Jeb Bush To Jesse Ventura: Please Stay Away From Cuba

Warning that Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura's planned late September visit to Castro's Cuba would hurt Cuban workers and anti-government dissidents Florida's Gov. Jeb Bush asked his fellow governor to change his plans.

"I want to share some information that I hope will provide you with a broader and more-realistic picture of life in Cuba. While I don't expect you to cancel your trip, I strongly believe doing so would be the right thing to do. I encourage you to consider other options as you look for opportunities to expand international trade for your state.

"Recently, it has become politically popular for U.S. elected officials to travel to Cuba. But we should never forget that the people of Cuba don't share the same basic freedoms and rights that the residents of Florida and Minnesota enjoy. The reason: Fidel Castro denies them the opportunity to exercise the unalienable rights that we have come to take for granted in America. Speaking out against government policies, fighting for what you believe, or attempting to change the established order to create a better society will make you an ''independent'' or ''maverick'' in the United States. In Cuba, you become a ''dissenter'' and an ''enemy of the revolution'' and are summarily thrown in jail.

"As a strong supporter of worker rights you should be aware of the abysmal conditions that hard-working Cubans must endure. For example, when foreign companies use Cuban laborers, the companies pay the Castro government in dollars or other hard currency, but the workers are paid in near-worthless pesos. In effect, Castro skims off the top and leaves the workers with a tiny fraction of what is rightfully theirs. He uses the difference to finance his oppressive regime and ensure its continued existence.

"While in Cuba, ask about the Varela Project, a petition initiative -- legal under the Cuban Constitution -- that calls for a referendum on open elections, freedom of speech, protection from state-sponsored political retribution and the establishment of free enterprise.

"The initiative is led by the courageous Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, who is being honored by the National Democratic Institute with its 2002 Democracy Award. The award is scheduled to be presented to Payá in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 30. So far, he has not been granted a visa from the Cuban government to travel to the United States. Ask every Cuban official you meet, including Castro, when Payá can expect to receive his visa.

"Because your trip concerns the establishment of trade agreements, it should be noted that Cuba is not the economic windfall some U.S. companies are hoping for, nor is it the kind of business partner that Minnesota corporations are accustomed to working with. The Cuban government repeatedly fails to pay its bills, and many nations have stopped doing business with the island. The current business state of affairs in Cuba has been described as ''uneasy, unreliable and uncertain.'' That should not come as a surprise from a failed economic system that still considers private business and profits as evil. The result is a standard of living for Cubans that has gone in just a few decades from one of the highest in Latin America to one of the lowest.

"Now is not the time to encourage expanded trade and grant unrestricted tourist travel to Cuba. Dollars generated from such activity are funneled into the coffers of the Cuban military and internal security forces. In fact, expanding tourism travel was exactly what Castro did in 1991 after he lost his stipend from the collapsed Soviet Union -- a stipend he earned by spying on the United States and inciting revolution throughout the Western Hemisphere.

"Moreover, Cuba is a bad credit risk. Even the European Union, with many current and former Castro allies among its members, complained to the Cuban government about ''delayed payment, excessive government fees, and inconsistent and sometimes outlandish rules.'' France, Spain, Italy and Venezuela have suspended official credits after being left holding the bag filled with millions of dollars in IOU's.

"I will commit to working with you in searching for new business and trade opportunities with nations other than Cuba. I will direct my office to research potential overseas ventures from which Florida and Minnesota can mutually benefit. There are many more-lucrative markets with countries that believe in democracy, free trade and respect for human dignity.

"In a recent letter to Congress, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of Treasury Paul O'Neill reminded lawmakers that the relationship between the United States and Cuba remains one of 'continued hostility.' Cuba continues to harbor criminal fugitives and supports international terrorist organizations. While our military are protecting us from terrorists, Castro's government claims that the U.S. operation in Afghanistan has engaged in ''war atrocities.'' This type of rhetoric normally would be dismissed as absurd if it weren't so offensive to our uniformed personnel.

"President Bush announced on May 20 his 'Initiative for a New Cuba,' a series of steps that the United States expects Castro to implement in return for a more-normalized diplomatic and trade relationship. While no one expects Castro to cede power, he continues to be unwilling to make even the most basic changes. We should not participate in his continued oppression of the Cuban people.

"While in Cuba, meet with dissidents and other human-rights defenders. You will get another view and insight, directly from those who suffer under Castro's totalitarianism. They will tell you that lifting the trade embargo and allowing unrestricted travel will serve only to maintain the status quo and delay the peaceful transition to democracy and free enterprise that the Cubans have been waiting for and so justly deserve."

GREED VS. EMBARGO

By Agustin Blazquez
with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton
NewsMax
Colaboración:
Armando F. Mastrapa III
New York
La Nueva Cuba
Septiembre 14, 2002

The recent corporate collapses and scandals in the U.S. business community have exposed the evils of greed when it becomes the basis for decision-making. Greed is certainly a bad adviser, as it tramples the moral and ethical principles on which America was founded.

Greed and illusory dreams of profits were the foundations of the July 23, 2002, vote - 262 to 167 - in the Republican-led House of Representatives in favor of easing the economic embargo against the Castro regime and letting American tourists visit Cuba.

For some time now, Castro has been able to buy goods from the U.S. on a cash-only basis - no credit. But the legislation passed by the House will allow Castro to buy on credit.

In 1986 he began suspending all payments of his international debt, debt to both governments and businesses. Since he is the only businessman in Cuba, he can do that. As a result, many countries have withdrawn their permission for him to buy on credit.

Absolutely nothing has happened to suggest that he has changed his tune and will now begin to take his debts seriously. So, for the U.S. to now begin to sell to his regime on credit is an abysmal mistake.

Cuba's Foreign Debt

"Cuba's Foreign Debt," released on Aug. 19, 2002, by the Cuba Transition Project (distributed by La Voz de Cuba Libre), offers an accounting as of the end of 2001: owed to the European Union, $10.893 billion; to the former Eastern Europe, $2.2 billion; to the former Soviet Union, $25 billion; to England, $196 million; to Japan, $1.7 billion; to China, $400 million; to Argentina, $1.58 billion; to Mexico, $380 million; to Venezuela, $142 million; to Canada, $73 million; to Chile, $20 million and to South Africa, $85 million.

From the same report: "Cuba's foreign debt owed to numerous countries remains unpaid. The Castro regime lacks the resources to even pay interest on these obligations. Several European governments are now refusing to provide further export credit to Cuba. According to a Reuters report on July 6, 2002, 'the island is notorious for paying its debts late ... and public and private creditors report that the situation has grown much worse in recent months.' As The Economist noted in May 2001, 'France, Italy and South Africa have recently cut off further credit to Cuba, in a bid to claw back some of what they are owed.' "

I am willing to say it out loud: If the U.S. government allows farmers to extend credit to Cuba, and, true to form, Cuba doesn't pay, the U.S. government will be obligated to save the U.S. farmers who (seemingly) put their trust in the U.S. government by extending the credit. I say "seemingly" because, now that I've said it out loud, the U.S. farmers know the dangers of selling to Cuba on credit.

Once the U.S. government pays Castro's debts for him, then our tax money will be used to support a tyranny. Isn't there a little moral issue here?

But greed is very powerful. And apparently our businessmen and farmers don't care about who will eventually be paying, as long as they make their profits. Our politicians, supposedly, must protect the interests of their constituency, who are taxpayers and who ultimately will be faced with the bill for the irresponsibility of this small but powerful special-interest group.

Soon in Congress, with the help of the well-financed pro-Castro lobby on Capitol Hill, politicians will try to pass - and probably will, with flying colors - another similar action in favor of easing the U.S. embargo, giving another victory to the old and now "untouchable" tyrant-for-life of Cuba. That victory will be one more defeat for the Cuban people, since it will prolong their suffering.

But there are no moral principles driving our businessmen's greed. Just look at China, which, thanks to American businessmen, has become more powerful and threatening to the U.S. than ever and the three decades of "engagement" have not brought the oppressed Chinese people any closer to democracy.

Castro's 'Engagement' With the World

Usually unmentioned during times of "I know, let's lift the embargo!" the U.S. embargo says nothing about Cuba's trade with the rest of the world. Has his "engagement" with the rest of the world made him change his political posture, improve human rights or the living conditions for the Cuban people? Obviously not. Any benefit Cuba gains from the engagement are for Castro, not the people.

Has international business engagement brought a change in Castro's intentions about the future of Cuba? Obviously not, as he continues with his tired, old "Socialism or death!" which Cubans on the island changed to "Socialism is death!"

So, where is the logic in the argument that lifting the U.S. embargo, giving his regime credit and flooding his bankrupt economy with U.S. tourist dollars will encourage him to mend his ways?

The fallacious engagement theory that Castro's apologists, supporters and lobbyists on Capitol Hill, accompanied by the greedy U.S. business community, have been using to justify their despicable actions is that it will bring change and improve the living conditions in Cuba. Also the naïve concept that exposing Cubans to American tourists will bring new ideas and will foster a tilt toward democracy is simply unrealistic.

Cuba's Apartheid

Cuba is an apartheid society where ordinary Cubans are not allowed in the tourist areas - except as servants and security agents to keep tourists under control and separated from the rest of the population. Ordinary Cubans are penalized for mingling with tourists.

Cubans are painfully aware of who has been helped by "engagement." The ventures with foreign companies are all administered by the armed forces and the secret police. The payoff is only for Castro - keeping him in power and repressing the people. Ordinary Cuban citizens are not allowed to enter into partnerships with foreigners.

The Cubans who work in these international businesses are aware that these foreign companies pay salaries in U.S. dollars to Castro and he in turn pays them a very small fraction in worthless Cuban pesos. They are aware that as workers for these foreign companies, they have no bargaining rights. They are aware of the differences between the opportunities of foreigners and those of the ordinary natives - thus their hatred for the resulting apartheid.

This whole process sets up a hatred for the foreign exploiters, because ordinary Cubans are taken advantage of not only by Castro but also by the international business community.

Canadians, Mexicans, Spaniards and other Europeans vacation in Castroland and have the audacity to buy vacation places there while Cubans are risking their lives - 85,876 deaths so far - trying to escape from that "foreigners-only paradise."

And apparently the greed extends to U.S. businessmen, swamping the moral issues of the welfare of the expendable little Cubans.

The 'Politically Correct' Mantra

Many U.S. businessmen keep trying to join the herd of profiteers by pressuring the Bush administration to change U.S. policy toward Cuba. The efforts of the pro-Castro lobby in the U.S. have been to convince politicians, and the American people - with the full collaboration of the U.S. media and academia - that lifting the embargo against Castro will foster change in Cuba toward democracy.

That has become the "politically correct" mantra, while "politically correctly" maligning, censoring and discrediting those Cuban-Americans who oppose lifting the U.S. embargo.

This heavily orchestrated campaign has succeeded in thoroughly disinforming the American people to a point where they've become insensitive to the Cuban tragedy. And Americans traveling illegally to Cuba through third countries has become "chic." To encourage this illegality, Castro's immigration officials do not stamp their U.S. passports.

I often think how ironic it is for Americans to want to visit a country that 90 percent of the enslaved population wants to get the hell out of. The happy-go-lucky vacationers seem to have no problem with being served by the slaves.

American politicians have also fallen victim to the fad, as they have become a staple in Castro's anti-embargo propaganda ploy. The politician currently garnering favorable publicity by participating in this parade of fools is Minnesota Wrestler-Governor Jesse Ventura, who plans to be in Havana from Sept. 26-30 - and meet with Castro, of course.

In his elected position, Gov. Ventura, as well as other visiting U.S. politicians, must know that Cuba is a virulent anti-American terrorist country that for 43 years has been waging a covert war against the U.S. Cuba remains a threat to our national security. Castro's Cuba is a training ground for terrorists and is allied to international terrorism directed against the U.S. Castro's Cuba is not a friendly nation.

It should be considered un-American and unpatriotic to visit there, much less to lend an economic hand. There are a lot of reasons not to visit Cuba.

After 43 years of the most brutal tyranny in Cuba's history as well as in the Americas, it seems that the drive should be for the continuation of a policy based on moral principles and scruples against a criminal and illegitimate regime that has raped the Cuban people of their right to live with freedom and dignity.

Sadly, the Europeans and others have shown themselves totally insensitive to the Cuban tragedy and behave without principles and scruples in their dealings with the Castro regime. But I believe that America is different and we should not descend to those levels. We must not act like them.

'Disinvestment'

"Disinvestment" was the right moral principle for the international business community in the case of South Africa. Why do the opposite for Cuba?

Demanding a unilateral change of policy from the U.S. without demanding that Castro and communism must go from Cuba is hypocritical and a crime against the suffering Cuban people. Lifting the U.S. embargo is not the answer; disinvestment is the moral thing to do.

By exploiting the situation in Cuba because of greed, the U.S. business community becomes a collaborator and partner in Castro's crimes.

Cubans are crying for an end to their misery and are not going to forget and forgive those who collaborated with their oppressor.

The people who love freedom and democracy in the U.S. should want the same for Cuba. They should urge all those politicians responding to the pressures of the pro-Castro lobby on Capitol Hill and greedy U.S. businessmen yearning for the imaginary profits promised by the propaganda machinery of a bankrupt regime, to stop their immoral drive and instead help by disinvesting in Cuba to get rid of the last tyranny in the Americas.

Formal Complaint Filed By Judicial Watch.
“U.S. Food & Agribusiness Exhibition,” in Havana, Cuba
from September 26 – September 30, 2002.

(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, said today that it filed a formal complaint with President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Treasury Secretary Paul H. O’Neill and the Office of Foreign Asset Control (“OFAC”) to revoke the license granted to PWN Exhibicon to conduct a “U.S. Food & Agribusiness Exhibition,” in Havana, Cuba from September 26 – September 30, 2002.

Cuba is a U.S. State Department-designated state sponsor of terrorism. Since the September 11th attacks, Fidel Castro labeled the US-led war on terrorism "worse than the original attacks, militaristic, and fascist." During a 2001 tour of Iran, Syria and Libya, Castro was quoted by many of the world’s media outlets as saying: “Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees. The U.S. regime is very week and we are witnessing this weakness from close up.” Cuba continues to actively support terror groups, including the Basque ETA, Colombia’s FARC and ELN, as well as Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein.

The planned “U.S. Food & Agribusiness Exhibition,” in Havana is a frivolous and harmful promotional event. The U.S. government’s active endorsement and licensure of such activity, by U.S. corporations, in the capital of a terror state, during a time of war, is inconsistent foreign and trade policy – as well as prime propaganda fodder for Castro and his terrorist allies.

Expo participants reportedly include major U.S. agribusiness corporations, including: Archer Daniels Midland, Perdue Farms, Cargill, Hormel, and Tyson Foods, among others. According to 1998 campaign figures, agribusiness interests dispensed nearly $43.3 million to federal candidates and parties. Both Republicans and Democrats cater to agribusiness corporations seeking ways to circumvent the Cuban embargo. This may explain how the Clinton administration’s “Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000,” is allowed to take precedence over the Bush administration’s “war on terror.”

“It’s bad enough that the Bush administration licensed this trade expo in the first place, but if it now chooses not to revoke the license, then their hypocrisy on terrorism will be a national disgrace,” stated Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman.
>>

FROM RCB RECORDS:
Show organizer PWN Exhibicon International LLC (PWN Exhibicon) has received authorization from the United States government to conduct this event. E.J. Krause & Associates, Inc. will be responsible for the marketing and operations of the exhibition.

Representatives of government-operated companies and non-government-operated companies that have offices in Cuba will be attending the U.S. Food & Agribusiness Exhibition, including Alimport, Cuba's primary purchaser of food and agricultural products. According to Pedro Alvarez Borrego, Chairman, Alimport is looking to identify "…millions of U.S. dollars in new purchases…," and finalize transactions since "…many of the contracts for these new purchases will be signed during the exhibition..."

Key companies such as Archer Daniels Midland Company, Riceland Foods, Radlo Foods, Gold Kist, Marsh International, United Food and Pharmaceutical, Perdue Farms, Cargill, Boston Agrex, ConAgra Foods, Inc., PS International, Bushel 42 Pasta Company, North Dakota Farm Bureau, Reuven International USA, The Rice Company, Hormel Foods Corporation, Bunge, Northarvest Bean Growers, Tyson Foods, and Georgia Department of Agriculture are just some of the companies, organizations, state departments of agriculture, and state economic development offices who are planning to participate in the U.S. Food & Agribusiness Exhibition.

COMMENTS:
Take a good look at the participants.
The U.S has not lifted sanctions on Cuba, and these companies are already doing business at the expense of the Cuban and American people.
Oh yes, it is going to cost us plenty!
Government subsidies are paid by no other than the taxpayer!
Tell your Gov. Representatives that you do not want these filthy game of politics !!!
The above is sent to you by
Chachi Novellas Bengochea
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
FOR FREEDOM & JUSTICE GROUP
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ForFreedomandJustice

WEST NILE VIRUS: PART OF HUSSEIN'S PLAN - VIA CUBA?

By John Hughes*
Salt Lake City
from the September 18, 2002 edition
Christian Science Monitor
Colaboración:
Paul Echaniz
E.U.

La Nueva Cuba
Septiembre 19, 2002

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who has a special familiarity with intelligence matters, last week urged the government to explore the possibility of a terrorist link to the US outbreak of West Nile virus.

Last year, 66 people contracted the disease. This year about 1,400 have, and 66 of them have died.

While there is so far no evidence that the virus, or something similar, is being used as a biological weapon against the US, Mr. Leahy's concern has renewed speculation among some Cuba-watchers about Fidel Castro's dabbling with germ warfare, and his close relationship with Saddam Hussein of Iraq and other rogue nations such as Iran.

Last month, Havana's official newspaper, Granma, carried a curious story about the West Nile virus, revealing substantial familiarity with its transmission by mosquitoes and migratory birds. Then it offered Cuba's "fullest cooperation" with US authorities in confronting the threat.

Does this offer by a regime expert in deception, in fact, mask a long-suspected Cuban biological warfare program?

Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Carl Ford Jr. testified to US Senators in June that Cuba "has at least a limited ... offensive biological warfare research and development effort." While US intelligence is perfectly capable of detecting weapons like rockets and missiles for delivery of biological warfare products, is it possible that Cuba could be conducting experiments with delivery by such unconventional means as migratory birds?

Mr. Ford claimed that Cuba has provided dual-use biotechnology (technology that can be used for both constructive medical, or destructive military, use) to rogue states. Does this mean Iraq? Cuba has had friendly relations with Iraq for years and consistently supported it at the UN against the US. Rumors of financial scandal in 1999 at Cuba's Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology suggested some kind of funding support from Iraq. As recently as July, Castro confidant Rodrigo Alvarez Cambra - an orthopedic surgeon who reportedly performed back surgery on Mr. Hussein, and who is president of the Cuban-Arab Friendship Society - was dispatched to Baghdad to meet with Hussein and proclaim Cuba's ongoing support.

West Nile virus first appeared in New York in 1999. In the same year, a book written by Michael Ramadan, a purported former bodyguard and look-alike for Hussein, related an alleged conversation with the Iraqi leader in which he speculated about an "ultimate weapon, developed in secret laboratories outside Iraq, free of UN inspection," to "develop the SV1417 strain of the West Nile virus." The story gained further circulation in an October 1999 article in New York magazine by Richard Preston, the author of "The Cobra Event," a novel whose plot involves a terrorist attack on New York using a lethal virus.

The problem with much of this rumor and speculation about Cuba's biological warfare program - and who might be subsidizing it - is that it is unsubstantiated and in many cases comes from defectors whose reports cannot be corroborated.

It also comes amid heightened debate in Congress over the future of the US-Cuban relationship, and whether US sanctions against Cuba should be modified or lifted. Thus pro- and anti-Castro factions have a vested interest in proving or disproving Mr. Castro's dabbling with dangerous offensive viruses. This is especially so at a time when President Bush is threatening war against Iraq, and any evidence of links between Hussein and Castro involving biological warfare experiments would be political dynamite.

The problem, as Ford testified, is that "the nature of biological weapons makes it difficult to procure clear incontrovertible proof that a country is engaged in illicit biological weapons research, production, weaponization, and stockpiling. Cuba's sophisticated denial and deception practices make our task even more difficult."

In a column four months ago, I suggested that if Castro wanted an early lifting of the US embargo, there were two things he should do. First, he could hold the national referendum called for by 11,000 Cubans who courageously signed a petition to institute human rights and free political prisoners. He has already contemptuously dismissed this appeal by his fellow Cubans. My second suggestion was that he permit serious international inspection of the Cuban laboratories suspected of biological warfare development. In the light of recent developments with Iraq, and a suggestion by an influential US senator that the West Nile virus and terrorism may not be unrelated, that inspection assumes new urgency.

* John Hughes, editor and chief operating officer of the Deseret News, is a former editor of the Monitor.

ANOTHER VICTIM OF CASTRO. AMERICAN TAXPAYERS ARE NEXT.

PANAMA MERCHANTS PINCHED BY CUBA'S PAYMENT PROBLEMS

By Juan O. Tamayo
Panama City
The Miami Herald
La Nueva Cuba
Septiembre 21, 2002

Cuba has fallen chronically behind on repaying its estimated $100 million worth of debts in Panama, with a Cuban government bank even ''bouncing'' $6 million in payments due in one recent week, Panamanian businessmen say.

Some merchants have stopped extending new credit to the communist-run island, and others have traveled to Havana in hopes of persuading the government to make more timely payments, the businessmen added.

The Panamanians' complaints reinforce reports that Cuba is having increasingly severe problems this year making payments on its debts because of a dramatic economic downturn that includes a 13 percent drop in tourism, its most profitable industry.

''Non-U.S. companies are reporting more repayment problems in 2002 than in 2001,'' said John Kavulic, head of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. American firms selling to Havana, he added, are paid in cash because of a U.S. ban on financing of trade with Cuba.

Although Cuba's debts in Panama are a small part of its $10 billion foreign debt, they are significant because Panamanian merchants have long sold key products to the island, especially U.S. goods banned by Washington's trade embargo.

Cuba last year bought $260 million worth of goods from the Colon Free Zone, a duty-free import-re-export complex on the Atlantic coast, mostly construction materials for luxury tourist hotels, electronics and clothing.

Yet most Panamanian merchants have not gone public with their complaints, fearing that Cuba will retaliate by simply not paying at all, said Panamanian merchants and bankers who asked for anonymity.

Havana has paid only an average of 50 percent of its debt payments due since June, although it has paid as little as 20 percent of the amounts due to some smaller companies, said one Colon Free Zone merchant.

NEW CONDITIONS

It has also told some merchants that they will be paid in full only if they provide new financing for shipments of fertilizer for the sugar harvest that begins in December, said one businessman owed nearly $1 million by Havana.

Cuba has delayed payments to many Panamanian businesses, though not beyond the breaking point, Free Zone Director Jorge Fernández was reported as saying by the Panama American newspaper in February.

Even more worrisome to have been the failures of the Cuban government's International Financial Bank (IFB), which makes Havana payments due in Panama through a clearing account at the Panama City branch of BBVA, a Spanish-owned bank.

Each night the IFB must add up the money transfers sent and received from Panama -- and if the balance is in BBVA's favor it is then supposed to send BBVA the money to cover the difference.

But on three nights in one July week, as Cuba made several large payments on its sugar industry debts, the IFB failed to promptly cover a total of $6 million in shortages, said a Panamanian businessman with access to BBVA records.

''In layman's language the IFB bounced three checks,'' the businessman said, adding that BBVA covered the gaps as a courtesy to Havana but later warned the IFB that it had to improve its performance.

Cuba's debts in Panama are difficult to parse because they are owed to merchants and private banks that do not have to publicly disclose their financial transactions.

But a bitter feud within the Rodin family, the Panamanian business conglomerate with the oldest and largest trade relations with Cuba, has helped lift a corner of the secrecy surrounding Cuba's debts since December.

$42 MILLION OWED

Cuba's Sugar Ministry owes about $22 million to the Rodins and another $20 million to four other banks and merchants, used to buy agricultural inputs such as fertilizers and insecticides, said a Panamanian lawyer with access to family enterprise records.

Other Cuban agencies owe the Rodins another $26 million for trucks, cars and other imported goods. But family patriarch Lew Rodin asked Havana this year to stop paying that debt to make sure the money did not reach his son Martin, the lawyer added.

Most of those debts, plus the $30 million that Cuba owes to other Panamanian businessmen and banks, have already been rescheduled several times over the past four years because of Cuba's financial problems.

The Sugar Ministry, for example, rescheduled an $8 million debt in 1998 with the May's trading company over three years. But last year Cuba again renegotiated the debt, this time over five years, said a company employee. May's officials declined comment.

The Cuban Embassy in Panama did not answer a request for comment on the debt.

But one Panamanian businessman said the mission itself is so strapped for cash that it is paying some of its bills with cigars. The businessman said he's buying Romeo y Julieta stogies, usually worth $300 a box, for $90 from a repairman who gets them from the mission as partial settlement of his bill.

SEEING CUBA AS IT REALLY IS
FOUR DECADES AFTER THE REVOLUTION,
CUBA'S POLITICAL PRISONS ARE STILL FULL
AND IT SUFFERS FROM SELF-INFLICTED SHORTAGES
OF PRACTICALLY EVERYTHING

By Dennis Hays*
Guest Columnist
The Miami Herald
Florida
U.S.A.
Colaboración:
CANF News**
Septiembre 25, 2002

Gov. Jesse Ventura says he is a different kind of politician. I hope that he is. He will have a chance to prove it later this week when he travels to Cuba. Through his actions and his public statements, the governor has an opportunity to do something significant in Havana.

The governor believes in education. Well, the most exciting grassroots movement is Cuba today is the growth of the independent libraries — simple rooms in peoples' homes where average Cubans can find books and magazines otherwise denied them.

For their efforts, librarians are often beaten, arrested and thrown out of their houses by the Castro regime, but collectively they bring information and hope to a population that has little of either. The governor can help this movement by taking boxes of Spanish language books to Cuba and personally giving them to one of the independent libraries.

The governor believes in labor rights. He must then know that the International Labor Organization has repeatedly condemned Cuba for the systematic violation of practically every labor right there is.

Hotel jobs are reserved for the communist party faithful and there is rampant racial discrimination in hiring. The regime takes money from foreign partners in dollars and pays workers at an artificial rate in pesos, effectively confiscating over 95 percent of the workers' wages. Independent trade unions are illegal and labor activists imprisoned.

The Dutch human rights organization, Pax Christi Netherlands, notes in a scathing report that the vast majority of Cubans are physically barred from entering tourist areas, a practice known as "tourist apartheid."

The governor has an alternative to becoming complicit in these abuses. There are rooms available in private Cuban homes, known as "casas particulares." By staying with a Cuban family, rather than in a segregated "Sun City" style resort, the governor would register his clear support for the rights of the worker.

The governor wants to promote exports. I hope he has done his due diligence. If so, he knows that Cuba is a bankrupt, deadbeat nation — that Castro owes billions of dollars to every country that has ever been foolish enough to do business with him, that the current round of purchases of American agricultural products is being financed by the regime's decision to stop payment on the debts it owes to other nations, and that the Europeans and Canadians have lost patience with Castro and no longer want to throw good money after bad — thus explaining the Cubans' new interest in us. The regime needs a new source of credit, and we're the only one left.

The governor is justly proud of his service in the military. On his trip he may well be introduced to the Cuban Minister of Higher Education, Fernando Alegret, a man identified in congressional hearings as the infamous "Fidel," a Cuban agent who sadistically beat, tortured, and killed American POWs in Vietnam. Will the governor shake his hand? Or will he insist that Castro release a full accounting of the activities of his agents in North Vietnam?

Finally, the governor spoke movingly on Sept. 11 of how freedom is the foundation of all else. I know he believes this. He must also know that four decades after the revolution, Cuba's political prisons are still full. Cuba suffers from self-inflicted shortages of practically everything, but there has never been a shortage of Cubans who believe enough in freedom to risk their lives.

I urge the governor to go unannounced to the prison cells of Dr. Oscar Biscet, Francisco Chaviano, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez or any of the hundreds of other political prisoners identified by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other organizations. He will know nothing of Cuba if he does not hear their stories.

It is worth noting that the record of Midwestern governors in Cuba is not particularly inspiring. Last month, North Dakota's John Hoeven took the position that whatever the Castro regime does is not of concern to him — as long as Cuba buys his state's agricultural products.

This was practically a "Profiles in Courage" moment, however, when compared with Illinois Gov. George Ryan in 1999. While speaking at the University of Havana, Ryan deleted the entire section of his speech that dealt with human rights, so as to "not offend" Fidel Castro, as he later explained. Castro believes, with ample reason, that American politicians are too polite or too greedy to point out the obvious — that Cuba is a failed state and the single biggest impediment to any improvement is Castro himself.

Ventura has a reputation for being a maverick. Although the odds are against it, I hold out the hope that he earns this reputation and surprises everyone — starting with Fidel Castro.

*Hays, who served coordinator for Cuban Affairs at the State Department from 1993-95, is executive vice president of the Cuban American National Foundation.

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