Can Cuba’s Mysteries Help Save the World’s Coral Reefs?

by Ocean Doctor
July 18, 2008

Until that tranquil morning in late June 1974, the sum total of my SCUBA diving experience had been in a landlocked state, in a stifling, moldy indoor YMCA pool in the Philadelphia suburbs and a Pennsylvania quarry, flooded with icy soup-green water. Barely comprehending the new world of pungent humidity, mountainous afternoon cumulus clouds, and lush tangles of flowering succulents I experienced at water’s edge during my first visit to the Florida Keys, I was wholly unprepared later that morning when I found myself seated in sugar-white sand with 40 feet of warm, clear aquamarine water above my head. As impossibly multi-colored fish passed slowly within reach before my wide 15-year-old eyes, my gaze broadened as I marveled at the towering jetties of coral around us, living layer cakes of corals upon corals, brown and mustard rock-like structures, encrusted with brilliant red, violet and orange coralline fans and branches, swaying in the warm, nourishing current and, like eager spring blossoms, reaching toward the dancing sunlight scattered on the surface above. Even in those first minutes face-to-face with a coral reef, the enormity of what I was witnessing was clear to me. I remember thinking, “There’s a whole living world going on down here, and we don’t know anything about it.” While I may have suspected in those moments that I would dedicate my career to something having to do with the oceans, I never would have dreamed that more than three decades later I would be literally immersed in some of the most important work of my life just 90 miles to the south of where I was seated beneath the waves.

Last week, as I departed Ft. Lauderdale and the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium, the world’s largest coral summit held every four years, the news was sobering. One-third of the world’s corals are well on their way to outright extinction, and the rest are threatened with, among other things, the indignant end of simply dissolving away, as increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from fossil fuel emissions enters the oceans, raising their acidity to the point where any ocean creature with a calcium carbonate shell — from corals to clams — succumbs to the acid waters. When my daughter was 15 and floated above that same reef I had experienced, it had become a pale shadow of the miracle of nature I had so delighted in. Nearly half the corals in the Florida Keys have died in my lifetime. Some are bleached bone white, others shackled in diseased bands of black. Many more lie smothered in broad blankets of algal slime which have robbed the reef of its rainbow of colors, leaving a lifeless green-gray skeleton where countless diversity once eeked from every imaginable crack and crevice. As I beheld this tragic image, little did I imagine that important clues to saving this reef and many more like it around the Caribbean and the world, might lie just 90 miles to the south.

I now sort through assorted dive gear, video equipment, and sunscreen preparing for my 37th visit to that magical place 90 miles to the south, to an island larger than all the other Caribbean islands combined, to an island whose coat of arms bears a key — “llave del golfo“, the key to the Gulf of Mexico — a subtropical nexus where the waters of the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean intertwine in a sublime undersea cocktail of diversity, color and mystery. Our fourth joint expedition of Proyecto Costa Noroccidental (Project of the Northwest Coast) — a project of the University of Havana’s Center for Marine Research (Centro de Investigaciones Marinas: CIM) and the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi — will continue our ongoing project to explore the most unknown corner of the Gulf of Mexico: Cuba’s northwest coastal waters.

A green sea turtle hatchling at Cuba's westernmost point, Guanahacabibes

It is often said that those 90 miles of open water south of the Florida Keys — the Straits of Florida — separate Cuba and the USA. Like a hand-drawn blue borderline, the Straits are often invoked as a symbol of the 50-year-old Cold War that has frozen our two countries so tantalizingly close, yet so tragically far apart. But to the sea turtles, sharks, lobster, whales and other sea life, those same 90 miles of blue unite our countries with racing blue currents, unseen underwater pathways, and a web of colorful life that defies the perceptions of so many of the Gulf of Mexico, who know it only as a hot, muddy cauldron that spawns hurricanes and oil platforms. Cuba, Mexico and the U.S. share the Gulf of Mexico and have a responsibility to work together to understand and protect it. Thankfully, despite debilitating restrictions, which are ever-changing in the cool winds of Cold War politics, we have worked for a solid eight years now with our Cuban colleagues, advancing our understanding of the Gulf of Mexico and providing research opportunities for Cuba’s next generation of marine scientists — nearly 20 have based their Masters and Ph.D. research on our joint projects.

Cuba’s northwest coast – the verdant Pinar del Río province, home to Cuba’s legendary cigars — is the least-developed coastal region of Cuba. But as Cuba’s tourism trade continues to develop and as Cuba’s fledgling offshore oil development expands into the Gulf, we hope that the insights from our joint research help to guide the hand of such development so that some of Cuba’s most precious assets, its coral reefs, will be spared the all too common fate I’ve seen elsewhere in the Caribbean. And there is much at stake.

As we dove during the second expedition, it was as if we had been transported decades backward in time, to the healthy, vibrant, towering reefs I remember from my mid-teens. The reefs I have seen in the Archepiélago de Los Colorados, the barrier reef that runs along Cuba’s northwest coast, are the healthiest I have seen in my life. For that reason, and because of its unique history and geography, Cuba may hold important clues for coral reefs elsewhere in the Caribbean and perhaps around the world. Good friend and colleague, Dr. Gaspar González-Sansón, titular professor at University of Havana, CIM, and co-principal investigator of Proyecto Costa Noroccidental, recently pointed to a number of possible reasons for the health of Cuba’s reefs when we spoke when I was recently in Havana:

Cuba’s tourism industry did not begin until 1993, necessitated by the demise of
the Soviet Union and its aid to the island. Though tourism has proceeded at a
rapid pace, it is highly localized at specific resort areas on the coasts. The
healthiest reefs also happen to be far from shore, such as Los Colorados to the
north and Jardines de la Reina to the south, perhaps beyond the reach of harmful
concentrations of coastal pollution.

Cuban commercial fishing vessel in the Gulf of MexicoCuba does have a commercial fishing fleet, but fishermen principally use hook and line, so unlike nets and trawls which result in catching just about everything, fishing in Cuba is highly selective. In contrast, more than 80 percent of what’s caught in U.S. Gulf of Mexico shrimp trawls is not shrimp — it’s small finfish and other creatures collectively known as “bycatch” that represent the unforgivable waste of this fishing practice. Cuba is now phasing out all bottom trawling on its continental shelf.

In the early days of the revolution, President Fidel Castro declared, “Not one drop of water to the sea,” a call to action to dam rivers and streams in order to divert water for use in agriculture and population centers. Reducing fresh water input upset the delicate balance of fresh and salt water in Cuba’s estuaries, resulting in the disappearance of populations intolerant to the saltier waters, such as the white shrimp. In another way, however, this policy may have inadvertently served to help reefs by reducing the transport of fertilizers and pesticides to the reefs. Use of fertilizers and pesticides has dropped dramatically since the withdrawal of the Soviet Union. Given that nutrient pollution is a key factor in the growth of coral-smothering algae, this may also be an important factor.

In countless ways, the island of Cuba is unique. And when it comes to coral reefs, Cuba is again, unique. Here an island of thriving corals flourishes amid a world of corals dying and disappearing. In this mysterious corner of the Gulf of Mexico where time seems to have stopped, I find hope. Hope that the rich ecosystems of this beautiful island will endure. And I find hope that Cuba’s coral reefs might share some of their tantalizing secrets, secrets that can offer clues to protecting and restoring coral reefs elsewhere, including a special place I still remember in the Florida Keys, just 90 miles to the north.

Can Cuba

Can Cuba’s Mysteries Help Save the World’s Coral Reefs?

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Cuba orders extreme measures to cut energy use

11 Nov 2009
* Cuba's energy situation termed "critical"
* Some factories, workshops to be closed through December
* Most other economic activities to be reduced
By Marc Frank
HAVANA, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Cuba has ordered all state enterprises to adopt "extreme measures" to cut energy usage through the end of the year in hopes of avoiding the dreaded blackouts that plagued the country following the 1991 collapse of its then-top ally, the Soviet Union. In documents seen by Reuters, government officials have been warned that the island is facing a "critical" energy shortage that requires the closing of non-essential factories and workshops and the shutting down of air conditioners and refrigerators not needed to preserve food and medicine. Cuba has cut government spending and slashed imports after being hit hard by the global financial crisis and the cost of recovering from three hurricanes that struck last year. "The energy situation we face is critical and if we do not adopt extreme measures we will have to revert to planned blackouts affecting the population," said a recently circulated message from the Council of Ministers. "Company directors will analyze the activities that will be stopped and others reduced, leaving only those that guarantee exports, substitution of imports and basic services for the population," according to another distributed by the light industry sector. President Raul Castro is said to be intent on not repeating the experience of the 1990s, when the demise of the Soviet Union and the loss of its steady oil supply caused frequent electricity blackouts and hardship for the Cuban public. The directives follow government warnings in the summer that too much energy was being used and blackouts would follow if consumption was not reduced. All provincial governments and most state-run offices and factories, which encompasses 90 percent of Cuba's economic activity, were ordered in June to reduce energy use by a minimum of 12 percent or face mandatory electricity cuts. The measures appeared to resolve the crisis as state-run press published stories about the amount of energy that had been saved and the dire warnings died down. The only explanation given for the earlier warnings was that Cuba was consuming more fuel than the government had money to pay for. The situation is not as dire as in the 1990s because Cuba receives 93,000 barrels per day of crude oil, almost two-thirds of what it consumes, from Venezuela. It pays for the oil by providing its energy-rich ally with medical personnel and other professionals. Cuba has been grappling with the global economic downturn, which has slashed revenues from key exports, dried up credit and reduced foreign investment. The communist-run Caribbean nation also faces stiff U.S. sanctions that include cutting access to international lending institutions, and it is still rebuilding from last year's trio of hurricanes that caused an estimated $10 billion in damages. In response, the government has cut spending, slashed imports, suspended many debt payments and frozen bank accounts of foreign businesses. It reported last week that trade was down 36 percent so far this year due mainly to a more than 30 percent reduction in imports.

Cuba's blogosphere has developed a sharper edge

Nov. 09, 2009
BY JUAN O. TAMAYOjtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, speaks during a interview with AFP in Havana, on May 6, 2008. Sanchez won the Ortega y Gasset prize in Spain for digital journalism for her critical Internet blog on Cuban reality. Cuban authorities have refused to give a travel visa to Sanchez so she can receive one of Spain's top journalism awards in Madrid on Wednesday, said Spanish newspaper El Pais which hands out the awards annually. When a dozen Cuban bloggers wanted to stage a protest last month, they simultaneously tweeted, texted and posted messages like ``Freedom.''

One later used a blond wig to sneak into a government building and complain against censorship of the Internet. And the next day, she posted a video of her complaint on her blog. Carefully, but with daring determination, some Cubans whose blogs once focused largely on the frustrations of daily life are moving toward sharp-edged commentaries and activities that some fear will eventually lead to a crackdown by the communist government. ``We do not have a common position . . . but yes, some people have been doing actions that go beyond the click and the keyboard and try to exercise the rights of a free person,'' said Reynaldo Escobar of the Havana blog Desde Aquí (From Here). Some bloggers indeed have become ``more assertive, more confrontational, more pushing the limits -- and pushing their luck,'' said Ted Henken, a Baruch College professor who is writing a paper on the social implications of the Cuban blogosphere's growth.

In fact, on Friday the best known of the Cuban bloggers, Yoani Sánchez, reported that she and another blogger were detained and beaten severely by state security agents, apparently to keep them from joining a peaceful march in Havana organized by young musicians. Cuba's blogosphere is tiny for an island of 11.5 million people. About 200 blogs have official approval and 100 don't, among them dissident journalists and human rights activists, according to a recent report by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. But about 15 bloggers have captured widespread attention at home and abroad -- sometimes becoming better known than political dissidents -- with posts that challenge the government and break its monopoly on information entering and leaving the island. While human rights activists report ``the sufferings on the island, which are indeed tragic,'' said Henken, the usually younger bloggers tend to use more humor and nonpolitical language to connect with young Cubans and foreigners. ``They appeal to a new generation that speaks their language, the language of social networks'' like blogs and Facebook, he added. ``They appeal to people like my students, who have no politics.''

Escobar said some of the bloggers -- sometimes called alternative bloggers to differentiate them from government-approved and dissident writers -- have now decided ``their purpose is not just to be on the Web but to express their individual will to come together in a place, on an issue.'' They have arranged three ``virtual protests'' since May, but their largest came on Oct. 20, the anniversary of the day the Cuban national anthem was first sung, when a dozen Cuban bloggers and about 100 other sites coordinated their posts, text messages, tweets and other Web activities for Blogacción -- Blog Action. Escobar wrote that if he had a microphone for only two seconds he would ask for ``freedom.'' Myriam Celaya blogged demanding Internet access for all. Claudia Cadelo wrote that she dreamed of the release of blogger Pablo Pacheco, who has been jailed since 2003 but dictates his post to Cadelo, who then arranges to have them posted on Voz Tras Las Rejas -- Voice from behind Bars.

``It's a matter of trying to grease the machinery for online protests,'' Sánchez, 34, wrote about the Oct. 20 event in her blog Generación Y. The total number of participants is unknown, but Google reported 22,000 searches for the words ``Blogacción'' and ``Cuba.'' Six days later, Escobar and Sánchez, who are married, hosted the first session of the Bloggers Academy of Cuba, a series of training sessions for some 30 would-be bloggers in their Havana apartment that includes technology, photography, ethics and the legalities of the Internet. And three days after that, Sánchez sneaked into a government-run cultural center that was hosting a discussion on the Internet. While other cyberactivists were barred from entering, Sánchez took off her wig and launched a withering critique of the government's ``ideological filter'' on the Internet. A video of her comments -- and the thin applause she received -- was posted on her blog hours later. The government has long tried to control Cubans' access to the Internet, putting restrictions on computers and subscriptions, keeping prices high and blocking access to unfriendly sites, including most alternative blogs. It also has assigned university students of computer sciences to post comments supporting the government and attacking its critics.
But Cubans have found myriad ways to get around the roadblocks: Passwords for Internet access sell on the black market for $10 a month. People with access download information to CDs and USB thumb drives and pass them on to others, who then copy the data and pass it further on. One file being passed around instructs cybernauts on how to get around government blocks on the unfriendly blogs and other websites. Yosvani Anzardo, a young engineer from the eastern province of Holguín, even established the digital newspaper Covadonga and an private e-mail system called Red Libertad -- Liberty Net -- by reprogramming his laptop to work as a much more powerful server. Then there's Bluetooth, which allows the rapid transfer of files such as forbidden books, songs and foreign news reports between cellphones that are near each other, without going through telephone or computer lines. Security agents probably don't realize the impact of Bluetooth, Escobar said. ``Those people studied in the KGB and maybe now they are studying in China, but their knowledge is antiquated,'' he said in a telephone interview from Havana.
© 2009 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.http://www.miamiherald.com

Cuba capable of waging a cyberwar

BY MANUEL CEREIJO
pacpe@aol.com

During the last few weeks there have been thousands of cyber attacks on computers and computer networks in the U.S. government and private entities. The United States, because of its dependence on computers, is very vulnerable to such attacks. A cyber attack on the United States could crush our country and the world economy, which depends on the United States as the world's leading economy. If they take us down, they cripple everybody. The U.S. government has not publicly identified where the cyber attacks are coming from, but Cuba has such potential. A partially declassified CIA document released several years ago notes that Cuba started in 1991 to study how to interfere with computer networks. This project had a modest budget of $50,000. The Soviet Union maintained in Cuba the Lourdes electronic espionage base, to which Cuba did not have direct access. That base was dismantled in 2002, but there are others.

Upping the investment

In 1994, Cuba and Russia agreed to build a similar base in Bejucal, south of Havana. It became operational in December 1997 at a cost of $750 million. The Bejucal base shows the importance Cuba puts on cybernetics -- having gone from a $50,000 budget to $750 million in only six years. The Bejucal base has the capacity to listen to U.S. telecommunications, interfere with computer networks, read/change electronic files and, more important, change output commands of computers used to control infrastructure facilities. In 1999, China and Cuba signed an agreement, known as Operation Titan, which allows Chinese personnel to collaborate at the Bejucal base and other facilities in Cuba. Since 2002, Cuba has used China's satellites to operate the Bejucal base, which employs 1,100 engineers, technicians and staff. The Cuban government has emphasized training talented young engineers in computation and cybernetics. A select group has been placed in key positions in cyber facilities there. The Cuban government has declared publicly that computers have replaced canons in the modern asymmetric war. Here's a partial list of other Cuban cybernetic facilities I've found through years of research:

• The Electronic Warfare Batallion in the Vedado neighborhood of Havana cost $75 million. Its main task is interfering with telecommunications.
• The Cojimar electronic complex, east of La Habana, cost $40 million.
• The Wajay farm, also known as the Antenna Farm, near Bejucal cost $15 million and houses hundreds of special antennas.
• The antenna farm in Santiago in eastern Cuba is similar to the one in Wajay and cost about $15 million.
• The University of Informative Sciences was established in 2003 on the site of the old Russian
Lourdes base, enrolling 10,000 students in a five-year program.

In the summer of 2004, Cuba interfered with satellite communications from the United States to the people of Iran from the Bejucal base. That operation confirms Cuba's high technology and its close ties with Iran. Cuba and Iran, along with Sudan and Syria, are classified by the U.S. State Department as state sponsors of terrorism in its April report. Cuba is considered to have the most developed cyber infrastructure among those countries. American society, the media and civic and judicial institutions should realize that Cuba's cybernetic war threatens our democratic principles and freedom. We ignore it at our own peril.

Manuel Cereijo is an electrical and computer engineering professor who holds patents in manufacturing, telecommunications and control systems. He lectures at the University of Miami.

Interview with "El Duque"

Jews in Cuba

Florencia Arbiser • Cover Story
Published: 19 June 2009

CARTAGENA, Colombia – The recent thaw in relations between Cuba and the United States is being greeted with caution by some Jews in Cuba. In April, the Obama administration announced it was moving to ease restrictions on American travel to Cuba and money transfers to the island. Then, earlier this month, the 34-nation Organization of American States agreed to conditionally accept Cuba if Havana was interested. Cuban officials in the past have said they are not interested in membership and denounced the OAS, which receives about 60 percent of its funding from the United States, as a tool of American domination. “We would very much like to receive more visitors,” William Miller, the vice president of the House of the Hebrew Community in Cuba, one of the nine Jewish congregations in the island, told JTA. “Most Cuban Jews rarely travel abroad; the foreign Jewish visitors nourish our souls.” But Miller, who often receives Jewish missions from overseas, said the thaw in U.S.-Cuba ties may change the nature of visits to Cuba by American Jews.

American Jews are now allowed by U.S. law to visit Cuba only if they are traveling under the auspices of a licensed religious organization and their trip is ostensibly for religious purposes. They tour Jewish Cuba, meet with local Jews, share Shabbat dinner in Cuban homes, and even join in communal ceremonies. But if the religious requirement is eased, Miller said, American Jews coming to Cuba simply might head straight for Cuba’s Caribbean beaches, as they do in places like Mexico and elsewhere, and ignore the local Jewish community. “It is a challenge for us to see how we get involved with a potential increasing number of visitors,” Miller told JTA at a conference of Latin American Jewish leaders organized in Colombia last month by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. “We must work to spread the word to worldwide Jews that we exist and need contact with them,” David Prinstein Señorans, who lives in Cuba, told JTA at the conference.

Cuba has approximately 1,500 Jews and nine synagogues, three of which are in Havana. Before the Communist revolution of 1959, Cuba had about 15,000 Jews, but many left after Fidel Castro came to power. Some of those who stayed participated in the revolution, achieving prominence in Cuba’s fields of science and culture. For three decades following the revolution, religion was suppressed, leading to assimilation. But in 1992 the government eased restrictions on religion, and since then international Jewish aid agencies have built strong links to Cuba’s Jews. Their activities are centered on bolstering Jewish life on the island, including sending religious items to Cuba and helping its Jews with everyday needs.

The JDC has a permanent office in Cuba that helps run cultural, educational, and religious programs, including religious education for children and youth, bar mitzvah prep courses, Shabbat meal assistance, youth camps, and activities for the elderly. It even has a drugstore. Groups like the JDC and B’nai B’rith also coordinate missions to Cuba that each year draw hundreds of American Jews. “Several families from the United States, Canada, and France come to the island and feel committed to the Jewish community,” said Yacob Berezniak, a Cuban Jewish engineer and member of the Orthodox congregation Adath Israel in Havana.

JDC’s executive vice president, Steve Schwager, said he was not concerned that the personal ties would suffer if travel restrictions were eased. “I am confident that Jewish interest and visits with Cuban Jews will not be diminished by political changes,” he said. Cuba’s Jews remain desperately poor by Western standards, but thanks to the aid of Jewish agencies overseas, they are in a better position than most Cubans. B’nai B’rith provides food and medical assistance in Cuba. One of the group’s current projects includes installing a filter for potable water at Adath Israel. Panama’s Jews send kosher food to Adath Israel. London-based ORT runs a language lab and provides computer training at the House of the Hebrew Community.

Though Cuba does not have diplomatic ties with Israel, Cuban Jews say their community has good ties with the government, which is now led by Castro’s brother, Raul. For example, the government grants requests by Cuban Jews to leave the country to attend Jewish-related gatherings. Eduardo Kohn, the Latin American Affairs director of B’nai B’rith, says the community’s good ties with the government are based on the fact that the Jewish community is involved in religious and cultural activities but never takes part in political issues. Anti-Semitism is virtually unheard of in the country. “As a Jew, I’ve studied in school and at Havana University with my kippah and never had to face a hostile situation,” Berezniak said. “I walk calmly in the streets and I am accepted by my neighbors.

“Cuba is a peculiar country. Anti-Semitism does not exist,” he said. “Unlike other places in the world, we don’t need guards in the Jewish buildings.” Fernando Lapiduz, the JDC’s representative in Cuba, said he is reserving judgment on what Obama’s change in approach might mean for Cuba’s Jews. “We will have to see how this develops day by day,” Lapiduz said. “We might not perceive such a big impact.” Berezniak echoed that sentiment. “It is hard for me to see any remarkable change in our routine coming from Obama’s announcement,” he said.

Jewish Group back from ‘eye-opening’ trip to Cuba

Josh Lipowsky
The Jewish Standard, Cover Story
19 June 2009

Howard Brown of Cresskill wanted to go somewhere he hadn’t been before. He decided on Cuba. But the United States has had an embargo on the small Communist country for decades, preventing trade and travel — except for humanitarian reasons. Brown called Howard Charish, executive vice president of UJA Federation Northern New Jersey, to discuss sending a mission to the island nation to learn about and help the small Jewish community there. “I’ve never been to Cuba and I decided to go,” said Brown, who with his wife Nancy was among the trip’s co-chairs. “I felt like a lot of people who went on the trip would like to see how the Jewish community is surviving and what we can do to help out.”

Fourteen people signed up to go — although one couple had to turn back in Miami because of illness — and UJA-NNJ’s Charish accompanied them. From May 20 through 25, the group toured the country’s small Jewish community.
“It was absolutely eye-opening,” Charish said. “Here’s a community that experienced almost 30 years where Judaism was repressed and now the spark has been reignited.” Before Fidel Castro rose to power, some 15,000 Jews lived in Cuba. Many had thought of Cuba as a stop-off along the way to America but ended up staying. Within 20 years of the 1959 revolution, however, the Jewish population dropped to 800. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s religious groups once again began to grow. “It was a beautiful thing,” said Jodi Epstein of Alpine. “I didn’t realize they were keeping [Judaism] alive there or that they were allowed to.”

Today, Cuba’s Jewish community is made up of approximately 1,500 people, about 1,000 of whom live in or around Havana. (See related story.) There are no rabbis and no communal kosher supervision. The capital city has three synagogues: Orthodox, Conservative, and Sephardic. Adath Israel, the Orthodox synagogue, maintains a kosher butcher, as well as the country’s only mikvah. The Patronato, the Conservative shul, is home to an extensive Jewish library, a pharmacy, a community center, and a Hebrew school started in 1992 that now has 50 children. The Sephardic Hebrew Center was founded in 1954 and hosts a community Sunday school for adults as well as a Hebrew teachers’ school. “We couldn’t believe the progress the Jewish community is making,” Brown said. He recalled singing and dancing with some 50 children at the Patronato’s Hebrew school on Sunday.

“They were just adorable,” Epstein said. “It made me see how it took very little to make the children happy. Just having us there made them very happy.” At the Patronato, the group learned from Adela Dworin, the synagogue’s president, that a van that brings people to the center had been funded by Bill and Maggie Kaplen, local philanthropists known for their contributions to the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades, among other institutions. “I felt terrific when I heard that,” Epstein said. “Maggie and Bill are very generous people.”

According to Robert Miller, UJA-NNJ’s director of missions, the van will pick some people up at 4 in the morning on Saturdays and bring them to the center where they will have breakfast, services, lunch, and then other activities. “That shows a tremendous amount of dedication,” Miller said. “You have to throw out from your mind what the conventions are because of the different system that exists there.” Epstein had been encouraged to go on the trip by her friends, the Browns, but also by her mother-in-law, Eleanor of Englewood Cliffs, who had been to Cuba almost 10 years ago with a federation mission. “She was telling me how they lived in a time warp there,” Epstein said.

The average Cuban earns $20 to $30 a month and food is rationed. During Shabbat dinner at the Patronato, the group learned that the chicken dinner was the only source of protein all week for many of the attendees. “It’s a black hole to a lot of people,” said Miller, who organized but did not participate in the trip. “They are going back 50 years in some ways.” Before the trip, the Cuban community gave the federation a wishlist of necessities, including sun block, vitamin A, deodorant, mosquito repellant, and sneakers. Miller recalled that one participant asked him what size sneakers to buy. “I said, ‘They’re not expecting you to buy anything, they’re expecting it to be used,’” Miller recalled.

According to government regulations, religious groups must commit to undertake only those activities “that are consistent with U.S. foreign policy.” These include “attendance at religious services as well as activities that contribute to the development of a Cuban counterpart’s religious or institutional development.” “It was unlike anything we’ve ever done or contemplated because of [other] government restrictions,” Miller said. Before the federation could make any travel arrangements — booking flights, hotels, or even settling on dates — Miller had to wait for the U.S. government to send a special license that would permit travel to the embargoed country on humanitarian grounds. The mission could depart only after approval, which meant the dates were left fluid. Yet in order to apply, Miller had to submit an exact list of all the participants, who waited to learn when they might go. The license came through in the end of March, and Miller quickly got the group together.

He had hoped for a bigger number, inasmuch as the license covered a group of up to 25, but he noted that the advertising essentially had to be done through word of mouth because of government restrictions. Miller worked with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which has an office in Havana and sponsors the country’s only chazzan, to organize the trip. Steven Schwager, CEO of the JDC, said that typically, there is one trip a month from the U.S. Jewish community to Cuba through JDC or the federation system. JDC has played a strictly non-political role in the country since the early 1990s.

“These trips strengthen the connection between the Cuban Jewish community and other Jews around the world,” he said. “In addition, they can provide material support for those Jews living at or below the poverty line.” “We could tell that our visit meant a lot to the people that we visited,” Charish said. “The message was loud and clear that this community is not going to be isolated from the Jewish communities in the United States, even though there are no relationships between Cuba and the U.S.” UJA-NNJ’s travel license expires next May. Under its terms, the organization is permitted one trip every three months. Miller is already thinking about a second trip some time in December, which has excited participants eager to return. “I think the future holds a lot for [Cuba’s Jews], especially if there are more missions like ours who keep going to Cuba,” Epstein said. “I think we give them hope and eventually when Fidel Castro dies and Raul Castro dies, it’ll be a free country.”

For more information on this and upcoming trips to Cuba, call Miller at (201) 820-3954

Cuba to rejoin OAS?

http://online.wsj.com/video/how-is-cuba-a-democracy/31278B79-62F3-4F15-9671-A29B3320DD2F.html

WSJ Editorial: Now Open Cuba's Prisons

The Obama opening does little for Castro's political prisoners

President Obama's decision this week to ease some parts of the embargo against Cuba is being hailed as a first step toward altering a U.S. policy that has prevailed for a half-century without unseating Fidel Castro. We don't object, though it'd be nice if Mr. Obama also began speaking up against the Castro dictatorship. Mr. Obama's changes are partly a humanitarian response to Cuban hardship. They might even expose the regime's phony claim that the Yankee "bloqueo," or embargo, is the cause of Cuba's misery. But let's not expect too much. Embargo or not, Cuba will remain an island prison until its rulers are forced to ease their grip. We have long supported lifting the embargo as a way of accelerating that process. But the demoralized Cuban people also need international solidarity. Economically engaging the regime while ignoring the hundreds of political prisoners and millions trapped in squalor would betray the cause of Cuban liberty. To that end, the most useful thing Mr. Obama can do at this weekend's Summit of the Americas is to call on other leaders to denounce the regime's human rights violations. The Obama plan to lift all limitations on family visits and cash remittances is a welcome development for Cuban-Americans who left loved ones behind. Family separation is a tragic consequence of the Castro regime, and the restrictions on visits, tightened by the Bush Administration to once every three years, have increased that pain. Lifting the remittance cap, also tightened by President Bush, will allow free Cubans to support poor relatives. The Administration says it will also allow U.S. telecom companies to compete on the island, offering fiber optics and other advanced technology. A State Department official tells us the idea is to achieve "a greater level of connectivity and information flow" with Cubans. In theory this has marvelous possibilities. Imagine a Cuban accessing the Web via telephone and realizing that others think the way he does. It would erode the silent fear that the regime depends on to survive -- which may explain why Havana hasn't embraced Mr. Obama's offer. A spokesman at the Cuba Interests Section in Washington said he thinks access to Cuba for U.S. telecom companies should be contingent on re-establishing diplomatic relations. This gets at the heart of Cuba's objection to the embargo. It wants "normalization" with the U.S., which would allow the dictatorship to tap the cash wells at the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and InterAmerican Development Bank. Having earned global deadbeat status for defaulting on loans from the former Soviet Union, Europe and Latin America, Cuba is also seeking credit in the U.S. On Monday Brazil Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said Cuba's absence "from the inter-American system, including the [Organization of American States], is an anomaly and needs to be corrected." This is odd given that the OAS has something called the "democratic charter," which all members supposedly back. But then Brazil sees investment opportunities in a post-embargo Cuba that has access to the U.S. market. Mr. Obama should respond by asking Brazil to unite behind a call for Cuba to free political prisoners and hold elections. The embargo has not worked to free Cuba, but a hemisphere united against the Castro tyranny has never been tried.

Castro Feeds on Cubans’ U.S. Cash Support as Obama Eases Limits

By Jerry Hart

April 17 (Bloomberg) -- The Cuban state pension that Juan Gonzalez-Corzo receives since he retired from a government job in 2003 makes life easier after more than 50 years of work.
So does the cash that comes regularly by wire from his son in West New York, New Jersey.
It’s part of an estimated $1.1 billion sent to Cubans last year by relatives and friends around the world, an amount equal to about 1.8 percent of the communist country’s 2007 gross domestic product. “Most of the remittances end up used for consumption,” said Gonzalez-Corzo’s son Mario, 39, a Cuban-born assistant economics professor at Lehman College in New York City who has studied remittances and provided the estimates. “It helps.” The money also helps the island’s $58 billion economy, as the Cuban government charges fees that take about 20 percent of exchange-wired dollars, Gonzalez-Corzo said. That troubles U.S. politicians who say the transfers support the totalitarian state created by Fidel Castro in 1959 and now run by his brother Raul. President Barack Obama this week eased restrictions that had limited money transfers by Cuban-Americans, most of whom live in southern Florida. “The Castro government will confiscate a high percentage of those dollars, further propping up a regime that suppresses human rights,” said Representative Kendrick B. Meek, a Democrat who represents parts of Florida’s Miami-Dade and Broward counties. About 735,000 people around the world -- more than half from the U.S. -- sent an average of $150 to friends or relatives in Cuba last year, according to a study by Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based research organization. The cash sent in 2007 was equal to 42 percent of the island’s tourism income and 4.7 times more than its sugar exports, Gonzalez-Corzo said.

Economic Prop

“Remittances are a key component to the Cuban economy,” where state wages averaging about $17 a month don’t cover basic living expenses, Inter-American Dialogue said in a statement when it released the study last month. “Cubans typically augment state wages with hard-currency obtained remittances.” That’s why Myriam Faya and Lourdes Rodriguez, sisters who are among the 795,000 Cuban-Americans in Miami-Dade County, the largest concentration outside Cuba, send money to the island. “I have an aunt who is 87 years old and her pension is very low so we send regularly, without any doubt, $50 a month,” said Faya, who works for an insurance broker. “My sister also sends money to her blind, 60-year-old sister-in-law.”

Wire or Mula

About 60 percent of the money sent to Cuba goes via electronic wire transfer, according to the Inter-American Dialogue study. The rest travels in the pockets of visitors. These mulas, Spanish for mules, bypass the government fees. “If you send by wire, it’s very expensive because the government takes 20 percent,” Faya said. “But if a friend goes there, you can give it to them.” On the other end are charges by transfer agents. Calls to wire services in Miami found fees of as much as $124 to deliver 100 pesos to a recipient in Cuba, or 24 percent. The nationwide average is 15 percent per $100, Gonzalez- Corzo said. Including what Cuba charges, the transaction cost for $100 becomes 35 percent. That’s more than the 5.8 percent cost for money wired to Mexico and the 9.5 percent for the Dominican Republic, data from the World Bank show. “Cuba is the most expensive remittance market in the world when it comes to the transaction cost,” Gonzalez-Corzo said.

Bush’s Restrictions

Under rules imposed by the administration of President George W. Bush in June 2004, money sent to Cuba could go only to immediate family members and the amount was capped at $300 each quarter. Travelers could carry only $300 into the country. Obama granted unlimited transfers and travel cash for Cuban-American families to anyone in Cuba, which is expected to reduce costs as competition grows, Gonzalez-Corzo said. The president’s action raised optimism among investors that other parts of the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba could be lifted. The Herzfeld Caribbean Basin Fund, a closed-end mutual fund of companies that could benefit from increased business with Cuba, rose 41 percent, the most ever, the day money transfers were eased. Companies that wire money to Cuba must be licensed by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, under economic sanctions imposed in 1963 after Fidel Castro established his Communist dictatorship. Castro, 82, turned over power to Raul Castro, 77, last year because of illness. More than 100 companies are authorized by OFAC, with three- quarters of them in Florida. The largest is Western Union Co., the world’s biggest money-transfer business.

10-Year Business

The company has been active in Cuba since 1999 and has 153 agents there, Stewart Stockdale, executive vice president and president for the Americas, said in an interview. He declined to break out the company’s revenue for transactions with Cuba. “We think lifting the restrictions is going to expand the business to Cuba significantly,” he said. Western Union charges $15 to wire amounts up to $100 to Cuba, Stockdale said. The fees are “something we’re reviewing,” he said. Gonzalez-Corzo favors anything that makes it easier for him to send money to his 70-year-old father in Santa Clara, in central Cuba. “I have personally gone through all the tribulations of sending money,” he said. “So I know how it works.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Jerry Hart in Miami at jhart@bloomberg.net.

Youth discuss life in Cuba

Apr. 03, 2009

BY TRENTON DANIEL

Giselle Palacios, the daughter of a prominent dissident family in Cuba, recounted Friday how the island regime's henchmen deflated her school grades, threw stones at her Havana home and jailed her parents. ''It was a hard experience for me,'' said Palacios, 24, the daughter of Héctor Palacios, who was among the 75 human rights activists, librarians and independent journalists who were arrested in a major crackdown in Cuba in 2003. It was first-hand tales like this one -- coupled with Academy Award-nominated actor Andy Garcia's own life story -- that united about 200 Cubans, Cuban Americans and non-Cubans at the GenerAcción conference at the University of Miami's Coral Gables campus.

CLOSER TIES

In its sixth year, the 2,500-member Raíces de Esperanza, or Roots of Hope, aims to bolster ties between the 5 million Cuban youths estimated to be on the island and their U.S. counterparts. The nonprofit's genesis stems from the founders' belief that many Americans misunderstand Cuban Americans' strong feelings on Cuba issues. The group's membership has swelled over the years. Academic conferences have become commonplace. Duke, Princeton, Georgetown and Harvard have hosted forums. On Friday, more than 100 college students from across the nation filled the UM auditorium to learn more about their peers on the opposite side of the Florida Straits. Topics ranged from the apparent apathy among island youth to the role they must play in securing a democratic, post-Castro Cuba. Lauren Vanessa López, a research associate at UM, knocked the idea that Cuban youth were infected with apathy. Citing a 2007 study from the Washington-based International Republican Institute, López noted that 74 percent of the respondents said they would like to vote for a successor to a regime that has been controlled by Fidel Castro and now his brother Raúl for half a century. ''This signifies that Cuba's youth really does want change,'' López said. Visiting the Castro-ruled island has long been a hot-button issue for many exiles, but López urged audience members to make the trip -- within legal means.
''It's really an experience that will be unforgettable for both you and them,'' López said about island youngsters. ``Feel[ing] what they feel is very impactful for them.''

DIFFERING OPINIONS

In her first time to participate, a recent Cornell graduate said she enjoyed encountering a range of thoughts on Cuba, . ''I can appreciate there's more diversity of opinion,'' said Katy Sastre, 25, of New Jersey. ``It's nice to get a different opinion.'' The highlight Friday was almost certainly Garcia, film star of movies such as The Untouchables and the director of The Lost City. In a light yet earnest talk, the actor spoke about his unapologetic support for a post-Castro Cuba (''The necessity for freedom is something that's not negotiable''), his early days in Hollywood (``change your name, fix your teeth, lose your accent,'' he was told) and his directing experience with The Lost City (``that movie is the most important thing I've done in my life.)'' Garcia also spoke of the need for audience members, many of them in their 20s, to stay involved in the Cuban cause. ''Both Castro brothers are not going to be around forever,'' he said. ``The dismantling of that regime will eventually happen.''