CUBA NEWS
The Miami Herald

U.S. diplomat pushes democracy in Cuba

By Tracey Eaton, Dallas Morning News. Posted on Fri, Dec. 17, 2004.

HAVANA - He's Public Enemy No. 1 in Cuba and relishes the role.

James Cason, America's top diplomat in Havana, got right to work after arriving two years ago. He journeyed across the island, meeting with political dissidents and other supposed ''subversives.'' He urged them to fight for democracy and handed out tens of thousands of books and shortwave radios.

Cuban authorities reacted quickly, jailing 75 dissidents and journalists and banning Cason's countryside jaunts. But that hasn't ended the U.S. official's crusade.

More than 4,000 Cubans visit Cason's Havana headquarters every month. They get free Internet access. They pick up books and pro-democracy literature. And they sit glued to cable TV, unavailable to most of Cuba's 11 million inhabitants.

''We used to have an outreach program. Now we have an in-reach program,'' Cason said in an interview. Cuban authorities "would love to stop it. But they can't.''

Ricardo Alarcón, president of Cuba's National Assembly, isn't amused.

He accuses the Bush administration of interfering with the country's internal affairs and violating international law. He calls Cason a ''fourth-rate'' bureaucrat.

AN ARMY CORPORAL

Cason, expected to remain in Cuba for one more year, said he doesn't mind such talk. Sitting outside his sprawling ambassador's residence in Havana, he pulled a black badge from his shirt pocket. It was an Army corporal's pin.

''I'm going to wear this until the day I leave Cuba,'' Cason said. "I may be just a corporal, but I'm proud of it. I'm closer to the ground, closer to the people.''

Alarcón, he adds, is the true bureaucrat. He leads Cuba's national assembly, which meets only two times a year and has not voted against any government initiatives since the beginning of the revolution in 1959, Cason said.

'I don't call him Alarcón. I call him 'Alacran.' Scorpion. I wonder why the Cubans don't like me,'' he said.

He paused for a moment, sipping a mojito.

Cuba's government, he said, is a crumbling, bankrupt regime. No one knows when it will fall, but it's going to be sometime soon and it is inevitable, he said.

''We know there's going to be a transition and we know it's not going to be much longer.'' But Cubans ''are going to have a brilliant future,'' because they are educated, creative and hard-working, he said.

Still, ridding the country of socialism is going to be painful and difficult, he said.

Key to the country's future is President Fidel Castro, who shattered his knee and broke his arm when he fell in October.

Little will change in Cuba while the 78-year-old leader is alive, the American diplomat contends.

"This is a one-man show. This is Fidel. Anybody who thinks he's going to be a democrat is nuts.''

But after Castro fades from the scene, Cuban leaders who care nothing about socialism are going to emerge, Cason said.

'There are reformists out there. And when the opportunity comes, they'll flip-flop and say, 'I've been a democrat for all my life.' ''

AID CUT OFF

The country has struggled since the former Soviet Union cut off $5.8 billion in annual cash and subsidies to Cuba more than a decade ago. Short on cash, Castro banned the circulation of dollars in November and asked that Cubans exchange their greenbacks for Cuban pesos.

Cason estimates that the new measures took $400 million to $700 million out of circulation.

Others who didn't exchange their money have no confidence in the Cuban peso, however, and believe it will be worthless in the post-Castro era, Cason said.

''The only way it'll be a hard currency is if it gets a huge dose of Viagra,'' he said. Cuban officials have "no silver bullets out there to get their economy going.''

Castro loyalists call those words offensive and insulting.

Cason ''is the personification of Bush in Cuba. Cason is -- pardon the word -- a beast. A tank of war. He's not a diplomat,'' said Lisandro Otero, a Cuban writer and intellectual who won the country's national literature prize in 2002.

Cuban doctor at embassy, but only as guest, son says

Posted on Fri, Dec. 17, 2004.

HAVANA - (AP) -- A prominent Cuban doctor who was denied permission to travel to Buenos Aires to visit relatives was staying at the Argentine Embassy on Thursday, but her son said she does not plan to seek asylum in a case that has raised tensions between the two nations.

Dr. Hilda Molina, 61, was in the embassy as a ''guest,'' Molina's son, Roberto Quinones, told reporters in Buenos Aires. Quinones, also a doctor, said his mother and grandmother stayed at the embassy after the elderly woman became ill.

Molina, a brain surgeon who has held top government posts, entered the embassy Wednesday with her 84-year-old mother. Molina went there to check on the status of her travel request, Quinones said.

His grandmother then fell ill, he said. Molina stayed overnight with the elderly woman at the embassy, he said.

''My mother doesn't want this to affect diplomatic relations between the countries, or be turned into a political act,'' Quinones said of the case.

Argentine officials in Havana and Buenos Aires have declined to comment.

When asked why his grandmother didn't go to a Havana hospital, Quinones, who lives in exile in Argentina, said healthcare in Cuba "is only good for tourists and those with money.''

Molina, once a friend of President Fidel Castro, is considered an opponent of his communist government. Her son has been asking the Cuban leader to let his mother travel for more than a decade.

Argentine President Néstor Kirchner this month wrote a letter to Castro, asking him to let Molina visit her son and two grandchildren. Castro declined, and instead offered to have the family spend Christmas with their mother in Cuba.

Argentine Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa ordered Raúl Taleb, ambassador to Cuba, to return to Argentina after Castro's response was made public Tuesday.

Granddaughter of Castro takes U.S. citizenship

By Alfonso Chardy, achardy@herald.com. Posted on Thu, Dec. 16, 2004.

In an ironic twist to the always tense U.S.-Cuban relations, a granddaughter of one of America's perennial enemies pledged allegiance to the United States at a giant citizenship ceremony in Miami Beach on Wednesday.

Alina ''Mumín'' Salgado, 26, daughter of Alina Fernández, one of Fidel Castro's daughters in exile, was among the 6,000 people who became U.S. citizens at one of two mass naturalization ceremonies at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

The new American declined to comment.

''I want to keep my life private and personal,'' she told The Herald when reached by telephone at home.

"I don't want my private life to come out in the newspaper.''

Her mother, Alina Fernández, confirmed that her daughter became a citizen Wednesday but also declined to comment in deference to her daughter's wishes to keep the matter as private as possible.

Analysts of the Cuban scene could not resist commenting on the irony of the episode.

''The children and grandchildren don't necessarily agree with their parents or grandparents,'' said Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami. "She reflects the younger Cubans who don't believe in the revolution or its failing leader.''

Fernández fled Cuba wearing a wig and carrying a Spanish passport in 1993, but left her then 16-year-old daughter behind. At a news conference shortly after arriving in the United States, Fernández appealed to her father to let his granddaughter leave and revealed that it was her daughter who encouraged her to flee Cuba.

'She helped me a lot. She encouraged me. She told me, 'If you don't do it, I'll never forgive you.' ''

Alina Salgado was allowed to join her mother in exile within days.

Family seeks sanctions over missing painting

Members of the sugar-producing Fanjul family are trying to find a painting confiscated from them that they believe was smuggled out of Cuba.

By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com. Posted on Thu, Dec. 16, 2004.

South Florida's prominent sugar-producing Fanjul family is seeking ''trading with the enemy'' sanctions against Sotheby's, claiming the famed auction house knows -- but won't tell -- the whereabouts of a family painting expropriated by Fidel Castro's government.

The Malaga Port seaside rendition by Spanish impressionist Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida is believed to have been smuggled out of Havana within the past 16 years and obtained by an art dealer in Italy.

The Fanjuls, who left behind most of their possessions when they fled Cuba following Castro's rise to power in 1959, would like to recover the artwork that hung on the second floor of their Havana home.

More importantly, they want those with any knowledge of the painting's movements held accountable for violating U.S. trade sanctions against Cuba.

''We don't like the idea that our collection is being sold by the people who stole it,'' José ''Pepe'' Fanjul, 60, said in a telephone interview. "Anyone who deals in stolen Cuban art should be branded as a thief.''

The Fanjuls have filed claims with the State and Treasury Departments, accusing Sotheby's of knowing who holds the Malaga Port and violating laws by refusing to provide them with the information. They also want to know whether the Treasury Department has issued any special licenses to Sotheby's for Cuban art.

HELMS-BURTON LAW

Under Title IV of the Helms-Burton law, also known as the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act, U.S. nationals whose property was confiscated by the Castro government can go after foreigners who use or profit in any way from those properties.

''Someone has to stop these things from happening,'' said Fanjul, one of five siblings, who helped restart the family's sugar dynasty in exile. "We want to make sure that even if we lose the legal battle, we'll win the moral battle.''

If Sotheby's is found to have violated the law, its overseas directors and their immediate family members could be denied U.S. visas. The penalty also could apply to corporate officers and controlling shareholders of a corporation.

Washington officials confirmed that an investigation is underway but declined to release details.

''We are committed to aggressively pursuing Libertad Act visa sanctions against those foreign nationals trafficking in confiscated properties,'' said a State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Sotheby's has acknowledged some connection to the painting but adamantly denies any wrongdoing.

''We are confident that the State Department will conclude that there has been no violation of Helms-Burton or any other law relating to trade with Cuba,'' spokeswoman Diana Phillips said in a written statement.

''We are extremely conscious of the U.S. laws regarding trade with Cuba and articles of Cuban origin and have had policies and procedures to ensure compliance in this area in effect for a long time,'' she added.

The search for Malaga Port began six years ago when Blanca Pons-Sorolla, the great-granddaughter of the painter, told Fanjul that Sotheby's had asked her to authenticate the work in 1995.

The Fanjuls contacted their Miami attorneys, who hired an investigator to track down the piece. The painting was among several works the family had registered two years earlier with the Art Loss Register, a service that tracks lost and stolen art. The family also sent letters to Sotheby's and other auction houses notifying them of its belief that the family remained the rightful owners of the works.

ASSERTIONS

The private investigator's findings, which the Fanjuls are now using against the auction house and others involved with the case, included:

o Malaga Port was likely smuggled out of Havana between 1988 and 1993.

o It was held in the London branch of Sotheby's from 1993 to 1995.

o An art dealer in Italy, tracked down by the Fanjuls' private investigator, said he had obtained Malaga Port from a Cuban official and that he often shipped artwork to London via a free-trade zone in Switzerland to avoid British import taxes.

Exchanges between the Fanjul attorneys and Sotheby's began in 1998, when they learned of the authentication request from the painter's great-granddaughter. The attorneys, who sought information on the painting's whereabouts and its purchaser, accuse Sotheby's of ''stonewalling'' their efforts.

''For two years, they held this painting while they knew that it was registered, while they knew that we complained and they never told us about it,'' said Miami attorney Shanker Singham. "All the players in this are completely oblivious that they are doing anything wrong, it seems.''

CLIENT PRIVACY

Sotheby's contends it provided as much information on the painting as possible, adding that it never offered the piece for sale or profited from it in any way.

''Because of our fiduciary obligations to our clients, our standard practice is not to provide client identification without their permission,'' Phillips said. "What we did do in this case is connect the Fanjul family's lawyers with the lawyers for the current owner in 1998 so that they could directly resolve any issues they had.''

Malaga Port originally belonged to the Gómez-Mena family. Lillian Gómez-Mena, the Fanjuls' grandmother, inherited the collection from her father, José Gómez-Mena, whose family owned a sugar company in Cuba.

In 1936, Lillian Gómez-Mena married Alfonso Fanjul Sr., uniting two of Cuba's most powerful sugar-producing families. When the couple fled Castro's 1959 revolution, they settled in Palm Beach and launched a new sugar enterprise. In Havana, Castro renamed the family's mansion the National Museum of Decorative Arts.

ART WORTH MILLIONS

In exile, the Fanjuls have tried to keep tabs on their former holdings. The ''moveable'' art left behind consists of 200 pieces estimated to be worth between $20 million and $60 million.

The Fanjuls don't know how much was paid for Malaga Port, but its estimated value is between $250,000 and $500,000.

''This is not the most valuable painting, but it's the one we know about,'' Singham said.

Phillips said Sotheby's recently contacted the Fanjul family and "expressed our willingness to cooperate with them in researching the status of art nationalized by the Cuban government.''

''Nothing would give us greater pleasure than to have constructive dialogue with Sotheby's,'' Singham said. "The problem, to this day, is that they refuse to disclose the name of the current possessor of the painting. They are still giving more protection to the thief than to the rightful owners.''

Firms allowed to print Cuban works

Scholarly publishers wishing to print works from Cuba, Iran and Sudan win a new policy from the U.S. government after filing a lawsuit protesting onerous rules.

By Christina Hoag, choag@herald.com. Posted on Thu, Dec. 16, 2004.

Academic publishers claimed victory on Wednesday when the U.S. government relaxed rules about printing works from Cuba and other blacklisted countries in response to a lawsuit filed in September.

Publishers now can obtain a newly created ''general license for publishing activities,'' allowing presses to do business with writers in Cuba, Iran and Sudan instead of having to apply for a license for each work they want to print.

The new policy states that publishers can pay royalties and advances to writers, commission new works, undertake marketing campaigns, and edit, collaborate and enhance works, as well as ''other transactions necessary and ordinarily incident to the publishing and marketing of written publications,'' said the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

''Previous guidance was interpreted by some as discouraging the publication of dissident speech from within these oppressive regimes. This is the opposite of what we want,'' said Stuart Levey, U.S. Department of Treasury undersecretary for the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

"This new policy will ensure those dissident voices and others will be heard without undermining our sanctions policy.''

Literary group PEN American Center, the Association of American Publishers, the Association of American University Presses and Arcade Publishing sued OFAC in September, arguing that the rules were stifling the free exchange of information and ideas betweem nations and cultures.

Presses, they said, were afraid to proceed with projects from Cuba, Iran and Sudan after OFAC ruled in 2003 that copy editing an Iranian engineering paper and submitting it for peer review violated the law, exposing the publisher to fines of up to $1 million and a prison term of up to 10 years.

OFAC later reversed that ruling, but publishers said they needed definitive clarification of the regulation that outlawed ''providing services'' to embargoed countries, especially in view of the Bush Administration's crackdown on relations with Cuba and other nations.

Publishers hailed the new policy as a breakthrough that could free up six Cuban projects that were put on ice out of fear that they would incur fines.

''It sounds encouraging,'' said Dan Ross, director of the University of Alabama Press. "That's good news.''

Ross may now be able to proceed with two publications: one on Cuba's 1825 slave rebellion and another on Cuban archaeology.

Edward Davis, the lawyer who filed the suit, said he was still evaluating the policy's details but he was especially pleased that OFAC acted so quickly.

''It's a very constructive response to the lawsuit,'' said Davis of New York firm Davis, Wright, Tremaine. "The general thrust allows a large variety of activities.''

The policy still imposes several prohibitions: travel to and from Cuba, opening a sales outlet on the island, contracting a translator or publisher in Cuba, importing or exporting goods other than informational material and engaging in any transaction that would benefit the government of Cuba.

The policy said that academic institutions are not included in the definition of "government.''

Cuba watchers said they did not expect the new policy to usher in a softened stance on Cuba by the Bush Administration, which earlier this year tightened regulations on travel and money transfers to the island.

''I don't think anyone should read into this that there will be similar policies on other Cuba issues,'' said John S. Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade & Economic Council.

Canned yuca can satisfy the peasant within

By Maricel E. Presilla. Posted on Thu, Dec. 16, 2004. food@herald.com.

Cuban-born people draw an almost primitive pleasure from eating yuca, a formidable tuber reminiscent of a tree trunk or an ancient bone pulled from the earth. We are the heirs to peasants from four continents, and it is the peasant within us that makes us crave yuca, especially at Christmas time.

For Cubans of a certain age, it is edible memory, a connection to the joyful days of feasting in the imagined golden age of Cuba's plenty. Serving tasteless, fibrous yuca at the Noche Buena table is tantamount to treason.

Thanks to the rebirth of an old Cuban brand, South Florida cooks have a new and convenient way to serve tender, flavorful yuca this holiday season. The story of Sansó and its canned yuca is well worth telling, but first, for the uninitiated, a tuber tutorial:

The cumulative experience of generations of Cuban cooks tells us that when it comes to fresh yuca, what you see is not what you get. A good yuca should be firm, with flesh as white and pristine as new-fallen snow. But a perfectly healthy-looking tuber -- long, bat-shaped, dark and leathery-skinned -- may have moldy and rotten spots when cut.

SHOPPING VIGILANCE

Armed with this knowledge, we poke the tubers in the store, and are not shy about asking vendors to cut them open for inspection. Or we surrender to the convenience of frozen yuca -- not nearly as good as fresh but infinitely more predictable.

Enter Sansó yuca, boiled in the can with just salt and water within hours of harvest in Costa Rica. It was the first in a small but growing line of high-quality Latin foods (among them canned malanga, tropical fruit preserves and hearts of palm from renewable sources) grown and packaged at the source by Sansó, the Miami incarnation of a venerable Cuban food company.

The original firm was founded in Havana in 1917 by Bartolome Sansó and his wife, Francisca Estaras, immigrants from Mallorca who began importing Spanish olives and selling them door-to-door. By the 1950s, Sansó had grown into a solid national brand offering the broadest selection of olive products in Cuba, its own brand of olive oil packed in Spain and a line of ketchup, tomato sauce, green beans, peas (petit pois), pimientos and vinegars made from Cuban-grown ingredients. There was also squid in its own ink, Moscatel wine and vino seco, Cuba's favorite cooking wine.

The Castro government confiscated the company in 1961, and it closed barely a year later. The family relocated to Costa Rica, where Roberto Sansó and his family purchased the Del Tropicoa produce packing plant.

A REBORN BRAND

The Sansó brand remained dormant for 40 years, until Gus C. Robayna, a 49-year-old Cuban Miamian, purchased it from relatives of his wife, Maribel García, in 2002. Robayna credits Roberto Sansó Sr., his wife's cousin, with the idea of canning yuca.

''In 1975, Roberto packed the first can of ready-to-eat yuca in Costa Rica,'' he explains. "In 1980, I became the guinea pig. I got to open the can with Roberto and his son and tasted the yuca. I did not know it had been in the can for five years or I can assure you I would not have eaten it, but I did. It was great. I saw an opportunity back then that eventually drove me into the food business.''

Not one to shy away from peeling a case of yuca to feed a Christmas Eve crowd, I was skeptical. But when I opened a six-pound can and took a close look at the creamy, ivory-colored yuca, I knew it was something special. Free of tough fibers and the tuber's central vein, the exceedingly tender yuca melted in my mouth, leaving behind the subtle, nutty taste and earthy sweetness of fresh yuca.

I am not alone in my assessment. Nuevo Latino wunderkind Douglas Rodríguez, chef and co-owner of the Miami restaurant OLA, considers the canned yuca far superior to frozen for pan-frying, oven-roasting -- ''any method that will caramelize the sugars in the yuca,'' he says.

My friend Enrique Fernández, a Herald writer and confirmed food purist, solicited the opinion of his mother-in-law, Macky de Córdoba. To his surprise, she was delighted with the canned yuca, reporting that "it was very tender, and all it needed was the mojo [traditional garlic table sauce].''

Whether as a pantry staple for Latins who appreciate tradition but want convenience or as a boon to older Cubans who are running out of energy to tackle fresh tubers, Sansó's new product is certain to help yuca keep its mojo in this modern age.

Sedano's and Winn-Dixie carry Sansó canned yuca. Suggested prices: six-pound can, $5.99; 28-ounce can, $2.19.

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