CUBA NEWS
The Miami Herald

Cuba Ready to Buy More Food From U.S.

By Vanessa Arrington, Associated Press. Posted on Tue, Nov. 02, 2004.

HAVANA - Cuba formally agreed Monday to buy 100 head of American dairy cattle, worth $300,000, and $10 million in wheat and meat products from the southern United States, launching a round of deals for U.S. farm products projected to reach $150 million.

Signed during a major international trade fair in which American businesses played a starring role, the announcements came on the eve of a U.S. presidential election whose outcome could alter relations between the two countries.

''We're all committed to cooperation,'' said rancher John Parke Wright of J.P. Wright & Co. "What we represent are good relations, fellowship and free and open trade.''

Wright's Naples ranch is to ship the cattle to Cuba from Vermont. The $10 million deal was with Louis Dreyfus of Georgia for wheat, chicken and pork.

Other U.S. companies with stands at the weeklong International Fair of Havana included Archer Cargill of Minnesota, Daniels Midland of Illinois and Tyson Foods of Arkansas. Together, those agribusiness giants have made a large percentage of the American farm sales since 2001, when Cuba began taking advantage of an exception to the U.S. trade embargo that allows the transactions on a cash basis.

Supporters of the sales on both sides of the Florida straits were closely watching the lead-up to today's elections for clues about future trade.

Democratic contender U.S. Sen. John Kerry has said he will maintain more than four decades of trade sanctions against Cuba if elected president. Still, many here believe changes in U.S. policies toward Cuba to be likelier with him in power. President Bush has steadily tightened restrictions on the island nation.

Over the past three years, Cuba has contracted to buy more than $900 million in U.S. farm goods, including shipping and hefty bank fees to send payments through third nations.

As of Sept. 1, U.S. food producers had received $704.3 million from Cuba for the cumulative deals, minus the extra costs, according to the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.

Martinez holds tiny lead

By Marc Caputo, Beth Reinhard and Gail Epstein Nieves, mcaputo@herald.com. Posted on Wed, Nov. 03, 2004.

ORLANDO - Mel Martinez declared victory early today and claimed the mantle of the first Cuban-American senator in the nation's history, but immediately ushered in complaints from opponent Betty Castor that he was ''conjuring up 2000'' by jumping the gun.

With almost all precincts reporting, Martinez said Castor's claims were ''nonsense.'' He led by about 1 percent -- a margin that's a nose outside the threshold requiring a recount.

But the tally didn't include what Castor said were ''one-quarter of a million'' absentee ballots not yet counted. And Castor said her campaign will monitor vote canvassing boards today.

''I believe it is premature for anyone to declare victory before every vote is counted,'' Castor said just after 1:30 a.m. at her Tampa hotel. "We want every vote to be counted in this state before there is any absolute completion to this race, and I believe this is what the people of Florida want also.''

Martinez, listening to Castor's televised remarks, agreed with her in one respect: It sounded eerily like the battles of four years ago.

''I hope we don't get embroiled in negativity. That would be sad for Florida. I don't think Florida and the people of America are really ready for that kind of nonsense,'' he said.

If Martinez's victory is clear after all absentee ballots are counted, it would be a devastating blow to the Democratic Party, which now holds only one statewide office in Florida, occupied by Sen. Bill Nelson. Not since Reconstruction have Republicans so dominated the state.

Martinez, the White House's hand-picked man, emerged from his Orlando hotel room about 1 a.m. today, just 25 hours after wrapping up his campaign in Miami-Dade.

It was in Miami, at a former car dealership early Tuesday, that Martinez stood beneath a banner that summed up his campaign: "Hagamos historia.''

There's a reason it didn't say ''Let's make history'' in English. The gravity of the phrase would have been lost in translation.

Martinez needed every Hispanic vote, with a lead so narrow that it could be blamed on stealth candidate Dennis Bradley of the Veterans Party, who garnered about 2.3 percent of the vote.

Castor thanked supporters gathered in a Tampa hotel ballroom at 11 p.m. Until declaring victory, Martinez had stayed cloistered in his hotel room in Orlando, seat of his home county, which he appeared to lose by about 6,000 votes. Castor led in her home counties in Tampa Bay.

She, too, tried to make history: She wanted to be the first Democratic woman to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate and only the second female senator in the state's history.

Martinez could thank heavy support from Hispanics, who responded viscerally to his ethnicity, his immigrant success story and his skill at telling it.

The White House helped, too, loaning him advice and advisors from the earliest days of the campaign. Originally, strategists figured Martinez could help Bush. But the president's far stronger showing in the state put the lie to the notion.

All along, Martinez's campaign was far from easy.

The long hours on the campaign trail were more grueling than the former federal housing secretary expected. And, in such a bitter campaign race, the toll on his reputation was almost more than he could bear.

As a bridge-building moderate in Orange County, he was well-liked by both the Republican establishment and Democrats and seemed like a natural to seek statewide office.

But by campaign's end, he and his family endured commercials suggesting that he was a mean bigot. The ads from Castor, the Democratic Party and an abortion rights group berated him for opposing so-called hate crimes legislation and for his labeling of a Republican primary opponent as a tool of the "radical homosexual lobby.''

In the final days of the campaign, Castor started spreading stories suggesting Martinez unethically reaped financial benefits while he was housing secretary. Castor was careful to avoid claiming Martinez did anything illegal.

An outraged Martinez went to great lengths to deny the innuendos, saying that he would have never done anything sleazy because "there are thousands of immigrant children that look to me as a role model.''

Martinez, 58, came to the United States without his parents from Cuba when he was 15 as part of Operation Pedro Pan, a movement spearheaded by the Catholic Church to bring children to the United States from Cuba.

Time and again, he used the story to equate communism with terrorism. In doing so, he suggested Castor didn't have the same stomach to fight terrorists.

Martinez's case in point: former University of South Florida professor Sami al-Arian, who awaits trial on charges that he helped Palestinian suicide bombers. Martinez said Castor should have taken stronger action against al-Arian when she was the college's president in the mid-1990s. Castor countered that if al-Arian were such an obvious threat, he should not have been permitted to campaign with George W. Bush in 2000 and visit the White House.

Martinez had hopscotched the state Monday and played second fiddle to GOP heavyweights Jeb Bush and Rudy Giuliani. Only in Miami-Dade was Martinez introduced as the headliner at an event.

Martinez's staffers were confident of victory because they thought they had run a superior campaign -- at least on television, which is a must in a state as big as Florida.

Martinez kept the plan simple: He first introduced himself to voters as an immigrant kid who grew up to become federal housing secretary. He soon ran pointed and successful negative ads bashing his opponent, interspersing those commercials with new spots calling for ''rock-solid'' Social Security and hurricane relief.

Castor, who spent a good two weeks responding to Martinez's attacks, was slow to seize the initiative in her ad campaign. She jumped from topic to topic -- prescription drugs, Martinez's aggressive campaign style, her healthcare initiatives.

Castor got some needed help from the Democratic Party and the abortion-rights group Emily's List. Both ran similar ads calling Martinez mean, especially for what they suggested were gay-bashing positions that Martinez took in the Republican primary campaign.

Castro recovering well from fall, his brother says

Citing a 'good genetic mix,' Ramón Castro said his brother, Cuban President Fidel Castro, was recovering from injuries suffered in spill last month.

Posted on Tue, Nov. 02, 2004.

HAVANA - (AP) -- Fidel Castro is healing nicely after shattering a kneecap and breaking an arm in an accidental fall, his older brother Ramón said Monday, adding that their family has always enjoyed good health and longevity.

''It seems that we have a good genetic mix,'' Ramón Castro, 80, said after the opening of a weeklong International Fair of Havana. He said he expected that his brother Fidel, 78, would be walking again soon.

The day after his fall last month, the Cuban president ''was already directing a meeting,'' said the white-bearded Ramón Castro, who bears a strong resemblance to his better known brother.

The elder Castro, a lifelong rancher and farmer, was at the fair to visit with American farm representatives who traveled to Cuba for a new round of talks to sell more agricultural goods to the communist nation under an exception to the U.S. trade embargo.

Wearing a cowboy hat and a typical guauabera tropical shirt, Ramón Castro greeted fellow rancher John Parke Wright, of J.P. Wright & Co. of Florida. Together, they inspected several American beef and milk cows shipped here for the exhibition.

Fidel Castro tripped and fell the evening of Oct. 20 after giving a graduation ceremony speech in the central city of Santa Clara, east of Havana.

A medical examination later showed that the Cuban leader's left kneecap was shattered and his right arm was fractured. The president underwent an operation right away to reconstruct his kneecap and set his arm.

Castro followed up with a written message to the Cuban people, providing details about his operation and assuring them he was well and remained fully involved in government affairs.

Five days later, Castro looked animated when he appeared on television to announce his government was replacing the American dollar with a local currency known as the Cuban convertible peso as the primary legal tender.

Expect chaos when Castro dies

Posted on Sat, Oct. 30, 2004.

Question: Cuban President Fidel Castro's fall following a speech Oct. 20, in which he broke bones in his left leg and right arm, brought to the fore questions about what will happen in Cuba after he is gone. Is the Cuban government prepared for Castro's eventual departure? Is the United States prepared?

Answer from William Rogers, a senior partner at Arnold & Porter and former assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs: One would suppose that the Cuban government is prepared but only in the limited sense that it is ready to designate some successor, or a cabal of successors acting collegially, to inherit Fidel's monopoly of power. The U.S. government is distinctly not prepared for that. It favors, and is doing what it can, to bring about a sharper break with the existing political system. A soft landing is conceivable. But the higher probability is that Castro's departure will let loose a storm of unforeseeable consequences for which neither government is ready. The risk of conflict and confrontation is all too serious. The only thing we can be certain of is that the future in this instance will not be surprise-free. There are lessons here from the post-communist experience in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. When a long-embedded socialist system loses its grip -- and, as Raúl Castro has admitted, there will never be another Fidel -- a smooth and easy transition to market-oriented democratic institutions is not inevitable.

Answer from Dennis Hays, managing director at Tew Cardenas: Fidel Castro and his regime have both been ossifying for decades, to the point where the only question is which one of them is the more brittle on a given day. His recent fall thus provides an apt snapshot of Cuba at present. Castro makes a serious misstep and his aides are powerless to prevent it. The real damage from all of this, of course, is inflicted on the Cuban people. Outside of Robert Mugabe and Kim Jung Il, it is hard to think of anyone who has willfully beggared a rich land and proud people more effectively than Castro. Even those regime adherents who dream of succeeding Castro must be getting to the point where they rediscover just enough religion to pray that his passing is sooner rather than later.

Answer from Phil Peters, vice president of the Lexington Institute: It's a safe bet that Cuba will carry out a constitutional succession. But it is simply unknowable whether a political system built and dominated for decades by a single figure will be truly prepared after he's gone to manage its future challenges (growth, pluralism, reconciliation, U.S. relations) and to adapt to change. The U.S. government has prepared, but badly, by cracking down on Americans who want to build people-to-people contacts, punishing Cubans with economic sanctions that now even block small acts of family charity, harassing foreign companies for doing in Cuba precisely what U.S. businesses do in other communist countries, issuing a ''transition'' blueprint that reminds Cubans of the colonial past and designing solutions to non-U.S. property disputes that should be resolved among Cubans alone. Today, the result is limited communication, narrow contacts, reduced U.S. influence and suspicions that the United States represents one segment of the exile community rather than the democratic cause in general. On the day Castro leaves office, these self-inflicted impediments to U.S. diplomacy will still be with us.

Portions of Inter-American Dialogue's Latin America Advisor run each Wednesday and Saturday.

Probe of rights abuses unlikely to sway Cuba

The human rights arm of the Organization of American States plans to investigate alleged human rights abuses in Cuba. Cuba has never cooperated with the body.

By Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@herald.com. Posted on Fri, Oct. 29, 2004.

WASHINGTON - The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said Friday it will open an investigation on Cuba for arresting and jailing dissidents and executing hijackers, the first such move in five years.

The IACHR, part of the Organization of American States, announced the decision after its regular three-week period of sessions, when judges examine human rights abuses in the Americas.

The IACHR also announced that it will send a mission to Venezuela soon and condemned a draft media law in Venezuela for stifling free speech. It described as ''worrying'' reports that some pro-democracy groups in Venezuela were under investigation for receiving foreign funds.

The IACHR investigation of Cuba is likely to have little practical effect for more than 70 dissidents in jail since March and April of last year, following a crackdown on the opposition. Cuba does not recognize the authority of the IACHR.

NOMINAL MEMBERS

The government of Cuba was ejected from the OAS in 1962 but the country still nominally belongs to the 34-member institution, although it is not represented in the Permanent Council, its top day-to-day decision-making body.

The Cuban government has declined to send attorneys to its sessions. It refuses to allow its missions to visit the island and IACHR written requests for information are returned unanswered.

The IACHR investigation, the first since 1999, could lead to a negative report for Cuba that would provide ammunition for human rights groups and countries to condemn Cuban leader Fidel Castro. It would also be a symbolic victory for the dissident movement on the Caribbean island.

''Large-scale violations of public freedom continue in Cuba, particularly for the right to political participation and of free expression, and the systematic repression against dissidents, human rights activists and independent journalists,'' said José Zalaquett, the IACHR's president.

SPEEDY EXECUTIONS

During the crackdown last year, three ferry hijackers were quickly tried and executed in a process Zalaquett described as a "masquerade of justice.''

The IACHR agrees to investigate an alleged abuse when domestic appeals have been exhausted, or when there are few guarantees that defendants will have access to a fair and speedy trial.

The IACHR criticized the media bill in Venezuela for requiring the press to report information ''truthfully,'' a demand that is difficult to comply with in practical terms. The bill is also ''plagued with fines and requirements'' that would curtail free speech, Zalaquett said.

President Hugo Chávez has also called nongovernmental organizations like Súmate, a group that promoted the realization of a recall referendum against him, traitors for receiving donations from the National Endowment for Democracy, a private group that is funded by the U.S. Congress.

Súmate's leaders face long jail terms if judges uphold a prosecution demand that they be tried for "conspiracy to destroy the republican form of government.''

Keys boaters cleared of embargo charges

Charges are dismissed against two Key West residents who organized sailboat races to Cuba. Prosecutors claimed the two had violated the U.S. embargo on the island.

By Jennifer Babson. jbabson@herald.com. Posted on Sat, Oct. 30, 2004.

KEY WEST - In a rebuke of one of the U.S. government's highest-profile Cuban embargo enforcement cases, a federal judge dismissed charges Friday against two Key West pleasure boaters who organized and promoted sailboat races to the island.

Michele Geslin, 56, and Peter Goldsmith, 55, stewards of a May 2003 race, were indicted in June on charges of acting as unauthorized ''travel service providers'' by organizing a race for about 15 boats with ports of call in Varadero and Havana's Marina Hemingway.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Miami declined Friday night to comment on the dismissal but said prosecutors will be "exploring our options under the law.''

Government lawyers could try to indict Geslin and Goldsmith anew, or take the judge's dismissal to the federal appeals court in Atlanta. Trial had been set for Nov. 8 in Key West, and the two faced as much as 15 years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors said the pair planned and executed races from Key West to Cuba for several years, despite warnings to cease.

It was the first time the U.S. government had charged someone criminally for allegedly acting as a Cuba travel service provider without authorization from the U.S. Department of Treasury, which regulates the 42-year-old embargo against the island.

U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King ruled that the indictment was insufficient to charge Goldsmith and Geslin as "travel service providers.''

While the indictment alleged that race registration fees were used to bankroll T-shirts, trophies and a party for participants, King ruled that prosecutors failed to allege that the 'defendants' actions resulted in money being spent in Cuba or that Cuba was in any way benefited financially.''

Mario S. Cano, Goldsmith's attorney, said Friday night that Geslin and Goldsmith were relieved.

''They were very pleased and thought it reinforced what they believed all along -- that they had never engaged in any activity that violated U.S. law,'' Cano said.

Havana's Tropicana switching rhythms, easing show of flesh

By Vanessa Arrington, Associated Press. Posted on Tue, Nov. 02, 2004.

HAVANA - Tall as Amazons and oozing seduction, Cuban women picked for their beauty and stature slither across the stage, wearing elaborate headdresses and little else.

Singers, acrobats and dancers perform, too, but dazzling showgirls are the main attraction of the revue that has lured hundreds of tourists nightly to the world-renowned Tropicana nightclub for the past nine years -- indeed, flesh has been the biggest draw throughout the 65-year history of the storied outdoor cabaret.

''People associate the Tropicana with showgirls . . . who are beautiful, well-endowed and sensual,'' said the nightclub's spokesman, Juan Carlos Aguilar.

SOMETHING DIFFERENT

Yet now the Tropicana is closing the show enjoyed by foreigners since the communist government began courting tourists in the 1990s. It will be replaced with Tambores en Concierto ("Drums in Concert''), a spectacle with a more coherent story line that -- while retaining the spirit of Cuban sensuality -- will drop some of the more gratuitous skin-baring.

''It's time to make some changes,'' said Tomas Morales, a dancer, choreographer and director who is the creator of the new show that will take the stage next April.

Santiago Alfonso Fernández, creator of the outgoing revue, Tropicana: La Gloria Eres Tu (Tropicana: You Are Heaven), agrees that the nightclub's longest-running show must finally come to an end.

The new spectacle will keep a live ensemble of Cuban musicians on one part of the multitiered stage, along with acrobats and some showgirls. And the royal palm, bamboo and fruit trees that canopy the Tropicana stage still will provide ''a breath of exoticism,'' said Aguilar, the club spokesman.

But the similarities end there.

Tambores en Concierto will be more theatrical, with increased emphasis on stage sets and technology, Morales said.

'THE DRUM'S GHOST'

The new show revolves around a male dancer who emerges from a drum to become ''the drum's ghost,'' Morales said. The character then guides the audience through different music and dance acts, ''taking you to the roots of Cuba,'' he said.

Reinvention is not new to the Tropicana.

In the 1940s and '50s, American tourists frequented the club, which was known for its casinos, all-night partying and visiting international stars such Liberace, Nat King Cole and Carmen Miranda. The Tropicana even sent charter flights, with dancers and musicians aboard, to collect tourists in Miami.

Chevys were raffled off on stage. The spectacular revues, changed every two months, included circus acts, Vodou-inspired shows -- even live cockfights.

But Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution squelched the capitalist revelry. The casinos disappeared, as did the American mobsters who had a stake in them. A drop in the money coming in meant less extravagant shows and fewer performers from abroad.

In 1968, the government closed the Tropicana and all other Cuban cabarets.

''It wasn't clear whether [the cabaret] should continue as a product within the life we were leading after the revolution, or if it was an element too tied to the decadence of a class that no longer dominated the country,'' Aguilar said.

''Eventually the idea that it was a cultural product won out,'' he said.

In 1970, the Tropicana reopened. But without American tourists, the shows catered to Cuban audiences, incorporating Spanish dialogue and more theatrical acts. Late-night performances lasted until dawn.

''We Cubans like to party all night,'' said Fernando Valdes, who joined the dance company in 1974. Valdes now directs the Tropicana school for cabaret performers and is helping choreograph Tambores en Concierto.

By the 1980s, travelers began trickling into Cuba and, after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the government embraced tourism as a way to replenish income lost when Soviet support ended.

Every night now, 300 to 600 guests -- mostly foreigners -- fill the Tropicana.

Tickets ranging from $65 to $85 are too expensive for most Cubans, whose wages average less than $20 a month. But dozens of Cubans artists and politically active youths are invited to the show each night at a much reduced rate, Aguilar said.

''You can tell there are Cubans because they're the ones who get up and dance after the show's over,'' he added.

Cuban hip-hop at a crossroads

By Vanessa Arrington, Associated Press. Posted on Tue, Nov. 02, 2004.

HABANA DEL ESTE, Cuba -- On broiling summer days more than a decade ago, teenagers here spent hours watching breakdancing on Soul Train and listening to American rap floating across the radio waves from Florida.

Then they gathered on street corners, surrounded by rows of apartment buildings with chipped paint and laundry hanging out the windows, and copied what they'd seen and heard.

Now in their 20s, these men and women have moved beyond imitation to become the backbone of Cuban hip-hop, a distinct, explosive movement of socially conscious rap. And with success has come a crossroads: continue developing edgy, socialist lyrics, or aim to make money with party and gangster rap?

''The biggest issue hip-hop cubano is facing is not to become a replica of what happened back home,'' said Nehanda Abiodun, an American exile in Cuba who was given the honorary title ''hip-hop godmother'' by local rappers.

''Hip-hop in the United States started out as a voice of protest, an alternative voice for urban, inner-city youth to voice their grievances, to talk about their living conditions, their hopes,'' said Abiodun, a member of the Black Liberation Party before fleeing to Cuba 14 years ago as a U.S. fugitive facing racketeering charges. "Now what we see in terms of rap in the United States, for the most part, it's really not talking about anything.''

Cuban rappers have tackled global issues such as racism, war and environmental pollution. They have even pushed the boundaries of limited freedom of speech in communist Cuba to criticize police harassment and economic hardship -- sometimes paying for their rebellion with sanctions.

But as pressure for commercial success increases, some Cuban rappers are tempted to produce lighter, less political music, particularly in the form of reggaeton, a mix of rap and reggae with lyrics about girls, cars and partying.

''Our mission is to try and maintain the essence of underground hip-hop,'' said Randeee Akosta, 21, of the duo Los Paisanos, or The Countrymen. "It is our way of life, our reason for being.''

On a recent afternoon, members of The Cartel spilled out of Akosta's small Havana home as they prepared to rehearse for Cuba's 10th annual hip-hop festival in November.

The group's talent has been recognized by Pablo Herrera, the island's most noted hip-hop producer.

Herrera, 37, is producing The Cartel's first album, set for release this year. He began his career with the rap group Amenazas, whose members later moved to Europe and became Orishas, Cuba's most famous hip-hop group. The group won a Latin Grammy for Best Rap/Hip-Hop Album last year.

The agency focuses on nine hip-hop groups, out of the island's estimated 500-plus. Most of those groups are moving toward reggaeton, while several try to balance their commitment to underground rap while still pursuing commercial success.

Two rappers walking that line -- Adeyeme Umoja, 24, and Sekou Messiah, 30 -- comprise Anonimo Consejo, considered among the island's best duos and the only group belonging to both The Cartel and the agency. They have rapped about their African roots, revolution and hip-hop culture since the mid-1990s.

Lyrics on a recent demo confront everything from class divisions -- ''the plight of the poor is the fault of the rich'' in the song American Dream -- to young Cuban women pursuing foreign tourists instead -- "He could be your grampa! . . . If you want me, I want you, but I don't have any money.''

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