Cuba's harvesting of student's organs riles family, state

May 19, 2008

By Martin Arostegui - SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia — A young Bolivian medical
student, who died of an apparent brain hemorrhage while in Cuba on a
government-sponsored scholarship this spring, was returned to her
family in Bolivia with all of her organs missing, touching off
controversy about Cuba's growing presence in Bolivia.

The case of Beatriz Porco Calle has shocked the Bolivian public, which
has generally welcomed medical and educational cooperation that Cuba
has offered through official agreements with Bolivia's leftist
president, Evo Morales.

"They took out everything," said Miss Porco Calle's horrified sister,
Sofia, who showed the body stuffed with sponge cotton and then
stitched back up to TV cameras.

"Her lungs, kidneys, liver, ovaries down her vagina are gone. They
even pulled out her tongue and her teeth," said Sofia Porco Calle, who
accuses the Cuban government of trying to cover up the scandal to
conceal its role in organ trafficking.

Cuban socialized medicine has been a showcase achievement of Fidel
Castro's revolution and served as an important tool of Cuba's
international diplomacy to gain influence in the Third World.

There are about 30,000 Cuban doctors conducting humanitarian missions
and emergency relief work in Africa and Latin America.

Cuban doctors were recently called in to handle an epidemic of dengue
fever in Brazil.

Close to 2,000 Cuban medics have been sent to Bolivia since Mr.
Morales became president in 2006, establishing clinics in remote areas
and treating thousands of patients in poor rural communities.

Beatriz Porco Calle, a promising student, who had finished at the top
of her class in her home province of Oruro, was among 1,000 Bolivian
medical students who had gone to Cuba to receive free medical training
through scholarship grants arranged between the two governments.

Bolivia's medical association has publicly called for an official
investigation into her death, pointing to the "strange way it's been
handled."

Dr. Gueider Salas, who heads the association in Santa Cruz, said the
Cuban government has not offered any satisfactory explanation.

He blames a "lack of professional controls over Cuban medical
activities" and thinks the Cuban government could be trying to hide
the cause of her death.

Cuba's ambassador to Bolivia, Rafael Dausa, said the Porco Calle
family is stirring up the controversy to get a financial indemnity. He
insists the treatment of the woman's body is "normal."

"We carried all the costs of transferring the body, legal procedures,
certificates ... and even the silk thread to sewn up the cadaver. We
did it as a gesture of solidarity and transparency with a Bolivian
family," Mr. Dausa said.

According to Sofia Porco Calle, the Cuban Embassy tried to apply
pressures through local government officials to keep her family
silent. "Our fear was that my sister's cadaver would get thrown away,
and we wouldn't receive it."

CUBA: A City Drinks in Change

By Dalia Acosta

HOLGUÍN, Cuba, Jun 10, 2008 (IPS) - Afflicted for far too long by severe drought, which concentrated all minds on how to get water to entire communities of people, this eastern Cuban city seems at long last to be drinking its fill, and its appearance is completely different from what it looked like two or three years ago.

Cafés, restaurants, snack bars and opportunities to combine leisure and culture are beginning to flood into the historic centre of Holguín, the capital of the province of the same name, as the most visible sign of a government project to embellish the city and restore services that have been in poor shape since the 1990s.

And one of the most important things is that "the Cuban peso is returning to its former prominence," Rigoberto Romero, the provincial government coordinator for the project to restore the boulevard running through the heart of Holguín, which is also known as the City of Parks, told IPS.

"Services paid for in national currency should have the same quality standards as those that are paid for in hard currency. We are trying to add character to the venues with cultural options, as well," he said.

And so La Caverna de Los Beatles appeared, followed by a jazz club, a piano bar at the Hotel Majestic, and Las Tres Lucías, a café decorated with stills from the Cuban film "Lucía" (Humberto Solás, 1968), which shows videos and films to its customers.

The pedestrianised boulevard did not exist early this decade, but now harbours a large number of eateries with prices in national currency, which have resurrected popular and economic dishes like croquettes on bread or "al plato", breaded fish fillets and fresh fruit juices.

Smaller shops selling water, milkshakes, ice cream and coffee at subsidised prices are comfortably elbow to elbow with restaurants, cafeterias, bars and pubs that are a little more expensive, but still accessible because they charge in national currency.

"We’re open 24 hours a day. Towards midnight, the clientele are mainly intellectuals. Then the young people arrive when the discothèques close, and at about four or five in the morning, people who are on their way to work come by," Lisandro Fernández, who works at a coffee bar, told IPS.

The legalisation of the dollar in 1993, together with the severe economic crisis that hit Cuba in the 1990s, led to a decline in services offered in national currency, and the emergence of a parallel market in hard currency that gradually became virtually the only option for Cuba’s 11.2 million people.

The government of President Raúl Castro regards revaluation of the Cuban peso as one of its economic priorities, but has recognised that it will be a slow process, requiring "an integrated approach" that will include eliminating the present dual currency system on the island.

Meanwhile, in cities like Havana, most restaurants still charge in convertible Cuban pesos (CUC), and the equivalent of five U.S. dollars will only buy lunch for one person at one of the most inexpensive cafeteria chains.

At the state exchange bureaus, the CUC is worth 25 Cuban pesos, or 1.25 dollars.

In spite of government efforts, the venues accepting national currency still do not satisfy demand in Holguín, one of Cuba’s biggest cities. Official sources indicate that in late 2007 there were 334,046 residents of Holguín, to which must be added a floating population of another 45,000 people.

"In the boulevard area alone, 75,000 daily rations are being sold. Sometimes, supplies run out," said Romero.

Prices vary from 0.70 pesos for a croquette on bread to 100 pesos for lunch for three at the restaurant known as 1545, one of the most upscale in the city. In dollar terms, an average family would spend five or six dollars for lunch at one of Holguín’s new wave of restaurants.

Among the new developments, three hotels which charge in national currency have been restored and reopened. "We get reservations for honeymoons or company events, but around 50 percent of our guests are ordinary people who book their own visits as they please," Leonides Romero, manager of the Hotel Majestic, told IPS.

At Isla Azul, the most economical chain of state hotels that only take hard currency, a double room including breakfast costs about 50 dollars, whereas at the Majestic the bill is 75 Cuban pesos a night, equivalent to about four dollars.

Located in the centre of Holguín, the Hotel Majestic was founded in 1932 and rescued from a state of ruin in 2007.

The aim is to "restore rundown old buildings in the communities and save the local heritage, while adding an element of modernity, and creating new options with three basic elements: utility, beauty and culture," said Miguel Díaz-Canel, first secretary of the Communist Party for Holguín province, in an interview on local television.

The initiative, known as the Imagen project, is being applied in all the municipalities of this province of over a million people. In addition, a state aid plan for the eastern part of the island has led to more than 100 economic and social projects being inaugurated in late 2007.

The list of projects, published in the local newspaper Ahora, includes electrification in several neighbourhoods, generators installed in mountainous areas, refurbished or newly-built sports facilities, public health centres, centres for the elderly, housing, hydraulic plants in isolated areas, maternity homes and children’s parks.

In spite of what has already been achieved and the plans for more progress this year, there is still much to be done, in Romero’s view. "All the cultural development in the city is taking place basically in the historic centre. We should start decentralising city services towards the outskirts," he said.

Dissatisfactions aside, and although provincial development plans have continued without interruption, Holguín is a flourishing place compared with what it was in 2004, when the drought was at its height. "This city is changing day by day," Manuel Escobar, who works at the Taberna Ahumados, told IPS. (END/2008)

Cuba, Venezuela to install undersea cable

HAVANA, June 9, 2008 (Xinhua News Agency) -- Cuba and Venezuela will install an undersea optical fiber cable connecting the two countries to counter U.S. embargo, Cuba's official daily Granma reported Monday. The cable will have a total capacity of 640 gigabytes with 320 for each optical fiber, increasing by 3,000 times Cuba's data, voice and video transmission capacity with other countries, said Carlos Orfilia, the Venezuelan official adviser of the project. He said advanced technology would be used to guarantee Cuba andVenezuela's independence in telecommunications.

This project will end Cuba's dependence on satellites services made expensive due to the U.S. embargo, said Wilfredo Morales, director of the Telecomunicaciones Gran Caribe Commpany, the Cuba-Venezuela joint venture created to build and operate the planned cable. The decades-long U.S. embargo on Cuba has prevented other telecommunication companies from connecting lines to the island, like that of Miami-Cancun, which is only 32 km away from pier of Havana.

As a result of the cooperation efforts by the Bolivarian Alternative for America (ALBA), a regional integration initiative joined by Bolivia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the 1,550-km long optical fibre cable will connect Camuri of northern Venezuela with Siboney in east Cuba. According to experts, the fiber will be as thick as a human hair and covered with a special material to protect it against sharks. The cable designed with bifurcation may benefit other countries like Nicaragua and Haiti in the future. Granma said the selection of the supplier will end in August and the cable installation will complete at the end of 2009 at the earliest.

Cuba's urban farming program a stunning success

By NIKO PRICE – 1 day ago

HAVANA (AP) — For Miladis Bouza, the global food crisis arrived two decades ago. Now, her efforts to climb out of it could serve as a model for people around the world struggling to feed their families.

Bouza was a research biologist, living a solidly middle-class existence, when the collapse of the Soviet Union — and the halt of its subsidized food shipments to Cuba — effectively cut her government salary to $3 a month. Suddenly, a trip to the grocery store was out of reach.

So she quit her job, and under a program championed by then-Defense Minister Raul Castro, asked the government for the right to farm an overgrown, half-acre lot near her Havana home. Now, her husband tends rows of tomatoes, sweet potatoes and spinach, while Bouza, 48, sells the produce at a stall on a busy street.

Neighbors are happy with cheap vegetables fresh from the field. Bouza never lacks for fresh produce, and she pulls in between $100 to $250 a month — many times the average government salary of $19.

"All that money is mine," she said. "The only thing I have to buy is protein" — meat.

Cuba's urban farming program has been a stunning, and surprising, success. The farms, many of them on tiny plots like Bouza's, now supply much of Cuba's vegetables. They also provide 350,000 jobs nationwide with relatively high pay and have transformed eating habits in a nation accustomed to a less-than-ideal diet of rice and beans and canned goods from Eastern Europe.

From 1989-93, Cubans went from eating an average of 3,004 calories a day to only 2,323, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, as shelves emptied of the Soviet goods that made up two-thirds of Cuba's food. Today, they eat 3,547 calories a day — more than what the U.S. government recommends for American citizens.

"It's a really interesting model looking at what's possible in a nation that's 80 percent urban," said Catherine Murphy, a California sociologist who spent a decade studying farms in Havana. "It shows that cities can produce huge amounts of their own food, and you get all kinds of social and ecological benefits."

Of course, urban farms might not be such a success in a healthy, competitive economy.

As it is, productivity is low at Cuba's large, state-run farms where workers lack incentives. Government-supplied rations — mostly imported from the U.S. — provide such staples as rice, beans and cooking oil, but not fresh produce. Importers bring in only what central planners want, so the market doesn't correct for gaps. And since most land is owned by the state, developers are not competing for the vacant lots that can become plots for vegetables.

Still, experts say the basic idea behind urban farming has a lot of promise.

"It's land that otherwise would be sitting idle. It requires little or no transportation to get (produce) to market," said Bill Messina, an agricultural economist at the University of Florida in Gainesville. "It's good anyway you look at it."

And with fuel prices and food shortages causing unrest and hunger across the world, many say the Cuban model should spread.

"There are certain issues where we think Cuba has a lot to teach the world. Urban agriculture is one of them," said Beat Schmid, coordinator of Cuba programs for the charity Oxfam International.

Other countries have experimented with urban farming — Cuba's initial steps were modeled after a green belt surrounding Shanghai. But nowhere has urban farming been used so widely to transform the way a country feeds itself.

"As the global food crisis receives attention, this is something that we need to be looking at," Murphy said. "Havana is an unlikely, really successful model where no one would expect one to come from."

Now that Raul Castro is president, many expect him to expand the program he began as an experiment in the early 1990s.

One of the first plots he opened was the "organoponico" on Fifth Avenue and 44th Street in the ritzy Havana neighborhood of Miramar. The half-block farm — owned by a government agency — is surrounded by apartment buildings and houses, but also offices of foreign companies, a Spanish bank and the South African Embassy.

Long troughs brim with arugula, spinach, radishes and basil, and few of the 20,000 square feet are wasted.

One technician tends compost that serves as natural fertilizer, while another handles natural protection from pests, surrounding delicate spinach shoots with strong-smelling celery to ward off insects. Such measures have ecological benefits but were born of necessity: Neither commercial fertilizer nor herbicide is reliably available.

Three workers tend the crops and another three sell them from a brightly painted stall.

Key to the operation is something once unheard of in Cuba: 80 percent of the profits go straight to the workers' pockets, providing them an average of $71 a month.

"Those salaries are higher than doctors, than lawyers," said Roberto Perez, the 58-year-old agronomist who runs the farm. "The more they produce, the more they make. That's fundamental to get high productivity."

Customers say the farm has given them not only access to affordable food, but also a radical change in their cuisine.

"Nobody used to eat vegetables," said David Leon, 50, buying two pounds of Swiss chard. "People's nutrition has improved a lot. It's a lot healthier. And it tastes good."

Associated Press Writer Andrea Rodriguez contributed to this report.

Prospect leaves Cuba for U.S., shot at majors

Associated Press, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

MIAMI – One of Cuba’s top baseball prospects has defected and settled in South Florida in hopes of playing in the major leagues.

Dayan Viciedo, 18, arrived in the United States in late May and is now living with friends and family, his agent, Jaime Torres, said Sunday.

Viciedo was a third baseman with the Villa Clara team, one of Cuba’s major league teams.

“This was a very personal decision he made,” Villa Clara coach Victor Mesa said. “It appears he had a change of heart and wanted to try his luck there.”

Tibios cambios y expectativa en la Cuba de Raúl

Los 100 días del nuevo presidente

Por César González Calero
Para LA NACION, Buenos Aires

Lunes 2 de junio de 2008

A lo largo de las rutas cubanas, una consigna se repite en las vallas del paisaje: “Revolución es cambiar todo lo que debe ser cambiado. Revolución es sentido del momento histórico”. Perteneciente al inagotable repertorio de Fidel Castro, la idea fue retomada por su hermano Raúl en un discurso clave, el 26 de julio pasado. Entonces, el nuevo hombre fuerte de Cuba ya sabía que no le quedaba más remedio que adaptarse al momento histórico surgido tras la enfermedad del comandante. Había llegado la hora del cambio.

Con su visión utilitarista de la política, Raúl Castro cumple 100 días de gobierno (asumió el 24 de febrero) en un clima de expectativa de cambio. Las reformas introducidas por Raúl en estos meses han suscitado reacciones dispares. Según a quien se consulte, la nueva etapa genera ilusión o escepticismo.

Hay diplomáticos y observadores internacionales radicados en La Habana que consideran "positivo" el proceso de cambio iniciado, "por lento que parezca". Otros, más descreídos, sostienen que los avances "son tan exiguos que hablar de apertura resulta exagerado". Entre amplias capas de la población cubana, la palabra que más suena es "expectativa".

"A la gente se la ve esperanzada por primera vez en mucho tiempo", explica un profesional de una empresa estatal cubana.

Pero para algunos, las reformas son sencillamente imperceptibles. "Para mí, no ha cambiado absolutamente nada: el futuro pinta gris con pespuntes negros", dijo esta semana a LA NACION un joven habanero.

Efecto psicológico

Hasta la fecha, las medidas aprobadas han tenido fundamentalmente un efecto psicológico.

Dado que en Cuba rige una dualidad monetaria, pocos ciudadanos pueden permitirse pagar en la moneda fuerte del país (el CUC, 24 veces el valor del peso cubano) una noche en hotel internacional, un celular, una computadora o un reproductor de DVD, por citar algunos de los servicios y productos que han dejado de estar prohibidos. El salario medio apenas sobrepasa los 400 pesos cubanos (unos 17 dólares).

Aunque según el Centro de Estudios de la Economía Cubana más del 60 por ciento de la población tiene acceso a divisas (unos 1000 millones de dólares anuales vía remesas de familiares en el extranjero, o a través de estímulos monetarios otorgados por el Estado a los trabajadores), la mayoría percibe pequeñas cantidades.

"Hay una clase incipiente, minoritaria, que se ha favorecido con la doble moneda: son los nuevos ricos", explica un economista cubano. Entre ellos, algunos cuentapropistas (dueños de restaurantes privados, anticuarios, etc.), artistas y profesionales contratados por empresas extranjeras.

Un dato resume el impacto minoritario y desigual de las medidas: en el primer mes se contrataron (o regularizaron, ya que muchas ya existían ilegalmente) 13.000 líneas de teléfonos celulares, la mitad de ellas en La Habana, según Etecsa, la compañía telefónica estatal. En la isla viven algo más de 11 millones de personas, y sólo un 10 por ciento dispone de teléfono fijo.

En todo caso, Raúl Castro, que mañana cumplirá 77 años, ha sido consciente de la gran popularidad que le acarrearía la eliminación de esas prohibiciones que él mismo calificó de absurdas y superadas por el tiempo. Pero la gran apuesta del general pasa por darle un vuelco a la estrategia económica del país. Es decir, pasar de la inveterada dependencia comercial (URSS, Venezuela) al impulso de la producción nacional.

Cuba importa el 84 por ciento de los alimentos que consume, y más de la mitad de las tierras cultivables están ociosas. De ahí que la reforma agrícola emprendida sea vital para el futuro de la isla.

La descentralización en la toma de decisiones y la distribución de tierras a los campesinos privados más eficientes redundarán, según los cálculos del gobierno, en una mayor producción. Pero hasta que eso no ocurra, la dualidad monetaria, la espada de Damocles de la economía cubana, continuará, según reconoció públicamente el Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) hace unos días.

Acostumbrados a la "rumorología" ante la ausencia de información oficial, los cubanos barruntan nuevas reformas de corto y medio plazo.

A fines de 2007 ya se especulaba en algunos círculos habaneros sobre las prohibiciones que ahora se han ido eliminando. Desde hace algunas semanas, se habla en la isla de una flexibilización de la política migratoria y de alguna novedad respecto del concepto de propiedad, que podría afectar la compraventa de autos y viviendas, y el desarrollo de la iniciativa privada, como la creación de microempresas o nuevas licencias a trabajadores por cuenta propia.

Las restricciones

Donde no hay avances significativos es en el ámbito de las libertades individuales.

A Raúl Castro, que en su día transformó las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias en una suerte de holding financiero que aplica técnicas de gestión capitalistas, le gusta repetir, cada vez que tiene ocasión, que "de las discrepancias saldrán las mejores decisiones".

Pero la tolerancia a la crítica, a las opiniones discrepantes continúa bajo mínimos en la isla.

Todos los medios de comunicación siguen la pauta marcada por el gobernante PCC; la prensa extranjera está sometida a un control férreo; la libertad de movimiento está restringida y el derecho de asociación al margen del partido único, cercenado.

En su último informe, Amnistía Internacional le pone un desaprobado al mandato interino de Raúl: "Las libertades de expresión, asociación y circulación continuaron sometidas en Cuba a grandes restricciones en 2007".

Derechos humanos

Para intentar equilibrar la balanza, el general ha firmado en los últimos meses dos protocolos sobre derechos humanos y ha conmutado la pena de muerte a una treintena de presos.

Pero no le tiembla el pulso si tiene que reprimir al único grupo opositor que se atreve a manifestarse en la calle: las Damas de Blanco (familiares de presos políticos), que hace unos días alertaron sobre un posible endurecimiento de la represión política, después de que el régimen denunciara la financiación de la disidencia por parte del exilio duro de Miami y la Casa Blanca.

En un claro guiño a la Argentina, Raúl permitió recientemente que la madre de la neurocirujana Hilda Molina viajara a Buenos Aires para conocer a sus nietos.

Pero unos días antes, le negaba el mismo derecho a la blogger Yoani Sánchez, a la que esperaban en Madrid para entregarle un premio de periodismo digital.

Los cambios

Electrodomésticos

• Cuba liberó la comercialización de computadoras, hornos de microondas y reproductores de DVD.

Hoteles de lujo

• Los cubanos tienen ahora libre acceso a los hoteles internacionales, donde antes tenían prohibido alojarse. Además, pueden contratar los servicios turísticos.

Celulares

• Desde el 14 de abril, Etecsa vende líneas y teléfonos a los que puedan pagar por el servicio, antes limitado a unos pocos funcionarios y extranjeros.

La población cubana decrece por tercer año consecutivo

El pronóstico es que en 2025 haya en la isla 74.000 personas menos que en 2007

MAURICIO VICENT - La Habana - 02/06/2008

Cuba enfrenta un serio problema de decrecimiento de su población, que también envejece a un ritmo acelerado. En 2008, por tercer año consecutivo, la tasa de crecimiento poblacional será negativa. Una tendencia que se mantendrá en los próximos años, según los expertos, que señalan entre las causas del fenómeno la emigración constante de jóvenes y las carencias materiales, que hacen que muchas mujeres en edad fértil no quieran tener hijos. El pronóstico es que en 2025 haya en Cuba 74.000 personas menos que en 2007.

Mientras la tasa de natalidad se reduce, la de envejecimiento se incrementa. Cuba, con 11.236.790 habitantes, tiene 1,9 millones de adultos mayores, un 16,6% de la población, y el pronóstico es que en 2025 las personas con más de 60 años sean el 26% del total -más del 12% se considera alto-. Según Juan Carlos Alfonso, director del Centro de Estudios y Población, las autoridades han aprobado medidas para hacer frente a un problema que preocupa cada vez más y "tendrá un impacto notable en la formación y renovación del capital humano y la disponibilidad de fuerza de trabajo". En 2025 el país tendrá 772.000 personas menos en los grupos correspondientes a la enseñanza primaria, media y superior, dijo el funcionario al diario Granma.

Cuba tiene indicadores del primer mundo, y también problemas de primer mundo. La mortalidad infantil en la isla es de 5 por cada mil nacidos vivos (23 en América latina), la esperanza de vida al nacer es de 77 años (71 en América Latina) y la tasa global de fecundidad es de 1,43 (mientras que en la región es de 2,4). Las cifras de Cuba son similares a la de los países más desarrollados, según la ONU.

En 2006, los nacimientos llegaron a su nivel más bajo en seis décadas; y por primera vez la población cubana decreció en más de 4.000 habitantes. Según Alfonso, los factores son diversos: los problemas de vivienda, la carencia de servicios de apoyo al hogar o la emigración, y otros como "el desarrollo social o profesional alcanzado por la mujer, su incorporación al trabajo y el libre acceso a métodos de planificación familiar". El goteo de jóvenes y mujeres en edad fértil que abandonan la isla -sólo a EE UU emigran legalmente cada año 20.000 personas- influye, pero para Alfonso "no siempre hay relación directa entre carencias materiales y reducción de natalidad".

El envejecimiento de la población preocupa. El país estará pronto entre los más viejos del planeta, con lo que ello implica de gastos de atención y seguridad social -recientemente, el gobierno de Raúl Castro subió un 20% las pensiones de jubilación-. El problema es serio. Según la investigadora Berta Durán, en Cuba alrededor del 90% de los ancianos vive en familias. "La mirada social para enfrentar las necesidades de los adultos mayores se ha puesto en ellos como sujetos. Eso es importante, pero en el diseño de políticas sociales se ha minimizado el papel de la familia y la ayuda social a estos grupos para atender y convivir con los ancianos", dice Durán. Según Alfonso, el Gobierno ha aprobado medidas de "carácter económico, social, cultural y jurídico" para "recuperar ritmos de aumento de población más favorables", pero no especificó cuales.

28 Florida men charged with smuggling Cubans

The number of Cubans arriving in the U.S. illegally has risen by double digits in each of the last four years as the
multimillion-dollar human-smuggling industry has flourished.

By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 21, 2008

MIAMI -- Federal grand juries in Key West and Miami have indicted 28 South Florida men on charges of smuggling immigrants into the United States, the U.S. attorney's office said Tuesday.

The dramatic move was apparently aimed at the thriving industry in which speedboat operators charge Cubans thousands of dollars apiece to be spirited out of their homeland.

The indictments stem from 13 smuggling operations intercepted over the last two years. The charges -- involving the thwarted smuggling of more than 225 foreign nationals, all but 11 of them Cuban -- could send each defendant to prison for as long as 10 years.

Most of the smuggled immigrants were Cubans picked up late at night on the shores of their island by "go-fast" boat captains paid as much as $10,000 a head, usually by relatives in Florida seeking reunification with kin they left behind. Thousands of Cubans make it to U.S. shores each year on boats that evade detection by the U.S. Coast Guard and Border Patrol.

Two of the defendants, Yamil Gonzalez-Rodriguez and Roberto Boffil-Rivera, were charged in a separate grand jury indictment with unlawful possession of a firearm by an illegal immigrant and lying to a federal agent.

According to a statement by U.S. Atty. R. Alexander Acosta and other federal officials, Gonzalez-Rodriguez, after smuggling four Cuban adults and a minor to Miami on April 21 for $45,000, demanded that one of them pay him an additional $25,000.

The immigrant reportedly paid $5,000 to Gonzalez-Rodriguez this month, but the alleged smuggler "was unsatisfied with the amount of payment and threatened to shoot" the immigrant with a gun owned by Boffil-Rivera, the statement says.

Federal agents clandestinely recorded the threat and arrested the two men at the scene, apparently acting with the cooperation of the unidentified immigrant.

The number of Cubans arriving in the U.S. illegally has risen by double digits in each of the last four years as the multimillion-dollar industry has flourished. Unlike other nationalities arriving without visas, Cubans who make it to U.S. land are allowed to stay and apply for legal permanent residency under the U.S. government's "wet-foot, dry-foot policy."

carol.williams@latimes.com

Cuba: If Change Is in the Air, Does Prosperity Lie Ahead?

By Jean Damu

Thursday June 05, 2008

While aging anti-Castroistas in Florida and New Jersey continue to terrorize gullible U.S. politicians into supporting their quixotic dreams of returning Cuba to the ranks of U.S. gangster economics, this island nation has defied all rational odds against its socialist survival. Today while it not only remains the planet’s inspirational outpost of humanitarianism and social justice, in fact Cuba appears to be thriving.

How is it possible? Just a decade and half ago Cuba faced economic ruin as 30 percent of its economy vanished overnight with the dismantlement of the Soviet Union. People were hungry and it was not unusual to have to wait all night for a bus to get home. Unbelievably, today it’s actually easier to get fresh fruits and vegetables in the various municipalities of Havana than it is in many neighborhoods of the America’s largest cities.

Here vegetables and fruits straight from the ground and the trees are available at prices most Cubans can afford. Sleek new buses maintain regular routes, the vintage U.S. cars, for which Cuba has long been famous, while not extinct are becoming rare, the stores are well stocked and the people are generally well dressed. Life definitely seems to be on the upswing here and change seems evident everywhere.

Relaxing in the shade of a private home in this seaside resort village, just 25 kilometers east of Havana, a foreigner who has seen Cuba in the best of times and worst of times can be forgiven for concluding that Cuba’s new found prosperity is based on three things: China, Venezuela and tourism.

And while China, Venezuela and tourism have impacted Cuba with many much needed benefits, including oil, busses and tourist industry jobs, it would be selling Cubans and their socialist vision short to say that others are primarily responsible for their recent successes. The truth of the matter is that as early as 1996 the Cuban economy began to grow at the very healthy rate of eight per cent per year.

During that period, euphemistically referred to as the “special period,” Cuba began to radically diversify its economy by recruiting foreign investment and turning toward tourism as a source of badly needed currency. More recently, in 2006 specifically, with the emergence of Venezuela and China as major players in the global marketplace, Cuba’s foreign exchange earnings jumped by 30 percent thanks largely to income derived from the export of medical services to Venezuela and several Caribbean islands.

Cuba used a portion of its foreign earnings to purchase 7,000 buses from China’s Yutong Corp. It is these new Chinese buses that now ply the streets of many of Cuba’s cities and have made the old tractor-driven camellos, the old tanker-looking buses that resembled camels, on to which several hundred people at a time would jam themselves, invisible throughout major portions of the island.

Plans to refurbish the Cuban railway with Chinese rail cars and locomotives built especially for Cuba apparently still have not happened, as Cubans openly disparage the rail system. But other changes, some more deep-seated but less visible, are now becoming apparent.

For instance the supposed crisis of leadership that most of the world assumed existed when it was announced Fidel Castro, due to his diagnosis of cancer, would temporarily step down as head of state, it turns out was never a crisis at all. The national media in the United States, taking its cue from the Bush occupied White House ground out stories designed to embolden the anti-Castro communities, telling the world that either the Cuban people would rise up in the wake of the rudderless Cuban ship of state and re-impose democracy (read capitalism), or alternatively the people would be distraught with grief at the impending demise of their great leader and social turmoil would result.

Neither scenario was anywhere close to accurate. Cubans interviewed in the street on their way to work, after it was announced Fidel was seriously ill with just limited chances of survival, took time out to chastise the Cuban leader for working too hard and not taking better care of himself.

In fact the Cuban people’s confidence in the Cuban system, with or without Fidel, was reinforced during the general elections held earlier this year. In a move that took no one by surprise the ailing Castro announced he would not run for re-election.

And while no one was surprised that Raul, Fidel’s 76-year-old brother, was elected to replace the elder Castro as president of the Council of State, what was somewhat surprising were indications of the ever increasing role of blacks and women in the Cuban political process.

In the wake of the January elections 35 percent of the National Assembly members are black, up from 33 percent in 2003 and 28 percent in 1998. Forty-three percent of the National Assembly members are women, making Cuba one of the world’s leaders in the percentage of women in representative government. The U.S. Congress is made up of just 16.8 percent of women by comparison. Despite all these positive indicators it would be a mistake to give the impression life is easy in Cuba. It is not and it never has been.

So questions remain. Especially, how will the younger post-revolution generation respond to the challenges confronted by Cuba in her constant struggles with her great imperialist neighbor to the North? Indications are the youth may not be so patient.

In what is now a famous incident in Cuba, in February, a student at the University of Computer Science, Eliecir Avila, stood at a microphone in a meeting with National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcon and asked pointed questions about the Cuban economy. When, he asked, could Cubans expect to be allowed certain rights and privileges citizens of other countries took for granted? All his questions were good questions; questions many Cubans, not just the youths, were asking themselves.

What was equally interesting about the Alarcon-Avila exchange was that an enterprising computer science student recorded the question-answer exchange on a cell phone video, downloaded it to a computer and put it on the Internet. It thus became an item of island-wide, even international discussion.

While it was reported in some quarters of the United States that Avila was later arrested by Cuban authorities, the truth is that he was taken to Havana, put on a television round table forum and the discussion on Cuban economics and conditions of life continued. Some answers to the student’s questions were not long in coming.

Late in April, the Council of State, the elected representative body of the National Assembly that carries out policy between sessions of the Assembly announced new economic and social reforms that would allow Cubans access to services and consumer products heretofore denied them. It was an impressive, if token, response to Cuban’s desires to “look like everyone else.” It was a token response because allowing Cuban access to tourist hotels, and lifting restrictions on the sale of cell phones, microwave ovens, dvd players, items that were formerly restricted to conserve energy, is only meaningful if people have the economic capacity to purchase such things. Most still do not.

But the willingness of the Cuban government to listen to the people and to respond in some measure is a clear signal Cubans think Cuba is well on the road to recovery. Of course given the free market nature of the global economic system that exists now, likely Cuba will never return to the days when the socialist world gave fair and equal sustenance to the Cuban economy.

But change is in the air and you have to like Cuba’s chances of flourishing once again.

Jean Damu can be reached at jdamu2@yahoo.com. This article first appeared in the San Francisco Bayview.

Engaging Cuba, 50 Years Later

By Marcela Sanchez

Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, May 30, 2008; 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON -- Probably no event could stand as better proof of a U.S. foreign policy failure than the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, to be marked on Jan. 1. Nineteen days later, a new U.S. president -- the 11th since Fidel Castro toppled Fulgencio Batista's regime -- will inherit that policy.

Judging by the presidential candidates' statements last week, only Sen. Barack Obama suggests a change. Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain promote mostly more of the same: a continuation of the trade embargo and other restrictions, combined with support for dissident forces within the island.

In a speech in Miami last Friday, Obama pledged to immediately lift President Bush's 2004 restrictions on family travel and remittances, adding that "there are no better ambassadors for freedom than Cuban-Americans." What's more, he became the first U.S. presidential candidate in decades to leave open the possibility of starting a dialogue with the Castro brothers "without preconditions." Although Obama said such talks would come only "at a time and place of my choosing," he seems willing to go well beyond Clinton or McCain in reaching out to Cuba's rulers.

This "softer" stance would have meant political suicide in South Florida not long ago, but things are changing. According to Florida International University's 2007 Cuba poll, a majority of Cuban-American voters still supports a military intervention to overthrow the Castro government. But at the same time, a majority also favors undoing Bush's restrictions (52.1 percent) and establishing a dialogue with representatives of the Cuban government (60.1 percent).

That may seem like a contradiction, but Hugh Gladwin, director of the Institute for Public Opinion Research, which conducted the poll, says that "a lot of people are so sick of the current situation that they want anything that would change it." If change is indeed the key word, then the Obama campaign has gotten the message.

Frustration within the Cuban-American community grew particularly strong during the nearly eight years of tough talk by the Bush administration, which many Cuban-Americans now feel was purely political pandering. Bush claims to have dramatically stepped up U.S. efforts to promote freedom and democracy in Cuba through a bottom-up approach that supports civil society groups on the island. And in strict terms, he put more money into his Cuban freedom agenda and even created a new bureaucracy to run it.

Unfortunately, very little was accomplished. The Cuban American National Foundation, one of the most influential anti-Castro groups, found in a March report that less than 17 percent of the funds earmarked for Cuba through the U.S. Agency for International Development were used for direct assistance. "The remaining 83 percent was used to cover operating expenses of grantee organizations, off-island transition studies and U.S.-based activities," the foundation said.

You could level a criticism against Obama's top-down approach for thinking that he could talk the Cuban regime into changing. McCain has in fact slammed Obama for proposing a dialogue, which he said would send "the worst possible signal to Cuba's dictators." That retired President Fidel Castro signaled his support for Obama -- calling him, in a column published Monday, the "most progressive" of the candidates -- doesn't help matters either.

Republicans too criticize Obama for what they see as an inherent contradiction: pushing for engagement while easing, but not lifting, the embargo. But such criticism ignores a basic tenet of diplomacy. Sanctions can provide the leverage to negotiate with your enemies. And what's more, sanctions used as a tool for continued isolation have clearly had their chance -- and failed. As Anthony Lake, Obama's senior international affairs adviser, pointed out in an e-mail, "a refusal to talk seldom produces results."

The reality is that Obama's proposal is not that innovative (Latin Americans have been trying a similar approach for a long time, clearly with limited success) and criticisms of his proposal simply miss the point. The Obama campaign is acknowledging something that others have either missed or have evaluated differently, and this is that the Cuban exile community now encompasses more diverse views and, as a whole, is frustrated with the status quo.

While Cuban-Americans have solidly supported Republicans in the past -- presidents, governors and representatives in Congress -- Obama and the Democrats are better off offering a real alternative from the strict hard line of the past. The time is right for it.

If Obama ends up winning the presidency, January may in fact mark another momentous occasion: the irreversible erosion of a stubborn foreign policy approach based on the perceived single-mindedness of the Cuban-American constituency.

Marcela Sanchez's e-mail address is desdewash(at)washpost.com.

Cuba's Urban Agrarians Flourish

HAVANA, June 4, 2008

CBS News producer Portia Siegelbaum in Havana.

"Buy local. Eat seasonal. Eat organic." All now commonplace admonitions in the United States.

But while none of these slogans are household words in Cuba, 70 percent of the vegetables and herbs grown on the island today are organic and the urban gardens where they are raised are usually within walking distance of those who will consume them. So in one blow Cuba reduced the use of fossil fuels in the production and transportation of food. And they began doing this nearly 20 years ago.

The island nation’s move to organic and sustainable farming did not arise from its environmental consciousness, although there was an element of that also. The main reason was the beginning of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, Cuba’s only source of petroleum and main trading partner at that time.

Overnight long lines formed at gas stations that all too often ran out before all their customers could fill up. Traffic was virtually non-existent. Chinese “Flying Pigeon” bicycles replaced both private and public transportation.

“Puestos” as Cubans call the produce section of their rationed grocery stores displayed only empty bins as agriculture ground to a halt. Chemical pesticides and fertilizers vanished. Tractors became relics of a former time. Oxen pulled the plows that furrowed the fields.

Finding food for the dinner table became a day-long drudge. Cubans visibly lost weight. The communist youth daily, Juventud Rebelde, ran articles on edible weeds. Daily caloric intake dropped to about 1600 calories.

Organic agriculture "made its appearance at that moment as a necessity and that necessity helped us to advance, to consolidate and expand more or less uniformly in all 169 municipalities," says Adolfo Rodriguez. At 62, he is Cuba’s top urban agrarian, with 43 years experience in agriculture.

He says there are now 300,000 people employed directly in urban agriculture without counting those who are raising organic produce in their backyards as part of a State-encouraged grassroots movement. In all, Rodriguez claims nearly a million people are getting their hands dirty organically.

With 76 percent of Cuba’s population of just under 11 million living in cities, the importance of this form of farming cannot be over emphasized, says Rodriguez.

The urban gardens have been dubbed "organoponicos." Those located in never-developed empty lots primarily consist of raised beds. More complicated are those created in the space left by a collapsed building, not uncommon in cities like Havana where much of the housing is in a very deteriorated state and where all it takes is a heavy tropical rainfall followed by relentless sunshine to bring down a structure.

"We have to truck in the soil," before anything can be planted, explains Rodriguez. "The basic issue is restoring fertility, the importance of producing compost, organic fertilizers, humus created by worms," he says.

In a majority of cases the fruits and vegetables are freshly picked every morning and go on sale just with a few feet of where they grew. Only in exceptional cases, such as the densely population municipality of Old Havana (as the colonial section of the capital is named) do the organic fruits and vegetables travel a kilometer or so by a tricycle or horse drawn cart to reach consumers.

Lucky are the Havana residents who live near the organoponico at 44th Street and Fifth Avenue. Occupying nearly an entire city block, it grows a wide variety of vegetables, fruits and herbs, as well as ornamental plants. It will even sell fresh basil shoots for customers to plant in their own herb garden. On a recent day, customers were offered the following fresh produce at reasonable prices: mangos, plantains, basil, parsley, lettuce, garlic, celery, scallions, collard greens, black beans, watermelon, tomatoes, malanga, spinach and sweet potatoes.

Luckily for Cubans in general, organic here is not equivalent to expensive. Overhead costs are low. The produce is sold from simple aluminum kiosks, signs listing the day’s offer and prices are handmade, electricity is used only for irrigation, and no transportation other than walking from the raised beds to the kiosks is involved. The result? Everything is fresh, local and available.

Convincing Cubans to buy this produce, especially the less familiar vegetables, so as to prepare earth friendly meals, presented a hurdle. The ideal meal on the island includes roast pork, rice and beans and yucca. A lettuce and tomato salad was popular. But the idea of vegetable side dishes or an all vegetarian meal was inconceivable to most.

"We’re cultivating some 40-plus species but you have to know who your customers are," says Rodriguez. "We can’t plant a lot of broccoli right now because its not going to sell but we’re making progress." For example, he notes, in the beginning practically no one bought spinach. Now, all the spinach planted is sold. Persuading people to eat carrots, according to Rodriguez, was an uphill battle. "We had to begin supplying them to the daycare centers,” so as to develop a taste for this most common of root vegetables.

The "queen" of the winter crop is lettuce. The spring/summer "queen" is the Chinese string bean. Cuba’s blazing summer sun doesn’t allow for growing produce out of its season, even under cover, except in rare circumstances.

The saving of heritage fruits, vegetables and even animals has also gotten a boost from the urban agrarian movement. The chayote, a fleshy, pear-shaped single-seeded fruit, had virtually disappeared from the market. Now, Rodriguez says, 130 of Cuba’s 169 municipalities are growing the fruit that many remember from their grandmother’s kitchen repertoire in which it was treated as a vegetable, often stuffed and baked.

"We are working to rescue fruit orchards that are in danger of extinction," stresses Rodriguez. "We’ve planted fields with fruit species that many of today’s children have never even seen, such as the sapote. To save these species we’ve created specialized provincial botanical gardens," he explains.

Similarly, the urban agrarian movement is rescuing native animal species such as the Creole goat and the cubalaya chicken, the only native Cuban poultry species.

Currently spiraling global food prices are hitting the island hard. Cuba has been importing just over 80 percent of the food consumed domestically. The government is making more land and supplies available to farmers and this may well include chemical fertilizers and pesticides in an attempt to greatly reduce this foreign dependency.

Rodriguez does not believe this push to quickly increase agricultural output will negatively impact on the urban organic movement. Even during the 1990s, known in Cuba as the "Special Period,” he says, the potato crop continued to receive chemical pesticides and fertilizers. And even today, the 30 percent of the non-organic produce includes, for example, large-scale plantings of tomatoes for industrial processing.

"I think that Cuba’s urban agriculture has come to stay," concludes Rodriguez. "That there is a little increase in the application of fertilizers and pesticides for specific crops is normal but that’s not to say that the country is going to shift away from organic farming, to turn our organic gardens into non-organic ones."

In Rare Study, Cubans Put Money Worries First

June 5, 2008

New York Times

By MARC LACEY

MEXICO CITY — A rare study conducted surreptitiously in Cuba found that more than half of those interviewed considered their economic woes to be their chief concern while less than 10 percent listed lack of political freedom as the main problem facing the country.

“Almost every poll you ever see, even those in the U.S., goes to bread-and-butter issues,” said Alex Sutton, director of Latin American and Caribbean programs at the International Republican Institute, which conducted the study. “Everybody everywhere is interested in their purchasing power.”

The institute is a nonprofit democracy-building group affiliated with the Republican Party that strongly opposes Cuba’s Communist government.

The results showed deep anxiety about the state of the country, with 35 percent of respondents saying things were “so-so” and 47 percent saying they were going “badly” or “very badly.” As for the government’s ability to turn things around, Cubans were skeptical, with 70 percent of those interviewed saying they did not believe that the authorities would resolve the country’s biggest problem in the next few years.

The study, to be released on Thursday, was conducted from March 14 to April 12, after Raúl Castro officially took over the presidency.

Since taking office, Raúl Castro has rolled out a variety of changes, lifting longstanding restrictions on the sale of cellphones and consumer items, access to tourist hotels and renting cars, among other things. The survey did not specifically ask Cubans about those changes.

Conducting surveys in Cuba is difficult and the institute did not seek the required permission from the authorities.

For the study, Latin American interviewers talked to 587 Cuban adults face to face across all of Cuba’s provinces. A telephone survey was not considered because large segments of the population do not have phones.

In 2006, the Gallup Organization conducted a survey in Havana and Santiago that found that more Cubans approved of Fidel Castro’s leadership than disapproved of it. The previous Gallup poll, in 1994, found that Cubans considered the revolution that brought Mr. Castro to power more of a success than a failure. Most Cubans in that survey also attributed their economic woes to the American trade embargo.

The International Republican Institute conducted its first Cuban study in October and plans regular interviews with a cross section of Cubans.

The study to be published Thursday found that young people were much more critical of Raúl Castro’s government than their parents and grandparents were. Nearly 70 percent of Cubans 18 to 29 said that if given a chance they would support a democratic system with multiparty elections, freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Among those 60 or older, support for such a change dropped to 44 percent.

Cubans of all ages supported an economic overhaul. More than 80 percent said they backed a market economic system that included the right to own property and run businesses.

Cuba’s problems were ranked this way: low salaries and high cost of living, double currency standard, lack of political freedoms, embargo and isolation, food scarcity, lack of medicines, poor transportation infrastructure and lack of housing or dilapidated conditions.

Given an opportunity to rate Raúl Castro from zero to 10, with zero being “very bad” and 10 being “very good,” the average of the Cubans’ responses was 5.55.