CUBA NEWS
The Miami Herald

Working overtime to survive

Cubans take on additional jobs to make ends meet even though President Fidel Castro says the nation's economy is out of its slump.

By Vanessa Arrington, Associated Press. Posted on Thu, Feb. 17, 2005.

HAVANA - Gilberto Sago remembers the time, before the collapse of the Soviet Union thrust Cuba's economy into crisis, when a pound of pork cost just four Cuban pesos, or about 15 cents.

''Everything was so abundant, and much, much cheaper,'' said the retired bus driver, 67.

Today, Sago spends up to 25 pesos -- nearly a dollar -- for that same piece of meat, and must work an overnight shift guarding a carpentry workshop to supplement his meager pension.

President Fidel Castro is painting a rosy picture of the Cuban economy, but it's unclear whether new subsidies from Venezuela and China will be enough to improve the quality of life for those in the island's increasingly state-controlled economy.

In a weekend speech to hundreds of economists at an international conference in Havana, Castro cited improvements in problematic sectors such as transportation and a lessening of the social divisions caused by access -- or lack of access -- to hard currency.

Castro based his optimism on oil prospects off Cuba's northern coast and strengthened economic ties with China and Venezuela. China has agreed to invest in the island's nickel industry and increase involvement in Cuban tourism and telecommunications; Venezuela has promised expanded trade and favorable terms on oil.

Cuba and Venezuela recently eliminated all taxes and import duties on each other's investments and products.

''A new motor named China has emerged, as well as [Chávez's] Bolivarian revolution,'' Castro said.

In his remarks, the Cuban leader contrasted the image of his future nation with the economic suffering of islanders in the early 1990s after the fall of the Soviet bloc ended substantial aid to Cuba's communist government.

Running out of everything from food to oil to wood for building coffins, and hurt by the tightening of a U.S. trade embargo, the government took measures Castro recalls with distaste: letting U.S. dollars circulate and opening the gates to foreign tourism and investment.

The government also had to legalize self-employment in professions from computer programming to auto body repair and decentralized state decision-making.

Observers at the time applauded the steps pushing Cuba toward a market economy. But Castro viewed the actions as temporary and waited for signs of economic improvement.

Now he says those signs have come, and he is strengthening the centralized economic system with moves such as last fall's elimination of the U.S. dollar from circulation and tighter limits on private sector workers.

''The state is reborn, like a phoenix with expansive wings,'' Castro said.

Critics, however, say that while Cubans are better off now than during the ''special period'' of the early 1990s, their daily lives remain a struggle.

''I do not see real economic recovery,'' said Mark Thornton, a senior research fellow at the Alabama-based Ludwig von Mises Institute, which defends the market economy. "Basically, the reason Fidel is optimistic is that . . . he's now found two new sugar daddies: Venezuela and China.''

In Cuba, the government provides free education and healthcare, heavily subsidized utilities and transportation and a food ration. The island doesn't have the kind of wretched poverty seen in South American mountain villages or Central American urban slums.

But the monthly food ration lasts most Cuban families less than two weeks, and state salaries averaging less than $15 a month barely begin to cover the high prices of everything from canned food to toilet paper.

Cuban officials estimate some 60 percent of Cubans have access to additional income, primarily through remittances sent from relatives and friends abroad or jobs in tourism that bring in tips and bonuses.

The remaining 40 percent get by on their wits alone.

''They survive, but they certainly don't thrive,'' Thornton said.

In this two-tiered society, a hotel bellhop or taxi driver can make more than a doctor -- a contradiction Castro wants to eliminate by regaining state control of the economy and preventing individuals from enriching themselves.

Larry Birns, director of the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, said the change could help bring Cuba's population together, but he expects hard times ahead unless there is an upsurge in tourism and discoveries of offshore oil.

''You cannot keep calling on the population to make sacrifices,'' he said.

Three Cuban migrants picked up on Elliott Key

Posted on Thu, Feb. 17, 2005.

Three Cuban migrants were picked up this morning on the north end of Elliott Key and transported to the mainland, Biscayne National Park officials said.

The men were spotted at around 9 a.m. and reported to authorities who took them by boat to nearby Boca Chita Key, said park spokeswoman Susan Gonshor.

The three may have been dropped off on the key and official made it to U.S. soil. Authorities found no trace of a boat.

Freed detainees are left homeless

Immigration advocates say that some Mariel convicts released under a recent Supreme Court ruling are not getting resettlement help from immigration authorities.

By Alfonso Chardy, Miami Herald. Posted on Thu, Feb. 17, 2005.

Celestino Leyva Núñez and Cárlos Bueno Rodríguez say they are Cuban Mariel refugees released under a recent Supreme Court ruling, men who spent long months in detention and were finally freed -- only to become homeless.

Leyva Núñez, 52, and Bueno Rodríguez, 53, said immigration authorities took them by van from a Louisiana detention center to a homeless shelter in New Orleans on Friday afternoon and told them they were free to go.

''They deposited us at the door and gave us no money, no clothes, nothing,'' Leyva Núñez told The Herald in a telephone interview from an immigrant and refugee aid office in New Orleans. Bueno Rodríguez added: "They just gave us papers and told us that we could apply for work permits.''

Immigration advocates this week claimed federal immigration officials were doing too little to help newly released Mariel detainees adjust to life outside a cell. Federal officials say they've heard only isolated complaints, but they acknowledge that more may come as more Mariel refugees are released in the next few months.

Nationwide, nearly 150 Mariel refugees have been released since Jan. 12, when the Supreme Court ordered new prohibitions against detention for foreign nationals who have been convicted of crimes and have served their sentences, but cannot be deported. About 600 more Mariel detainees and more than 100 non-Cuban detainees are expected to be released later.

Immigration officials said they had no information on how Leyva Núñez and Bueno Rodríguez were released, but they did not dispute their account.

LIMITED RESOURCES

The events they described are possible ''simply because we have limited resources,'' said Manny Van Pelt, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman in Washington. "We are not a rehabilitative organization.''

Officials said this week that they have heard of problems with recently released Mariel detainees only in New Orleans and Williamsport, Pa., a town in the state's north-central region. Capt. Keith Bowers of the Williamsport police said an ex-detainee was arrested on public intoxication charges on Feb. 4. He was later released.

In New Orleans, the Times-Picayune reported Wednesday that at least two other recently released Mariel detainees had turned up homeless. The newspaper identified them as Exiquio Real-Fuentes and Roberto Pedrosa-Mesa, who was quoted as saying he considered Miami home.

So far no complaints about treatment of released Mariel detainees have surfaced in South Florida.

Immigration advocates here and elsewhere said federal officials were doing far too little to help the newly released detainees.

''The Cuban Mariels are being released without work cards to communities where they have no ties and have no desire to live,'' said Sue Weishar, director of immigration and refugee services for Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans. "It is not fair to the Cubans and it is not fair to the communities.''

Said Becky Sharpless, a supervising attorney at the Miami-based Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center: "From our meetings recently with officials, we were told there were no plans to issue immediate work permits or to otherwise transition released detainees.''

Chris Bentley, a spokesman in Washington for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said Mariel convicts receive papers that entitle them to apply for work permits as soon as they are released.

But Sharpless and Weishar said detainees should get permits as they are released so they can start working right away.

Van Pelt, the homeland security official, said that in most cases immigration authorities try to help detainees marked for release with some money, typically about $40, and a bus ticket if they have relatives or sponsors somewhere.

He suggested that helping the Mariel detainees is the responsibility of the immigrantion advocates and legal aid groups that pushed for their freedom.

''We are relying on the groups that championed their release to step forward,'' Van Pelt said. "So far we are not aware of any plan. But we remain optimistic.''

The January court order opened a new chapter in the lengthy saga of the Mariel boatlift, which began in April 1980. Six Cubans crashed through the gates of the Peruvian embassy in Havana that month, and thousands gathered there, seeking asylum. Cuban President Fidel Castro eventually allowed U.S. exiles to pick up their families at the port of Mariel, but he also used the exodus as a way to send some of Cuba's criminals to the United States.

While most Mariel immigrants eventually were allowed to get green cards -- and many obtained citizenship -- some were convicted of crimes in the United States and remained on ''inadmissible'' status under immigration rules.

Because they could not be deported, they were left in indefinite custody in detention centers around the country until the Supreme Court ruled last month.

Now, Leyva Núñez and Bueno Rodríguez say they have left the New Orleans shelter where they were dropped off because they could not afford the $7-a-night charge. They slept under a bridge for a couple of nights, they said, until Weishar found them another homeless shelter where they can stay free for about a week and a half.

DEPORTATION ORDERS

Leyva Núñez said he had been in immigration custody for one year; Bueno Rodríguez said he'd been there for two, both with deportation orders that could not be carried out.

Both denied having criminal records -- but public records show Leyva Núñez was convicted of a sex offense in Kansas and Bueno Rodríguez of burglaries in Miami-Dade County. Both said they were held by immigration at a detention facility in western Louisiana, where officials declined to comment.

Cuban Memorial Boulevard meeting set for tonight

Herald staff report. Posted on Thu, Feb. 17, 2005.

Miami Commission Chairman Joe Sanchez and other city officials will hold a public meeting at 6:30 p.m. today to discuss revisions to a controversial plan to redevelop Cuban Memorial Boulevard in Little Havana.

The meeting will take place at Coral Way Elementary School, 1950 SW 13th Ave.

The $2.6 million project is designed to turn the median of the road, Southwest 13th Avenue, into a park-like pedestrian walkway bridging Calle Ocho and Coral Way.

In December, city workers started cutting down trees for the project, outraging a number of residents who said new trees will be smaller and incapable of replacing lost tree canopy, or bringing back animals who fled.

Responding to the concerns, Sanchez, a project supporter, agreed to temporarily halt and revise the plan.

For more information, people can call Danette Perez, Department of Capital Improvements, 305-416-1286.

Sales to Cuba up despite embargo

Associated Press. Posted on Wed, Feb. 16, 2005.

HAVANA - U.S. food producers significantly increased their sales to Cuba last year despite a long-standing trade embargo against the communist island, according to a Cuba-U.S. business group.

The New York-based U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council said in a report released Monday that U.S. companies exported $392 million in products to Cuba during 2004, up from $257 million in 2003.

The sales - including wheat, corn, rice, chicken and soybean oil - pushed Cuba to No. 25 on a list of 228 foreign markets supplied by American food exporters.

Under an exception to the embargo passed in 2000, American agricultural goods can be sold to the island but on a cash-only basis.

Since then, the island has steadily increased its standing, from 144th place in 2001, 50th place in 2002, and 35th place in 2003.

"That's a spectacular increase," council president John Kavulich said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

The increase in Cuba's purchases of American food comes despite the tightening of long-standing commercial and travel restrictions against the island by the Bush administration.

At the same time, U.S. lawmakers - particularly from farm states - and others are pushing for an end to the restrictions.

PRINTER FRIENDLY