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Crafty_Dog:
Lo siguiente es del WSJ Online de hoy 
 
Reach Out To Cuba's People
By MARIO LOYOLA
January 13, 2007; Page A13

With Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visiting Venezuela today, it might be a good time to consider another "change in course" for U.S. policy. The isolation of Cuba, a legacy of the Cold War, is pushing that country closer to America's most dangerous enemies.

In a recent open letter to President Bush, several major Cuban dissident groups called for an end to U.S. restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba. Now joining their call is the Miami-based Cuban Consensus, a coalition of 20 pro-democracy groups including the "hard-line" Cuban-American National Foundation. The advocates for the current policy -- chiefly three intransigent Cuban-American representatives in Congress -- are increasingly alone.

If we don't lift the travel and remittance restrictions now, it is not just the Cuban people who stand to suffer. Allowing Cuba to slip further under the influence of Venezuela's newly reelected Hugo Chávez, the proud new ally of Iran, would be terrible for the U.S.

These restrictions are regulatory, which means that the president could eliminate them tomorrow. But the Helms-Burton law freezes the larger economic embargo in place until the communist regime dismantles its security apparatus and calls for free elections -- and until both Raúl and Fidel Castro are gone. With the changing of the guard in Havana, there will be opportunities for incremental reform. The new Congress must amend Helms-Burton to give the president the flexibility he will need to seize them.

Any major opening -- such as diplomatic talks or relaxation of the embargo -- should be conditioned on Cuba's release of political prisoners, economic reforms, freedom of speech and a dismantling of the neighborhood spy system that has driven Cuban society into such a heartbreaking state of paranoia. But Helms-Burton's rigid, all-or-nothing approach creates no incentive for Cuba's communists to undertake even the most minor reform.

For many supporters of the current policy, isolating Cuba has become almost an end in itself. Nothing could be more perverse. If Cuban culture is exposed to globalization, it will fuel yearning for the freedoms of modernity. If we expand diplomatic contact, we will begin to discover allies within the regime. Allowing Cuba to join the international trade and finance system (which U.S. law largely prevents) will multiply the incentives to liberalize. By isolating Cuba and driving it into the arms of Hugo Chávez, the only real beneficiaries are communist hard-liners -- and their patrons.

Cuba's communist regime has two conflicting needs -- isolation and money. Ending isolation will rebuild the bridges between Cubans and their most natural allies -- the American people. It would also likely expose Cubans to the political and commercial culture of one of the most spectacularly successful immigrant communities in the U.S. -- that of their exiled family members in Miami.

Relaxing the flow of funds from the U.S. would also turn a communist need to our advantage. The more Cuba depends financially on the U.S., the more leverage we will gain in pushing for economic and political reform. Cutting the regime off from sources of financing may have made sense after the fall of the Soviet Union, when Cuba had nowhere else to turn. But now it has Venezuela.

With Fidel Castro's removal from power and imminent demise, the key obstacle to reform within the regime has disappeared. A new generation of bureaucrats now has a chance to gain influence. Many of today's younger "communists" are less interested in the Revolution than in maintaining stability -- and much less interested in Venezuela's patronage than in normalizing relations with the U.S. For Cuba's proud armed forces, the prospect of becoming servants to Mr. Chávez is not attractive. Unfortunately, U.S. stubbornness leaves them little choice.

Cuba's increasing dependence on Mr. Chávez is dangerous for the U.S. Venezuela uses oil money to fuel a global campaign against America. Venezuelan intelligence services set up shop wherever they can in Latin America to eradicate government officials educated in the U.S. or suspected of pro-American sympathies. Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua are falling firmly into Venezuela's orbit. And throughout the Non-Aligned Movement, Mr. Chávez trades oil money for diplomatic support against the U.S. in a new kind of Cold War. Worse, after his recent election victory, Mr. Chávez seems to be claiming a mandate for an even more stridently Castroist and anti-American position -- all of which will influence the direction of the Cuban regime.

Looming on the horizon is an even greater threat. Iran's intelligence services -- perhaps the most prolific and sophisticated terrorist organization in the world -- use diplomatic channels to build their network. And there are clear indications of a renewed Hezbollah effort in South America. Thus Venezuela's new alliance with Iran represents a grave danger to the whole hemisphere. Venezuela is already putting enormous pressure on Cuba to expand its ties with Iran; an Iranian foothold just 90 miles from our own shores would be a catastrophic setback in the war on terror.

Relaxing Cuba's isolation would help diminish a gathering threat to national security, and bring hope to Cubans everywhere that the long tragedy of communism and exile may finally be coming to an end.

Mr. Loyola is a Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

 

Crafty_Dog:
El New York Times de hoy:
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A 79-year-old anti-Castro Cuban exile and former C.I.A. operative linked to the bombing of a Cuban airliner was released on bail yesterday and immediately returned to Miami to await trial on immigration fraud charges.

A billboard in Havana bears a likeness of Luis Posada Carriles and reads, “Cuba declares him guilty” in the bombing of a Cuban jetliner in 1976.
The man, Luis Posada Carriles, was released from the Otero County Prison in Chaparral, N.M., after posting a $350,000 bond on the immigration charges.

His release infuriated the authorities in Cuba and Venezuela, who have been trying to extradite him to stand trial over the 1976 airliner bombing, which killed 73 people, including several teenage members of Cuba’s national fencing team.

The United States Justice Department had tried unsuccessfully to prevent his release, arguing that his escape from a Venezuelan prison in 1985 increased the risk that he might flee before the scheduled start of his trial on immigration charges on May 11.

The court rejected the Justice Department’s argument, but it increased security measures by ordering Mr. Posada to be fitted with an ankle bracelet to track his whereabouts. He was ordered to remain under house detention with his wife in Miami until the immigration trial begins.

Mr. Posada, a gray-haired former intelligence operative and United States Army officer, has been detained since May 2005, when he entered the United States illegally.

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela said Thursday in Caracas, “We demand that they extradite that terrorist and murderer to Venezuela, instead of protecting him.”

Dagoberto Rodríguez Barrera, the chief of the Cuban Interests Section, Cuba’s diplomatic representation in Washington, told Agence France-Presse yesterday, “Cuba forcefully condemns this decision and holds the government of the United States totally responsible for the fact that Posada Carriles is free in Miami.”

Prensa Latina, the Cuban news agency, reported last night that 50,000 people had gathered at a demonstration in Bayamo, a city in southeastern Cuba, to protest the release of Mr. Posada and to demand that he be tried for the jetliner bombing.

The Cuban government has also accused Mr. Posada, an avowed opponent of the island’s Communist rule, of plotting to assassinate the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, in Panama in 2000, and of planning a series of explosions in tourist hotels in Havana in 1997.

Mr. Posada was jailed in Panama in connection with the attempt on Mr. Castro’s life but was later pardoned by Panamanian officials. He admitted, then later denied, that he had directed the wave of hotel bombings in 1997.

He has also repeatedly denied responsibility for the bombing of the plane, known as Cubana Airlines Flight 455. The jet blew apart and crashed off the coast of Barbados on Oct. 6, 1976.

Investigators in Venezuela, where Mr. Posada had been chief of operations in the secret intelligence police, traced at least one of the bombs to the plane’s luggage compartment. The investigators found that two Venezuelans had checked bags through to Havana but got off the plane at a scheduled stop in Barbados.

The men had worked for Mr. Posada, who was arrested in Venezuela and charged with the bombing. He escaped from prison in 1985 dressed as a priest after associates bribed a guard.

Cuban officials have accused the United States of hypocrisy in battling terrorists by not prosecuting Mr. Posada or deporting him to stand trial on terrorism charges in another country. They routinely refer to Mr. Posada as “the bin Laden of the Americas.”

Mr. Posada’s shadowy past as a Central Intelligence Agency operative put the United States in a politically delicate position. In his early years, he had received military training in the United States and worked for the C.I.A. to bring down the Castro government. He participated in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. Later he was involved in supplying arms to rebels in Nicaragua.

The United States has acknowledged his long record of violent acts. In court papers filed in his immigration fraud case, the Justice Department described him as “an unrepentant criminal and admitted mastermind of terrorist plots.”

Mr. Posada was detained in 2005 after he entered the United States on false pretenses. According to an indictment unsealed this year, he lied when he told border officials he had paid a smuggler to drive him from Mexico to Texas. He actually entered the country on a small boat. He also lied about using an alias.

An immigration judge has blocked Mr. Posada’s extradition to Cuba or Venezuela, ruling that he could be subject to torture in those countries. Efforts to deport him to another country have failed because so far no other country has been willing to take him.

His arrival in Miami yesterday afternoon set off mixed reactions among the area’s many Cuban exiles, who see him as both a patriot and an embarrassment.

“We have been fighting this war on terror, and here we are releasing a man who has a history of terrorist acts and is a fugitive of justice in other countries,” said Elena Freyre, executive director of the Cuban-American Defense League, a moderate exile group in Miami. “It’s absolutely appalling.”

But Miguel Saavedra, president of Vigilia Mambisa, a small, hard-line anti-Castro exile group, said he felt vindicated by Mr. Posada’s release on bail.

“The only ones accusing him are the governments of Cuba and Venezuela,” Mr. Saavedra said. “They can only accuse him because they haven’t been able to prove anything. If he is sent to Cuba or Venezuela, it would be the equivalent of executing him.”

Terry Aguayo contributed reporting from Miami.

Crafty_Dog:
Cuban Tremors
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
July 30, 2007; Page A12

Cuba is not an island known for earthquakes, but "temporary" dictator Raúl Castro's speech to the nation last Thursday provides the clearest evidence yet that the tectonic plates underpinning the political status quo are shifting and perhaps even colliding.

Even the best Cuba experts who follow its politics closely caution against making predictions. But what seems evident from Raúl's language is that the government can no longer ignore the enormous suffering caused by a deteriorating economy. This crisis, together with the loss of Fidel Castro's charismatic political leadership, has left the regime in uncharted waters and perhaps even fearful.

Thursday's event was the annual celebration of the July 26 Movement, which commemorates the first armed assault on the Batista dictatorship by rebels in 1953. Normally Fidel gives this speech, but he hasn't been seen in public in about a year -- though he has been videotaped -- and there is speculation that the absences are due largely to a decline in his mental capacity. Whatever the truth, Raúl, who hasn't a shred of his older brother's charisma, has had to pick up the slack in public appearances before an increasingly dissatisfied population. At the same time he has had to run the secretive totalitarian machine, which may be beginning to experience its own internal strife.

In many ways the speech, delivered in the east-central city of Camagüey, was standard-fare Castrista rambling about the glories of the Revolution and the need to defend it forever, the ugliness and injustices of the "empire" (the U.S.) and its embargo, and the wonders of El Maximo Lider and socialism. But on matters of the economy Raúl seemed to break ranks and signal that he knows things cannot go on the way they are. A less sympathetic view is that the speech was crafted to calm down a population at the breaking point due to privation.

As he has done before, Raúl complained about the low productivity of the Cuban worker and tried hard to stir national pride toward improving the record. Yet there were moments when he seemed to be acknowledging that the system doesn't work. "We are duty-bound," he proclaimed, "to question everything we do as we strive to materialize our will more and more perfectly, to change concepts and methods which were appropriate at one point but have been surpassed by life itself." In other words, which were surpassed by reality.

He also recognized the problem of low wages, linking them to low productivity. He noted that the average Cuban salary, less than $20 a month, is "clearly insufficient to meet all the needs, so that it practically ceased to fulfill the socialist principle that each contribute according to his abilities and receive according to his work." Whether intentional or not, that reference to Marx is not quite right. The father of communism called for each to receive according to his "need" while Raúl suggests it should be according to his input. He also contemplated "incentives" for producers. Somebody is wandering off the reservation.

It is not insignificant that he said that Cuba has "not yet come out of the Special Period." That term was supposed to apply to "temporary" adjustments in policy designed in 1992 to help the country overcome the hardship caused by the end of Soviet financing. This included inviting foreign investment, allowing the operation of farmers' markets and some small businesses and the legalization of the U.S. dollar. It is widely agreed that Raúl and his friends in the military championed these changes while Fidel went along grudgingly. Fidel Castro subsequently withdrew many of those privileges, and more than 16 years later the dire economic circumstances continue. Even Venezuelan financing to the tune of $1 billion-$2 billion a year has not reversed the decline.

This is why Raúl's references to foreign investment on Thursday are intriguing. "We are currently studying the possibility of securing more foreign investment, of the kind that can provide us with capital, technology or markets," he told the nation. This is a clear reference to the China model of economic liberalization, which Raúl has long advocated for Cuba.

None of this is to suggest that Fidel's little brother, known for his ruthlessness, dreams of a freer Cuba. As the regime's most bloodthirsty enforcer, he has been at the forefront of a renewed wave of repression -- some say orchestrated in anticipation of Fidel's passing -- that began in March-April 2003 with a nationwide crackdown on dissidents. Seventy-five of those arrested were handed sentences averaging more than 20 years; state security attacks on government critics have since escalated, according to the Cuban Directorio in Miami, which tracks such incidents.

But the man is desperate. He cannot put the whole island in jail, and with food and milk shortages growing, it may become increasingly difficult to keep the lid on things. As Armando Valladares, a former political prisoner who spent 22 years in Castro gulags told me in an interview last month, terror as a way to control people has its limits. In Mr. Valladares's view, the Cuban people are very near if not over that limit, suggesting that even a small spark could ignite a massive rebellion -- not unlike what happened in Romania. Directorio says that the number and size of public acts of dissent have been rising every year despite the brutality of Raúl's goons. Last month 70 people marched in Camagüey in an unprecedented display of support for a political prisoner.

Raúl is also facing his legacy within the military. Having carried out Fidel's dirty work, such as the execution of popular Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa, he's garnered a lot of enemies over the years. If rumors of rumblings in the barracks are true, he could be the counterrevolution's first victim. To avoid that fate, he has to get the economy going, and he now seems to be pinning his hopes on a new U.S. administration that might end the embargo. On Thursday he repeated Cuba's "willingness to discuss on equal footing" its "dispute with the U.S."

Lifting the embargo might give Raúl some breathing room, but he can't do much until big brother passes. "The problem for Raúl is that Fidel won't die," says Ernesto Betancourt who represented the July 26 Movement in Washington in 1957 and 1958 and probably understands the regime as well or better than any Cuban exile. "He might want to make changes but Fidel won't allow them." Ironically, once Fidel is no longer around to hold together the depraved and nihilistic regime, Raúl's chances of survival may be even grimmer.
WSJ

Crafty_Dog:
Cubans Say 'Show Us the Moneda'

Cuba's acting leader Raul Castro has been accused of being paranoid, but he does have few things to worry about. Take the hot new release by one of Cuba's most popular bands, Moneda Dura. The song is called Mala Leche, which in Cuban slang means "evil intentions." Does it denounce Fidel or embrace the Miami exile community or capitalism? Nothing of the sort. It merely recites, in upbeat rap, a litany of problems that are driving everyday Cubans to despair: long bus lines, blackouts, uncollected garbage everywhere. "The role of the artist is to be aware of the situation he is living in," songwriter Nassiry Lugo told an MSNBC reporter.

That apparently is not how the Castro regime sees things. It has banned Mala Leche, without bothering to explain why. But as Mr. Lugo knows, anyone in Cuba can be thrown in the slammer for "dangerousness," a subjective judgment by the regime about what a person might be thinking. Mr. Lugo is willing to flirt with "dangerousness." He told his American interviewer: "If an idea is not dangerous, it doesn't deserve to be an idea."

Cuba already has the highest suicide rate in the hemisphere and the whole island, as the Castro regime drags itself on and on, seems to be nearing the end of its psychic rope. As one Havana commentator told MSNBC, perhaps the reason the government banned the song is that it is too "fatalistic."

And too popular. Word has it that Mala Leche is being downloaded to the Cuban underground and spreading like wildfire. What the government may still not understand is that the song is a symptom and not a cause of Cuban

political journal WSJ

Crafty_Dog:
Bush Touting Cuban Life After Castro

By BEN FELLER – 38 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush, ever pushing for a Cuba without Fidel Castro, wants allies around the world to offer money and political support so the island can be ready to transform itself.
It is Bush's vision for Cuban regime change: providing help on the outside, prodding change on the inside.

Seizing on Castro's fading health as a rare opening, Bush was to ask other nations Wednesday to help Cuba become a free society.
In remarks prepared for delivery at the State Department — his first standalone address on Cuba in four years — Bush looks to the day when Castro is gone. Bush describes a nation in which Cuban people choose a representative government and enjoy basic freedoms, with support from a broad international coalition.

For now, though, Castro is still the island's unchallenged leader, as he has been for almost 50 years. And he remains a nemesis to Bush, whom he accuses of being obsessed with Cuba and of threatening humanity with nuclear war. At the age of 81, Castro is ailing and rarely seen in public. But life has changed little on the island under the authority of his brother, 76-year-old Raul Castro, who has been his elder brother's hand-picked successor for decades.

Bush was expected to tout peaceful, pro-democracy movements in Cuba and call on other countries to get behind them. In a direct appeal to ordinary citizens in Cuba, he was to tell them they have the power to change their country, but the White House says that is not meant to be a call for armed rebellion.

Bush proposes at least three initiatives: the creation of an international "freedom fund" to help Cuba's potential rebuilding of its country one day; a U.S. licensing of private groups to provide Internet access to Cuban students, and an invitation to Cuban youth to join a scholarship program.

The latter two offerings help the Bush administration underscore the kind of real-life limitations that Cubans now face, from blocked Internet access to restricted information about their leaders to denial of legal protections. The creation of the international fund is meant to speed up societal transformation.

"We all know that Cuba is going to face very significant requirements to rebuild itself," said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting the president. "There's a whole set of challenges that Cuba is going to face. The United States will clearly want to help the Cubans as they define what it is they need, but we think the international community should be thinking that way as well."

Washington's decades-old economic embargo on Cuba prohibits U.S. tourists from visiting the island and chokes off nearly all trade between both countries. Bush will ask Congress to maintain the embargo, which has come under scrutiny and calls for reassessment from some lawmakers.

Cuba staged municipal elections on Sunday, the first step in a process that will determine whether Fidel Castro is re-elected or replaced next year. The Communist Party is the only one allowed, and while candidates do not have to be members, critics claim they are the only ones who ever win.

Bush, increasingly, is speaking of a Castro-free Cuba. As he put it earlier this month: "In Havana, the long rule of a cruel dictator is nearing an end."
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