Posted on 04/14/2002 4:36:10 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
The Cuban president said Venezuela's current political turmoil had already affected world oil prices, pushing them to intolerable levels, especially for poor nations. "It's a general opinion that the aim of the war against Iraq is to take possession of the world's third oil reserve, which worries Europe as it imports 80 percent of the energy. On the contrary, the United States imports between 20 and 50 percent," Castro said. ***
One unusual incident that led U.S. counterspies to Montes was her uninvited appearance at an interagency intelligence meeting. "Her presence there seemed unusual," the senior official said. A DIA analyst talked to FBI counterspies about the incident and the FBI eventually was able to zero in on Montes as the suspected source for information going to Cuba. Montes also had contacts with White House national security officials involved on issues regarding Cuba, an area where she would be able to influence U.S. policy toward the communist island, the senior official said.
The damage assessment of the case is also looking at some of the hundreds of reports produced by Montes during her 15 years at DIA to determine whether she supplied "disinformation." DIA analysis of Cuban issues for years has been described by agency officials as biased toward portraying Havana as nonthreatening to the United States.***
Check out this guy's Elian page, and his site.
I think you'll like it.
Prior to my retirement I worked as an executive in more than one large American multinational and was personally involved in the preparation and evaluation of investment proposals in dozens of foreign countries, most of them in the Third World. In making those decisions my colleagues and I (and our counterparts in other multinationals) worked with checklists to evaluate opportunities and risks in the local market. We asked such questions as:
1. Can we own the business outright?
2. Can we hire and fire local nationals without restriction?
3. Will we be free to place American nationals in as managers? (In Cuba's case this would mean bringing in Cuban-Americans to run the company.)
4. As profits develop will we be permitted to repatriate dividends in U.S. dollars?
5. If we sell the business can we obtain and repatriate U.S. dollars?
6. Can we own land and buildings?
7. Can we freely import machinery and raw materials?
8. What sort of taxation will we face?
9. Is there sufficient local demand for our products. (Can our prospective local customers actually pay for whatever it is we want to sell?)
10. Do we trust the local government? (Will we face nationalization? Arbitrary changes in laws?)
For most industrialized countries (Western Europe, for example) responses to such questions (and many others) would encourage American investment. In others the answers would be overwhelmingly negative. There were no U.S. restrictions on investments in the Soviet Union or in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe but Western investments in those countries were minuscule-until the Soviet Union collapsed. Why not? Just reread the above questions and ask yourself what the answers would've been in, say, Brezhnev's Soviet Union.
Developing countries that wanted to attract American investments usually enacted a special comprehensive law spelling out the terms under which foreign companies could invest and operate. By specifying the terms, prospective investors were provided with most of the answers to the common sense questions they ask before they put shareholders' money at risk.
A sure sign that it is the Cuban unfriendly business climate and not the American embargo that keeps foreign investors out is to ask this question: Where are the investments by big non-American multinationals? Exxon-Mobil is American-controlled but Shell is British-Dutch. General Motors and Ford are American but Peugeot and Volkswagen are not. Wal-Mart is American but Carrefour is a huge French discounter that has stores in places like Argentina. None of the European countries have embargoed Cuba yet their corporate executives shy away from investing in Cuba.
One possible response is to say, "Okay, investing in communist Cuba is not likely but American farm goods, pharmaceuticals, cars, etc., could be exported into Cuba." Again, let's look at what non-American companies are doing. Why aren't European and Japanese companies shipping cars to Cuba? Why aren't Canada, Australia and France selling them wheat and meat? Because these countries must be paid for the goods they sell and they are not so stupid as to accept Cuban pesos; they demand convertible currency-and Cuba simply doesn't have enough. Cuba now exports cigars, sugar, nickel and perhaps some other goods and it sells them for hard currencies. It earns some additional foreign currency on tourism. But what they earn is insufficient to replace the ancient cars on Havana's streets...or to provide their citizens with European- or Japanese-manufactured basic consumer products. (Undoubtedly much of Cuba's meager resources of foreign currency is diverted into the hands of Castro and his pals.)
If the U.S. lifted the embargo before Cuba drastically revised its attitude and its laws pertaining to foreign investment (and did so convincingly) it might, with minimum changes, attract American tourists and even some hotel developers. But the dream of attracting significant investment or even a Major League baseball team (imagine Castro permitting free agents or even unsupervised road trips) while the communists remain in power is just that, a dream.
The communist control of Cuba is a great and ongoing tragedy. The Cubans I've known were hardworking and determined people who did not deserve to see their country controlled by an egomaniacal dictator. Sadly it will take more than lifting the U.S. embargo to make a significant change in the lives of his victims.[End]
________________________________________________________________
When it comes to freedom of speech, conditions could not be worse for Cubans wishing to exercise it. The yearly publication of Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2001-2002, which rated political rights and civil liberties in 142 countries reveals that Cuba ranked among the ten worst countries when evaluated in terms of the two previously mentioned variables.
After more than 40 years of penury and dictatorship, Cuba has nothing to show for it, except in the area of education and even there, education has been put at the service of indoctrination and political correctness. Students who are not "integrated" into the Revolution, i.e. willing to support it zealously, are barred from universities and advanced technical schools. However, in spite of having thousands of university graduates, the productive capacity of goods and services in Cuba is the second lowest in Latin America In this connection, Prof. Jorge Luis Romeu points out that "According to the 1953 census, the last before Castro, Cubans had the highest socioeconomic level and income per capita in all of Latin America. There was one physician per 1,000 inhabitants, more than 70 percent of the adult population could read and write, more than 50 percent of the population was urban, and radio, newspapers, roads and railroads covered the entire country." (The Syracuse Post Standard, May 21, 2002).
Costa Rica, without dictatorship and political indoctrination, compares more than favorably to Cuba in the field of literacy, education and health. Costa Rica's population literacy rate of 94.8% is almost identical to Cuba's of 94.5%, according to recent statistics. In Costa Rica.Only 2% of the those between 15 and 24 years of age are illiterate. (Znet, " A letter from Cuba, August 7, 2001; the World Development Indicators.World Bank, for 1998, gives an an average of 95% for both countries). Furthermore , Costa Rica throughout its recent history has invested more than 20%% of its national budget on primary and secondary education. (.In the case of Cuba the education budget has been sharply reduced. In 1989, it was 1,664 million pesos. Nine years later, it was down to 964 million pesos , according to the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLA). Taking population increases into account, this means the amount spent on educating each person in Cuba fell by nearly half - from 152 pesos to 87. Compare this figures with the amount of the education budget of Costa Rica for 1996: 99,631.00 million colones, or 22.8% of the total budget (Europa Yearbook, Year 2000).
In 1980-1981, when it was generously subsidized by the Soviet Union, Cuba's infant mortality rate, according to the World Bank, Unesco and WHO was 19/1000 live births; that of Costa Rica was even better, 18/1000 live births. More recent statistics show that Costa Rica now has 11.8/1000 live births, whereas Cuba a much higher infant mortality rate, 20/1000 live births (Statesman Yearbook, 2000). Chile, now a democracy, has 9.36 /1000 live births. Moreover, in a number of social indicators, Costa Rica, let me repeat it, without dictatorship and totalitarianism , excels Cuba. For example, with only a population of 4,188,000 inhabitants, Costa Rica surpasses Cuba (with a population of 11,800,000 inhabitants) in average annual income ($4,450 versus $1,700), and in GDP, if we consider that Costa Rica has a population of only 4 million: ($15.85 billion versus $18 billion, ( See Robert T. Buckman's Latin America 2000; Statesman Yearbook 2002; World Book Encyclopedia 2001; and World Almanac Book of Facts, 2002).One caveat is in order: the average salary of a working Cuban is 250 pesos per month (the current rate of exchange is 20 pesos to a dollar). This nominal income would have to be augmented somewhat given that food rations are sold at subsidized prices, and health care, however poor, and education, however doctrinaire, are added monetary values to the salary.
In spite of these adjustments, the average Cuban does not earn $1,700, per annum, but considerably less. Another caveat is that Cuban statistics are derived from many sources which are not subjected to critical scrutiny before or after they are released. Further, the extant Cuban poverty is aggravated by the presence of nutritional deficits in the diet of many Cubans, deficits that cannot be attributed to the embargo. According to the Report on Food Insecurity in the World, 2001, published by the United Nations Organization for Agriculture and Food (FAO), there were, during the period 1997-1999, 1.9 million malnourished persons in Cuba, or 17.0% of the country's population. This in a country that has a fertile soil and a climate allows for year round harvests, and has received millions of dollars from the United Nations to surmount the failures of Cuban agriculture.
The United Nations Human Development Index for 1999 gave Costa Rica one of the highest ratings of human resources among developing nations. Reporters Without Borders in its first worldwide press freedom index made public in 2002, reports that Costa is among the countries in the Western Hemisphere with most freedom of the press. It ranked 15, ranking higher than the United States of America. Only Canada surpassed it with a rank of 5.
With these facts I have enumerated in mind would anyone of sound mind, if given the choice of living in a democratic country like Costa Rica or a totalitarian, oppressive country like Cuba be mad enough to choose the latter? Can anyone with a straight face claim that the differences in overall social welfare in Costa Rica and Cuba are due to the American trade embargo? *** Seven bad reasons in support of the lifting of the Cuban trade embargo and how to refute them - Franz Eugen Wagner, Ph.D.
Ay Cuba! Finally, after years of curiosity, Havana came into sight under my plane's window. Cuba is the largest island in the Greater Antilles, a long extended claw that is home to Fidel Castro as well as about 11 million other Cubans. At 21-23 degrees north, Cuba lies on the same latitudes as Algeria, Egypt, India, Mauritania, Oman, Vietnam and Hawaii. My stated purpose-necessary for the US to grant me a general license to travel to Cuba--was to visit my mother's cousin whom no one from the Cuban side of my family had seen since the beginning of the Revolution (1959). But what I really wanted was to explore the land of Rum, Rumba and Revolution for the next three weeks.
While in Cuba, I would come to fall in love with the graciousness and humor of its people, the beauty of its land and climate and the charm of its architecture. But I would leave grieving over the poverty in the country, the grinding oppression, the lack of any semblance of human and civil rights, and the pervasive fear by Cubans of their own government. Though many Cubans would greet me with a smile, their disaffection and dwindling faith in the Revolution shocked me. I learned that the Revolution was for sale.***
The courts, under Cuba's constitution, are formally subordinate to the governing elite and cannot protect the innocent. Neither can lawyers, who lost their right to work in private firms in 1973 and have been forced to work either for the government or in collectives. Lawyers who had defended dissidents were refused membership in the collectives.
Cubans found guilty under this criminal justice system -- and their fate is rarely in doubt -- often serve 10 to 20 years in jail for political crimes. But most Cuban criminals are not political. A large proportion of the estimated 180,000 to 200,000 common criminals in Cuba's 500 prisons are people who broke the law by killing their own pigs, cattle and horses and selling the excess meat on the black market.
To maintain discipline inside prisons, prison guards appoint hardened prisoners to "prisoners' councils." Reports Human Rights Watch: "The council members commit some of Cuba's worst prison abuses, including beating fellow prisoners as a disciplinary measure and sexually abusing prisoners, under direct orders from or with the acquiescence of prison officials."
Despite this appalling human rights record, Castro has been courted and condoned by a fawning international intelligentsia that includes Harvard lawyers and statesmen who have made their reputations defending civil liberties. These include former Canadian prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau -- Castro was an honorary pallbearer at his funeral, no less -- former South African prime minister Nelson Mandela, and, more recently, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. One world leader who has not been duped is Czech President Vaclav Havel, himself a political prisoner before the fall of communism in Europe, who sponsored a resolution condemning Cuba at the UN Commission on Human Rights.***
The cable went further, detailing these allegations: o U.S. diplomats and their families ``are denied rest or relaxation by house alarms triggered in the middle of the night . . . phones that ring at all hours, and by cellphones that ring every half hour for no apparent reason.'' o Cars belonging to U.S. diplomats who talk regularly with Cuban dissidents on the island are particular targets, their tires slashed, windows smashed and insides ''pilfered.'' Sometimes, as evidence of an intrusion, they find their car radios re-tuned to pro-Castro stations. o The Cubans search and wiretap the Americans' Havana residences, including tapping into their home computers, leaving open doors and windows behind and 'leaving not-so-subtle `messages' . . . including unwelcome calling cards like urine and feces.''***
Friday's defectors, who are believed to have worked from a station in Bahia Honda on the island's northwest coast, told authorities the Cuban government obtained the boat in 1996. Federal investigators lined up Friday to interview the men and to confirm their identities. ''We do believe they are military people. We think they are Cuban border guards, and we think that they did plan this outing,'' said Keith A. Roberts, a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman. ``This is something I haven't seen in my 11 years being here. It truly is an anamoly.'' Roberts said border officials were keeping the imported weapons ``locked away very safely in our inventory.'' The arrivals, who wore Cuban Ministry of the Interior patches on their shirts, made it about two blocks from where they landed -- down a wooden dock, past the hotel pool, past an outdoor Jacuzzi -- before flagging down a Key West police officer. Soon after, one turned over a Chinese-made handgun.
'FRUSTRATED' MEN The men told a Spanish-speaking officer that they were frustrated with life on the island and decided to embark on the trip, which, with the boat's twin 200-horsepower engines, took three hours. ''They stated that they were basically tired of the impoverished conditions and frustrated with not being able to own their own homes and their own cars and that type of thing and that's why they left,'' said Tara Koenig, a Key West police officer. Then the men asked if they could call relatives in Miami. The men, who said they were with Cuba's Tropas Guardafronteras -- Border Guard Troops, identified themselves as Yoadris Rodríguez Camajo, Egar Raúl Batista Gamboa, Ofil Lara Corria and Rodisan Sugura López.***
Still, given that the Castro regime exerts an iron grip on the rest of Cuba's economy, many Cubanos are rushing into tourism -- a trend that has caused a brain drain in high-skill professions. Thanks to hard-currency tips, educated Cubans can multiply their incomes by switching to tourist-industry service jobs. For example, the taxi driver who brought me from the from the airport was an aeronautical engineer, and one of our hotel's bartenders was a doctor.***
Beginning in early 2002, Cuba launched a campaign to improve conditions at its primary schools, but reforms for the older students are still pending. Cuba's secondary school program will be radically improved, Castro declared. "The future developing of our education will have enormous political, social and human connotations," the Cuban leader said.
Despite the huge changes that the 1959 revolution made in Cuban society, some social problems have not been completely eliminated, including racial discrimination, Castro acknowledged. "While science shows unquestionably the real equality that exists among human beings, discriminations lives on," especially among the island's poorest groups, Castro said. [End]
Castro's COMMUNISM has changed Cuban society. In fact it has destroyed Cuban society!
After Castro, Stone said he could imagine interviewing another U.S. enemy, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. "I would try to get on with him in the same way ... Who knows who he is. The American media makes him into a monster."***
Indeed he's welcomed in order to promote a book where he BOASTS about these atrocities, a book that consists of one huge BOAST about a career as a rabid Communist SUBVERTING U.S. policy in Latin America and Africa! This doesn't put him on the Justice Department list of "subversives"! This doesn't make him a "criminal"! And this murderous coward does this in the very town where his victims have thousands of surviving family members!
Recall the planned Nazi march in heavily Jewish Skokie, Ill., back in 1977? The stunt was rightly condemned by all decent people (this naturally excludes the ACLU) as a wanton, cruel and utterly needless provocation by a goose-stepping gaggle of losers and bums.
Well, Skokie is about as Jewish as Miami is Cuban.
Imagine Kurt Waldheim writing a book about his Balkan tour and invited to address U.S. college students for a reading of his critically acclaimed "Fear and Loathing in the Balkans! Piling Up Those Partisans!"
Well, that's the equivalent of what happened at Miami's Florida International University last November. Yet every pink pundit and farm-state politician claims we Cuban-Americans have the Bush administration in a firm testicular grip.
Then kindly inform Bush's Justice Department. If this is an example of our overbearing "political influence," I'd hate to see when we don't have any. Whoops! I take that back. We already saw that, didn't we? On April 22, 2000, when a motherless little boy was traumatized and enslaved, when the U.S. Constitution was trampled and defamed. Recall that even career pinks like Alan Dershowitz gagged that day.***
Nevertheless, the three-day encounter left a deep impression. "We should look to him as one of the Earth's wisest people, one of the people we should consult," Stone said at a press conference after "Comandante" was screened Friday at the Berlin Film Festival.
"The film is an attempt to portray the human figure," Stone said of the HBO documentary in which Castro talks about Che Guevara and the assassination of President Kennedy, and offers a rare glimpse into his private life.
Stone, director of "Platoon" and "Nixon," also was keen to point out the achievements of the Castro regime, such as providing schooling and basic services lacking elsewhere in Latin America, and said he hoped the film might prompt a change in U.S. policy.
"I believe the embargo is outdated," he said. "There is a difficult lobby in Miami and Washington which prevents us breaking this barrier. It points to the power of vengeance and obsessiveness." [End]
She told me that the officials would bring workers, including many women, to different labor camps every day. One particular day began with the usual slice of bread (often trodden upon by rats before it was finally served), and guava. The rain had been severe and the ground was thick with mud. Their job was to fertilize seedlings. In the background, Maria heard women crying. Their cries were devastating, and through cruel means of control, the officials told the women that their fate was better than turning to prostitution for a living.
Maria, however, was tearless and went about her work with a peculiar attitude of promise. She told the women that she had faith, and faith told her ''never to look down but up.'' ''If I look down,'' she said, ''I hear cries of hopelessness, but when I look up, I take a mental snapshot of what I see, and I carry it with me.'' She then began to describe to me the exquisite view of the Cuban hills with its crescent sun of tropical colors. She knew she would be leaving Cuba for America. The hills that lifted her vision and spirit represented the freedom she had longed for. Their stillness and perfect sacredness stifled even the possibility that her arrival could not happen.***
Despite the cost of doing business with Americans, Cubans are still interested in buying goods from their northern neighbors. They want an end to the embargo, so Americans could do business with Cuba and travel there freely. Cuban officials pointed out that they welcome American business officials and that they have paid for the goods they had purchased. Many critics say Cubans are known for defaulting on their debts to trading partners. ***
In a Feb. 4 letter to four key legislators, White House Budget Director Mitchell Daniels warned that Bush considers the embargo of Cuba ''vitally important'' and might veto any bill that tinkered with efforts to lessen economic sanctions of the Fidel Castro regime. Opponents of the embargo on Capitol Hill, whose ranks are growing, have won majority votes for three consecutive years to lift a ban on most U.S. travel to Cuba -- but the Republican House leadership has just as consistently derailed the proposals.
The spending bill contained at least one provision related to enforcement of the embargo. Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, had included a provision in the Senate version of the spending bill that would have relaxed restrictions prohibiting most U.S. citizens from travel to Cuba. His provision would have given anyone applying for a license to travel to Cuba automatic approval if the Treasury Department delayed beyond a 90-day window in ruling on an application. A spokesman for Dorgan, Barry Piatt, said clashes over Cuba policy on Capitol Hill would resume later this year. ''Both chambers have expressed their will on numerous occasions that relations with Cuba get better. In every case, in back-room deals, Republican leaders have stripped these provisions, thwarting the will of both chambers,'' Piatt said.
A House staffer knowledgeable about the struggle over the Cuba language said pro-embargo legislators fought a temptation to ''cut a deal,'' permitting some weakening of the embargo. ''With the president's support, we're winning. We don't have to capitulate,'' he said. [End]
The Cuban government announcement of the trip came Thursday, hours after the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry said Castro would arrive there Friday. Castro has visited communist Vietnam twice before, in 1973 and 1995.
On Sunday, Castro will go to the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, for the Non-Aligned summit. The dates of his stay in communist China were not announced.
The Non-Aligned Movement groups 114 mostly small and developing countries. It was formed during the Cold War to steer a neutral path between the United States and the Soviet Union and has since reinvented itself to confront challenges of globalization and U.S. military and economic might.
Castro's flight to Asia was delayed by almost four hours while he participated in a question-and-answer session with more than 100 Americans in town for business summits, participants said.
Castro excused himself shortly before 10 p.m. Wednesday to go to the airport after meeting with farm industry representatives and a group of female business leaders from Seattle led by U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell.
Cuba last year bought a shipment of apples, peas and lentils from Washington state under an exception to the U.S. trade embargo. Cuban officials are also negotiating tens of millions of dollars worth of new food purchases with farm representatives attending the conference. [End]
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.