Cuban News November 17 2006. Visit our web site at: (http://havana.usinterestsection.gov/)
Cuban dissidents divided over funds from U.S. (EFE)
US aid to dissidents breeds corruption (AFP)
Quick Action On Cuban Embargo Unlikely In New
Congress (Inside US Trade)
Cuba TV leaves Castro birthday plans up in air (Reuters)
Depardieu to be among those toasting Fidel (EFE)
CUBA: CASTRO FANS HAVE FAITH HE WILL RETURN, BUT DOUBTS
SIMMER (IPS)
Cuba blasts Swiss banks for cutting off business (Reuters)
Dual economy could trouble Cuba's future (MH)
Venezuelan Aeropostal, Cuban Cubana de Aviacion Extend
Cooperation Agreement (Data Pr)
EU to send reps to Cuba to give women rights prize (EFE)
Copyright struggle US publisher loses Cuban claim (The
Guardian)
Cuba: Ayuda de EEUU a disidentes es
fuente de corrupción (El Universal)
Demócratas revisarán plan para transición en Cuba (El Universal)
Damas aprueban el envío de galardón (EFE)
La Fiscalía pide dos años de cárcel para tres disidentes detenidos
(AFP)
Rechazan demanda por música cubana (BBC)
Esperan a mil personalidades en
cumpleaños de Castro (AFP)
Anuncian presencia Depardieu y presidentes en homenaje a Castro
(EFE)
Habaneros y turistas dan vuelta a una
ceiba en busca de fortuna (EFE)
Gobierno de Paraguay concede refugio
a siete cubanos (Reuters)
Juez declina descartar declaración de
presunto espía (AP)
Hija presidente cubano dice Raúl Castro introducirá modelo chino
(EFE)
Inician trámites para otorgar estatus
refugiados balseros cubanos (EFE)
Internet lleva voz de solidaridad a
Cuba y Castro (AP)
España/Cuba: Dos diputados del PP
viajan a Cuba para sondear a la oposición y llevar sus peticiones al
Congreso (AP)
Cuba a ruptura con 2 bancos suizos (AP)
Mexicanos conmemorarán 50 Aniversario expedición de yate
"Granma" (EFE)
Un son para católicos y ateos (Cambio de Michoacán)
Traducirán novela a 20 idiomas (EFE)
«Fidel pensa a Dio, non più a Cuba» (Corriere Sera)
Informaciones tomadas de Encuentro en la
Red (http://www.cubaencuentro.com/)
Detienen a opositora que impulsa una
campaña contra la discriminación económica
Las puertas de la reelección
División bajo la lupa
El olor de La Habana
Informaciones de Cubanet (http://www.cubanet.org/)
Encarcelan a
balsero repatriado
Continúa la
represión contra liberales cubanos
Problemas en
la distribución de yogurt en Holguín
El Alma Mater
con un chino atrás
Barrios
marginales de La Habana
Para ver archivos de los Cuban News (http://lists.state.gov/archives/usinthavananews-cb.html)
You may leave
the list at any time by sending an e-mail with the message
"SIGNOFF USINTHAVANANEWS-CB" (without
the quotes) to LISTSERV@LISTS.STATE.GOV.
Cuban
dissidents divided over funds from U.S.
Havana, Nov 16 (EFE).- Cuba's dissident movement has responded with conflicting reactions to the recent controversy over the irregular use of U.S. funds allocated to promote political change on the communist island.
A report
by the U.S. Congress's General Accountability Office confirmed irregularities
in the use of part of the roughly $74 million sent to groups within the Cuban
opposition between 1996 and 2005 by the U.S. Agency for International
Development and the State Department.
One aid
recipient, for example, used USAID funds to purchase such items as Nintendo
Game Boys, Sony PlayStations, leather coats, cashmere sweaters, crabmeat and
Godiva chocolates, The Miami Herald reported Wednesday, citing the GAO
report.
None of
the USAID funds can be sent to Cuba's opposition in cash, a policy designed to
protect dissidents from being persecuted by the island's government. The funds
often have been used, it seems, to purchase items in the United States that
have then been shipped to the dissidents on the island.
In Cuba,
the controversy has deepened the differences among the dissident groups who
feel the U.S. aid is not necessary and those who believe that any foreign help
should be welcomed.
Marta
Beatriz Roque, the head of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society, said that the
dissidents do not receive money from the U.S. but rather "the means"
to pursue their activities.
She told
Efe that the dissidents had received from the United States books, medicine and
radios, among other "things having to do with the possibility of bringing
democracy to the people," and she acknowledged that they accepted anything
that Washington wanted to send them.
Elizardo
Sanchez, who heads the outlawed Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National
Reconciliation, said that the U.S. help is "necessary and
positive."
"Not
only the dissidents, but also the Cuban people need much help from abroad because
there are huge shortages in daily life and in the means to work out from under
the aegis of the government," he added.
The U.S.
aid, Sanchez said, comes with no "conditions ... (because) the Commission
opposes the (U.S. economic) embargo and when they have been able to send us aid
we accepted it willingly and we will continue accepting it."
On the
other hand, Manuel Cuesta Morua, the spokesman for the social democratic Arco
Progresista, said that the United States "must not finance the Cuban dissidence."
The U.S.
aid "could be counterproductive for the dissidents inside Cuba because it
could give the (Cuban) government a basis for saying that we're financed by the
United States," he told Efe.
Also
Miriam Leyva, one of the founders of the Ladies in White movement, said that
"there must be no funds from any government allocated to the dissidents
... (because) the opposition gets practically nothing and the main thing is
that it gives the Cuban government a pretext to say that we are mercenaries and
put us in jail."
"I'm
against any funds from the American government and I think that if it wants to
help the Cuban people it should lift the embargo and allow trade, tourism (and)
academic exchanges, and Cubans should be allowed to travel without restriction
to the United States or send money to their family" on the island, said
Leyva, the wife of one of Cuba's roughly 300 political prisoners. EFE
------------
US
aid to dissidents breeds corruption
HAVANA, Nov 16, 2006 (AFP) -
Havana
charged Thursday that US aid to dissidents in Cuba invites corruption, pointing
to a recent US congressional probe, which showed that the funds have been used
to buy luxury items.
"The program, which is corrupt, breeds corruption," the Communist Party daily Granma said in a front-page article titled "Wasted Money."
"As
Cuba has said, these payments prove the political and financial ties that the
majority of the supposed 'opponents' of the island's government have with the
United States," the official website Cubadebate said.
The US
Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released Wednesday showed that
poor monitoring of millions of dollars intended to support Cuban dissidents has
led to the purchase of Godiva chocolates, Sony PlayStations and other luxury items
at US taxpayers' expense.
Of 10 aid
recipients audited, three were found to have made "questionable
expenditures," said the GAO, an investigative branch of the US
Congress.
It
mentioned one recipient who "could not adequately justify" the use of
US Agency for International Development (USAID) funds to buy such items as
"a gas chain saw, computer gaming equipment and software (including
Nintendo Gameboys and Sony PlayStations), a mountain bike, leather coats,
cashmere sweaters, crab meat and Godiva chocolates."
The group
was not identified in the report, but the Miami-based Cuban Democratic Action
group admitted making such purchases with the funds, intended to provide
humanitarian assistance for dissidents in Cuba.
------------
QUICK ACTION ON CUBAN EMBARGO UNLIKELY IN NEW CONGRESS
17 November 2006
Inside U.S. Trade
While Rep. Charles Rangel
(D-NY) is a known opponent of sanctions against Cuba and is set to become the
next chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, it is unlikely that he will
push for a fundamental change in direction in our foreign policy towards Cuba
until after Fidel Castro dies, sources this week said.
According to a House aide,
Rangel will not be inclined to push for his own legislative priorities now as
chairman, especially those that stand little chance of prevailing in Congress,
but will instead set legislative priorities that reflect the attitude of the
majority of the members of his committee. Rangel will not look to muscle his
committee on anything, and will not force the Cuba issue simply because it is a
"pet project," the aide said.
In addition, this aide said,
it is unlikely that any major bills related to Cuba will be voted on in the
House until the political situation in Cuba is clarified. Currently, with Castro
alive but ill, there is little opportunity to work with the Cubans on the
embargo and other related issues, but that could change with Castro's death
because it could enable the U.S. to work in conjunction with new Cuban
leadership, sources said. Cuba is too much of an "unknown" at this
point to consider changes to U.S. policy, the aide said.
The aide said he was not
aware of any meetings to determine what the consensus is on the Cuba embargo
among the new Ways and Means Committee members.
One private-sector source said that with Reps. Clay Shaw (R-FL) and Mark Foley
(R-FL) leaving the committee, Rangel is unlikely to face serious opposition on
the embargo in the committee. However, other sources agreed that it was
unlikely Cuba would be an immediate priority for the Ways and Means committee
because there are so many other more pressing issues before that
committee.
Rangel has previously
introduced legislation to lift the trade embargo on Cuba, and has pushed to end
funding for the enforcement of the embargo through amendments to appropriations
bills. Rangel has also supported efforts to allow U.S. citizens to travel to
Cuba without restriction.
Outside of the House,
sources said the Senate could prove even more difficult for those seeking to ease
the embargo against Cuba. Aside from Senate rules that allow members to hold
bills they oppose, sources noted that many senior Democrats in the Senate have
traditionally opposed efforts to ease sanctions against Cuba. For example,
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has long supported the embargo, as
have Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT).
Because of these obstacles,
some sources said any attempt to change U.S. Cuba policy would likely have to
be justified with arguments that it is the U.S. national interest to make the
change. "If anything is going to happen at all, the winning play won't be
to argue that we've victimized Cuba," according to Robert Muse, a lawyer
who specializes in U.S.-Cuba policy. "Arguments would have to be made that
there is a specific U.S. interest in any policy change."
Still, the House aide argued
that under a Democratic Congress, there might be more "wiggle room"
for issues to be worked out on the margins of the embargo between Congress and
the White House.
Of these issues, sources
anticipated that easing the travel restrictions to Cuba would be among the most
likely to gain traction in the new Congress. One possible idea is making it
easier for U.S. companies that sell agricultural commodities to Cuba to travel
there to explore sales, which has been supported by both Democrats and
Republicans.
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) has
previously introduced legislation that would ease travel restrictions, which
was supported by Rangel. However, these bills have been largely symbolic
because Republican leadership had refused to move the legislation, a spokesman
for Rep. Flake said. The spokesman said Flake would push Rangel on lifting the
travel ban before the new Congress begins in January, but so far has not had a
chance to talk with him on this issue.
The spokesman added that
Flake would also talk to Rangel about the possibility of drilling for oil off
the shore of Cuba. The U.S. embargo generally prohibits U.S. companies from
entering into any contract with Cuba for any business reason, and thus would
preclude an attempt to seek oil in Cuban waters unless the Treasury Department
were to issue a license for that purpose.
One private-sector source
said that while oil companies are interested in the possibility of drilling
near Cuba, it is not a pressing issue for them, and the companies are not
expected to push Congress hard on the issue.
So far, no one has lobbied
Rangel to make specific changes towards Cuba policy, a House aide said.
However, in a letter to Rangel dated Nov. 8, organizations in favor of changing
U.S. policy towards Cuba urged Rangel to continue playing a leadership role in
the effort to change U.S. policy towards Cuba while considering his priorities
for the next Congress.
The letter was signed by the
Center for Democracy in the Americas, the William C. Velasquez Institute, The
New America Foundation, The Fund for Reconciliation and Development, the Latin
America Working Group, The Washington Office on Latin America, Alamar
Associates, Puentes Cubanos, the Cuban American Commission for Family Rights,
the Emergency Network of Cuban American Scholars and Artists, the Center for
International Policy, and the World Policy Institute.
------------
Cuba
TV leaves Castro birthday plans up in air
HAVANA,
Nov 16 (Reuters) - An influential program on state-run Cuban television on
Thursday described plans for ailing Fidel Castro's 80th birthday celebration
but did not mention whether he would attend and said his ideas were more
important than his presence.
The nightly "Mesa Redonda" show, often used by the government to disclose news, was devoted entirely to the Dec. 2 event, but its participants stayed away from the topic of Castro's health.
Moderator
Randy Alonso said in a closing statement that "more than the physical
presence, the ideas of Fidel, the ideas of the revolution" were important
to the celebration.
Castro
had intestinal surgery for an undisclosed illness and temporarily turned over
leadership to brother Raul on July 31.
He has
not been in public since, but an Oct. 28 video showed him to be gaunt and
frail, raising questions about whether he would recover enough to return to
power.
Many in
Cuba view the Dec. 2 event, which also marks the 50th anniversary of the
revolution that put him in power in 1959, as an important milestone for
Castro.
Government
officials have said he is recovering but that his attendance for the
celebration is uncertain.
His 80th
birthday was Aug. 13, but he was unable to celebrate in public and suggested it
be marked on Dec. 2.
The highlight of the
celebration will be Havana's first military parade in a decade, with art, music
and literary events leading up to it.
------------
Depardieu to be among those toasting Fidel
Havana, Nov 17 (EFE).- At least one big French film star and a former
first lady from that country will be on hand here for the delayed celebrations
of Fidel Castro's 80th birthday, though whether the ailing longtime leader
himself will appear remains unknown.
The Guayasamin Foundation, named for Ecuadorian painter Oswaldo Guayasamin, is
organizing a series of round table discussions, concerts and art exhibitions
between Nov. 28 and Dec. 1 as something of a postponed birthday party for
Castro.
The "maximum
leader" of the nearly 48-year-old regime handed off the presidency to his
younger brother Raul, the longtime army chief, last July 31 after undergoing
intestinal surgery. The Communist government says Fidel's health is a state
secret, and has provided no diagnosis or prognosis of his illness.
The delegation of power to
Raul and several close aides was described as "temporary," but there
has been no official prediction as to when or if Fidel, who turned 80 on Aug.
13, will return to the exercise of full power.
Saskia Guayasamin, daughter
of Oswaldo, said French actor Gerard Depardieu has confirmed his attendance, as
has Danielle Mitterrand, wife of former French president Francois
Mitterrand.
Among others who have said
they will come are Argentine Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel
and Spain's Federico Mayor Zaragoza, former head of UNESCO.
Castro's eldest son said Monday that his father is getting better, but declined
to say if the leader would attend his birthday festivities.
"All I can tell your is
that he is recovering," Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart, a 57-year-old scientist,
told reporters in response to a question about the health of his father.
The son's comments came the
same day that many U.S. media outlets published or broadcast reports, based on
unidentified U.S. sources, that officials in the Bush administration believe
Fidel Castro has cancer and will not survive through 2007.
Cuban state media have shown
some pictures and video of Castro since his operation. In those images, the
president appears significantly leaner and somewhat gaunt. EFE eyy/dgm
------------
CUBA: CASTRO FANS HAVE FAITH HE WILL RETURN, BUT DOUBTS
SIMMER
By Dalia Acosta
16 November 2006
Inter
Press Service
HAVANA, Nov. 15, 2006 (IPS/GIN) -- Betting on the health of Cuban President
Fidel Castro, his reappearance in public and his return to the helm is gaining
in popularity with the approach of Dec. 2, the day Castro himself chose to
celebrate his 80th birthday.
The "fiesta,"
which was to have taken place on or around his Aug. 13 birthday, was postponed
by Castro in the same public statement in which he announced he had undergone
emergency surgery and was handing over his position and provisional powers to
his brother Raúl Castro, for the first time since 1959.
More than 100 days after the
announcement, plenty of people say that "Fidel will be back" and that
he will undoubtedly be at the celebrations. Many others are doubtful after a
video broadcast on Cuban television on Oct. 28.
"I understand that it
had to be proved that he was alive, but I wouldn't have shown him in that
condition. There's a different look in his eyes. It's going to be hard to have
him back as he was, as we were used to seeing him," said Aurelia Comas, a
member of a Grandparents' Club, who says she has been "a revolutionary and
'Fidelista' all my life."
The video shows Castro
speaking to the camera, sitting and reading the day's newspaper, riding in an
elevator and walking slowly but unaided down a corridor. He referred to the
rumors of his death and reminded people that he had previously warned that his
recovery "would be prolonged and not exempt of risk."
"Clearly the
president's willpower is greater than his actual physical capacity,"
Manuel Cuesta Morúa, a spokesman for Arco Progresista (Progressive Rainbow), a
moderate dissident coalition, told IPS.
"Some say he isn't
well, but nobody really knows. Anything can happen -- he is strong," said
Virgen Gómez, an English teacher.
"That he'll be back is
beyond question," said Manuel Agüero, leader of a Committee for the
Defense of the Revolution, socialist groups that operate at the neighborhood
level.
A woman from another Latin
American country who has lived in Cuba since the early 1960s postponed a trip
abroad for several reasons, among them her determination not to miss the
activities planned for Nov. 28-Dec. 2: a military parade, concert, exhibit and
seminar on the impact of Castro's thinking.
"I want to be here on
the day he comes back," said the woman, who preferred that neither her
name nor her country of origin be mentioned.
Confirming the dates and
arrangements for the festivities, the Ecuadorian Guayasamín Foundation said
that "in the opportune moment, in the midst of Fidel's disciplined process
of recovery, he will decide the circumstances in which it will be possible for
him to accompany those of us who will be here" in Havana. "If the
doctors allow it, Fidel could make that expected public reappearance, at least
at one of the planned events," said Argentine writer and lawmaker Miguel
Bonasso, a personal friend of Castro's.
While U.S. officials say
Castro is suffering from terminal cancer and is unlikely to live to see 2008,
the messages from Cuban authorities avoid all extremes: Castro is not fully
recovered, but neither is he so ill that he cannot supervise the country's
major decisions.
In an interview with the
Associated Press, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque said on Nov. 6 that
Castro's recovery was advancing, although he said there was no guarantee that
he will be well enough to attend the celebrations.
Pérez Roque also said that the president would return to his official functions
"at the right time," and that "It's a subject on which I don't
want to speculate."
Previously, on Nov. 3, the
president of the Cuban parliament, Ricardo Alarcón, had said that Castro was
recovering faster than expected, and was increasingly involved in political
activity, being consulted about many matters.
"He will return to his responsibilities," Cuban Vice President Carlos
Lage told the press in Montevideo, Uruguay, on Nov. 5, during the
Ibero-American Summit there.
Above and beyond the
question of whether Castro will take part in his belated birthday celebrations,
local analysts say the tranquility that has reigned in Cuba since the announcement
of his surgery proves the socialist government's capacity to keep a firm hold
on power in his absence.
In Cuesta Morúa's view, a
return by a fully functional Castro to power is no longer an option, and it is
time to make a decision to completely hand over power to his successor under
Cuban law, his brother Raúl.
That is the only way Cuba
will be able to begin moving toward "a new era," he said.
------------
Cuba blasts Swiss banks for
cutting off business
HAVANA,
Nov 16 (Reuters) - Cuba's central bank blasted Swiss banks UBS and Credit
Suisse on Thursday for cutting off business dealings with Cuba, saying they had
bowed to U.S. pressure.
In a statement, the central bank said the United States' long-standing economic embargo against the communist nation led to the banks' "pitiful" decision.
"The
actions of these two banks have nothing to do with respect of the law or
looking after their banking transactions. It is simply an act of submission to
the U.S., which they don't dare confess," the Cuban bank said.
The Swiss
banks said on Sunday in response to a published report they had stopped doing
business with "sensitive" countries," including Cuba, citing the
difficulties and expenses involved.
A UBS
spokesman said other "sensitive countries" included North Korea, Iran
and Sudan.
The U.S.
government under President George W. Bush has tightened its four-decade-old
Cuba embargo by imposing regulations on dollar transactions that make it more
difficult to do business there.
The
embargo is aimed at undermining the government that, under Fidel Castro, has
run Cuba since a 1959 revolution.
The
actions of the Swiss banks, the Cuban bank said, are "an irrefutable
example of how the U.S. imposes it laws outside its borders and decides with
whom institutions of other supposedly free and sovereign nations can and cannot
do business."
Despite
the pullout of UBS and Credit Suisse, it said a growing number of countries and
organizations are refusing to follow "an empire whose constant failures in
recent weeks are just the tip of the iceberg of its irreversible
decline."
------------
Cuba's two economies, one
for those with dollars and another for those without, may cause headaches for
future leadership.
HAVANA - MIAMI HERALD STAFF
REPORT
Posted on Fri, Nov. 17, 2006
Joel earns $200 per month in
tips from playing percussion in a band that performs for tourists in Old Havana
-- more than 30 times what the Cuban government pays him for the same work.
Meanwhile, Irene, a
government secretary without access to U.S. dollars, subsists on her monthly
salary of 300 Cuban pesos -- the equivalent of nearly $13.
''Those with dollars have a
big advantage,'' Irene said as she sat outside Havana's famed Coppelia ice
cream shop. ``It's not fair.''
With Cuban leader Fidel
Castro ailing, the inequities created by the dual dollar-peso economy that Cuba
established to overcome the catastrophic collapse of Soviet subsidies may well
become one of the major challenges faced by his successors, experts say.
Cubans say the unequal
system is the single most exasperating issue facing them. So much of the
economy runs on the dollar that the typical family here needs greenbacks to buy
everything from razors to bedsheets to shoes -- items largely available only at
government stores that price their goods in dollar equivalents. Yet the average
worker earns 250 pesos a month -- about $10.
''In Cuba, money is
worthless,'' said dissident Lizette Fernández who left Cuba in August and now
lives in Hialeah. ``You get soap two times a year, and when you run out, you
have to go to the dollar store, where it costs 75 (U.S.) cents. There is
virtually nothing you need that you can buy with Cuban pesos.''
Before she left Cuba,
Fernández helped kick off a campaign demanding that all government
establishments sell goods in a single currency -- pesos.
Trying to overcome the
Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, Castro legalized the use of U.S. dollars here,
opened the doors to foreign tourists and began allowing Cubans to open small
private businesses like restaurants in their homes.
TROUBLESOME GAP
The changes are credited
with keeping the economy afloat. But the dollar's legalization also created a
vast and potentially troublesome gap between those who have dollars and those
who don't.
''It was a Faustian bargain
that Fidel had to make against his ideological preferences,'' Brian Latell, a
former CIA analyst and author of the recent book, After Fidel, said in a
telephone interview. ``There is a dual society now in Cuba. . . . The social
disparities from those with access to dollars and those without is huge.''
INEQUALITY
With state salaries barely
able to cover less than half a month's living costs, those with dollars now
live far better off than the rest.
''You have an inequality
that is not supposed to exist in a socialist economy. . . . This is a big issue
for the government to solve in the future,'' Philip Peters, director of the
Cuba Program at the Lexington Institute, a Virginia think tank, said by
telephone.
Peters estimates that 60
percent of Cubans have access to dollars through tips, special rewards to state
workers, work on the side or remittances from relatives or friends abroad.
Those remittances have been estimated at $1 billion a year.
The dual dollar-peso economy
is also believed to be leaving Afro Cubans behind. Since lighter-skinned Cubans
have migrated in higher numbers, their remittances mostly go to their
lighter-skinned relatives on the island.
NEED FOR DOLLARS
Castro again banned the use
of cash dollars in 2004, apparently to collect a fee on exchange transactions,
and required Cubans to change their greenbacks for so-called convertible Cuban
pesos, or CUCs. One dollar now equals about .80 CUCs.
But that measure has not
ended the Cubans' need for dollars to use for purchases at the government's
''dollar stores,'' which sell consumer goods at CUC prices.
A store in Central Havana
recently was selling a bottle of cooking oil for 2.20 CUCs, a bottle of rum for
5.40 and a jar of mayonnaise for 4.10 -- the equivalent of 5.12 in U.S.
dollars, 98.40 pesos and about 40 percent of an average monthly wage.
And in contrast to
capitalist economies, taxi drivers, waiters, bartenders, hotel receptionists --
anyone with access to tourists' tips -- hold some of the most coveted jobs in
Cuba.
A cab driver named Emilio
said he works 15 days a month and earns the peso equivalent of $12 a month from
his state-run enterprise. But Emilio's real income is $100 to $120 per month,
thanks to dollar payments from tourists and prostitutes. Emilio said the job is
so rewarding that some Cubans are paying $500 in bribes for the right to drive
a cab.
The surnames of Emilio and
other Cubans interviewed for this story are not being published to prevent
government reprisals.
Even if they have dollars or
CUCs, average Cubans cannot buy their way into facilities or services that the
government reserves for foreign tourists, such as leading hotels, cellphones or
some beaches.
Faced with the reality of
too many things she could not afford -- and dollars she did not have -- before
she moved to Hialeah, Fernández and a dissident organization that she ran, the
Federation of Rural Latin American Women, launched the effort to demand that
all establishments sell goods in pesos.
She said 28 women around the
island are organizing small cells of women who are gathering signatures backing
the campaign, dubbed ''With the Same Coin.'' A dissident still in Cuba said
people support the move, but are afraid to sign.
''We can't be second-class
citizens just for being Cubans,'' said Fernández. ``We have no rights, just
because we have no dollars.''
The Miami Herald withheld
the name of the correspondent who filed this report because the author lacked
the Cuban journalist's visa required to work on the island.
------------
Venezuelan Aeropostal, Cuban Cubana de Aviacion Extend
Cooperation Agreement
16 November 2006
Latin America News Digest
AII Data Processing Ltd
Venezuelan airline
Aeropostal and Cuban airline Cubana de Aviacion have extended their cooperation
agreement, which entered into force in 1999, the Venezuelan press reported on
November 15, 2006.
The extended agreement
enters into force as of 2007.
The agreement envisages
extending the code sharing agreement to such destinations as Lima, Bogota and
Medellin in Colombia, Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago, as well as all
national destinations. The code sharing agreement also includes all flights of
Cubana de Aviacion between Venezuela and Cuba.
Venezuela is the main trade
and political ally of Cuba. The two countries have been strengthening their
bilateral relations for the past several years, signing a series of cooperation
agreements.
In May 2006 Venezuela and
Cuba signed in Havana an agreement for cooperation in the field of oil
exploration and oil production, as part of the so-called regional integration
project Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), which is boosted by
Venezuela and Cuba.
[Editor's note: The trade
exchange between Cuba and Venezuela totalled $3.67 bln (2.86 bln euro) in 2005,
the President of Cuba, Fidel Castro, announced on May 1, 2006.]
http://www.abn.info.ve/
------------
EU to send reps to Cuba to
give women rights prize
Strasbourg,
France, Nov 16 (EFE).- The European Parliament decided Thursday to send a
delegation to Cuba to deliver a prestigious human rights award to a group of
women - wives, mothers and daughters of political prisoners - who were barred
by the Communist regime from traveling to France to receive it.
Last
year's Sakharov Prize was awarded to the Women in White. When the Castro regime
denied the activists permission to travel to this city that is the seat of the
EU legislature, the women asked the body to send representatives to Havana to
give them the prize there.
The
decision to do so was made during a conference Thursday of the heads of parties
represented in the body.
The
congress also resolved to send another delegation to Myanmar, formerly Burma,
to try to deliver the same award to democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi, who
was named its recipient in 1990. She has been under house arrest since
2003.
Whether
the parliamentary delegation would be allowed to enter Cuba remains to be seen.
The Cuban government in recent years has expelled European legislators taking
part in pro-democracy events on the island, and has barred entry to the United
Nations' special human rights monitor for Cuba.
The Women
in White movement includes wives, mothers, sisters, daughters and other female
relatives of the 75 dissidents arrested and sentenced in spring 2003 to jail
terms averaging 20 years.
The
prisoners - mostly democracy advocates and independent journalists and
librarians - were convicted of "undermining the revolution."
Cuba's
47-year-old one-party state is one of the few regimes in the world that
requires of its citizens official permission to leave the country. EFE
------------
Copyright struggle US publisher loses Cuban claim
David Ward
17 November 2006
The Guardian
A copyright struggle over
some of the finest music to emerge from Cuba ended yesterday after a six-year
legal process in which a British judge presided over court hearings in London
and Havana.
Mr Justice Lindsay, ruling
on a wrangle over rights to "lively and expressive music" made famous
on album by the Buena Vista Social Club (right), declined to give a declaration
sought in the high court by Peer International Corporation, a US publisher,
that it owned the rights to 13 songs dating back to the 1930s.
Peer had claimed its
catalogue had been unlawfully taken over by the Cuban government after Fidel
Castro came to power in 1959. It said it had acquired the English copyright
from the heirs to the composers, now dead.
But Editora Musical de Cuba
(EMC), described by the judge as an "emanation" of the Cuban state,
said Peer was trying to salvage royalties from songs that had never made a
penny for their authors. It argued it had legally assigned the copyright to
Termidor Music Publishers, based in Britain and Germany.
Peter Prescott QC, representing Termidor, had told the judge the contracts
involving the 600 songs were all invalid because they were "cunningly
contrived, allowing the publishers to get away with paying virtually nothing.
"The composers in this case received, at most, a few pesos and maybe a
drink of rum," he said at the hearing.
Mr Justice Lindsay said
there was a long period when Peer had no contact with the composers, but in the
1990s, perhaps after the success of the Buena Vista Social Club album, tried to
re-establish contact.
------------
Black Panther William Lee
Brent, 75
Matt
Schudel - Washington Post Staff Writer
17
November 2006
The
Washington Post
William
Lee Brent, a member of the Black Panthers who hijacked an airliner to Cuba in
1969 and later wrote a gritty account of his life, died Nov. 4 of bronchial
pneumonia at his home in Havana. He was 75.
After
years of crime, prison and low-paying jobs, Mr. Brent joined the Black Panthers
in 1968 and quickly rose in the ranks of the radical black-power organization
based in Oakland, Calif. To avoid trial for his role in a shootout with San
Francisco police, Mr. Brent hijacked a TWA flight and spent the rest of his
life in Cuba.
He
chronicled his life in his 1996 autobiography, "Long Time Gone: A Black
Panther's True-Life Story of His Hijacking and Twenty-Five Years in Cuba."
Although he came to miss the United States and had reservations about life in
Cuba, he said he never regretted the actions that separated him from his family
and his homeland.
Mr. Brent
was born Nov. 10, 1930, in Franklin, La., and had a hardscrabble childhood in
Louisiana and Texas before his family moved to Oakland in 1943. By the time he
was in junior high school, he was selling drugs and committing other
crimes.
In 1947,
he bought a fake birth certificate to enlist in the Army but was discharged
after eight months. Returning to Oakland, he fell into his old ways and served
18 months in a youth prison for stealing a bicycle. At some point, he took out
a library card and began to read Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan
Doyle's tales of Sherlock Holmes.
In the
early 1950s, he was convicted of auto theft and armed robbery and was sentenced
to five years to life in San Quentin State Prison. He served eight years before
he was released in 1962.
"I
promised myself I'd die in the gutter before I would ever go back to
prison," Mr. Brent wrote in "Long Time Gone."
He worked
for an auto-wrecking business and was married in 1964 to Gloria Harness, from
whom he was later divorced. After learning about the nascent Black Panther
movement, Mr. Brent attended a rally in Oakland in 1968 and joined the
party.
At 37, he
was one of its oldest members. He entered the group's inner circle and became a
Panther spokesman and bodyguard to Eldridge Cleaver.
In
November 1968, after a gas station robbery in San Francisco, Mr. Brent was
involved in a drug-fueled shootout with police that left two officers severely
wounded. Mr. Brent was arrested at the scene with two accomplices.
Free on
bail, and vowing not to go back to prison, Mr. Brent surveyed his limited
options.
"Shortly
after I joined the Panthers I'd heard that revolutionaries who needed political
asylum could get it in Cuba with no problem," he wrote in "Long Time
Gone." "I considered myself a revolutionary and I certainly needed
asylum."
Wearing a
conservative suit and tie, he boarded TWA flight 154 in Oakland on the morning
of June 17, 1969. The flight had originated in San Francisco and was scheduled
to fly nonstop to New York.
Somewhere
over Nevada, he told a flight attendant that he was hijacking the airplane. In
the cockpit, he held a .38-caliber revolver to the head of the pilot, who
calmly announced to the 76 passengers, "We have had a change of plans. We
are going to Havana." It was the 28th hijacking of the year.
When the
plane touched down in Havana, Mr. Brent expected to be greeted as a hero.
Instead, he was put in a Cuban jail for 22 months as authorities sought to
learn whether he was a spy. He later cut sugar cane and worked in a soap
factory and on a hog farm. He married an American journalist living in Cuba,
Jane McManus, and enrolled at the University of Havana, from which he graduated
in 1981. (McManus died last year.)
Mr. Brent
was part of a circle of other American political emigres in Havana and led a
somewhat privileged life by Cuban standards, with a spacious apartment
overlooking the Almendares River. He taught English at Havana's leading high
school and became a disc jockey under the name Bill Beaumont -- after his
onetime childhood home in Texas -- on Cuban radio.
While
visiting Havana, Steve Wasserman, an editor with Times Books, urged Mr. Brent
to write his memoirs, which were published to warm reviews in 1996.
"It
was one of the great experiences I ever had as an editor, to watch this man
whose life was chaotic and unruly obtain mastery over his own story by writing
it in his own hand," Wasserman said in an interview.
Mr. Brent
did not return to the United States because there is no statute of limitations
for skyjacking. No one in his family visited him, and his isolation began to
wear on him. He said he also recognized the false hope engendered by Fidel
Castro's revolution, as life on the island grew ever more straitened.
"Bill
refused to lie," Wasserman said. "He was certainly an unrepentant and
radically minded guy, but he was not a man who liked to live in an
illusion."
Without
renouncing his radical fervor or the crimes and missteps that led to his exile,
Mr. Brent admitted in 1996 that he missed "my people, the struggle, the
body language" of America.
"You
can't get rid of what you are, what you grew up in, the way you were
formed."
------------
And the band played on ...: ... During a hurricane in Cuba and
breaking down the culture wall of China
By Matt
Elliott, Tulsa World, Okla.
McClatchy-Tribune
Business News
16
November 2006
Nov.
16--You might think that 30 years into its career, Air Supply would be on its
way down, playing smaller clubs in the band's autumn years.
Feel free
to drop those preconceptions. The band, which wrote some of the most ubiquitous
love songs of the 1980s, played one balmy July night in 2005 to 175,000 people
in Havana, said Graham Russell, the group's principal songwriter and
co-founder.
So many
people kept showing up, the outdoor show's organizers kept pushing the band's
show time back, Russell said. Fighting weariness, the group didn't go on stage
until 2 a.m., when it played the first chords of the night's concert in the
city's center next to the sea wall.
"It was a great moment, and we'd wanted to do it for some years,"
said Russell, an Englishman who has lived in the United States for about 20
years. "But, it's difficult to get in and out of Cuba. You're not allowed
obviously to go in or come out to the U.S . . . so we came in from Panama and
went back to Guatemala."
Hurricane Emily blew through around around 6 a.m. following the concert,
Russell said, blowing cars through the streets, bowing palm trees and knocking
out power to his hotel. The storm canceled the band's next-day second show,
which disappointed Russell, who said the band wanted to meet Fidel Castro, who
was expected to attend.
Instead,
Russell got a far more memorable gift.
Tourists
and area residents flocked to Russell's stone hotel for shelter from the storm.
The power
was out and the only light came from candles. Hundreds of people packed into
the hotel's lobby and other rooms, sleeping on the floor, he said.
"You
couldn't walk through the lobby without treading on people."
He was
suddenly struck by the romantic setting of the hotel in candlelight and the
raging storm outside.
"I
just shouted in the lobby, I said, 'If anybody's interested, I'm going to do an
acoustic set in one of the restaurants.' And, I thought maybe a few people
would come, but five minutes later, everyone came in and it was packed.
"We
had no power, so . . . my pianist played this massive Steinway. And, I just
played acoustic guitar and I said to everyone, 'You've got to be really quiet
because there's no amplification.' But, it was incredible. It was just one of
those moments. It was a great thing. And everybody sang and was holding
candles. It was just a beautiful moment in my career."
Air
Supply started in the late 1970s after Russell, a guitarist and pianist, met
singer Russell Hitchcock during rehearsals for "Jesus Christ
Superstar" in Sydney, Australia.
The two
grew to become one of the biggest bands in the world after Arista Records
signed them around 1980.
Their
first album on Arista, "Lost in Love," ruled the charts with its
sweeping and heartfelt love songs that would become the group's signature sound
-- one that still defines it today.
Performing
is what keeps the band going now, he said, although a new album -- the band's
22nd -- will be out early next year.
Air
Supply recently returned from a tour of China, where it first performed in 1986
-- the first western band to play in the communist country. That first trip
coincided with a time when the band's material wasn't as popular on the music
charts, which gave the two more freedom to play where they wished, Russell
said.
Russell
and Hitchcock are living well off their economic successes in the 1980s.
"None
of those things are important. It's playing live and bringing something to
people in the audience. We really believe that we do that to varying degrees.
People come and see us, they're really surprised. They come for one reason but
they get another when they've seen us. It's a very passionate show."
------------
'I'M
SO HAPPY THAT I AM HERE'; CUBAN IMMIGRANT, FILM LECTURER MAKES A JOYFUL LIFE IN
MADISON
Christopher
Marotta Special to The Capital Times
16
November 2006
The
Capital Times & Wisconsin State Journal
Arsenio
Cicero came to Madison from Havana seven years ago, and his life has not been
the same.
"I
had two lives, one before in Cuba and one studying here," he said.
In Cuba,
Cicero, who worked as a film festival liaison to the world press, said he lived
a censored life, unable to speak or think freely. "You know there are some
things you don't say, some things you don't do," he said in an interview
here.
Speaking
freely here as a U.S. citizen, Cicero sees a potential crisis on the horizon
with the fading of Fidel Castro. "My hope is that people outside of Cuba
take it easy . . . I hope that they stay out of all that and leave it for Cuba
to solve for itself."
Cicero
now is a lecturer in Spanish language, culture, and cinema at UW-Madison, and
is also taking classes to get a graduate degree. Now 50, he lives in Eagle
Heights, with his 4-year-old Madison-born daughter, Nina Maria
Cicero-Soles.
Cicero
worked for most of his early life in Cuban cinema and translation. For 16
years, Cicero worked at the annual Havana Film Festival, in charge of the
foreign press.
"Working
with the festival, I got to meet a lot of nice people, which gave me this good
idea about Americans," he said.
Some of
the "nice people" Cicero worked with were actors Robert DeNiro and
Christopher Walken, and newsman Peter Jennings.
The
person he met at the festival who made the most impact in his life, though, was
not someone famous. "I met this woman, I fell in love with her." said
Cicero.
Writing
her thesis in Cuban cinema, Cicero's future wife, Diane Soles, was a native
Madisonian. "When we met, we had a connection immediately," Cicero
recalled. At the time, Cicero was preparing to open a Cuban branch of studies
in a school in Zurich, Switzerland.
"I
was really interested in the school, but love was stronger," said Cicero.
He came to the United States on a fiance visa in June of 1999 and was married
that July.
He spent
his first years at Madison teaching at UW, having a daughter, and deciding to
go back to school. Seven years later, Cicero and his ex-wife are divorced.
"I
have no regrets, absolutely. No regrets at all. I'm so happy that I am
here," he said.
Now,
there are two new loves in his life - his daughter, and Madison.
"In
the whole wide world, that's where my daughter is, it's where she was born,
it's where she goes to school. And I have a lot of friends here myself. Madison
is the place," he said.
In
addition to teaching, he has been organizing a Cuban film festival. "I
want to share all that I can with the people here in Madison, because it is my
city," he said.
Cicero's
only regret is the distance that has developed between himself and his own
culture. "What I would love to see
is to end this stupid status we have now," said Cicero. He believes that
there is no reason that the U.S. embargo should continue, and that it is only
putting a wall up between two cultures.
"Cuba
is home, Cuba is friends, Cuba is hurricanes, and it's family, and it's music,
and it's baseball, and it's people ," he said.
"What
I would love is for people from Madison and all over the United States to go to
Cuba."
Christopher
Marotta of Madison is currently a sophomore at Bowdoin College in Maine.
Redacción de The Miami Herald
LA HABANA
Joel gana $200 al mes en propinas por trabajar como
percusionista en una banda musical que actúa para los turistas en La Habana
Vieja, lo que equivale a más de 30 veces lo que el gobierno cubano le paga por
hacer el mismo trabajo.
Por su parte, Irene, secretaria del gobierno que no
tiene acceso a los dólares, sobrevive con su salario mensual de 300 pesos
cubanos, el equivalente de casi $13.