A Greek bearing gifts... look who's supporting a change in US policy

Reuters reports today:

"The White House should expand licensed travel for all Americans to Cuba and increase support for civil society on the communist-ruled island, according to an open letter to President Barack Obama that was signed by an unprecedented group of 44 former top U.S. government officials and advocates of policy reform and released on Monday.
"The letter, which lists a series of policy recommendations, was signed by John Negroponte, the former Director of National Intelligence under president George W Bush...."

This is most interesting. For those who don't know him, the British born John Dimitri Negroponte (of Greek descent) was a cold warrior extraordinaire  (see: JOHN NEGROPONTE & THE DEATH-SQUAD CONNECTION) who has been accused, among other nefarious acts, of being a terrorist for the CIA. An avowed anti-communist, Negroponte is on record (see video below) as saying he thinks democracy in Latin America is a threat to US interests.  He would hitherto have been the last person you'd expect to want to see a change in US policy towards Cuba.

 

It will be interesting to see the Cubans' reaction, Raúl Castro was schooled in the classics and knows full well the adage about Greeks bearing gifts...

A full text of the open letter to Obama is available at this website.

Even more interesting is the fact that among the signatories are no fewer than 15 extremely rich Cuban-American businessmen and community leaders. With these people calling for change in Cuba policy there is really nothing stopping Obama now.

Scientific diplomacy across the Florida Straits

A female Aedes aegypti mosquito acquiring a blood meal from a human host. The Aedes aegypti mosquito is one of two types  that can carry the chikungunya virus

U.S. and Cuban scientists engaged in "science diplomacy" recently when they signed an agreement that furthers scientific and medical cooperation, accolrding to thbis post in the People's World.
The deal was made after a delegation from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) visited Havana for a three-day tour hosted by the Cuban Academy of Sciences and other institutions. Although Cuba is a logical partner for the United States to collaborate with on medical research and development, the  U.S. embargo severely limits trade, travel and exchanges.
"This trip was a wonderful opportunity to reinvigorate the long-standing friendship between U.S. and Cuban scientists and to form a specific plan of action," biologist Gerald Fink said. Fink is current President of AAAS, the largest organization of scientists in the United States. The plan of action covers four areas in the life sciences: emerging infectious diseases, brain disorders, cancer and antimicrobial drug resistance.
An article in Science April 24, 2014, published by AAAS, reports, "The country has committed a large amount of its resources to its scientific, medical and public health systems, including a hardy biotechnology industry that exports a number of vaccines, antibody based drugs, and other medical technologies." (The magazine does not add that the U.S. blockade prevents people in the United States from benefitting from Cuban medical exports.)
Science also reports that life expectancy in Cuba is as high as in the United States. A large ageing population gives rise to many common interests in fighting cancer and diseases of older people. Both countries are also at risk for mosquito-carried viruses such as dengue and chikungunya. To date, there is no vaccine for either disease.
Neither Cuba nor the U.S. has ever had a known case of chikungunya. But it is spreading across Caribbean Islands and both countries are concerned. In December it was spreading In Saint Martin by mosquitoes infected with the disease. That is just the kind of issue where international cooperation among scientists can save lives and turn back the disease. However, scientists from both Cuba and the U.S. noted that U.S. scientists were still limited in their travel to Cuba.
To read more about the AAAS trip and a fascinating history of Cuban science and medicine go to "Science diplomacy visit to Cuba produces historic agreement" at aaas.org.

Public event: The Cuban ‘update’ and US-Cuba relations

Public event: The Cuban ‘update’ and US-Cuba relations

Join Professor Raúl Rodríguez Rodríguez for a seminar on the current state of the Cuban ‘updating’ or reform process and how this may affect Cuba- US Relations.

6.30pm
Thursday 8th May 2014,

Lecture Theatre on the lower ground floor.

(Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, 17 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DR)

Attendance is FREE but please register in advance with Olga Jiménez:

olga.jimenez@sas.ac.uk

Professor Rodríguez Rodríguez is a professor/researcher and currently Deputy Director of   the Center for Hemispheric and United States Studies at the University of Havana.

This event is organised by the International Institute for the Study of Cuba and the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London.

Book Launch and signing: The Man Who Loved Dogs

Public Event 

In Conversation: Leonardo Padura Fuentes

 

 6.30pm. Wednesday 19th March,

The Council Chamber, 
Institute of Advanced Legal Studies,
17 Russell Square, 
London WC1B 5DR

Join the celebrated Cuban author Leonardo Padura Fuentes and his UK publisher Bitter Lemon Press for an evening of conversation about his latest book in translation, The Man Who Loved Dogs.
Leonardo is in London as part of a world tour. Already Cuba’s most acclaimed author in the hispanophone world, with the publication in English of this epic historical novel about the death of Russian Revolutionary Leon Trotsky, Leonardo is poised to become equally recognised in the UK and the US.
This evening Leonardo will be discussing his life and work and the current situation in Cuba with Dr Stephen Wilkinson, Editor of the International Journal of Cuban Studies and author of Detective Fiction in Cuban Society and Culture (Peter Lang 2006) which analyses Leonardo’s early detective stories, also published in translation by Bitter Lemon Press.
A wine reception will follow the event and there will be an opportunity to purchase signed copies of the works discussed.
The event is sponsored by the International Institute for the Study of Cuba, The Institute of Latin American Studies and Bitter Lemon Press.

Entry is FREE but please register in advance by email to Olga Jiménez:

olga.jimenez@sas.ac.uk

 The Man Who Loved Dogs Review

What it is all about with Alfy

Would you buy a second-hand sugar estate from these men? 

If there were still any doubts about the shifting tide of US Cuba policy then they have been well and truly dispelled by the news  the Fanjul brothers (pictured) have traveled to Cuba and would like to invest there.

The Fanjuls are billionaires who made their money in sugar.  They are also known for huge political campaign contributions in support of their sugar interests, and for being long-time, stalwart supporters of the U.S. economic blockade against Cuba. So powerful are they that President Clinton reportedly broke off a liaison with Monica Lewinsky to take a call from Alfonso (Alfy), pictured left above. 

Hitherto, the Fanjuls have been identified with the generation that plans to return to Cuba only “cuando se vayan aquellos,” that means when the Castros have gone.  Indeed, they were partly repsonsible for the Helms-Burton law of 1996 that quite literally prevents the United States from normalizing relations until those two have gone.

Now it has emerged that the brothers visited Cuba in 2012 and 2013 where they expressed no interest in recovering their property, but where they did express a clear interest in helping to revive the beleaguered sugar sector.

Last weekend, brother Alfy made all this public in the Washington Post. Alfy says, “One day we hope that the United States and Cuba would find a way so the whole Cuban community could be able to live and work together.”

This very high profile political torpedo has been fired two months after President Obama said in Miami that “we have to update our policies” toward Cuba, within weeks of the new Port at Mariel accepting its first ship and a month before Cuba is to announce new laws aimed at encouraging foreign investment.

In Cuban-American terms, the Fanjuls' switch is earth shaking. Its seismic importance is reflected in the hysterical reactions of Republican Cuban-Americans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart. 

If the Fanjuls put their money where their mouth now seems to be, it will mean their campaign cash will be going to politicians that hope to “find a way” to get back into the island and not into the pockets of these hardline anti-Castroites.

That could make all the difference come the next Presidential race, if by then there is an embargo left to fight over.

On the Horizon - A United States of Latin America?

It might be a little far-fetched to imagine that there will ever be a federation of the states of Latin America of a kind that Simón Bolívar dreamed, but the meeting in Havana at the end of this month of the CELAC, the recently established Community of the States of Latin America and the Caribbean, is nonetheless an historic event with portentous implications for the future.

For one thing, this meeting brings together the heads of governements of all the countries in the western hemisphere except the United States, Canada and those entitities that are still under colonial control by European powers. Thus, simply by its exclusive membership, the CELAC is a counter hegemonic grouping that challenges the historic domination of the region by the developed powers.

Secondly, it has been announced that the meeting will be attended by the Secretary General of the Organisation of American States, José Miguel Insulza, who will become the first holder of that office to visit Havana since Cuba was expelled from the OAS in 1962. Given that within CELAC there is a sub-group of the ALBAcountries (Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela being chief among them) who have vowed not to attend the next OAS summit if Cuba is not admitted, the symbolic significance of Insulza's accepotance of the invitation should not go unnoticed.
Connected to this is the weird timing of his visit because it coincides almost exactly with the breaking off of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the rest of the region 50 years ago. The timing therefore is ironic and serves to focus on both the potential integrationist power of the CELAC and the significance of having Cuba involved in the centre of the process.

Speaking to BBC Mundo and translated by the Cuban blog The Havana Times a Cuban specialist on the CELAC, Luis Suarez, says: "It is highly symbolic for Cuba. No other organization in the history of the region has joined so many nations." 

“the restoration of relations with all nations of the region and the presence in this gathering of their Heads of State demonstrates clearly that the US failed in its policy of isolating us.” - See more at: http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=101429#sthash.7EXb0b4h.dpuf

The restoration of relations with all nations of the region and the presence in this gathering of their Heads of State demonstrates clearly that the US failed in its policy of isolating us.”

Suarez points out that Cuba, “was the first country in Latin America that included the goal of integration in its Constitution. That vocation comes from the war for independence, when we had the support of citizens of several countries on the continent.”

Suarez says that “the worst external and internal enemies of the CELAC are those who do not want that we found a separate organization that allows us to reach the world with an agreed position. And the closest is the U.S. Pan-American policy.”

In this sense he believes that “the future of the regional organization will depend on political consultations that are achieved for concrete action to reach the ordinary citizen in the social field, in areas such as health or education, for example."

In these and other subjects such as coping with natural disasters, Cuba could play a key role. “The country has a vast experience in these areas and also has the necessary human resources to support such initiatives.”

“We even have a Latin American School of Medicine, Operation Miracle that has restored sight to millions of people of the continent and we have created the "Yes I can” literacy mtehod that has taught more than three million illiterates to read and write,” explains Suarez .

The agenda in Havana falls squarely on social issues and aims to declare Latin America a “Zone of Peace," an agreement that the Cuban specialist considers “extremely important because it implies that governments undertake to seek political and negotiated solutions, avoiding the use of force in the region."

Furthermore, he says, it would “prevent others from using our conflicts to divide us, as they have done many times in the past."

Suarez believes that to achieve greater practical effectiveness CELAC should "integrate regional institutions such as SELA , the Latin American Energy Organization , LAIA , dedicated to the integration , the Pan American Health Organization or ECLAC Latin American Economic System."

A few years ago, even in the present century the US had ambitions to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas, a project that would have ensured its domination of the commerce of the continent to its own advantage. Not only has that ambition been thwarted but also in its place the CELAC has emerged. As recently as 2004, no one would have imagined that such a switch of power from North to South could have occurred. Even though the CELAC for the moment is a consensual body based upon dialogue and voluntary agreeement, when you take the speed at which geopolitical change has taken place, Bolívar's dream of a United States of Latin America may not seem so far-fetched after all.    

the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza. It will be the first official visit by a senior official of that entity to Cuba after his expulsion in 1962. - See more at: http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=101429#sthash.7EXb0b4h.dpuf

the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza. It will be the first official visit by a senior official of that entity to Cuba after his expulsion in 1962. - See more at: http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=101429#sthash.7EXb0b4h.dpuf

the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza. It will be the first official visit by a senior official of that entity to Cuba after his expulsion in 1962. - See more at: http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=101429#sthash.7EXb0b4h.dpuf

The handshake that shook the world: You read it here first...

It may have taken the death of Mandela to allow it to happen, but it is a sign of the times that it did. A US president shaking hands with a Castro. Almost unheard of. In fact the only other serving US President to have shaken a Castro's hand until today was Bill Clinton at a UN summit in 2000.
It is a truly historic moment. Remember that Eisenhower refused to meet Fidel Castro and it was Tricky Dicky Nixon, as vice-president, who talked with him in 1959. Since then relations between the two countries have been poisoned by an incessant hostility emanating from Washington that was fueled by the rancour and hatred of those members of the Cuban bourgeoisie whom the Castros dispossessed.
Don't forget how the US sabotaged the country: setting off bombs in department stores, lighting the cane fields, murdering youngsters who were sent to teach the peasants to read and write, attempting to kill Raúl and Fidel. Don't forget the invasion at the Bay of Pigs and the even bigger invasion plan of 1962 that was only thwarted by the siting of the Soviet missiles.  Then there is the insidious violence of the embargo that limits the availability of life-saving drugs and medical equipment, that has caused suffering , hunger and anxiety as well as an estimated $1.1trillion of losses to the Cuban economy. All of this done in the service of and often by the employment of a minatory minority who live mainly in Florida and who have never stopped sticking pins in the voodoo dolls they keep of the Castro brothers.
But as I posted here last month, my guess is that Obama and these anti-Castro cronies are now at daggers drawn because it was they who stuck the knife into his medical care bill, froze Capitol Hill and laid-off thousands of federal employees without pay for weeks. The political is so often the personal. If I were Obama I would want to avenge the hurt they caused and the one thing that he can do that will hurt them forever is if he were to make an irreversible rapprochement with Cuba NOW before the end of his term. So that no matter who succeeds him in 2016, there will be no return to the Cold War in the Caribbean.
Look carefully at this video, as significant as the handshake itself is the person standing next to Raúl. It is Dilma Rousseff, the President of Brazil, which is fast becoming Cuba's biggest business partner and the coming superpower of Latin America. Brazil is building in Cuba what will be the Caribbean's biggest container terminal outside of the Mississipi. This terminal will be able to take the new generation of super tankers and container ships that will shortly be using the widened Panama Canal.  I do not believe it was an accident that she stood there and allowed Raúl to be the first for Obama to greet. Obama had to greet her and I ask you, is she not saying by this gesture: "If you want to shake my hand, you'll have to shake this man's too?" Imagine if Obama had snubbed Raúl and she, in solidarity with Raúl, had refused to shake Obama's hand in return?
The future is right here in this video. You read it here first.