CUBA NEWS
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Cuba Looks to Save Peso From Devaluation
By Anita Snow, Associated
Press Writer. Tue Nov 2.
HAVANA - Cuba's central bank president
said he is committed to keeping the Cuban
peso's value on par with the U.S. dollar
in the wake of his country's decision to
remove the American currency from circulation.
For the past decade, the dollar has been
the primary form of legal tender in Cuba.
But last week, President Fidel Castro said
starting Nov. 8, Cuban stores and businesses
will no longer accept the dollar, blaming
a U.S. crackdown on foreign banks that send
U.S. dollars to Cuba in violation of trade
sanctions.
The currency switch appears aimed at eliminating
Cuba's dependence on the money of its No.
1 enemy - the United States - for hard currency
reserves, building up new sources of convertible
foreign funds, and reasserting centralized
control over the economy.
The Cuban currency, like that of most Communist
countries, has no value outside the country.
However, Cuba relies heavily on imported
goods which must be purchased with dollars
or other convertible currencies. After the
collapse of the Soviet Union, a major benefactor
with which Cuba conducted barter trade,
Havana's need for dollar grew sharply.
The Bush administration is restricting
the flow of the American currency into Cuba,
with severe limits on the amount Cuban exiles
can send to relatives at home, and with
Federal Reserve fines imposed on international
banks that send the American currency to
Cuba.
The dollar's replacement, the convertible
peso, is pegged one-to-one to the U.S. currency.
"It would be extremely unwise for
us to change the one-to-one exchange rate
after the Cuban people have shown such confidence
in the Cuban government," Francisco
Soberon told The Associated Press in an
interview late Monday, responding to fears
of a devaluation.
Many Cubans have privately expressed worries
the convertible peso will lose value.
"We have to keep the rate one-to-one
to the dollar, and we are prepared to do
that," Soberon said.
The dollar is not banned, and Cubans can
still hold the currency, although it will
not be of use to buy goods or services until
changed into the convertible peso, at a
10 percent surcharge beginning. Nov. 8
Soberon also said authorities have been
surprised at the large amounts of American
dollars Cubans have changed over the past
week to avoid the new surcharge.
"It's been above our expectations,"
Soberon said of the quantities changed.
"A lot of people are opening accounts
in important amounts of money. We didn't
know how much people were saving under their
mattresses."
Soberon declined to estimate how much had
been changed thus far, saying he didn't
want to provide ammunition for Cuba's enemies.
He did say that in the first week there
had been 700,000 transactions to exchange
dollars or open dollar accounts across the
island of 11.2 million people.
Some independent analysts have estimated
that several hundred million American dollars
will be exchanged into convertible pesos
during the two-week transition period.
Last week, there were numerous reports
of smaller money exchange operations in
Havana shutting down early after their daily
allotment of 50,000 convertible pesos ran
out. Nevertheless, Soberon insisted that
Cuba "without doubt" had enough
convertible pesos to meet the demand.
Soberon said the 10 percent surcharge was
to discourage people from bringing or sending
in more dollars.
Cuba has said the measure is necessary
to protect the country from an increasing
U.S. crackdown on foreign banks sending
dollars to Cuba.
The U.S. Federal Reserve in May fined Switzerland's
largest bank, UBS AG, $100 million for allegedly
sending American dollars to Cuba, Libya,
Iran and the former Yugoslavia in violation
of U.S. sanctions.
Cuba is less vulnerable, said Soberon.
"And we are completely sovereign in
terms of our monetary policy."
Soberon downplayed the impact the measures
could have on family remittances, mostly
sent by relatives in the United States in
dollars.
While some estimates place Cuba's remittances
as high as $1 billion annually, that is
just a fraction of the $9.3 billion in foreign
exchange that flows into Cuba each year,
the central bank chief said.
Cuba Signs More Food Deals With U.S.
By Vanessa Arrington, Associated
Press Writer. Mon Nov 1.
HAVANA - Communist Cuba on Monday signed
contracts to buy 100 head of American dairy
cattle worth $300,000 and $10 million of
wheat and meat products from the southern
United States, launching a new round of
deals for U.S. farm products projected to
reach $150 million.
Signed during a major international trade
fair at which American businesses were playing
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." His Naples, Fla.,
ranch will be shipping 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 were
Archer Daniels Midland of Illinois, Tyson
Foods of Arkansas, and Cargill Inc., of
Minnesota.
Those agribusiness giants constitute a
large percentage of the American farm sales
since Cuba in 2001 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 run-up to Tuesday's U.S. presidential
elections for clues about future trade.
President Bush has steadily tightened restrictions
on Cuba over four years and has shown no
signs of easing up.
Democratic contender John Kerry supports
the U.S. trade embargo and efforts to bring
democracy to the island. He also has said
he wants a full review of American policies
toward Cuba.
Cuba hopes normalized relations with the
United States are possible after the U.S.
elections, said Pedro Alvarez, chairman
of the Cuban food import company Alimport.
"Whoever wins the election, we are
in favor of working with American farmers,
with port authorities, with the American
people," Alvarez said. "We extend
our hand for peace and friendship. The Cold
War is over."
Over the past three years, Cuba has contracted
to buy more than $900 million in American
farm goods.
As of Sept. 1, American 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, which tracks business between the
two countries.
For the first eight months of this year,
Cuba was placed at No. 22 of 225 foreign
agricultural markets for the United States,
according to the council. Last year, Cuba
was No. 35.
Bush promises to rid Cuba of 'tyrant'
Castro
MIAMI, 31 (AFP) - US President George W.
Bush vowed Sunday to "keep the pressure
on" to rid Cuba of Fidel Castro, an
appeal to the hard-line Cuban-Americans
Bush was counting on to win Florida and
the White House.
All Election Coverage
"I strongly believe the people of
Cuba should be free from the tyrant,"
Bush told a boisterous crowd of supporters
here two days before the election, winning
the rally's loudest cheers and chants of
"Viva Bush" -- long live Bush.
"Over the next four years, we will
continue to press hard and ensure that the
gift of freedom finally reaches the men
and women of Cuba," he said. "We
will not rest, we will keep the pressure
on, until the Cuban people enjoy the same
freedoms in Havana they received here in
America."
The crowd packed into the Coconut Grove
Convention Center cheered, screamed and
applauded, waving pro-Bush signs in English
and Spanish and shouting: "Four more
years!"
Like most Republican candidates in Florida,
the state that decided the disputed 2000
election, Bush's hopes of victory here rest
in large part on the support of the state's
sizeable anti-Castro Cuban exile community.
That reality underpinned the latest horseplay
from Bush's top political strategist, Karl
Rove, whose only words to reporters travelling
to Miami with the president were a shouted
"Cuba Libre" -- free Cuba.
But Bush dropped the Cuba comments at campaign
stops in Tampa, where the Cuban population
is tiny, and Gainesville, where it is nonexistent.
He was to travel to Ohio, without which
no modern Republican has won the White House.
Instead, he focused on attacking Kerry
as certain to raise taxes and fickle on
national security issues, and leavened his
speech with an upbeat appeal to Americans
to "come stand with me" come Tuesday.
"If you believe America should fight
the war on terror with all our might and
lead with unwavering confidence in our ideals,
I ask you to come stand with me," he
said in Tampa.
On Monday, Bush was to campaign in Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, make two stops
in Iowa, then New Mexico, Texas and spend
the night at his beloved ranch.
Bush, First Lady Laura Bush, and Florida
Governor Jeb Bush, the president's brother,
began the day attending Catholic mass at
the Church of the Epiphany, where Monseigneur
Jude O'Doherty all but endorsed his reelection
bid.
"What a great privilege it is for
all of us to pray with the most powerful
man on the face of the Earth," said
O'Doherty, who praised Bush's stances against
abortion and euthanasia and for limiting
embryonic stem cell research.
Before the president arrived in Miami,
a small army of speakers -- including Mexican-born
actress and singer Lucia Mendez -- extolled
him and attacked Kerry as the crowd slowly
swelled to a few thousand.
Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
pointed to elections in Afghanistan and
plans for elections in Iraq and said that
Bush was committed to "help bring about
that same freedom, that same democracy ...
to the oppressed and long-suffering people
of Cuba."
Another speaker strongly suggested that
terrorists hoped for a Kerry victory, pointedly
asking "who do the enemies of America
favor?" and then thanking Bush for
the global war on extremist violence.
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