The Agonist - Carribean

Report links donations, lawmakers' support of Cuba embargo

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:53:24 -0800

Lesley Clark | Washington | Nov 16

McClatchy - Supporters of the U.S. embargo against Cuba have contributed nearly $11 million to members of Congress since 2004 in a largely successful effort to block efforts to weaken sanctions against the island, a new report shows.

In several cases, the report by Public Campaign says, members of Congress who had supported easing sanctions against Cuba changed their position — and got donations from the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee and its donors.

All told, the political action committee and its contributors have given $10.77 million nationwide to nearly 400 candidates and members of Congress, the report says.

The contributions include more than $850,000 to 53 Democrats in the House of Representatives who sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier this month opposing any change to U.S.-Cuba policy. The average signer, the report says, received $16,344.

The top five recipients of the embargo supporters' cash: Miami's three Cuban-American Republican members of Congress, 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain and New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, whose parents fled Cuba before his birth.

The report comes as defenders of the embargo fend off efforts to repeal a decades-old ban against U.S. travel to Cuba. Proponents of greater engagement with Cuba contend that they have the votes, and a hearing on the issue is scheduled for Thursday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Critics of U.S.-Cuba policy long have suggested a link between campaign contributions and policy. Public Campaign — which advocates for public financing of political campaigns — says the contributions raise questions about the role that money plays in lawmakers' decision-making.

duh

"The pressure they get to raise money plays heavier in their decisions than it ought to," said David Donnelly, the national campaigns director for Public Campaign. "We think this is a damning pattern. We think these are good people caught in a bad system. If members of Congress have to spend too much time raising money, they have to listen to people who give money."

The director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, Mauricio Claver-Carone, defended the contributions as support for lawmakers who side with Cuban-Americans who think that easing sanctions against Cuba will only benefit the Castro regime.

"I will not apologize for the Cuban-American community practicing its constitutional, democratic right to support candidates who believe in freedom and democracy for the Cuban people over business and tourism interests," Claver-Carone said. "Unions help elect pro-union candidates. The Chamber of Commerce helps elect pro-business candidates. AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) helps elect pro-Israel members. Who are we supposed to help? Pro-Castro members?"

Public Campaign looked at the Cuba committee because of a seeming disconnect between congressional votes and public opinion polls that suggest most Americans support lifting a ban on travel to Cuba, Donnelly said.

"On this issue there appears to be a clear distinction between what the American public appears to want and what some in Congress are advocating," Donnelly said, pointing to a World Public Opinion survey in April that found 70 percent of Americans support travel to Cuba.

Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who backs greater engagement with Cuba, said the report wasn't a surprise.

"I don't know how else you can explain how our current policy has survived for so long without yielding any meaningful results; it's all politics," Flake said.

The report says that at least 18 House members — including several from agriculture-rich districts — received campaign contributions from the PAC or its donors and switched their positions on Cuba, from voting in favor of easing travel restrictions to voting against any efforts to soften the embargo.

Need a job? McDonald's has an opening at Guantanamo

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:35:02 -0800

Carol Rosenberg | Nov 11

McClatchy/Miami Herald - McDonald's is advertising for an assistant manager for its sole franchise in Cuba — serving up burgers and fries that sometimes feed detainees at the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay. It didn't specify the salary, but the incentives include half your rent paid and, potentially, tax-free status for year-round residents.

Haiti's prime minister targeted for ouster by lawmakers

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:05:19 -0700

Jacquline Charles | Port-Au-Prince | Oct 27

Miami Herald - With Haiti poised to enjoy the economic benefits of long-elusive stability, foreign diplomats are scrambling behind the scenes to keep it all from unraveling as several lawmakers demand the ouster of the country's prime minister.

A small but powerful group of senators is seeking the removal of Prime Minister Miche`le Pierre-Louis -- and possibly several of her ministers -- on charges that she has moved too slowly to solve Haiti's problems.

``The situation is critical,'' said Sen. Jean Hector Anacasis, who is among the six senators behind a recent summons for Pierre-Louis to appear before Haiti's Senate on Thursday. Under Haiti's constitution, the Senate can fire a sitting government.

``We are the ones on the ground who hear the people's cry, who hear them criticizing us, the government, saying nothing has been done. We have to replace the woman,'' Anacasis said. ``If they are accusing us of inviting a crisis, then we are inviting a crisis to avert another crisis.''

Juanita Castro worked with the CIA

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:47:35 -0700

Miami | Oct 26

Univision - After living in exile for 45 years shielded by the silence of privacy, Juanita Castro, finally decided to share their personal experiences and reveal some of their best kept secrets. The biggest: that worked with the CIA, the intelligence agency to his brothers Fidel and Raul considered archenemy.

Translation by Google, but readable. The original is here.

US and Cuba 'in high-level talks'

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:38:02 -0700

Sept 29

BBC - A senior American diplomat has held high-level talks with the Cuban government in Havana, state department officials are reported to have said.

The talks between the two nations were the first of their kind in years, the Associated Press news agency reports.

State department official Bisa Williams held the unannounced talks with Cuba's deputy foreign minister during a visit to Cuba earlier this month, AP says.

A US trade embargo on Cuba remains, but there are signs relations are easing.

** AP Newsbreak: US, Cuba held unannounced talks
** Bills could transform U.S./Cuba business
** Number of Cubans migrating to U.S. drops

Cuban vice president Almeida dies

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 08:28:50 -0700

Havana | Sept 12

AFP - Cuban Vice President Juan Almeida, a revolutionary commander who fought alongside Fidel Castro to bring down a pro-American dictatorship, has died, the government announced.

An official communique issued through state media said the death of Almeida, the number three official in the Americas' only communist regime, late Friday was from cardiac arrest.

Almeida Bosque was one of just three top Cuban leaders to hold the title Revolutionary Commander.

As a black man in racially diverse Cuba, Almeida was an important visual symbol of a break with the past particularly in 1950s Cuba when racism and discrimination were common. His closeness to Castro for decades has been a sign of Afro-Cubans access to power and influence in communist Cuba.

Born on February 17, 1927 in Havana, Almeida took part in the 1953 assault on the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba that is seen by historians as the starting point of the Cuban Revolution.

Changes to Cuban travel, gift rules now official

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:08:18 -0700

Frances Robles | Sept 4

Miami Herald - The long-awaited changes to travel and gift rules to Cuba have finally kicked in.

The federal rules regulating what gifts and how much cash can be sent to Cuba finally became official Thursday, five months after President Barack Obama announced a loosening of restrictions amid great fanfare.

``It's about time!'' said Maria Brieva, owner of Machi Community Services, which sends packages to Cuba. ``It's hurricane season, and people were beginning to get anxious.''

In April, Obama lifted caps on Cuban-American travel to the island and on the money that can be sent to relatives as part of a broader campaign to warm long-chilled relations between the two nations. The Cuban government welcomed the changes when they were announced, but did not respond with any notable changes on the island.

The written regulations that make Obama's changes official had not been published in the federal register until now.

That left people who were eager to send money and gifts in limbo, because agencies such as Western Union and shipping companies hadn't received any legal notice of the change.

``When the president made that announcement, people were calling continuously and showing up here with boxes,'' said Mambi International Group owner Santiago Castro, president of the Association of Cuban Travel Agencies. ``We had to tell them no, because as far as we knew, we still could not send things like clothes and shoes.''

The U.S. Department of Treasury and U.S. Commerce Department rules were published in the Federal Register on Thursday.

Islanders split as Whitehall takes over Turks and Caicos

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 03:31:01 -0700

Jamie Doward | Aug 16

The Observer - Bitter divisions among politicians and ordinary residents living in the Turks & Caicos Islands have emerged following the UK government's decision to suspend its parliament amid allegations of widespread corruption.

The TCI have had their own government since 1976, and have been largely independent of Britain since the 1960s, making Westminster's decision to assert power over the islands all the more controversial.

The island's premier, Galmo Williams, said his country was "being invaded and re-colonised by the United Kingdom". He accused the Foreign Office of "dismantling a duly elected government and legislature and replacing it with a one-man dictatorship".

But many outside the political elite have rejoiced at the news, saying the move was long overdue. They claim corruption had created a climate of fear in which people were scared to speak out for fear of being targeted.

Writing in the TCI Journal, a website that has been critical of the islands' politicians, Shaun Malcolm, a long-time civic leader, declared his country's "long nightmare" had ended. Malcolm said: "As is being said often in the US by some civic participants, 'Never let a crisis go to waste'. My hope is that the Turks and Caicos will emerge now from this period of repression as a stronger society, and that we as a people will use this opportunity to rebuild our institutions wisely."

Another resident declared on the website that a "new dawn breaks in the history of the Turks and Caicos Islands... after six years of dictatorial rule, founded on ignorance and arrogance".

We'll talk with US but Cuba stays socialist, insists Raúl Castro

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 01:04:24 -0700

Rory Carroll | Aug 3

The Guardian - Cuba's president, Raúl Castro, has offered to talk to the US and ease half a century of enmity following olive branches from the Obama administration.

Castro said he wanted to respond to Washington's effort to recast diplomatic relations but insisted Cuba's communist system was solid and would not be diluted. "We are ready to talk about everything but not to negotiate our political and social system," he told the national assembly on Saturday.

The 78-year-old leader, who formally succeeded his ailing brother Fidel last year, made the announcement amid grim economic news which will curb spending on health and education, twin pillars of the 50-year-old revolution.

The government warned of further austerity in the wake of hurricane damage and a sputtering economy, a sharp contrast to glimmers of diplomatic detente.

US pulls the plug on ticker in Cuba

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:35:08 -0700

Rory Carroll | July 28

The Guardian - It was smuggled through the US diplomatic pouch, secretly installed across the facade of a building overlooking Havana and given a very specific mission: to annoy Fidel Castro.

The scrolling electronic sign, a low-tech version of New York's Time Square ticker, escalated the US's propaganda war with Cuba's leader three years ago by flashing human rights messages in five-foot high crimson letters. But history, or more specifically Barack Obama, appears to have pulled the plug on the billboard which flitted across 25 windows of the US interests section in Havana. The screen has gone blank - the latest indication that half a century of enmity may be winding down.

The ticker, erected by the Bush administration in January 2006, infuriated Castro and provoked tit-for-tat diplomatic jousting which further strained relations.

"It was basically a contest of which side could annoy the other the most," said Dan Erikson, author The Cuba Wars and an analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue thinktank. "The US described [the sign] as a way to convey information to the Cuban people but the real purpose was to irritate the Cuban government."

Raul Castro sacks cabinet members

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:06:16 -0700

July 15

The Telegraph - Cuba's Communist leader and president Raul Castro has recorded a three hour party political broadcast in which he sacks many of his cabinet and accuses them of disloyalty.

The film, which is being shown to the party faithful nationwide, shows Raul announcing the departure of several senior figures who played a significant role in the government he inherited from his brother, Fidel.

They include Carlos Lage, vice president, and Felipe Perez Roque, foreign minister, according to The Financial Times.

Both men were seen as potential future leaders before their downfall.

The film is a compilation of footage from a meeting of the Communist party politburo in March, recorded telephone conversations, surveillance videos and photographs.

All those who are invited to screenings of the film are banned from making notes or recording what is said, while media and the general public are excluded.

Raul is seen sitting behind his desk, waving a copy of the Cuban constitution, as he talks about loyalty and discipline.

Bloggers under Warning in Caribbean

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 03:58:03 -0700

I would really like to ask all bloggers to take a look at this letter from a local 'indigenous' activist here on SXM giving a warning to bloggers. This Leopold James has been taken to task or criticized in blogs on our local site SXM Private Eye in the past. He doesn't like it.

Anyway, it's been blogged about by my friend LH and we would really like to hear some support and thoughts from the blogging world on this matter.

Caribdude

Fear, Threats and Intimidation - SXM PE

America's 'Bermuda solution' angers Britain

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 06:21:30 -0700

Kim Sengupta | June 13

The Independent - Decision to send Guantanamo inmates to British colony sours 'special relationship', The secret deal allowing detainees from Guantanamo,to settle in tropical Bermuda was made without the knowledge of David Miliband

Senior aides to President Barack Obama accompanied four Uighur prisoners as they were flown from Guantanamo Bay to the British colony of Bermuda, without the UK being informed, it was revealed yesterday.

In an escalating diplomatic row over the transfer of the former terrorist suspects, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed the transfer with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband in what was said to be an uneasy conversation. Privately Whitehall officials accused America of treating Britain, with whom it is supposed to have a "special relationship", with barely disguised contempt.

One senior official said: "The Americans were fully aware of the foreign-policy understanding we have with Bermuda and they deliberately chose to ignore it. This is not the kind of behaviour one expects from an ally."

Praise from Castro for couple who 'passed on US secrets for 30 years'

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 01:23:55 -0700

Stephen Foley | New York | June 8

The Independent - He is said to have been the subject of some cartoonish plots over the years, from poisoned ice cream, mines disguised as sea shells and, of course, exploding cigars, but even Fidel Castro says that the story of an elderly American couple accused of spying for Cuba for three decades reads like "an espionage comic strip".

The retired Communist leader declined over the weekend to say whether Walter Kendall Myers, 72, a US intelligence official, and his 71-year-old wife Gwendolyn really had passed secrets to his regime, but he said they deserved praise if they did.

"I can't help but admire their disinterested and courageous conduct on behalf of Cuba," he wrote in a web column published three days after the couple's sensational arrest.

"Those who in one form or another have helped to protect the Cuban people from the terrorist plans and assassination plots organised by various US administrations have done so at the initiative of their own conscience and are deserving, in my judgment, of all the honours in the world."

As the US State Department works to assess the security damage that may have resulted from the couple's alleged subversive activities, details are emerging about the anger the pair felt at US foreign and domestic policies during the Seventies, when they are said to have begun working for Cuba.

Their friends and colleagues have expressed their shock at the charges unsealed by the US authorities last week. Larry MacDonald, who lives at the marina in Maryland where the couple docked their 38ft boat, told the Washington Post that they were admired for their intelligence and graciousness. "When I heard they were arrested, I felt like they had arrested Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny."

The couple are alleged to have received encrypted radio messages in Morse code on a short-wave radio, and passed copies of documents to Cuban agents in public locations like supermarkets. The indictment alleged that Mr Myers sometimes took documents from the State Department home and hid them in books. His top secret security clearance, given in 1985 and upgraded in 1999, gave him daily access to classified information until his retirement in October 2007.

Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, ordered a damage assessment of what the couple may have revealed to the Cuban authorities. In particular, the department is concerned that Mr Myers did not stop at revealing details about the CIA's activities in Cuba but may also have passed on information about their activities in Russia, China and elsewhere.

Man who tracked Che for CIA awarded $1 billion in lawsuit

Sat, 30 May 2009 06:53:43 -0700

Luisa Yanez | Miami | May 30

Miami Herald - In what may be the largest civil judgment ever against the Cuban government, a Miami-Dade judge on Friday awarded more than $1 billion to a Homestead man who blamed Fidel Castro and Ernesto ''Che'' Guevara for driving his father to suicide in 1959.

''What the defendants did was torture this family and tear it apart,'' said Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Peter Adrien in ruling for Gustavo Villoldo, 73, who ironically became a CIA operative and helped track down Guevara in the jungles of Bolivia in 1967.

It makes me wonder how much the judge would award the families of those we tortured and killed..