the cumbersome size of the state to make it more compact and less costly.

The crux of the debate, I gather, after penetrating the technical jargon all Havana is reading and discussing as if it were a best-selling novel, is whether a new role can be assigned to the state: Can it be imagined more as referee than as star player while ensuring that it doesn’t lose control? There is of course no question that the governing party must remain in power and “safeguard the conquests of the revolution.”

I come to see that in fact the Party is trying to adjust to a transformation that began without much government participation, something the Cuban people started doing on their own. The government is like a general who mandates an “orderly retreat” when his army is being crushed. The “Guidelines” are for keeping up appearances.
............
Read the full story HERE.

Young Cubans deal with the unimaginable: pink slips

2011-05-04T09:55:00.000-07:00

Young Cubans deal with the unimaginable: pink slips
'We have to think differently' to deal with new reality brought in by reforms

By Mary Murray
NBC News
updated 5/4/2011 9:15:41 AM ET

HAVANA — Last hired, first fired – one of those golden laws of free market economies most workers know by heart.

But not Adrián Chacón and Alejandro Ortega, two young repairmen who found themselves on the losing end of the fight for their jobs. The best friends were knocked off balance when the Cuban government changed what had been a hard-and-fast rule for the last 50 years.

Like all Cubans their age, these young men were told all their lives that a tough job market had nothing to do with the Cuban reality – that only capitalist workers faced layoffs. That, under the island’s state controlled socialist economy, work was a guaranteed right.

Sure, the state might not pay people enough to put much food on the table, but anyone looking for work would always be welcomed at some public company or government ministry.

Not so fast …
That promise went out the window last year when Cuban President Raul Castro told people to take a hard look around them.

Cuba, he said, must stop being the “only country in the world where it is not necessary to work.” The only way to heal Cuba’s battered economy, he insisted, was to start producing more, and with fewer people.

Castro first took aim at Cuba’s bloated state payrolls and state-run companies failing to turn a profit. Both drain the public treasury, he argued, at a time when the country’s very survival was at stake.

While promising a wholesale overhaul of Cuba’s financial system, Castro had the state start by laying off workers in droves. His plan was to cut 500,000 jobs by the first quarter of 2011 and more than one million by 2015 – effectively eliminating one in every five jobs.

While that frenetic pace has slowed considerably (perhaps someone figured out that throwing so many people out of work in such a concentrated time could end up fueling social unrest), thousands of younger workers, including Chacón and Ortega, were among the first to go.

Initially, both had similar reactions to the layoffs: anger. Months later, the friends have adapted differently to their circumstances.

Read the full post HERE.

Cartoon Reaction to Cuba's "New" Leadership

2011-04-23T17:04:00.000-07:00

Raul Castro proposes term limits in Cuba

2011-04-16T14:16:00.000-07:00

And the Communist Party Congress looms large....

MSNBC/AP

By PETER ORSI
The Associated Press
updated 4/16/2011 12:53:17 PM ET 2011-04-16T16:53:17

HAVANA — Raul Castro proposed term limits for Cuban politicians on Saturday, a remarkable gesture on an island ruled for 52 years by him and his brother, but one unlikely to have a major effect on his own future.

The 79-year-old president told delegates to a crucial Communist Party summit that Cuban politicians and other important officials should be restricted to two, five-year terms. Castro officially took over from his brother Fidel in 2008, meaning he'd be at least 86 when his second term as Cuban leader ended, depending on how the law is written.

The proposal for two terms of five years each was made at the latter stage of a long speech in which the Cuban leader forcefully backed a laundry list of economic changes that together represent a sea change for the country's socialist system, including the eventual elimination of the ration book and other subsidies, the decentralization of the economy and a new reliance on supply and demand in some sectors.

Still, he told party luminaries that he had rejected dozens of suggested reforms that would have allowed the concentration of property in private hands.

Castro said the country had ignored its problems for too long, and made clear Cuba had to make tough decisions if it wanted to survive.

"No country or person can spend more than they have," he said. "Two plus two is four. Never five, much less six or seven — as we have sometimes pretended."

As with the proposals on economic changes, the idea does not yet carry the force of law since the party gathering lacks the powers of parliament. But it is all but certain to be acted on quickly by the national assembly. Fidel Castro was not present for the speech, but a chair was left empty for him near his brother.

.....
HAVANA — Cuba kicked off a crucial Communist Party congress Saturday with a big military and civilian parade to mark 50 years since the defeat of CIA-backed exiles at the Bay of Pigs, still celebrated here as a landmark triumph over the island's powerful neighbor to the north.

Thousands of soldiers high-stepped through sprawling Revolution Plaza as a military band played martial music, not far from an iconic sculpture of Ernesto "Che" Guevara that gazes down from the side of the Interior Ministry building. Helicopters whirred and jet fighters in combat formation roared overhead while freshly painted amphibious assault vehicles and rocket launchers rumbled past.

"Long live Fidel! Long live Raul! Long live the Communist Party of Cuba!" a female announcer shouted, and participants responded with shouts of approval.

Tweaking a theme from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, a male announcer declared Cuba's revolution to be "Of the humble, by the humble, and for the humble."

...........

Articles in state-run media called the youthful presence a symbol of the continuity of the 1959 revolution — an important theme for Cuban leaders these days, with President Raul Castro at 79 years old and his brother Fidel at 84.

Castro family's aging empire
Raul has acknowledged that this year's Communist Party gathering is likely to be the last overseen by the brothers and those who fought with them a half century ago. In speech after speech, he has lamented that the time the revolutionary generation has left is short, but the work needed to put Cuba's economy on track immense.

............

Since taking over the presidency permanently in 2008, Raul has turned over tens of thousands of acres of fallow government land to small farmers, opened the economy to a limited amount of free enterprise, and gradually cut some of the generous health and food subsidies Cubans have come to expect in return for working for extremely low wages.

He also has repeatedly warned Cubans that they must work harder if the island's moribund economy is to survive. Plans to lay off hundreds of thousands of state workers have been delayed indefinitely, but Raul has insisted they are still part of a larger five-year reform plan.

Moving away from Marxism
More details of that plan are expected to emerge from the four-day congress, which was scheduled to open with a speech by Raul after the parade. Many Cubans are hoping the congress will expand the list of approved private enterprises and relax rules on buying and selling homes and automobiles, among other measures.

The changes announced by Raul so far have already been a significant departure for a Marxist system where the government employs four-fifths of the work force and dominates nearly the entire economy.

Yet Castro has vowed the changes are meant to improve Cuba's socialist system, not toss it out.
Story: '61 Bay of Pigs victory still inspires Cubans

It's no accident that the congress, the first since 1997, is being held on the anniversary of the Bay of Pigs triumph and Fidel Castro's April 16, 1961, announcement that the revolution would forever be socialist in nature.

"It sort of emphasizes where they've been and where they're going now," said Wayne Smith, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington who was chief of the U.S. diplomatic mission on the island from 1979 to 1982. "It'll be very interesting to see what comes out of this congress. Just what kind of a new system are we going to see?"

In addition to the economic changes, delegates are expected to vote in new party leaders after Fidel Castro's announcement last month that he is no longer first secretary. With Raul all but certain to take up his brother's mantle, all eyes will be on who is named to the No. 2 spot — a graying revolutionary comrade, or a fresh new face.

Read the full post with images and links http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42620105/ns/world_news/

Fidel Castro Interview in the Atlantic

2010-09-08T08:25:00.000-07:00

The Atlantic

In reaction to Jeffrey Golderg's article on conflict between Israel and Iran, Fidel Castro invites the author to Havana to discuss it. An excerpt:

Castro opened our initial meeting by telling me that he read the recent Atlantic article carefully, and that it confirmed his view that Israel and America were moving precipitously and gratuitously toward confrontation with Iran. This interpretation was not surprising, of course: Castro is the grandfather of global anti-Americanism, and he has been a severe critic of Israel. His message to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, he said, was simple: Israel will only have security if it gives up its nuclear arsenal, and the rest of the world's nuclear powers will only have security if they, too, give up their weapons. Global and simultaneous nuclear disarmament is, of course, a worthy goal, but it is not, in the short term, realistic.

Castro's message to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, was not so abstract, however. Over the course of this first, five-hour discussion, Castro repeatedly returned to his excoriation of anti-Semitism. He criticized Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust and explained why the Iranian government would better serve the cause of peace by acknowledging the "unique" history of anti-Semitism and trying to understand why Israelis fear for their existence.

He began this discussion by describing his own, first encounters with anti-Semitism, as a small boy. "I remember when I was a boy - a long time ago - when I was five or six years old and I lived in the countryside," he said, "and I remember Good Friday. What was the atmosphere a child breathed? `Be quiet, God is dead.' God died every year between Thursday and Saturday of Holy Week, and it made a profound impression on everyone. What happened? They would say, `The Jews killed God.' They blamed the Jews for killing God! Do you realize this?"

He went on, "Well, I didn't know what a Jew was. I knew of a bird that was a called a 'Jew,' and so for me the Jews were those birds. These birds had big noses. I don't even know why they were called that. That's what I remember. This is how ignorant the entire population was."

He said the Iranian government should understand the consequences of theological anti-Semitism. "This went on for maybe two thousand years," he said. "I don't think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims. They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything. No one blames the Muslims for anything." The Iranian government should understand that the Jews "were expelled from their land, persecuted and mistreated all over the world, as the ones who killed God. In my judgment here's what happened to them: Reverse selection. What's reverse selection? Over 2,000 years they were subjected to terrible persecution and then to the pogroms. One might have assumed that they would have disappeared; I think their culture and religion kept them together as a nation." He continued: "The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust." I asked him if he would tell Ahmadinejad what he was telling me. "I am saying this so you can communicate it," he answered.

Read the entire first installment HERE.

Fidel Appears in public for the first time in Four Years

2010-07-10T19:10:00.000-07:00

Story and photo appeared in a pro-government Cuban blog.

Church: Cuba to free dissident, transfer six others

2010-06-12T20:29:00.000-07:00

CNN

Church: Cuba to free dissident, transfer six others
By David Ariosto, CNN
June 12, 2010 9:42 a.m. EDT

(CNN) -- In the latest sign of compromise between Cuba and church leaders, Cuba's Roman Catholic Church says the government has agreed to free one jailed dissident and relocate six others to prisons closer to their homes.

Ailing political prisoner Ariel Sigler, who has been in jail since a 2003 government crackdown, is set to be freed, the church said late Friday evening.

His release and the six other prisoner transfers follow a series of inmate transfers to prisons closer to their homes announced earlier this month.

The Cuban government could not immediately confirm the transfers.

Earlier in June, the church announced that longtime dissident Diosdado Gonzalez was being moved from a maximum-security prison in Cuba's western Pinar Del Rio province to a prison closer his home in Matanzas province.

He and others were set to be transferred earlier this month, according to a church statement made in early June.

In May, Cuba's Roman Catholic cardinal, Jaime Ortega, described a rare four-hour meeting with President Raul Castro as a "magnificent start" to talks centered on the potential release of some of the island's jailed dissidents.

Ortega also successfully negotiated an agreement with government authorities last month that allowed a group of women protesters to march.

Silvio Rodriguez: Nostalgia Merchant

2010-06-07T01:14:00.000-07:00

Cuban singer Silvio Rodriguez is touring the US for the first time in thirty years. Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez has an blog post at HuffPo

Silvio Rodriguez: Nostalgia Merchant
Yoani Sanchez

Award-Winning Cuban Blogger
Posted: June 2, 2010 09:52 PM

While young people around the world enjoyed the music of the sixties, for Cubans it was forbidden to hear anything that had imperialist echoes, including the Beatles. Just at that time there appeared in our island what ended up being called the Nueva Trova -- New Minstrel -- Movement. Silvio Rodriguez has been its signature performer with songs full of poetic lyrics and music that mixes the tonalities of our traditional minstrel songs with the chords of Bob Dylan.

Silvio's generation, touched by the euphoric effects of the Revolution, was considered anti-establishment, based on between-the-line meanings one could read into his lyrics. He was banned on some television programs and many of his songs were never broadcast. Little by little, before the eyes of followers and detractors, the Movement was absorbed by the ruling ideological apparatus to the point where there came a time when no political event lacked the accompaniment of his songs. He won admirers and spawned imitators, girls swooned over him, and requests for concerts came from all over Latin America.

.....

The 1980s, when at any hour of the day or night, you could turn the radio dial and hear Silvio's songs, are long gone. In those days he won every popularity contest and seemed like a star whose light would never fade. But the demands of tourism and Cubans' own weariness with protest songs, set the stage for the creation and spread of danceable music which, in all its rawness, is the anthem of these times: reggaeton. While Nueva Trova still has its adherents, it has been relegated to niche audiences.

Today, Silvio Rodriguez is the living representative of nostalgia for a utopia that never materialized. Some of his fans come to his concerts decked out in their Che Guevara T-shirts and sing the choruses as if they could roll back history; it's as if they are saying, "This is not dead." Increasingly rare are those who can reconcile his musical expression with his civic behavior, as few can forgive the many years he has been sitting in parliament without raising his hand to ask for an end to the immigration restrictions, the elimination of the dual currency system, or the decriminalization of political dissent.

......

Read the full post HERE.

Francisco Aguabella (1925-2010)

2010-05-07T20:29:00.000-07:00

Legendary Cuban drummer Francisco Aguabella died today after a battle with cancer. Aguabella was born in the Cuban city of Matanzas on October 10, 1925, the youngest of seven children though only one of two to survive a typhus epidemic. Though neither of his parents were musicians, Francisco began playing music while a child and was drawn to the music that surrounded him in Matanzas. He began to play the sacred batá drums at age twelve, taught by another youngster at the time, the legendary Esteban Vega Bacallao, popularly known as Cha-Chá (1925-2007). According to Raul Fernandez' book From Afro-Cuban Rhythms to Latin Jazz, Aguabella apprenticed on the supporting drums for five years (two on okónkolo, three on itótele) before studying the lead drum of this ensemble. He became known as a fierce and powerful drummer in both sacred and secular contexts, becoming, by his own account, the lead soloist for a local comparsa group at age 16, an accomplishment of which he was very proud. At age eighteen Aguabella was initiated into a local Abakuá potencia (an Afro-Cuban male initiation society). During this time he also became friends with drummer Julito Collazo (1925-2004), who would later become, along with Aguabella, an important source of batá drumming in the United States.

In his early twenties Aguabella worked on docks in Havana and Matanzas while continuing to drum during his free time. Eventually he was asked by influential Havana drummers to join their show troupe in Havana. In Havana, Aguabella also played in various sacred, band, and comparsa groups. In 1953 American dancer Katherine Dunham saw Aguabella perform in a nightclub and requested his services for a show scene in a movie (Mambo, starring Shelley Winters and Anthony Quinn)that was being filmed in Havana. Dunham invited Aguabella to join her company, and he soon accompanied her to Italy, the first of many tours. In addition to drumming, Aguabella had small dance and acting roles in the company's productions.

After touring with Dunham, Aguabella came to the United States at a time when Latin music was mixing with popular jazz. While fellow drummer Collazo settled in New york, Aguabella settled in California, living in Los Angeles and San Francisco for the rest of his life. Aguabella had an impressive career, including recordings, performances, and tours with artists such as Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria, Eddie Palmieri, Cachao, Lalo Schifrin, Cal Tjader, Nancy Wilson, Poncho Sanchez, Bebo Valdes, Carlos Santana, Malo, Three Dog Night, Paul Simon, and the Doors. (According to Francisco, Sinatra would introduce him to audiences as "My Italian conga drummer, Francisco Aguabella.") Aguabella also led his own Latin jazz group, playing concerts and issuing recordings for many years. He also composed music for his and other ensembles, mostly works that took advantage of his extensive drumming knowledge. Importantly, Aguabella was a source of authentic sacred Afro-Cuban music in the United States at a time when few knew the secrets of sacred drumming. Aguabella was awarded the National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Durfee Foundation's Master Musicians' Fellowship, and was recognized by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. He was the subject of a documentary film by Les Blank titled "Sworn to the Drum." Agubella taught Afro-Cuban music at UCLA from the mid-1990s until 2008.

Aguabella was the strongest, fiercest drummer I have ever seen. I once saw him play a sacred tambor in the 1980s, though by the time I got to study with him a bit in the 1990s, he had mellowed considerably from his earlier days, when he had the reputation of being a tough taskmaster. I last saw him in late 2008, when the photos below were taken.

Information above was based on Aguabella's own biography, Raul Fernandez' From Afro-Cuban Rhythm to Latin jazz, and personal communication.

Tobacco Grower Alejandro Robaina dies at 91

2010-04-18T14:16:00.000-07:00

CNN
'Godfather' of Cuban tobacco dead at 91
By Shasta Darlington, CNN

Havana, Cuba -- Alejandro Robaina, considered a legend among Cuban tobacco growers, died Saturday, according to Cuban cigar company Habanos S.A., which produced cigars named for him.

Robaina was 91. He was diagnosed with cancer last year and died on his farm in the western Cuban province of Pinar del Rio, said Habanos spokesman Jose Antonio Candia.

Robaina's tobacco leaves are considered some of the best in the world. In Cuba, he was called "The Godfather." His deeply wrinkled face smiled out from billboards, T-shirts and boxes of Vegas Robaina cigars, among Cuba's finest. A box of premium Vegas Robaina cigars can fetch more than $500 on the international market.

But the man behind the smile was also a simple country farmer who got up at the crack of dawn every day to survey his fields until cancer slowed him down.

"I wouldn't say I've triumphed, but I've done something with my life," he told CNN in 2008. "The first thing is to love the land, take care of the land."

Robaina's family have farmed tobacco continuously since 1845 on the plantation. Under Robaina, business flourished, and the plantation had some of the best yields in the region, producing highly-prized wrapper leaves used for the outer layer of cigars.

Cigar aficionados around the globe called him the dean of Cuba's cigar industry and every year thousands of visitors made the two-hour trek from Havana, hoping to share a stogie and a glass of rum with "the Don."

Robaina kept his lands even when many ranches were nationalized after the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro.

"I had a very strong conversation with Fidel 18 or 20 years ago," Robaina said in 2008. "He asked if I would join a big cooperative since I had so many workers, and I told him no.

"For me tobacco growing had to be in the family, done with love. Because in the big cooperatives, everyone's the boss, nobody worries as much as the grower."

Now, almost all of Cuba's tobacco farms are private, according to the Agriculture Ministry. And they generally take their lead from Robaina, planting and harvesting on the same days he did.

"I like to sow during a waxing moon, and harvest in a waning moon," he said.

Robaina said he'd been smoking cigars since he was 10 years old. "When I get really old, I'll stop smoking the strong stuff," he said.

In 1997, Cuba launched the Vegas Robaina brand, named in his honor. They're made from the golden wrapper leaves grown on Robaina's plantation but are rolled in a separate factory.

Like most of Cuba's cigars, they're largely exported. Because of the U.S. trade embargo, however, Cuban cigars are off-limits in America.

Robaina said in 2008 he hoped that policy would end during his lifetime.

"Of course I have hope they'll open up the market," he said. "Cuba's willing to send cigars and they're willing to smoke them. They're going crazy because they can't smoke cigars from here."

Robaina will be buried Sunday, said Candia.

Graciela Peréz-Gutierrez (1915-2010)

2010-04-09T00:09:00.000-07:00

NYT has an obituary of the famous Graciela:

April 9, 2010
Graciela Peréz-Gutierrez, Afro-Cuban Singer, Dies at 94
By BEN RATLIFF

Graciela Peréz-Gutierrez, known professionally as Graciela, one of the great voices in Afro-Cuban music, died on Wednesday in Manhattan, where she lived. She was 94.

The cause was renal and pulmonary failure, said Mappy Torres, her friend and assistant.

For 32 years, Graciela sang with a band formed by her foster brother, Machito, whose real name was Frank Grillo.

Many of Graciela’s most famous appearances on records, including “Que Me Falta,” “Vive Como Yo,” “Ay José” and “Si Si No No,” were swoons and flirtations, from coy to outrageous. She was a forthright performer, singing with a clear and powerful alto voice; she could make it soft, then expand it into a clipped vibrato or a ragged shout.

Graciela and Machito, both raised by Graciela’s parents in Havana, were each established professional singers before they teamed up in New York in 1943.

In Cuba, Graciela had been singing with the all-female Orquesta Anacaona and El Trio Garcia and had traveled to New York, South America and Europe. Machito had moved from Havana to New York City in 1937, recorded with the Orchestra Siboney and Xavier Cugat, and ultimately formed the Afro-Cubans with the trumpeter Mario Bauzá, a group that helped galvanize the mambo and Latin-jazz movements.

When Machito was drafted into the United States Army in 1943, Bauzá sent for Graciela, eight years Machito’s junior, to join the Afro-Cubans. She was the band’s lead singer for a year before Machito’s return. From then through the 1950s, with the two lead singers trading off vocal turns and Graciela clicking through the rhythm pattern with her wooden claves, the band established a high standard for the mambo orchestra.

The Afro-Cubans played to integrated audiences at the Palladium, Town Hall, the Apollo, the 52nd Street jazz clubs, the Concord Hotel in the Catskills and the Crescendo nightclub in Hollywood, among other places.

Graciela left the Afro-Cubans in 1975 but rejoined with Bauzá’s own band, first in 1976 on “La Botanica” and then during the 1990s in his career’s 11th-hour revival.

Graciela was never married and had no immediate surviving family members. She died, Ms. Torres said, with her claves in her hands.

Silfredo La O Paints and Dances to the Music of the Afro-Cuban Oricha

2010-04-06T23:16:00.001-07:00

A cool event on April 3, 2010, the debut of a space in downtown San Diego called The Salon. Cuban dancer, painter, and drummer Silfredo La O danced and painted to the music of the oricha as performed on batá drums and voice. Photos and video by Kevin Delgado.

Elian Gonzalez update

2010-04-05T16:05:00.000-07:00

Elian Gonzalez attends Cuba Youth Meeting
Huffpo

First Posted: 04- 5-10 05:04 PM | Updated: 04- 5-10 05:41 PM

Read More: Cuba, Cuba Communists, Elian, Elian Gonzales, Elian Gonzales Photos, World News

(AP) HAVANA — Cuba has released photos of one-time exile cause celebre Elian Gonzalez wearing an olive-green military school uniform and attending a Young Communist Union congress.

Gonzalez, now 16 with closely cropped black hair, is shown serious-faced with fellow youth delegates during last weekend's congress at a sprawling and drab convention center in western Havana. The images were posted Monday on Cuban government Web sites, then widely picked up by electronic, state-controlled media.

When he was 5, Elian was found floating off the coast of Florida in an inner tube after his mother and others fleeing Cuba drowned trying to reach the U.S. Elian's father, who was separated from his mother, had remained in Cuba.

U.S. immigration officials ruled the boy should return to Cuba over the objections of his Miami relatives and other Cuban exiles, creating a national furor that caused even presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore to weigh in on the matter.

His relatives refused to give him up. Federal agents raided the Little Havana home of his uncle with guns drawn 10 years ago this month and seized the boy from a closet to return him to his father.

Elian was celebrated as a hero in Cuba upon his return and his father, restaurant employee Juan Miguel Gonzalez, was elected to parliament – a seat he retains today.

Cuba usually marks Gonzalez's birthday every Dec. 7 with parades and other local events, but such activities are not open to foreign reporters.

Gonzalez formally joined the Young Communist Union in 2008, making headlines across Cuba.

The green uniform with red shoulder patches he is seen wearing is common among island military academies. There is a military school in the city of Matanzas, near the boy's hometown of Cardenas, but it was unclear where he is attending school. Reports in state media provided no details.

"Young Elian Gonzalez defends his revolution in the youth congress," read the headline over Monday's photo posted on Cuba Debate, the same Web site where Fidel Castro has posted his regular essays since ceding power to his younger brother, Raul, for health reasons in 2006.

Revolution is what Cubans call the rebellion that toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista and brought Castro to power on New Year's Day 1959.

Elian and his father are closely watched by state authorities, who restrict their contact with the international press.

Buena Vista: Cuban band or brand?

2010-02-25T08:41:00.001-08:00

Of course, it's both: quality nostalgia guaranteed.

BBC
Buena Vista: Cuban band or brand?

By Michael Voss
BBC News, Havana

Sunday night in Old Havana and dozens of tourists pack into a club on a corner of the colonial Plaza Vieja to hear the sounds of the Buena Vista Social Club.

Leading the night's entertainment is 67-year-old "sonero" Felix Baloy and his big band. Looking dapper in his white suit and white fedora hat, he produces a pulsating evening of traditional rhythms and songs.

Felix Baloy sang on several of the early Buena Vista albums and can now use the name on his billboards. The original band has turned into a brand.

"Buena Vista Social Club has transformed into several bands, including mine," he said.

"I play traditional Cuban music and will continue doing so until the day I die."

'Sound of Cuba'

For many around the world, Buena Vista is the sound that defines Cuban music.

“ Members of the band may change because some have passed away, but the spirit lives on ”
Omara Portuondo Original Buena Vista singer

You can hear songs like Chan Chan played on almost every street corner in the tourist centre of Old Havana.

Yet in Cuba, these are considered "golden oldies". At home, Buena Vista must compete with everything from salsa to reggaeton and the folk ballads of revolutionary idols like Silvio Rodriguez.

"This is such a musical country with so many different rhythms; young people have gone their own way," Mr Baloy says.

"You still hear it here, but for the rest of the world, Buena Vista remains the sound of Cuba."

The original Buena Vista Social Club was a loose collective of ageing musicians brought together by the American guitarist Ry Cooder in 1997, in a bid to re-discover the music of Cuba's pre-revolutionary past.

Since then many of those who shot to stardom in the award-winning film have died, including pianist Ruben Gonzalez and the singer Ibrahim Ferrer.

New generation

It is Ibrahim Ferrer's former band which has taken over the official mantle and today tours the world with a mix of old and new faces, under the name Orquestra Buena Vista Social Club.

Apart from an occasional concert in the beachfront hotel resort of Varadero, the band almost never performs at home.
......

'Trade mark'

Buena Vista has turned into a project rather than a band.

"It's been converted into a trade mark. A lot of the well-known figures who were in Buena Vista have developed their own bands; that's where the spirit of Buena Vista lies," said Mr Valdes.

Today, this 63-year-old drummer still lives in the same modest Havana apartment in which he grew up.

On the walls of his tiny living room are framed gold disks, along with a fading black-and-white photograph of his father - a clarinettist in an early Cuban big band.

There is also a glamorous colour photo of his daughter, Idania, who has taken over as the lead female singer touring the world with the Orquestra Buena Vista Social Club. She was just 20 when she joined it.

"It was a little unnerving at first, especially stepping in for such a famous name," she admits.

Cuban diva

Omara Portuondo is one of the only original Buena Vista superstars who remains hugely popular at home.

The 79-year-old diva is regularly invited to perform at major cultural and political events.

At a recent Alba summit of left-wing Latin American leaders, the closing ceremony saw Omara singing her way across the platform; Venezuela's Hugo Chavez blew her kisses, Cuba's President Raul Castro reached out and kissed her hand.

She was also the first Cuban musician to be granted a visa to perform in the United States after President Barack Obama ended restrictions on cultural exchanges.

Her most recent album won a Latin Grammy, which she was able to collect in person at the award ceremony in Las Vegas.

Her repertoire has expanded beyond the classic Buena Vista sounds but the band and the music, she believes, will always live on.

"This type of music will always be with us. It's still the Buena Vista sound; members of the band may change because some have passed away but the spirit lives on."

Read the complete story HERE.

Cuban prison hunger striker dies

2010-02-23T20:35:00.000-08:00

BBC

Cuban prison hunger striker dies

Leading Cuban political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo has died in hospital after 85 days on hunger strike, opposition sources say.

Mr Zapata, 42, had been admitted to Havana's Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital after his condition deteriorated.

Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience after his arrest in March 2003 in a crackdown on opposition groups.

He had been calling for the release of political prisoners.

He died between 1530 and 1600 local time (2030-2100 GMT) on Tuesday, Efe news agency reports.

'Murdered'

His death marks the first time in nearly 40 years a Cuban activist starved himself to death to protest against government abuses.

His mother, Reina Luisa Tamayo, told the Miami newspaper El Nuevo Herald by telephone that her son had been "murdered" by Cuba's authorities.

"They managed to do what they wanted," she said. "They ended the life of a fighter for human rights.''

According to the paper, the last political prisoner to die on hunger strike in Cuba was Pedro Luis Boitel, a poet and student leader, who died in 1972.

Cuba's illegal but tolerated Human Rights Commission says there are about 200 political prisoners still held in Cuba, about one-third less than when Raul Castro took over as president from his brother Fidel.

But if anything harassment of dissidents has increased over the past year, the group says.

Cuba designates prisoners of conscience as mercenaries sympathetic to the United States.

THE SANTERIA HOUSE OF MOSCOW

2010-01-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

In the Moscow Times:

THE SANTERIA HOUSE OF MOSCOW (La Casa del Santo) is a nonsectarian social association of worshippers who are interested in Santeria (Afro-Cuban religion). We have several celebrations and spiritual activities related to our Orishas (gods). Our place is at Ul. Klimashkina Bldg. 22, M. Ulitsa 1905 Goda. Contact Carlos A. Reyes, e-mail: aoddun@yahoo.com. Phone: +7-963-616-3498.

Obama answers questions from Yoani Sanchez

2009-11-19T23:26:00.000-08:00

Yahoo Tech

Obama answers questions from top Cuban blogger
* By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer - Thu Nov 19, 2009 11:35PM EST

HAVANA -

President Barack Obama has answered questions submitted by a celebrated Cuban blogger, saying he isn't interested in "talking for the sake of talking" with Raul Castro and indicating he won't visit the island until the communist government changes its ways.

In an unusual written response to Yoani Sanchez, who has gained international acclaim for daring to criticize her government online, Obama also said it is up to Cuba to act if it wants normal relations with Washington, saying that a true thaw in nearly 50 years of deep-freeze "will require action by the Cuban government."

His comments were posted Thursday on Sanchez's blog, "Generacion Y," which like most sites critical of the Cuban government is blocked on the island.

Sanchez uses caustic, often witty posts to provide an inside look at a communist state, writing about such daily hardships as food shortages and tensions caused by a lack of freedom of expression and assembly.

Obama assured Sanchez that the United States "has no intention of invading Cuba," a Cold War concept that top Cuban officials insist is still a possibility.

Raul Castro, who took over the presidency from his ailing brother Fidel in February 2008, has said he would be willing to meet with Obama and has even suggested they should sit down at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Obama told Sanchez he doesn't want empty dialogue.

"I am not interested ... in talking for the sake of talking," he wrote. "In the case of Cuba, such diplomacy should create opportunities to advance the interests of the United States and the cause of freedom for the Cuban people."

Obama answered seven questions from Sanchez, with his responses running more than 1,000 words. Sanchez said he wrote in English but that his office provided a Spanish translation, which she posted. The White House confirmed the responses came from the president.

Reached at home, Sanchez declined to comment, referring all queries to her blog. But her husband and fellow blogger Reinaldo Escobar said that she had sent printed copies of her questions and electronic versions to the White House more than three months ago.

"We had very little hope (Obama) was going to answer," Escobar said. "He's the president. He is very busy with other things."

Escobar said Obama's response arrived Wednesday night but declined to give details, saying only that they came "through official channels," a possible reference to the U.S. Interests Section, which Washington maintains in Havana instead of an embassy.

...

Cuba OKs licenses for new private taxis

2009-09-11T21:46:00.000-07:00

MSNBC
Cuba OKs licenses for new private taxis
Move offers rare glimpse of free market in communist nation
The Associated Press
updated 1:41 p.m. PT, Fri., Sept . 11, 2009

HAVANA - Jose Obdilio Duran's '57 Chevy has holes in its mottled floor, a passenger window that can't be rolled up and no inside panels on its doors. But the 71-year-old retiree wants to put the old car to work — applying for one of the first taxi licenses this communist country has granted in a decade.

About 60 would-be taxi drivers lined up early Friday at a Transport Ministry office in central Havana to fill out forms for permission to use their own cars as taxis — a rare dose of the free market on an island whose economy is dominated almost entirely by the state.

The new, private taxis are meant to help alleviate chronic transportation problems. In the capital, many people have to hitchhike to work in the morning. Things are so grave in the countryside that entire families wait by the highway for hours for transportation from one town to another.

Those willing to brave long lines at bus stops and endure sardine-like conditions can squeeze aboard former Soviet-bloc coaches that still list destinations such as East Berlin. Cuba has used credit to buy thousands of new buses from China, but they are mostly used to carry tourists and have not been enough to meet Cuban demand.

"This is one of the best decisions the state has ever made," said Luis Pozo, 67, another retiree seeking a license for his Russian-built 1988 Moscovich. Pozo said he didn't think the small free-market opening was out of step with the ideals of Cuba's revolution.

"It's not like anybody is going to get rich from this," he said.

‘Still going strong’
The license gives drivers the right to ferry fellow Cubans — but not foreigners — for a monthly fee of $21.50 a month. They must pay that quota whether they make the money back or not.

The government says it will set price ceilings, but has yet to provide details. Most of those applying for licenses said they hoped to charge 10 pesos — about 50 cents — for standard trips. A separate fleet of modern cabs caters to tourists and they can charge up to $30 for a single trip through Havana.

Cuba stopped granting new licenses for private taxis in October 1999, but lifted the restrictions in January. Authorities started handing out taxi permissions in May, but were so inundated with requests that they quickly suspended the program in Havana, and only resumed in earnest on Friday.

The government has not said how many licenses it will grant. Thousands of Cubans already use private cars, either classic or modern, to give black-market rides. But they risk steep fines and even having their cars seized by the state if caught.

To an outsider's detached eye, Duran's brown Bel Air looks as if it could come apart at any minute, but he sees it differently.

"It's a beautiful car," he said proudly, before slowly puttering away. "The motor is old, almost as old as me, but it works well. It is still going strong, just like me."

Duran says once he gets the license — wait time is supposed to be about a month — he hopes to drive part-time to supplement his monthly pension of $13. He and others waiting to get the licenses said they figure they will be able to pull in about $10 a month after taxes and maintenance costs, often driving their cars along set routes where many Cubans wait for a lift.

Increased competition
While getting new taxis on the road will be some comfort to commuters, not everyone is thrilled.

"This is going to mean more competition," said 35-year-old Manolo Rodriguez, one of about 50 already-licensed taxi drivers waiting under the shade of a tree-lined street next to Cuba's majestic capitol dome, a slightly taller replica of the U.S. Capitol in Washington.

Rodriguez says he spends most of his 12-hour day waiting his turn in line behind other taxis, since cruising for fares uses up lots of fuel. He said he usually only carries four passengers each shift on a set route to the remote suburb of El Cotorro.

Still, that's enough to make more on a good day than Rodriguez used to earn in a month working at a cracker factory — about $15.

"If they keep giving out licenses I may only be able to get three trips a day, and that will really affect my income," said Rodriguez, standing next to a hulking '53 Oldsmobile whose faded coat of powder blue paint had seen better days.

Supply and demand
The loosening of taxi rules is one of a small number of limited reforms taken by President Raul Castro's government. But it seems to expressly defy the policies of his brother Fidel, who singled out private taxis as seeking "juicy profits" and fomenting a black market for state-subsidized gasoline.

Raul took over Cuba's presidency in February 2008 and has spoken publicly about the need to address dire daily life problems like transportation, housing and food shortages. But he has largely failed to solve them, and the global financial crisis has taken a toll on the island's ever-weak economy.

Another hopeful new taxi driver, Rigoberto Lamyser, said he plans to use his Czech-made Skoda sedan on weekends to earn extra cash while keeping his full-time job as a hydraulic engineer.

Vehicle ownership is strictly controlled, and most Cubans can only have cars built before Fidel Castro's revolution on New Year's Day 1959. But the 60-year-old Lamyser said he was able to buy a modern car because his job took him overseas, making him eligible for a special license.

He said he would charge 50 cents a trip unless a passenger is desperate enough to pay more.

"The market decides," said Lamyser. "It's supply and demand and even Cuba can't resist it."

Cuba shuts factories, cuts energy to save economy

2009-07-31T13:12:00.000-07:00

Yahoo/AP
Cuba shuts factories, cuts energy to save economy
By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer Will Weissert, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 1 min ago

HAVANA – It's hard to find a spare tire in Cuba these days, or a cup of yoghurt.

Air conditioners are shut off in the dead heat. Factories close at peak hours, and workers go without their government-subsidized lunches.

Cuba has ordered austere energy savings this summer to cope with rising budget deficits and plummeting export profits, and the Communist Party Central Committee on Friday lowered 2009 economic growth projections by nearly a full percentage point. The committee also announced that it was suspending plans for the first Communist Party congress in 12 years in order to deal with the financial crisis.

A report in official Cuban newspapers cited President Raul Castro as saying the island is struggling through a "very serious" crisis and hinted that further belt-tightening was on the way.

The government already has imposed conservation measures even as it continues to get free oil for services from Venezuela, fueling rumors that Cuba is selling President Hugo Chavez's crude on the side to raise cash.

More likely, the shortages result from a global recession that hit an already struggling economy still reeling from last year's hurricanes. President Raul Castro scolded Cubans in a national address Sunday to work harder because they have no one to blame but themselves.

"The only thing I know is that this is lousy," said one 27-year-old who only gave the name Raul because he sells cement and housing materials on the black market. "I don't work. I find a way to survive."

The latest cuts are small compared with strict measures imposed during the so-called special period, when Cubans nearly starved after subsidies dried up with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nor are they as severe as the blackouts of 2004, when technical problems at power plants left much of the island in the dark for hours at a time. Fans and water pumps were idled. Milk and food spoiled, while electrical surges damaged refrigerators, televisions and other costly appliances.

Still, every bit of belt-tightening stings in a country where almost everyone works for the state and average wages are less than $20 per month.

The price of nickel, Cuba's chief export, is down more than 50 percent from last year, according to Toronto-based Sherritt International Cooperation, Cuba's largest energy partner.

The company's oil production on the island was down 19 percent last quarter compared to the second quarter of 2008, mainly because Sherritt suspended drilling earlier this year when Cuba fell behind on its payments.

The government and Sherritt have worked out a plan to pay down the debt, and the company says Cuba has been sticking to it. But the situation could have spurred the mandatory energy savings. Neither Sherritt nor the Cuban government would provide more details.

Or Cuba may be trying to save unused oil to bolster strategic reserves while prices are still relatively low, said Dan Erikson of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington.

But he also said the strict measures lend credence to whispers that Cuba is selling Venezuelan oil overseas — something the communist government did with some of the discounted oil it got from the Soviet Union.

"It's been alleged they've been selling Venezuelan oil on the side. They've denied that, but if they are open to doing it, now would be the time," Erikson said. "Cuba's in a real cash crunch."

Beginning June 1, the government ordered energy conservation measures as part of a broader plan to cut the national budget by 6 percent. Central planners also announced Friday they were revising their economic growth projections downward, from 2.5 percent to 1.7 percent. As recently as December, they had projected 6 percent economic growth in Cuba.

These days, most countries would cheer any economic growth. But Cuba counts what it spends on free health care and education, monthly food rations and other social programs as production — making economic growth figures dubious.

The island's economic woes began in earnest with three hurricanes last summer that caused more than $10 billion in damage and wiped out some of the food and grains the government had stockpiled to insulate itself from rising commodities prices.

How much Cuba has spent on hurricane recovery is unclear. But Castro said the government has rebuilt or repaired 43 percent of the 260,000 homes damaged or lost in the storms.

Cuba consumed about 150,000 barrels of crude oil a day in 2008, of which 52,000 were produced domestically and 93,000 imported from Venezuela, said Jorge Pinon, an energy fellow at the University of Miami's Center for Hemispheric Policy. Half is used to generate electricity, according to Cuba's Ministry of Basic Resources.

Though the numbers leave the country 5,000 barrels a day short, Pinon said natural gas production last year covered the energy equivalent of 20,000 barrels of oil daily and kept the power plants running smoothly.

"Cuba, from a petroleum point of view, is balanced," he said. "It's not running out of oil."

So far the power-saving measures have been confined to state-run businesses and factories, though many Cubans fear they will soon hit residential users as well.

Workers at a tire factory in San Jose de las Lajas, a rugged farming town 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Havana, said production is down and the factory goes dark when demand for electricity is high — leaving gas stations and mechanics short on spare tires.

In the central province of Cienfuegos, a large dairy that supplies ice cream and other products to much of the country and exports cheese has been ordered to cut production, according to the Communist Youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde. Yogurt is scarce in Havana — sold only in upscale grocery stores that cater to tourists and are too expensive for most Cubans.

Some government office workers say their hours have been cut to between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., and others are being told to come in only twice a week.

State companies also have stopped offering employees low-cost lunches in worker cafeterias to save power.

Other government offices, businesses, banks and stores have ordered air conditioners turned off for much of the day, rather than close early.

Customer service, never stellar in state-run institutions, has suffered even more. In the sweltering banks, barbershops and boutiques, listless employees are more interested in fanning themselves than serving sweating customers.

Cuba Cancels Plans for Communist Party Congress

2009-07-31T10:31:00.000-07:00

AP
Cuba nixes plans for party congress
Economic woes foil plans for congress to chart island’s post-Castro course
The Associated Press
updated 7:47 a.m. PT, Fri., July 31, 2009

HAVANA - Cuba on Friday suspended plans for a Communist Party congress and lowered its 2009 economic growth projection to 1.7 percent — nearly a full percentage point — as the island's economy struggles through a "very serious" crisis.

In a closed-door meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee, officials agreed to postpone indefinitely the first congress since 1997, which had been announced for the second half of this year.

The gathering was to chart Cuba's political future long after President Raul Castro and his brother Fidel are gone. Instead, top communists will try and pull their country back from the economic brink.

Second downward revision of 2009
Cuba lowered its 2009 growth estimate from 2.5 percent to 1.7 percent, but even that figure is dubious given that it includes state spending on free health care and education, the food Cubans receive with monthly ration booklets and a broad range of other social services.

The revision downward was the second of its kind this year. As recently as December, central planners said they thought the Cuban economy would grow by 6 percent in 2009.

The country's economic problems began last summer, with three hurricanes that caused more than $10 billion in damage. The situation has worsened with the onset of the global financial crisis and subsequent recession.

Break with tradition
The 78-year-old Raul Castro succeeded his brother as president more than 18 months ago, but it's the soon-to-be 83-year-old Fidel who remains head of the Communist Party.

Party congresses historically have been held every five years or so to renew leadership and set major policies, but the government has broken with that tradition over the past decade.

Information about the Central Committee meeting occupied the entire front page of the Communist Party daily Granma and a full page inside cited Raul Castro as reporting that "things are very serious and we are now analyzing them."

"The principal matter is the economy: what we have done and what we have to perfect and even eliminate as we are up against an imperative to make full accounts of what the country really has available, of what we have to live and for development," the newspaper said, citing the president.

It said authorities would postpone the sixth Party congress "until this crucial phase ... has been overcome," but did not say when that might be.

Waiting for his copy of Granma when it hit newsstands at 7 a.m., Raul Salgado, a 72-year-old retiree, said, "I want to know what's happening, or better yet, what's going to happen."

"I don't think it matters much to the people if there is a congress or not. What the people want here in Cuba is to know what the government is going to do to get out of such a terrible situation like the one in which we're living," Salgado said.

More cutbacks likely
Cuba has begun a major push to conserve energy in an attempt to save some of the imported oil it uses to run power plants. State-run factories have been idled during peak hours, air conditioners have been stilled at government offices and some work hours shortened.

Granma made it clear more cutbacks were coming, but did not give details. Cuba's rubber-stamp parliament convenes Saturday for one of its two full sessions a year and could unveil new energy-saving plans then.

Castro calls for tight finances in Cuba

2009-07-26T18:57:00.000-07:00

CNN

Castro calls for tight finances in Cuba
From Shasta Darlington
CNN

HOLGUIN, Cuba (CNN) -- Sunday was a day of commemoration in Cuba -- the 56th anniversary of the start of the Cuban Revolution -- but the message from President Raul Castro was not all celebratory.

The island nation will face a second round of belt-tightening as a result of the global financial crunch, Castro said in a speech marking Revolution Day.

He said that on Tuesday he would hold a meeting of the Council of Ministries "dedicated to the analysis of the second cost adjustment in this year's plan, due to the effects of the global economic crisis, especially on the reduction of revenues from exports and the additional restrictions on accessing external financing."

The global economic downturn has hit Cuba hard. Revenues from key exports like nickel are down. The price of imports, like food, is up.

Castro said he would also meet with the central committee of the Communist Party this week to discuss the situation.

Any proposed cuts will affect a Cuban population already feeling the squeeze.

Public transport has been reduced as part of austerity measures. The government has ordered factories and businesses to cut energy consumption or face sanctions.

Castro took a few swipes at the U.S. trade embargo that has been in place since 1962, but made it clear Cubans have only themselves to blame for agriculture shortages.

"The land is there. We Cubans are here. We'll see if we get to work or not, if we produce or not, if we keep our words or not," he said, pounding his fist on the podium.

"It's not just a question of shouting 'fatherland or death, down with imperialism, the blockade knocks us out' when the land is there, waiting for our sweat."

Cuba has seen hard times before and has always worked to pull through, Castro said in front of the 200,000 people packed into the parade grounds of Holguin, about 500 miles southeast of Havana.

Jesús Alfonso Miró, Director of Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, Dies at 60

2009-06-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

From Ned Sublette:

At 6:45 a.m. today, June 3 2009, at 60 years of age, Jesús Alfonso Miró,
musical director of Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, exceptional composer and
percussionist, died in his home town of Matanzas, Cuba. The only son of the
Alfonso Miró family, he was the father of 8 children, all dedicated to the
rumba as musicians or dancers. Two of them have been members of the
Muñequitos and at present, Freddy Jesús Alfonso Borges, a practitioner of
his father’s art, plays the quinto of the group and has begun to follow as
well in his path as the composer of heartfelt rumbas.

As a musician of Los Muñequitos Jesús traveled to almost all the continents.
Wherever he went he left friends and disciples. He shone on every stage he
played on, but he never forgot his roots and lived a full life, proud of his
lineage as a rumbero, enjoying the flavor of every corner of his barrio, la
Marina. Beginning at the age of seven, he participated as a musician and
dancer in the Comparsa La Imaliana, founded by his father and by Félix
Vinagera. For a time he was a member of the Orquesta de Música Moderna of
his city and of the Papa Goza group. From 1967 he was musical director and
quinto of Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, a group which he profoundly loved and
to which he dedicated the greatest part of his life.

As a composer he was indispensable to the repertoire of the group, with his
works known worldwide. He was the author of “Congo Yambumba,” “La Llave,”
“Chino Guaguao,” “Lengua de Obbara,” “Saludo a Nueva York,” and many others
that are now classics of Cuban rumba. Prestigious interpreters including
Eddie Palmieri took note of his sabrosura and the popularity of his works,
including them on their records and mentioning him as indispensable to the
music of our continent.

When Jesús Alfonso was still very young, together with another of the great
figures of Los Muñequitos, Ricardo Cané, he went to the mountains of Cuba to
teach literacy to the people of the countryside, graduating later as a young
revolutionary teacher. For his great contributions to music and to his
community, he received the title of Hijo Ilustre (Illustrious Son) of
Matanzas.

Jesús Alfonso, member of the Matanzas society Efí Irondó Itá Ibekó and
respectful observer of the regla de Osha, will be remembered by all his
community and especially by rumberos around the world. His name will never
be forgotten. His strong voice and the sound of his hands on the skins will
remain in the memory of those who knew him and recognize him as one of the
most celebrated musicians of all time, because Jesús was to the rumba as was
Cuní or Chapottín to the son. Jesús gave his entire life to the rumba. His
name is next to Chano, Tata, Papín, and all the greats of Cuban music.

Viewing will be in the place where Los Muñequitos de Matanzas rehearse every
day, at 7906 Matanzas Street, between Contrera and Milanés. After respects
are paid, he will be buried in the early hours tomorrow.

To his wife Dulce María Galup, to his children and other family members, to
Diosdado Ramos and all his compañeros in the rumba who have so much admired
him and are today feeling his loss, we send our heartfelt condolences.

CARY DIEZ

As per Ned's List (Sublette)

Wow! Cuban gays dance conga against homophobia

2009-05-16T14:02:00.000-07:00

Yahoo/AP

Cuban gays dance conga against homophobia
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer Andrea Rodriguez, Associated Press Writer 2 hrs 12 mins ago

HAVANA – President Raul Castro's daughter led hundreds of Cuban gays in a street dance Saturday to draw attention to gay rights on the island.

Participants formed a carnival-style conga line around two city blocks to beat the of drums, accompanied by costumed stilt-walkers. Events also included educational panels and presentations for books, magazines and CDs about gay rights and sexual diversity.

"We're calling on the Cuban people to participate ... so that the revolution can be deeper and include all the needs of the human being," said Mariela Castro, an outspoken gay rights advocate who directs Cuba's officially sanctioned Sex Education Center.

Attending the program's opening, Parliament speaker President Ricardo Alarcon said that Cuba has advanced in recent years in the area of gay rights.

The communist government discriminated against homosexuals — even sending some to work camps — in the early years of the 1959 revolution led by Mariela Castro's uncle Fidel. But tolerance of homosexuality on the island has grown in recent years.

Duan Mena, 29, said was great to celebrate his homosexuality in public without fear of censure.

Selling trips to Cuba once was deadly, but no more

2009-05-03T21:46:00.000-07:00

MH

Posted on Sun, May. 03, 2009
Selling trips to Cuba once was deadly

BY LUISA YANEZ, DOUGLAS HANKS AND LAURA FIGUEROA
lyanez@MiamiHerald.com
There was a time when advertising Viajes a Cuba on a storefront was an invitation to a pipe bombing.

In the politically charged Miami of the late 1970s and '80s, the FBI investigated more than a dozen blasts at Cuba travel agencies -- considered nests of Communist agents by staunch anti-Castro exiles.

Selling tickets to Havana could even get you killed. That's what happened to Carlos Muñiz Varela, a 26-year-old exile living in Puerto Rico who opened the first Cuba-approved travel agency. Thirty years ago this week, he was gunned down in San Juan.

But times have changed, and the travel agencies today worry little about political retribution.

''They want to call me a communist -- thank you very much,'' said a strident Francisco Aruca, the owner of Marazul Charters. Aruca, also a Miami radio host, is one of the more outspoken of the seven agency owners who book charters to Cuba. They all have permission from Cuba and the U.S. Treasury Department.

The long-standing and sometimes violent clashes between exiles who oppose anyone doing business with the island have disappeared -- welcome news to the agencies, where business has been booming since last month, when President Barack Obama lifted restrictions on Cuban Americans wanting to travel or send money to relatives on the island.

Armando Garcia, president of Marazul Charters, points no further than the windows of his Westchester storefront as indication that the climate for trips to Cuba has changed.

More than a decade ago, he had to install bullet-proof glass following a 1996 bombing that nearly gutted the store, which is across the street from The Falls on South Dixie Highway.

It was one of several bombing attempts against the company's three South Florida stores. ''People were scared for their lives,'' Garcia said. ``None of the employees wanted to tell relatives where they worked for fear of retribution. ''

OUT OF THE SHADOWS

Now customers sit in a row of chairs edged up against the window. Perception of those who travel to Cuba has also changed; it's no longer a dirty little secret.

''A lot of people were scared of telling their neighbors and friends -- they would lie about where they were going on vacation,'' Garcia said.

Miguel Saavedra, head of Vigilia Mambisa, a group that continues to picket those who do business with Cuba, said the travel agencies feed off Miami's poor exile community. ''Cuban exiles are victims of these agencies who prey off people traveling to see relatives by charging them exorbitant amounts of money that goes to the Cuba government,'' Saavedra said. ``These agencies make a pact with the devil.''

Bad blood between exiles and the Cuba travel agencies erupted in earnest in 1978 after a group of Miami Cubans, who became known as the Comité de 75, visited the island and negotiated with Fidel Castro for the release of 3,600 Cuban political prisoners.

NEW DEAL

More significantly, they also negotiated for travel to the island on what were called viajes de la comunidad -- for the first time, trips by exiles to visit Cuba.

The deal created a need for agencies to open for business in Miami, New Jersey and Puerto Rico. Cuba jumped in, creating Havanatur, a government agency charged with overseeing the venture with the U.S. travel agencies. But Aruca said Cuba originally had bigger plans. Cuban officials thought large American companies would jump in to book passage to the island -- much like they did before the 1958 Cuban revolution.

''They were ignoring the public relations aspect that many of these bigger companies would not want to get in the middle of U.S. and Cuban affairs,'' Aruca said. ``Once Cuba realized that no big travel outfits were signing on to coordinate trips, they realized they should work with the smaller Cuban-American businesses.''

The down side: The small agencies became a magnet for anti-Castro anger.

George Kiszynski, a special agent for the FBI in Miami during the late 1970s and '80s, was caught in the middle, assigned with stopping the rash of bombings. The bombings soon spread from the travel and packages-to-Cuba agencies to consulates of countries that did business with Cuba, and to persons believed to support the Cuban government and even the FBI and state attorney's offices in Miami.

''The interesting thing is that there were many bombers, not just one. That made it more difficult,'' said Kiszynski, now director of investigations for the Ackerman Group. It became so hectic, he created an ad hoc task force with other local law enforcement agents. ``We were pretty successful in arresting many of the bombers.''

Most of the bombs were set to go off in the early morning. ''If one had gone off during the day, it could have killed someone,'' he said. In Miami, no one was killed.

SHOOTING DEATH

In Puerto Rico, Muñiz was not as fortunate. With the blessing of Cuba, he had wasted no time scheduling the first flight through Viajes Varadero in December 1978.

Although he was only in his 20s, Muñiz was a dedicated political activist who supported Puerto Rican independence. He was a member of the leftist Antonio Maceo Brigade, said his best friend, Raúl Alzaga Manresa, current owner of the company.

Viajes Varadero made its inaugural flight with about 90 people aboard; Muñiz was among the passengers.

Four months later, he was shot in the head as he drove to his mother's house in San Juan. No arrests have ever been made. ''There had been threats, and our office had been bombed, but I guess we were too young to take the danger seriously; it was a mistake,'' Alzaga said.

The anniversary of Muñiz's death is being marked this week by Cuban government news sites.

''I don't like to use the word martyr, but I guess you can call Muñiz our martyr in the Cuba travel industry. He was the first and the only one directly killed over it,'' Aruca said.

For those agencies in business with Cuba, there are rules to follow. Initially, the travel companies had to follow conditions set by Havanatur -- among them, all flights had to be purchased with a seven-day stay in one of the state-run hotels.

Eventually agency owners were able to bargain to only require one night's stay in a hotel, and by the 1990s the hotel requirement was lifted.

Aruca said Marazul charged customers the cost of the flight and hotel stay, but barely broke even.

In the 1990s, travel agencies diversified by seeking out organizations, sports teams and schools that wanted to travel to Cuba for humanitarian and educational reasons, Aruca said.

Despite the domestic political controversy, winning permission from Washington for the flights is considered the easy part of the equation, said John Kavulich II, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. ''From the U.S. side, if you meet the criteria, you cannot be denied. There isn't a quota,'' Kavulich said.

On the Cuba side, it's another story.

''The Cuban government is going to favor those operators who have stated publicly that they oppose certain U.S. policies'' -- like Washington's trade embargo against the island, Kavulich said.

''They'll Google you,'' he added. ``Have you written letters, have you given testimony, have you been in the media opposing what the Cuban government feels are policies doing [Cuba] a disservice?''

Blogger Yoani Sanchez comments on Obama's policy change

2009-04-15T08:10:00.000-07:00

The interesting thing about her comment is that she is picked up and posted on the popular Huff ington Post blog:

Yoani Sanchez, award-winning Cuban blogger
Posted April 15, 2009 | 12:19 AM (EST)

Obama Threw the Ball, Now It's In Raul's Court

The ball is in Cuba's court after Obama threw it yesterday, as he announced new flexibility in his policies toward Cuba. The players on this side seem a bit confused, hesitating between grabbing the ball, criticizing it, or simply ignoring it. The context couldn't be better: loyalty to the government has never seemed more perverse and ideological fervor has never been as feeble as it is now. On top of that, few still believe the story that the powerful neighbor will attack us and the majority feel that this confrontation has gone on too long.

The next move is up to Raul Castro's government but we sense we will be left waiting. He should "decriminalize political dissent" which would immediately annul the long prison sentences of those who have been punished for differences of opinion. The ball we would like him to throw is the one that would open up spaces for citizens' initiatives, permit free association and, in a gesture of the utmost political honesty, put himself to the test of truly free elections. In a bold leap on the field "the permanent second" would have to dare to offer something more than an olive branch. We are hoping they eliminate the travel restrictions, which would put an end to that extortionary business of permission to come and go from the Island.

The game would become more dynamic if they let the Cuban people take hold of the erratic ball of change. Many would kick it to end censorship, State control over information, ideological selection in certain professions, indoctrination in education and the punishment of those who think differently. We would kick it to be able to surf the Internet without blocked web sites, to be able to say the word "freedom" into an open microphone without being accused of "a counter-revolutionary provocation."

Many of us have climbed down from the bleachers from where we were watching the game. If the Cuban government doesn't grab the ball, there are thousands of hands ready to take our turn to launch it.

Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.

U.S. Telecoms Eager to Get Cuba on the Line

2009-04-15T08:06:00.000-07:00

WaPo

U.S. Telecoms Eager to Get Cuba on the Line
Firms Wait to See Plans for Infrastructure, Government's Approach to Access

By Cecilia Kang
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 15, 2009; A12

U.S. telecommunication firms could open up investment in Cuba now that the Obama administration will allow companies to operate there, a final global frontier for the Internet age.

But before cellphone and Internet providers rush in, they will closely study potential pitfalls in setting up shop in the Communist nation with one of the poorest populations in the region, analysts said.

The Cuban government has not been helpful in allowing its citizens access to communications technology, said David Gross, who was U.S. ambassador and coordinator for International Information and Communications Policy during the Bush administration. Now that the United States has opened the door, he said, "the question is whether the Cuban government will allow people to come inside."

Cuba has the lowest percentage of telephone, Internet and cellphone subscribers in Latin America, according to Manuel Cereijo, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Miami. About 11 percent of residents subscribe to land-line telephone service, and 2 percent have cellphone service.

Under President Obama's plan, U.S. telecom companies would be able to build undersea cable networks that connect the two nations. Cellphone carriers would be able to contract with Cuba's government-run wireless operator to provide service to its residents and offer roaming services to Americans visiting the island.

U.S. satellite operators such as Sirius XM Radio and Dish Network could beam Martha Stewart and MTV programs to the nation. Cubans could also receive cellphones and computers donated from overseas.

But with average monthly salaries of about $15, many citizens might not be able to afford service fees, according to experts on Cuban policy and telecommunications infrastructure. Others question whether residents would spend money on BlackBerrys and services such as video on demand, especially if the government restricts Web content.

"The infrastructure that exists there today is lousy, and the Cuban people are paid in pesos, which is worth nothing," Cereijo said. "They are thinking about buying food first."

Most telecom companies declined to comment yesterday about the administration's announcement because they are waiting for more details on how such business relationships would be implemented.

The Cuban government also has not yet responded to Obama's pledge to relax trade and travel barriers between the nations. But analysts and trade experts say President Raúl Castro, brother of longtime dictator Fidel Castro, has loosened the government's grip its people. Last year, he allowed Cubans to buy cellphones, computers and microwaves, in what appeared at the time to be a major step in allowing them to freely access information.

Currently, a government-run company provides all telecom services to Cuban citizens.

Gross, now a partner at Wiley Rein, said U.S. cellphone carriers will balk if the Cuban government tries to charge high fees for roaming contracts. He and others say that consortiums that build undersea cable networks in the Caribbean may see business opportunities in connecting to the island, but they will avoid any conditions that prevent them from offering video and other Internet content, for example.

"Everyone in the region has been wondering when Cuba might open up, and I think Cuba is trying to figure out ways to attract investment in a way that works with its political situation," said Michael Prior, chief executive of Atlantic Tele-Network, a wireless and Internet network carrier in the Caribbean.

Prior said the best return on investment would be for wireless services, which do not come with the hefty capital costs of laying cable and fiber-optic lines undersea.

Cereijo estimates it would cost $2.5 billion to upgrade the island's telecom infrastructure for basic high-speed Internet as well as more reliable land-line and cellphone service.

Some U.S. firms already have licenses with the Cuban government that allow calls from America to connect through the island's carrier.

Obama to abolish limits on U.S.-Cuba family ties

2009-04-03T23:21:00.000-07:00

Reuters

Obama to abolish limits on U.S.-Cuba family ties
By Anthony Boadle Anthony Boadle Fri Apr 3, 8:10 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a move that could herald better ties between Cold War foes, the Obama administration is planning to abolish limits on family travel and cash remittances between the United States and Cuba, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

President Barack Obama has decided to fulfill a campaign promise and allow Cuban Americans and Cuban emigres to freely visit and send money to their families in the communist-led nation, the newspaper said, citing a senior administration official.

A White House official confirmed the administration's intentions to lift the restrictions, but said the measure was not a new policy statement and was not imminent.

"The administration has conveyed that our policy toward Cuba is being reviewed and the president has stated that there's a sense that restrictions on family visits and cash remittances should be lifted," the official told Reuters.

"Our focus remains on the need for democratic reforms and human rights" in Cuba, the official said.

The removal of limits on family travel and cash remittances would allow Cubans living in the United States to travel freely to the island, instead of once a year as at present. It would also remove the ceiling of $1,200 per person in cash remittances to needy family members in Cuba.

"This is a good humanitarian move that honors Cuban Americans' right to visit and aid their relatives as they see fit," said Cuba expert Phil Peters of the Lexington Institute.

"But it creates one class of Americans who can travel to Cuba at will, so it will add to the momentum in Congress to lift restrictions on all other Americans, who have a right to travel too," he said.

The Wall Street Journal said the move was probably meant to signal a new attitude toward both Cuba and other Latin American countries that have pressed Washington to end a trade embargo that has sought to isolate Havana for more than four decades.

TRAVEL AND REMITTANCES

During last year's presidential campaign, Obama favored easing U.S. restrictions on family travel and remittances, but said he would not eliminate the trade embargo until Cuba shows progress toward democracy and greater human rights.

The U.S. Congress is considering bills that would lift the ban on American citizens traveling to Cuba that was introduced with other sanctions in the early 1960s when Fidel Castro's revolution turned Cuba into a Soviet ally.

Obama is due to meet Latin American leaders at a summit in Trinidad and Tobago later this month.

The Wall Street Journal said Obama is not considering any specific diplomatic outreach toward Cuba, where Fidel Castro has been sidelined by illness and was succeeded as president last year by his brother Raul Castro.

U.S. lawmakers, who believe in increasing numbers that the embargo has proven ineffective in bringing political change to Cuba, have taken the initiative on the outreach front.

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives arrived in Havana on Friday to meet with Cuban officials in a sign of accelerating efforts to improve relations.

Representative Barbara Lee said the group of seven Democrats wanted simply to "see what the possibilities are" and carried no messages from Obama or proposals for the Cubans. "We're here to learn and talk," she told reporters.

The congressional delegation is the first from the United States to visit Cuba since Obama took office in January.

"Change is in the air and our president, of course, talks very clearly about bilateral relations with all countries in the world," said Lee.

(Additional reporting Jeff Franks in Havana and David Alexander in Washington; Editing by Chris Wilson)

Bassist Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez (1933-2009)

2009-02-09T22:01:00.000-08:00

AP
Buena Vista Social Club bassist Lopez dead at 76
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer Andrea Rodriguez, Associated Press Writer 2 hrs 1 min ago

HAVANA – Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez, considered the "heartbeat" of Cuba's legendary Buena Vista Social Club for his internationally acclaimed bass playing, died Monday of complications from prostate surgery, fellow musicians said. He was 76.

Lopez, a founding member of the band brought together in the 1990s by American guitarist and producer Ry Cooder, died in a Havana hospital several days after surgery, said Manuel Galban, a Cuban musician who played with Lopez for decades.

"We have lost a great companion," said Galban.

Born in Havana in 1933, Lopez became an international sensation as part of the Buena Vista Social Club — a group of elderly, sometimes retired, musicians who were living quietly in Cuba before Cooder brought them together and they became worldwide sensations.

"I will remember him as marvelous, both in his music and as a person," Galban, a guitarist, said by telephone. "He was extraordinary, affable, a great bassist."

Lopez died less than a week after turned 76.

"I called him last week because it was his birthday and his voice didn't sound too good," said musician Amadito Valdes, who added that Lopez had undergone prostate surgery several days ago. "He was a person who was always sharing with everyone around him, very noble."

Lopez was held by many to be Buena Vista's heartbeat and had played to international audiences as part of its touring company.

The group, which plays a mix of traditional Cuban rhythms, has lost many of its key members of late. Singer Compay Segundo — who was born Maximo Francisco Repilado Munoz — pianist Ruben Gonzalez, and vocalists Ibrahim Ferrer and Pio Leyva have all died in recent years.

But Lopez was also a star in his own right, independent of Buena Vista. His groundbreaking debut album Cachaito won a BBC Radio 3 Award for Word Music in 2002.

Lopez hailed from a family of at least 30 bass players, including his uncle, legendary bassist Israel "Cachao" Lopez. His nickname translates to "Little Cachao." His father Orestes played piano and cello in addition to the bass and was also a composer.

Lopez originally played the violin, but as he said publicly many times, eventually switched to the bass after his grandfather urged him to take up the family craft.

He was a pioneer of Cuban mambo, and by 17 was part of a noted big band group known as Riverside. He later joined Cuba's national symphony. He also played with a band called "Los Zafiros."

Lopez was at home playing classic as well as popular music but also dabbled in late night jazz and jazz fusion.

However, he only gained international notoriety when Cooder brought him together with such standouts as Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, Ruben Gonzalez and Omara Portuondo to form Buena Vista.

Later, Wim Wenders released a documentary titled Buena Vista Social Club, in which he profiled the musicians whose talents had all but been forgotten.

Family members planned to cremate the body but there was no immediate word on funeral services.

Cuba recruits free-market taxis

2009-01-12T19:46:00.000-08:00

AP

Calling all cars: Cuba recruits free-market taxis
By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer Will Weissert, Associated Press Writer Mon Jan 12, 7:24 pm ET

HAVANA – Cubans with classic American cars — or even rusty Russian sedans — are being encouraged to apply for taxi licenses and set their own prices for the first time in nearly a decade as the communist government turns to the free market to improve its woeful transportation system.

Under regulations published into law this week, Cuba is applying a larger dose of supply-and-demand to an economy that remains 90 percent under state control.

The move by President Raul Castro's government also breaks with the policies of his ailing brother Fidel, who long accused private taxis — legal and otherwise — of seeking "juicy profits" and fomenting a black market for state-subsidized gasoline that Cuba "had sweated and bled" to obtain.

New taxi licenses have not been approved since October 1999, and it is not clear how many new cabs will be allowed. The measure orders officials to determine what combination of "autos, jeeps, panel trucks, microbuses, three-wheelers and motorcycles" will best meet each area's needs.

"Without these taxis, especially in the city of Havana but also in the provinces, the country would practically grind to a halt," said Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a state-trained economist who became an anti-communist dissident and has written essays on pirate taxis.

He noted that new government buses have improved public transportation somewhat, "but it's not enough."

In cities, the government will let more private cabs charge based on supply and demand, though a state commission will establish fare limits to discourage price gouging.

In the countryside, owners of cars, trucks and even motorcycle sidecars will be encouraged to ferry passengers at state-determined prices in areas where bus service is spotty, especially along desolate highways connecting remote villages. Those doing so will receive subsidized gasoline.

Havana retiree Barbara Costa said she would encourage her son-in-law to give up his job as a state engineer and use a 1950s Chevy that had belong to his father as a taxi.

"It could be a great help, an economic help to the family but also to the entire population since public transportation is still very difficult," the 71-year-old said.

Sales of new cars are tightly controlled, and many of the vehicles on Cuban roads predate Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, though drivers often replace their original engines with diesel motors that are foul-smelling but cheaper to operate.

Thousands of hulking 1950s Oldsmobiles, Dodges and Fords, as well as long-gone models like Packards and DeSotos, already operate as licensed, private taxis. Known as "maquinas" — literally "machines" — or "almendrones," which translates as "almond shells," the vehicles adhere to set routes and charge set fares.

Special fleets of modern taxis catering to foreigners also charge set fares, but only the wealthiest Cubans can afford them.

Because buses and licensed taxi services are overwhelmed, hitchhiking is common, and many of those thumbing it hold up peso notes, offering to pay anyone who picks them up.

Other people use their cars almost exclusively as black-market taxis, offering informal rides for a price. And a few existing private taxis already have state licenses that allow them to charge whatever passengers are willing to pay. The new law appears to be aimed partly at controlling rampant competition from unlicensed people using their cars as taxis.

"There's going to be more cars and fewer passengers, but at least everyone will have a license," said Jordan Marrero, a 35-year-old who steers a red-and-white 1952 Pontiac that belonged to his late grandfather through Havana's potholed streets, usually charging 20 pesos, or about 95 American cents, per fare.

Marrero gave up his job in a state factory in 1996 because he found he could make more money driving a taxi. At first, Marrero claimed to be fully legal, but he displayed a taxi license that had not been renewed since May, explaining that he can no longer afford the 600 pesos ($28.50) a month for government permission.

He still operates the taxi, but spends most of his time parked a block from the stately capitol dome — a slightly taller replica of the U.S. Capitol in Washington — waiting to take a few passengers a day rather than risk cruising the city and being stopped by the police.

"I pay and others don't? That can't be," he said. "When everyone is normalized, I will pay my license. But now, there is just chaos and it's not worth it to be legal."

Nearby, a retired construction worker named Juan had all the necessary papers for the Russian-made Lada he operates as a taxi. But he too spends most of his days parked and waiting for walk-up passengers because he can't afford the gasoline required to drive around looking for business.

"We charge what the market is willing to give us, but that's still barely enough," said Juan, who said he felt uncomfortable having his full name appear in the foreign media.

Because his Lada only seats four passengers, Juan pays 400 pesos, about $21, per month for his license, but he complained that droves of pirate taxis have eaten into his meager profit margins.

"The problem is there's no control. I hope this law changes that," he said. "For now, it seems like it's easier to be illegal than to be legal."

Approval, discontent greet Castro revolution's 50th year in Cuba

2009-01-02T23:37:00.000-08:00

MH

Posted on Fri, Jan. 02, 2009
Approval, discontent greet Castro revolution's 50th year in Cuba
By MIAMI HERALD STAFF
At Parque Dolores, tourist buses filled with Canadians and Europeans lugging cameras that cost two years' wages here listen to musical trios while elderly men pick through the trash.

The handicapped beg for coins under the mindful eye of a police officer. Aging newspaper hawkers trying to supplement their $9 monthly pensions sell copies of the government newspaper with the proud headline -- ``Keeps going down! Infant Mortality at 4.7!''

''Nothing in the world is better than this,'' said Raúl Ferrer, 86, a retired ship worker who spent Friday afternoon dozing on a bench.

''There is no other place that takes care of its elderly and children the way Cuba does. I quite honestly would be dead in my grave if it were not for this,'' Ferrer said, pointing to newspaper coverage of Thursday's celebration of the 50th anniversary of the revolution.

Some in Santiago and Havana who watched Raúl Castro's national address praised Fidel Castro for igniting the revolution that toppled a dictator, while others said the speech ignored the economic pain Cubans are feeling.

''He is saying nothing new,'' said Brenda, a Havana economist in her late 40s who kept making exasperated expressions as Castro spoke. ``He is saying nothing that all those people sitting there have not heard and know already.''

Others simply tuned out.

''I was not even interested in watching,'' said Regina, a housewife in her 40s. ``My husband kept calling me from the other room to go and watch it and I didn't.''

Conversations with Cubans in the eastern city of Santiago, the birthplace of the revolution, seem to mirror wider discussions -- some hushed -- about the revolution's future and legacy.

Ferrer's sister and brother-in-law were among insurgents who helped oust dictator Fulgencio Batista five decades ago. The years that followed saw a redistribution of wealth that caused the rich to flee and everyone else to become more or less poor.

''I used to be a big fan of the United States,'' Ferrer said. ''I loved it. But reading and reading, reading this,'' he said, pointing to the paper again, ``my eyes slowly started opening.''

He recounted spending 15 days in a Cuban hospital long ago and never paying a bill. Now, he is waiting for a slot in a home for the aged. In the meantime, Ferrer sleeps on a mat at a building he keeps an eye on at night.

''I am quite happy here,'' he said.

Not so for cab driver Andres. As he hoped to pick up some of the tourists near the square, he rolled his eyes hearing people talk of the 50th anniversary commemoration.

''I did not watch it,'' Andres said. 'I and most other Cuban people are tired of the lies. It's lies, lies and more lies. They get up there and talk to the Cuban people telling us, `You have to do this, you have to do that. You have to struggle.' I believe things I can see. You have to touch and feel reality. Nothing they said can be touched or felt. None of it was real.''

Francisco, 64, who sells peanuts to tourists in the plaza, praises the revolution.

''If the revolution had not won, who knows what shape this country would be in. My dad was a laborer for 20 cents a day, not a penny more,'' he said. ``Now look around. Every kid you see has a big belly and a scoop of ice cream in his hand.''

But he acknowledges a difficult life. He has to sell at least two dozen paper cones filled with nuts before he can afford a bar of soap and detergent to wash his guayabera.

''I watched the celebration of the anniversary last night on TV. It was very nicely decorated,'' he said, without a hint of irony in his voice.

A drummer singing Guantanamera to the tourists who refused to purchase peanuts proudly recounts how he was a fighter during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion backed by the CIA and squelched by the Cuban government. He shakes his head at a belligerent elderly man who puts an old plastic ice cream cup in front of tourists' tables and won't leave until they drop in a coin.

''You have shameless people who don't want to struggle. Look at that old man, asking for money when he gets the same pension as me,'' said drummer Miguel Portuondo, 64, who goes by the stage name Bocú Yeyé. ``There are women at all the nightclubs in town batting their eyelashes sweetly, acting all innocent, when really they are pretending not to be prostitutes. Why? Because they do not want to work. They do not want to study.''

Portuondo did both. He joined the rebels at age 14, distributing underground propaganda in the city. 'I was only 14, but I was not the youngest! There were children as young as 12. Of course, I did not even know what I was struggling for, but my parents' hatred for Batista was so great that they had me distributing propaganda for the rebels.''

He later fought at the Bay of Pigs, although he did not know then what he was fighting against. On Thursday, he was one of the special invited guests at the historic celebration in Parque Cespedes. He was there as a former rebel fighter and renowned local musician. He keeps all his press clippings in his briefcase to prove it.

''For me, it was a very proud occasion,'' Portuondo said. ``These 50 years have been beautiful. Sure, we have to struggle, but this country gives you what you need to struggle -- an education. I studied, became a professional musician and retired. Now I am out here working and struggling to make a few extra dollars. There is nothing wrong with that.''

''The people who criticize this system or just want to leave have been co-opted by the desire for capitalism. But capitalism does not offer any love, affection or respect for the people,'' Portuondo said.

He said he proudly watched Castro's speech, calling it ``decisive.''

''He is a man who says things as they are: Two plus two equals four, not five,'' he said. ``That's how it is, and that's how he says it. He has a lot of virtues, just like his brother.''

The names of the correspondents who filed this report and the surnames of some of those interviewed were not published because the reporters lacked the journalist visa required by the Cuban government.

Sports still No. 1 in Cuba despite declines

2009-01-02T23:32:00.000-08:00

MH

Posted on Fri, Jan. 02, 2009
Sports still No. 1 in Cuba despite declines
BY LINDA ROBERTSON
During Opening Ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics, former Cuban sports heroes Teofilo Stevenson, Javier Sotomayor and Ana Fidelia Quirot sat together inside Bird's Nest Stadium.

When the Cuban team marched onto the track, the three stars sprung to their feet and joined in the roar from the crowd, one of the loudest for any team in the parade of nations.

''I felt the excitement when the U.S. and Chinese teams marched in, but it was also electrifying to see this little island nation receive such respect and enthusiasm,'' said Jose Rodriguez, who sat with Stevenson, Sotomayor and Quirot. Rodriguez is executive director of USA Judo, a Miamian and a native of Cuba.

But the respect accorded Cuba wasn't matched by its performance in Beijing. Cuba had its worst Olympic showing in 40 years, winning only two gold medals and finishing 28th in the medal standings. Cuba is accustomed to being in the Top 10.

Cuba did not win a single gold in boxing. The baseball team lost the gold medal game to South Korea, and the women's volleyball team was upset by the United States.

The decline of Cuba as a sports power is a reflection of the dilapidated state of the island and the infirm Fidel Castro 50 years after his revolution. Sports continues to limp along despite the fading health of its No. 1 fan and shrinking budgets dating from the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Riddled by defections, Cuba has nonetheless remained competitive on the world stage. But its success rate, which was so disproportionate to its size during Castro's heyday, is no longer the strong morale-boosting propaganda tool that it was.

''The Beijing Olympics were an embarrassment for Cuba,'' said Roberto Quesada, a former trainer for the Cuban boxing team now coaching in Miami. ``That could mark the beginning of the end. I don't know if they can recover in these difficult economic times.''

The Games concluded with a humiliating incident for Cuba when tae kwon do athlete Angel Matos was disqualified during his match, kicked the referee in the face, spat on the mat and was banned from the sport.

Castro defended Matos, saying the match was fixed. He said boxers were ''condemned beforehand'' and cheated by judges.

In the same essay, Castro wrote that defections have hurt and blamed ''the repugnant mercenary actions'' of pro boxing promoters.

He promised a reassessment of ``every discipline, every human and material resource that we dedicate to sport.''

''Cuba has never bought an athlete or judge,'' Castro wrote, adding that Cubans need to brace themselves for the 2012 London Games. ``There will be European chauvinism, judge corruption, buying of brawn and brains and a strong dose of racism.''

Castro handed the presidency to brother Raúl in February but retains influence in deciding priorities. The few photos of Castro that are published give a clue to where the heart of the old sports nut still lies: He's wearing a red, white and blue Adidas track suit.

Castro was such a baseball aficionado he used to show up at practices and dictate the starting lineup. Successor Raúl may not be as obsessed, but Vice President Jose Ramon ''El Gallego'' Fernandez, a staunch friend of Fidel who defeated invaders at the Bay of Pigs, is head of Cuba's Olympic Committee, ensuring a pro-sports voice.

Alberto ''El Caballo'' Juantorena, track star of the 1976 Games, is senior vice president of INDER, the Cuban sports ministry. He is a charismatic figure, hugely popular.

Baseball still draws large crowds. The season started in early December and is on hiatus during celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the revolution. The season will also take a break during the World Baseball Classic in March, when Cuba's national team will go for the title three years after finishing second.

As for Cuba's newly formatted two-division league, there is lots of talk about pitcher Yulieski Gonzalez, 15-0 last year, sluggers Alexei Bell and Donald Duarte and rookie Yasel Puig. German Mesa is the new manager of Industriales, and Victor Mesa is out as manager of Villa Clara. Can Pedro Lazo extend his career victories total toward 250?

There are also wistful whispers about the ones who got away, such as Alexei ''the Cuban Missile'' Ramirez, who defected and signed with the Chicago White Sox. He was runner-up for Rookie of the Year. Up and coming Dayan Viciedo defected to Miami and was signed by the White Sox last month.

Since pitcher Rene Arocha defected in Miami in 1991, about 100 baseball players have fled Cuba. Their exodus shows that, in some ways, Castro's Big Red Machine has been a victim of its own success.

Before Castro took over, Cuban baseball players joined U.S. teams. In the 1950s, the Havana Sugar Kings were a Triple A International League franchise. Cuba was also home to boxing stars.

But Castro outlawed ''corrupt and exploitative'' professional sports in 1961 and created the national sports program, which was modeled on the Soviet system. Voluntary sports councils (CDVs) were set up in towns along with a pyramid of sports schools (EIDEs, ESPAs and CEARs) to identify and develop talent. Castro's goal was to win international legitimacy and domestic pride.

He promoted masividad -- mass participation -- to enhance the health of workers. He eliminated country clubs and admission charges. Sport became ''a right of the people'' delineated in the constitution.

A breakthrough came in 1966, when Cuban athletes -- forbidden by the U.S. to travel by plane -- came to San Juan, Puerto Rico, by boat and won 78 medals at the Central American and Caribbean Games. At the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Cuba finished fifth in the medal count.

It's been downhill since. In 1991, Cuba lost its Soviet subsidies and began the Special Period of scarcity.

Cuba has found new sources of income by renting out coaches and trainers, allowing athletes to sign endorsement contracts overseas and selling equipment. Athletes remain amateur; experts get paid. For example, Cuban computer technicians ran some operations during the Central American and Caribbean Games in Cartagena, Colombia.

''Can Cuban sports be saved by capitalism?'' author Paula Pettavino asked. ``That remains to be seen.''

Rising sports salaries, the influence of the Internet, the success of a few Cuban athletes and deteriorating conditions at home have spurred defections. Fewer athletes espouse the patriotism of track star Quirot, who dedicated medals to her commandante en jefe or boxer Felix Savon, who proclaimed he preferred the hearts of 10 million countrymen to the riches of 10 million dollars.

All Cubans know the remarkable story of Orlando ''El Duque'' Hernandez, the pitcher who left by boat, got stranded on Anguilla Cay, signed for millions with none other than the New York Yanquis, then played in the World Series nine months later. His agent was Miami's Joe Cubas, once known for his Cuban pipeline.

Seven members of the Under-23 soccer team fled from a Tampa hotel in March. Two players left the national team when it played the United States in Washington, D.C., two months ago.

When the Cuban judo team competed in Miami in May, two-time world champion Yurisel Laborde defected.

In 2006, three 2004 Olympic boxing champions sold their medals, then left a training camp in Venezuela. Another champ was kicked off the team after trying to defect in 2007. And a world champion left Cuba by speedboat in May. They signed pro contracts with a German promoter.

Yet Cuba still produces athletes other nations envy.

''We've never seen in the U.S. the talent level Cuba has had since 1962,'' said Milton Jamail, international player relations consultant for the Tampa Bay Rays and a former University of Texas professor who wrote Full Count: Inside Cuban Baseball. ``They produce too many players to have a 30-man team and contain them. Some need to leave or they would never replenish.

``I think it's amazing for all the travel they do that they don't have more defections. There will always be that tension, and they know they cannot avoid some losses.''

When Viciedo held a tryout in the Dominican Republic, 100 Major League scouts showed up to watch him.

''Baseball is still great -- it's recovered from a slump in the mid 1990s -- and the Cuban people still adore it,'' Jamail said.

Rodriguez took the U.S. judo team to tournaments in Havana in May. It was his 14th trip to Cuba since 1985. The Americans weren't treated as lavishly as in the past, when they were feted at the Tropicana.

''The government used to spend a lot of money, but now they have to focus every penny on their athletes, who also don't live as well as they used to,'' Rodriguez said. ``They are really struggling, but still compete at a higher level than most countries.''

Rodriguez said his athletes came home impressed by Cuban athletes' workouts on the beach, in which they used the water and sand to invent grueling drills.

''Cubans may not have the material things, but they have the desire,'' he said. ``I don't see the gloom and doom or agree with the theory that Beijing marked the end for Cuban sports. The infrastructure is still there, the expertise is still there and, most importantly, the talent is still there.''

Rodriguez coaxed the Cuban judo team to Miami after decades of ill will. The team got an enthusiastic reception. Two U.S. coaches who used to be stars for Cuba even went out on the town with their former comrades.

What does the future hold? There is hope that with two new presidents -- Barack Obama and Raúl Castro -- relations could warm. Maybe they'll even use some form of ''ping-pong diplomacy'' -- a series of games or training camps in the U.S. and on the island.

''I foresee coaching exchanges, the Pan Am Games in Miami and U.S. vs. Cuba in baseball,'' Rodriguez said.

Eventually, might Cuba allow select athletes to sign pro contracts here?

Quesada says no. ''Raúl will never cross that line,'' he said. ``There will be no pros fighting for money as long as any Castro is in power.''

Jamail foresees Major League teams opening academies on the island, as 29 teams have in the Dominican Republic and 10 in Venezuela.

He would also like to see all of Cuba's stars -- inside and outside Cuba -- representing the country in the World Baseball Classic or the Olympics, if baseball is reinstated to the Olympics.

''I always feel silly talking about what's going to happen in Cuba because, who knows?'' Jamail said. ``Who could predict Fidel would still be around 50 years later?''

In Cuba, a whiff of rugged individualism (Revolution at 50)

2009-01-01T23:45:00.000-08:00

AP

In Cuba, a whiff of rugged individualism
Country sees changes, generation gap 50 years after Castro swept to power
The Associated Press
updated 2:43 p.m. PT, Thurs., Jan. 1, 2009

Juan Gonzalez loves Fidel Castro. But he is also a realist.

"The people do what they can. They don't just sit around and wait for the government to give them everything," the 59-year-old said, standing on his dusty front porch. "If they waited for the government to keep all its promises, they would have to wait a long time. Fifty more years, maybe."

It sounds like the kind of rugged individualism that would resonate with Americans, but this is the mountainous Sierra Maestra of eastern Cuba, the cradle of the revolution that brought Castro to power 50 years ago New Year's Day, ushering in a communist era of promised egalitarianism under big, all-controlling government.

Here, more than 500 miles from Havana, people tend to speak their minds more freely, even grumble openly about their privations.

They also see a growing generation gap — between elder Cubans who wholeheartedly support the communist system, and youngsters yearning for change, at a time when the ailing, 82-year-old Castro has been replaced by his younger brother, Raul, and Barack Obama is about to move into the White House.

The Sierra Maestra is where Castro and his guerrillas prevailed over 10,000 soldiers sent in by dictator Fulgencio Batista in May 1958 and eventually forced Batista to flee Cuba on Jan. 1 of the following year.

'La revolucion'
Gonzalez, from the village of Santo Domingo, was 9 when the rebellion Cubans universally call "la revolucion" triumphed.

Now, as the revolution turns 50, how does he feel about it? "The people here feel good, but not everyone has the same amount of pride," he said.

That's because the promises of a shining future have not come as fast as they may have hoped. Electricity, running water and phone service are relatively new here. Some families still live in dirt-floored shacks and wash their clothes in rivers. Carts pulled by oxen, donkeys or horses outnumber cars and trucks.

Gonzalez is charged with the upkeep of his grandfather's homestead, now a historical site. The biggest problem, he says, is a lack of public transport. The area had a single ambulance but a few years ago "it broke and some people died because of that."

Soviet engineers only brought electricity to the area in 1986.

South of Santo Domingo lies Comandancia de la Plata, the hideout where Fidel Castro directed the final rebel push. He lived in a wooden hut with a roof of palm leaves. Outside, still encrusted with bullet fragments, is the tree on which he practiced his marksmanship.

'Should be more autonomy'
Luis Angel Segura, 55, is a guide who leads tourists up a muddy mule trail to the hut. Spend a few hours with him, and long-held complaints begin to bubble to the surface. What makes him angry is not too little government but too much — farmers can only grow what the state tells them to, and only sell their produce back to the government.

"There should be more autonomy," he said. "But, as they tell us, 'we're all Cuba."'

Still, no one here misses Batista. Like many Cubans in these parts, Segura calls the pre-Castro era "the tyranny."

About 600 people live in the isolated mountains around Comandancia de la Plata. Solar panels power tiny schoolhouses and health clinics. In the farthest regions, teachers live with pupils' families and doctors make house calls. Like nearly all Cubans, people here live rent-free and get monthly rations of basic food.

The government expanded a two-lane mountain highway through the area, but there's so little traffic that farmers dry their coffee beans on the asphalt. Goats, pigs, donkeys and dogs sleep on it undisturbed.

Many families have TVs bought with government credit, but few channels reach deep into the mountains. To fill the void there are "video clubs," shacks that show pirated movies. Internet access is tightly controlled.

As in the cities, rural areas have "Committees for the Defense of the Revolution" which meet to discuss community problems. Public attendance is mandatory.

"Everything here is well organized," said Julia Castillo, a housewife in the Sierra Cristal, another eastern mountain range that was a rebel stronghold. "But people complain and nothing happens."

'Education is a gigantic weapon'
Ask Cubans to rate their education and medical care systems, and many will talk instead about Batista's day — though few are old enough to have experienced it. An exception is Ruben La O.

"Before the revolution, I couldn't read," said the 73-year-old, who fought in Castro's rebel army. "Education is a gigantic weapon. Most people don't understand that, but Fidel does."

La O was 23 and from a reasonably well-to-do family of coffee farmers when the rebels recruited him as lead singer for a quintet that performed on Radio Rebelde, a propaganda station that Ernesto "Che" Guevara founded in the Sierra Maestra in 1958.

The musicians still don olive-green rebel uniforms and play songs denouncing Batista for tourists. They live in a row of concrete houses Castro ordered built for them in 1981, and, to honor the 50th anniversary of the revolution, each has been given a new mo-ped.

"In capitalism there are no schools. Socialism has solidarity, education, health and societal development that capitalism can't fathom," said Alejandro Molina, the quintet's 69-year-old founder and guitarist.

But La O's brother Alcides, a fellow quintet member, said the lesson is lost on many younger Cubans.

"There are lots of schools and lots of people who don't want to study," he said. "They don't take advantage of all they have."

Alejandro, a farm worker who lives nearby, says the problem is not apathy but a lack of freedom.

"Solidarity? Fine. But it is no substitute for political change," said the 26-year-old, who lives with his parents and didn't want to cause them problems by giving his surname. "People are ready for new things. There's a lot of frustration."

Cuba says blogger ran afoul of the law (Generacion Y)

2008-12-07T19:57:00.000-08:00

AP

Cuba says blogger ran afoul of the law
By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer Will Weissert, Associated Press Writer Fri Dec 5, 4:40 pm ET

HAVANA – Police have prohibited Cuba's most prominent blogger from attending an independent cyber-workshop and warned that her activities ran afoul of the law, her husband said Friday.

Yoani Sanchez and husband and fellow blogger Reynaldo Escobar were summoned separately Wednesday to a police station near their apartment in Havana's Vedado district and reprimanded, Escobar said in a telephone interview.

Authorities told the couple they could not travel to the western province of Pinar del Rio for a two-day blogger's workshop scheduled to begin Friday night.

"We aren't attending the inauguration of the workshop, which has not been suspended. We've just changed the dynamic of how we are meeting," said Escobar, without elaborating.

An account of the reprimand appears on Sanchez's blog, "Generacion Y." The site was blocked to Internet users on the island Friday.

Sanchez wrote that police told her, "We want to warn you that you have transgressed all the limits of tolerance with your closeness and contact with elements of the counterrevolution."

Sanchez could not be reached Friday, and Cuba's government had no comment.

Another Havana blogger, Claudia Cadelo, was also called into a meeting with police, but failed to appear because she is in the hospital, Escobar said.

The gathering was supposed to involve about 20 bloggers and is being organized by Dagoberto Valdes, a Roman Catholic layman in Pinar del Rio. Valdes was the volunteer director of the church magazine Vitral, which gently called for more plurality and democratic participation, until he was removed from the post by the island's bishop in April 2007.

Valdes was traveling Friday, but his associate, Virgilio Toledo, said authorities in Pinar del Rio also advised two local activists against attending the workshop.

"They think it's an activity about human rights, which it's not," Toledo said.

The Communications Ministry put into effect a law this week that instructs the island's Internet providers to "prevent access to sites where the content is contrary to social interests, morals or good custom, as well as the use of applications that affect the integrity or security of the State."

Escobar said the police suggested Cuba was especially sensitive to criticism as it struggles to recover from the effects of three storms that hit in less than two months this hurricane season, causing more than $10 billion in damage.

Asked if Cuba could be in the midst of a cyber-crackdown, he said, "I don't know how far they will go."

"For dissidents who traditionally have been surrounded, things have gotten stricter," Escobar said, referring to a small group of activists who dare criticize the island's single-party system.

Cuba tolerates no organized political opposition and dismisses dissidents and activists as "mercenaries" who take money from the United States to undermine the communist system.

Sanchez's posts about the struggles of daily life on the island have made her a sensation overseas and she won Spain's Ortega y Gasset Prize for digital journalism.

According to her blog, police said that her activities had "totally nullified your ability to dialogue with Cuban authorities."

Access to the Internet is strictly controlled in Cuba and the government routinely blocks sites it considers too critical.

Fidel Gets Religion: Why on earth did Castro build a Russian Orthodox cathedral in Havana?

2008-11-17T21:36:00.000-08:00

SLATE
fighting words
Fidel Gets Religion
Why on earth did Castro build a Russian Orthodox cathedral in Havana?
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Nov. 17, 2008, at 11:56 AM ET

In January of 2009—on New Year's Day, to be precise—it will have been half a century since the brave and bearded ones entered Havana and chased Fulgencio Batista and his cronies (carrying much of the Cuban treasury with them) off the island. Now the chief of the bearded ones is a doddering and trembling figure, who one assumes can only be hanging on in order to be physically present for the 50th birthday of his "revolution." It's of some interest to notice that one of the ways in which he whiles away the time is the self-indulgence of religion, most especially the improbable religion of Russian Orthodoxy.

Ever since the upheaval in his own intestines that eventually forced him to cede power to his not-much-younger brother, Raúl, Fidel Castro has been seeking (and easily enough finding) an audience for his views in the Cuban press. Indeed, now that he can no longer mount the podium and deliver an off-the-cuff and uninterruptable six-hour speech, there are two state-run newspapers that don't have to compete for the right to carry his regular column. Pick up a copy of the Communist Party's daily Granma (once described by radical Argentine journalist Jacobo Timerman as "a degradation of the act of reading") or of the Communist youth paper Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth), and in either organ you can read the moribund musings of the maximum leader.

These pieces normally consist of standard diatribes about this and that, but occasionally something is said that sparks interest among a resigned readership. Such an instance occurred on my visit to the island last month. Castro decided to publish a paean to Russian Orthodoxy, to devote a state subsidy to it, and to receive one of its envoys. I quote from the column, headed "Reflections by Comrade Fidel" and titled "The Russian Orthodox Church," which was "syndicated," if that's the word, on Oct. 21. This church, wrote Castro:

[i]s a spiritual force. It played a major role at critical times in the history of Russia. At the onset of the Great Russian War, after the treacherous Nazi attack, Stalin turned to her for support to the workers and peasants that the October Revolution had changed into the owners of factories and the land.

These sentences contain some points of real interest. It is certainly true, for example, that the Orthodox Church "played a major role at critical times in the history of Russia." It provided the clerical guarantee of serfdom and czarism, for example, and its demented anti-Semitism gave rise to the fabrication of the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which had a ghastly effect well beyond the frontiers of Russia itself. That's partly why the Bolsheviks sought to break the church's power and why the church replied in kind by supporting the bloodthirsty White Russian counterrevolution. But Castro openly prefers Stalin to Lenin, which may be why he refers to the Nazi assault on the USSR as "treacherous." He is quite right to do so, of course, but it does involve the awkward admission that Stalin and Hitler were linked by a formal military alliance against democracy until 1941 and that Stalin was more loyal to the pact than the "treacherous" Hitler was. And, yes, of course the Orthodox Church backed Stalin, just as he always subsidized the Orthodox Church. But these are chapters of shame in the history of Russia and even in the history of communism and Christianity. Why would Castro single out the darkest moments for his praise?

It gets worse. As Castro writes in the same column, concerning the visit of a Russian Orthodox archbishop named Vladimir Gundjaev to Cuba, "I suggested building a Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church in the capital of Cuba as a monument to Cuban-Russian friendship. … During the construction, earth was brought from the place where the remains were laid to rest of the Soviet soldiers who perished in our country during the tens of years they rendered services here." How extraordinary! He writes as if the Soviet (or, interchangeably, Russian) soldiers had fallen in combat in Cuba, and as if the Soviet Communist regime had sanctified their deaths—of old age or venereal disease or suicide, since there never was any war—as a sort of Christian martyrdom.

I have been in Cuba many times in the past decades, but this was the first visit where I heard party members say openly that they couldn't even guess what the old buzzard was thinking. At one lunch involving figures from the ministry of culture, I heard a woman say: "What kind of way is this to waste money? We build a cathedral for a religion to which no Cuban belongs?" As if to prove that she was not being sectarian, she added without looking over her shoulder: "A friend of mine asked me this morning: 'What next? A subsidy for the Amish?' "

All these are good questions, but I believe they have an easy answer. Fidel Castro has devoted the last 50 years to two causes: first, his own enshrinement as an immortal icon, and second, the unbending allegiance of Cuba to the Moscow line. Now, black-cowled Orthodox "metropolitans" line up to shake his hand, and the Putin-Medvedev regime brandishes its missile threats against the young Obama as Nikita Khrushchev once did against the young Kennedy. The ideology of Moscow doesn't much matter as long as it is anti-American, and the Russian Orthodox Church has been Putin's most devoted and reliable ally in his re-creation of an old-style Russian imperialism. If you want to see how far things have gone, take a look at the photograph of President Dmitry Medvedev's inauguration, as he kisses the holy icon held by the clerical chief. Putin and Medvedev have made it clear that they want to reinstate Cuba's role in the hemisphere, if only as a bore and nuisance for as long as its military dictatorship can be made to last. Castro's apparent deathbed conversion to a religion with no Cuban adherents is the seal on this gruesome pact. How very appropriate.
Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and the Roger S. Mertz media fellow at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, Calif.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2204820/

Cuba replaces foreign investment minister Lomas

2008-11-12T23:03:00.000-08:00

AP

Cuba replaces foreign investment minister Lomas
Wed Nov 12, 10:08 pm ET

HAVANA – Cuba replaced its foreign investment minister Wednesday in a high-profile Cabinet change, but did not explain the move.

A statement read during the communist island's nightly newscast said the Communist Party's Politburo "decided to liberate" Marta Lomas from the position. It did not give a reason, and it was not clear if she will take on a new governmental role.

She will be replaced by former U.N. Ambassador Rodrigo Malmierca, whom the statement praised as an experienced diplomat and leader.

The 24-member Politburo is headed by Fidel Castro, 82 years old and ailing, who stepped down from the presidency in February in favor of his younger brother Raul.

Havana's communist government controls well over 90 percent of the economy, but the island created joint business ventures with foreign enterprises and began encouraging foreign tourism en masse in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union crippled its economy.

As foreign investment minister, Lomas helped negotiate contracts with trade delegations from foreign governments and foreign business leaders.

Cuban foreign minister: Salary reform advancing

2008-10-21T20:08:00.000-07:00

AP

Cuban foreign minister: Salary reform advancing
By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO, Associated Press Writer E. Eduardo Castillo, Associated Press Writer Tue Oct 21, 7:11 pm ET

MEXICO CITY – Cuba is making progress in a salary reform that will ensure waiters don't make more than doctors, but the changes must be handled carefully to avoid economic turmoil, the island's foreign minister said Tuesday.

Appearing before business leaders in Mexico City, Felipe Perez Roque said reforms within the communist system will help guarantee that people earn a salary more commensurate with their career.

"We are in a salary reform that allows people to earn for what they do and resolves the contradiction in Cuba ... in which the bellboy of a hotel or the employee of a restaurant, with tips, earns more than a surgeon," he said.

But he cautioned that the change "has to be done in phases."

"If they just start throwing money in the streets without support, there will be inflation and it will damage our currency," he said.

Under the island's communist economic system, nearly all Cubans work for the government and earn an average monthly wage of 408 Cuban pesos, or just under US$20. That is supplemented by food and other subsidies.

People working in the tourist industry often receive tips that can far surpass state wages and give them greater access to luxury goods at hard-currency stores.

President Raul Castro and other Cuban officials have talked of the need for salary reforms and the government announced in June it would start paying workers on the basis of individual rather than group production so that workers who don't do their share or are frequently absent don't earn the same as those who show up regularly and do a good job.

The government in April raised salaries of court workers and increased monthly pensions for all workers. But the salary increases could not be extended to other sectors immediately because of insufficient resources.

Perez Roque also said that Cuba is working toward having a single currency.

Cuba has had two primary currencies since the collapse of the Soviet Union wrecked its economy and spurred its turn to tourism. Tourist businesses took U.S. dollars and charged U.S. prices, while the peso was maintained for everyday transactions.

A convertible peso, largely linked to the dollar, is now used for tourism and at stores offering goods that are often unavailable in local pesos.

Officials have repeatedly said they hope to bring the two systems together, but say that cannot be done until productivity increases.

Perez Roque also said that relations with the European Union have improved after the EU moved last year to lift sanctions imposed on Cuba for its jailing of 75 dissidents in 2003.

"There has been a process of reconstruction of Cuba's relations with the European Union," Perez Roque said. "In general, Cuba's relations with the EU are advancing and improving."

Also Tuesday, Perez Roque met with President Felipe Calderon and invited the Mexican leader to visit Cuba. No date was set for a visit.

Both Perez Roque and Calderon celebrated closer relations. Ties between the countries soured under the 2000-2006 presidency of Vicente Fox, when Mexico voted at the U.N. in favor of monitoring human rights in Cuba. Relations reached a low in 2004, when both countries called home their ambassadors.

Mexico signed an agreement with Cuba on Monday to deport Cubans caught moving through Mexico illegally to reach the U.S.

20bn barrel oil discovery puts Cuba in the big league

2008-10-20T23:05:00.000-07:00

Guardian

20bn barrel oil discovery puts Cuba in the big league
• Self-reliance beckons for communist state
• Estimate means reserves are on a par with US

* Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
* The Guardian,
* Saturday October 18 2008

Friends and foes have called Cuba many things - a progressive beacon, a quixotic underdog, an oppressive tyranny - but no one has called it lucky, until now .

Mother nature, it emerged this week, appears to have blessed the island with enough oil reserves to vault it into the ranks of energy powers. The government announced there may be more than 20bn barrels of recoverable oil in offshore fields in Cuba's share of the Gulf of Mexico, more than twice the previous estimate.

If confirmed, it puts Cuba's reserves on par with those of the US and into the world's top 20. Drilling is expected to start next year by Cuba's state oil company Cubapetroleo, or Cupet.

"It would change their whole equation. The government would have more money and no longer be dependent on foreign oil," said Kirby Jones, founder of the Washington-based US-Cuba Trade Association. "It could join the club of oil exporting nations."

"We have more data. I'm almost certain that if they ask for all the data we have, (their estimate) is going to grow considerably," said Cupet's exploration manager, Rafael Tenreyro Perez.

Havana based its dramatically higher estimate mainly on comparisons with oil output from similar geological structures off the coasts of Mexico and the US. Cuba's undersea geology was "very similar" to Mexico's giant Cantarell oil field in the Bay of Campeche, said Tenreyro.

A consortium of companies led by Spain's Repsol had tested wells and were expected to begin drilling the first production well in mid-2009, and possibly several more later in the year, he said.

Cuba currently produces about 60,000 barrels of oil daily, covering almost half of its needs, and imports the rest from Venezuela in return for Cuban doctors and sports instructors. Even that barter system puts a strain on an impoverished economy in which Cubans earn an average monthly salary of $20.

Subsidised grocery staples, health care and education help make ends meet but an old joke - that the three biggest failings of the revolution are breakfast, lunch and dinner - still does the rounds. Last month hardships were compounded by tropical storms that shredded crops and devastated coastal towns.

"This news about the oil reserves could not have come at a better time for the regime," said Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, a Cuba energy specialist at the University of Nebraska.

However there is little prospect of Cuba becoming a communist version of Kuwait. Its oil is more than a mile deep under the ocean and difficult and expensive to extract. The four-decade-old US economic embargo prevents several of Cuba's potential oil partners - notably Brazil, Norway and Spain - from using valuable first-generation technology.

"You're looking at three to five years minimum before any meaningful returns," said Benjamin-Alvarado.

Even so, Cuba is a master at stretching resources. President Raul Castro, who took over from brother Fidel, has promised to deliver improvements to daily life to shore up the legitimacy of the revolution as it approaches its 50th anniversary.

Cuba's unexpected arrival into the big oil league could increase pressure on the next administration to loosen the embargo to let US oil companies participate in the bonanza and reduce US dependency on the middle east, said Jones. "Up until now the embargo did not really impact on us in a substantive, strategic way. Oil is different. It's something we need and want."

Cuba's first Russian Orthodox cathedral opens

2008-10-19T19:22:00.000-07:00

AP/YAHOO
Cuba's first Russian Orthodox cathedral opens
Sun Oct 19, 2:06 pm ET

HAVANA – Cuba's first Russian Orthodox cathedral was consecrated Sunday amid church bells, liturgical chants and the presence of President Raul Castro, in a sign of goodwill toward the island's former chief benefactor.

Russian diplomats and members of Cuba's dwindling Russian community crowded into the whitewashed seaside cathedral, which is topped by a gleaming gold dome.

Dressed in a dark suit and tie, Castro attended the opening but left before the liturgical service that followed. His good relations with Russian officials date to Soviet times, and his older brother Fidel attended the consecration of a nearby Orthodox church for Greek and other non-Russian Orthodox Christians in 2004.

The new Our Lady of Kazan cathedral has been welcomed by many in Cuba's Russian community, which has dwindled to several hundred as most returned home following the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Tens of thousands of Russian technicians and military officers lived in Cuba before the Soviet Union dissolved.

The Russian Church's top foreign relations official, Metropolitan Kirill, traveled from Moscow to perform Sunday's ceremony, which was also attended by Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon and other officials.

In food crisis, Cuba limits sales so all can eat

2008-10-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

AP/Breitbart

In food crisis, Cuba limits sales so all can eat
Oct 10 02:54 PM US/Eastern
By ANNE-MARIE GARCIA
Associated Press Writer

HAVANA (AP) - Cuba is limiting how much basic fruits and vegetables people can buy at farmers' markets, irritating some customers but ensuring there's enough—barely—to go around.

The lines are long and some foods are scarce, but because the government has maintained and even increased rations in some areas, Cubans who initially worried about getting enough to eat now seem confident they won't go hungry despite the destruction of 30 percent of the island's crops by hurricanes Gustav and Ike last month.

"Of the little there is, there is some for everyone," 65-year-old Mercedes Grimau said as queued up behind more than 50 people to buy lettuce, limited to two pounds per person.

"I'm not afraid that I will be left without food, but it's a pain to think about all the work we are going to have to go through," Grimau added. "Two or three months ago the farmers markets were well-stocked."

Cuba's government regularly stockpiles beans and other basics, and Economics Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez said authorities are ready to increase the $2 billion they already spend on food imports annually. The world credit crisis won't affect much of those imports because U.S. law forces communist Cuba to use cash to purchase American farm goods. But imports from other countries bought with credit could become more difficult or expensive.

The government is delivering all items distributed each month on the universal ration that provides Cubans with up to two weeks of food—including eggs, beans, rice and potatoes—at very low cost. In some hard-hit provinces, extra food has been added.

But the rest of the food Cubans supplement their diets with at supply-and-demand farmers markets and government produce stands has dwindled, prompting the government to limit consumer purchases and cap prices on items including rice, beans, root crops and fresh greens.

Rodriguez has sought to dispel speculation about a replay of the desperate early 1990s, when shelves were bare and people survived for weeks on one small meal daily. Cubans who lived through deprivation after the Soviet Union's collapse say the current food situation doesn't come close.

"It is true that it will take us some time to bring the agricultural production up to the levels that existed before the hurricanes," Rodriguez told state television this week. "Nevertheless, there is no reason to speculate or assume that there will be any hunger."

Although Cuba's relative financial isolation partially protects it from the jolts of the world economy, an extended credit crisis could stunt the island's foreign currency income if Cubans living abroad lose jobs and stop sending family remittances, or if potential tourists can no longer afford to travel.

But now, Cuba's top challenge is to increase local production of fruits and vegetables sold at the farmers' markets.

Waiting at one market on a recent morning, 55-year-old homemaker Regla Suazo said, "At least with the measures I know I can buy something." Shortly thereafter, the first truck of the day pulled up with green beans, green onions, guavas, avocados, corn, squash, cassava root and sweet potatoes.

But quantities were much smaller than usual. Vendor Nadia Gomez, who received nothing that day, said police checkpoints leading into Havana now turn away trucks unauthorized to market produce in the capital or have been ordered send their goods to harder-hit areas.

Cuban agricultural officials expect six months of food shortages, and are increasing short-cycle crops such as salad greens and taking other measures to ensure everyone gets enough to eat.

At Cuatro Caminos farmers market, among Havana's largest and most varied, vendor Juan Carlos Martinez lamented he had only papayas, guavas and pineapples to sell. "This isn't the business it used to be," he said.

Orlando "Puntilla" Rios (1947-2008)

2008-09-15T21:07:00.000-07:00

Global Rhythm

Master batá drummer Orlando “Puntilla” Ríos, a seminal figure in the New York Latin music scene, died in a New York City hospital August 12 of complications from heart surgery. He was 60.

Ríos arrived from Cuba in 1980 with the Mariel boatlift and formed an Afro-Cuban folkloric group called Nueva Generación (New Generation) intent on preserving and disseminating both sacred Afro-Cuban music and secular forms such as rumba. He became a pillar of the religious Santería community in New York City as well as an in-demand session musician, recording with such luminaries as the Latin jazz pioneer Chico O’Farill.

Ríos relished his role as mentor and teacher to up and coming percussionists, transmitting what Cubans call “fundamento” (fundamentals) on the sacred, two-headed batá drum used in Santería ceremonies and increasingly in secular music. He was also renowned for his prowess on the conga drums and diverse percussion instruments. Ríos’ polyrhythmic performances and recordings such as 1996’s Spirit Rhythms: Sacred Drumming and Chants From Cuba are credited with exposing a wider audience to Cuban folkloric music. His last project was a tribute album honoring the guaguanco rumba legacy of the late Cuban singer-percussionist Gonzalo Asencio (“Tío Tom”). Released this year by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Ríos recorded the album in Havana’s legendary Egrem studios accompanied by El Conjunto Todo Rumbero.

Born in Havana in 1947 (Dec. 26?), Ríos was a teacher of percussion at the National School of Art in Cuba between 1971 and 1978. He went from performing in the city’s most exclusive hotels - storied cabarets such as the ones in Tropicana and the Hotel Riviera, to accompanying great Latin music figures of the stature of Celia Cruz and Tito Puente on the international stage. He is survived by his wife Ileana. - Lissette Corsa

Judge Overturns Florida's Ban on Academic Travel to Cuba

2008-08-30T00:18:00.000-07:00

Chronicle for Higher Education
News Blog

August 29, 2008
Judge Overturns Florida's Ban on Academic Travel to Cuba

A federal judge has struck down a Florida law that restricts students, faculty members, and researchers at the state’s public colleges and universities from traveling to Cuba and four other countries that the U.S. government considers terrorist states.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida had challenged the law in court on behalf of the Faculty Senate at Florida International University, arguing that the statute violated faculty members’ First Amendment rights and impinged on the federal government’s ability to regulate foreign commerce.

The two-year-old law prevents students, professors, and researchers at public universities and community colleges in Florida from using state or federal funds, or private foundation grants administered by their institutions, to travel to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. Those at private colleges in Florida are forbidden to use state funds for that purpose.

The decision, issued Thursday by the U.S. District Court in Miami, reversed an earlier ruling upholding the ban. In her order, Judge Patricia Seitz upheld one aspect of the law: State funds may not be used for travel to those countries. But nearly all such trips rely on private funds.

Judge Seitz agreed with the ACLU’s argument that the state should not be allowed to regulate travel financed with private funds and that the Florida Legislature could not interfere with federal foreign-relations powers.

“It’s a blow for academic freedom,” Thomas Breslin, a professor of international relations and chairman of Florida International University’s Faculty Senate, said of the decision during a news conference this afternoon.

The law was passed in 2006 after a Florida International professor and his wife, a university employee, were accused of spying for Cuba. —Karin Fischer

Cuba looks at trimming social welfare

2008-08-20T21:02:00.000-07:00

Financial Times
Cuba looks at trimming social welfare

By Richard Lapper in London

Published: August 18 2008 22:38 | Last updated: August 18 2008 22:38

Cuba, one of the world’s last surviving Communist states, is looking at watering down the generous social welfare system that has been a cornerstone of its economy for nearly 50 years, according to a senior government official.

Alfredo Jam, head of macroeconomic analysis in the economy ministry, told the Financial Times that Cubans had been “over-protected” by a system that subsidised food costs and limited the amount people could earn, prompting labour shortages in important industries.

“We can’t give people so much security with their income that it affects their willingness to work,” Mr Jam said. “We can have equality in access to education and health but not in equality of income.” He said the emphasis on equality had helped maintain social cohesion during the 1990s when Cuba’s economy came close to collapse after the withdrawal of Soviet assistance, but “when the economy recovers you realise that there is [a level of] protection that has to change. We can’t have a situation where it is not work that gives access to goods,” he said.

Mr Jam’s remarks represent a rare and unusually frank insight into official thinking on Cuba’s future economic direction in the wake of the resignation of its long-time leader, Fidel Castro, in February.

Under Cuba’s new president, the former leader’s younger brother Raúl, the country has eased restrictions on bonuses that can be paid to workers and lifted bans on products such as mobile phones and DVD players.

Mr Castro also decentralised the country’s agricultural system and said idle land would be offered to co-operatives and private farmers to lower dependency on imported food.

However, the welfare system has remained almost intact. Under it, all Cubans are entitled to basic foods, including bread, eggs, rice, beans and milk, at much cheaper prices than those elsewhere in the world. Rents and utilities are extremely cheap and education and healthcare are free.

Any reform of these universal benefits would be controversial within the governing Communist party and unlikely to happen quickly.

But Mr Jam’s comments reflect growing frustration in official circles about poor performance in agriculture, construction and manufacturing. “There isn’t motivation to work in these sectors,” he said.

Funding for free Cuba is frozen

2008-07-23T14:30:00.000-07:00

Miami Herald

Posted on Tue, Jul. 22, 2008
Funding for free Cuba is frozen
BY FRANCES ROBLES
Congress has put the U.S. Agency for International Development's $45 million Cuba program's 2008 funding on hold, following a series of troubling audits and cases of massive fraud, The Miami Herald has learned.

In a quest to get the funding hold lifted, U.S. AID on Friday ordered a bottoms-up review of all its Cuba democracy programs and suspended a Miami anti-Castro exile group that spent at least $11,000 of federal grant money on personal items.

Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., ordered a hold on the U.S. AID Cuba program funding last month, in part in response to a $500,000 embezzlement at the Center for a Free Cuba in Washington disclosed earlier this year, federal officials said.

In a memo sent Friday to various members of Congress, Stephen Driesler, AID's deputy assistant administrator for legislative and public affairs, said the agency recently implemented stricter financial reviews. That new review turned up irregularities at the Grupo de Apoyo a la Democracia (Group in Support of Democracy), a Miami group criticized in the past for using federal funds to send Nintendo games to Cuba.

The executive director of Grupo de Apoyo admitted that an employee used the organization's credit card for thousands of dollars in personal items and then billed them to the grant aimed at bringing democracy to Cuba, Driesler's memo said.

The group's funding has been suspended pending further review, and the money has been reimbursed, Driesler said. In a telephone interview, he declined to say what items were purchased.

'' U.S. AID has decided to conduct an immediate review of all the grants to determine where financial vulnerabilities exist and how best to address these vulnerabilities to strengthen the program for future success,'' his memo said. ``All grants are currently undergoing review, and pending the outcome of these reviews, some grants will be partially suspended.''

Grupo de Apoyo Executive Director Frank Hernández Trujillo did not return several messages seeking comment.

The announcement that U.S. AID would conduct a thorough review of its controversial $45 million program is considered a significant development that illustrates increased congressional oversight over the program.

A report by the Cuban-American National Foundation released in May showed that less than 17 percent of $65 million in federal Cuba aid funds spent during the past 10 years went to ''direct, on-island assistance.'' The bulk of the money, the report said, went to academic studies and expenses of exile organizations, mostly in Miami and Washington.

The report echoed findings by The Miami Herald in 2006 and a congressional Government Accountability Office audit that found lax oversight of the programs and came as the Bush administration prepares to dole out a record $45.7 million in Cuba democracy grants.

IMPORTANT SHIFT

In an important shift, the Bush administration this year ordered a major change in the grants, favoring international advocacy groups over Miami exile organizations.

''Yes, we were worried,'' Driesler said in an interview. ``When we have problems with two institutions within six months out of 11 active grantees, you say, `We hope this is not a pattern, but we better pause and check and make sure.'

``We are focusing on procurements, validating that purchases being billed are being delivered, that the purchase price on the invoice is accurate and that the purchase was legitimate for a government program.''

Frank Calzon, executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, stressed that the $500,000 fraud at his organization was not discovered by a federal audit but by Calzon himself. He said Berman, who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, pushed for the audits because he is against President Bush's Cuba policy.

POLITICS CHARGED

''I think any additional oversight is fine; I don't have any problem with that,'' Calzon said. ``I would say that it is simply motivated by politics. If Mr. Berman were in agreement with the president's Cuba policy, he would not be on this fishing expedition.''

Berman's office did not return a call seeking comment.

Critics say AID's move did not go far enough.

''Those of us who have been following this issue are alarmed about the program,'' said Sarah Stephens, whose organization, Democracy in the Americas, lobbies for a change in Cuba policy.

``We are pleased that Congress has started asking questions and, given what we have learned about possible corruption and waste, we believe Congress needs to stop this funding and continue asking the hard questions.''

Cuba allows private farmers to have more land

2008-07-18T13:57:00.000-07:00

AP

Cuba allows private farmers to have more land

By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer Fri Jul 18, 12:19 PM ET

Communist officials decreed Friday that private farmers and cooperatives can use up to 100 acres (40 hectares) of idle government land, as President Raul Castro works to revive Cuba's floundering agricultural sector.

The law published in the Communist Party newspaper Granma did not say how much state land will be turned over to private hands and gave no indication of how many Cubans might apply.

But it described the measure as a way to help Cuba solve the problem of underused land while cutting food imports that are expected to cost the government US$2 billion this year.

Landless Cubans can be given a bit more than 33 acres (13 hectares) while those who already have fully producing plots can add enough state lands to bring their total holdings to 100 acres (40 hectares).

Existing state farms, cooperatives and state factories also can apply for underused land.

Ownership will stay with the state. Private farmers can get concessions of up to 10 years, renewable for another 10. Cooperatives and companies can have renewable 25-year terms. And all will have to pay taxes for the lands, though the decree gave no details.

While the individual parcels are small, the widespread transfer of farmland from public to private hands could change the face of farming in a country where the government controls well over 90 percent of the economy.

The decree noted that Cuba now suffers from "a considerable percentage of idle state lands," making it necessary to grant concessions "with the objective of elevating food production and reducing importation."

Government statistics released last month show that the percentage of fallow or underused Cuban farm land increased to 55 percent in 2007, up from 46 percent in 2002. Just 29 percent of land on state farms is actively used.

After Fidel Castro took power in 1959, the government expropriated many large farms and agricultural holdings, while allowing thousands of small farmers to keep their plots and sell their produce to the state.

The new measure doesn't say where farmers will sell their output, but nearly all private farmers now are required to sell most of their produce — beyond what they eat themselves — to the state.

Friday's decree spells out details of a plan announced in March, when officials told state television they had begun lending more small plots to private producers of tobacco, coffee and other key cash crops.

Raul Castro, 77, has made increasing food production and reducing dependence on foreign imports a top priority since succeeding his brother Fidel in February.

The government earlier gave more autonomy to regional farm authorities and it is paying private farmers more for milk and meat.

State-owned farms now hold just over one-third of Cuba's agricultural land — down from about 70 percent two decades ago. The rest is worked by small farmers and cooperatives, many of them state-organized.

Life in Cuba: One Country, Two Currencies

2008-07-17T21:49:00.000-07:00

Same old story...

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-0716havanadaily,0,5077590.story
Life in Cuba: One Country, Two Currencies

Doreen Hemlock

Havana Bureau--South Florida Sun-Sentinel

7:25 AM EDT, July 16, 2008

HAVANA

Salesman Juan Carlos Lee hears the complaints daily. He works in an Old Havana store that offers juice, candy and other goods only for sale in Cuba's hard, convertible currency, not in local pesos.

"Ay, everything is so expensive. Convertible currency is such a problem. Cuba, it's not easy," clients tell him.

Lee tries to calm buyers by noting prices are rising worldwide for food, oil and other basics.

But he knows first-hand how hard it is to make ends meet with a salary equal to about $20 a month, when many consumer items now sell at international prices. He gives thanks that family in Spain sends him money. Yet like clients, he yearns for a day when wages stretch far and shopping takes one currency, not two.

"That's going to take time," the 42-year-old Havana resident said Tuesday. "It won't be overnight."

Strapped for dollars, euros and other currencies needed to buy imports, communist-run Cuba uses a unique dual-currency system to conserve foreign reserves. It pays islanders in local pesos and offers some goods and services at peso outlets, often with hefty subsidies. But increasingly, it requires a dollar-like convertible currency unit or CUC at other shops and businesses, where prices include little or no subsidies.

Cubans pay 25 pesos per CUC, a hefty sum when salaries average in the 400-range monthly. Those who can best afford it are those Cubans who earn some pay or tips in CUC from tourism or the thriving black market, and those who receive cash from friends and family overseas.

The government recognizes the four-year-old system hurts national self-esteem and widens social divides. Officials vow to end the program once foreign reserves spike -- a growing challenge as import prices soar.

Lucia Morgan, 38, a teacher in Havana who earns about $20 a month, said she copes with rising costs by buying soda just once or twice a week at the CUC store, instead of three times. She's also trying to rely more on goods sold in pesos, like rice and beans, foregoing the spaghetti she buys in CUC.

Other Cubans seek quicker change. The Federation of Latin American Rural Women, a group known by its Spanish initials as Flamur, is campaigning to end the two-currency system it calls "discriminatory." On Monday, two activists protested by entering a pharmacy that sells goods in CUC and offering to pay for a bottle of medicine in local pesos. The cashier refused, and the manager took the bottle away, the group said.

"These actions will continue until the popular will is fulfilled, expressed by the 10,738 signatures that we gave the National Assembly, to pay in all establishments in the country with the same currency in which are wages are paid to us," Flamur President Belinda Salas said in a news release. "We will not be intimidated."

Cubans are happily adjusting to change under Raúl Castro

2008-07-16T23:22:00.000-07:00

Dallas Morning News
Cubans are happily adjusting to change under Raúl Castro

12:07 AM CDT on Tuesday, July 15, 2008

By ALFREDO CORCHADO / The Dallas Morning News
acorchado@dallasnews.com

HAVANA – Gerardo Guardiola looks beyond the material items newly available to Cubans – cellphones, DVD players, meals at restaurants once reserved for tourists – and keys in on a more fundamental change that has transformed his life.

"I now think for myself," said the 44-year-old tobacco factory worker and father of 10. "That's truly revolutionary, knowing that you're responsible for your own destiny."

Cubans are taking note of the flurry of changes under President Raúl Castro, 76, who succeeded his ailing 81-year-old brother, Fidel, in February.

As Cuba prepares to observe the 55th anniversary of the July 26, 1953, attack on the Moncada barracks – which lit the fuse of the Cuban revolution – no one seems sure where Raúl Castro's changes are taking the country. But in interviews, a range of Cubans spoke with pride about the expanding economic opportunities, improved workplace incentives, and a growing sense of personal freedom and responsibility.

Is it creeping capitalism?

"I don't know what capitalism is," said María Inez, 42, who operates a torta and hot dog stand on bustling Obispo Street in Old Havana – a business she once operated clandestinely from her home. "This makes more sense. It's a more rational way to make a living."

Wayne Smith, head of the U.S. diplomatic mission here during the Carter administration and now a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, said the changes are significant.

"Cuba is still finding its way," he said during an interview in Havana. "Changes may be slow and gradual, but something fundamental is changing across the island."

Cuban government officials have hinted that more changes may be coming, including easing restrictions on traveling abroad, allowing Cubans to buy and sell homes and cars, and legalizing unauthorized taxis.

Recent measures allow merit-based incentives for workers, once unheard of in a country where the concept of equality trumped individual effort. For farmers, there is more land to cultivate and reduced bureaucracy.

On Friday, Raúl Castro advised Cubans to prepare for a "realistic" brand of communism that does away with excessive state subsidies, The Associated Press reported.

"Socialism means social justice and equality, but equality of rights, of opportunities, not of income," he said in a speech on national television.

Watching the changes closely are U.S. businesses, including members of a Texas agricultural trade delegation who visited Cuba in late May.

"For nearly five decades, the United States and Cuba have lived as strangers, but now we must seize the opportunity to heal the divide," Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples wrote in a commentary. "I knew Texas agriculture had something to offer which could dramatically improve life for the Cuban people and open doors for Texas agricultural producers. We have resources; they have a real need."

'Tweaking' socialism

Even as Fidel Castro's shadow looms large via his personal "Reflections" column in the government-run newspaper Granma, there are signs that Cubans are adapting to the post-Fidel era.

"Cuba has moved on," a U.S. diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Cubans are thinking for themselves, and that's a very important change. ... There's also a sense of, 'Can't we bury this legend and move on?' "

A Cuban government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, denied that the changes represent a shift away from socialism.

"We're simply perfecting what we already have, tweaking our socialist system," the official said. "Fidel will be with us forever. His legacy will transcend time. Cubans will never leave Fidel behind."

The official said "ongoing debate among Cubans" is in response to Raúl Castro's urging that they speak up to help fix the nation's problems. And the government has gotten an earful.

Cubans, via government media, now question everything from the quality of health care and education to the official unemployment rate. On a visit to the University of Havana, the president of the National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcón, was heckled, something unheard of in the past.

"A debate has been unleashed, and people are speaking quite freely," said Phil Peters, vice president of the Lexington Institute, a research organization in Arlington, Va. "And though it's not a guarantee that the government will act, it's still significant change."

Many Cubans said the changes are important even if the newly available products and opportunities remain beyond their reach. With the average monthly wage $20, many Cubans can't afford a cellphone or $120 for a night at the Hotel Nacional, Havana's crown jewel.

"What's important," explained Joselito Moreno, an airport taxi driver, "is that we can finally choose."

Challenging choices

Those choices can be vexing. A few months ago, Mr. Moreno's daughter turned 15 and wanted to spend a night at the Hotel Nacional with two friends. The parents agreed but quickly calculated that $120 would keep food on the table for months. So they took their daughter, in her white dress, and toured the hotel gardens.

"We went home and ate pork, ice cream and cake," Mr. Moreno said. "With freedom come new responsibilities."

On a moonlit Havana night, Remi, a taxi driver who didn't want his full name used, showed off his city's historic buildings. He bubbled with enthusiasm about the changes under way.

"We always saw Fidel as the savior, the one who would somehow find a way to defend us," he said. "Now we're forced to think of life without Fidel and how to fend for ourselves."

As Remi navigated his Russian-made car along the Malecón, Havana's seafront drive, he pointed to a gathering of gay men, a sign of new tolerance. But he noted that some things remain stuck in time – such as the feud between his country and the U.S.

At the building housing the U.S. Interests Section, he pointed out the huge electronic billboard upon which the news of the day is scrolled repeatedly – a provocative jab at the Cuban government's control of information. The Cuban government responded by erecting a battery of flagpoles to shield the billboard and make a statement of its own, flying dozens of black flags representing Cubans supposedly killed by U.S.-backed anti-Castro terrorists.

The two governments are like "two bullies still fighting for their marbles," Remi said, "while the population awaits more change."
CHANGES IN CUBA

Since Raúl Castro became president in February, new policies allow:

•Individual ownership of computers and cellphones.

•Cuban access to tourist hotels.

•Performance-based pay incentives.

Afropop Worldwide: Cuban Abakuá

2008-07-14T20:26:00.000-07:00

From Afropop Worldwide; original post includes photographs, sounds, and links.
Ivor Miller 2007

Place and Date: Brooklyn, New York
2007
Interviewer: Ned Sublette

VOICE OF THE LEOPARD: IVOR MILLER talks to NED SUBLETTE

Ned Sublette: I’m talking to Dr. Ivor Miller, Research Fellow in the African Studies Center of Boston University and author of the forthcoming Voice of the Leopard, from University Press of Mississippi in the Fall of 2008. What does Voice of the Leopard mean?

Ivor Miller: The voice of the leopard is the main symbol of the Ekpe society of the Cross River region of Nigeria and Cameroon, which was re-created in colonial Cuba as the Abakuá society. And it’s a symbol in both. Essentially the leopard is a sign of royalty all over Central West Africa and the Calabar zone, and it’s a symbol of their political autonomy. Every village in the Cross River region that has Ekpe has their own way to manifest the voice, which means, “we are independent.”

NS: In Cuba the Abakuá occupies a unique position in the history of the society. Can you give us a sort of thumbnail of what Abakuá has meant in Cuba?

IM: Abakuá is at the foundation of Cuban society. It was founded around the 1830s in Havana by African Ekpe members who had been enslaved and brought over. They reorganized themselves in the cabildos and they would not allow their offspring born in Cuba to join, because of the well-known tensions between the so-called old world and new world people. So eventually they decided to establish a lodge of their offspring, the black Creoles, and they called it Efik Butón, after a settlement in Calabar. To do that they had to create a fundamento [consecrated object], which represented the autonomy of that lodge.

NS: When you say they created a lodge, that’s a word that we associate maybe with the Masons or the Odd Fellows.

IM: The great Cuban scholar Don Fernando Ortiz used to refer to Abakuá as “African masonry,” because there are similarities in the fact that it’s a graded system – there are titles – and they are an independent group of mutual aid. The function of Abakuá was to buy people out of slavery, so Abakuá is known as a force of liberation in Cuban history. And in the wars of [Cuban] independence, representatives of Abakuá lodges interacted with Freemasons – people like Antonio Maceo, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, all the leaders of the Mambí independence army, were Masons – so they’re parallel systems.

NS: What about the aspect of secrecy? The Abakuá is a secret society of men…

IM: Yes. Abakuá is exclusively for men, and there’s a lot of reasons for that we could talk about. But another way of saying a secret society is to say an initiation society. Once one is initiated, one takes oaths about maintaining discretion about what one learns. What they call the esoteric knowledge, the insider’s information, are the secrets. There are secret societies all over the world. The Vatican is a secret society. Whatever happens at the top layers of the U.S. government, those are secrets too. Essentially these secret societies or initiation schools are really schools of learning, and in order to begin to learn, you’ve got to take an oath.

NS: Now these hermetic societies also existed in the Cross River Delta of Africa. How did they function there?

IM: In the Cross River region, Ekpe is the indigenous government. As an example, in order to found a settlement – okay, we want to take my family and move to a new place? We’ve picked a piece of land. The first thing we do is create the Ekpe lodge, and then we create the settlement, because that is the symbol that we are an independent settlement. You can’t come here and do anything you want, you’ve got to deal with Ekpe. It’s the indigenous system. The legal system, the judiciary, the executive branches, are all Ekpe.

NS: In place of a strong centralized government, there were Ekpe lodges throughout the region.

IM: That’s exactly it. Whereas the Yoruba have a centralized system, Ekpe was how a series of autonomous villages could trade and interact in meaningful ways. If one was an Ekpe member in the Cross River region, one could travel anywhere and be safe. Because wherever there was a lodge, you were protected.

NS: So there were offshoots of this system that were transported to Cuba. But unlike the Yoruba system – or santería, or Ifá, or Ocha, or Lucumí, whatever you want to call it – which has gone all over the world now, Abakuá has remained only in Havana and Matanzas province, not even in Oriente in Cuba. Only in these two parts of Cuba and only there in the entire New World. Why is that?

IM: Because the Abakuá have retained what they were given by the Africans with a remarkable orthodoxy. In order to establish a lodge, one has to get the permission of all the elders. There has to be a collective consensus. And that’s part of what makes Abakuá so important. They want to control the morality of their citizens, as it were, of their initiates. And if it starts spreading anywhere, it will be transformed and perhaps used for other means.

NS: So it has been a decision of the elders in Cuba that this not spread.

IM: Exactly.

NS: How did you get involved with studying this, and what is your status vis-à-vis this practice?

IM: I first went to Cuba in 1991 as a student of the Conjunto Folklórico Nacional to study dance -- I danced professionally in New York -- and really became interested in Cuba from being in New York and going to toques [Yoruba ceremonies] with Puntilla [Orlando “Puntilla” Ríos]. While there [in Havana] studying the Lucumí [Yoruba] system, in my andanzas [wanderings] in the city, I was introduced to a gentleman [7] who was in his 90s. His grandfather had come over from Calabar. He wanted to tell me the story of this, and he was an incredible storyteller. Andrés Flores was his name. And all the members of his family were members [of Abakuá]. He was not. That gave him certain liberty to tell me the story.

NS: Because an initiate can’t tell the stories.

IM: Or one would run the risk of being castigated.

NS: Well, they’re quite serious about their secrecy within this practice. Can you explain about how the militancy with which this secrecy is maintained?

IM: You have to understand the context within which Abakuá was founded and created: the extreme oppressive society of colonial Havana. Anyone who reads the history knows that the Year of the Lash, 1844, was an extreme repression. Abakuá, in order to survive, have maintained discretion in order to not announce their presence.

NS: So there are things you can talk about and things you can’t talk about.

IM: And in much of the Cuban popular music we’re going to listen to [in the Hip Deep episode in which portions of this interview appear], there is Abakuá language. It can be spoken, because people don’t understand what they’re saying. So in “Ritmo Abakuá” of the Muñequitos de Matanzas, they’re essentially greeting the first lodge in Cuba, Efik Ebutón, they’re greeting it as a way of saying, “we thank God for the birth of Abakuá. We’re members from Matanzas, and we greet Havana.” And this is all in Abakuá language.

NS: And this is recorded in 1956.

IM: It’s the first Abakuá recording from Matanzas, as far as I know.

NS: So if you’re not an initiate, there are sounds you’re allowed to hear, and sounds you’re not allowed to hear. I recorded the Muñequitos de Matanzas, as you know, playing a number called “Abakuá Makánica,” in which they play traditional Abakuá drums. And that’s allowed. But in their ceremonies, there’s a drum you can see that does not make sound.

IM: Exactly. There’s a drum that is called the eribó – the sese eribó, which is a silent drum, it’s symbolic. It represents the mother of Abakuá. This refers to the foundational myth of how Abakuá was perfected, in a place called Usagaré, now known as Isangele in southwestern Cameroon. The story is that a princess went to the river to get some water. She put her ceramic jar in the water, and inadvertently, a fish entered it, and the fish made a roaring sound. She put the jar on her head and she became in effect the first initiate. This is a story to talk about divine creation. She’s the universal mother, and when men are initiated they’re effectively reborn, so as in any other religion, initation in Abakuá is a rebirth, symbolically.

NS: And this story is what Benny Moré is referring to when he sings “En el tiempo de colonia / tiempo de senseribó.” [“In colonial times, times of the senseribó”]

IM: A classic! That’s a classic. Yes, so this is the drum that’s symbolic and it doesn’t make a sound. And why? What is the message there? This is Ekpe philosophy. If you know esoteric secrets, you don’t talk about them. That’s the message in the silent drum.

NS: Now what about the sound? The voice of the leopard is a sound. What is that sound?
IM: In Ekpe they describe it as a mystic sound that emits from the butame, the temple, and only the high levels of society’s leaders know what makes that sound. It’s not known by others. But the sound is the symbol that Ekpe’s in session, and those who are not members should move away, should stay clear.

NS: Do you consider Abakuá a religion? Do you consider it a society? Do you…

IM: Well, Abakuá describe it as a religion. But that’s a very interesting question, because it’s an exclusive thing that not everybody can join. So it’s really a club of prestige that has a very deep spiritual base.

NS: And this is based on a sound.

IM: Mm-hmm…

NS: But it’s a secret sound. It’s a sound that we can’t play on the radio.

IM: Exactly.

NS: Why can’t we play it on the radio?

IM: [pauses] Well, because that might be seen as disrespectful by the leadership. They don’t take this lightly at all. And as a matter of fact, on none of the recordings that I know from either West Africa or Cuba is that sound reproduced.

NS: That sound is never heard outside the sacred region.

IM: Exactly.

NS: And you can’t really talk about it.

IM: Exactly. But the point is that it’s not the vehicle that makes the sound that’s important. It’s the sound that is adored, that is worshipped, that is seen as the voice of God. It’s connecting humans with the divine.

NS: And at the same time, the sound has been evoked frequently in popular music by Abakuá members. It’s not the same sound, but it’s evoked.

IM: Exactly. As you well know, some of the same recordings by Sexteto Habanero in the 20s, there’s a track called “Criolla Carabalí”, we’ll hear some of the bongó drum, the glissade-making.

NS: When the bongosero moistens his finger and slides it across the drumhead, making a friction sound.

IM: It’s a reference.

NS: There are friction drums all over Africa, that make various sounds. One place the sound is referenced, and it’s a unique recording -- could you talk about the importance of Arsenio [Rodríguez]’s recording of Abakuá music?

IM: Well, one of the incredible things about the story of Abakuá is that like other African-derived traditions it’s expressed most fully through artistic means – through popular music, through dance, through theater. The commercial recordings made by Abakuá people and people who love Abakuá, whether they’re members -- or not, like Arsenio – these commercial recordings are important to understand the history of Abakuá. And New York has played a fundamental role in this story. Many Cubans have come to New York throughout history. Ignacio Piñeiro was one. Chano Pozo was another. And Arsenio in New York in 1963 recorded “Canto Abakuá,” a fantastic tune. In it he’s evoking Abakuá, and he’s speaking about the relationship of the Congo, of which [religion] he’s a member, and the Carabalí, which is the base of Abakuá. And it’s a very important track for bringing up the relationship between Congo and Carabalí. And also, at the end, there is an evocation of the voice of the leopard by the bass.

NS: In your work, you did something no one else has done: you made a re-encounter between Cuba and Africa. The Ekpe of Cuba, which began in 1830, has continued all this time, but meanwhile, in the Calabar region, the Ekpe society there has also continued. But there was no contact between Cuba and Calabar during all this time, as far as anyone knows.

IM: I don’t know of any contact, if there was. And this is quite a unique situation, because in the Yoruba case, especially between Yorubaland and Brazil there was a lot of contact and moving back and forth. In terms of Cross River and Cuba, as far as we know, there is none. That’s why it’s extraordinary that Ekpe in Calabar can listen to speech by Abakuá, and music and chanting, and understand it and recognize the rhythm and many of the words.

NS: Now tell me about what you did.

IM: From 1991 until the 21st century I was in Cuba documenting history. Cataloguing when each Abakuá lodge was founded, its name in Abakuá language, et cetera, et cetera. Because I recognized there was an incredible story that had not been told about the migration of African peoples and how their actions helped found Caribbean societies. And in order to prove that, in 2004 I was able to go to Calabar.
I brought some videotapes of Abakuá ceremonies. I brought some recordings of Abakuá music. And I gave a talk at the National Museum in Calabar. And the Ekpe people there were overwhelmed. When I played “Criolla Carabalí,” they freaked out. They got up and strated dancing, and they said, “This is the way our parents used to play.” And they recognized the very specific rhythms that the Cubans were playing as the rhythm of a particular grade. The Ekpe system has nine different grades. One of those grades is called bonkó. Bonkó really represents the universal mother, the myth of the woman I talked about, and this is the rhythm that they recognize in the Cuban music. They’re playing the bonkó rhythm. There happens to be a grade in Cuba called bonkó, which is the talking drum that we hear referred to in a lot of the recordings.

Bonkó enchemiyá is the full name of the drum. And as we know from Joseíto Fernández’s recording, “Así Son Bonkó,” and Arsenio Rodríguez’s “Oigan bonkó / Como se gozan en el barrio,” bonkó has become a word that means truth.

NS: How many times have you been to Calabar?

IM: Three times. I went in the summer of 2004, and I brought materials. I met essentially with all the paramount rulers of Calabar, which has three different groups: the Abakpa, which are also known as the Qua Ejagham, and the Efik, which are [known as] the Efí in Cuba, and the Efut, which are [known as] the Efó in Cuba, so I met with all three of these leaderships.

And it so happens that the leader of one of the lodges – Efé Ekpe, Eyo Ema, and the lodge is also known as Ekoritonkó, which happens to be a lodge in Havana -- the leader of this lodge invited me to come to a ceremony soon after I had showed them all this material. During that night they initiated me. It happened that way – “please come to our ceremony” -- and essentially they recognized the importance of this connection with Cuba, and in order to help me with my research, they initiated me so I could actually go to different settlements and talk about Ekpe, because it’s off limits to non-initiates.

NS: So you haven’t been initiated in Cuba, but you have been in Calabar.
IM: Exactly. So I’m unofficial ambassador of Calabar Ekpe to the Caribbean. After the talk in the National Museum, there were some government representatives there, and they announced that they were going to put their support behind this project for the Third International Ekpe Festival. There’s a festival there every December, to which y’all are invited.

NS: I’m there.

IM: And I was able to go with two Abakuá members – Vicente Sánchez and Román Díaz, who both happened to be from the Ekoritonkó lodge of Havana.

NS: And who both live in New Jersey now.

IM: They’re both professional musicians from Havana that now work in the New York area. It was a very spontaneous visit. You know, Abakuá’s a collective society. To have a full conjunto, a full ensemble of Abakuá, you need about ten people, with the dancers, the drummers, the chanters, and all that. We had two. But they did a beautiful job, and we have some recordings of Román chanting to an audience of about 2,000 in Calabar.

NS: What happened when he chanted?

IM: We came to Calabar in December of 2004, invited by the government of Cross River state for the Third International Ekpe Festival. The day we arrived to the Calabar Cultural Center, there was a huge open space, and at what they call the “high table” in Nigeria, where the important people sit, was the governor of Cross River state and the iyamba of the Eyo Ema lodge Ekoritonkó, who were judging the event as a competition of masked dancers. Masked dancers are another thing shared by Ekpe and Abakuá. They represent ancestors, who are there to make sure that the living conduct the ceremonies in the right way, another part of the orthodoxy we talked about.

So Román Díaz and Vicente Sánchez arrive. There’s about 3,000 people there in a circle, about the size of a football stadium, a hundred-yard circle. And the masked dancers come out one by one and are performing. There is no rehearsal for any of this. Román Díaz is asked to come out. He goes over to the percussion ensemble and gets them in a pace that he likes. Which is very easy, because they’re basically playing the same music as the Abakuá do – the same instruments, fabricated in the same way, the same construction. So Román goes out and he starts chanting the phrase about the foundation of Abakuá in Cameroon: Iya, iya, kondondó. And all of a sudden the crowd starts responding, two to three thousand people. Usually an Abakuá ensemble is ten people, but Román is going out there essentially alone, with Vicente on the bonkó. And the entire crowd responds. And then using, of course, Cuban methods, he calls out the masked dancer, who responds to him and enters the competition. He picks up a drum which he uses as the symbolic drum to call out, because the drum is the symbol of authority, so the drum calls out the masked dancer, and he brings it to the high table, just like the others had done. The crowd goes wild, and for everyone there it’s the confirmation that the Abakuá is obviously an extension of their own culture. Iya, iya, kondondó is related to the myth of the woman who goes to the river. Iya is the fish. The fish who was an ancestor, who came back to bring the divine voice. In Efik iya is fish. In Abakuá iya is fish.

NS: What does kondondó mean?

IM: It means arrival. The people understood what he was saying, and they responded. Unrehearsed. Very powerful.

NS: So what then happened in terms of your experience in Calabar with the Abakuá?

IM: Essentially what I’m trying to do as a historian, as a scholar, is facilitate this conversation. Because the first thing is to confirm that this cultural migration actually happened. The Cubans have had no contact with Calabar since the 1830s. They know this language and they’re told it comes from somewhere. But there’s doubt, if you don’t have concrete information, so I’m trying to share information, very much in the way that Pierre Verger did between Yorubaland and Brazil. And the Calabar people are very happy about this, because all of a sudden they have an international dimension to their culture, which they never knew about. Something they’re very proud of. I think this encounter is strenghtening the historical awareness of both groups, and it’s strengthening their practice.

NS: Let’s talk about some of the music we’re going to hear in this program.

IM: There are some wonderful field recordings done through the years. Harold Courlander went to Cuba in the 40s and recorded some beautiful stuff by Alberto Zayas, an important rumbero who had his own group in the 50s, an Abakuá man.

NS: The first person to record rumba in Cuba, in fact. Before the Muñequitos.

IM: That’s right, Alberto Zayas, “El Vive Bien.” So Courlander did a field recording, and then in the 60s, or maybe it was ’59 or ’62, Argeliers León recorded Víctor Herrera. Víctor Herrera had a folklore troupe called Efí Yawaremo – it’s an Abakuá term – and they did in the first-ever Abakuá performance in the National Theater. So he recorded the chant, Iya, iya, kondondó.

Essentially the Abakuá tradition is epic poetry. It’s Homeric in that way. The artists who are chanting it are drawn from an epic tradition, and they’re telling the story of the mythic past, which they believe to be their authentic history. And they are re-creating it in the present, so every time there’s an initiation, they’re recreating the original initiation in Usagaré.

NS: You were telling me about a recording that you believe is the most important, greatest Abakuá recording ever done.

IM: In 2001, a group of Abakuá masters – people who in the barrios performed the ceremonies and, really, the vanguard of the culture -- got together in a studio and they recorded an album called Ibiono. Ibiono is an Abakuá word for music with swing. Each track is to a different territory in Cross River, and they’re laying down the basic elements of their mythic history. They start with the Efó group, who are the Efuts in Cameroon, then they move to the Efí, who are the Efik of Calabar, and they end with Orú, who are likely the Uruan people of the Cross River region. All of them have Ekpe, and all of them interacted to create what’s known as the modern Ekpe system -- a cosmopolitan form of Ekpe.

NS: This is basically an album of poetry.

IM: And it’s an essential album for any student, any scholar, or any practitioner of this cultural system. The importance of this album is that it confirms all the Abakuá chants that have been recorded throughout the 20th century in little fragments. This pulls them all together into one epic narrative. And by the way, this album is only a small piece of what could be [done], what’s out there.

NS: These fragments have been dropped into popular music over the course of Cuban music history since the beginning of recording in Cuba. You made the observation to me when we were talking earlier that whatever the important style of recording Cuban music was in any given era, Abakuá was always present.

IM: As you well know, there’s no recordings from the 19th century, but the titles of habaneras and danzones have Abakuá terms in them.

NS: For example?

IM: [20] Miguel Faílde was using Abakuá rhythms – “andante ñáñigo” [ñáñigo: an Abakuá practitioner]. There was a danza by Enrique Peña, who was Antonio Maceo’s cornet player during the invasion of the west [of Cuba, in 1895]. He composed a danza in 6/8 rhythm called “El ñáñigo” that starts off with the trumpet call to arms of the military band. Abakuá musicians tell me the tune is definitely Abakuá.

NS: Let’s talk about Ignacio Piñeiro.

IM: “Los Cantares del Abakuá” by Ignacio Piñeiro – Piñeiro was an Abakuá man. He was a member of Efori Enkomo, the parent lodge to Muñanga. He was fantastically important in the development of the son. He had a coro de clave [19th-century style of ambulatory choral group] called Los Roncos at the turn of the 1900s. He played with María Teresa Vera in her Sexteto Occidental.

NS: And they recorded “Los Cantares del Abakuá.” Can you tell me about that?

IM: Ignacio Piñeiro is known as the poet of the son. He’s supposed to have composed about 400 sones. A prolific person. A lot of his compositions are in the costumbrista genre – meaning, he was describing the customs of the era, what was happening in the neighborhood. Things he overheard people talking about, or what happened last night at the Abakuá plante, the Abakuá ceremony. “Los Cantares del Abakuá” is talking about the police invasion of an Abakuá plante, because Abakuá, being a symbol of liberty for the black population, being an organized black society, was repressed throughout Cuban history.

NS: And was considered witchcraft by the ruling class.

IM: Everything that the nation was held to be, Abakuá was not. Progress, et cetera. And so Abakuá are essentially the boogeymen of Cuban history. And so “Los Cantares del Abakuá” describes the police invading a plante and how even in spite of that the plante continues, because the people and their culture cannot be stopped.

NS: What is a plante?

IM: A plante is an Abakuá ceremony that happens in the temples and the patios. And we talked about how in the Cross River the Ekpe lodges represent an independent community, and so the temple grounds of Abakuá are off limits to anyone who’s not a member. So it’s a very sacred space, and not anyone can just go there.

NS: So when the Cuban police came to an Abakuá plante…

IM: Well, as I said, the Abakuá have historically been the boogeymen of Cuba, and they’re described as criminals throughout Cuban history, especially the colonial period. So the police thought there was criminal activity happening, they wanted to get inside the temple, and they were not allowed to, so there were conflicts about that. Piñeiro’s describing one of these, and how in spite of the repression, the culture continues. And for me, the important lyric in this is: “En cuanto suena el bonkó, todo el mundo se emociona” -- when the bonkó drum sounds, everyone is moved. This is a very poetic way of talking about the importance of Abakuá music in commercial recordings in Cuba. The Abakuá clave, when it’s heard, people get excited, because it represents their capacity to be autonomous people on their own terms. It’s a symbol of liberation, and so forth.

NS: So, 1928 – Septeto Habanero, “Criolla Carabalí” – what gives?

IM: The composition “Criolla Carabalí” evokes the union of tribes, territories and people through the adoration of Ekpe. There’s a phrase in this track that says, “aba íreme efí, aba íreme efó, bongó itá.” That is, it doesn’t matter if you’re from the Efí tribe or the Efó, our adoration of the Ekpe makes us one. So this 1928 recording is essentially describing the function of Ekpe in Cross River.

NS: But it’s a Cuban son, released commercially on Victor.

IM: Exactly. So this is part of my proposition, that the narratives left by Africans in Cuba are useful to understand African history. And also they’re describing, of course, the Cuban context, because there are lineages of Efí, Efó, and Orú. Each is considered a different territory in the Cross River, and they’re talking about, it doesn’t matter where you’re from, we’re all one in the drum. Because the drum is a universal mother, and we’re reborn as a brother. In Abakuá they say yeniká. It’s like saying ekobio, it’s brother. It means “brother of the same mother,” literally.

NS: Let’s talk about Chano Pozo and Abakuá.

IM: Chano Pozo, one of the great composers of Cuban music in the early 20th century. He came to New York in 1947, ended up playing with Dizzy Gillespie and transforming the sound of bebop music in that era. And a couple of months before Chano met Dizzy, he recorded a very important Abakuá track. As you stated in your book, it’s the first real recording of rumbas de solar. This track is called “Abasí,” which is the prime mover, the supreme being. “Abasí” is God almighty. This track has an incredible swing in the rhythm. Oh my lord, it’s just a beautiful piece. Essentially Chano is evoking an Abakuá ceremony. It’s all in Abakuá language. You start off by greeting the astros – the stars, the moon, the sun, the ancestors, and then you greet the living leadership in all their hierarchies, and then you commence. He introduces himself as a member of the Muñanga lodge of Havana. And there’s a point where he starts to bring out the íreme, who are the representatives of the ancestors, the masked ancestors. And to do that he says, cle-cle-cle-cle-cle, which means, come, come forward, come forward.

Now this track influenced a lot of people in New York at the time. And one of them was Machito. In the 1949 version of “Tangá,” Machito is riffing on Chano Pozo’s cle-cle-cle-cle-cle, when this mambo-tanga begins, and he’s inviting the dancers to come out to the ballroom and get down. And he says, “Cle-cle-cle-cle-cle-cle-cle” – a wonderful example of the influence of Abakuá on the popular music of the day.

NS: What’s the influence of Abakuá on rumba?

IM: It’s profound. I believe that the influence of Abakuá and rumba begins at the foundation of Abakuá itself -- let’s say, in the mid-1800s -- when the Africans were in their cabildos, their nation groups, performing. Down the street in Matanzas there was a Congo cabildo, and on the other block was a Carabalí cabildo, and they would hear their music and they would interact, they’re part of the same community. That fusion, I believe, is how the rumba emerged as a so-called secular form, but all the people involved in it are definitely initiates in all the Cuban traditions, and they’re referring to it each time they play.

The Muñequitos are the best example of that. They’re an all-Abakuá troupe, as well as practitioners of Congo and Lucumí, and their messages are all about the importance of these traditions to the well-being of their communities. And they’re doing it in coded languages, but that’s the message. They’re talking about their philosophical system, and how it’s been a heartbeat for the communities in Cuba.

NS: You identified Agustín Gutiérrez, going back to “Criolla Carabalí” for a minute. We were talking about the referencing of the sacred sound in the bongó playing in son. Agustín Gutiérrez is, I think, one of the key figures in Cuban percussion, and often overlooked.

IM: I’ve heard some speculation that Agustín Gutiérrez came from Santiago de Cuba. I don’t know if that’s rumor or what. There’s also speculation that this sound, this glissade, actually came from Santiago de Cuba with the son already, because there are Carabalí cabildos in Santiago as well. So, whereas Abakuá was only established in Matanzas and Havana in northwestern Cuba, Carabalí culture was throughout the island in the cabildos, and that’s something that really hasn’t been studied yet, but I can tell you an anecdote that Fernando Ortiz got me started on. During the wars of independence, known Abakuá were captured and they were sent overseas, to Ceuta and to Fernando Pó, along with a lot of other people, like Masons and any rebel. And it was in Ceuta that Carabalí members and Abakuá people from Havana and from Santiago could meet and interact, and therein may be part of the history of the son and the story of that sound.

NS: Wow.

IM: So that’s a bomb I’m dropping. It’s unconfirmed, but it’s quite possible.

NS: And ironically, Abakuá were sent to Fernando Pó, which was right across from where Abakuá originally came from in Africa.

IM: Yeah, Fernando Pó is a really incredible story. From the 1820s to the 1840s, the British were centered there, and it was their anti-slavery base. They were trying to stop slavery in Calabar and in that whole Biafra region. Ekpe members were interacting with the British in Fernando Pó, so there was Ekpe going to Fernando Pó also. The Cubans started coming in the 1860s, because part of the Spanish project was to make Fernando Pó another plantation colony. At one point it was called the “African Cuba,” because there were so many Cubans being sent there. [Note: Cigars made from tobacco grown on Fernando Po plantations run by Cuban deportees won the Amsterdam Prize in 1878 ]. And of course the white Cubans didn’t want to go, so they were getting black laborers to go work the tobacco crops in Fernando Pó.

So again, it’s very under-researched, but there is definitely an Abakuá resonance, and perhaps they were meeting with Ekpe there. And some of those people came back. Most died. But many Cubans were able to come back, and if there was a meeting of Abakuá from Havana and Carabalí from Santiago, they each came back having learned more from the other folks.

NS: You identified Agustín Gutiérrez as an Abakuá member.

IM: I learned this from the director of Septeto Habanero in the 90s, because they know the story of their conjunto very well. And yes, he was a member. As I said, when I played this track to Ekpe people in Calabar, they got so excited, started dancing, they responded to this viscerally.

NS: Let’s talk about Tito Rodríguez and “Abanekue.”

IM: So Chano Pozo arrives. He records “Abasí.” With only Cuban musicians, by the way. It’s very interesting to listen to “Manteca” and the Afro-Cuban drum suite that he does with Dizzy Gillespie, because he’s so articulate when he’s chanting Abakuá in “Abasí,” and if you compare that to his chanting with Dizzy, he’s diminishing it, he’s become very discreet. He’s sort of turning it into a scat. Because he knows they’re not going to be able to understand him, and he’s also being respectful of the tradition by not articulating it among people who aren’t members.

So the work of Dizzy and Chano changes jazz history, essentially, and in 1950 Machito does another track called “Negro Ñañamboro.” I consider it to be in the dance instruction genre. You know, usually they’re teaching you how to do the latest step? Here he’s describing the person who catches the spirit. He’s mounted by an orisha, so the shirt is taken off, the shoes are taken off, and the hat is taken off, and he’s saying, “Negro ñañamboro, arrollando como es.” He’s dancing like it should be done. But ñañamboro is – there are two Abakuá phrases, ñaña is the masked dancer, and Embemoro is an Abakuá lodge. So it’s a playful use of Abakuá themes, but he’s evoking ritual in the mambo context in the Palladium. Kinda nice.

In the same year, Tito Rodríguez does “Abanekue,” which is a beautiful Abakuá-inspired dance tune. The title “Abanekue” means “initiate.” Some people in Cuba say obonekue, but the term is also abanekue, which is what the Efik call it. This is the earliest recording of Abakuá material by a Puerto Rican that I know.

NS: How did Tito Rodríguez, who was a Puerto Rican, learn about this?

IM: I wish I knew. That’s a great question. It’s an expression of the interaction of the musicians from all over the Spanish Caribbean in New York, and their mutual support and enthusiasm.

After Tito Rodríguez did “Abanekue” in 1950, there’s been some amazing recordings by Puerto Rican bands. El Gran Combo did “Írimo,” which is íreme, the masked dancer. And it’s a wonderful dance tune. This is popular music. And they’re talking about the íreme coming out, the representative of the ancestors, and interacting with the bonkó. Now what’s amazing for this – talk about the Abakuá influence in the rumba. That’s exactly what happens in the rumba – the caller and the drum bring out the dancer, and they begin to interact. It’s the same structure. Then another important track is La Sonora Ponceña, who did “Congo Carabalí,” which is a fantastic Abakuá-inspired track, which I hope you can play.

NS: Can you talk about the role of Abakuá in Puerto Rican culture in general? They have that famous word…

IM: Which is?

NS: Chévere.

IM: Chévere, qué chévere, qué chévere. I was just in Venezuela, where chévere is in every other sentence as a term of affirmation. What’s so incredible about using music as a way to understand Abakuá -- the perspective we get is totally different from what’s in the official histories of Abakuá as criminals, as something negative, like, “watch out, kids, don’t go out, the Abakuá will get you.” Because chévere is a positive term of affirmation. To be chévere is to be, that’s great, it’s positive, what could be better. It’s an Abakuá title, they say Mokongo machévere, because Mokongo was a valiant warrior who, thanks to him, the society was created in Africa. And the term Mokongo machévere is in almost all the Abakuá recordings that we’ve mentioned, somewhere. Usually it’s the last phrase – Mokongo machévere. It’s in the Muñequitos “Ritmo Abakuá.”

NS: Let’s talk about Mongo Santamaría, a figure who just gets bigger as time passes.

IM: In the 50s in New York, the mambo was happening, and the involvement of Puerto Ricans cannot be underestimated. It’s tremendous. Tito Rodríguez, Tito Puente. When Mongo came on the scene, Tito Puente hired him in his band – another example of Puerto Ricans supporting and sustaining this culture. Mongo ends up recording a very important Abakuá track called “Bríkamo” in the 1950s. I think around 1958 Mongo records “Bríkamo.” And Bríkamo is a Carabalí tradition in Matanzas, it’s sustained by the Calle family. They’re very famous rumberos.

NS: Co-founders of the Muñequitos.

IM: Exactly. And Bríkamo – the Abakuá language is called Bríkamo, and Bríkamo is understood to be a reference to Usagaré, the place where the woman got the fish in the river and Ekpe was perfected. So Mongo lays this track down with Willie Bobo and Francisco Aguabella in 1958.

NS: Now what about Julito Collazo?

IM: To talk about Julito Collazo, we’ve gotta talk about [choreographer] Katharine Dunham, a very important figure in the Caribbean cultural scene in New York in the 1940s and 50s, and onwards. Katharine Dunham went to Cuba, where she hired some Abakuá musicians for her international troupe to tour the world, and she did Abakuá-inspired pieces. One was called “El ñáñigo.” Katharine Dunham hired Julito Collazo, and brought him to New York, where he became a foundational figure in the culture of santería, in the culture of batá music…

NS: …and in the culture of palo…

IM: Exactly. And Julito taught a lot of people. René López, who organized the Grupo Folklórico y Experimental Nuevayorquino, worked with Julito Collazo. Mongo and Julito went on to record a very important track in the 70s – I think, 1976, called “Ubane,” with Justo Betancourt. “Ubane” uses jazz harmonies, and it’s an Abakuá track, praising an Abakuá lineage, Efí Obane. It just so happens that Oban is a very important Ekpe village of the Ejagham people in the Cross River region, so again, when I play this for people in the Cross River they get it immediately, and they’re amazed that their town is remembered 200 years later in Cuba.

NS: Ivor Miller, thank you so much for sharing your deep experience with us today. I wish we could go on longer because this is obviously endless, but this has given me a lot to think about.

IM: Well, thank you. This is really part of a process, and it’s been a real privilege for me to share this information and be part of this historic connection. And the Ekpe festival in Calabar is ongoing. It’s meant to be an annual event, and details are posted up on Afrocubaweb, so folks can go there and check that out.

NS: www.afrocubaweb.com

Castro warns Cubans of coming hardships

2008-07-13T14:20:00.000-07:00

Miami Herald

Posted on Sat, Jul. 12, 2008
Castro warns Cubans of coming hardships
BY FRANCES ROBLES
Cuban leader Raúl Castro warned Cubans to work hard and do their jobs to the strictest standards in the face of an international economic crisis that is sure to hit the nation hard.

In a speech Friday night at the closing session of the National Assembly, Castro stressed that the country had to increase its food production and streamline its construction sector in order to survive. Alluding to an infamous speech he once gave saying that ''beans are as important as canons,'' Castro said Friday: ``These days, beans are more important than canons.''

He warned that the amount of land dedicated to food cultivation is down 33 percent in the past nine years. To import the same amount of food the country consumed in 2007, cash-strapped Cuba will need to spend $1 billion more this year.

That means Cuba may have to slow down efforts to raise salaries, a key issue for the average worker who makes about $17 a month.

''It will depend on the economic situation of the country, inevitably linked to crisis in the world today, which could worsen,'' he said in a speech streamed live on the Cubavision TV station website. ``It wouldn't be ethical to create false expectations. We would like to go more rapidly, but it's necessary to act realistically.''

Castro officially assumed the presidency Feb. 24 after serving more than a year as interim president. He took over after his brother fell ill, leaving office for the first time in 47 years.

On Friday, he called for retired teachers to return to the classroom, saying Cuba was suffering a shortage of school instructors. He also stressed Cuba's aging workforce, which could force the government to raise the retirement age by year's end.

In 17 years, Cuba will have more than 750,000 fewer workers than it currently has, he said.

Castro's first months in office were marked by modest reforms in the consumer sector, such as allowing Cubans to own their own cellphones and buy DVD players.

Raul Castro: Communism is not egalitarianism

2008-07-11T20:16:00.000-07:00

AP

Raul Castro: Communism is not egalitarianism

By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer 51 minutes ago

President Raul Castro warned Cubans on Friday to prepare for a "realistic" brand of communism that is economically viable and does away with excessive state subsidies designed to promote equality on the island.

Addressing Cuba's parliament in its first session since lawmakers selected him to succeed his older brother Fidel in February, Raul Castro announced no major reforms, but suggested that global economic turbulence could lead to further belt-tightening on the island.

"Socialism means social justice and equality, but equality of rights, of opportunities, not of income," the 77-year-old president said in a speech that was taped and later aired on national television. "Equality is not egalitarianism."

That sentiment marks a break with his brother, who spent decades saying Cuba was building an egalitarian society. But the new president nevertheless ended by proclaiming he had "learned everything" from Fidel, drawing a standing ovation.

Since succeeding his brother, Raul Castro has authorized Cubans to legally purchase computers, stay in luxury hotels and obtain cell phones in their own names. His government has raised some salaries and done away with wage limits, allowing state workers to earn more for better performance.

Cuba's rubber-stamp parliament convenes for only for a few hours twice a year and rumors were rampant that Friday's session would see an easing of restrictions on travel abroad or a strengthening of wages by increasing the value of the peso, worth about 21-1 against the U.S. dollar.

The government controls well over 90 percent of the economy and the average salary is just 408 pesos per month, US$19.50, though most Cubans get free housing, health care, education and ration cards that cover basic food needs.

Castro said that in "the matter of salaries, we'd all like to go faster, but it's necessary for us to act with realism."

"The situation could even get worse," he said of the global economy. "We will continue to do what's within our reach so that a series of adversities have less effect on our people, but some impact is inevitable in certain products and sectors."

Economy Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez said this week that skyrocketing global food and oil prices would cause "inevitable adjustments and restrictions" for Cuba's economy.

Castro said he supported a proposal to gradually push back the retirement age five years, to 65 for men and 60 for women. The move, which parliament plans to vote on in December, is part of an effort to soften the blow of a disproportionately elderly work force.

Castro acknowledged shortages that plague Cubans, but said "we have to be conscious that each increase in salary that is approved or price that is subsidized adhere to economic reality."

He also shot back at U.S. officials who have dismissed the small changes he has overseen in Cuba as meaningless.

"Faced with the measures adopted lately in our country, some official in the United States comes out immediately, from a spokesman to the president, to brand them 'insufficient' or 'cosmetic,'" Castro said. "Although no one here asked their opinion, I reiterate that we will never make any decision, not even the smallest one, as a result of pressure or blackmail."

For the fourth straight parliamentary session, Raul Castro sat next to an empty chair set aside for his ailing brother.

The elder Castro, who turns 82 next month, has not been seen in public since undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in July 2006.

Cuba says few citizens have phones and computers

2008-06-29T20:45:00.001-07:00

Reuters
Cuba says few citizens have phones and computers
Thu 26 Jun 2008, 15:49 GMT

By Marc Frank

HAVANA, June 26 (Reuters) - Forget iPods, BlackBerries and other electronic gadgets, most Cubans are still waiting for telephones and less than five percent have a computer, the government reported on Thursday.

The National Statistics Office (http://www.one.cu) released 2007 telecommunications data showing there were 1.241 million telephone lines in the country of 11.2 million inhabitants, of which 910,000 were residential and the remainder in state hands.

Mobile phones numbered just 330,000.

There were 4.5 personal computers per 100 residents, but most of those were in government offices, health facilities and schools.

The report was issued two months after Cuban President Raul Castro legalized the sale of computers and cellphones, though their high cost puts them out of reach of many.

Until the sales were permitted, Cubans mostly obtained computers on the black market and cellphones through foreigners, who have used them in Cuba since the 1990s.

The report said more than 10 percent of the population had access to Internet, but access in most cases is to a Cuban government Intranet and no data was available for access to the full Internet.

The number of telephone lines and computers has doubled since 2002, according to the report, which did not show any cell phones in use then.

By comparison, Latin American neighbor Mexico, with a population of 108 million, has 20 million telephone lines and 50 million cellphone users, according to industry statistics.

World Bank figures showed that in 2006, Mexico had 13.6 computers and 17.5 Internet users for every 100 people.

Cuban officials blame the longstanding U.S. embargo for the country's last place status in the region in communications and point out they are in first place in health and education.

The move to allow computer and cellphone sales was part of reforms by Castro, who replaced his brother Fidel Castro as president in February, aimed at easing economic hardship faced by Cubans.

(Editing by Jeff Franks and Frances Kerry)

Cuban security agents detain gay activists, cancel parade

2008-06-29T20:40:00.000-07:00

Miami Herald
Posted on Thu, Jun. 26, 2008
Cuban security agents detain gay activists, cancel parade
STEVE ROTHAUS
Gay dissidents in Cuba report that a planned gay-rights rally Wednesday was canceled after government security officers detained nine organizers.

"The march was not able to take place because the government stopped our leaders," said Ron Brenesky, a Miami Cuban who heads the Unity Coalition, South Florida's largest Latin gay rights group.

"Our brothers and sisters in Cuba, they are not alone," said Brenesky, who spoke with gay activists in Cuba by cellphone Wednesday evening. Unity Coalition members gathered for the phone call at Club Azucar on Southwest 32nd Avenue in Little Havana.

Dissident Ignacio Estrada Cepero told Brenesky and the others that he was detained early Wednesday before the planned rally in Havana. Security guards told him he didn't have permission to leave his home province of Santa Clara, Brenesky said.

Cuban Aliomar Janjaque was put on house arrest after being warned not to gather in a park with other gay dissidents, he told Unity Coalition members.

The park was taken over by security forces, Janjaque said.

Generational gap found on Cuba travel

2008-06-18T20:20:00.000-07:00

Miami Herald

Posted on Wed, Jun. 18, 2008
Generational gap found on Cuba travel
By ALFONSO CHARDY
There's a split between older and younger Cuban Americans on whether exiles should be allowed to travel more often to visit relatives on the communist island, according to new polls commissioned by a group seeking better U.S.-Cuba relations.

The polls released Wednesday by the Foundation for Normalization of US/Cuba Relations, a group formed in 2006, show that a majority of registered voters in the hotly contested 21st and 25th congressional districts support unfettered exile Cuba travel and money remittances to the island. Voters in both districts are less likely to support a candidate who favors travel and money restrictions, the polls indicate, though the gap is not sufficient to overcome the polls' margin of error of 4.9 percentage points. Another 11 percent of those polled were undecided.

Republican incumbents in both districts, Lincoln Diaz-Balart in the 21st and brother Mario Diaz-Balart in the 25th, favor restrictions President Bush imposed in 2004 limiting exile travel to once every three years instead of annually. The 2004 rules also limit money remittances to close family members like spouses, parents or children instead of any relative.

CHALLENGERS

The issue has become central to the Diaz-Balarts' reelection because their chief Democratic challengers, former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez and former Cuban American National Foundation executive director Joe Garcia, favor lifting restrictions.

Martinez is running against Lincoln and Garcia against Mario.

''This is now the latest in a series of polls done by third parties that show that Cuban Americans overwhelmingly disagree with the Diaz-Balart-Bush policy on Cuba,'' said Jeffrey Garcia of the Martinez campaign.

Ana Carbonell, Lincoln Diaz-Balart's campaign manager, said: ``It's amazing that with all the issues that need to be addressed, from healthcare to rising gas prices, the one issue this poll chooses to prioritize is how to offer economic relief to a state sponsor of terror.''

Carlos Curbelo, Mario Diaz-Balart's spokesman, said: ``It is regrettable that while Mario is fighting in D.C. for lower taxes, affordable healthcare and a solution to the housing crisis, the opposition is promoting push-polls to divide our community.''

TRAVEL

In samples of 400 registered Cuban-American and other voters in the two Diaz-Balart districts, older Cuban-Americans oppose travel to Cuba by fellow exiles while younger Cuban Americans favor lifting restrictions.

The polls were conducted by the Hamilton Campaigns, a Washington research and political strategy firm that on its website (http://www.hamiltoncampaigns.com/) says it helped Democrats ``take back control of Congress.''

Polling also was done in the 17th district, which is represented by Kendrick Meek, a Democrat who has remained neutral in the Diaz-Balart races.

Read more about Cuba and South Florida's exile community at http://www.miami herald.com/newsamericas/cuba/ and the blog http://miamiherald.typepadcom/cuban_colada/

Cubans who work more will get higher salaries

2008-06-11T22:05:00.000-07:00

From the Miami Herald
Posted on Wed, Jun. 11, 2008
Cubans who work more will get higher salaries
By FRANCES ROBLES
In what some experts call Raúl Castro's boldest break yet from socialism, Cuban state companies have until August to overhaul their salary structures to one that pays hard-workers more than slackers, the government newspaper reported Wednesday.

No more will all Cuban workers doing the same job receive the same pay. Now people who do more will get more -- and those who offer quality service will be rewarded, the vice minister of labor, Carlos Mateu, told Granma, the country's Communist Party newspaper.

''I think of all the changes made so far, this one is the most important,'' said Lizette Fernández, a former dissident who campaigned for a change in Cuba's dual currency system until she moved to Hialeah last year.

``If you worked in an office in Cuba, you often got paid the same as the person who cleaned the office. Slow and lazy people got the same or even more, because the bosses got their jobs through political connections and didn't do any work.''

Realistically, she said, the change could mean as little as 50 cents in a nation where many people make as little as $15 a month.

''Fifty cents may not sound like a lot, but at the end of the month, it's the difference between being able to buy one bar of soap and two bars of soap,'' she said. ``This change offers hope that they will increase salaries even more.''

Cuba has long struggled to kick start a lagging economy plagued with unmotivated and underpaid workers. The measure, first announced in April, is designed to offer incentives to laborers to help turn around low production.

It is part of a series of changes made since Castro took office Feb. 24 with the self-imposed mandate to increase production and save his socialist revolution. But most of Castro's moves so far, such as decentralizing agriculture and offering high-price consumer goods to the public, have detoured from socialism.

''Egalitarianism is not convenient,'' Mateu said. ``It is not fair, because while it is harmful to pay the worker less than what he deserves, it is also harmful to give him what he doesn't deserve.''

Among the law's provisions:

• Workers can get bonuses of as much as 5 percent of their base salary just for meeting production quotas.

• Managers will be limited to a 30 percent wage increase for improved performance.

• Companies have until August to readjust their payrolls, but if any company is ready to make the changes, it can do so immediately.

Wages will vary ''according to the nature of the labor performed by the worker,'' Mateu said. Granma described the process as ``the socialist principle of distribution, where everyone [is paid] according to quantity and quality.''

Until now, workers have been paid flat rates according to job descriptions with no incentives.

''I would describe it as a significant departure from the socialist values Cuba has been espousing,'' said Daniel P. Erikson, a Cuba expert at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington, D.C.

``Raúl Castro is also trying to solve a basic problem: Cuba is a country that does not produce much. Recalibrating salaries is a straightforward way to solve that problem.''

Susan Kaufman Purcell, director of the University of Miami's Center for Hemispheric Policy, said the new pay system sounds more like another way for the Cuban government to keep tabs on people.

''I have no idea how they plan to measure this and keep track of it, unless it's a new task for the CDR,'' she said, referring to the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, the neighborhood watch groups that spy on their neighbors.

''I don't understand how this gives an incentive to work harder,'' she said. ``If they really want to offer incentives, they should go to a market economy and let people keep the fruits of their labor. This is going to require increased surveillance, spying and tattling.''

Miami Herald translator Renato Pérez contributed to this report.

Some Cuban expats going back home

2008-06-10T20:39:00.000-07:00

Miami Herald

Posted on Tue, Jun. 10, 2008
Some Cuban expats going back home
By MIAMI HERALD STAFF
Jorge's friends at work call him the ``Sixth Hero.''

Folks here figure Jorge must be the secret spy who got away. Why else would he have returned to Cuba after living in the United States for six years? The ''sixth hero'' reference relates to the five Cuban intelligence agents the Cuban government nicknamed ''the Five Heroes'' who are serving long U.S. prison sentences.

Despite the freedom Jorge enjoyed and the ability to earn a better living as a school custodian in Miami Beach, Jorge returned to Cuba in 2002 to face a government that mistrusted him, a year of probation and friends that assume he is a member of the intelligence service. He said he is one of a growing number of émigrés who after years of living abroad, yearn for the sounds and familiarity of home.

Either for love or family, or because they never felt quite at home, they pack a few things and come back to a country where they make in a month what they used to earn in an hour.

Jorge says he is now like a TV mute button -- because every time he walks into a room full of Cubans, everyone stops talking.

''The government here thinks you are CIA, and the people think you are state security who went to the United States and came back after completing your mission,'' said Jorge, a 47-year-old guitarist. ``The others just think you are crazy for coming back. But, you know, every now and then someone visiting from Miami passes by my house and asks me, `I want to come back, too. How did you do it?'''

It was not easy. Just like leaving Cuba legally is filled with bureaucratic red tape, so is returning.

Cubans who leave for longer than 11 months are considered permanent residents of someplace else, so they must report to immigration offices here and reapply for identity papers. They are forced to report monthly to immigration for a year until they are cleared.

It's unclear whether the option to return is available at all for the people who left Cuba illegally without the required exit papers.

''I went to immigration and said, `I'm not going back. Like it or not, I'm staying,''' he said. ``They did not take it so well.''

The Cuban government does not publish statistics on people who return to the island. It's clearly a tiny portion of the tens of thousands of Cubans who leave each year for the United States and Europe. At least 20,000 Cubans migrate legally to the United States every year, and the vast majority return only to visit.

Well-known Havana blogger Yoani Sánchez said when she returned to Cuba from Zurich four years ago with her 8-year-old son in tow, friends advised her to rip up her passport, so the Cuban government could not force her to leave again.

In her Generation Y blog, she describes how she showed up at a provincial immigration office and was simply told to get in line -- behind all the other ``crazies.''

''A man who returned from Spain with his wife and daughter after living there five years told me, `Don't worry, they are going to try to force you to leave, but you have to refuse. The worst thing that happens is that they detain you for two weeks, but the jail is right here, and the mattresses are quite fine,''' she wrote.

Sánchez never did have to test the jail mattresses.

''People think it's weird for you to return, but in any other place in the world, leaving for a few years and coming back is the most normal thing,'' she said in a telephone interview. ``It's Cuban law that makes it absurd.''

She lived in Switzerland for two years with her husband and child, but came back for family reasons. She has encountered several people who did the same thing.

''Some people come back, because they had elderly parents who were alone. Some never adapted where they were or had property issues to deal with here,'' she said. ``Some come back for love, because they never could get their family member out of Cuba.''

Jorge left Cuba in 1996 with his wife when they won the visa lottery, and landed first in Oregon, where they stayed for two years. The couple eventually moved to South Florida, but never felt comfortable, in part because they found the exile community too politicized. Jorge liked the freedom, the right to speak out in public, and still misses the polite manners and cleanliness of the streets. But as a musician, he grew weary of mopping floors and washing dishes.

''It was hard to integrate,'' he said. ``I think I always knew I would come back. For me, it had nothing to do with politics. It has to do with being Cuban, the love I have for my people and my land.''

In 2002, the couple brought $20,000 in savings back to Havana and returned to stay, moving back to the home where Jorge's mother-in-law lives. They used the money to renovate the home, but the marriage was on the rocks and did not last.

Jorge's ex stayed in the renovated house, and he now lives in a tiny studio on the same property, a bit worse off than he did in Miami Beach. He makes a decent enough living off tips playing the guitar at a local tourist restaurant and has no regrets.

Andy Gomez, senior provost at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, said the cases of returnees are isolated. But 20 years ago, it was virtually unheard of.

''Some people left loved ones behind and just miss them. Others just can't psychologically adjust to a free society,'' Gomez said. ``The longer you live in that system, the more difficult it is to break the psychological barrier.

``You are trapped in two systems, so what do you do? You revert to the old.''

Katrin Hansing, the associate director of Florida International University's Cuban Research Institute, said in the dozen years she lived in Cuba, she met about nine people who had returned from living abroad. Most did so because they longed for a sense of community and could not fit in to the South Florida rat race, she said.

''There is a tremendous pressure to come here and make it; to go back is seen as failure,'' Hansing said. ``They feel weird. It's a tough decision and an internal struggle. When they go back, they keep a very low profile in Cuba. It breaks the myth that people come here and find bliss. Neither place is paradise.''

If the Cuban government made the process easier, she said, there would probably be more of them.

For Silvia, the daughter of government officials who lived a comfortable life in Cuba, the decision to return to the island after six months in the United States was easy: she ran out of money and had nowhere to go.

''I hate Fidel Castro, but does that mean I should work in a cafeteria?'' she said. ``I am 44 years old, and the first and only time in my life I went hungry was in the United States. Here, I live in a four-bedroom house and have a car. Over there, I had to live in an apartment the size of a table.''

Silvia did not suffer the bureaucratic hassles the others endured, because she was in South Florida and Los Angeles for less than 11 months.

''Coming back was the easiest decision I ever made. I had $20 and what was I going to do with that?'' she said. ``It was a question of simple mathematics.''

Once her paperwork was processed, the Cuban government told Sánchez, the blogger, she can never leave again. That is not an issue for her -- at least not now.

''I want to live many more years here, but I am not closed to anything,'' Sánchez said. ``I don't believe in false patriotism. I am a citizen of the world, and I feel happy anywhere. For now, I'm good here.''

Jorge says he is glad he came home, too.

''I have a lot of nice memories of Oregon,'' he said. ``It's a very beautiful place. But I always knew I was coming back.''

Where no homes sell, ever (Cuban house swapping)

2008-06-04T23:55:00.000-07:00

St. Petersburg Times
Where no homes sell, ever

By David Adams, Times Latin America Correspondent

Published Wednesday, June 4, 2008 8:01 AM

HAVANA — Walk down almost any street in the Cuban capital and it's easy to spot the cheap hand-painted cardboard signs saying Se Permuta, meaning "Home for Swap."

When Cubans want to move, these are the words they use. The "For Sale" sign familiar to Americans is banned; after all, you can't sell what you aren't allowed to own. So a family looking for an apartment with an extra bedroom for a new baby might swap with an older couple whose children have moved out. Run largely on word of mouth, the permuta is typical of the elaborate schemes Cubans have developed to work within the country's socialist strictures.

"It may sound odd, but it works," said Gladys Jane, 60, hunting for a house swap the other day on the Prado Avenue, a shady street on the edge of the historic colonial district that serves as Havana's unofficial permuta market.

But this peculiarly Cuban tradition — inefficient and often corrupt — could disappear if officials enact a reform that until now has only been hinted at by Raul Castro's administration: giving people the right to sell their homes. It would provide a source of taxable income for the government, and its effect on the cash-starved populace would be just as profound.

Since about 90 percent of Cubans hold title to their homes, said Antonio Zamora, a Miami attorney and expert on Cuban property issues, "Overnight, the government could hand them an asset with capital value."

Search for equality

Gladys Jane said she has been looking for a year with mounting desperation to swap her small, one-bedroom apartment and her 81-year-old mother's apartment for a larger place where they could live together along with her son. Her mother recently had undergone cancer surgery and could no longer climb the stairs to her second-floor apartment.

On the Prado, Jane stopped by to talk to Jesus Valdes, a corredor — the closest thing Cuba has to real estate agents. The corredors charge five pesos (20 cents) for each lead on a potential swap. Valdes has dog-eared notebooks full of addresses and phone numbers for each of the city's neighborhoods.

For a home swap to be approved by the federal Housing Institute, the homes must be of "equal value" — a near impossibility. But the system is flexible, taking account of such factors as an existing telephone line, and permitting one party to make repairs and improvements to meet the other person's needs.

No money is supposed to change hands, but frequently does. "Sometimes to get what you want, you make a payment that the government can't see," said Valdes, 78, grinning.

Jose Guerra, another corredor, said the system forces people to break the law. "That's why there are so many lies and frauds. If they let you pay legally, it wouldn't be necessary."

A hot tip

Without resorting to the corredors, Jane found a potential swap. Someone else looking to move gave her the address of Nestor Redondo, 66, a retired stevedore. Later that afternoon Jane visited Redondo's home, which he shares with his daughter and her family in the Central Havana district. She liked the spacious, albeit typically rundown house with three bedrooms, large patio and kitchen with chickens out back.

"I'm very interested," she told Redondo, giving him the addresses of her home and her mother's. "I have a telephone. Come by and take a look," she added, before taking off to tell her mother the news that a permuta might be in the works.

Her mother did not fully share her excitement. "I don't want to move. I like it here," said Barbara Morales, resting her legs on a stool in her tiny, rickety apartment on a major avenue in the centrally located Cerro neighborhood. "But I have to do it because of the stairs."

Farcical, frustrating

The frustrations of the permuta are so ingrained in Cuban culture that it serves as a reliable plot device. A Cuban comedy in the 1980s titled Se Permuta featured a farcically complex permuta chain of six separate links that falls apart at the last moment.

And one of the most popular sites on the Web — a relative novelty in a country with few computers — is www.sepermuta.com, where people can search for swaps online. The site has an inventory of 21,000 properties, with photographs and comments from happy customers. The operator of the site says he created it to help others after going through his own permuta. Not state sanctioned, he says he hopes one day he might be able to sell ads, now against the law.

A fully commercial real estate market remains far off, says Zamora, the Miami attorney who visits Cuba often and has studied its property laws. "If you start down that path, people will start accumulating property," he said. "It's human nature, and they won't allow that."

Zamora still expects to see greater flexibility in the housing market, including loosening restrictions on home improvements and renting rooms. Many Cubans already take matters into their own hands, he said.

"Cubans are very ingenious," Zamora said, describing cases of Cuban exiles who make payments to relatives in Cuba for extensions and extra floors that get built in secret.

"Real estate reform could help relieve some of the economic problems," said Oscar Espinosa Chepe, an economist who has spent time in jail for criticizing the government.

"It would create an almost interminable list of new possibilities," he said, such as the creation of private construction firms, as well as collateral for bank loans.

'Permuta' lives on

Despite her faith in the system, Gladys Jane's house swap never materialized. "They never called or came by," she said.

Then her mother died almost two weeks ago. "Her heart gave out," said Jane. "The medicine was too much for her."

But Jane says she still wants to move.

"I am going back to the Prado on Monday."

Cubans shun government's low-paying jobs

2008-05-31T21:07:00.001-07:00

Miami Herald
Posted on Sat, May. 31, 2008
Cubans shun government's low-paying jobs
BY MIAMI HERALD STAFF

Loraicys is 27 years old and has never held a job. She is not alone.

As Raúl Castro embarks on an ambitious plan to kick-start the communist nation's economy, he faces a daunting challenge: Many Cubans simply do not work.

Decades of measly salaries and vast government subsidies have kept many young people off the labor rolls because it's more lucrative to hustle on the street. Others live comfortably enough off money sent from Miami and elsewhere.

Loraicys turns down neighborhood janitor positions in hopes of higher-paying work at nearby resort hotels, where she also could earn tips in dollars.

''I am not going to tell you something different. There are jobs here in Cárdenas where I live. Doing what? Cleaning hospitals for 150 pesos [$7] a month,'' said Loraicys, a single mother. ``For 150 pesos, I would rather stay home with my kid. I am willing to work really hard -- but not for nothing in return.''

While Cuba struggles to increase productivity, it must also find a way to entice hundreds of thousands of people to get a job. The dilemma is one of the profound systemic difficulties Castro faces as he tries to create a so-called modern socialist economy.

GOVERNMENT JOBS

The government says there are plenty of jobs -- just low-paying ones Cubans won't take. Even educated professionals would rather work in the tourist industry as waiters or taxi drivers, which earns them far more money than state jobs that usually offer about $10 a month.

Loraicys said she has blanketed all the state agencies that run tourist resorts near her home with résumés, but she lacks the high school diploma required for even menial work. So she spends most days hanging out in front of her house, watching horse-drawn buggies go by in this colonial city east of Havana known as Ciudad Bandera, because it is where the national flag was first raised on May 19, 1850.

''If Raúl Castro wants to crack down on people who do not work, then he should offer real jobs,'' Loraicys said. ``Don't you think people would prefer to have independence, to have something they can be proud of?''

Officially, Cuban government figures show its unemployment rate is just 1.9 percent, the lowest in Latin America. At the same time, government statistics show just 4.8 million of the 6.7 million working-age people are ''economically active.'' And a survey conducted by the state-run Juventud Rebelde newspaper showed that just in Guantánamo province, on the eastern tip of the island, there were 18 times more unemployed people than official figures reflected.

The National Bureau of the Young Communists League said 90 percent of unemployed youths would like to go to school or work if they found ``acceptable options.''

LABOR STATISTICS

According to Granma, the communist party newspaper:

• 20 percent of the working-age population in Havana is unemployed.

• Nearly half of them turn down jobs when they are offered.

• 17 percent of the more than 17,000 recent technical school graduates did not show up for the jobs they were offered. Another 200 of them stopped coming in after a few months.

''Unfortunately there is not an inconsiderable segment of our society that wants to live without working and considers that through the black market, it will have everything by living off of others,'' Granma editor Lázaro Barredo wrote in a recent editorial.

When Raúl Castro took office on Feb. 24, he announced an increase in state pensions and wages. In April, economic commentator Ariel Terrero said on state television that the government would lift caps on wages, an important shift that defied the socialist ideology that long dictated policy here.

''For the first time, it is clearly and precisely stated that a salary does not have a limit, that the roof of a salary depends on productivity,'' Terrero said, according to The Associated Press.

He added that he did not view this as a violation of socialism, but rather ``from each according to his work to each according to his ability.''

Many Cubans told The Miami Herald they did not work because it just was not worth it. The dual currency system, which pays state salaries in nearly worthless pesos and sells most consumer goods in a dollar-based tender called the CUC, means average salaries don't cover the cost of basic goods such as shoes, which can cost three times as much as a $10 monthly wage.

CASH FOR FLORIDA

Eduardo, 30, a stagehand who got his first job four years ago, said most of his friends worked for the first time when they were in their late 20s -- after emigrating to Florida.

''Why was I going to work? The money they would pay me was not going to meet my needs,'' he said. ``My mother in Orlando sent me $100 a month, and with that I was set.''

Experts say Castro needs to overhaul the pay scheme to give Cubans the incentive to work.

'In their work life, Cubans have two approaches to labor. In the state sector, for many, their attitude is: `They pretend to pay us, we pretend to work,' '' said Archibald Ritter, who teaches about the Cuban economy at Carleton University in Canada. ``Yet they will even pay to get jobs where it's possible to get bribes or steal. Lots of Cubans work hard. They work very hard at quasi-legal, unofficial activities.''

Ritter said the government has to create opportunities for more people to run private businesses and have clear incentives to produce and earn more coveted CUCs.

''For decades, Cuba tried to create the new socialist man, and what they created instead was a nation of entrepreneurs,'' he said.

Even as wages increase, laws on the books are intended to stimulate productivity. As interim president, Raúl Castro mandated efficiency at the workplace and instituted penalties for people who were late or did not stay their full shift.

The Miami Herald withheld the name of the correspondent who wrote this report and the surnames of some people quoted because the reporter did not have the journalist visa required by the Cuban government to report from the island.

End of Cuba's ‘tourist apartheid' leaves vast racial divide

2008-05-29T22:09:00.000-07:00

Miami Herald

Posted on Thu, May. 29, 2008
End of Cuba's ‘tourist apartheid' leaves vast racial divide
By MIAMI HERALD STAFF
Edis is accustomed to getting chased off tourist beaches.

Looking to make money braiding tourists' hair on Varadero, she parks herself on a patch of sand between tourist hotels to avoid trespassing. Then she gives security guards a knowing nod that seals their illegal pact: For every $30 she earns, a guard will get six.

''They like to keep the Cubans and the tourists separate,'' Edis explains. ``I have been taken to jail four times. I don't consider myself to be a criminal. I am just struggling to live.''

Shortly after becoming Cuba's leader three months ago, Raúl Castro ruled that locals could stay at tourist hotels and visit exclusive beaches -- ending a long-standing policy that Cubans found inherently unfair, never mind unconstitutional. Heralded as the end of ''tourist apartheid,'' the measure was the first in a series of steps Castro took to address Cubans' biggest grievances.

While the island's 11.2 million residents are now free to blow their savings at exclusive resorts in Varadero -- a tourist mecca 60 miles east of Havana -- reality is more complicated. Hotel stays can cost $30 to $200 a night, and with salaries averaging $17 a month, few Cubans can take the government up on the opportunity.

So beaches here remain filled with Europeans and Canadians, and women like Edis walk the seashore in search of work, tips and handouts.

`STRUGGLE'

The result is a vast racial divide that stretches along the Cuban shoreline.

Mostly white foreigners are on hotel lounge chairs -- while mostly black Cuban women walk along the beach dodging security. They are professional panhandlers thinly veiled as hairstylists who come empty-handed each weekend and leave with bags of hotel shampoo, clothing donated by tourists and, if they are lucky, at least $24 for doing someone's hair.

''The security guard over there knows I'm here, and if he has not said anything to me, it's because he is waiting for the $6 he will get,'' said Edis, who rises at 5:30 a.m. for the three-hour journey from her home in central Matanzas. ``What I do on the beach is struggle. The lower-class people come here to talk to the tourists -- to ask for things -- because we have a lot of needs.''

INVISIBLE BARRIER

Edis and others in the same predicament had hoped the new rules allowing Cubans to use the beach and hotels would compel security guards to let them do their work, even if earning dollars not sanctioned by the government remains prohibited.

For these women, the new permission that allows Cubans to cross the invisible barrier -- which has long separated the western end of Varadero where Cubans congregate from the resorts reserved for tourists -- is something of a joke.

''Supposedly we have the right to use the beach now,'' said Elisa, who was with her daughters seeking hair-braiding customers. ``As long as I stay here in the water -- that's true -- nobody bothers me. But the second I step my foot on the sand and approach the hotel, boom, the security guards will sweep down and kick me out of here.

''That's how it was last year, and that's how it is now,'' she said.

After taking office Feb. 24, Castro spent his first months on the job enacting consumer-related measures that permitted not just hotel stays, but also the sale of cellular telephones, DVD players, microwave ovens and computers.

A select class of Cubans who have tourist-industry jobs, run illegal businesses or have relatives in the United States who send remittances have flocked to stores to take advantage of the new purchase rules.

`OFFENSIVE'

Even while consumer goods are flying off store shelves, most Cubans interviewed by The Miami Herald said a $150 hotel stay is a luxury that is hard to justify -- even if Castro scored political points.

''Cubans found the hotel prohibition offensive,'' said Philip Brenner, a Cuba expert at American University. ``Lifting that prohibition is not going to change Cuba very much, but it removes the sense of feeling they are in a prison. Not living under those circumstances, it's hard to imagine how important that is.''

`IMPORTANT'

Other Cuba watchers agree that even though most Cubans are excluded from Castro's consumer reforms, he has succeeded in gaining political capital -- even if he risks later creating a racial and class divide.

''Being able to stay at hotels is symbolically and psychologically important,'' said Katrin Hansing, interim associate director of Florida International University's Cuban Research Institute. 'It has given Cubans a sense of `now we can.' People feel free -- it's the weirdest thing. This is something they wanted to do forever, and now they can.''

`OUTRAGEOUS'

Hansing, who recently returned from living for about 10 years in Cuba, warned that Castro is taking a bit of a gamble.

''The rates are outrageous, so this is going to be a short-term euphoria,'' Hansing said. ``Who has money and who does not is going to become more visible. People who don't are often not white. This could get problematic.''

The measure to allow Cubans to stay at hotels also raises questions as to how the government will be able to control prostitution. Some Cuban women, dubbed jineteras, earn a living by finding foreign ''boyfriends'' who buy them gifts. Until now, those relationships were generally restricted to hotel lobbies.

In the past, Cuban guests were not allowed into a guest's room. Now, they can go up, but they must register with the front desk, even if the foreigner is paying the bill.

''Now the girls come in with the foreigners, and it's not my problem,'' said a Havana hotel doorman who said he was not authorized to give his name. 'You know what I say? `Have a nice evening.' I'm sure that later, when she pops up two or three times on hotel registries, it will be a problem. But not with me.''

`FOUR CATS'

Yadeli, a security guard at a Varadero hotel, said he has seen three Cubans stay at his luxury resort in the three months since Castro lifted the ban.

''That new law helps maybe four cats,'' he said, using the Spanish expression for ''very few people.'' ``As I do the math, I see I will never be one of those cats. I make $22 a month, and a room here is $150.''

So he spends his day on the beach in a necktie, stopping Cubans who try to enter his hotel.

''It's not that as Cubans you can't walk up and down this beach. You can walk up and down all you like,'' he said. ``I just want to know what you are doing, and I would stop you from coming inside if you are not a guest.''

`KEEP WALKING'

Beatriz, 30, knows exactly what Yadeli means.

''They are letting more Cubans on the beach now. Look around; you'll see some,'' she said a few minutes after being questioned by a guard. ``But if security sees you talking to somebody, forget it. So we can be on the beach; we just have to keep walking.''

The Miami Herald withheld the name of the correspondent who wrote this report and the surnames of some of the people quoted because the reporter did not have the journalist visa required by the Cuban government to report from the island.

Cuban Newspaper Pushes Beyond Party Line

2008-05-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

NPR
Media
Cuban Newspaper Pushes Beyond Party Line

by Tom Gjelten

All Things Considered, May 28, 2008 · In Cuba, the daily newspapers are all owned and run by the government or the Communist Party. For years, speeches by Fidel Castro were splashed across Page 1, and barely a critical word was published. But Fidel's brother Raul, who has taken over as president, is now allowing more debate in the Cuban press, and one party-affiliated newspaper is rising to the challenge.

Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth) was founded in 1965 as the newspaper of the Communist Youth movement in Cuba. Throughout its existence, the publication mostly has featured whatever dreary "news" party leaders wanted published.

But in recent months, Juventud Rebelde reporters have been encouraged to think like journalists and investigate what's not working in their country.

The newspaper recently ran a critical three-part series on Cuban agriculture. Reporter Dora Perez and a colleague spent weeks talking to farmers and farm workers across the country. They wanted to find out why Cuba, with all its rich farmland, has to import so much food.

"[We heard] nothing but complaints," Perez says. "Our report was very critical. We're bad in agriculture, and we have to say so."

Three months later, Perez followed up with another investigative series, this one on education in Cuba. She found out that many Cuban parents were so unhappy with the quality of their kids' schooling that they were hiring private tutors — something once unthinkable here.

An Unprecedented Approach

For years, Fidel Castro told Cubans that their problems were the result of the U.S. trade embargo, the loss of Soviet aid or globalization: There was always an excuse. But Herminio Camacho, deputy editor of Juventud Rebelde, says it's time for Cuba to acknowledge its own failings.

"These articles aim at raising people's awareness," Camacho says. "People need to know that things don't have to be like this here. We're bringing up problems that can't be blamed on our shortages, or on outside forces, or the embargo, or the world situation."

For a Cuban communist newspaper, this editorial approach is unprecedented. Phil Peters, a Cuba analyst at the Lexington Institute, a Washington-area think tank, is impressed by what he has seen in Juventud Rebelde over the past two years — even though the scope is limited and the paper is still under government control.

"You now have Cuban journalists actually going out and documenting facts and contradicting official versions of the facts," Peters says.

In one notable example, Juventud Rebelde reporters determined that Cuban authorities were grossly underreporting the number of unemployed youth, especially in the countryside. In one province, they found it was 18 times higher than what the government claimed.

Habits Hard to Break as Journalists Seek Independence

Such stories are still the exception in Juventud Rebelde, not the norm. More common are the stories that simply quote government functionaries uncritically. Editor Camacho says he and his reporters are still finding their way.

"We've made progress, but we have a ways to go, because our reporters have been conditioned to think in a certain way," he says. "They have inertia in their thinking. This kind of journalism we're trying to do is hard for us. Throughout our whole lives, we've done it in a different way."

In an effort to break old journalistic habits, Camacho and his fellow editors have eliminated the beat structure at Juventud Rebelde. Reporters now are generalists, not specialists.

"Journalists who take charge of one particular issue can lose their broader vision," Camacho explains. "They develop a close relationship with whoever they're covering, because they see them day after day. It makes it harder to be critical. In order to do this kind of journalism, we had to change that structure."

Stopping Short of Challenging Communist Tenets

What's notable is that Camacho is thinking like a newspaper editor in a democratic society and not as a propaganda boss, which is the role editors in communist countries have more typically played.

His paper stops well short of challenging the ideology of Cuban communism. But for a party organ even to raise sensitive questions could have unforeseeable consequences in a tightly controlled totalitarian state. Some of the paper's recent reporting touches on key elements of the socialist system, such as the state-owned companies that now control every aspect of economic life in Cuba.

"Their reporters went out and documented that a lot of the state enterprises just do not work," notes Peters of the Lexington Institute. "[They found] that there's no functioning supply system and that the enterprises actually exploit and cheat Cuban consumers. It was unbelievable."

Peters, who has been reading the Cuban press for years, says such reporting never appeared during the time Fidel Castro ruled Cuba.

"If Fidel Castro talked about these state enterprises, they were paragons of socialist virtue," Peters says. "It was, 'This is what we live for.' He would always contrast [Cuban] state enterprises with the exploitations that occur in capitalist societies."

Fidel Castro Expresses Displeasure

Indeed, Fidel Castro apparently doesn't much like the pro-reform ideas aired recently in Juventud Rebelde and a few other media. In a newspaper column published last month under the title "Do Not Make Concessions to Enemy Ideology," Castro lashed out at critics of Cuban socialism. "People must be very careful with everything they say," he warned.

Castro, whose mental and physical condition remains a mystery, said he was responding to a comment in one of Cuba's media outlets. He didn't say which one, and Juventud Rebelde editor Camacho says he got immediately nervous it was his paper.

"I'll admit it," Camacho says, "the first reaction I had was to worry. This was Fidel pointing his finger at someone. He's not president of the country anymore, but we still see him as the leader of the revolution."

In discussing Castro's commentary, Camacho was noticeably uncomfortable, speaking slowly and stopping several times to choose his words carefully. For nearly 50 years, Fidel Castro has been all-powerful in Cuba, able on his own authority to squash careers or send people to prison for the rest of their lives.

"For us, a criticism from Fidel is …" Camacho begins, but he does not finish the sentence. "It's more than just the fear. Among other things, we feel in some way like we must be violating his wishes."

Following Castro's critical column, Camacho says he and his fellow editors resolved to be more "responsible." A fully reported article on the shortcomings of the economic reform program was not published.

Despite Skeptics, Paper Forges Ahead with New Direction

Some writers who have broken their ties with the government are skeptical that Juventud Rebelde can be much of a force for change. Independent journalist Reinaldo Escobar, who writes an opposition blog in Cuba, says he is impressed by some of the reporters working at the paper. But he does not see them as allies in the fight for democracy and free expression in Cuba.

"Any professionally aware journalist could write something that coincides with what I'm saying, but they wouldn't be doing so intentionally," he explains. Escobar is working deliberately for political change in Cuba. The Juventud Rebelde reporters are just trying to be journalists.

Shortly after Perez wrote her series on education in Cuba, she got a congratulatory e-mail from Adelaida Fernandez, a prominent Cuban writer. Fernandez had delivered a highly critical speech on Cuban education at a convention of Cuban writers and artists, and in her opening words she cited the Juventud Rebelde stories by Perez.

"I was very proud," Perez says. "One of the best things about being a journalist is when you know that what you write actually reaches people and moves them." It was hardly a radical thought, but coming from a reporter at a Communist Party newspaper in Havana, it was noteworthy.

Ricky Ricardo: The 'Mr. Babalu' Next Door

2008-05-18T13:35:00.000-07:00

Ricky Ricardo: The 'Mr. Babalu' Next Door

by Felix Contreras
NPR Weekend Edition
Sunday, May 18, 2008 · When I Love Lucy appeared in 1951, mainstream America knew very little about Latino culture.

Ricky Ricardo changed all that: His heavily accented English — and his rapid-fire Spanish — were as new to some parts of the country as TV itself.

And then there was the music. Ricky Ricardo may have been a fictional character, but he played very real music.

I've been playing congas for 35 years, and I can't tell you the number of times people have come up to my drums, unable to resist trying out a drumroll and crooning the opening phrase of Ricky's signature "Babalu."

Of course like everything else about him, Ricky Ricardo's version of "Babalu" was a mix of fact and fiction.

Art that Imitated Life

Ricky Ricardo was based on the very real Cuban bandleader and vocalist who played him: Desiderio Arnaz y de Acha, or Desi Arnaz.

Ricky was from Havana; Desi was from Santiago de Cuba. Ricky emigrated to New York, Desi to Miami. Ricky married Lucy McGillicuddy; Desi married Lucille Ball. Ricky's wife wanted desperately to be in show business; Desi's wife was already a successful radio and film actress. Ricky eventually owned a nightclub; Desi eventually owned TV and movie studios.

So it only took a few changes for I Love Lucy's writers to turn Desi into Ricky. Says 81-year-old trumpeter Tony Terran: "They retained much of his character and his emotional side."

Terran is the last surviving member of the Ricky Ricardo Orchestra, the band that backed Ricky in that I Love Lucy nightclub. Terran says that, while Ricky may have been fictional, his band was very real.

The Ricky Ricardo Orchestra was made up mostly of the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, which had been playing in ballrooms and theaters around the country when not performing on Bob Hope's radio show.

Yet many in Hollywood had their doubts about a TV show based on all-American girl married to a Latino. The band's musicians felt differently.

"I think the general feeling in the band was that it was quite a venture," Terran says. "It made some sense to us — we didn't have the same doubts that CBS had."

'Playing to Americanos' in Glamorous Venues

After all, Terran says, many popular orchestras back then were designed for mass appeal, alternating between swing and Latin rhythms, with vocalists singing in both English and Spanish.

Desi Arnaz got his start in the late 1930s, with a band led by an early Latin crossover success, Xavier Cugat. Arnaz wrote in his autobiography that he patterned his own band after Cugat's. Terran agrees, saying the Ricky Ricardo Orchestra played the same kind of music.

"We were commercial," Terran says. "We were more for TV."

"It was corny but commercial," says Johnny Rodriguez Jr. "I mean, it wasn't the hip Latin music."

Rodriguez, a percussionist, remembers both kinds of orchestras. His father played in both Latin bands and so called "society bands" in New York in the late 1940s. The younger Rodriguez got his start at age 17, with Tito Puente in 1962.

He says he heard from his dad, and from older musicians in Puente's band, that there were plenty of rewards for orchestras like Ricky Ricardo's.

"They weren't [playing] the standard Latin gigs," Rodriguez stresses. "It was upper end, the better-paying jobs. This is Broadway, this is the Paramount Theatre, Roxy Theatre — this is not the Palladium, not a Latin club. I'm talking about playing to Americanos."

A Hit with Exotic Roots — And a Singer who Felt Familiar

Millions of Americanos tuned into I Love Lucy, and most of them probably didn't realize that Ricky Ricardo's signature song was a tribute to an Afro-Cuban god.

"Babalu," written by Cuban composer Margarita Lecuona, is about Babalu-Aye, one of the seven main gods of the Afro-Cuban religion Santeria. It was first recorded by Cuban vocalist Miguelito Valdes in 1941 — and among fans of more traditional Latin music, Valdes was the real Mr. Babalu.

Latin music fans will also say Ricky Ricardo was probably not the most authentic Afro-Cuban percussionist but John Rodriguez says that was OK.

"I remember my dad saying that he was a terrible conga player," John Rodriguez says. "You'd see him playing on TV, and ... the way they staged it, it looked good. And that's all that mattered."

It mattered because TV, and Ricky Ricardo, helped spread the word about Latin music across the country.

TV had this show, and had this Latin music, on a regular basis every week," says Fordham University sociology professor Clara Rodriguez. "They were the No. 1 show for 6 years."

She points out that folks in the U.S. got their first taste of Latin music from films of the 1940s, featuring Carmen Miranda and Desi Arnaz' old boss, Xavier Cugat.

But while those film stars were exotic, TV's Ricky Ricardo had much more in common with Middle America.

"He played a Latino who had a steady job; they lived a middle-class way of life," Rodriguez says. "He was the man ... who was the bread winner in the family. ... So he introduced a character which wouldn't have been very different if he had not been ethnic."

Ricky Ricardo was easy for non-Latins to accept. But I've often wondered whether or not this Latino Everyman would have been as successful a band leader as his real-life counterpart, Desi Arnaz, was in the television business.

Tony Terran, who worked with both men, the real one and the fictional one, says yes.

"If," Terran says, "Lucy wouldn't get him in trouble all the time."

Cuba: US embargo blocking wider internet access

2008-05-17T10:09:00.000-07:00

AP/Miami Herald

Posted on Fri, May. 16, 2008
Cuba: US embargo blocking wider internet access
A top Cuban official said Friday that Raúl Castro's government would consider loosening Internet restrictions on ordinary citizens newly allowed to purchase computers -- but Washington's decades-old economic embargo makes it impossible.

''We aren't worried about the citizenry connecting from their homes,'' Telecommunications Vice Minister Boris Moreno told a small group of reporters.

''But problems with technology and resources have made it necessary to give priority to connections that guarantee the country's social and economic development,'' he said, referring to an islandwide network that lets Cubans receive e-mail and view domestic Web sites.

The rest of the worldwide Web is blocked to most citizens in Cuba, which has access controls far stricter than in China or Saudi Arabia. Only foreigners and some government employees and academics are currently allowed unfiltered home Internet service, and many Cubans turn to the black market for expensive, slow dial-up accounts.

Computers for home use were also not available until two weeks ago, when state stores began selling them to the public as part of a series of small quality-of-life changes since Raúl Castro replaced his elder brother Fidel in February.

But Moreno said the government is unable to offer Cubans comprehensive Internet for their new PCs, citing its long-standing complaint that the American embargo prevents it from getting service directly from the United States nearby through underwater cables. Instead, Cuba gets Internet service through less reliable satellite connections, usually from faraway countries including Italy and Canada.

''Free access is not on the table at the moment,'' Moreno said.

Moreno said that in the next two years authorities hope to link to fiber-optic service from Venezuela, which has replaced the Soviet Union as Havana's chief economic benefactor.

He also criticized Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, whose posts about the struggles of daily life on the island have drawn worldwide notice and recently won her Spain's Ortega y Gasset Prize for digital journalism.

Moreno said the 32-year-old Sanchez was deeply affected by coming of age during the 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union brought the Cuban economy to its knees. He said he found it sad that she ``speaks ill of a government that didn't close the university where she studied in a moment of crisis.''

Cuba's two-currency system adds up to a social divide

2008-05-11T22:46:00.001-07:00

LA Times
COLUMN ONE
Cuba's two-currency system adds up to a social divide
Those who earn the old peso are seeing its purchasing power decline. To them, powdered milk and sweet potatoes are luxuries.
By Carol J. Williams
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

May 8, 2008

HAVANA — Pushed to the fringes by a money-driven social divide, Rosa is what Cubans call a "marginal" person.

She's lived all of her 72 years in a shabby enclave of Marianao, a neighborhood where crude wooden cottages, their rotting boards held together with coats of paint, descend into a gully strewn with refuse and sewage.

Her two-room shack was an early gift of the revolution, back when the idealistic brigades of social levelers were at work lifting the poor and teaching the long-neglected how to read and write and care for their children. Rosa's sturdy metal-framed eyeglasses, a more recent state handout, magnify tired gray eyes that turn to Cuba's three state-run channels for diversion now, having lost the desire to read because of a dearth of books and practice.

Widowed 22 years and left with only a tethered mongrel named Mochito for company, Rosa is among the considerable ranks of Cubans in the country's population of 11.2 million who find themselves lost in poverty as the flow of money from trade, tourism and the black market has broken its once-egalitarian foundation.

The problems faced by Rosa and others like her, complicated by factors such as the country's loss of Soviet aid years ago, appear to be getting worse. Cuba's system of two currencies may be at least partly to blame.

Cuba uses the dominant convertible peso known as the CUC -- introduced four years ago to replace the U.S. dollar, which had been circulating for more than a decade -- and the Cuban peso known as moneda nacional.

Those with jobs in hotels, airlines and shops and on the thriving black market earn CUCs, referred to as "the dollar" and worth about 25 times the peso. The peso is the currency given to all state workers and pensioners, which must be converted to CUCs to purchase most goods. The Cuban government retains the peso because it lacks sufficient foreign reserves to back and circulate only CUCs.

The U.S. dollar, which circulated in Cuba from the mid-1990s to late 2004, was removed by then-President Fidel Castro and now is subject to a 10% tax whenever it is converted to CUCs -- in effect a devaluation by the state. The tax is felt most by tourists and the estimated 10% of Cuban households receiving money from relatives abroad.

Those like Rosa, who have neither foreign benefactors nor the vigor to run their own dollar-earning schemes, watch the buying power of their moneda nacional recede each month as more goods become available only for "dollars."

Rosa survives on her late husband's 164-peso monthly pension, about $7, and the ever-shrinking basket of staples issued by the state each month.

"The rice is gone in 10 days, and then only if I'm careful," laments the widow, stout from a diet of bread rolls and rice. "What I have after the electricity is paid I spend on food, nothing else."

Like many Cubans, Rosa won't tell a foreigner her full name for fear of official retribution, although it's difficult to imagine how her circumstances could worsen.

Dressed in a faded blue floral dress worn thin as a hankie, beige socks and flip-flops advertising Cuba, she spends her days washing the concrete-slab floor of her hovel and cooking rice for her two daily meals.

For the first four days of each month, she boils a single cup of coffee at midday from the quarter-pound packet that is her most treasured item in the ration basket. She quickly uses the two cups of beans, the small bottle of cooking oil and the single chicken leg.

Once the ration of rice runs out, she must convert her pesos to CUCs to buy food for the rest of the month. She subsists mostly on rice simmered in bouillon, along with the single white bread roll she can collect each morning from the state bakery at the top of her alley.

Her joy, she says, is having a few precious minutes with one of her eight grandchildren on the rare occasion when her daughter or one of her two sons can take time from their own daily scramble for sustenance to visit. Another reprieve is sweet potatoes, to break the monotony of her meals, an indulgence she affords herself once a week if nothing has come up to divert her meager funds.

She takes her rice from a chipped earthenware bowl as she sits on a lumpy, sheet-covered sofa, the black-and-white TV in the corner switched to one of the three state channels. She pays little attention to which one it is tuned to; often all carry the same official speech or cultural program.

A two-burner gas hot plate on the dented metal counter is the only appliance in the kitchen. A small fridge, dotted with plastic beer-bottle magnets, stands kitty-cornered in the sitting room, unplugged to save on the power bill as there is seldom anything perishable in it. A towel draped across the top displays a collection of white ceramic figurines and a candle. A scrawny calico cat she never bothered to name probes the scrubbed floor in fruitless pursuit of a dropped morsel.

Scavenging her sustenance is both an ordeal and an occupation for Rosa. For all but the few grains and tubers that can be bought with the old pesos, she must change her monthly pension for CUCs.

The nearest market is about a mile away, a trying journey for a woman with diabetes, hypertension and depression. Rice was only 12 cents a pound recently, but she goes through half that much a day after the ration runs out, and it costs her nearly a quarter of her monthly pension. Vegetables and fruits are only a few pesos a pound or apiece, but they consume most of the rest of her money.

Powdered milk is an unimaginable luxury at more than $7 for enough to make a gallon, and even the least desirable cuts of meat thick with flies on the butcher block cost nearly $2 a pound. The single serving of chicken and six eggs provided in the ration are usually her only protein.

The closest clinic that will treat her is three miles away, a difficult distance considering that public transportation does not reach her at the bottom of her steep, rutted road.

"The buses don't come down here," she says of the narrow, descending alley that drops off on one side into a culvert.

Medical care in Cuba is free, but Rosa pays with her time, waiting outside all day until the public service doctor can see her. The pills to combat depression cost about 50 cents each, and a vial of 15 would use up her entire monthly income. She rarely buys them, preferring to spend the money on food.

She walks to the market and the clinic when she needs to, saving the one-peso fare for the food budget.

With other wooden and stucco hovels like hers lining the alley, no vehicle wider than the Russian-made Lada owned by her neighbor's nephew can make it within 200 yards of her porch, which consists of a concrete slab surrounded by a rusted chain-link fence and is padlocked against nocturnal dangers.

Across from Rosa's house of whitewashed wooden slats and closed louvers, three men are perched on concrete stumps that once supported fencing. Each sips from his own bottle of cheap rum, warily watching the unaccustomed visit by two strangers with the Lada driver.

Unlike younger Cubans or those with marketable skills like hairdressers and seamstresses, Rosa has no means of boosting her income.

Her oldest son, Carlos, 51 and disabled, often spreads a few humble wares for sale on a tea towel on Rosa's porch: lollipops, bouillon cubes, gum balls and, from his mother's ration basket, cigarettes, which are given only to those older than 60. He sometimes takes in 25 or 30 pesos, which he can convert to a single CUC to buy his own family supper.

"He can't help me much. We all have the same conditions," says Rosa, explaining with a mother's protectiveness why Carlos keeps her cigarette proceeds.

The government of Raul Castro, the 76-year-old younger brother of the ailing Fidel Castro, has acknowledged since Raul was named president in February that the two-currency economy has produced social strains and a class divide. He has pledged to restore equality by reunifying Cuba's monetary system.

Many foreign economists, however, deem that impossible unless everyone is forced back to the dysfunctional system in which prices are arbitrarily fixed by the state and goods disappear from stores when their production cost exceeds what they can sell for.

Havana shops today are full of luxuries Cubans hardly knew about when Soviet subsidies and communist-bloc trade reliably provided the basic necessities. Microwave ovens, cellphones, Chinese-made appliances and European foods now perch alluringly on store shelves, albeit at prices only the minority of Cubans flush with CUCs can afford.

Rosa laughs at the absurdity of owning anything more than the few comforts already in her home: the TV, the refrigerator and a telephone. She prefers the old days, without the tease of goods she cannot afford.

"It was better before," Rosa says.

Cuban Soccer Player-Defectors Adjust to a New Life

2008-05-08T21:41:00.000-07:00

New York Times
May 9, 2008
Cuban Defectors Adjust to a New Life
By BILLY WITZ

LOS ANGELES — Under a sunny sky on a manicured soccer field, the drill was repeated over and over for 15 minutes. Maykel Galindo would settle a cross just outside the top of the penalty area, then try to figure out a way to put the ball past the man in goal.

Sometimes, Galindo demonstrated the skill that has made him one of the most dangerous strikers in Major League Soccer. Other times, it was the unfamiliar goalkeeper who would make an acrobatic save or force a miss that left his opponent cursing in Spanish.

Most of Galindo’s Chivas USA teammates and coaches, their practice over, watched from the sideline benches a routine that might have played out at any soccer club anywhere in the world: goal scorer versus goalkeeper.

But this scene in late April was not about mano a mano. It was Cubano a Cubano, a chance to look out and see not only the past but also a future.

“I felt like I was in Havana,” the goalkeeper, José Manuel Miranda, said through an interpreter.

Almost two months ago, Miranda was among seven players who walked away from Cuba’s under-23 men’s soccer team during an Olympic qualifying tournament in Tampa, Fla.

He recently joined two of the others — midfielder Yordany Alvárez and defender Yenier Bermúdez — on a four-day bus ride from Miami for a tryout with the Los Angeles Galaxy. After the Galaxy declined to offer them contracts, they trained for two days with Chivas USA, the other M.L.S. team in Los Angeles. But Chivas USA also declined to keep them on.

Despite the setbacks, Miranda, Alvárez and Bermúdez hardly seem discouraged. They met with an immigration official at the end of April to begin seeking work permits, driver’s licenses, Social Security cards and green cards.

For now, they are relying on the largess of a network that runs through Cuban and soccer communities in Miami, New York and Los Angeles. They have received food, clothing, transportation, a cellphone and lodging. They also have the opportunity to stay in shape by playing several semiprofessional games each week. They earn $40 to $50 each per game, which Miranda said was about five times their monthly salary at the national soccer academy in Cuba.

“The Cuban community is very tight knit and very good at taking care of their own people,” said Alicia Molina, a lawyer for the nonprofit International Institute of Los Angeles who is representing the players in their applications for work permits. “This is not a typical experience of an immigrant, but it is typical of a Cuban.”

It is not, however, the typical path for a Cuban soccer player. Nearly 150 baseball players are known to have defected from Cuba, according to the Web site Cubanball.com. Among them are well-known major leaguers like Orlando Hernández, Liván Hernández and José Contreras.

But before Galindo’s defection during the Concacaf Gold Cup in 2005, when he sneaked out of the team hotel in Seattle, hopped on a city bus and asked the driver to call a Spanish-speaking high school teacher he had just met, soccer players only occasionally left for the United States. And none have caused more than a ripple in M.L.S.

After playing two seasons in Seattle for a second-tier pro league team, Galindo joined Chivas USA last year and became one of the league’s top scorers, with 12 goals, as his new team compiled the second-best regular-season record in M.L.S. This season, he is making $79,500.

In Cuba, the three young players became familiar with Galindo’s success because they watched pirated broadcasts of M.L.S. games. Miranda described their defections as “an important experience” because it planted the idea that they could make a living doing what they love.

“The idea of playing professional sports was completely foreign to us,” Miranda said. “It hadn’t occurred to us as an option.”

The role of flag bearer is one that Galindo plays reluctantly. He has been hesitant to comment about Cuban issues, including Fidel Castro’s passing of power to his brother, Raúl, earlier this year.

“When the seven guys left in Florida, the head of the Cuban soccer federation announced that Maykel is responsible for that,” said Galindo, who said he had not met the three players here until last week. “When I decided to come, I did it by myself. I didn’t recommend anybody else do it. But now that they’re here, I’m going to do what I can to help them.”

Galindo said there were no repercussions for his family when he left.

But after his defection, Bermúdez said his brother was dismissed from Cuba’s under-20 team. And when he called his mother from Florida, he said, the line was cut off. Bermúdez also left a girlfriend behind.

“I feel responsible for my brother,” he said through an interpreter. “It wasn’t his fault. It was my fault. He knew nothing.”

This and being branded a traitor by Cuban officials only increase his desire to succeed.

Bermúdez and Alvárez are 22, and Miranda is 21. Each showed his capabilities on the field in Florida, when Cuba tied the heavily favored United States, 1-1. Miranda made eight saves, Alvárez assisted on the goal and Bermúdez captained the team.

Chivas USA Coach Preki, who gave extensive tryouts to two other Cuban defectors last summer, said their will and skill would be tested.

“It’s about surviving, and Maykel is a survivor, but Maykel also has a quality,” he said, noting Galindo’s speed. “It goes hand in hand. You can bring a survivor here, but can he play the game?”

Paul Bravo, the Galaxy’s director of soccer, said the three men will probably be best served playing in the lower-level United Soccer Leagues.

“These guys are good athletes and have good minds for the game,” Bravo said. “I hope they make it. It’s not easy to walk away from the possibility of going to the Olympics, but they’re like a lot of people in Cuba — not just athletes. They’re looking for a better way of life.”

Alvárez and Miranda expressed disappointment with how the Galaxy tryout went, but they shrugged it off as a learning experience. In the last two months, they have had plenty. There was the cross-country trip, in which they did not shower, they survived on soda and junk food, and they endured standing at the side of a highway outside San Antonio one night when their bus broke down. There was practicing with David Beckham, whose poster hung in Miranda’s room in Cuba.

“They’re very happy now,” said Federico Velasquez, a Cuban immigrant and high school Spanish teacher from West New York, N.J., who has been their de facto agent, calling teams and finding places for them to stay. “They know everything is not easy, but they want to play professionally. They appreciate the opportunity they are getting.”

They hope, if work permits are secured, for another tryout. Until then, they will play as often as they can and take everything in, as they did recently on the freeway. They were quietly taking in sights that seemed foreign at every turn when they spotted a familiar one up in the hills.

“It was the sign that read Hollywood,” Bermúdez said. “We started taking photos. We’d only seen it in films.”

As he spoke, he became animated, his voice rising and eyes widening. It was as if, in his own mind, he was picturing something else he had seen before — a Hollywood ending.

Cuba announces shakeup of troubled farm sector

2008-05-03T22:29:00.000-07:00

Miami Herald
Posted on Thu, May. 01, 2008
Cuba announces shakeup of troubled farm sector

Cuba announced a major shake-up of its troubled farm sector on May Day, shifting control of the island's farms from officials at the Agriculture Ministry to more than 150 local delegations.

The move is part of a potentially monumental effort to increase food production and reduce Cuba's dependence on imports. It came as hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched Thursday in a shorter May Day parade that reflected the businesslike style of new President Raul Castro.

The Communist Party newspaper Granma said 169 new delegations would take over control of the farm sector, and the government is considering slashing 104 unnecessary departments.

Granma said relying on local farm leaders to make more decisions will îîstimulate agricultural production, perfect its sale and increase the availability of food and, in this way, substitute imports.''

Salvador Valdes Mesa, head of the nearly 3 million-strong Cuban Workers Confederation, used his brief International Workers Day speech to urge government employees to work harder and increase efficiency.

"It is fundamental to concentrate efforts on increasing production and productivity, above all of food,'' he said.

Raul Castro, who succeeded his brother Fidel as president in February, did not speak during the festivities, but smiled and waved from a podium as marchers danced, sang and screamed "Long Live Fidel! Long Live Raul!'' while streaming past him in Havana's Revolution Plaza.

The whole event was over in under two hours … less time than Fidel used just for his speech at the last May Day event he attended in 2006.

For decades, May Day featured lengthy speeches, as well as music and even skits. But Raul, who has spent most of his life running Cuba's military, has a reputation for pragmatism and calculated efficiency.

Still, 57-year-old Rolando Gonzalez, who marched with government tourism workers, said the two brothers aren't as different as many think.

"Raul's style is the same as Fidel's. With him we are on the same road as always,'' he said. "But Raul does talk more about hard work, producing more and that's important.''

The 81-year-old Fidel Castro has not been seen in public since emergency intestinal surgery in July 2006. But he was still the star of Thursday's parade, which began with a row of marchers carrying a huge sign reading îîRevolution is Fidel.'' Several minutes went by before a picture of Raul came into view.

The new government has already erased bans on ordinary Cubans obtaining cell phones and renting luxury hotel rooms, as well as made it easier for state workers to own homes they once rented as part of their jobs. It also is letting more private farmers and cooperatives take a crack at putting fallow government land to better use.

The government hopes granting small farmers and local leaders more autonomy could revitalize the sector. Officials estimate that 51 percent of arable land in Cuba was underused or fallow because of government mismanagement.

Cuba puts first computers on sale to public

2008-05-02T20:37:00.000-07:00

AP/MSNBC
Cuba puts first computers on sale to public
Another despised restriction on daily life falls with Raul Castro in charge
By Will Weissert
The Associated Press
updated 3:46 p.m. PT, Fri., May. 2, 2008

HAVANA - Cubans are getting wired.

The island's communist government put desktop computers on sale to the public for the first time Friday, ending a ban on PC sales as another despised restriction on daily life fell away under new President Raul Castro.

A tower-style QTECH PC and monitor costs nearly $780. While few Cubans can afford that, dozens still gawked outside a tiny Havana electronics store, crowding every inch of its large glass windows and leaving finger and nose prints behind.

Inside, four clerks tore open boxes, hastily assembling display computers. By the time a sign went up listing the PCs specifications, more than a dozen shoppers were lined up to get in.

"Look at that!" murmured Armando Batista as he pressed against the window. Although he can't afford to buy one, he said, "these are good for a start."

The gray and black QTECHs, complete with DVD players, bulky CRT monitors and standard-issue black mice and keyboards, are the only model available.

The Cuban PCs have Intel Celeron processors with 80 gigabytes of memory and 512 RAM and are equipped with Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. Both could be violations of a U.S. trade embargo, but not something Washington can do anything about in the absence of diplomatic relations with Havana.

(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

Clerks said the PCs were assembled by Cuban companies using parts imported from China. For about $80 less, buyers in the U.S. can get a desktop with more than twice the memory, a 80 GB SATA hard drive and 22-inch LCD flat screen monitor.

The crowded store in central Havana's Carlos III shopping center is the only outlet in the country now selling the PCs. Clerks at a few other government-run stores — where Cubans must buy everything — said they expect to receive deliveries sometime after next week.

Brian Brito, 14, saved his allowance for two years to buy himself a PC for his upcoming 15th birthday.

"It's good for playing games," he said, while lugging his new computer from the mall.

But his mother had other ideas. "He'll use it for school, for learning," she said. "And besides, it's a form of healthy entertainment."

Except for some trusted officials and state journalists, most Cubans are banned from accessing the Internet at home. So many of these new computers may never be connected to the Web.

Some people buy limited e-mail access on the black market, usually sharing an account with the authorized holder, who usually works for the state. Even if they could access the Web, Cubans can't shop on line because they don't have credit cards.

Raul Castro promised to eliminate many of these prohibitions when he assumed the presidency on Feb. 24, after his ailing 81-year-old brother Fidel resigned. Besides selling consumer goods, he has ended bans that kept most Cubans from having cell phones, staying in luxury hotels or renting cars.

An internal government memo had indicated that PCs, DVD players, motorbikes and plug-in pressure cookers would be sold for the first time in April. Everything but the computers made it to the shelves last month.

Computers have been sold on Cuba's black market for years — at prices comparable to the $780 now seen in the store. But now that computers are available legally, some consumers expect black market prices to fall.

The government controls more than 90 percent of Cuba's economy, paying an average state salary of $19.50 per month. But most Cubans have access to extra income through jobs with foreign firms, tips from working in tourism or money sent by relatives living abroad.

Thousands have snapped up phones and coveted kitchen appliances in recent weeks.

"Hotels, cell phones, DVD, Cuba is changing a lot," said Oscar Perez, who came to help his 14-year-old cousin carry his new computer to the car. "That's positive. But we want more."

Stores Hints at Change Under New Castro

2008-05-01T21:54:00.001-07:00

New York Times
May 2, 2008
Stores Hints at Change Under New Castro
By MARC LACEY

HAVANA — Can a rice maker possibly be revolutionary?

There they were, piled up one atop another, Chinese-made rice makers selling for $70 each. Beside them, sleek DVD players. Across the well-stocked electronics store were computers and televisions and other household appliances that President Raúl Castro recently decreed ought to be made available to average Cubans, or at least those who could afford them.

Since finally succeeding his ailing 81-year-old brother, Fidel, in February, Mr. Castro, 76, who appeared before hundreds of thousands of Cubans at a May Day rally on Thursday here in the capital, has been busy with a flurry of changes. In the last eight weeks he has also opened access to cellphones, lifted the ban on Cubans using tourist hotels and granted farmers the right to manage unused land for profit.

More is on the horizon, government officials say, like easing restrictions on traveling abroad and the possibility of allowing Cubans to buy and sell their own cars, and perhaps even their homes. Each of these changes may be microscopic in contrast to the outsize problems facing Cuba. But taken together, they are shaking up this stoic, time-warped place.

Just how far Mr. Castro will be willing to tinker with the country his brother left him and what, if anything, he is using as his playbook nobody knows for sure. Mikhail Gorbachev’s attempts to reinvigorate the ailing Soviet system led to its collapse and its abandonment of Cuba. More inspiring is the mix of consumerism and pragmatic authoritarian politics that energized growth and reinforced Communist Party rule in China and Vietnam.

China is now Cuba’s second largest trading partner, and Vietnam is one of the first countries that Mr. Castro has said he will visit. Leaders from both countries visited over the last year and had sessions with both Castro brothers. Cuba analysts say that Raúl Castro, as the longtime defense minister, has maintained close ties to both countries’ militaries and has close aides who know the countries well.

“This is the Asia model,” said Robert Pastor, a professor of international relations at American University. “Still, the signals he has sent are so faint and so tentative that it’s not at all clear where he wants to take Cuba or where Cuba will go.”

Marifeli Pérez-Stable, vice president for democratic governance at the Inter-American Dialogue, said: “He’s never going to say. I’m not sure he even knows it. But he is following China, and even more so Vietnam,” meaning that Mr. Castro was hewing to a more go-slow approach.

As in those countries, economic freedom is one thing, and political liberty something else. On the latter, Cuba’s government has given every sign that it is intent on holding the line.

But Mr. Castro’s early tinkering has already laid bare an uncomfortable, and potentially destabilizing, reality in a country that for 50 years has been run as one of the world’s most rigid socialist systems: that some Cubans are far better off than others, whether because of remittances from relatives abroad, ties to the ruling class or unauthorized money-making ventures on the side.

For now, his government seems willing to accept those disparities, tolerating the notion of class differences while continuing to cling to a Cuban vision of socialism that includes food subsidies, free education and health care for all, Mr. Castro’s backers in the government say.

Whether that approach will satisfy Cubans, who are quickly becoming more aware of their relative consumer deprivation, is another question. A rice maker alone costs more than three times the average monthly state salary here. Conversations on the street, away from the lines of people buying what is newly available to them, reveal discontent.

Javier, a 25-year-old computer programmer, has made up his mind to leave Cuba for California as soon as he can. “Come on, these changes are only in favor of a very tiny part of the population,” he said, sitting along a coastal wall and staring into the ocean. “We, who get up early in the morning to get the bus, we, who have sacrificed ourselves, we can’t afford all this,” he added. “I’d love to go to a fancy hotel with my girlfriend for a night or two. But, hey, I simply can’t. I couldn’t afford it, even in my dreams.”

Even for those who can, it is a journey into another world that was all but off limits just weeks ago. The other day, a young woman struggled for 20 minutes to get into a Havana hotel room, jamming her key card in the slot haphazardly and shoving the door with all her might. She could be excused, though, since it was her first time using such a contraption. In her case, her foreign boyfriend paid the $175-a-night bill.

“Different classes have always existed but they are more visible now,” explained María Ileana Faguaga, a Havana-based anthropologist who specializes in Cuba’s struggling black population. “Now you just look at who has a cellphone.”

A taxi driver barreling along the seaside Malecón, who like most Cuban workers is paid by the state, pulled out a Nokia from his pocket this week. “This one has a camera and Bluetooth,” he said, boasting that he was one of the first in line when Mr. Castro recently ended the restrictions.

“What do you think of the Sony Ericsson?” the driver asked, explaining that he was thinking of an upgrade at some point. He was full of questions. Is it true Motorola is struggling? Would the iPhone work in Cuba?

Mr. Castro’s model, what the state-run newspaper has called “more perfect socialism,” appears to be a Cuba with a greater correlation between the work one puts in and the resulting reward.

One of Mr. Castro’s most far-reaching moves may be his announcement giving farmers the right to manage unused land for profit. Cuba spent $1.4 billion importing food last year and, as a result of rising food prices, will spend $1.9 billion this year to get 20 percent less food, which officials call an untenable situation.

Scrapping the longstanding practice of dictating planting decisions from Havana, the government will allow more local control, officials say, and hopefully home-grown food.

But what about nonfarmers? Would Mr. Castro be willing to expand on his older brother’s experiment allowing some private restaurants and rooming houses to operate? What about permitting private auto mechanics, hairdressers and tutors, all of whom exist in Cuba but on the sly?

Washington has dismissed the measures as falling far short of the kind of structural changes needed in Cuba. “I see it as somewhat sad that after 49 years of shortages and suffering and repression people are now allowed to buy a rice cooker,” said Carlos Gutierrez, the secretary of commerce, whose family fled Havana in 1960 when he was 6. “Our read is that these are tactical moves designed to buy some time.”

When it comes to truly loosening the political elite’s grip on power, in fact, Mr. Castro has not ceded much ground. He has encouraged Cubans to come forward with their critiques of the way things are functioning, although he insists that the proper way to do so is through Communist Party channels.

When a group of women whose relatives had been jailed held a demonstration outside Mr. Castro’s office recently, a team of stern-faced female officers showed up to haul the so-called ladies in white away.

“When difficulties are greater, more order and discipline will be required,” Mr. Castro told party leaders recently, announcing that he would convene the first party congress in a dozen years in the last half of 2009. “For that, it is vital to strengthen institutions.”

Mr. Castro commuted the death sentences for an undetermined number of prisoners this week, although the move was dismissed as a half measure by activists who want an end to persecutions of people who speak out against the government.

“Things are changing but everything is continuing the same,” said Elizardo Sánchez, an activist whose Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Commission sees little substantive difference between the hard-line governments of the two Castro brothers.

Even if Mr. Castro aims to imitate Chinese-style reforms, there is no guarantee he will succeed. In the early days of China’s move away from strict socialist central planning, Deng Xiaoping dismantled Mao’s cult of personality, allowing a measure of political relaxation that signaled a shift in official attitudes.

“Is it possible for Raúl Castro to move beyond the cult of personality of his brother Fidel, who is in the same league with Mao?” asked Michael Green, a former Bush administration Asia specialist who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Cuba could turn out to be more like North Korea, Mr. Green said, which undertook market-oriented reforms in 2002 that brought little change in the grim conditions there.

There is still plenty of anxiety in Cuba as well. One woman who gave her name only as Iris bought a Nokia phone with the help of her Italian boyfriend but now has no money to buy cards for airtime. When she does, she feels guilty that the money could go to feeding her son. What she wants even more than any consumer item is a well-paying job that would allow her to afford them, she said.

Cuba to hold new Communist Party meeting

2008-04-29T00:22:00.000-07:00

AP

Cuba to hold new Communist Party meeting
Party meeting next year likely to reshape country's aging Politburo
The Associated Press
updated 10:13 p.m. PT, Mon., April. 28, 2008

HAVANA - President Raul Castro announced Monday that Cuba will convene its first Communist Party congress since 1997 — a gathering that could chart the island's political future long after he and his older brother Fidel are gone.

Castro also said the government within weeks will commute death sentences for several inmates. The prisoners are likely to include two Central Americans sentenced for planting bombs, one of which killed an Italian tourist, in Havana tourist locales a decade ago. Capital punishment will remain on the books in Cuba.

The congress — planned for next year — follows a series of minor social changes the younger Castro has decreed during his first two months in power to make life easier and less restrictive for ordinary Cubans.

"We have worked hard in these past few months, and will have to do so even more," Raul Castro said during a Central Committee gathering aired on state television. He said the nation's leadership must prepare for "when the historic generations are no longer around."

Fidel Castro, 81, has not been seen in public since July 2006, when he first fell ill and relinquished interim powers to the 76-year-old Raul. He stepped down as president in February, but officially remains head of the party as its first secretary.

His post could be awarded to someone else at the congress, scheduled for the second half of 2009. An exact date has not been set.

The congress also likely will replace some members of the party's select 24-member Politburo and the larger policy-making Central Committee it heads.

Setting a new path?
Castro, who wore a white tropical dress shirt, said the commutation of the death sentences was a gesture of good will, but he did not say how many prisoners would be affected.

Castro said most cases being studied involved common crimes. But he said the government also was reviewing the death sentences of Ernesto Cruz Leon and Otto Rene Rodriguez Llerena, arrested in 1997 after allegedly planting a series of bombs.

"We have not made this decision under pressure but as a sovereign act as a consequence of the humanitarian and ethical conduct that has always characterized the Cuban revolution," Castro said, adding that Cuban policies have "always been motivated by a sprit of justice but not revenge."

The Communist Party is the only one Cuba legally recognizes, and is virtually indistinguishable from the government, with all of the same major players.

The party congress in 1997 set general policy for five years but made no major changes in Cuba's political course, instead dedicating much of its debate to demanding greater efficiency from state farms and factories as Cuba struggled to spark its moribund economy.

That was a drastic change from the fourth party congress in 1991, when Cuba was still recovering from the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

That meeting helped open the way for modest economic and political reforms, including the direct election of parliament, a rapprochement with churches and creation of small-scale private businesses.

Much of the Communist Party's leadership consists of men and women who were children _ or not yet born — when Castro's revolutionaries toppled a dictator and marched into Havana in January 1959.

Bloggers offer glimpse of uncensored Cuba

2008-04-27T22:22:00.000-07:00

Miami Herald
Posted on Mon, Apr. 28, 2008
Bloggers offer glimpse of uncensored Cuba
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ
Only a month has passed since ordinary Cubans won the right to own computers, and the government still keeps a rigid grip on Internet access.

But that hasn't stopped thousands from finding their way into cyberspace. And a daring few post candid blogs about life in the communist-run country that have garnered international audiences.

Yoani Sanchez writes the "Generacion Y" blog and gets more than a million hits a month, mostly from abroad - though she has begun to strike a chord in Cuba. On her site and others, anonymous Cubans offer stinging criticisms of their government.

But it isn't simple. To post her blog, Sanchez dresses like a tourist and slips into Havana hotels with Web access for foreigners. It costs about $6 an hour and she can't afford to stay long given the price and the possibility someone might catch her connecting without permission.

It's a testament to the ingenuity and black-market prowess Cubans have developed living on salaries averaging $20 a month, with constant restrictions and shortages.

The connections Cuban bloggers are making with the outside world via the Internet are irreversible, said Sanchez, who this month won the Ortega y Gasset Prize for digital journalism, a top Spanish media award.

"With each step we take in that direction, it's harder for the government to push us back," she said.

On an island where many censor themselves to avoid trouble, Sanchez says Generacion Y holds nothing back.

"It's about how I live," she said. "I think that technically, there are no limits. I have talked about things like Fidel Castro, and you know how taboo that can be."

But she added that "there are some ethical limits. I would never call for violence, for instance."

Since taking over from his ailing brother Fidel in February, Raul Castro has lifted bans on Cubans buying consumer electronics, having cell phones and staying in luxury tourist hotels.

While the changes have bolstered the new president's popularity, most simply legalized what was common practice. In a typically frank recent posting, Sanchez noted that many Cubans already had PCs, cell phones and DVD players bought on the black market.

"Legally recognizing what were already facts prospering in the shadows is not the same as allowing or approving something," she wrote. Cuba's leaders are responding to the inevitable, "but they won't soothe our hunger for change."

Authorities have made no sustained effort to stop Sanchez's year-old blog, though pro-government sites accuse her of taking money from opposition groups.

Only foreigners and some government employees and academics are allowed Internet accounts and these are administered by the state.

Ordinary Cubans can join an island-wide network that allows them to send and receive international e-mail. Lines are long at youth clubs, post offices and the few Internet cafes that provide access, but the rest of the Web is blocked - a control far stricter than even China's or Saudi Arabia's.

Still, thousands of Cubans pay about $40 a month for black market dial-up Internet accounts bought through third parties overseas or stolen from foreign providers. Or they use passwords from authorized Cuban government accounts that hackers swipe or buy from corrupt officials.

Sanchez said so many Cubans read her blog that fans stop her on the street.

Generacion Y takes its title from a Cuban passion for names beginning in Y. It offers witty and biting accounts of Cubans' everyday struggles against government restrictions at every turn.

Some of the bloggers hew to the belief that openness is the best answer to official surveillance.

"By signing your name, giving your opinions out loud and not hiding anything, we disarm their efforts to watch us," Sanchez wrote on her blog.

On a blog called "Sin EVAsion" ("Without Evasion"), Eva Hernandez dared to mock "Granma," the official Communist Party newspaper, for taking its name from the American yacht that brought Castro and his rebels back to Cuba from Mexico to launch their armed rebellion in 1956.

"Cuba is the only country in the world whose principal newspaper, the official organ of the Communist Party and the official voice of the government, has the ridiculous name 'granny,'" she wrote. Piling on the heat, she added that the name "perpetuates the memory of that yacht that brought us so much that is bad."

Generacion Y is maintained by a server in Germany, and Sanchez says the Cuban government periodically attempts to block her site within Cuba, though the problem is always cleared up within hours.

Administrators of the "Petrosalvaje" site also claim to struggle with government-imposed limits. A recent post called uncensored Internet access a "virtual raft" - a reference to the rafts on which Cubans flee to the United States.

The government is also into blogging - maintaining dozens of sites dedicated to promoting the island's image overseas.

"Raul needs time," reads a post on Kaosenlared.net, a forum based in Spain. "We are confident, calm and staying united in favor of the direction of our revolution." It is signed Rogelio Sarforat and was apparently posted from Cuba.

Reynaldo Escobar, Sanchez' husband and a former journalist for official media, now uses his own blog to criticize the government. He said Cuba pays supporters to flood the Internet with positive opinions.

He says he knows of nobody who would spend money to go on the Web and defend the system. "Everyone who argues in favor of the government is paid to do so, or does so because they have been asked to," he said.

Cuba could ease rules on travel abroad, property sales

2008-04-21T21:10:00.000-07:00

Miami Herald
Posted on Mon, Apr. 21, 2008

Cuba could ease rules on travel abroad, property sales
BY WILFREDO CANCIO ISLA
Cuban citizens may soon be allowed to travel abroad without official permits. They may also soon be able to freely rent their homes, sell properties with ownership titles and acquire automobiles without special authorizations.

The Cuban government has already instituted such liberal measures as allowing the purchase of computers, cellphones and other electronics; authorizing Cuban nationals to stay at resort hotels -- once exclusively for foreign tourists -- eliminating salary caps; and allowing farmers to keep produce they grow.

Now the Cuban government under Raúl Castro plans to lift restrictions further.

''These are the most complex measures, because they have legal implications and repercussions for the nation, and have generated much debate within the directorate levels,'' a Cuban government official who requested anonimity told El Nuevo Herald.

Besides the migration reform that will loosen requirements for overseas travel, the following reforms are expected to be announced by the Cuban government:

• Freedom to rent homes and rooms, both to foreigners and Cuban citizens and the controlled sale of real estate by registered owners.

• No restrictions on the sale of automobiles; previously prohibited from transferring titles. The government is also considering selling vehicles to the public.

• Elimination of the decree that limits citizens from traveling freely within the island, especially toward Havana.

Also being studied by the Cuban government are the following measures that could be instituted by this year or next:

• Revaluation of the Cuban peso in relation to the convertible peso (CUC) to the tune of 19 Cuban pesos per CUC; with the intention of gradually aligning the values until there is a single monetary currency.

• Flexibility of restrictions for private enterprise and freelancers; allowing citizens to open small businesses.

• Reorganization of government agencies by fusing those that are currently governing similar sectors.

The path to easing restrictions on the rental market was cleared on April 11 when the Cuban National Housing Institute made public a resolution to give ownership of state housing to the occupants or their heirs.

Within weeks, many Cubans will become first-time homeowners as a result of the resolution, multiplying the real estate rentals market in a nation where housing continues to be a problem for much of the population.

''The orientations for these authorizations are already in the hands of the provincial delegations [for housing],'' said a housing official in Havana.

According to information obtained by El Nuevo Herald from housing officials in Cuba, the plan is to initially deregulate the renting of homes and rooms, followed by a second phase of reforms allowing the sale and purchase of real estate properties, which are currently restricted by the 1984 National Housing Law.

A panel of experts is studying the matter of property in Cuba and results are expected to be revealed by 2010.

''There is a consensus for the sale of houses under certain requisites to avoid real estate speculation, illicit sales to foreigners through front men and the uncontrolled escalation of prices,'' said the National Housing Institute official, who asked to remain anonymous.

Measures deregulating the sale and purchase of automobiles, including those that cannot be transferred, may be imminent. The Cuban regime seems not only to have decided on divesting itself of its fleet of used cars, but also willing to explore the market for offering new vehicles in state-run dealerships, costing about $11,000.

The 1997 decree restricting travel within the island as a means to deter rural migration to Havana may soon be repealed, according to officials. Of all the short-term reforms, migration continues to be the central topic of debate.

Changing Cuba: Monster buses vanish from Havana streets

2008-04-19T11:39:00.000-07:00

AP

Changing Cuba: Monster buses vanish from Havana streets

By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer 44 minutes ago

First comes the stink of diesel, then a metallic roar, and finally a tower of black smoke that tells you the "camello" — the camel — has reached your stop.

These hulking 18-wheeled beasts, iron mutants made of two Soviet-era buses welded together on a flatbed and pulled by a separate cab, have long been Havana's public transport nightmare — bumpy, hot and jammed with up to 400 passengers at a time.

But their gradual disappearance is a telling sign of change in the twilight of the Fidel Castro age. The last "camello" is expected to go out of service in Havana on Sunday night.

The camello, so named for its humped front and rear sections, is being eclipsed by thousands of new city buses from China as the government under Castro's brother, Raul, resuscitates a public transportation system on the brink of collapse.

Route M-6, running from the capital's southern outskirts uptown to the University of Havana, is the city's last remaining camello route, and municipal authorities say they have been told to pull all camellos off it this weekend.

"I think we should build a monument to the camello," said retiree Salvador Carrera, a camello passenger. "It has been an extraordinary thing."

The capital aside, camellos are far from extinct. The government has an island-wide fleet of more than 1,000, and those from Havana could be used to augment bus service elsewhere, transportation employees say.

Like those ubiquitous Detroit cars that predate the U.S. embargo, the camello is a definer of Cuba on wheels, but without the fun of a San Francisco cable car ride or the clean efficiency of the Washington, D.C. Metro.

What it lacks in glamor, it makes up for in sheer mass that dwarfs its Chinese successors.

"We can carry up to 400 people. The bus cannot," lamented conductor Estela Doira. "I'm happy, also sad, because the camello handles a lot more than the bus."

At the start of a camello run one morning last week, it took just over five minutes for 75 passengers to swarm up the steep steps and through the narrow doors at the rear. Doira hung out of a window to make sure no one got stuck. The doors, thin metal with sharp edges, shut with a metallic crack that sounded sharp enough to sever limbs.

The fortunate got one of the 58 plastic seats, while the rest had to stand. Each alighting passenger paid Doira 20 centavos, less than an American penny.

Camellos have no shock absorbers, and every pothole sends a violent jolt through one's feet. At each stop more passengers crowd in — people carrying infants, backpacks, gardening tools and beer bottles stuffed with black market honey. Baby-faced soldiers squeeze in beside college students in hot-pink sunglasses and elderly men looking thin enough to be crushed in the crowd.

It's hard to work one's way on or off, and the driver in his cab can't hear people screaming, "The door! Open the door!"

"Move it, companeros! Move to the front!" they yell.

With no air conditioning, the tropical heat quickly becomes unbearable, and the stench sets in — fresh sweat and body odor, mixed with exhaust and rotting food. Those seated stick their heads out of the windows.

"Only in Cuba. In other countries people wouldn't put up with so much," whispered retiree Mari Gonzalez, who was fortunate enough to snag a seat.

Cubans joke that camellos are racier than a Saturday night at the movies — full of sex and crime, pickpockets and gropers. Overheard conversations between passengers feed the onboard rumor mill: Fidel Castro is dead. No, wait, he's healthy again; he spent last weekend at the beach. The peso will strengthen against the dollar. Or maybe will be replaced with a new currency.

The camello was born in response to fuel shortages in the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union collapsed and Cuba lost its annual $6 billion in subsidies. The economy has since recovered thanks to heavy borrowing from China and nearly 100,000 barrels of oil a day from Venezuela.

Cuba is spending $2 billion to upgrade public transportation and has imported 3,000 modern buses just for the capital. The Yutongs are less sturdy than the camellos and crews are repaving streets to spare them wear and tear.

Fares are double the camello's but offer far more seats and a dramatically smoother ride. Riders can climb on and off easily, ensuring faster trips.

Carmen Lopez, waiting for a Chinese bus to whisk her to her janitor's job, said she's glad to be rid of the camellos but doesn't believe she's seen the last of them.

"When the new buses break down," she said, "they will bring the camellos back again."

Fidel: I don't like recent reforms

2008-04-18T14:42:00.000-07:00

Miami Herald
[links to Cuban papers in original article]

Posted on Thu, Apr. 17, 2008
Fidel: I don't like recent reforms
By RENATO PEREZ
Not even two months into his brother Raúl Castro's reign in Cuba, Fidel Castro has openly expressed displeasure with supporters of economic and societal reforms. Fidel Castro formally gave up power Feb. 24 after more than a year and a half in his sick bed, but continues to write newspaper editorials. His latest missive is a direct attack on a column published in one of Cuba's state run newspapers, which suggested that the lastest series of reforms launched by Raúl Castro are a step toward progress.

Although Castro has written slight barbs at his brother's policies before, it was the first reference to a recent string of reforms recently enacted that reversed years of Castro regulations.

In a column published Wednesday in Granma, the Communist Party daily, the former Cuban leader chided those who seek changes to avoid a repetition of the ''special period'' of retrenchment in Cuba that followed the demise of the socialist bloc.

In the article, titled ''Do not make concessions to enemy ideology,'' Castro wrote that ``People must be very careful with everything they say, so as not to play the game of enemy ideology. They cannot blame the Special Period for the system that imperialism has imposed upon the world. [...] The Special Period was the inevitable consequence of the disappearance of the USSR, which lost the ideological battle and led us to a stage of heroic resistance from which we still have not wholly emerged.''

Cuba's ''special period'' was the term given to the period of widespread shortages that came after the fall of the Soviet Union. Reforms like allowing the U.S. dollar and some private business also followed to help address the economic crisis.

Since Raúl Castro took over Feb. 24, he has launched a series of new minor but symbolically important reforms such as allowing Cubans to stay in hotels, buy cellular phones and computers.

Last week, the government announced it would allow longtime tenants of government housing to obtain property titles and pass them on to heirs.

In what may have been veiled advice to reformers, Castro wrote: ``Meditate hard on what you say, what you affirm, so you don't make shameful concessions.''

The article, Castro said, was written ``after listening to a public comment disseminated by one of the Revolution's mass media, which I shall not mention specifically.''

He appears to be taking a direct jab at an article published Friday in the Havana daily Rebel Youth, written by senior columnist Luis Sexto.

Titled Going in reverse is not going forward, it refers to the concessions -- the adjustments -- Cuba had to make after it lost the economic backing of the Soviet Union.

Concessions are not necessarily bad, Sexto implied. The word should be redefined.

''For example, if the experience accumulated in our deteriorating circumstances indicates that big agricultural companies are not recommended and that [...] family or individual labor be cooperatized or encouraged, why should we insist on that which does not prosper or that which needs an excess of resources for completion?'' Sexto wrote.

'Is a 'concession' a step backward?'' he wrote. ``...Of course, the man who is accustomed to issue dictates from his office or from his Jeep -- what to sow, how to harvest -- may be distressed to see producers gaining autonomy, gaining the ability to make their own decisions.''

A ''step backward,'' he said, is often ''promotes movement'' and can be considered progress.

Miami Herald correspondent Frances Robles contributed to this report.

Raul's Cuba tweaks housing, wage rules

2008-04-14T23:27:00.000-07:00

Miami Herald
Posted on Sat, Apr. 12, 2008
Raul's Cuba tweaks housing, wage rules
By WILL WEISSERT
Thousands of Cubans will be able to get title to state-owned homes under regulations published Friday - a step that might lay the groundwork for broader housing reform.

The measure was the first legal decree formally published since Raul Castro succeeded his brother Fidel as president in February. It comes a day after state television said the government also will do away with wage limits, allowing state employees to earn as much they can as an incentive to productivity.

Together, housing and wage restrictions have been among the things that bother Cubans the most about their socialist system.

The housing decree spells out rules to let Cubans renting from their state employers keep their apartment or house after leaving their posts. They could gain title and even pass it on to their children or relatives.

Thousands of Cubans could take advantage of this move, including military families, sugar workers, construction workers, teachers and doctors.

Holding onto state housing originally designated for specific workers has been a widespread but usually informal fact of Cuban life. A 1987 law had foreseen transferring such housing to occupants, but this new measure should clarify their legal status.

"This is like no man's land that they are legalizing," said Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a state-trained economist who became a critic of the government. "It gets rid of that insecurity many people had and alleviates bureaucratic pressure."

By law, Cubans still cannot sell their homes to anyone but the government, though they can swap housing with government approval - a process that can take years to complete.

Two officials at Cuba's National Housing Institute said Friday's law was likely the first in a series of housing reforms. Both asked not to be named, however, because they were not authorized to speak to foreign media. They said "thousands and thousands" of Cubans would be affected, but did not give exact figures.

Espinosa Chepe, who was jailed for his political views during a 2004 crackdown but subsequently released on medical parole, said that "giving people deeds could give them more freedom to sell their homes and maybe rent them as long as they pay taxes."

Home to 11.2 million people, Cuba suffers from a severe housing shortage. Officials say they need half a million additional homes. Critics claim the need is twice that.

The housing law was published a day after a commentator on state television said the government also will do away with wage limits, allowing state employees to earn as much they can as an incentive to be more productive. Economic commentator Ariel Terrero said a resolution approved in February but not yet published will remove the salary caps designed to promote social and economic equality.

"For the first time, it is clearly and precisely stated that a salary does not have a limit, that the roof of a salary depends on productivity," Terrero said.

Interviewed Friday night at the closing ceremonies of a forum opposing free-trade agreements, Raymundo Navarro, national secretary of Cuba's central workers union, called doing away with salary limits a "step the Cuban government has taken to conform to the conditions of today" and an "acknowledgment that one is not paid collectively, but paid for what one produces."

"Salaries in Cuba for workers have deteriorated a lot," he told The Associated Press. "This resolution tries to reorganize salaries to stimulate workers based on the principle of socialism, each according to his contribution to production."

The government controls more than 90 percent of the economy, and while most Cubans get free education, health care and heavily subsidized food rations, the average salary is just US$19.50 (euro12) a month.

An end to wage caps could one day lead to a true middle class, since it would potentially allow Cubans to openly accumulate wealth. But it defies the notion of an egalitarian society that Cuba has worked for decades to construct.

Since becoming Cuba's first new president in 49 years, Raul Castro has done away with bans that prohibited Cubans from owning cell phones in their own names, staying in tourist hotels and buying DVD players, computers and coveted kitchen appliances.

He also has acknowledged that state salaries are too small to live on, and pledged steady improvements.