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CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Feud erupts over Cuba trade
By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com.
Posted on Sun, Oct. 03, 2004.
WASHINGTON - A Houston company's recent
cancellation of an agreement with Cuba has
sparked new complaints about Havana's insistence
that Americans wishing to sell products
to Cuba should first agree to push Washington
to ease economic sanctions against the communist-ruled
island.
The nonbinding ''advocacy agreements''
have been multiplying since Cuba began importing
U.S. food and food products in 2001, following
crop damage from Hurricane Michelle.
The United States is now Cuba's largest
source of food and agricultural imports,
with sales of about $677 million.
Although the agreements have been criticized
by supporters of U.S. sanctions against
Cuba as a veiled form of blackmail, they
were signed by at least four members of
Congress, the governor of Kansas and several
agricultural associations.
But in recent months, U.S. businesses have
been privately grumbling that Alimport,
Cuba's food-importing monopoly, has increased
pressure for political cooperation.
Americans who have exported food products
to Cuba or wish to do so report that they
'are receiving pressure . . . to be 'more
public' and 'more forceful' about their
opposition to the United States policy,''
the New York-based U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic
Council reported recently.
NO VIOLATIONS
Americans also 'report that representatives
of Alimport have decreased purchases from
. . . [U.S.] companies whose 'commitment'
to a change in United States policy . .
. is suspect; or have stated that products
would be sourced from those United States-based
companies that 'support our position,' ''
the USCTEC report added.
Defenders of trade with Cuba point out
that the agreements do not violate U.S.
laws and said the agreements are simply
efforts to promote increased trade, to the
benefit of American producers.
''The trade that we are talking about is
already a United States law,'' said Rep.
Loretta Sánchez, D-Calif., who with
her sister, Rep. Linda Sánchez, D-Calif.,
signed an agreement with Alimport. "Part
of what I do as a congresswoman is help
my farmers sell their products.''
The long-simmering issue erupted after
the Houston-based Sysco Corp., announced
on Aug. 23 that it was rescinding its advocacy
agreement with Alimport.
The move meant the nation's largest food
service provider lost a deal to provide
Cuba with $500,000 worth of goods.
Such limited sales are allowed under a
2000 law that requires Cuba to pay the U.S.
providers in cash.
Sysco did not return Herald phone calls,
and efforts to reach the Cuban Interests
Section in Washington were unsuccessful.
Cuba has long directed its purchases of
U.S. goods toward firms and states it hopes
will influence Capitol Hill to ease the
U.S. trade and travel restrictions. But
the advocacy agreements go a step beyond.
''These agreements are a corruption of
the commercial process,'' said USCTEC President
John Kavulich. "Once you include an
advocacy clause, they're no longer commercial
agreements, they're political documents.''
FOREIGN AGENT
Some critics also say that any American
who signs an advocacy agreement should be
required to register as a foreign agent
since the person or company would have promised
to lobby on behalf of the Cuban government.
A U.S. Department of Justice website describes
the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938
as applying to "any individual or organization
. . . who represents the interests of a
foreign principal before any agency or official
of the U.S. government.''
However, those pursuing business deals
with Havana say the agreements, also known
as ''memorandums of understanding'' or ''joint
communiqués,'' are merely goodwill
gestures among trading partners.
''Foreign lobbyist registration should
not be required any more than for any public
official who advocates the benefits of improved
relations or a change in U.S. policy toward
any other nation,'' Idaho Republican Rep.
C.L. ''Butch'' Otter, who signed one of
the agreements earlier this year, said in
an e-mail to The Herald.
A 'FRAMEWORK'
''It's important to note that this only
provides the framework for future negotiations;
it is not a contract or even an agreement,''
added Steve Hollister, a spokesman for Port
Manatee.
The port's executive director, David McDonald,
signed an agreement with Cuba last November
stating his ''intention to work toward free
and unrestricted travel and trade relations''
between Cuba and the United States.
But the port's governing entity later voted
to reject that language, Hollister said.
Port officials are nevertheless pursuing
contracts with Cuba that would allow Port
Manatee to accommodate cargo en route to
the island, Hollister added.
TRADE PARTNERS
The following have signed agreements with
Cuba in which they promise to advocate against
U.S. sanctions on the island:
Rep. C.L. Otter (R-Idaho)
Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho)
Rep. Loretta Sánchez (D-Calif.)
Rep. Linda Sánchez(D-Calif.)
Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius
South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer
Indiana Farm Bureau
The Greater Des Moines Partnership
Source: U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic
Council
THE FINE PRINT
The agreement signed by Idaho Republicans
Sen. Larry Craig and Rep. C.L. Otter with
Alimport, the Cuban government's food purchasing
company, says the members of Congress:
"Agree to promote broader understanding
of the value of Cuba as a trading partner
and will encourage increased business relationship
by promoting commerce between Idaho and
Cuba . . . agree to work with the Idaho
congressional delegation to open up trade
and travel with Cuba . . . agree to help
facilitate visas for Alimport guests to
visit Idaho to promote mutually beneficial
trade.''
The agreement also includes this clause:
"The undersigned recognize that their
execution of this joint communiqué
does not represent a firm commitment to
transact any business deals.''
Don't ignore Americas, leaders say
Latin America's low profile
in U.S. foreign policy was lamented by speakers
at The Herald's Americas conference.
By Christina Hoag and Pablo
Bachelet, choag@herald.com. Posted on Sat,
Oct. 02, 2004.
Whoever wins the White House in November
must not neglect Latin America as a cornerstone
of U.S. foreign policy, U.S. and Latin American
political leaders and policymakers agreed
Friday.
''The next president must recognize that
Latin America and the Caribbean need ongoing
attention,'' former U.S. Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright told an elite audience
of business and government officials with
ties to the region at The Herald-sponsored
Americas Conference.
'The region must not be penalized because
it has no entrant in the 'Axis of Evil'
or in a race for nuclear arms,'' she said.
Opening the second and last day of the
conference, Gov. Jeb Bush said he was disappointed
that the issue of Latin American and Caribbean
affairs was not raised during the Thursday
night presidential candidate debate.
''It's important that we recognize that
Latin America is hugely important part in
our relations with the rest of the world,''
he said.
The theme of Latin America and the Caribbean's
diminished role in U.S. foreign policy since
Sept. 11, 2001, was a recurring one during
the annual conference at The Biltmore in
Coral Gables.
U.S. POPULARITY WANES
The issue was underscored by the release
at the conference of a poll of 19,600 Latin
Americans showing the decline in the popularity
of the United States in much of the region.
Chile-based polling firm Latinobarómetro
found that the number of Latin Americans
who had a good or very good opinion of the
United States peaked in 2001, at 73 percent,
when the region was sympathetic after the
Sept. 11 attacks.
Support dropped to 60 percent in 2003,
coinciding with the Iraq war. This year
it recovered slightly to 64 percent.
''There is a sense of abandonment and a
sense that the United States is not doing
enough for [Latin Americans],'' said Marta
Lagos, director of Latinobarómetro.
Since 2000, the number of Latin Americans
with a positive opinion of the United States
declined in 12 of the 18 nations surveyed,
with the sharpest decline occurring in Mexico,
whose government opposed the U.S.-led invasion
of Iraq.
The United States was viewed most favorably
in Central America, with 80 percent support
or higher registered in the Dominican Republic,
El Salvador, Panama, Honduras and Costa
Rica.
The Iraq war was clearly unpopular in the
region, with only 15 percent of Latin Americans
agreeing or strongly agreeing with it.
Peter Romero, former acting assistant secretary
of state for Western Hemisphere affairs,
said one reason for the drop-off in goodwill
toward the United States is disillusionment
with free trade.
NOT A PANACEA
Free trade was oversold to Latin Americans
as the solution to poverty, unemployment
and inequality, said Romero, chief executive
of consultancy Experior Advisory.
They think ''we have lost touch with the
issues that are the most urgent for Latin
America,'' he said. "That is the reason
why the century of the Americas that was
promised by [President] Bush . . . has fallen
off the map.''
Albright said the U.S. government must
focus its Latin American policy on strengthening
democratic institutions. That will bring
investment, which in turn will propel development
and prosperity, she said.
''There is no democracy dividend. People
prefer to eat than vote,'' she said. "It's
vital that we continue to harp on the basics.''
During an evaluation of Thursday night's
debate between Sen. John Kerry and President
Bush, Romero recalled how government officials
''have to fight'' to get Latin America on
the radar screens of top administration
officials because there is always a "crisis
du jour.''
Otto Reich, a former Bush White House envoy
to Latin America, said he was dismayed that
Latin America did not come up during the
debate. ''I know the candidates were fully
prepared to answer questions,'' he said.
CHAVEZ'S MISTAKES
On Venezuela, Albright said that she and
President Clinton were initially impressed
with President Hugo Chávez and his
plans to restore social justice.
But ''power went to his head. It happens,
even in a democracy. He has overstepped
the bounds in so many ways and he is not
playing a helpful role in so many countries,''
she said.
U.S. foreign policymakers, however, must
''support democracy as a process and not
get stuck on one person,'' she said.
On Cuba, Albright said the Bush administration's
hard-line stance against the island -- restricting
family visits and remittances -- was "cruel.
I don't think it was a smart set of laws,
it's counterproductive in terms of human
relations.''
Citizens in Latin America must be left
to conduct their own political processes
without interference, she said: "Our
job is to be a good neighbor, not a nosy
or meddlesome one.''
Herald staff writer Jane Bussey contributed
to this report.
Cruz beautifully helms his opus
By Christine Dolen, cdolen@herald.com.
Posted on Mon, Oct. 04, 2004 in The Miami
Herald.
Playwright Nilo Cruz has lived a life of
journeys: from Cuba to Miami, Miami to New
York, New York to the many cities where
his fiercely passionate, poetic work led
him to the Pulitzer Prize.
Now Anna in the Tropics, the first play
by a Latino writer to win drama's highest
honor, has made a journey of its own in
the playwright's adopted hometown.
Geographically, it hasn't traveled far,
just a few miles from Coral Gables' New
Theatre, which commissioned it two years
ago, to the Coconut Grove Playhouse, where
a new Cruz-directed production of Anna got
the historic theater's season off to a dazzling
start on Friday. But artistically, the new
Anna in the Tropics has arrived at a place
-- deeper, richer, more sensuous -- to which
only its author could guide it.
This isn't just because Cruz is a deft,
almost painterly director of his own work.
It's also because he has applied what he
learned from explorations of the text with
other directors, from seeing what did and
didn't work when Anna in the Tropics had
its three-month Broadway run last season.
So what he has brought to the Coconut Grove
stage is a more intense, more intricately
detailed version of his story about a family
of Cuban-American cigar makers whose lives
are forever altered when a new lector arrives
at their Ybor City factory in 1929 and reads
Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina to them.
Working with five actors who have done
the play before and with Teresa María
Rojas, his mentor from his earliest days
in theater here, Cruz has crafted a production
whose depth belies the relatively short
rehearsal period common to regional theater.
Each of these fine actors evolves, connects,
communicates interpersonal history and subtext.
You believe that Rojas, forever girlish
yet strong as the matriarch Ofelia, is mother
to the troubled Conchita (the subtly seductive
Adriana Sevan) and dreamy, childlike Marela
(a luminous Onahoua Rodriguez). As the patriarch
Santiago, Gonzálo Madurga responds
to Rojas' warmth with a lustiness of his
own.
You observe the tensions and fractures
in Conchita's marriage to the cheating Palomo
(Carlos Orizondo, both macho and vulnerable),
yet you see their buried passion flare again
through another betrayal. Jonathan Nichols
makes the lector, Juan Julian, a delicious
mystery -- smart, courtly, seductive, shrewdly
yet subtly manipulative. And Andrew Hamrick,
so often angry as Santiago's half-brother
Cheché, lets you see the layers in
a blustering ''modern'' man whose villainy
flows from his own pain.
Cruz has in no way played it safe with
his most successful work, and most of his
risks pay off.
The lovemaking scene that begins the second
act, far too muted on Broadway, is now much
hotter, with a brief flash of nudity. The
beginning of a rape scene has been powerfully
reimagined, so that a character thinks she's
yielding to the lover of her dreams before
another man overpowers her. The biggest
miscalculation is the staging of a death
scene near the play's end, an exaggerated
sequence that undercuts the show's fluid
realism.
Cruz's design collaborators are as illuminating
as their director. Andrew W. Jones' simple,
shifting set emphasizes the beauty of a
curving palm tree through a weathered window,
a rack of drying tobacco leaves in a place
where cigars are rolled and dreams are spun.
David Lander's lighting picks out the drooping
curves of sheets hanging on a laundry line,
the mauve of a Florida sunset. Ellis Tillman's
lovely period costumes enhance the production's
sepia-toned feeling. And Jeremy J. Lee's
sound design marries haunting guitar, the
whoosh of wind, the low chirp of crickets.
Born at New Theatre and now reborn at the
Grove, the Cruz-directed Anna in the Tropics
is a feast for the senses. And for the soul.
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