| CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Flow of funds to Cuba holds steady
The amount of money sent
to Cubans by relatives in the United States
has not changed a year after new restrictions
were implemented, according to pollsters.
By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com.
Posted on Thu, May. 26, 2005.
WASHINGTON - Cubans living in the United
States still send an estimated $460 million
a year to relatives on the island despite
restrictions tightened by the Bush administration
last summer, according to a poll released
by a Coral Gables firm Wednesday.
But a portion of the Cubans on the island
who receive the cash transfers believe they
are getting less money, according to a separate
and less scientific survey conducted inside
the island by a Washington-based think tank.
The assumption: That Fidel Castro's government
is taking a bigger bite of the remittances,
one of the key sources of income in an island
where the economy was devastated by the
1990s collapse of Soviet subsidies.
''Now that it is clear to them how much
money is arriving, [the Cuban government]
is now getting a higher and higher percentage
of that money,'' said pollster Sergio Bendixen
of Bendixen & Associates.
The results of the Bendixen survey, presented
during a forum at the think tank Inter-American
Dialogue, indicate that 69 percent of respondents
continue to send the same amount of money
as before President Bush tightened restrictions
on remittances to Cuba last June as part
of a larger effort to keep U.S. dollars
out of the government coffers and hasten
a transition to democracy.
Bendixen's survey was conducted Feb. 8-14
and results were based on telephone interviews
with 1,000 Cuban adult immigrants throughout
the United States. It has a 3 percentage
point margin of error.
But a separate survey by an Inter-American
Dialogue researcher, based on interviews
with some 200 people who live on the island,
showed that while 58 percent of recipients
said they continue to receive the same amount
of money from relatives abroad, 29 percent
reported that they are getting less funds.
The island respondents were nearly evenly
split in their views on what prompted changes
in cash flow: 13 percent blamed new measures
imposed by the Cuban government while 11
percent pointed to tightened U.S. restrictions.
According to the Bendixen survey, some
440,000 Cuban Americans send $150 an average
of seven times per year -- about $1,050
a year -- providing the island with a steady
cash flow of at least $460 million. Other
estimates have placed the annual flow of
all remittances to Cuba -- from all countries
-- at as high as $1 billion.
Among the other highlights of the Bendixen
poll:
o 76 percent of remittance senders interviewed
said they left Cuba in 1990 or later;
o 70 percent said they have an income of
less than $30,000;
o 77 percent said they are not U.S. citizens;
o 83 percent use international companies,
such as Western Union, to send money to
the island;
o 48 percent of the money goes to people
in Havana.
Although the Bendixen survey appears to
compromise the Bush Administration's effort
to further constrict the flow of dollars
to Cuba, the level of remittances, the survey
found, fell well within the U.S. limits.
The tightened rules allow for up to $1,200
a year in cash remittances to immediate
family members -- no longer including grandparents,
cousins or more distant relatives.
The Bendixen survey showed that 89 percent
of the Cubans interviewed claimed their
remittances were going to parents, siblings
or children, and that 97 percent of the
funds went to basic needs.
But Manuel Orozco, a senior associate at
the Inter-American Dialogue, estimated that
the Cuban government now pockets up to 20
percent of the U.S. dollar remittances,
in part because of a 10 percent fee imposed
last year by the government on exchanges
of dollars and kickbacks from transaction
fees charged by wire transfer companies.
The Cuban government also recently ordered
strengthening of the peso.
Based on the estimate of $460 million in
annual remittances, the government's 20
percent cut would amount to about $92 million.
Cuba analysts have said that Castro imposed
the exchange fee and revalued the peso in
order to close the gap in the purchasing
power of those who earn only pesos and those
who receive U.S. dollars from abroad.
Cubans who lived only on peso incomes --
average salaries on the island amounted
to the equivalent of about $10-$12 per month
-- always lived much worse off than those
who got even as little as $50 a month from
abroad.
Bendixen said both the Bush administration
and Cuban measures are just a few more obstacles
that Cubans on both sides of the Florida
Straits will learn to overcome.
''No law is going to get between family
members,'' he said.
Two charged in migrant case
By Jennifer Babson. jbabson@herald.com.
Posted on Fri, May. 27, 2005
KEY WEST - Federal authorities are investigating
a migrant-smuggling run in which a Cuban
man reportedly died just off Cuba late Tuesday
or early Wednesday.
The man is believed to have drowned after
smugglers left him in the water and fled
to Florida when a Cuban patrol vessel approached
their boat before the man could climb aboard.
''We did receive a report from Cuban authorities
regarding a migrant-smuggling event that
they reported did involve a death of a migrant,''
Lt. Tony Russell, a Coast Guard spokesman,
said late Thursday. "The details of
that report are similar to the landing that
took place in the Marquesas.''
Two Miami-area men -- Elio Diaz-Hernandez,
the boat's captain, and Edel Domingo-Carvajal,
a crewman -- were taken into custody Wednesday
after grounding a speedboat on an island
in the Marquesas island chain off Key West.
Capt. Phil Heyl, commander of U.S. Coast
Guard Group Key West -- which took the men
and their passengers ashore -- declined
to comment on the reported death off Cuba.
The boat's 30 passengers -- including the
dead man's wife -- were in U.S. Border Patrol
custody in Pembroke Pines on Thursday. Some
have confirmed the sequence of events to
investigators, officials said.
Diaz-Hernandez and Domingo-Carvajal were
charged with alien smuggling at their first
court appearance in Key West on Thursday,
the U.S. attorney's office said.
Both men were granted bail but remained
at the Monroe County Detention Center Thursday
night.
Survey breaks decade drought
Posted on Thu, May. 26,
2005.
WASHINGTON - A survey taken in Cuba by
a senior associate at a Washington-based
think tank was the first time in a decade
that foreigners managed to carry out a poll
in the communist-ruled nation.
The Fidel Castro government is known to
regularly poll Cubans, mostly on economic
and other nonpolitical topics that would
help officials to address some problems.
But the results are never made public.
But earlier this year, Manuel Orozco, a
researcher with the Inter-American Dialogue,
managed to interview some 200 Cubans across
the island in what he acknowledged was not
a really scientific sampling.
Orozco said the Cuban government did not
give its permission for the survey and said
it was carried out ''discreetly,'' but declined
to reveal further details.
''It's a research project,'' said Peter
Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue.
"This is something we have every right
to do. I have no qualms about it, and we're
glad to take the credit.''
In 1994, the Costa Rican affiliate of the
Gallup firm, contracted by The Herald, carried
out a poll on several themes, canvassing
1,002 Cubans across 75 percent of the island's
territory.
CID/Gallup had no Cuban permit to carry
out that survey.
Group urges Raúl Castro charges
A Cuban exile group is
offering to donate $1 million to an effort
to indict Cuban Defense Minister Raúl
Castro.
By Luisa Yanez. lyanez@herald.com.
Posted on Wed, May. 25, 2005.
A Cuban exile group wants the U.S. government
to indict Raúl Castro -- Cuban defense
minister and Fidel Castro's brother and
designated successor. But José Basulto,
head of Brothers to the Rescue, is going
a step further: He says he'll donate a fortune
to see it happen.
On Tuesday, Basulto pledged $1 million
for legal costs and information leading
to the indictment of the younger Castro
for the 1996 shooting down by Cuban MiGs
of two Brothers planes in which four fliers
died.
''The time for this action has arrived,''
Basulto said during an afternoon news conference
at Opa-locka Airport, the place from which
his rescue planes once flew to search for
rafters.
Basulto's purpose is twofold: He wants
justice for the murder of the fliers. The
group believes the Castro brothers gave
the deadly orders to the MiG pilots.
And he wants to help end a dynasty. Fidel
Castro, who is 78, has said his brother
will take over when he dies. Raúl
is five years younger. By discrediting Raúl
Castro, the Castro brothers' reign on Cuba
will be endangered, Basulto hopes.
''This would make it impossible for the
U.S. to recognize Raúl Castro as
a legitimate future head of state, worthy
of recognition or any kind of U.S. financial
support,'' Basulto said.
PREVIOUS PROPOSAL
It's not the first time Raúl Castro's
name has been linked to a possible U.S.
legal action.
In April 1993, The Herald reported that
federal prosecutors in Miami had drafted
a proposed indictment charging the Cuban
government as a racketeering enterprise
and Raúl Castro as the chief of a
10-year conspiracy to send tons of Colombian
cartel cocaine through Cuba to the United
States.
Nothing came of the indictment. Flash forward
a dozen years.
''We are here today to promote the indictment
of Raúl Castro simply because it
can be done,'' Basulto said, implying the
White House could make it happen. "This
is based entirely on a political decision
whose time has come.''
To generate leads and interest, Basulto
said the United States would have to release
part of the money awarded to him from millions
in frozen Cuban assets held in U.S. banks.
In January, Basulto won a $1.75 million
federal judgment against the Cuban government
for the MiG attack, which occurred in international
airspace over the Florida Straits.
Once he gets the money, he said, it will
be used to offer rewards for information
and to pay for a team of attorneys.
''Getting the cash will be easier than
getting the indictment,'' he said.
Basulto said the recent announcement by
U.S. Attorney Marcos Jiménez that
he will be stepping down in June did not
play a role in his call for an indictment.
''It's just a coincidence that we're doing
this now,'' he said.
Alicia Valle, special counsel to the U.S.
attorney's office, had no comment on Basulto's
statements.
Basulto said he's calling on other exile
groups to join him in the ambitious plan.
''I'm asking them to join me; let's see
what happens,'' he said.
LAWYER'S HELP
Former U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis, who practices
law in Miami, said he is helping Basulto
and the relatives of the other fliers in
their effort bring those responsible to
justice.
''Based on evidence in the public record,
I think there is enough to prove that both
Fidel Castro and Raúl Castro were
involved in these conspiracies,'' Lewis
said later, referring to both the Brothers
shoot-down and the narcotics trafficking.
Basulto was also joined by a newly formed
board of trustees, who will manage the ''Truth
and Justice'' fund. They include local attorneys,
a former federal prosecutor and the daughter
of an American flier slain during the 1961
Bay of Pigs invasion.
Dissidents not at meeting still pleased
it was allowed
Some Cuban dissidents
who did not attend a rare mass opposition
gathering applauded the event and were glad
the government did not shut it down.
Posted on Tue, May. 24,
2005.
HAVANA - (AP) -- Several Cuban dissidents
who did not participate in last week's rare
mass opposition meeting said Monday they
were nonetheless pleased the island's communist
government allowed the event to take place.
'WITHOUT MISHAP'
Manuel Cuesta Morúa, a government
opponent who did not attend the meeting
because of ideological differences with
organizers, sent a statement congratulating
them for putting on a successful event "without
mishap.''
About 200 people attended the Assembly
for the Promotion of Civil Society on Friday
when it opened in the back yard of veteran
dissident Felix Bonne. The crowd was closer
to 100 Saturday, when the event ended.
Many were surprised that Fidel Castro's
government did not break up the meeting.
Authorities here refer to the dissidents
as ''mercenaries'' and counterrevolutionaries.''
''To not impede the celebration of this
assembly is a step toward rationality, which
should be encouraged among all those committed
to Cuba,'' said Cuesta Morúa, spokesman
for the dissident group Arco Progresista.
EXPULSIONS CRITICIZED
Eloy Gutiérrez-Menoyo, a moderate
dissident who was not invited to the meeting,
also applauded the event but said it was
unfortunate that many international observers
were not allowed to attend.
''The point of conflict was the expulsions,''
said Gutiérrez-Menoyo, a former exile
now living in Cuba.
At least a dozen Europeans who hoped to
be observers at the event were deported
from Cuba before the assembly took place.
Event participants approved a declaration
demanding the liberation of political prisoners
in Cuba and calling for political and economic
change.
|
