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Cuban Migration to U.S. Hits 10-Year High

Associated Press, Sunday October 9, 2005.

The number of Cubans caught this year trying to make the risky voyage across the Florida Straits to the United States -- whether by puttering homemade boats or speedy smuggler's bosts -- reached a 10-year high. There was a significant increase this year in Cubans who made it to U.S. shores as well.

While no mass migration appears on the horizon, Cuba experts and U.S. officials say Cubans increasingly take to the ocean to flee the island run by communist President Fidel Castro because of chronic economic hardship, repression of political dissent and a hard-line bureaucracy that makes it difficult for even some legal migrants to leave.

"Something has to be happening that people would prefer to risk death rather than continue living there," said Ramon Sanchez, founder of the Cuban exile group Democracy Movement. "People just get so fed up with the system, they leave and risk their lives on the high seas."

During the 12 months that ended Sept. 30, the Coast Guard intercepted 2,712 Cubans trying to reach the United States. That compares with only 1,225 during the same period in 2004 and is by far the most since 1994, the year a massive Cuban exodus led to a new agreement for more orderly migration between Cuba and the United States.

Over the same time frame, 2,530 Cubans made it to U.S. shores, more than double the 954 who arrived in 2004, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.

Under the U.S. "wet foot/dry foot" policy, Cubans who are interdicted at sea are generally returned to Cuba, while those who reach U.S. shores are usually allowed to stay after they have been in the United States for at least a year.

Cuban authorities in the past have said that U.S. policy acts as an enticement for its citizens to emigrate and has blamed past migration increases on growth in the human smuggling trade. Cuban officials in Havana said this week they are studying the new migration patterns and that the Castro government would have no comment on the 2005 increases until the analysis is finished.

The Coast Guard attributes at least part of the 2005 increase to improved interdiction efforts spurred by the focus on border security in the aftermath of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Creation of the Homeland Security Department included the Coast Guard with such agencies as the Border Patrol and Customs, which have their own aircraft and marine patrols.

"That's an additional set of eyes that we have," said Coast Guard spokesman Luis Diaz. "We all have a new No. 1 priority, which is protecting our shores. We are all on the same page now, and I firmly believe that is working much better."

In its annual report on Cuban migration, the U.S. State Department said the main reason for the surge is the continued poor economic conditions in Cuba _ which is still recovering from the loss of billions of dollars in aid following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Damian Fernandez, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University, said many Cubans are stuck in low-paying jobs with no opportunity to start a small business that might improve their financial future.

"The Cuban economy has stalled and there are absolutely no signs of hope for most Cubans on the island," Fernandez said.

The State Department gave other explanations for the 2005 increase in Cuban migrants, including mild weather in the Florida Straits during the winter months and "pent-up demand" following the active 2004 tropical storm season in which Florida was lashed by four hurricanes.

Still other reasons involve obstacles that U.S. officials say Cuba uses to hinder people from legally immigrating, forcing some to try illegal means.

"Castro is not granting Cubans their U.S. legally approved visas to come to this country and, in acts of desperation, they are risking their lives to join their families," said Republican U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a senior member of the House International Relations Committee. "This mode of entry is fraught with danger and too many have already died."

That danger was underscored on Aug. 24 when a smuggler's speedboat carrying 31 people capsized in the waters north of Matanzas, Cuba. Three badly burned survivors were rescued by a merchant ship but the Coast Guard was unable to locate any of the others on board.

Under the 1994 migration agreement, up to 20,000 Cubans each year may legally leave for the United States under a lottery system. Yet some people who get U.S. visas are denied exit permits by Cuban officials who arbitrarily deem them "defectors," according to the State Department. Cuba also regularly refuses to allow doctors and other medical professionals to leave even if they have visas.

The Cuban government "imposes nearly insurmountable obstacles to emigration to the United States for medical professionals," the State Department report said.

The Castro government has previously accused the United States of exaggerating the number of Cubans denied permission to emigrate.

Cuba also collects an estimated $12 million (euro9.88 million) each year in fees for exit permits and medical examinations that some U.S.-bound migrants have difficulty paying, according to the State Department.

The U.S. government says it has evidence that Cuba retaliates against migrants who are returned after they are caught attempting to make the ocean crossing. Doctors have been demoted or forced to work in remote locations; teachers are "deemed untrustworthy" and made to become janitors in their former schools.

Associated Press writer Anita Snow in Havana contributed to this story.

Tougher U.S. policy curtails aid to Cubans

By Gary Marx Tribune foreign correspondent, Oct 10, 2005.

It's not every day that you see 50 American volunteers dressed in T-shirts and shorts assembling a state-of-the art playground in the working-class neighborhood of Santa Amalia.

But there they were late last month, straining to finish the climbing wall and monkey bars as a crowd of astonished schoolchildren, teachers and residents looked on.

Among the volunteers building four playgrounds around Havana was Mike Mazza, a 27-year-old landscaper from Chicago's Roscoe Village neighborhood who joined the project to help Cuban children while relishing the opportunity to visit a country that is increasingly off-limits to Americans.

"How many chances in your life are you going to be able to come to Cuba?" Mazza asked. "It's just a unique opportunity to get to know the people and the country."

American humanitarian organizations such as the one building the playgrounds are permitted to operate in Cuba under an exemption to the 43-year-old trade embargo if they can secure a special license from the U.S. government.

For years such groups delivered medicine for HIV/ AIDS patients, wheelchairs and walkers for the disabled, bicycles for hospital workers and other goods that are in short supply.

But two years ago, President Bush tightened trade and travel restrictions to Cuba in an effort to cripple the local economy and topple President Fidel Castro.

While it is impossible to quantify the impact on the amount of American humanitarian aid delivered to Cuba, many aid groups say the current environment has hindered their ability to operate on the island.

"We've been working in Cuba for 10 years, and this is the most difficult time we've had," said Rusty Price, president of World Reach, a North Carolina-based group that ships donated medical supplies to Cuba.

Price said it took eight months to get his latest license from U.S. authorities to ship goods to Cuba. In previous years it usually took 60 days. On the Cuban side, Price says he senses a "change in climate. There's more scrutiny at customs and immigration."

The air of distrust was underscored in July when Castro rejected an offer of U.S. government assistance after Hurricane Dennis plowed into Cuba, causing about $1.4 billion in damage and killing 16 people.

Last month U.S. officials turned down Castro's offer to send more than 1,500 Cuban physicians to Gulf Coast areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

"There were two hurricanes and two offers of aid and they both got turned down for political reasons," said Philip Peters, a Cuba expert at the Lexington Institute, a Washington-area think tank. "That's too bad."

Cuban officials blame the increased tensions on the Bush administration, which has sharply curtailed the number of U.S. visitors to Cuba while increasing support for the island's struggling opposition movement.

U.S. visitors, aid down sharply

In a report issued last month, Cuban officials said the number of American visitors fell to about 108,172 last year from 200,859 in 2003.

But Cuban authorities say the tightened sanctions also have cut U.S. medical, food and other humanitarian assistance from $10 million in 2000 to about $4million this year.

The number of U.S. groups providing assistance to Cuba also has fallen, from about 160 to about 20 during the same period, according to Cuban authorities.

"There has been a lot of repression against these groups," said Raciel Proenza, an official at Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation. "We consider that these measures are part of a hardening of the blockade taken by the Bush administration."

Molly Millerwise, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Treasury Department, which issues humanitarian licenses to Cuba under the Office of Foreign Assets Control, denied that the Bush administration is restricting aid to Cuba.

Millerwise said authorities only act against organizations that are abusing the humanitarian licenses by allowing Americans to travel to Cuba as tourists, which is illegal under the embargo.

"The Bush administration supports the export of humanitarian aid to Cuba, much of which they are starved for under Castro's rule," Millerwise said. "We of course want to ensure that aid is benefiting the Cuban people and not the Castro government."

But John Kavulich, senior policy adviser at the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a private group closely monitoring trade between the two nations, said he believes the goal of U.S. officials is to eliminate all contact between the U.S. and Cuba.

"They knew they couldn't do that, but they seized on the abuses of humanitarian licenses to substantially restrict and hinder a lot of legitimate groups," he said.

David Wald, co-founder of the California-based non-profit USA/Cuba InfoMed, said U.S. officials told him last month that he no longer could ship used computers to Cuban medical facilities after his humanitarian aid license expires at year's end.

Wald said old computers no longer qualify as a humanitarian item even though he has sent about 3,000 of them to Cuba, with U.S. approval, during the last decade.

"They've been saying it's a medical device for years, and now they're saying its not," Wald said. "Computers are essential in medical institutions throughout the world."

Bob Schwartz, executive director of the New York-based Disarm Educational Fund, said his group no longer can bring surgeons to Cuba to teach pediatric reconstructive surgery--something it has done since 1997 under a humanitarian license.

Oxfam America said the Treasury Department last year rejected a proposal to rebuild about 25 Cuban homes damaged by a hurricane, even though Oxfam had done similar work in Cuba with U.S. approval.

"This is a change in policy," said Don Zarin, a lawyer representing Oxfam America. "The view was that this was the responsibility of the Cuban government and that U.S. projects to fund infrastructure would free up money for the Cuban government to spend on repressing its own people."

Group cuts off donations

A Cuban group affected by the stepped-up U.S. enforcement is ACLIFIM, a cash-poor agency representing 66,000 disabled people across the island.

Ana Ibis, a spokeswoman for the group, said a major source of goods ranging from office supplies to medicine to wheelchairs came from the Cuban American Alliance Education Fund, a Washington-based non-profit organization.

But the donations ended last year after Delvis Fernandez, president of the U.S. group, said U.S. officials requested an accounting of the scores of Americans who traveled to Cuba under the group's humanitarian license over the last five years.

"It was just beyond what we could supply. I felt what they were doing was a witch hunt," said Fernandez, an outspoken critic of the U.S. trade embargo.

Millerwise said she could not comment on individual cases but noted that Treasury Department regulations require licensed organizations to keep financial records for five years and produce them on demand.

In addition to increased scrutiny from the U.S., some aid workers say Cuban authorities also have made it more difficult for them to provide assistance.

Costa Mavraganis, coordinator of the New Jersey-based Cuba AIDS Project, said that for a decade his group carried an unlimited supply of donated medicine to HIV/AIDS patients throughout the island.

But Mavraganis said Cuban officials told him last year that volunteers no longer can visit hospitals and AIDS clinics and limited the amount of medicine each volunteer can donate to 22 pounds.

"Why would you want to limit people bringing in medicine that they are going to give away to AIDS patients?" he said. "It doesn't make any sense."

Proenza, the Cuban government official, said the country does not need as much donated medicine as it did in the past and needs to control goods entering Cuba.

gmarx@tribune.com

Venezuela to Revamp Cuban Oil Refinery

CUMANA, Venezuela, 7 (AP) -- Venezuela is moving forward with plans to revamp Cuba's Cienfuegos refinery in the latest push for greater economic cooperation between the two countries, a representative of Venezuela's state-run oil company said Friday.

Alejandro Granado, the head of refining operations at Petroleos de Venezuela, said it will cost US$60 million (euro49.4 million) to US$100 million (euro82.35 million) to start initial production of 65,000 barrels a day.

"I believe we can be producing (oil) products in June of 2007," said Granado, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an oil conference held in this northeastern city.

Since taking office in 1999, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has moved to strengthen ties with communist-led Cuba.

Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter, ships roughly 100,000 barrels of oil a day to Cuba under preferential terms while Fidel Castro's government has sent thousands of doctors to treat the poor in this South American nation.

Venezuela is expanding its refining operations throughout Latin America. Petroleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA, plans to build a refinery in Brazil while increasing output at refineries in Jamaica and Uruguay.

'Viva la revolucion!' says Che Guevara's daughter

HAVANA, 9 (AFP) - The daughter of Cuba's revolutionary hero Che Guevara told AFP that socialism is still possible in Latin America, and that leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez inspires hope.

Aleida Guevara March, daughter of Argentine-born Ernesto "Che" Guevara, said in an interview that 38 years after the death of her father, it is still possible to remove the right-wing from the region, specifically in Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru.

"All that is needed is a good scalpel," said Guevara March, 44. Like her father, she studied medicine.

Her father joined the Cuban revolution, led by Cuba's current president, Fidel Castro, helping to topple the Havana government in 1959. Guevara died trying to export socialist revolution to Bolivia.

His daughter said the United States "has unleashed so much propaganda against Cuba and against socialism that many people are afraid of it."

Chavez, then, means "hope, because Latin America is very afraid of socialism," she said.

"Hugo Chavez today could be an alternative, a possibility, but if one looks at the evolution of his Bolivarian Revolution, one sees that circumstances have forced him to be more and more radical because of US pressure," she said.

Chavez' political program is based on the writings of South America's "Liberator" from Spain, Simon Bolivar, who urged Latin American unity.

Singer Miriam Makeba on Farewell Tour

AP, Oct 6, 2005.

HAVANA - Miriam Makeba, on a global tour to bid farewell to the stage, has arrived in Cuba to perform two concerts.

"I am 73 years old, and have been to many different countries of the world," the singer known as Mama Africa told a news conference in Havana. "Since I'm feeling a little tired now, I decided I should return to many of the countries ... that applauded me during my career."

Makeba, one of Africa's most distinguished singers and human rights activists, was to perform Thursday and Friday nights at Havana's Cine Teatro Astral.

"We will try to give the best we can," said Makeba, wearing colorful African tunics.

Makeba, who sings everything from jazz to traditional African tunes, said old and new songs would be performed.

"I know that many young people in Cuba don't know who Miriam Makeba is. I can promise them I am not hip-hop," she joked.

She criticized the U.S. government's response to black communities after Hurricane Katrina and praised Cuba for its cooperation with African nations, particularly in health care.

Makeba was expelled from South Africa in the 1950s, finding refuge in London and the United States. She returned to her country 30 years later and dedicated much of her time to helping female children and victims of land mines.

Cuban claims new football head juggling record

HAVANA, 9 (AFP) - A former Cuban football player set a new football head juggling record, making 146 consecutive touches in 30 seconds, according to event organizers.

Erich Hernandez, 39, broke the mark set in 2003 by Ferdie Adoboe, an American of Ghanaian origin who made 141 consecutive touches with his head in 30 seconds. Adoboe's mark is in the Guinness World Records book.

"I was very confident of my ability to beat the record since I had made 161 touches in a previous attempt," Hernandez told about 100 people at the exclusive Havana Club, whose guests included British Ambassador John Dew.

Dew handed Hernandez a Guinness certificate recognizing his record for juggling a football 319 times in one minute in December 2004 in Havana. Hernandez is the only Cuban athlete in the records book.

"I will get back to training in January to try to claim all the ball control world records," he said.

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