more anecdotes:
Miami New Times
Press Time
With Fidel on his death bed, journalist Carlos Otero is more critical than ever
By Our Woman in Havana
Published: January 11, 2007
Carlos Rios Otero is trying to write a note, but his black pen has run out of ink. He shakes it furiously, tries to scribble on a piece of thin white paper, and then tosses it on the table.
He shoots the pen a nasty glare, grabs it again, and flings it high into the air.
Carlos is frustrated. The pen is just one more thing that doesn't work in Cuba.
He is trying to change that, one word at a time. He is the rarest of rare on the island — an independent journalist.
But this writer doesn't work for a state-run communist-mouthpiece rag like Granma or Juventud Rebelde. His articles are penned sometimes by candlelight, always in longhand, on the unused side of printed sheets of paper. When he's finished, Carlos whispers his words across crackling phone lines to Miami, where Cuban exiles make sense of them and put them into magazines read by other exiles around the world. Sometimes he appears on Spanish-language radio stations like Radio Mambí (710-AM).
He hopes he doesn't get caught. "It's a brutal way to live," Carlos says matter-of-factly.
We're sitting around a table in the back yard of Carlos's house, a 100-year-old Mediterranean-revival with an iron gate, peeling paint, and pink roses growing in the courtyard. The dry pen is lodged in an overgrown bush. The table is covered with a threadbare red cloth that is pockmarked with holes.
Carlos's wife, Irene — shy and tired-looking — brings us coffee in delicate floral-patterned demitasse cups. She offers a glance that apologizes for not offering more.
It's a critical time for Carlos and all independent journalists in Cuba. As Fidel Castro's illness becomes more mysterious by the week — it's cancer, it's not cancer, he's got a colostomy bag, he's dead and cryonically frozen — Cuban exiles crave news from the island more than ever before.
Years ago Carlos and Irene were young professionals with a baby girl. They could graciously entertain guests — she was a teacher, he was a specialist in agriculture economics who once worked for the government. Carlos's father was a revolutionary, and Carlos himself fought in Angola.
He was rewarded with a post in the Ministry of Sugar — an important government office because sugar was, and remains, one of Cuba's few commodities. But in 1983, he criticized the regime, saying the communist model didn't work. At first, Castro overlooked Carlos's comments because of his family's revolutionary ties. But then the young man made similar remarks in 1986 and again in 1990. He had waded into the dangerous waters of activism in Cuba — he started and joined several groups calling for change.
The government began to pay attention. He was removed from his job and ostracized by the Cuban bureaucracy. The fallout extended to his wife's job and their daughter, now age 21, who has not been able to enroll in college because of her parents' activism — even though she's a top student.
If Hollywood were to film a movie about Carlos's life, he would be played by Lou Reed. When he dons his sunglasses, Carlos is a dead ringer for the singer (circa 1985 Honda scooter ads); he's cool and calm, and more than a bit paranoid about the world around him.
Carlos began his underground reporting sometime in the 1990s; all media in Cuba is state-run and has been for 48 years, so his dispatches are all on the down-low. He is published regularly on www.nuevaprensa.org, an exile-run Website in Miami. When his phone line isn't too fuzzy with interference, he calls dispatches into Miami radio stations and, on occasion, Radio Martí. This past year he was quoted in a report about the sorry state of Cuban journalism published by the international group Reporters Without Borders.
He achieved rock-star notoriety in Cuba and around the world this past December 10, when he and a dozen other dissidents marched in a Havana park to commemorate International Human Rights Day. A mob attacked the demonstrators, and a Spanish news agency photographed Carlos being restrained by a half-dozen government-supported thugs.
During our visit, Carlos shows me a photocopy of the picture and then pulls out a few dog-eared magazines. They contain his writing, but many of his articles are mere briefs about how conditions are deteriorating on the island. Longer stories just aren't easy to report or write. It's a bit sad and surprising to see that a man is risking his life for this.
"It's hard to have sources in Cuba," admits Nancy Perez Crespo, manager of Nueva Prensa Cubana in Miami. "And sometimes they don't even have paper to write on."
Like many of Cuba's journalists, Carlos doesn't usually see his own work, especially if it runs on a Website. He can't afford to use the Internet (it costs about six dollars per hour, about half of the average Cuban's monthly salary). Besides, the Internet is so tightly controlled on the island it's unlikely that Carlos would be able to get near a computer without harassment.
"He's risking his life every time he gives us information," says Perez Crespo.
Yet he writes. He writes about political prisoners who are slowly dying inside Cuba's jails; he writes about the failed distribution of rice cookers to citizens; he writes about the country's dengue fever crisis. He shows me a piece he is working on; this one is about Castro's health.
"His life is in limbo," Carlos says. Then he laughs, as it hits him. "Castro is in limbo, just like the Cuban people."
Carlos's house, located in Santo Suarez, a quiet and once gorgeous Havana suburb, is alternately grand and decrepit. It's filled with books, empty plastic jugs, and some withered root vegetables. At least one room is devoid of any furniture.
Carlos never knows when things will worsen in Cuba, and his stockpiles just might allow him to survive the next rough patch. Indeed this winter he couldn't afford meat for a traditional New Year's Eve meal, and he fretted about his phone bill. (Those dispatches abroad are costly; calls to the United States, for example, are about $2.80 per minute).
He's trying to amass a reference library for budding journalists and anyone interested in human rights. So far it fills three meager shelves.
After talking for a few hours, we decide to visit another independent journalist, Jaime Leygonier, who lives down the street. Carlos's neighborhood is something of a hotbed of dissident activity, with activist and doctor Darsi Ferrer also living nearby. Before we walk out the door, Carlos looks around outside. He wants to know if anyone is watching.
He continues to peer from side to side as we walk down the street together. When we arrive at Jaime's house — another once-great abode with tired furniture — the new host sums it up in a few words: "We're half-crazy with paranoia here."
Jaime used to be a teacher. That career disappeared when he was arrested for writing about Cuba for foreign publications. His relationship with his daughter was also affected by his anti-government stance; when he and his wife split up, they waged a nasty custody battle that was later published in international human rights journals.
"Due to Leygonier's dissident views, his daughter's elementary school has taken a position in the mother's favor and has refused to acknowledge his parental authority, denying him access to the school premises and the opportunity to speak with his daughter," wrote the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) in 2004.
These days Jaime also writes for publications around the world and receives a few dollars in return.
Jaime and Carlos are among the lucky independent reporters in Havana. They have phones, which means they can call their dispatches to people "outside."
Around the time I met with Carlos just before Christmas, acting Cuban President Raul Castro appeared on state-run television at an event at the University of Havana. He told students they should debate "fearlessly." Raul didn't say anything about freeing the journalists who "fearlessly" tried to report; indeed there are no indications he will encourage a free press.
Just days before my trip, the Cuban government issued new rules for foreign journalists — including an edict that said a reporting visa could be revoked "when [the reporter] carries out improper actions or actions not within his profile and work content; also when he is considered to have violated journalistic ethics and/or he is not guided by objectivity in his reports.''
The situation, of course, is worse for independent reporters in Cuba. The island jails more journalists than any other nation except China. There are 27 journalists currently imprisoned on the island, according to the IAPA. This past December, Raymundo Perdigón Brito was sentenced to four years in prison, convicted of "conduct that is in manifest contravention of the standards of socialist morality." Also that month, 21-year-old Ahmed Rodríguez Albacia was arrested at home in Havana, and according to the IAPA, police confiscated a mini tape recorder, a computer, a fax machine, two radios, a flashlight, cassette tapes, pencils, sheets of paper, CDs, books, and magazines during a raid on the man's house.
Maybe the fact that Carlos doesn't have notebooks, a computer, or a working pen is a good thing.
New Times is not disclosing the name of Our Woman in Havana because she traveled to Cuba without the proper visa required to report there.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Waiting for Him to Go
These kind of hit-and-run stories are good for tidbits, but not depth:
Miami New Times
Waiting for Him to Go
Castro’s Cuba brims with hushed anticipation, and paranoia
By Our Woman in Havana
Published: January 4, 2007
It's not often that I get to stand on a street corner in Old Havana and talk to an 81-year-old man (who is selling Granma, the state-run newspaper, no less) about Fidel Castro's asshole.
"What do you think happened to him?" I ask.
"Well, it's not his rectum," my new friend, Rene, says. He pauses. He nods. I nod. The word rectum hangs in the air.
"Maybe it's his intestine. But if he got only a bit of his intestine taken out" — Rene holds up his thumb and forefinger two inches apart — "then he wouldn't be laid up this long. No, I think he got a lot of his intestine taken out." Rene holds his hands about a foot apart.
A beret-clad policeman stands on the corner, a few feet away. I wonder if Rene will get in trouble for talking about Fidel's bowels in public. Rene moves closer to me. "Things have to change here," he whispers.
Forget about baseball. The new national sport in Cuba is speculation — about Fidel's health, about Raul's capabilities as president, about Cuba's future.
Ralph Amat, a pissed-off American who has finally gotten his Cuban wife out of the country after seven years of paperwork, sums it up nicely: "Everybody is just waiting for that bastard to die."
The difference between Cuba five years ago — when I last visited — and Cuba now couldn't have been more stark.
Everywhere everyone spewed about how this was the worst holiday season ever (no pork cutlets for Nochebuena, don't even think about an entire pig), worse than the Special Period after the collapse of the Soviet Union, worse than anything anyone had ever seen. People openly panhandled in the streets — something unseen five years ago. Buildings everywhere are peeling, crumbling, disintegrating into the streets. Internet, cell phones — hell, even phones — are nonexistent for regular Cubans. Even acting president Raul Castro went on national TV while I was there to carp about how bad the transportation and food situations were. "In this revolution, we are tired of excuses," he grumbled.
On the street, all it took was a "How's Havana?" or a simple "How are you?" to launch a bitter rant.
"Transportation? Horrible," Rene said. "Food? Terrible."
A taxi driver told me he doesn't make enough money in one month to buy a new pair of pants. "Look at these," he said, disgusted, rubbing his finger on his thigh. His khaki pants were nubby and frayed.
Paranoia, never in short supply in Cuba, has ratcheted up to uncharted levels. No one, of course, wanted to give me — a white woman from Miami — his or her last name for this article; some didn't want to give their names at all. Especially in public.
"We can't talk here," said Daniel, a 39-year-old parking attendant I met in the shadow of the capitol building. "You can get five years in prison for talking bad about Fidel."
The busy, bright street suddenly filled with creepiness. We retreated to a dark bar. Like many people I spoke with, Daniel is worried about the future. On one hand, he said, there is hope: Raul recently said he would like to begin a dialogue with the United States. The recent visit from U.S. congressmen — six Democrats, four Republicans, headed by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass.) — was seen as another positive step.
On the other hand, Raul, who heads the military, is perceived by many as more of a hard-ass than Fidel, people said.
"All Raul wants is war," Daniel said. "And Cubans don't want war."
Whatever happens, Daniel hopes to someday have a girlfriend. It's nearly impossible now because most Cuban women want to date and marry foreigners. And even if he meets a woman, he can't take her back home to spend the night.
"I sleep in the same room as my mom," he said, embarrassed.
The general consensus is that Fidel is history. Everyone acknowledges he is sick, ill beyond the point of returning to power.
So people wait. They wait, as they have done for years, for buses and for bread, for medicine and for visas. This time, they hope, the wait will be worth it.
"I want to see what's next for Cuba," said Pedro, a genial taxi driver who chatted about how he watched America TeVe (Channel 41) out of Miami the night the government announced Fidel was sick.
Pedro's view of Cuba was the most optimistic. He has a vision for a more socialist democracy, along the lines of Spain's. He's trying to position himself to take advantage of the changes: He plans to rent out a room in his house, he's experienced at hooking up pirated DirectTV, and he's working on his Italian, just in case. (He speaks four languages already.)
The gloomiest vision of Cuba came from Nelida, a weary fortuneteller in the moribund town of Regla, just outside Havana.
"What's in Cuba's future?" I asked as she shuffled the cards. Behind her a black Santería doll in a wildly colored dress stood on a faded table. It was stifling-hot inside Nelida's tiny apartment, and she looked at me seriously as she tapped a card.
"Suffering," she said. "Sadness and suffering and change."
I left her with ten dollars and a promise to someday return, hoping that when I do, her predictions won't have come true.
Yet the tourists — mostly German, French, and Spanish — still go. There are fewer Americans these days, but they are there, hiding behind their dog-eared Lonely Planet guides and mojitos. Some have a passing curiosity about Fidel, but many are happy to see Cuba in all its communist Disneyland glory.
"I want to see it before it changes," was the common refrain.
The tourists all gaze at the few restored buildings and well-kept plazas, sighing romantically. Men gawk at the prostitutes — who are still there, just a little more low-key after several crackdowns — and the women still blush when Cuban men with seductive eyes ask them to dance.
They shake their hips stiffly to the salsa band belting out a cover of Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are," not knowing the band has been placed in that bar by the government, paid by the government, controlled by the government.
Some tourists seem to be baffled as to why certain things aren't available upon request like in other Caribbean getaways — pineapples, newspapers, three-quarters of a menu at some restaurants — but they shrug and move on.
They do buy cigars and rum by the bagful, and when unleashed on the Havana airport for their departure, they swoon at the last few things for sale on Cuban soil.
"Hey," called one excited American tourist to her friends before an early-morning flight to Cancun. "They have a Che Swatch watch over there!"
It took everything I had not to walk over and slap her. I thought of Rene, the newspaper vendor, who had worked for Che Guevara in the government during the early Sixties. He turned down a good job in New York in those heady days after the revolution, telling the employer he wanted to stay on the island because "there are good things in Cuba's future."
Even though his country is in shambles, Rene remembers Che with fondness. "I'm not a Fidel-ista," he said. "I'm a Che-ista."
Tourists shuffled by, taking no interest in Rene's newspapers. The police officer in the beret moved on. An exhausted-looking Cuban man hauled some two-by-fours past us in a wheelbarrow. I grew sad as we talked; Rene seemed to embody all the surreal contradictions and nonsensical paradoxes of his homeland.
Now, at age 81, Rene survives on a meager pension, tourist tips gleaned from working four hours a day, and some family cash from Miami.
Viva la revolución.
Next week: Dissident journalists in Cuba do their jobs without notebooks, pens, or food.
New Times is not disclosing the name of Our Woman in Havana because she traveled to Cuba without the proper visa required to report there.
Miami New Times
Waiting for Him to Go
Castro’s Cuba brims with hushed anticipation, and paranoia
By Our Woman in Havana
Published: January 4, 2007
It's not often that I get to stand on a street corner in Old Havana and talk to an 81-year-old man (who is selling Granma, the state-run newspaper, no less) about Fidel Castro's asshole.
"What do you think happened to him?" I ask.
"Well, it's not his rectum," my new friend, Rene, says. He pauses. He nods. I nod. The word rectum hangs in the air.
"Maybe it's his intestine. But if he got only a bit of his intestine taken out" — Rene holds up his thumb and forefinger two inches apart — "then he wouldn't be laid up this long. No, I think he got a lot of his intestine taken out." Rene holds his hands about a foot apart.
A beret-clad policeman stands on the corner, a few feet away. I wonder if Rene will get in trouble for talking about Fidel's bowels in public. Rene moves closer to me. "Things have to change here," he whispers.
Forget about baseball. The new national sport in Cuba is speculation — about Fidel's health, about Raul's capabilities as president, about Cuba's future.
Ralph Amat, a pissed-off American who has finally gotten his Cuban wife out of the country after seven years of paperwork, sums it up nicely: "Everybody is just waiting for that bastard to die."
The difference between Cuba five years ago — when I last visited — and Cuba now couldn't have been more stark.
Everywhere everyone spewed about how this was the worst holiday season ever (no pork cutlets for Nochebuena, don't even think about an entire pig), worse than the Special Period after the collapse of the Soviet Union, worse than anything anyone had ever seen. People openly panhandled in the streets — something unseen five years ago. Buildings everywhere are peeling, crumbling, disintegrating into the streets. Internet, cell phones — hell, even phones — are nonexistent for regular Cubans. Even acting president Raul Castro went on national TV while I was there to carp about how bad the transportation and food situations were. "In this revolution, we are tired of excuses," he grumbled.
On the street, all it took was a "How's Havana?" or a simple "How are you?" to launch a bitter rant.
"Transportation? Horrible," Rene said. "Food? Terrible."
A taxi driver told me he doesn't make enough money in one month to buy a new pair of pants. "Look at these," he said, disgusted, rubbing his finger on his thigh. His khaki pants were nubby and frayed.
Paranoia, never in short supply in Cuba, has ratcheted up to uncharted levels. No one, of course, wanted to give me — a white woman from Miami — his or her last name for this article; some didn't want to give their names at all. Especially in public.
"We can't talk here," said Daniel, a 39-year-old parking attendant I met in the shadow of the capitol building. "You can get five years in prison for talking bad about Fidel."
The busy, bright street suddenly filled with creepiness. We retreated to a dark bar. Like many people I spoke with, Daniel is worried about the future. On one hand, he said, there is hope: Raul recently said he would like to begin a dialogue with the United States. The recent visit from U.S. congressmen — six Democrats, four Republicans, headed by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass.) — was seen as another positive step.
On the other hand, Raul, who heads the military, is perceived by many as more of a hard-ass than Fidel, people said.
"All Raul wants is war," Daniel said. "And Cubans don't want war."
Whatever happens, Daniel hopes to someday have a girlfriend. It's nearly impossible now because most Cuban women want to date and marry foreigners. And even if he meets a woman, he can't take her back home to spend the night.
"I sleep in the same room as my mom," he said, embarrassed.
The general consensus is that Fidel is history. Everyone acknowledges he is sick, ill beyond the point of returning to power.
So people wait. They wait, as they have done for years, for buses and for bread, for medicine and for visas. This time, they hope, the wait will be worth it.
"I want to see what's next for Cuba," said Pedro, a genial taxi driver who chatted about how he watched America TeVe (Channel 41) out of Miami the night the government announced Fidel was sick.
Pedro's view of Cuba was the most optimistic. He has a vision for a more socialist democracy, along the lines of Spain's. He's trying to position himself to take advantage of the changes: He plans to rent out a room in his house, he's experienced at hooking up pirated DirectTV, and he's working on his Italian, just in case. (He speaks four languages already.)
The gloomiest vision of Cuba came from Nelida, a weary fortuneteller in the moribund town of Regla, just outside Havana.
"What's in Cuba's future?" I asked as she shuffled the cards. Behind her a black Santería doll in a wildly colored dress stood on a faded table. It was stifling-hot inside Nelida's tiny apartment, and she looked at me seriously as she tapped a card.
"Suffering," she said. "Sadness and suffering and change."
I left her with ten dollars and a promise to someday return, hoping that when I do, her predictions won't have come true.
Yet the tourists — mostly German, French, and Spanish — still go. There are fewer Americans these days, but they are there, hiding behind their dog-eared Lonely Planet guides and mojitos. Some have a passing curiosity about Fidel, but many are happy to see Cuba in all its communist Disneyland glory.
"I want to see it before it changes," was the common refrain.
The tourists all gaze at the few restored buildings and well-kept plazas, sighing romantically. Men gawk at the prostitutes — who are still there, just a little more low-key after several crackdowns — and the women still blush when Cuban men with seductive eyes ask them to dance.
They shake their hips stiffly to the salsa band belting out a cover of Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are," not knowing the band has been placed in that bar by the government, paid by the government, controlled by the government.
Some tourists seem to be baffled as to why certain things aren't available upon request like in other Caribbean getaways — pineapples, newspapers, three-quarters of a menu at some restaurants — but they shrug and move on.
They do buy cigars and rum by the bagful, and when unleashed on the Havana airport for their departure, they swoon at the last few things for sale on Cuban soil.
"Hey," called one excited American tourist to her friends before an early-morning flight to Cancun. "They have a Che Swatch watch over there!"
It took everything I had not to walk over and slap her. I thought of Rene, the newspaper vendor, who had worked for Che Guevara in the government during the early Sixties. He turned down a good job in New York in those heady days after the revolution, telling the employer he wanted to stay on the island because "there are good things in Cuba's future."
Even though his country is in shambles, Rene remembers Che with fondness. "I'm not a Fidel-ista," he said. "I'm a Che-ista."
Tourists shuffled by, taking no interest in Rene's newspapers. The police officer in the beret moved on. An exhausted-looking Cuban man hauled some two-by-fours past us in a wheelbarrow. I grew sad as we talked; Rene seemed to embody all the surreal contradictions and nonsensical paradoxes of his homeland.
Now, at age 81, Rene survives on a meager pension, tourist tips gleaned from working four hours a day, and some family cash from Miami.
Viva la revolución.
Next week: Dissident journalists in Cuba do their jobs without notebooks, pens, or food.
New Times is not disclosing the name of Our Woman in Havana because she traveled to Cuba without the proper visa required to report there.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Cuba's tourist economy in trouble
Miami Herald online
Posted on Tue, Apr. 03, 2007
Cuba's tourist economy in trouble
BY WILFREDO CANCIO ISLA
Cuba's tourism industry, the island's main economic engine for the past 15 years, is in a steep fall amid a mix of factors that range from rising air ticket prices to changes in tour ownerships and crumbling tourist facilities.
The first alarm rang late last year, when Ministry of Tourism (MinTur) figures showed 2.2 million people had visited the island in 2006, down from 2.3 million in 2005.
The decline has accelerated so far this year. January and February indicators show a combined drop of 7 percent compared to the same months in 2006, according to the most recent MinTur figures, with February visitation falling 13 percent.
Spanish tourists, historically the island's third-largest group, dropped by 45 percent over both months.
Cuba's tourism industry has been generating more than $2 billion per year in recent years, and provides direct and indirect employment to about 300,000 people.
Cuban authorities explaining the drop have cited a rise in air fares, due to the cost of fuel, currency exchange rate shifts and the scares of the notoriously violent 2005 hurricane season. Also mentioned are the Bush administration tightening of restrictions on Cuban-American trips to the island, which according to Cuban news media reports dropped from 100,000 in 2004 to about 30,000 a year since.
On the plunge in Spanish tourism, MinTur officials focused blame on the suspension of three weekly flights by the Iberojet charter airline and the sale of the cruise line Pullmantur to Miami-based Royal Caribbean Cruises. A Pullmantur ship used to sail every week from Havana after picking up tourists who had flown in from Madrid, but the company was forced to end its Cuba stops under the new owners because of the U.S. trade embargo.
LEFT UNSAID
But internal MinTur documents obtained by El Nuevo Herald, independent experts and tourism-sector workers on the island show there are other serious problems not mentioned by MinTur.
Most of Cuba's tourism facilities were built in the 1990s and have received little maintenance since then, said a MinTur official who asked for anonymity out of fear of government punishment.
''The structure created for years in the tourism industry is crumbling piecemeal,'' the employee said. ``Tourism in Cuba is headed for chaos and it will take years to revert the present situation.''
The MinTur documents also point to the inability of the Tourism Construction Enterprise (Emprestur) to repair hotels because of the lack of materials.
The employee said there's also widespread dissatisfaction with the way Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz and leading managers are running things. Marrero, former president of the Gaviota Group, run by the Cuban armed forces, and a trusted aide to Cuban interim leader and Defense Minister Raúl Castro, was appointed to the post in early 2004 after the removal of Ibrahim Ferradaz amid reports of a corruption scandal.
''What's happening in tourism is a reflection of a behavior that has spread nationwide,'' said dissident economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe on the phone from Havana. ``People are disgusted with the economic situation at home, workers don't take pride in their work and inertia corrupts the entire organization.''
PRICEY PESO
Also affecting tourism was the Cuban government's decision in late 2004 to effectively increase the value of its currency by 20 percent, making foreigners' hotel stays and meals in Cuba that more expensive.
``It was logical that a devalued dollar would cause a drop in tourism from Latin America and Canada, because the visitors from those countries buy very cheap packages, said Carmelo Mesa Lago, professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh and a long-time Cuban economy watcher.
With 44,000 hotel rooms, Cuba had an occupancy rate of 63.5 percent in 2004 and only 55.7 percent in 2005, according to the United Nation's Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. The average daily expenditure per visitor dropped from $175 in 2003 to $97 in 2005.
MinTur has not released occupancy statistics for 2006, but the MinTur official estimated it at 50 percent.
Trying to reverse the trend, MinTur announced a strategic plan for 2007 that involves support for investments, construction of new facilities and repairs of existing hotels. The plan also envisions improved highways and road signs, and guarantees of electricity and water for the tourism industry.
Marrero has announced a ''total change in the philosophy of promotion and advertising for the island,'' and in January unveiled a campaign named ''Viva Cuba,'' designed to present a new image of the country, at the International Tourism Fair in Madrid.
Posted on Tue, Apr. 03, 2007
Cuba's tourist economy in trouble
BY WILFREDO CANCIO ISLA
Cuba's tourism industry, the island's main economic engine for the past 15 years, is in a steep fall amid a mix of factors that range from rising air ticket prices to changes in tour ownerships and crumbling tourist facilities.
The first alarm rang late last year, when Ministry of Tourism (MinTur) figures showed 2.2 million people had visited the island in 2006, down from 2.3 million in 2005.
The decline has accelerated so far this year. January and February indicators show a combined drop of 7 percent compared to the same months in 2006, according to the most recent MinTur figures, with February visitation falling 13 percent.
Spanish tourists, historically the island's third-largest group, dropped by 45 percent over both months.
Cuba's tourism industry has been generating more than $2 billion per year in recent years, and provides direct and indirect employment to about 300,000 people.
Cuban authorities explaining the drop have cited a rise in air fares, due to the cost of fuel, currency exchange rate shifts and the scares of the notoriously violent 2005 hurricane season. Also mentioned are the Bush administration tightening of restrictions on Cuban-American trips to the island, which according to Cuban news media reports dropped from 100,000 in 2004 to about 30,000 a year since.
On the plunge in Spanish tourism, MinTur officials focused blame on the suspension of three weekly flights by the Iberojet charter airline and the sale of the cruise line Pullmantur to Miami-based Royal Caribbean Cruises. A Pullmantur ship used to sail every week from Havana after picking up tourists who had flown in from Madrid, but the company was forced to end its Cuba stops under the new owners because of the U.S. trade embargo.
LEFT UNSAID
But internal MinTur documents obtained by El Nuevo Herald, independent experts and tourism-sector workers on the island show there are other serious problems not mentioned by MinTur.
Most of Cuba's tourism facilities were built in the 1990s and have received little maintenance since then, said a MinTur official who asked for anonymity out of fear of government punishment.
''The structure created for years in the tourism industry is crumbling piecemeal,'' the employee said. ``Tourism in Cuba is headed for chaos and it will take years to revert the present situation.''
The MinTur documents also point to the inability of the Tourism Construction Enterprise (Emprestur) to repair hotels because of the lack of materials.
The employee said there's also widespread dissatisfaction with the way Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz and leading managers are running things. Marrero, former president of the Gaviota Group, run by the Cuban armed forces, and a trusted aide to Cuban interim leader and Defense Minister Raúl Castro, was appointed to the post in early 2004 after the removal of Ibrahim Ferradaz amid reports of a corruption scandal.
''What's happening in tourism is a reflection of a behavior that has spread nationwide,'' said dissident economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe on the phone from Havana. ``People are disgusted with the economic situation at home, workers don't take pride in their work and inertia corrupts the entire organization.''
PRICEY PESO
Also affecting tourism was the Cuban government's decision in late 2004 to effectively increase the value of its currency by 20 percent, making foreigners' hotel stays and meals in Cuba that more expensive.
``It was logical that a devalued dollar would cause a drop in tourism from Latin America and Canada, because the visitors from those countries buy very cheap packages, said Carmelo Mesa Lago, professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh and a long-time Cuban economy watcher.
With 44,000 hotel rooms, Cuba had an occupancy rate of 63.5 percent in 2004 and only 55.7 percent in 2005, according to the United Nation's Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. The average daily expenditure per visitor dropped from $175 in 2003 to $97 in 2005.
MinTur has not released occupancy statistics for 2006, but the MinTur official estimated it at 50 percent.
Trying to reverse the trend, MinTur announced a strategic plan for 2007 that involves support for investments, construction of new facilities and repairs of existing hotels. The plan also envisions improved highways and road signs, and guarantees of electricity and water for the tourism industry.
Marrero has announced a ''total change in the philosophy of promotion and advertising for the island,'' and in January unveiled a campaign named ''Viva Cuba,'' designed to present a new image of the country, at the International Tourism Fair in Madrid.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
U.S. leaves Cuban physicians in limbo
U.S. leaves Cuban physicians in limbo
Dozens of doctors who acted on an offer of asylum are stranded in Colombia.
By Chris Kraul and Carol J. Williams
Times Staff Writers
March 8, 2007
BARRANQUILLA, COLOMBIA — Family practitioner Alberto Hernandez suffers anxiety attacks. Dentist Norah Garcia is prone to bouts of uncontrollable sobbing. General practitioner Cesar Fernandez, 31, has high blood pressure.
They are among the tens of thousands of doctors, nurses, surgeons and dentists dispatched from their Cuban homeland as medical missionaries to some of the world's poorest countries, in the process earning hard currency for the communist regime. But instead of providing much-needed healthcare, they have been caught up in a wider struggle between leftist Latin American leaders and the Bush administration.
Last summer, the administration announced that any Cuban medical professional sent abroad was eligible for political asylum. Frustrated with their efforts in a program that took them to Venezuela's barrios, or hoping to start a new life in the United States, dozens of Cuban healthcare professionals sneaked across the Colombian border.
Now they're holed up in Colombia, unable to work, while U.S. authorities mull whether to accept them as political refugees.
"We don't know why it's taking so long. We hope the United States government hurries up and makes up its mind," said Ariel Perez, a general practitioner who shares a small apartment with Garcia and another Cuban dentist in southern Bogota.
The approval process would take one to two months, they were told. But several Cubans here say the process has dragged on for half a year.
"All our hopes and dreams are wrapped up in [Bush's] decree," said Garcia, a 46-year-old from Havana whose husband made it to Florida on a raft three years ago. "The uncertainty is the worst, not knowing what will happen while we sit here and do nothing."
Officials at the Department of Homeland Security, which is handling the applications, declined to comment on the process. But government officials who asked for anonymity said it could take a long time if applicants lacked key documentation such as passports and medical licenses.
Colombia has welcomed the Cuban defectors with less than open arms. Most have been denied visas or work permits while the U.S. Department of Homeland Security processes the applications. Colombia, though a close U.S. ally in the region, has no desire to encourage the deserters, analysts say. Bogota is also reluctant to offend Cuba or Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, for whom the presence of Cuban doctors is an important policy and public relations initiative of his "21st century socialism."
Sleeping at a church
Hernandez, a 43-year-old from the Cuban city of Santa Clara, has been sleeping in a supply room of a local Pentecostal church. He was told in mid-February that his request for a Colombian residence visa had been denied and that he had 30 days to leave the country.
"I am in a limbo from which I don't see an exit," Hernandez said, adding that he is pinning his hopes on getting the U.S. visa before the 30 days are up. He says he has no idea where he will go otherwise.
Medicine is a foreign policy tool of Castro's: He is training about 12,000 students from 83 countries at the Latin American Medical School in Havana. Operation Miracle, a program staffed by Cubans and financed by Chavez, has flown thousands of poor Latin Americans to Havana for free eye surgery.
The programs are also a source of revenue for a country that has struggled since the collapse of its main benefactor, the Soviet Union. In Venezuela, the healthcare professionals' labors are exchanged for $1.5 billion in annual oil shipments that Chavez sends to Cuba.
In places such as the slums of Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, the Cubans often are the first doctors the poor have ever seen. The working conditions are difficult. In the El Museo slum of Maracaibo, where Hernandez worked, there were rampant dysentery, malnutrition and kidney problems — caused, he thought, by open sewage and appalling hygiene. Hours were long and the Cubans often suffered resentment from host country physicians or political opponents of Chavez.
The Venezuelan president, who was sworn in for a third term in January, is fiercely critical of the United States and has made no secret of his ambition to succeed Castro as Latin America's beacon of socialism. With tens of billions of dollars in oil revenue at his disposal, he has teamed up with Castro to bankroll medical assistance at home and in several countries to gain prestige and score diplomatic points.
Escalating defections from the Venezuela program and others come as no surprise. Last year, 30 doctors deserted the program in Bolivia even before the new U.S. hint of asylum, probably to pursue private practice in the region. Their departure from the mission after less than six months was an embarrassment for Havana and the allied government of leftist President Evo Morales. In 2004, 10 physicians working in South Africa refused to go back home.
But the desertion rate among the estimated 26,000 Cubans in Venezuela may be the highest of any mission. In the Maracaibo area alone, Hernandez said, at least 100 of the 500 doctors sent since the mission began in 2003 have fled.
Not always welcome
The Cuban doctors are not always viewed as an unmitigated benefit in the host country.
The nascent media in East Timor have criticized the government for allowing some of the 300 Cuban medical missionaries serving there to promote communism. A Paraguayan Catholic bishop complained to officials in Asuncion last year that some Cuban doctors were imposing "ideological conditions" for provision of free treatment to rural poor.
In Bolivia, 14,000 members of the nation's medical association waged a one-day strike last May in protest of the presence of 600 Cuban doctors, who the Bolivians contended were diverting funds from state hospitals to pay for their upkeep. In Venezuela, doctors complain that Cubans practice illegal medicine because their degrees are not recognized in the country.
Two years ago, the Honduran government asked Cuba to bring its 200 medics home, thanking Havana for the help but saying enough Honduran specialists had been educated in recent years to cover the country's needs with its own nationals.
Tight-lipped
Homeland Security officials in Washington, where immigration applications are processed, won't release figures on how many petitions it has received from Cuban medical personnel, nor the number it has granted.
Julio Cesar Alfonso, a Cuban refugee and doctor who founded Miami-based Solidarity Without Borders to offer financial and legal help to Cubans trying to emigrate, estimates that about 170 applications for political asylum have been approved among the 200 or so people his group has helped.
The program has proved a complicated one to administer, which is why it may be taking the Department of Homeland Security longer than expected to decide on asylum.
Applications from Cuban medical professionals "require us to look closely to determine whether or not the person is fully eligible for the benefit," said department spokesman Chris Bentley. "The American public expects us to do that thoroughly and take as much time as needed to reach a sound decision."
In addition to the lack of documentation from most of the Cubans who fled Venezuela, there is also the suspicion that some of the refugees may be spies sent by Castro to see who is applying.
Such policy repercussions are far from the minds of Fernandez and Garcia, who fear they will be deported to Cuba if the U.S. turns them down. That could mean jail or social castigation.
"For the moment," Garcia said, "we have no legal rights at all."
*
chris.kraul@latimes.com
carol.williams@latimes.com
Dozens of doctors who acted on an offer of asylum are stranded in Colombia.
By Chris Kraul and Carol J. Williams
Times Staff Writers
March 8, 2007
BARRANQUILLA, COLOMBIA — Family practitioner Alberto Hernandez suffers anxiety attacks. Dentist Norah Garcia is prone to bouts of uncontrollable sobbing. General practitioner Cesar Fernandez, 31, has high blood pressure.
They are among the tens of thousands of doctors, nurses, surgeons and dentists dispatched from their Cuban homeland as medical missionaries to some of the world's poorest countries, in the process earning hard currency for the communist regime. But instead of providing much-needed healthcare, they have been caught up in a wider struggle between leftist Latin American leaders and the Bush administration.
Last summer, the administration announced that any Cuban medical professional sent abroad was eligible for political asylum. Frustrated with their efforts in a program that took them to Venezuela's barrios, or hoping to start a new life in the United States, dozens of Cuban healthcare professionals sneaked across the Colombian border.
Now they're holed up in Colombia, unable to work, while U.S. authorities mull whether to accept them as political refugees.
"We don't know why it's taking so long. We hope the United States government hurries up and makes up its mind," said Ariel Perez, a general practitioner who shares a small apartment with Garcia and another Cuban dentist in southern Bogota.
The approval process would take one to two months, they were told. But several Cubans here say the process has dragged on for half a year.
"All our hopes and dreams are wrapped up in [Bush's] decree," said Garcia, a 46-year-old from Havana whose husband made it to Florida on a raft three years ago. "The uncertainty is the worst, not knowing what will happen while we sit here and do nothing."
Officials at the Department of Homeland Security, which is handling the applications, declined to comment on the process. But government officials who asked for anonymity said it could take a long time if applicants lacked key documentation such as passports and medical licenses.
Colombia has welcomed the Cuban defectors with less than open arms. Most have been denied visas or work permits while the U.S. Department of Homeland Security processes the applications. Colombia, though a close U.S. ally in the region, has no desire to encourage the deserters, analysts say. Bogota is also reluctant to offend Cuba or Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, for whom the presence of Cuban doctors is an important policy and public relations initiative of his "21st century socialism."
Sleeping at a church
Hernandez, a 43-year-old from the Cuban city of Santa Clara, has been sleeping in a supply room of a local Pentecostal church. He was told in mid-February that his request for a Colombian residence visa had been denied and that he had 30 days to leave the country.
"I am in a limbo from which I don't see an exit," Hernandez said, adding that he is pinning his hopes on getting the U.S. visa before the 30 days are up. He says he has no idea where he will go otherwise.
Medicine is a foreign policy tool of Castro's: He is training about 12,000 students from 83 countries at the Latin American Medical School in Havana. Operation Miracle, a program staffed by Cubans and financed by Chavez, has flown thousands of poor Latin Americans to Havana for free eye surgery.
The programs are also a source of revenue for a country that has struggled since the collapse of its main benefactor, the Soviet Union. In Venezuela, the healthcare professionals' labors are exchanged for $1.5 billion in annual oil shipments that Chavez sends to Cuba.
In places such as the slums of Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, the Cubans often are the first doctors the poor have ever seen. The working conditions are difficult. In the El Museo slum of Maracaibo, where Hernandez worked, there were rampant dysentery, malnutrition and kidney problems — caused, he thought, by open sewage and appalling hygiene. Hours were long and the Cubans often suffered resentment from host country physicians or political opponents of Chavez.
The Venezuelan president, who was sworn in for a third term in January, is fiercely critical of the United States and has made no secret of his ambition to succeed Castro as Latin America's beacon of socialism. With tens of billions of dollars in oil revenue at his disposal, he has teamed up with Castro to bankroll medical assistance at home and in several countries to gain prestige and score diplomatic points.
Escalating defections from the Venezuela program and others come as no surprise. Last year, 30 doctors deserted the program in Bolivia even before the new U.S. hint of asylum, probably to pursue private practice in the region. Their departure from the mission after less than six months was an embarrassment for Havana and the allied government of leftist President Evo Morales. In 2004, 10 physicians working in South Africa refused to go back home.
But the desertion rate among the estimated 26,000 Cubans in Venezuela may be the highest of any mission. In the Maracaibo area alone, Hernandez said, at least 100 of the 500 doctors sent since the mission began in 2003 have fled.
Not always welcome
The Cuban doctors are not always viewed as an unmitigated benefit in the host country.
The nascent media in East Timor have criticized the government for allowing some of the 300 Cuban medical missionaries serving there to promote communism. A Paraguayan Catholic bishop complained to officials in Asuncion last year that some Cuban doctors were imposing "ideological conditions" for provision of free treatment to rural poor.
In Bolivia, 14,000 members of the nation's medical association waged a one-day strike last May in protest of the presence of 600 Cuban doctors, who the Bolivians contended were diverting funds from state hospitals to pay for their upkeep. In Venezuela, doctors complain that Cubans practice illegal medicine because their degrees are not recognized in the country.
Two years ago, the Honduran government asked Cuba to bring its 200 medics home, thanking Havana for the help but saying enough Honduran specialists had been educated in recent years to cover the country's needs with its own nationals.
Tight-lipped
Homeland Security officials in Washington, where immigration applications are processed, won't release figures on how many petitions it has received from Cuban medical personnel, nor the number it has granted.
Julio Cesar Alfonso, a Cuban refugee and doctor who founded Miami-based Solidarity Without Borders to offer financial and legal help to Cubans trying to emigrate, estimates that about 170 applications for political asylum have been approved among the 200 or so people his group has helped.
The program has proved a complicated one to administer, which is why it may be taking the Department of Homeland Security longer than expected to decide on asylum.
Applications from Cuban medical professionals "require us to look closely to determine whether or not the person is fully eligible for the benefit," said department spokesman Chris Bentley. "The American public expects us to do that thoroughly and take as much time as needed to reach a sound decision."
In addition to the lack of documentation from most of the Cubans who fled Venezuela, there is also the suspicion that some of the refugees may be spies sent by Castro to see who is applying.
Such policy repercussions are far from the minds of Fernandez and Garcia, who fear they will be deported to Cuba if the U.S. turns them down. That could mean jail or social castigation.
"For the moment," Garcia said, "we have no legal rights at all."
*
chris.kraul@latimes.com
carol.williams@latimes.com
Commuting in Cuba means hitching a ride
AP
Commuting in Cuba means hitching a ride
By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer
Sun Mar 18, 4:52 PM ET
Laura Garcia doesn't have a car, and the change in her pocket won't cover the 15-cent bus fare. But standing by a crumbling overpass, sweating in her shorts, sunglasses and skimpy top, the 18-year-old says a free ride is only an outstretched thumb away.
"People will take you. You can always find drivers to help," said Garcia, who studies law in Havana and was going to see her parents in Pinar del Rio, a 90-minute ride west.
Hitchhiking is a way of life in communist Cuba, where cars are scarce, a gallon of gas costs a third of a civil servant's monthly salary, and public transportation is unreliable and overcrowded. Lately things have worsened, with even acting President Raul Castro admitting in December that public transport was "practically on the point of collapse."
Last year, the government announced the purchase of 7,000 buses from China, and hundreds more Chinese buses are said to be on the way since Castro took power from his ailing brother Fidel in July.
Meanwhile, the hitchhikers are everywhere — at street corners, crosswalks, stop lights. Whole families with luggage hitch to and from the airport. On the capital's outskirts, government inspectors wave down government vehicles. Those with empty seats must take hitchhikers, a law that results in 68 million free rides a year, according to the Communist Party newspaper Granma.
Most drivers believe it's their civic duty to give free rides, but sometimes a hitchhiker will hop in uninvited. Janeth Gonzalez, 20, who climbed into a car stopped at a light, told the stranger at the wheel that she was headed to her home in downtown Havana. No big deal — "Even the police do it," she said.
Cubans call hitchhiking "pidiendo botella," or "asking for a bottle" — an age-old Cuban phrase connoting something for nothing.
Melba, an 18-year-old dance student still in her black tights as she hitchhiked from school, said she had been hitchhiking alone since she was 14. Preferring not to give her surname, she said the only problem she ever had was when the car that picked her up sideswiped another and she was delayed for two hours while the police sorted out blame.
"It would have been faster to take the bus that day," she said.
But it usually isn't. While aging school and passenger buses from Canada, Russia and Europe bounce along to uncertain schedules on Havana's potholed streets, more common are 18-wheelers known as "camellos," or "camels," because of their humped metal trailers and ability to pack in 200-plus sweaty passengers seated or clinging to ceiling bars.
The graffiti-splotched vehicles usually have no number or destination sign. But as a camello shudders to a stop and passengers surge aboard, they seem to know exactly where it's headed.
"It's chaotic, difficult. But the good thing is they wait for everyone to get on," said Maria Luisa Fernandez, a 38-year-old high school teacher waiting for a camello in the shadow of Havana's capitol dome. "We go on top of one another, but we all go."
The fare is a mere penny, but pickpockets and purse-snatchers, largely unheard of elsewhere in Cuba, are a problem aboard camellos, and women are sometimes groped.
The diesel-powered behemoths became common in the early 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba's economic lifeline. Aid from oil-rich Venezuela has helped ease transportation woes, though there are still too few camellos to go around. They are supposed to be phased out with the arrival of the new buses.
Buying a new car and most used ones requires state permission, which is hard to get. But Cubans can own vehicles built before the 1959 revolution, including the classic, if weather-beaten, Mercedes, Hudsons, Mercurys and Buicks still cruising the streets, running on diesel to beat the $4 price of a gallon of regular gas.
Awaiting a camello after a night shift at an energy plant, Nestor Perez, a 40-year-old in a Cleveland Indians T-shirt, said hitchhiking is more comfortable than the bus — but that he's at a disadvantage.
"If I have a pretty woman standing next to me, they will always stop for her," he said. "It's a waste of time for me."
Commuting in Cuba means hitching a ride
By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer
Sun Mar 18, 4:52 PM ET
Laura Garcia doesn't have a car, and the change in her pocket won't cover the 15-cent bus fare. But standing by a crumbling overpass, sweating in her shorts, sunglasses and skimpy top, the 18-year-old says a free ride is only an outstretched thumb away.
"People will take you. You can always find drivers to help," said Garcia, who studies law in Havana and was going to see her parents in Pinar del Rio, a 90-minute ride west.
Hitchhiking is a way of life in communist Cuba, where cars are scarce, a gallon of gas costs a third of a civil servant's monthly salary, and public transportation is unreliable and overcrowded. Lately things have worsened, with even acting President Raul Castro admitting in December that public transport was "practically on the point of collapse."
Last year, the government announced the purchase of 7,000 buses from China, and hundreds more Chinese buses are said to be on the way since Castro took power from his ailing brother Fidel in July.
Meanwhile, the hitchhikers are everywhere — at street corners, crosswalks, stop lights. Whole families with luggage hitch to and from the airport. On the capital's outskirts, government inspectors wave down government vehicles. Those with empty seats must take hitchhikers, a law that results in 68 million free rides a year, according to the Communist Party newspaper Granma.
Most drivers believe it's their civic duty to give free rides, but sometimes a hitchhiker will hop in uninvited. Janeth Gonzalez, 20, who climbed into a car stopped at a light, told the stranger at the wheel that she was headed to her home in downtown Havana. No big deal — "Even the police do it," she said.
Cubans call hitchhiking "pidiendo botella," or "asking for a bottle" — an age-old Cuban phrase connoting something for nothing.
Melba, an 18-year-old dance student still in her black tights as she hitchhiked from school, said she had been hitchhiking alone since she was 14. Preferring not to give her surname, she said the only problem she ever had was when the car that picked her up sideswiped another and she was delayed for two hours while the police sorted out blame.
"It would have been faster to take the bus that day," she said.
But it usually isn't. While aging school and passenger buses from Canada, Russia and Europe bounce along to uncertain schedules on Havana's potholed streets, more common are 18-wheelers known as "camellos," or "camels," because of their humped metal trailers and ability to pack in 200-plus sweaty passengers seated or clinging to ceiling bars.
The graffiti-splotched vehicles usually have no number or destination sign. But as a camello shudders to a stop and passengers surge aboard, they seem to know exactly where it's headed.
"It's chaotic, difficult. But the good thing is they wait for everyone to get on," said Maria Luisa Fernandez, a 38-year-old high school teacher waiting for a camello in the shadow of Havana's capitol dome. "We go on top of one another, but we all go."
The fare is a mere penny, but pickpockets and purse-snatchers, largely unheard of elsewhere in Cuba, are a problem aboard camellos, and women are sometimes groped.
The diesel-powered behemoths became common in the early 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba's economic lifeline. Aid from oil-rich Venezuela has helped ease transportation woes, though there are still too few camellos to go around. They are supposed to be phased out with the arrival of the new buses.
Buying a new car and most used ones requires state permission, which is hard to get. But Cubans can own vehicles built before the 1959 revolution, including the classic, if weather-beaten, Mercedes, Hudsons, Mercurys and Buicks still cruising the streets, running on diesel to beat the $4 price of a gallon of regular gas.
Awaiting a camello after a night shift at an energy plant, Nestor Perez, a 40-year-old in a Cleveland Indians T-shirt, said hitchhiking is more comfortable than the bus — but that he's at a disadvantage.
"If I have a pretty woman standing next to me, they will always stop for her," he said. "It's a waste of time for me."
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Official says Castro fit to run in 2008
Miami Herald
Posted on Fri, Mar. 16, 2007
Official says Castro fit to run in 2008
By WILL WEISSERT
Fidel Castro will be in "perfect shape" to run for re-election to parliament next spring, the first step toward securing yet another term as Cuba's president, National Assembly head Ricardo Alarcon said Thursday.
"I would nominate him," said Alarcon, the highest-ranking member of parliament. "I'm sure he will be in perfect shape to continue handling his responsibilities."
Mobbed by foreign reporters following a parliamentary session to discuss Cuba's upcoming elections, Alarcon said Castro "is doing fine and continuing to focus on recovery and rehabilitation."
A lengthy process of nominating candidates for municipal elections will begin this summer, leading to several rounds of voting. Then, by March 2008, Cuba should be ready to hold parliamentary elections that are expected to include Castro, Alarcon said.
The 80-year-old Castro was the world's longest-ruling head of state, occupying the island's presidency for 47 years before temporarily stepping aside in favor of his younger brother, Raul, following emergency intestinal surgery in July.
Alarcon said he has been in contact with Castro many times in recent weeks, but stopped short of saying he has seen him in person. He said that even though Castro ceded power to his 75-year-old brother, he never "abandoned his role."
"Fidel has been and is very involved, very connected, very active in all manner of important decisions that this country makes," Alarcon said. "What's happening is, he can't do it the same way he did before because he has to dedicate a good part of his time to recuperating physically."
Switching later to deliberate but fluent English, Alarcon told journalists: "To what extent he will go back to doing things the way he did, the way he is accustomed to, it's up to him."
He wouldn't say whether Raul Castro will remain acting president if his brother becomes well enough to return to work full-time.
Things in Cuba have remained calm and functioned normally under Raul Castro. Though Fidel has not appeared in public, he has sounded lucid and up on current events in a pair of recent telephone conversations with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
After earlier post-surgery photos had shown him looking sick and weak, images on state television in late January revealed a stronger and healthier seeming Castro.
Although Castro temporarily ceded his functions to his brother, he still holds the title of president of the Council of State, Cuba's supreme governing body.
Posted on Fri, Mar. 16, 2007
Official says Castro fit to run in 2008
By WILL WEISSERT
Fidel Castro will be in "perfect shape" to run for re-election to parliament next spring, the first step toward securing yet another term as Cuba's president, National Assembly head Ricardo Alarcon said Thursday.
"I would nominate him," said Alarcon, the highest-ranking member of parliament. "I'm sure he will be in perfect shape to continue handling his responsibilities."
Mobbed by foreign reporters following a parliamentary session to discuss Cuba's upcoming elections, Alarcon said Castro "is doing fine and continuing to focus on recovery and rehabilitation."
A lengthy process of nominating candidates for municipal elections will begin this summer, leading to several rounds of voting. Then, by March 2008, Cuba should be ready to hold parliamentary elections that are expected to include Castro, Alarcon said.
The 80-year-old Castro was the world's longest-ruling head of state, occupying the island's presidency for 47 years before temporarily stepping aside in favor of his younger brother, Raul, following emergency intestinal surgery in July.
Alarcon said he has been in contact with Castro many times in recent weeks, but stopped short of saying he has seen him in person. He said that even though Castro ceded power to his 75-year-old brother, he never "abandoned his role."
"Fidel has been and is very involved, very connected, very active in all manner of important decisions that this country makes," Alarcon said. "What's happening is, he can't do it the same way he did before because he has to dedicate a good part of his time to recuperating physically."
Switching later to deliberate but fluent English, Alarcon told journalists: "To what extent he will go back to doing things the way he did, the way he is accustomed to, it's up to him."
He wouldn't say whether Raul Castro will remain acting president if his brother becomes well enough to return to work full-time.
Things in Cuba have remained calm and functioned normally under Raul Castro. Though Fidel has not appeared in public, he has sounded lucid and up on current events in a pair of recent telephone conversations with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
After earlier post-surgery photos had shown him looking sick and weak, images on state television in late January revealed a stronger and healthier seeming Castro.
Although Castro temporarily ceded his functions to his brother, he still holds the title of president of the Council of State, Cuba's supreme governing body.
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