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Cuba’s precipitous slow opening
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- March 18 - Farmers allowed to buy their own supplies: “Agricultural sources said Cuba would soon open stores for farmers to buy tools, herbicides, boots and other supplies for the first time since the state took control of the country’s shops in the 1960s.”
- March 29 - Cuba allows more cellphones: “Cuba announced Friday that it would allow ordinary citizens to purchase cellphones, which up until now have been set aside for Communist Party elite or those with connections.”
- April 1 - Cuba Ends ‘No Cubans Allowed’ Hotel Policy: “President Raúl Castro’s new government will begin allowing Cubans to stay at hotels that were previously set aside for foreign tourists, the latest in a string of moves liberalizing internal restrictions on Cubans. In other changes, Cubans will be able to rent cars and buy cellphones, computers, microwaves and DVD players. However, with state salaries of about $20 a month, most Cubans will not be able to afford them.”
- April 5 - Cuba giving land to private farmers: “The government is preparing for a “massive distribution of land,” Orlando Lugo, president of Cuba’s national farming association, said last week. Private farmers have begun receiving land for the cash crops of coffee and tobacco, and will soon be able to lease state land for other crops.”
- April 11 - Cuba: Wage Limits Removed: “Cuba is revamping the state wage system to create more incentive by allowing workers to earn as much as they can[.]”
- April 12 - Cuba to Allow Thousands to Own Homes: “Thousands of Cubans will be able to get title to state-owned homes under regulations published Friday, a step that could lay the groundwork for broader housing reform.”
- April 21 - Sopranos and Grey’s Anatomy to be Broadcast: Tony Soprano is headed to Cuba because the go-ahead has been given for broadcasts of the prize-winning drama “The Sopranos” to begin on state-run television on Tuesday evenings, Reuters reported, citing the Communist youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde. And on Thursday nights, “Grey’s Anatomy,” about the lives of doctors working in a hospital, will be broadcast.
I knew that Raul Castro has always been a fan of the Chinese model, but these are relatively radical reforms coming as quickly as they are. In one sense this is good news for Cubans who will have a little bit more freedom and hopefully prosperity, but on the other hand it reduces the chance that there will be any democratic transition. I can see Raul opening enough to make the island into an authoritarian capitalist system without engaging in any real political reform.
Cuba’s digital undergound
A “digital underground” is at work in Cuba spreading videos and reports critical of the government, according the the NYT. Since the internet is so controlled, they use a sneakernet powered by USB thumb drives. One hot item of contraband is a video of students asking pointed questions of National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón.I love the way one brave student asked about why he wasn’t allowed to travel overseas. He asks, If I work all my life on a farm and save up some money and want to take my kids to visit the spot in Bolivia where Che Guevara fell, to honor his memory, why can’t I go? Awesome.
On Bush’s Cuba speech
President Bush’s call for “an international ‘freedom fund’ for Cuba that would finance reconstruction,” gives me the heebie jeebies. Seriously? U.S. led reconstruction? You’re pitching that?I don’t understand what the point of his speech was, or more to the point, why it was given now. Bush is not running for office again, so it’s not like he’s trying to gin up electoral support in Florida. WSo what does that leave? The U.S. is completely impotent when it comes to Cuba. The embargo precludes any leverage we might have over the regime. Our military is stretched thin, and our diplomatic credibility is at its nadir. How does Bush plan to have any impact on the island?
The sad truth is that Raul (with his Army) will take over completely when Fidel dies and there won’t be any uprising. What we can hope is that the event will give a future president an opening to remove the embargo and engage Cuba. Raul’s model is China, and hopefully he’ll at least emulate their economic openness. With time he’ll pass away too (he’s not much younger), and the technocrats and military men that take over will hopefully be persuaded by money to continue opening. ¡Hay, Cubita!
Romney: Dyn-o-mite!
I’d love to know who was the Romney speech writer responsible for this hilarity. According to the Miami Herald:People chuckled when presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a Mormon raised in Michigan and elected in Massachusetts, bungled the names of Cuban-American politicians during a recent speech in Miami. But when he mistakenly associated Fidel Castro’s trademark speech-ending slogan — Patria o muerte, venceremos! — with a free Cuba, listeners didn’t laugh. They winced. Castro has closed his speeches with the phrase — in English, ”Fatherland or death, we shall overcome” — for decades.
You have no idea how bad that is. That’s Castro’s trademark phrase. Like Mr. T’s “I pity the fool,” or He-Man’s “By the power of Greyskull!”
American entrepreneurship
From today’s WaPo: “About 25 percent of the technology and engineering companies launched in the past decade had at least one foreign-born founder, according to a study released yesterday that throws new information into the debate over foreign workers who arrive in the United States on specialty visas.” Just the wealth created by Sergey Brin (Google), Jerry Yang (Yahoo!), and Steve Chen & Jawed Karim (YouTube) is astounding.Castro (maybe) dead
Babalú Blog is reporting rumors that Castro might be dead and that an official announcement may be in the offing soon. I only hope they can hold off until I’m in Miami next week. The city will be one giant party.Already for sale
Already for sale: The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward - A New Approach by James Baker, Lee Hamilton and the Iraq Study Group.Sailing to the U.S. on a Chevy. Twice.
Car and Driver has a great feature on Luis Grass the ‘camionauta’ who twice turned 50’s-era Chevy trucks into seaworthy vessels in order to escape Cuba.
Grass had more than just intuition to apply when modifying his truck. He had trained as a naval engineer in Cuba but dropped out of the program during the fourth of his six years of study when, he says, the military commitment and the Communist Party membership that go with such training kicked in. So, on an island nation where private ownership of boats is illegal, he was one of the few people who knew how to build them.”
On the implausibility of the explosives plot
On the implausibility of the explosives plot: An interesting explanation from a chemist of why the “liquid threat” might be overstated. “As near as I can tell, it is claimed that the terrorists planned to make organic peroxides in situ on board an airplane and use them to destroy the plane. This seems, at least given my initial examination of the idea, implausible.” I wouldn’t be surprised if it were an exaggeration the same way that Anthrax, VX gas, and the rest are consistently also exaggeratedly referred to as WMD.Cuba’s military money machine
The Miami Herald explains today that the Cuban military, which is Cuba’s only functioning institution, and which Raul Castro heads, is more than just an armed force, but also runs the economy. Under Raul’s leadership the army has taken over many of the profitable industries in Cuba, including tourism and tobacco. Raul has stacked the leadership of all these sectors of the economy with loyalists, known as “Raulistas.” These officers do well for themselves under this system and are fiercely loyal to Raul. Additionally, “Half of the now 20 members of the politburo are active military officers, and generals are in charge of several ministries, including sugar and fisheries.” What does this bode for Cuba’s future? To me it looks similar to the flourishing kleptocracy in Russia. And, like in Russia, the people might be happy to put up with limited freedom as long as prosperity inches up. It might be a long transition.Why there’s reason to believe Castro might be dead
For all their love of “news analysis,” I’m surprised that so far the networks and the major papers are refusing to read between the lines of the Cuban government’s words and actions. So far they only seem to be reporting the statements of the Cuban government (that Castro is undergoing surgery, etc.) as fact. Anderson Cooper was the only one I saw last night pressing the correspondent in Havana to clarify that everything she was saying she knew only because it was announced by the government. Well, here are the reasons to believe that Castro is incapacitated if not dead.- Raul Castro has taken over. Fidel has never transfered power before.
- Fidel’s health is never reported about or commented on by the Cuban media.
- Fidel did not deliver the message himself. In contrast, two years ago, when he tripped and fell at a televised public function breaking his knee and arm, he was on television within minutes to tell everyone that he was fine.
- His written statement says, “The operation obliges me to remain for several weeks resting, away from my responsibilities and duties.” That’s an unprecedented “several weeks” of absence from public view.
Anne Louise Bardach, one of my favorite writers on Cuba, seems to get this. She’s quoted in the Washington Post: “I find the timing peculiar and how it was handled in Havana post-surgery as opposed to pre-surgery,” Bardach said late Monday evening. The late Spanish dictator Francisco Franco “is the model here. When and if Castro dies, I think we will find out about it days later, once the succession is in order, which has been carefully laid down and fine-tuned the last few years.”
North Korea
Rare, fascinating and depressing photos from the Democratic People’s Republic. Hat tip Joanne.Cuban on hunger strike for Internet access
“A Cuban dissident who has been on a hunger strike for 36 days to demand unfettered Internet access is refusing medication and his health is deteriorating rapidly, fellow dissidents said on Wednesday. Guillermo Farinas, a 41-year-old psychologist, went on a hunger strike on Jan. 31 to press Cuba’s Communist authorities to respect his right to freedom of information and allow him Internet access, which is controlled by the government.” Story here. Hat tip to Techdirt.Béisbol Libre
Wonderful article on Cuba’ participation in the upcoming World Baseball Classic in the Weekly Standard. I think the saddest part of all this that Cuban major league players won’t be able to play for their country like their Dominican and Puerto Rican colleagues will.Is the FCC getting desperate?
So I’m working on a paper on cable franchising and was reading the FCC’s latest proposed rulemaking on the topic (PDF). In it they claim the authority to preempt local franchise regulations that are barriers to entry. They FCC finds authority to do this in Section 621(a)(1) of the Communications Act, which states that local authorities “may not unreasonably refuse to award an additional competitive franchise.” So far so good.I get to the last item in their “authority” section and there they ask, “Finally, we seek comment on possible sources of Commission authority, other than Section 621(a)(1), to address problems caused by the local franchising process. For example … could the Commission take action to address franchise-related concerns pursuant to Section 706?” So I ask myself, what’s Section 706? Imagine my surprise when I turned to that section and found, “SEC. 706. [47 U.S.C. 606] WAR EMERGENCY–POWERS OF PRESIDENT.” The section goes on to say that in time of war the president can commandeer the airwaves and other communications facilities, etc.
This has got to be a typo. Right?
Cross-posted at TLF. You can leave and read comments there. →
President Discusses Iraq in Address to the Nation
Bush: “September 11th, 2001 required us to take every emerging threat to our country seriously, and it shattered the illusion that terrorists attack us only after we provoke them. On that day, we were not in Iraq, we were not in Afghanistan, but the terrorists attacked us anyway - and killed nearly 3,000 men, women, and children in our own country.” We were in Saudi Arabia!!Healthy, but poor and oppressed
Nicholas Kristof’s column in The New York Times today is about infant mortality rates in the U.S. Sadly, it perpetuates the myth of ideal healthcare in Cuba. The piece is titled, “Health Care? Ask Cuba,” and it leads with the point that we should be ashamed that our healthcare system and infant mortality rate is not as good as “impoverished and autocratic Cuba.”We should not be ashamed. If you centralize complete control of the economy in one man, as in Cuba, you can allocate all your resources to healthcare if you wish. More children may survive infancy in Cuba, but they will grow up to struggle for food, clothing, and not to mention personal freedom. In our country we individuals, through the market, decide how much is spent on healthcare and everything else. As a result, we get the efficient amount of healthcare, food, clothes, stereos, and everything else.
As “unfair” as it might seem, the price a nation must pay to have a zero percent infant mortality rate, or illiteracy rate, at the stroke of a pen is to become “impoverished and autocratic.” I don’t think it’s worth it.
Because she’s a real diplomat
While it is no surprise, it is a real shame to see Colin Powell go. He’s the only senior administration official with his feet on the ground. He would have made a fine president if his wife hadn’t stopped him. It’s doubly a shame that the Bush administration used him for his diversity cred and further took advantage of his loyalty. I can’t wait to read his memoir.
As for his replacement, there goes any hope that the president might have taken the opportunity of a second term to clean house of all the folks who led him astray. Sadly, there really is a faith-based echo chamber at 1600 Penn, and the only consequence of incompetence is promotion.
If you have seen Condoleezza Rice being interviewed more than just once or twice, you will surely have noticed that she never gives a straight answer. And not in the same way that all politicians do, but in a really creepy manner. It’s like she knows that what she’s saying can’t possibly be the truth, but if she just repeats the talking point enough, maybe she will believe it herself. Perhaps it’s just that she’s been sent out to close the toughest sales, but her lack of credibility has been so well documented, and her weakness so underscored, that it’s hard to give her the benefit of the doubt.
The embargo made me do it
Pro-embargo forces count Catro’s decision to ban the use of dollars in commercial transactions in Cuba, which took effect this week, as a sign that tighter controls are working. They are indeed working, but to what end?
The de-dolarization of the economy is a desperate grab by the government for hard currency. Who they are grabbing it from is the Cuban people, who must now trade in their dollars for supposedly dollar-equivalent pesos at a 10% charge. Castro has announced that the move was made necessary by new U.S. currency restrictions that make it harder for dollars to get to the island. Once again, the embargo has served as cover for Castro’s failed policies. If there were no restrictions, Castro would have no excuse and Cubans would recognize this scheme for what it is—naked theft.
Some would claim that the dire straits Castro is in are a result of the sanctions. But it is not 40 years of embargo that have weakened Castro, it is 40 years of communist central planning. Rising oil prices and the like are what have lost Castro hard currency. After the government takes 10% of the people’s dollars, remittances from overseas will continue in euros or pounds.
On Arafat’s death
There are two things I don’t understand. First, why the U.S. is sending Assistant Secretary of State William Burns to Arafat’s funeral instead of Colin Powell? According to Reuters, “Burns is among the lowest-ranking officials sent by a major power to the ceremony in Cairo, which was expected to draw foreign ministers from many European countries and presidents of a number of Arab and African nations.” We get it; the Bush administration didn’t like Arafat. Why rub it in now? He’s dead. Why not take the higher ground and start off on good terms with whatever new Palestinian leadership emerges by at least avoiding the perception of a slight?
Second, what did Arafat die of? I would have to see very convincing evidence before I bought a poisoning conspiracy theory or the like, but it’s just curious that his illness is a total mystery. France’s strict medical privacy laws, and a tight-lipped widow, contribute to the dearth of information, but you would think there might be a general indication of what it was. Instead speculation has ranged from stomach cancer to Parkinson’s disease, and each has been denied by Palestinian officials.
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This is the personal site of Jerry Brito, a lawyer and writer in Washington, D.C. He’s an academic researcher and the creator of Unclutterer and several other blogs. More »
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