CUBA NEWS
The Miami Herald

Cuban policy commission revived to take a fresh look

The Bush administration has reconvened a high-level commission to review U.S. policy on Cuba.

By Frances Robles and Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Tue, Dec. 20, 2005.

WASHINGTON - In a move that puts Cuba back in the sights of the Bush administration, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday that she is reconvening the cabinet-level commission that last revised the overall U.S. policy on the island.

The Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba issued its recommendations in May 2004 after deliberating for 18 months.

Its list of ways that Washington could assist a transition toward democracy was controversial because it tightened several sanctions, including a cut in the number of trips that Cuban Americans could make to visit their relatives.

REPORT BY MAY

The reconvened commission will present President Bush with a new report by May 2006, ''with both updated recommendations to hasten democracy and an inter-agency strategic plan to assist a Cuban-led transition,'' Rice said.

''The work we do now will ensure that our government is fully prepared, if asked, to assist a genuine Cuban transition government committed to democracy and which will lead to Cuba's reintegration into the inter-American system,'' she added in a statement.

The decision was welcomed by Cuban-American lawmakers. Miami Republican Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart said the decision was a ''very positive development'' and added that the commission would "concentrate on implementation and enforcement of U.S. policy.''

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, also a Miami Republican, said the commission could look into ways to generate more international support for dissidents who oppose Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Cuban-American lobbyists say Rice's decision showed the Bush administration is concerned over Castro's increasing influence in Latin America, thanks to his close ties with oil-rich Venezuela and the victory by Evo Morales, a socialist critical of Washington, in Bolivia's presidential election Sunday.

''It shows the concern with Castro's expanding hemispheric influence and the need to cut the head off the snake before it continues to grow,'' said Mauricio Claver-Carone, a director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee.

The State Department did not say which cabinet members will make up the commission. But Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutiérrez, a Cuban American, is expected to play a major role in the deliberations.

CUBAN RESPONSE

Cuba's government recently began a campaign to paint the commission's first report -- dubbed "Plan Bush''-- as a U.S. effort to take over Cuba and rid the island of free education and health care.

The Communist Party daily newspaper Granma has attacked the U.S. report as nothing but an "annexation document.''

Michael Parmly, head of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana, said the commission's work is simply a listing of ways that the U.S. government can help Cubans -- should they want it.

The change, he said, will be drafted by Cubans.

''The transition report is exactly what we can do to help and what we can offer,'' he said in a telephone interview from Havana.

Lawmakers: Let Cuba play ball

The debate about which players should represent Cuba in the upcoming World Baseball Classic rages in Congress.

By Frances Robles. frobles@herald.com. Posted on Sun, Dec. 18, 2005.

At least 100 members of Congress have weighed in on the controversial U.S. decision to deny Cuba a license to play in the upcoming World Baseball Classic. Most of them want Cuba to play ball.

Eighty members of Congress signed letters to Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary John Snow urging them "not to take international politics to the ball field.''

Major League Baseball and the Players Association organized an international baseball tournament to be played by 16 teams this March. But Treasury denied Cuba a necessary license because making money in a baseball tournament would violate the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

''Let's just enjoy the game and put sportsmanship over politics,'' wrote the members in favor of a Cuba team.

New York Democrat José E. Serrano said through a spokesman Saturday that he expected to get another 20 members of Congress to sign the letter this weekend. In Florida, only Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D-Miramar) signed it. ''The World Baseball Classic should not be tainted by our grudge against Cuba's government,'' Serrano said in a statement. "Cuba produces some of the finest baseball talent in the world, and they deserve to participate.''

Another 12 members of Congress wrote Selig asking him to follow an idea proposed by U.S. Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart: allow Cuban exile ball players to represent Cuba at the games. That idea was quickly rejected by MLB, because the rules require teams to be represented by a national baseball federation.

''A team of free players, competing in a tournament with teams representing free peoples, is the best way to celebrate America's game on a world stage,'' the members wrote.

Among the Florida lawmakers who signed were: Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Díaz-Balart, Tom Feeney and Connie Mack, and Democrats Kendrick Meek, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Robert Wexler.

A famously gay U.S. photographer's work is exhibited in Havana

By Vanessa Arrington, Associated Press. Posted on Fri, Dec. 16, 2005.

HAVANA - Communist Cuba hasn't exactly been tolerant of homosexuality and transvestism.

In the late 1960s, Cubans were sent to labor camps simply for being gay, with the state deriding homosexuality as an illness of the capitalist past. Even today, some Cuban transvestites are detained by police and threatened with prison for the crime of peligrosidad, or "dangerousness.''

But a new tolerance creeping into the system over the last decade helped contribute to what many believed they would never see on the island: a photo exhibit by Robert Mapplethorpe, an American photographer known for his homoerotic images.

HIGH-PROFILE OPENING

Mapplethorpe's spirit comes to life in the Fototeca de Cuba, a recently restored gallery in the heart of Old Havana, through an elegant exposition of 48 images spanning the artist's career.

The exhibit, entitled ''Sacred and Profane,'' opened to the general public Wednesday, after winning over dozens of Cuban artists and officials -- including Parliament Speaker Ricardo Alarcón -- at an invitation-only event Tuesday night.

''I never thought I would have this experience in Cuba, to see Mapplethorpe's work firsthand,'' said Ricardo Rodríguez, a 35-year-old photographer. "When people told me this exhibit was coming, I didn't believe them.''

Rodríguez said his surprise stemmed from the fact that Mapplethorpe was American, gay, and highly controversial even in his own country.

In 1990, the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati and its director were charged with obscenity for exhibiting Mapplethorpe. Both were acquitted. The case sparked a national debate on U.S. government funds for the arts, with conservative lawmakers and religious fundamentalists attacking the National Endowment for the Arts for subsidizing Mapplethorpe shows.

''It's incredible to see him here,'' Rodríguez said.

As for the images themselves, most agreed they were more serene than shocking.

''Pure sensuality,'' Farah Gómez, a 26-year-old art historian, said of the black-and-white images portraying flowers, various female body parts and nude black men.

'PURELY ARTISTIC'

Alarcón, one of Cuba's highest ranking officials, agreed.

'Frankly, this really doesn't strike me as a 'sexual' exposition,'' he told The Associated Press. "Nudity is found in cultures dating much further back than the United States or Cuba. Classicism is full of the nude human body.''

Mapplethorpe ''achieves the transmission of a purely artistic message and sense,'' Alarcón said.

One potent image shows the profiles of an albino, in the forefront, and a black man with a shaved head. The eyes of the albino are open, his gaze drifting off the photograph; the black man's eyes are closed.

Mild, static hints of sadomasochism pepper the exposition, as well as images of love ranging from two men kissing, to a woman -- in this case, actress Susan Sarandon -- holding a young girl.

Mapplethorpe's own self-portraits express some sadness, showing deterioration in health before his death of AIDS at age 42 in 1989.

Other shots in the exhibit provoked laughter -- primarily one of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his bodybuilding days.

The exhibit, which doesn't include Mapplethorpe's roughest images, still embraces the man's internal contradictions, said Philip Larratt-Smith, a New York-based Canadian who curated the show with the help of Cuba-based Pamela Ruíz.

''His work toys with the polarities of masculine and feminine, insider and outsider, personal and political, subjective and objective, black and white . . . and of course, sacred and profane,'' Larratt-Smith said at the Tuesday night opening.

To learn more: The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Inc.: www.mapplethorpe.org

U.S. tells Cuban team: 'You're out!'

The Department of Treasury has denied a license required for a Cuban team to play in the debut of a Major League tournament.

By Kevin Baxter And Frances Robles.frobles@herald.com. Posted on Thu, Dec. 15, 2005.

Baseball Classic next spring have been dashed -- the U.S. Department of Treasury denied Major League Baseball the license required for the team to participate.

The move came after Cuban-American members of Congress urged the Treasury to veto the license application and asked Major League Baseball to drop the Cuban team from the tournament.

''We are very disappointed with the government's decision to deny the participation of a team from Cuba,'' Major League Baseball and the Players Association said in a statement Wednesday. "We will continue to work within appropriate channels in an attempt to address the government's concerns, and will not announce a replacement unless and until that effort fails.''

The first World Baseball Classic will be an 18-day tournament in March, featuring 16 teams of mostly professional players from North and Latin America, Asia, Europe, Australia and Africa.

The games will be played in Tokyo, Puerto Rico, Florida, Arizona and California, according to its managers.

But since the participating teams will reap some financial benefit from the tournament, the Cuban team needs a license from Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

Treasury's decision came as the Bush administration has been tightening U.S. trade and travel sanctions on Havana over the past year in a declared bid to deny resources to the government there and prepare the way for political changes once Cuban leader Fidel Castro is no longer in power.

It's unknown how much money the Cuban baseball team might have earned by playing in the Classic. Tournament profits will largely be determined by how much its organizers can get for broadcast rights.

Congressional members across the political spectrum waded into the issue.

New York Democratic Rep. José E. Serrano, who enjoys friendly relations with the Castro government, had urged that the Cubans be allowed to play. ''Let's keep politics out of this,'' he said in a statement.

Miami Republican Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart called the U.S. decision ''appropriate and correct.'' He had previously urged Major League Baseball to allow Cuban defectors already playing in professional teams to form a ''Cuba'' team for the event.

In a letter he sent to baseball commissioner Bud Selig last week, he likened inviting Cuba's team to asking apartheid-era South Africa to join a tournament.

Paul Archey, vice president of MLB International and the point man for the World Classic, has said that the next option is replacing Cuba with Nicaragua or Colombia, with Nicaragua the most likely choice.

''There's always the option of an appeal. Major League Baseball's official position is: We want Cuba to play,'' said Ronaldo Peralta, who runs Major League Baseball's office in the Dominican Republic.

Several Cuban-American players in the majors may also be ready to take Cuba's place, an idea that tournament organizers have shunned because the rules require that teams be represented by their own national baseball federations.

''We're probably the only players in the world who can't play ball for their own nation,'' said Eddy Oropesa, a former major leaguer who pitched last summer in the Mexican League. "We had to desert our countries and leave our families just to play baseball, and now we're in limbo.''

Among those who have expressed interest in forming an alternate Cuban team are defectors José Contreras; former Marlins pitcher Michael Tejera; ex-Tampa Bay Devil Rays outfielder Alex Sanchez; and shortstop Rey Ordoñez.

''I think those in exile should get to play,'' Ordoñez said in an interview. "Cuba has always said they are an amateur team. This is a professional event.''

Cuba bans professional sports and considers its athletes to be amateurs, even though they are paid by the government.

Castro told the Panamanian press earlier this month that he looked forward to the tournament. ''We will participate and demonstrate that we know what to do in baseball,'' he said.

But while the Cuban national baseball selection is considered a world powerhouse, it has never faced top professional players in a tournament format because until recently the pros were banned from international amateur events.

However the Cuban national team did split a pair of exhibitions with the Baltimore Orioles in 1999.

The Classic tournament is the first international baseball event that will feature the top professional players from around the world.

© 2005 MiamiHerald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.

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