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Cuba Wraps Up Sugar Harvest for 2003-2004

HAVANA, 4 (AP) - Cuba's latest sugar harvest came in at about 2.75 million tons, larger than last year but still tiny and less than officials had projected, the communist government announced Friday.

The Communist Party daily Granma quoted Vice President Carlos Lage as saying that the 2003-2004 harvest that ended this spring was 2.9 percent smaller than previously forecast.

The 2002-2003 harvest was about 2.4 million tons, according to government figures announced in late December. The previous two harvests were around 3.9 million tons.

Lage blamed a drought in the island's east for the production of less sugar than hoped. But he said this year was more efficient than some others, with a drop in production costs and increased shipping speed.

Cuba's sugar industry has been undergoing a major restructuring over the past several years as officials struggle to improve production and make a once-crucial industry more relevant.

Harvests more than a decade ago were commonly 6.6 million to 7.7 million tons a year, but they slowly declined over the years. The Soviet Union's collapse erased what was once Cuba's most lucrative sugar market.

Once the locomotive that drove this island's economy, sugar has been replaced in recent years by tourism as the island's primary source of foreign income.

Cuba also is now developing its scientific and technical sectors, especially in biotechnology, and the production of medicines and medical equipment, as potential sources of hard currency.

U.S. Doctors Offer Expertise in Cuba

By VANESSA ARRINGTON, Associated Press Writer, Sat Jun 5.

HAVANA - It's been four years since a car knocked Cuban firefighter Rinaldo Villalon off his bicycle and threw his hip out of whack.

Afterward, he quit work because the pain was too debilitating and had to depend upon his wife to help him shower and sit on a toilet. After much physical therapy and laser treatments, his doctor concluded surgery was the only option.

The 37-year-old was all smiles Friday after bypassing a long waiting list for patients needing prosthesis implants to receive a top-of-the-line hip replacement by American doctors working in Havana as part of Operation Walk.

"I am so happy!" Villalon said, accompanied by his beaming wife as he recovered days after the seven-hour surgery. "I can walk like a normal person again!"

Villalon was among 40 Cubans who received hip or knee replacements from a 42-member team of medical practitioners from Los Angeles and different cities in Florida. The Americans brought everything needed for the surgeries, including the protheses and medicine.

The 40 operations were done in a week at Cimeq, one of Cuba's top hospitals. Cimeq usually performs 50 to 60 such surgeries a year, said Dr. Alfredo Ceballos, an orthopedic surgeon who coordinated the Americans' visit to the hospital.

"This allowed us to take care of a large number of patients and significantly reduce the waiting list," Ceballos said. "And all without politics, or having to deal with money."

Prostheses are limited in Cuba, a communist country under a U.S. embargo where hard currency to import goods from overseas is scant.

Cuban doctors are well-trained, but suffer a shortage of resources.

"There's no lack of know-how here; it's a lack of materials," said Dr. Lawrence D. Dorr, the Los Angeles-based founder of Operation Walk. "They just don't have the implants."

This week marked Operation Walk's fourth trip to Cuba since 1997. The group also visits other countries such as Russia, Peru and Nepal.

"The missions are to help people who otherwise would never really have a chance to get the operation that we do," Dorr said.

Dorr wants to come to Cuba every year because the patients here appreciate the operation so much.

"In the States people are very spoiled, and expect so much from the health care system," agreed Jeri Ward, Operation Walk's medical coordinator. "Here, people just seem grateful for whatever you can do for them."

President Fidel Castro went to Cimeq Thursday to personally thank some of the Americans, giving the women flowers and speaking nearly three hours about Cuba's health system.

"It was a surprise," said Matilda Boutary, head nurse on the mission. "You can tell he is very informed. He's talking about his people like he really knows what's going on with them."

Cuba-U.S. relations are especially tense now, with new American measures aimed at pushing out Castro taking effect June 30.

Villalon said he worries about the animosity between the governments. "Nonetheless, here these American doctors are, sharing joy with us," he said.

McCain: Cuba Pro-Democracy Movement Strong

By DANA D'ANIELLO, Associated Press Writer, June 3, 2004.

WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain said Thursday the struggle for freedom in Cuba remains strong despite brutal repression by the Castro regime.

"Dissent in Cuba is alive and well," said McCain, R-Ariz. "The pro-democracy movement has survived the repression organized by Castro to crush it. It has weathered the storm."

McCain is chairman of the International Republican Institute, an organization dedicated to advancing democracy in Cuba and other countries worldwide. McCain spoke to mark the release of "Dissenting Voices," an institute publication detailing the struggles of Cuba's pro-democracy movement since March 2003, when the Castro regime launched a crackdown. The regime arrested and imprisoned 88 Cuban dissidents on charges of treason during the crackdown, the institute says.

"Cuba's ruling elite must understand that the world won't accept its routine violation of human rights," said McCain.

The senator praised members of Cuba's pro-democracy movement and urged other countries to support Cuba in its move from dictatorship toward democracy.

"I believe that the Cuban people will be able to experience their God-given rights sooner rather than later, thanks to the great people who continue to struggle for freedom," he said.

Other speakers joining McCain on Thursday included Roger Noriega, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, and Adolfo Franco, the U.S. Agency for International Development's assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean.

The institute will distribute "Dissenting Voices" to non-governmental organizations and policy-makers in Washington, Miami and Latin America.

On the Net:
International Republican Institute: http://www.iri.org/

U.S. rules expected to cause huge drop in trips to Cuba

Andrea Rodriguez, Associated Press. Posted on Fri, Jun. 04, 2004

HAVANA - New U.S. travel restrictions could cut travel by Cuban Americans to the island by as much as 40 percent - despite new Cuban rules making it easier for them to visit relatives here, a Foreign Ministry official said.

Under new U.S. rules taking effect June 30, Cubans living in the United States will be able to legally travel to the island only once every three years, rather than annually.

"In the end, it is the Cuban family that suffers," said Benigno Perez, head of the Foreign Ministry's Department of Consular Affairs and Cubans Living Abroad. Perez spoke Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press.

The rules also limit which relatives Cuban Americans can send financial assistance to. Now, Cuban Americans will only be able to help their children, parents, grandparents and siblings on the impoverished island - but not their cousins, aunts and uncles.

The tougher new rules, aimed at forcing a change in Cuba's socialist system, are seen here as a move aimed at gaining electoral support for U.S. President George W. Bush among Cuban emigres who oppose Cuban President Fidel Castro.

But Perez said the Bush administration may have miscalculated the community's reaction.

"Among many emigrants, there has been a massive rejection" of the measures, Perez said. "There are those who think that instead of gaining votes, he will lose votes" among Cuban Americans, he added.

Perez's comments were dismissed Friday by Cuban-American organizations, which said he was not in position to assess whether the measures would hurt Bush in November.

"I have yet to see the massive rejection that he's talking about," said Ninoska Perez-Castellon, the founder of the Cuban Liberty Council.

"If we want to talk about family separation and divided families, we need to talk about how the Cuban regime has done that for the past 45 years," said Camila Ruiz, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation's Washington office.

Perez said that despite Washington's new restrictions, overseas Cubans are flooding Cuban consulates worldwide for authorization allowing them to come and go with just their passport.

So far, the Cuban passports of about 10,000 people living abroad have been "activated" with a sticker that precludes them from getting a separate visa for each trip, as was required in the past, said Perez.

With 200,000 Cuban visas issued the world over, many more such requests are expected in the coming months. About 1.5 million Cuban-born people and their descendants live abroad, a majority of them in the United States.

Since the new Cuban measure took effect on Monday, scores of Cuban born people have traveled to the island without having to obtain a separate visa, Perez said.

The newly "activated" Cuban passport allows the holder to make multiple visits of up to 30 days, with the option to renew their stay for another 30 days.

"We thought of it as part of the process of widening our relationship with emigres, and eliminating hassles in contact between Cubans and their families," Perez said.

Weather carries U.S. TV shows to Cuba

Posted on Thu, Jun. 03, 2004.

HAVANA - (AP) -- Cubans turning on their television sets in recent days have picked up programming rarely seen on this communist-run island: President Bush defending his Iraq policy, American cartoons, news programs from Tampa.

No, this isn't a U.S. government propaganda effort.

It's a regular atmospheric phenomenon that occurs for several days or weeks at the start of each summer, allowing Cubans in some coastal areas -- especially those living in tall buildings -- to tune in to regular TV and radio programming from Florida, 90 miles to the north.

''They're coming in a lot,'' Luis Batista said of the American signals picked up by his television set in the Alamar neighborhood east of Havana. "The image is clear, the transmission constant.''

Batista said his family started detecting the American signals last week, offering an option to Cuba's state-run political discussion shows and homegrown soap operas. Some Cubans, for example, watched Bush's full speech on Iraq.

Others have tuned in the local news from Tampa, the Tuesday night Miss Universe contest, American sports events.

Viewers also have picked up some Spanish language broadcasts, allowing them to watch the hugely popular Sábado gigante variety show Saturday.

Remittances and family visits to Cuba haven't changed regime

Posted on Fri, Jun. 04, 2004.

As a Cuban American who came to this country when I was 6 in 1969, I believe that Fidel Castro has used the sensitive family issue to influence Marifeli Perez-Stable's scholarly reasoning on the embargo issue (U.S. policy of isolation brings pain, not relief, to Cubans, May 27 Other Views page). Nobody ever said that being a political exile did not require serious sacrifices. Being displaced from one's homeland is one of the ultimate sacrifices.

Castro preys upon recently arrived Cubans who, for the most part, do not realize the significance of being a political exile. Visiting family and relatives a year and a day after arriving in this country as a political exile is not my definition of the term.

The tremendous injustice that has occurred in Cuba for 45 years will have to be addressed not just by ''Cubans on the island,'' but by all Cubans in an international world-court forum. Pérez-Stable would accept any half-hearted effort by the Cubans on the island to apply a sense of justice that perhaps would not be up to the standards of a civilized and democratic society.

The family contacts that have taken place for the last few years have not led to any significant changes on the island. In fact, family remittances and visitations have made Cubans less productive and more dependent on outside assistance than ever. If Cuba is to reach its full potential, Cubans must realize that hand-outs are not the way modern societies reach their full potential.

The Cubans on the island need to sacrifice and experience some hardship in order to bring about the necessary changes that most Cubans feel are in the best interest of Cuba.

ANTONIO PEREZ, Miami

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