Yahoo! News
February 12, 2002.
U.S. Nobel Laureate Speaks in Cuba
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer. Mon Feb 11.
HAVANA - U.S. financial prescriptions for developing countries with ailing
economies often are hypocritical and harmful, an American Nobel laureate told
hundreds of economists gathered here Monday.
Instead of taking advice from the U.S. Treasury Department or the
International Monetary Fund , many struggling countries would rebound from
economic crisis more quickly if they focused efforts on the specific needs of
society, said Joseph Stiglitz, who was one of former President Clinton 's
economic advisers and co-winner of the 2001 Nobel prize in economics.
"The growing dissatisfaction with globalization has begun to focus on
the hypocrisy," said Stiglitz, one of three Nobel laureates attending
Cuba's annual international forum on economic globalization, which opened Monday
afternoon. Canadian Robert Mundell, the 1999 prize winner in economics, and 1980
Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel of Argentina also are on the
program.
While the Bush administration calls for Americans to spend their way out of
recession, and U.S. lawmakers propose extending unemployment benefits,
Washington traditionally has given just the opposite advice to developing
nations, he said.
In China, for example, Stiglitz said that job creation has done more to
stimulate the national economy than IMF-recommended job cuts as "shock
treatments" for developing countries.
He said China's national income has increased 250 percent in the past decade
in large part by focusing on societal needs — increasing literacy,
decreasing poverty, creating more jobs.
"Increase in material well-being, while important, is only part of the
story," Stiglitz told the gathering presided over by President Fidel Castro
, who has an intense interest in economic globalization. Even more important,
the American economist said, is "societal well-being."
For the first time, the IMF is sending a representative to the forum —
Claudio Loser, the lending institution's representative for the Western
Hemisphere. The World Bank is sending Vice President Guillermo Perry for the
second year in a row.
Communist Cuba defends its maintenance of a centralized economy, but had
allowed modest reforms in the mid-1990s — limited changes which allowed
citizens to hold U.S. dollars, modest foreign investment and some small private
businesses.
U.S. travelers to Cuba complain about fines; Dorgan calls for end to
travel limits
By Carolyn Skorneck, Associated Press Writer. Mon Feb 11,
6:14 PM ET
WASHINGTON - It was just a daylong trip to Cuba to fulfill a family duty by
spreading his parents' ashes at the church they founded a half-century ago.
The surprise came on his return to the United States: a $7,500 fine for
violating U.S. restrictions on travel to the communist nation.
"During the one full day we spent in Cuba, I scattered part of their
ashes on the grounds of the church in Havana, and another part at sea,"
said Cevin Allen, 56, of Sammamish, Wash., told a Senate panel Monday, recalling
the 1997 trip that let him "deal with the pain of losing my parents."
But the good feelings from giving them "a burial I knew they would have
wanted," and reuniting with friends from his childhood, when his parents
were missionaries in Cuba, crumbled when he came home. There, he said, he was
confronted by hostile officials and, two months later, the fine for traveling to
Cuba "illegally."
Sen. Byron Dorgan (news), D-N.D., called such travel restrictions "ill-advised,"
and urged Congress to end them.
"In an attempt to punish Fidel Castro , we are restricting the freedom
of the American people," Dorgan said.
The limits also hinder Americans' ability to spread U.S. views on democracy
and human rights, said Dorgan, who chaired the hearing by the Appropriations
Committee's treasury and general government panel.
"Castro has been in office during the terms of 10 U.S. presidents,"
the senator said. "Maybe it's time for someone to say, 'This isn't
working.'"
President Bush called last July and again last month for stepped-up
enforcement of the embargo and travel restrictions, hoping to encourage a
transition to democracy in Cuba, said R. Richard Newcomb, director of the
Treasury Department 's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Newcomb said new demands from the war against terror have prevented his
office of 129 people from increasing its seven full-time employees enforcing the
Cuba rules.
Yet the number of fines levied rose from 188 in 2000, the Clinton
administration's last year, to 766 in 2001, the Bush administration's first
year, Dorgan said.
Newcomb estimated that more than 150,000 Americans go to Cuba each year,
with about two-thirds of them getting OFAC's permission.
James Carragher, State Department coordinator of Cuban affairs, defended the
limits, saying travel to Cuba outside the authority of the regulations "can
help to prop up a regime which continues to harass and imprison its people who
dare to criticize their government."
At the same time, Carragher said, "Outreach by everyday Americans to
everyday Cubans ... introduces the best of the United States to the Cuban
people, supports the development of civil society institutions and brings
alternative points of view to the island."
Congress has tried to poke holes in the four-decade-old embargo, pressed by
agriculture and pharmaceutical interests eager to sell their goods to Cuba.
The House last year endorsed cutting off funds for OFAC's enforcement of the
travel rules, which are actually limits on travel-related transactions. That
endorsement was dropped in a conference with the Senate, Dorgan said.
The Senate is expected this week to approve an agriculture bill with a
provision to make it easier to sell U.S. farm goods to Cuba by allowing private
financing of the sales.
Dorgan told reporters that he — either alone or with a bipartisan group
of like-minded lawmakers — would push this spring to end the travel limits.
Some Senate leaders privately support the idea, an aide said.
Marilyn Meister, a 75-year-old retired teacher from Wisconsin, and John
Harriman, a 37-year-old software developer from Chicago, also ran afoul of the
rules. Each got fined $7,500.
Meister said Monday that the Canadian group organizing her bike trip assured
her it was legal for Americans to participate. Harriman, an avid player of the
board game Go, said he was told he could attend an international Go tournament
without worry.
Allen, Meister and Harriman all told Customs agents they had gone to Cuba.
The news was met calmly by the one Harriman encountered, but those who dealt
with Meister and Allen were furious, they said. Meister said her agent went "into
a rage" and made her feel "like the most horrible of criminals."
OFAC cannot look the other way, even if it wants to in a case like Allen's,
because of rigid rules in the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act
of 2000, Newcomb said.
Still, he said, most people are fined only a fraction of the $55,000
maximum.
Allen and his partner, each fined $7,500, settled with OFAC for $700 total
after the Center for Constitutional Rights' Cuba Travel Docket got involved.
Meister and Harriman's $7,500 fines remain unresolved because OFAC has no
administrative law judge, even though 1998 rules require one.
Congressional delegation tells Castro 'You've Got a Friend,' says it's
time to change U.S. policy
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer. Mon Feb 11, 2:41 PM
ET
HAVANA - Carole King serenaded Fidel Castro with "You've Got a Friend"
at a weekend dinner, and U.S. representatives from California shared wines from
Napa and Sonoma — part of the latest effort to change U.S. policy toward
Cuba.
Cuba has been under a U.S. trade embargo since shortly after Castro defeated
the CIA -backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, and U.S. President George
W. Bush 's administration has insisted that U.S.-Cuba relations will not improve
until Cuba embraces democracy and human rights.
"That might be the executive branch's view, but that is not the
legislative branch's view, and we make policy," said Rep. Diane Watson. "More
and more lawmakers are coming here for themselves, seeing for themselves,
developing good will."
Since 1999, eight U.S. senators and 18 members of the House of
Representatives have visited Cuba coinciding with partly successful efforts on
Capitol Hill to ease or eliminate U.S. restrictions on trade with and travel to
the communist country.
"We ought to be having a better tone about building bridges rather than
building walls," Rep. Sam Farr (news) said Monday.
The group also included representatives of California's rice and wine
industries and King, the singer/songwriter.
They said their dinner with Castro at the Palace of the Revolution stretched
from 9 p.m. Sunday until about 4:30 a.m. Monday. During the meal, King also
performed a new song, "Love Makes the World."
"My songs were a message I wanted to bring here," said King, who
celebrated her 60th birthday in Havana on Saturday. "I came here to learn
because my life, my work, is all about communication. We should be setting an
example of good will."
Delegation members said they brought bottles of California cabernet
sauvignon and merlot to Castro's dinner. Earlier Sunday evening, the California
delegation shared a bottle with 17 noted Cuban dissidents at an Old Havana
hotel.
"We are accustomed to meeting with dissidents because we have them in
our own districts," said Farr. "I think that listening to the voice of
dissent can be helpful."
Thompson said he supported greater freedoms for Cubans, including free
elections.
"I'm a strong supporter of democracy but I don't think the embargo gets
us there," he said.
During their meal, Castro reiterated that Cuba will buy more American food
if Washington sends more encouraging signals.
"He said that if the financing was available, that Cuba would buy a
billion dollars worth of American food each year," said Farr.
Castro initially said that dlrs 35 million in food contracts signed late
last year with U.S. companies were a one-time deal.
But last month, Cuban officials began saying that they would consider more
purchases if Washington expedited the licensing process or allowed American
financing for the transactions.
After Hurricane Michelle struck in November, the U.S. government agreed to
temporarily speed up the process to obtain export licenses required under the
American embargo for those first sales.
Before Michelle struck, Havana had refused to take advantage of a U.S. law
passed in 2000 allowing the direct food sales.
Nobel Prize winners, IMF representative among 400 people attending
Cuba's annual forum on economic globalization
AP/ Mon Feb 11, 1:50 PM ET. AP.
HAVANA - Three Nobel laureates and the International Monetary Fund 's
regional director will be among about 400 foreign delegates attending Cuba's
annual international forum on economic globalization opening Monday.
President Fidel Castro was expected to attend a good part of the sessions,
being held through Friday at Havana's Conventions Palace.
Among the Nobel prize winners who have confirmed their attendance are Joseph
Stiglitz, who received the award in economics with two others last year for work
about how controlling information can affect markets, the Communist Party daily
Granma said Monday.
Also expected at the forum were Canadian Robert Mundell, who won the prize
for economics in 1999 for his analysis about foreign exchange rates based on the
euro currency, and Argentine Adolfo Perez Esquivel, who was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1980.
The forum, the fourth consecutive annual gathering here, aims to bring
together economists from around the world to study and debate the global
economic situation and its effect on developing nations.
For the first time, the IMF is sending a representative to the forum:
Claudio Locer, the lending institution's representative for the Western
Hemisphere, Granma said. The newspaper said the World Bank will be sending Vice
President Guillermo Perry for the second year in a row.
Communist Cuba, which introduced modest economic reforms in the mid 1990s,
defends its maintenance of a centralized economy. The limited reforms included
legalizing circulation of the U.S. dollar, approval of the first foreign
investment in decades, and allowing a small amount of private business.
Cuba has long criticized the lending rules of the IMF and the World Bank,
saying that they force developing nations to adopt neoliberal policies they
might otherwise reject.
Carole King Sings to Castro
AP. Tue Feb 12,11:34 AM ET.
HAVANA - Singer Carole King recently accompanied a delegation of U.S.
representative from California to Cuba for a dinner with Fidel Castro.
The visit was meant to warm relations between the two countries.
King serenaded Castro with "You've Got A Friend" and a new song, "Love
Makes the World." King says her songs were a message she wanted to bring
there. She says her life and her work are all about communication and she wants
to set an example of good will.
Carole King is best known for her 1971 album "Tapestry" that had
the hit single "It's Too Late." | 
