Why should we care about El Salvador?
Huffington Post
March 8, 2010
Today, President Obama welcomes Mauricio Funes, the president of El Salvador, in what is his first meeting with a Central American head of state at the White House.
The Center for Democracy in the Americas has reported on the development of the Funes administration from the time we monitored the elections which brought him and his party, the FMLN, to power through his inauguration to the early successes of his term.
Now, Linda Garrett, our organization's El Salvador consultant, has written an analysis of the issues likely to arise in this meeting and why it is important - if not remarkable - that they are meeting at all.
Thirty years ago this month Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated by a right-wing hit man with a bullet through his heart as he celebrated Mass.
His murder shocked the world. El Salvador spiraled into the chaos of a long civil war, with Washington supporting succeeding conservative governments and the military against the leftist guerrilla coalition, the FMLN, in one of the final confrontations of the Cold War.
Now, following twenty years of conservative administrations the FMLN is the party in power and its candidate, Mauricio Funes – a former journalist, not a member of the party - is the democratically elected president of the country.
And today President Mauricio Funes will meet with President Obama, the first Central American leader to be received in this White House.
The two have much in common: both are young, smart, center-left pragmatic leaders who have assumed power in the midst of severe economic downturn. Both face challenges from the right and left as they attempt to build post-ideological consensus for domestic and foreign policy programs and strategies. They also have a shared interest in helping El Salvador address issues like security and fostering economic growth.
To the surprise of many, El Salvador under the leadership of this center-left president and a party representing a former guerrilla army is becoming the most reliable Central American ally of Washington.
But whereas the Bush Administration could count on former Salvadoran governments to send troops to Iraq and in essence, as one analyst said, “to act as the lapdog of the State Department,” President Funes is attempting to build a balanced, independent foreign policy.
During his first eight months in office the president and his foreign minister Hugo Martinez have normalized diplomatic relations with Cuba, Vietnam and Libya while simultaneously making clear that he looks to Brazilian president Lula de Silva and to Barack Obama as his models for governance, not Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez.
As the Salvadorans pursue an open, non-aligned diplomatic strategy, realities on the ground in the U.S. and in El Salvador require the presidents to forge a close, mutually beneficial relationship. Among the issues of concern that will surely be on the agenda when the two presidents meet is immigration.
An estimated 2.5 million Salvadorans live in the United States and the remittances they send home – over $300 million last year – keep the country afloat.
Of those 2.5 million, 240,000 benefited from the TPS (Temporary Protection Status) granted in 2001 after Hurricane Mitch. Leaders of the Salvadoran community argue that these hardworking taxpaying immigrants should be given legal residency status. And though immigration reform seems unlikely this year, Salvadorans hope the TPS can be extended in order to legalize the status of more Salvadorans.
This is not just an immigration issue, but also a security issue.
Some 20,000 Salvadorans are deported from the U.S. every year. Some of the deportees have criminal records or are alleged gang members, and are dumped off planes at Comalapa Airport with nothing but bus fare and no hope for honest employment; many have never lived in the country and have no family, nothing except gang connections. And this has repercussions for the U.S.
El Salvador is considered one of the most violent countries in the hemisphere – with an estimated 17,000 known gang members on the streets and 10,000 in prison. According to a recent survey by the mainstream newspaper La Prensa Grafica, nearly 1/3 of all residents of the capital have been affected by criminal activity during the past three months.
Though gang activity represents only part of the problem – organized crime has infiltrated government institutions – the situation is so serious that President Funes has ordered the military to participate in joint operations with the National Civil Police.
Despite criticism from human rights organizations, and Funes' understandable reluctance to order his troops to patrol the streets given the history of abuses by the military, the president had few options. The violence could derail his social agenda and destabilize already debilitated government institutions.
The bottom line is that increasing violence in El Salvador provides additional opportunity for drug and human trafficking, money laundering and other illicit activities that filter north.
Central America is the south to north funnel for cocaine and heroin traffic and thus a security priority for the U.S. The FBI, ATF and DEA are all on the ground in-country and El Salvador hosts the DEA’s “Cooperative Security” monitoring station for the region. But more assistance is needed including funding and technical training for the under-equipped and poorly paid police force.
Beyond security, the two nations are also intertwined financially. El Salvador has been on the dollar economy since 2001 and is vulnerable to fluctuations in the U.S. financial system. The crisis in the north also means fewer jobs for immigrants and a reduction in the crucial remittances returned home.
President Funes inherited an enormous financial deficit but he and his economic cabinet have skillfully earned the confidence of international financial institutions and of much of the domestic business sector, though some investors say they need greater legal reassurance that their investments will be protected.
From immigration to security to economics, the two presidents clearly share great interests and opportunities, but at a higher level, what is most remarkable is that they are meeting at all.
We share a complex, sometimes excruciatingly painful history. Many Salvadorans suffered as a consequence of U.S. policy in the 1980’s and some in Washington may be uneasy with the new Salvadoran government. But as the Obama administration recognizes the importance of developing consequential relationships with the southern hemisphere, El Salvador can be a key ally.
So why should we – and President Obama – care about El Salvador? One Salvadoran analyst put it this way: “Our impoverishment and/or extinction can destabilize the entire region and this can affect you, Mr. President…For this reason we come to request your aid while we are still living.”
source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-stephens/why-should-we-care-about_b_...
CDA: U.S. Treasury Takes Important Step to Offer Cubans Better Access to Information
For Immediate Release
March 8, 2010
Washington, DC – Following up on questions it raised beginning in May 2009, the Center for Democracy in the Americas (CDA) issued the following statement in response to the Treasury Department’s clarification that will help improve access by Cubans and others in sanctioned countries to Instant Messaging and other programs:
“Treasury has taken an important step to clarify for U.S. technology companies that U.S. sanctions against Cuba should not be interpreted as cutting off Cubans from what the Internet can bring them from the outside world, but it also underscores what a totally counter-productive policy the embargo is,” said Sarah Stephens, Executive Director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas.
“If we need exceptions and clarifications to ensure that information reaches the Cuban people – and others living in sanctioned countries – it would be far easier and more effective to open up Cuba to travel and trade without exceptions so that Cubans can more freely access our ideas without impediments from U.S. policy,” Stephens said.
On May 29, 2009, The Center for Democracy in the Americas wrote Secretary Tim Geithner and asked the U.S. Treasury to investigate why companies like Microsoft and other I/M providers had severed access to these programs for Cubans and others living in sanctioned countries, and attributed these decisions to the potential for enforcement actions against them under the existing sanctions regime.
CDA learned that the cut-off of I/M had stopped many Cubans from enjoying informal, cost-free contacts with family members and friends living outside the island.
On February 1, 2010, CDA contacted Treasury again, when it learned that Sourceforge.net, a site that makes open source software available to users, had taken similar measures.
“We’re pleased that the Treasury has addressed at least some of our concerns, and responded with this clarification,” Stephens concluded, “”but further actions, such as repeal of the travel ban would achieve the same goal and have a greater impact. We hope the Obama administration does not stop here.”
Note: Treasury's response to CDA's first letter regarding the cut-off of I/M can be viewed here.
The Center for Democracy in the Americas (CDA) is devoted to changing U.S. policy toward the countries of the Americas by basing our relations on mutual respect, fostering dialogue with those governments and movements with which U.S. policy is at odds, and recognizing positive trends in democracy and governance.
Efforts to engage Cuba stall
El Nuevo Herald
February 28, 2010
BY Juan O. Tamayo
The death of a Cuban political prisoner and the prolonged jailing of a U.S. citizen in Havana appear to have cast a dark cloud over U.S. and Spanish government efforts to engage Raúl Castro's government.
"We still believe engagement is the right way, but the death of Orlando Zapata was a punch to the gut,'' said an aide to a U.S. Democratic congressman who favors easing sanctions on Cuba.
"There's no doubt this incident will put a very important, if not formidable, obstacle'' in the way of Spain's efforts, said Joaquin Roy, a University of Miami expert on European Union issues.
The U.S. and Spanish efforts were not faring well even before the Dec. 3 arrest of U.S. government contractor Alan P. Gross and the Feb. 23 death of Zapata, who starved himself to death to protest prison conditions.
Castro had made no significant counter-gestures after President Barack Obama lifted or eased several sanctions on Cuba last year. A bill before Congress allowing unrestricted travel to Cuba appeared to have stalled, and was recently reworked as part of an agriculture bill.
At the EU, former communist-ruled nations were opposing the campaign by Spain's socialist government to persuade the regional body to abandon its Common Position on Cuba, which essentially conditions EU relations on Cuba's human rights record.
But the Zapata and Gross cases undermined the argument that since the Cuban government has made no concessions, the United States and EU should take unilateral steps to engage with the Cuban people, said sanctions supporters. They also raised the question of whether Cuba was intentionally trying to torpedo the U.S. and EU efforts at rapprochement.
"There's proof that each time we try to promote an increased free flow of people and information, the Castro regime digs in,'' the EFE news agency quoted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as telling Congress last week.
"The Cuban government has been using the issue of the Common Position to justify, or invent, that there's an aggressive attitude toward Cuba by the EU and Spain,'' said the Spanish-born Roy. "It's the same logic as the U.S. embargo. I have never believed that Cuba truly wants the embargo to end.''
In the U.S. Congress, Cuba's detention of Gross since Dec. 3 -- without charges -- for delivering satellite communications equipment to Jewish groups has dealt a blow to the efforts to ease sanctions on Cuba, several knowledgeable aides said.
'TIPPING POINT'
"The tipping point on Cuba is the Gross issue. It's a hot potato,'' said a senior staffer to a senator who favors lifting travel restrictions.
"As bad as the Zapata case is, the Gross issue is the one that has a greater reach here.''
Even Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., who opposes the U.S. ban on tourist travel to Cuba, blasted Cuba's handling of the Zapata case, saying it "should have intervened earlier to prevent this tragedy. His death is on their conscience.''
"First Gross and now this. The timing could not be worse,'' said a top aide to a House Democrat who favors lifting all sanctions on Cuba.
The congressional staffers and aides all requested anonymity because they were not authorized to make public comments on the issue.
Mauricio Claver-Carone, director of the pro-embargo U.S. Cuba Democracy political action committee, said the Zapata case will "make it very difficult for those who want to engage unconditionally with the Cuban regime.''
FACE OF OPPOSITION
While many Americans supported Obama’s campaign pledge to reach out to Iran, he added, they were outraged when the Tehran government cracked down violently on massive street protests following allegedly fraudulent elections last year.
“Americans will always support the underdog,” Claver-Carone said. “And what Zapata did, in a very tragic way, was to put it in their faces that there’s an underdog in Cuba. . . . More and more the message today is that there is an opposition in Cuba that is viable . . . and that is a huge impact.”
Supporters of easing U.S. sanctions on Cuba say they nevertheless will continue to push for a closer engagement.
After attacking Cuba’s handling of the Zapata case, McGovern added: “I have always felt -- and continue to believe -- that if we are truly going to do a better job of standing with the Cuban people, then we need to be closer to them and in greater numbers.”
Zapata’s death “was a horrible and terrible turn of events, and further proof that we need to try another approach to Cuba,” said Sarah Stephens of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, a Washington group that favors travel to Cuba.
“Rather than standing just symbolically with Cubans at a distance, as those who embrace the Cuba embargo and all of its facets continue to ask us to do, the better, more courageous, and ultimately more effective course is to stand with them literally, in person, in their country, and to put food produced here in America on their kitchen tables across Cuba,” she wrote on the Center’s website.
In the European Union, said Roy, “there’s going to be strong pressures” on Spain’s socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, to abandon his campaign to persuade the EU to ease its Common Position.
A meeting in Madrid Friday of foreign policy officials from all EU member-nations ended with a declaration condemning Cuba for the death of Zapata. And an editorial last week in Spain’s left-of-center El Períodico newspaper recommended Zapatero “should give up this effort to change the Common Position.”
Roy noted that Zapatero, like Obama, also faces domestic problems that may lead him to put the Common Position issue on his back burner.
“It would not surprise me if everything fell apart and [the Common Policy] remains as it is,” he said, “unless the Cuban government releases 50 dissidents, which I don’t expect.”
source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/02/28/1505838/efforts-to-engage-cuba-sta...
Líderes del Congreso buscan ampliar exportaciones agrícolas y viajes a Cuba
EFE
23 de Febrero
Washington, 23 feb (EFE).- Líderes demócratas y republicanos de la Cámara de Representantes de EE.UU. presentaron hoy un proyecto de ley que busca ampliar los viajes y las exportaciones agrícolas a Cuba, convencidos de que eso ayudará a la economía estadounidense.
El proyecto de ley fue presentado por el presidente del Comité de Agricultura de la cámara baja, el demócrata Collin Peterson, y cuenta con una treintena de copatrocinadores, entre ellos los republicanos Jerry Moran (Kansas), Jeff Flake (Arizona) y Jo Ann Emerson (Misuri).
"Que ayudemos a alimentar a Cuba es bueno para la economía estadounidense y para el pueblo cubano. Este proyecto de ley aumenta la capacidad de nuestros agricultores de vender sus productos a Cuba, como ya lo hacen con nuestros otros socios comerciales", explicó Peterson en un comunicado.
La medida será sometida "en las próximas semanas" a audiencias en el Comité de Agricultura de la cámara baja, aunque también tendrá que ser estudiada en el Comité de Asuntos Exteriores, según fuentes legislativas.
Peterson, que representa al estado de Minesota, se quejó de que las "trabas burocráticas" y las "prohibiciones arbitrarias" para que los estadounidenses puedan viajar a Cuba han servido de obstáculos para las ventas agrícolas a la isla.
La medida, según el texto entregado a los periodistas, no aplicará en los casos de que Estados Unidos "esté en guerra con Cuba", haya "hostilidades armadas" entre ambos países o haya "un peligro inminente a la salud pública o seguridad física de los pasajeros estadounidenses".
El Acta para Reformar las Restricciones de Viaje y Mejorar las Exportaciones eliminará tanto la necesidad actual de recurrir a bancos en terceros países para realizar las ventas agrícolas a Cuba como las cuotas que suelen acompañar esos permisos.
En concreto, la iniciativa bipartidista establece que las exportaciones agrícolas a Cuba tengan los mismos requisitos de pago que las exportaciones de EE.UU. a otros países.
En la práctica, eso significa que, contrario a la norma actual, Cuba no tendría que pagar por adelantado antes de que el barco zarpe de un puerto estadounidense.
Además, la iniciativa permite los viajes de estadounidenses a Cuba.
En la actualidad, el Gobierno del presidente de EE.UU., Barack Obama, que se ha manifestado a favor de un mayor acercamiento con La Habana, sólo ha flexibilizado los viajes y remesas de los cubanoamericanos con familiares en ese país.
El Centro para la Democracia en las Américas, que apoya modificar el embargo que impera desde 1962, dijo que la presentación de esta medida supone un "nuevo impulso" para reemplazar una política que no ha funcionado.
"Hay un nuevo impulso en el Congreso para reemplazar la política de matar de hambre y aislamiento a Cuba con una que emplee nuestras mejores exportaciones- los alimentos y la buena voluntad que fomentan los turistas estadounidenses- para crear beneficios verdaderos" para el pueblo cubano, dijo en un comunicado la directora ejecutiva del Centro, Sarah Stephens.
Sin embargo, para que los viajes y las ventas se produzcan sin más obstáculos, la medida tendría que ser aprobada por ambas cámaras del Congreso de EE.UU., un esfuerzo que ha fracasado en el pasado debido, principalmente, a objeciones de legisladores opuestos a flexibilizar el embargo contra Cuba.
Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/epa/article/ALeqM5iOvGrgj1WYM8EiEj5RdfT...
The Obama administration and Democratization in Latin America
Remarks by Sarah Stephens of the Center for Democracy in the Americas
prepared for George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs
“The Obama Administration and Latin America: The First Year”
Monday, February 22, 2010
"I want to make one key point that relates to the subject our panel is supposed to discuss. My thesis is this: Our government cannot be an effective advocate for democracy and American interests unless it better understands the changing political realities in Latin America and in the United States.
"Or put another way, it must acknowledge how much the region has changed, and how the arc of American policy and American politics take us further and further away from how the region has evolved."
To view a PDF of Sarah's statement, click here.
Threat from Cuba
Miami Herald
Letters to the Editor
February 18, 2010
Re the Feb. 5 story Republicans ask Obama to cancel Cuba migration talks:
I would ask whether those who signed the letter have put ideology ahead of national security. Two days before these members of Congress demanded that the Obama administration suspend migration talks with Cuba, Dennis Blair, director of National Intelligence, discussed Cuba in his presentation of the Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.
The only potential threat that Blair discussed that could emanate from Cuba would be a mass migration from the island if the government decided it could not cope with rising discontent over economic conditions.
In other words, suspending migration talks would cut us off from the Cuban government on the only national-security threat that Cuba potentially poses to us. And why would we do this? Because these members of Congress disapprove of the administration's handling of so-called ``pro-democracy'' programs in Cuba and Cuba's decision to arrest and hold a U.S. contractor involved in these programs -- which haven't worked for five decades.
It's an irresponsible proposal.
SARAH STEPHENS, executive director, Center for Democracy in the Americas, Washington, D.C.
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/02/18/1485939/hed-here.html
Representantes del Congreso de EE.UU. buscan mejorar la relación con Venezuela
EFE, printed in El Universal
February 18, 2010
Caracas - Un grupo de "técnicos y asistentes" del Congreso de Estados Unidos mantuvo hoy en Caracas una reunión con diputados venezolanos afines al Gobierno del presidente Hugo Chávez, en busca de mejorar la relación bilateral.
"Estamos muy satisfechos con el encuentro. Tuvimos la oportunidad de profundizar en varios asuntos de política internacional y logramos una mejor comprensión de cómo maneja Venezuela sus relaciones exteriores", dijo tras el encuentro la vocera de la delegación estadounidense, Sarah Stephens.
Se trató de una reunión "muy respetuosa", en la cual "se abordó la necesidad de profundizar la cooperación y de mejorar las relaciones entre Caracas y Washington", añadió Stephens en declaraciones a la estatal Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias (ABN).
De los detalles de la cita, no anunciada previamente a los periodistas, será informado posteriormente el Congreso de Estados Unidos para así "desmitificar la política venezolana, pues no todo es blanco y negro", dijo Stephens según la estatal Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias (ABN).
Entre los interlocutores de los estadounidenses se destacó el presidente de la Comisión de Política Exterior de la unicameral Asamblea Nacional (AN), diputado Roy Daza, quien dijo asimismo a ABN que la misión de "técnicos del Congreso de Estados Unidos constató la posición soberana y apegada al derecho internacional del Gobierno venezolano".
"Los congresistas se llevan un mensaje muy claro sobre la política exterior del Estado venezolano, liderado por un Gobierno serio, responsable, que actúa conforme al derecho internacional", dijo Daza y agregó que la relación bilateral mejorará "siempre y cuando impere el respeto por nuestro Gobierno y cesen las amenazas".
Daza explicó a los estadounidenses "los esfuerzos del Gobierno bolivariano por promover un mundo multipolar, basado en el respeto a la soberanía y la autodeterminación de los pueblos", según ABN.
El presidente venezolano se refirió a Estados Unidos por última vez hace ocho días, cuando calificó de "mentiras" unas acusaciones contenidas en un reciente informe de la inteligencia de esa nación.
"Eso es mentira", subrayó Chávez al dar cuenta del informe presentado al Congreso de Estados Unidos por el director de la Oficia Nacional de Inteligencia de EE.UU., Dennis Blair, que señaló a Venezuela y a su presidente como "peligrosos".
En el informe, Blair señaló que Chávez continúa "imponiendo un modelo político populista y autoritario en Venezuela que mina las instituciones democráticas".
Además, Blair consideró en su reporte que Chávez y sus aliados "probablemente seguirán oponiéndose a casi todas las iniciativas políticas de EE.UU. en la región".
"Es lamentable esto, porque es mentira lo que dicen (en Estados Unidos contra Venezuela), es mentira. Ojalá que una mente bien ordenada les diga que es mentira", respondió el presidente venezolano.
El Gobierno de Barack Obama, "sigue agrediendo, diplomáticamente, verbalmente, abiertamente", como "igual lo hacía su predecesor, George W.Bush. Ojalá el presidente Obama rectifique a tiempo su política hacia nosotros de señalamientos, de mentiras. Ojalá recuperemos la esperanza de que haya unas relaciones" diplomáticas viables, insistió Chávez.
Las tensas relaciones entre Venezuela y Estados Unidos no han afectado las relaciones comerciales, especialmente sustentadas en la venta de petróleo venezolano a la primera economía del mundo a razón de entre 1,1 y 1,5 millones de barriles diarios.
source: http://www.eluniversal.com/2010/02/18/pol_ava_representantes-del-c_18A34...
Cuba issues define Lincoln Diaz-Balart's legacy
The Miami Herald
February 12, 2010
By Lesley Clark
Washington -- In 18 years as a congressman, Lincoln Diaz-Balart sat on the powerful House rules committee, championed citizenship for undocumented college students and brought home dollars for South Florida institutions. But his defining cause was always Cuba.
The Miami Republican's decision to leave office at the end of the year comes as advocates for easing the Cuban embargo suggest they have their best shot at success in years. But observers said Thursday that although Diaz-Balart's forceful, decades-long advocacy of a hard line against Cuba will be difficult to match, his efforts will endure.
"Lincoln is the senior statesmen, he helped create the policy, but there are a lot of people working to keep it," said Mauricio Claver-Carone, director of a leading pro-embargo lobby, the U.S. Cuba Democracy political action committee. "You can't minimize what a vocal, important figure he is in regards to U.S.-Cuba policy, but the policy will not retire with him."
And Claver-Carone noted that unlike in Cuba -- where Fidel and Raul Castro have kept a tight rein on power for more than five decades -- Diaz-Balart's retirement "opens the door for a new generation of Cuban Americans."
His decision could affect the political fortunes of several Republican Cuban-American state legislators who share Diaz-Balart's politics, if not the fiery rhetoric of the Cuban-born politician.
Still, Diaz-Balart's retirement does signal the end of an era, said Daniel Erikson, the author of The Cuba Wars. Diaz-Balart, 55, is the second high-ranking Cuban-American politician to leave Washington in the last year. Florida Sen. Mel Martinez gave up his seat last year to return to the private sector. Erikson noted that Diaz-Balart's chief opponents in the Senate, Democrats Chris Dodd and Bryon Dorgan -- who want to lift the embargo -- also announced plans to retire in 2010.
KEEPING FOCUS
Few lawmakers, Erikson said, share Diaz-Balart's "single-minded passion."
"He has really kept a laser-like focus on this issue for close to two decades in a manner that is less nuanced and more sustained than any of his other colleagues in Congress," Erikson said.
Diaz-Balart himself said Thursday that "the bipartisan team working for Cuba's freedom from within the U.S. Congress is . . . functioning more effectively than ever."
HARD TO FOLLOW
Those who might follow in his footsteps acknowledge that his influence will be hard to duplicate.
"No one is going to have his legislative experience or clout," said state Senate Majority Leader Alex Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, a possible candidate for the seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart. Mario Diaz-Balart announced Thursday he is running for his brother's more Republican-friendly seat.
"It's a system based on seniority and his advocacy has really allowed us to do everything we can to impose sanctions on Cuba," Diaz de la Portilla said.
Diaz-Balart's tactics extended beyond routine legislative maneuvers: In 1995, he was arrested outside the White House while protesting President Clinton's Cuba policy. And just a year after his 1992 election to Congress, he retaliated against a lawmaker who cut Radio and TV Marti's budget, slashing millions of dollars from a project in the Colorado lawmaker's district.
Sarah Stephens, a leading advocate of lifting the ban against travel to Cuba, called it "hard to mourn the retirement of such a virulent and effective Cold warrior," but said she hoped for a Diaz-Balart replacement "who has a better sense of America's national interest and a modern approach to Cuba."
Diaz-Balart never made apologies for his unwavering opposition to Fidel Castro, but sought during a bruising reelection challenge in 2008 and in his announcement Thursday to underscore other accomplishments.
He noted he had secured money for local projects from Jackson Memorial Hospital to the U.S. Southern Command and had restored disability benefits and Medicaid to legal immigrants. His immigration work -- including pushing to give undocumented college students a chance for citizenship -- earned him the respect of immigration advocates accustomed to battling Republican efforts to restrict immigration.
Still, said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, on Thursday, "Nothing is closer to Lincoln's heart than the struggle for freedom in his beloved Cuba."
source: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/story/1475906.html?story_link=e...
What Was Alan Gross Doing in Havana?
Last week President Obama released his proposed $52.8 billion 2011 budget for the U.S. Department of State. Included with the billions for programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq is a relatively minuscule $20 million allocation to "promote self-determined democracy in Cuba." For one unlucky consultant hired to do just that, however, the mandate is particularly thorny. During the first week of December, Alan Phillip Gross, an American from the Washington, D.C., suburb of Potomac, Md., was arrested at Havana's Jose Marti airport as he was boarding a plane to leave Cuba. He has not been formally accused, but is suspected by the Cubans of spying for the U.S. government.
Obama Administration to Spend Millions on Cuba
Poder 360
February 3, 2010
The president officially loosened Cuba travel and money remittance policies in 2009, and now plans to spend millions on programs designed to bring about Democratic change in Cuba.
The Obama administration is proposing spending $20 million on programs designed to bring about Democratic change in Cuba, but the funds are under attack from those who say its wasteful in hard economic times, besides being a demonstrable failure after Cuba recently celebrated the 52nd anniversary of its communist revolution.
Sarah Stephens, executive director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, issued a statement about the Foreign Aid budget request for 2011: “Unless it’s okay for the United States government to waste money on foreign aid programs that don’t work, the Obama administration should remove the $20 million in spending it has proposed on ‘regime change’ on Cuba.”
The CDA’s report, “9 Ways for US to Talk to Cuba and for Cuba to Talk to US,” published in 2009, recommended ending counter-productive ‘regime change’ programs and relying instead on policies of engagement to advance America’s interests and lead to normal relations between the U.S. and Cuba.
source: http://www.poder360.com/dailynews_detail.php?blurbid=5241
Washington NGO: $20 million for "regime change" in Cuba is "wasteful"
ALONG THE MALECON
By Tracey Eaton
February 2, 2010
The Center for Democracy in the Americas in Washington lashed out Tuesday at the Obama administration's request for $20 million for pro-democracy and other work in Cuba.
The group's executive director, Sarah Stephens, said in a statement:
“Unless it’s okay for the United States government to waste money on foreign aid programs that don’t work, the Obama administration should remove the $20 million in spending it has proposed on ‘regime change’ on Cuba.
“Many activities funded by this program are illegal in Cuba, would certainly be illegal if Cuba conducted them in our country, and they have long histories of wasteful spending in the U.S. and hurting the intended beneficiaries in Cuba. Activities funded by this program recently landed a U.S. contractor in a Cuban prison. If you ever wanted to find a wasteful and counter-productive foreign aid program, this is it.
“The paradox is this: not one of these wasteful programs can hold a candle to the one policy change that would pour American information and ideas into Cuba, and bring both countries together – namely, ending the travel ban that stops all Americans from visiting the island and engaging the Cuban people, a ‘program’ which would cost the taxpayers nothing.”
source: http://alongthemalecon.blogspot.com/2010/02/washington-ngo-20-million-fo...
CDA: Obama Should End the Cuba Travel Ban and Stop Wasting U.S. Funds on Regime Change Effort
FOX BUSINESS NEWS
February 02, 2010
PRNewswire ---- Sarah Stephens, executive director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, issued the following statement about the Foreign Aid budget request for 2011 which proposes $20 million in wasteful spending on regime change programs for Cuba:
“Unless it’s okay for the United States government to waste money on foreign aid programs that don’t work, the Obama administration should remove the $20 million in spending it has proposed on ‘regime change’ on Cuba.
“Many activities funded by this program are illegal in Cuba, would certainly be illegal if Cuba conducted them in our country, and they have long histories of wasteful spending in the U.S. and hurting the intended beneficiaries in Cuba. Activities funded by this program recently landed a U.S. contractor in a Cuban prison. If you ever wanted to find a wasteful and counter-productive foreign aid program, this is it.
“The paradox is this: not one of these wasteful programs can hold a candle to the one policy change that would pour American information and ideas into Cuba, and bring both countries together - namely, ending the travel ban that stops all Americans from visiting the island and engaging the Cuban people, a ‘program’ which would cost the taxpayers nothing.”
The Center for Democracy in the Americas (CDA) is devoted to changing U.S. policy toward the countries of the Americas by basing our relations on mutual respect, fostering dialogue with those governments and movements with which U.S. policy is at odds, and recognizing positive trends in democracy and governance. For more information about CDA, visit our website.
CDA’s report, “9 Ways for US to Talk to Cuba and for Cuba to Talk to US,” published last year, recommended ending counter-productive ‘regime change’ programs and relying instead on policies of engagement to advance America’s interests and lead to normal relations between the U.S. and Cuba.
source: http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/cda-obama-end-cuba-travel-ban-stop-wast...
U.S. Foreign Policy: Common Sense Takes a Holiday
HUFFINGTON POST
By Sarah Stephens
Director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas
February 1, 2010
If you're thinking about a vacation this year, may I recommend North Korea?
I am not kidding. If you visit this website, "North Korea 1 on 1," you will see some pretty impressive itineraries. They offer a 13-day trip coinciding with the annual May Day Festival. Other trips enable American tourists the chance to see "card stunts" featuring thousands of school children holding up colored cards, and great displays of choreography and artistic performances by tens of thousands of gymnasts and dancers.
You don't have to worry about U.S. government restrictions. Americans can travel to North Korea freely; scheduling and affordability (tours costing $4,000 per person are not unusual) seem to be the only barriers. And what won't stop American tourists from visiting North Korea are political differences or threats posed to the United States by the North Korean government.
What are those threats? As the World Fact Book published by the CIA summarizes them:
North Korea's history of regional military provocations, proliferation of military-related items, long-range missile development, WMD programs including nuclear weapons test in 2006 and 2009, and massive conventional armed forces are of major concern to the international community.
These facts aside, the Obama administration places some values on maintaining citizen-to-citizen connections with North Korea. It even allowed the New York Philharmonic to play a concert there. If you can afford the ticket, and the idea of traveling 6,300 miles to get there doesn't daunt you, U.S. policy seems to say - knock yourself out. Go.
But, if you'd rather stay closer to home; if you'd rather visit a destination that welcomes Americans; if you'd like to go to a place which offers no security threat to the United States (as a variety of respected, retired senior military officers have said repeatedly); please do not even consider visiting Cuba. It's off limits. Visiting the island without a license can subject you to civil fines -- even prosecution. Coming to Cuba as a tourist from the United States is flatly illegal. Even the New York Philharmonic can't play there - they tried to get to Cuba last year, but the Obama Administration wouldn't let them go.
So, our policy under President Obama boils down to this: engagement is for the North Koreans (the guys with nuclear weapons), but we'll continue to isolate America from Cuba (whose army, the CIA says, lacks replacement parts and sufficient fuel). Engagement, he seems to say, works better the further we are from home, and only with nations that threaten our security, while Cubans will learn more about real democracy and American values when our government ignores both to keep us from traveling there.
It's a glaring inconsistency, "the audacity of 'nope'," a policy where common sense has taken a holiday.
source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-stephens/us-foreign-policy-common_b_...
U.S. and Cuba improve relations as both countries aid in relief efforts in Haiti
NY Daily News
By Albor Ruiz
January 28th 2010
While international aid continues to pour into earthquake-ravaged Haiti, improved relations between U.S. and Cuba could turn out to be an unintended - if welcome - result of both countries cooperating to save lives in the devastated island nation.
In an unusual gesture last week, Cuba opened its airspace to U.S. aircraft involved in emergency relief efforts in Haiti. No less unusual was Secretary of State Clinton thanking the Cuban government and saying the U.S. "would welcome any other actions that the Cuban government could take in furtherance of the international rescue and recovery mission in Haiti."
Over half a million people have lost homes since the quake struck Jan. 12. It is estimated that 200,000 people have lost their lives and more than 193,000 have been injured.
In a move to aid relief efforts, the State Department said earlier this week that it is prepared to provide medical supplies to Cuban doctors working in Haiti.
"The United States has communicated its readiness to make medical relief supplies available to Cuban doctors working on the ground in Haiti as part of the international relief effort," said spokesman Darby Holladay.
This kind of cooperation to save lives obviously would strengthen Havana's already powerful response to the tragedy, especially by providing supplies to the Cuban doctors and their Haitian counterparts trained in Cuba.
Cuban medical teams have treated more than 13,000 patients in Port-au-Prince, performing more than 1,000 operations, including 550 major surgeries, said Gail Reed, international director of the California-based Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba. The nonprofit group works to enhance cooperation among the U.S., Cuban and global health communities.
In addition to Cuban teams, Haitian physicians trained in Cuba and 60 Haitian medical students from Cuba's Latin American Medical School are working with relief personnel from other countries in field hospitals, medical posts and public parks - as well as in three hospitals in Port-au-Prince. Furthermore, they have begun vaccinating the 400,000 patients , with tetanus vaccines donated by the Cuban government.
As thousands flee the capital seeking help, Reed added, the Cuban doctors have set up two field hospitals in Jacmel, located about 46 miles from Port-au-Prince, where Cuban medical personnel were working before the quake.
Clearly, the horrific human tragedy in Haiti calls for placing human solidarity before old enmities and traditional mistrust. The Dominican Republic, Haiti's neighbor, did not hesitate to go all out to help despite the historical problems and prejudices that have permeated their relations for many years.
The U.S. and Cuba have also responded by leaving aside - even if momentarily - political and ideological differences to save lives.
That's why the attitude of some enemies of better Cuba-U.S relations is nothing short of unbelievable.
Mauricio Claver-Carone, executive director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC in Washington, has said that he opposes U.S. medical cooperation with Cuba to help the Haitian people. According to him, it's "absolutely unconscionable to try to use tragic disasters - such as Haiti's earthquake - as a springboard for bilateral relations."
But Clever-Carone doesn't find it "unconscionable" to let Haitians die in order to preserve the old hatreds and failed policies that have characterized U.S.-Cuba relations for half a century. Amazing!
source: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2010/01/28/2010-01-28_us_cu...
EE.UU. debe presionar a Lobo para restablecer la democracia en Honduras, dicen expertos
Agencia EFE
27 de enero del 2010
El Gobierno de EE.UU. debe alentar al nuevo presidente de Honduras, Porfirio Lobo, a que restaure la democracia en ese país, lesionada tras la crisis desatada por el golpe de Estado de junio pasado, aseguraron hoy expertos.
"Felicitamos al presidente Lobo en su investidura y esperamos trabajar con su Administración para ayudar a Honduras a sanarse de esta crisis política", dijo a Efe Charles Luoma-Overstreet, un portavoz del Departamento de Estado.
Agregó que aunque todavía hay trabajo pendiente para la reconciliación nacional y mejoras en los derechos humanos, EE.UU. cree que Lobo ha tomado decisiones que facilitarán ese proceso, como la formación de un Gabinete pluralista y una Comisión de la Verdad para esclarecer las circunstancias del golpe de Estado.
En paralelo con la investidura de Lobo, de 62 años, que se desarrolló con escasa presencia de la comunidad internacional y luego de 7 meses del golpe de Estado, el depuesto presidente, Manuel Zelaya, salió de la embajada de Brasil en Tegucigalpa, donde se alojó desde septiembre, cuando retornó por sorpresa al país.
Zelaya y su familia viajarán hoy mismo a la República Dominicana en calidad de "huéspedes distinguidos", bajo el Acuerdo para la Reconstrucción Nacional y el Fortalecimiento de la Democracia en Honduras, pactado recientemente en Santo Domingo entre Lobo y el presidente dominicano, Leonel Fernández.
Su salida del país refleja el fracaso de los esfuerzos diplomáticos, encabezados por Washington para el restablecimiento de Zelaya antes de los comicios del pasado 29 de noviembre.
Expertos consultados hoy por Efe coincidieron en que, en una especie de "borrón y cuenta nueva", Estados Unidos respalde al nuevo Gobierno, pero insista en que cumpla sus compromisos con la democracia.
"Estados Unidos debe respaldar al nuevo Gobierno hondureño sin condiciones, y alentar a la Administración de Lobo a que persiga un diálogo nacional para tratar de superar la polarización política", dijo Michael Shifter, analista del independiente Diálogo Interamericano.
"Puede que no haya mucho entusiasmo sobre cómo se resolvió esta crisis, pero es hora de aceptar la realidad en Honduras y ayudar a ese país a salir adelante. Tiene que haber una completa rendición de cuentas, pero no hay razón para castigar al Gobierno de Lobo", enfatizó Shifter.
Pero Sarah Stephens, directora ejecutiva del Centro para la Democracia en las Américas, consideró que "sería un error profundo que EE.UU. reanude la ayuda a Honduras sin condiciones y metas que promuevan la restauración de la democracia y la estabilidad".
En ese sentido, dijo que Lobo debe comprometerse con el Acuerdo de San José, que establece la formación de la Comisión de la Verdad y promueve un diálogo sobre la reforma de las instituciones, entre otros puntos.
Tal como lo pidió Amnistía Internacional, Lobo debe ordenar una investigación de los abusos cometidos por las fuerzas de seguridad desde el golpe de Estado y castigar a los responsables, subrayó Stephens.
Por su parte, Mark Weisbrot, codirector del Centro para la Investigación Económica y Política (CEPR), lamentó que EE.UU. no haya sido más enérgico en su exigencia de restablecer a Zelaya.
Lobo, recordó Weisbrot, llegó al poder tras unos comicios que no fueron reconocidos por la mayoría de los países de la región y su investidura "representa un profundo fracaso de la Administración Obama".
Desde el Congreso, la legisladora republicana Ileana Ros-Lehtinen pidió que, en señal de apoyo a Lobo, Estados Unidos levante "de inmediato" las sanciones impuestas contra Honduras, como la revocación de visas, y reanude la asistencia financiera y la cooperación en la lucha antinarcóticos.
Ros-Lehtinen figuró entre el puñado de legisladores republicanos que desde siempre apoyaron al Gobierno de facto presidido por Roberto Micheletti.
source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/epa/article/ALeqM5hIaIUez9uNPUKMWEwxkEl...
U.S. Policy Should Encourage Lobo's Government to Restore Democracy to Honduras
WORLD NEWS NETWORK
January 27, 2010
WASHINGTON /PRNewswire/ -- The Center for Democracy in the Americas released the following statement regarding the inauguration of Porfirio Lobo as President of Honduras:
"Today in Honduras, with representatives of the U.S. government looking on, Honduras will inaugurate its new president. Our government needs to do better than sit in the audience and applaud; it must stand up for our values and the issues that are at stake in Honduras.
"It would be a profound mistake for the Obama administration to restore aid to Honduras without benchmarks and conditions that encourage the restoration of democracy and stability.
"Specifically, the Lobo administration must commit to implementing the San Jose Accords, establishing a truth commission, and creating conditions in Honduras under which a national dialogue can take place in which all citizens can freely and fully debate what steps are needed to reform their nation's institutions without interference from their government. This is the best route Honduras can take to restore its democracy and return stability to its people, and that is the outcome that U.S. policy should be strongly supporting.
"The Center for Democracy in the Americas also supports the call issued by Amnesty International that the new Honduran president should order a full investigation into abuses committed by the security forces since the June 28, 2009 coup. Amnesty for actors in the coup d'etat and subsequent human rights violations should not be an option until a truth commission is formed and violations of the law are adequately investigated. How Honduras proceeds on amnesty will help determine whether President Lobo is fully committed to national reconciliation or to simply using the air brush of impunity to move forward."
The Center for Democracy in the Americas (CDA) is devoted to changing U.S. policy toward the countries of the Americas by basing our relations on mutual respect, fostering dialogue with those governments and movements with which U.S. policy is at odds, and recognizing positive trends in democracy and governance.
CDA previously offered testimony on the coup in Honduras before the U.S. Congress, and it participated in two post-coup delegations with the Carter Center and with Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-IL).
source: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-policy-should-encourage-lobos...
Latin America Advisor - January 26, 2010
Sarah Stephens, executive director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, was quoted in the Latin America Advisor which is published by the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington:
"After tossing a few bouquets toward Havana and the region—restoring the travel rights of Cuban families, and calling for a partnership between the United States and governments in the region—the Obama administration has returned to patterns and policies that look disturbingly familiar to the Cubans, and they are reacting accordingly. In its failure to stand with the region and stand down the coup regime in Honduras; its decision to broaden military cooperation in Colombia; its support for the kind of regime-change policies that recently landed a U.S. contractor in a Cuban jail; and in our ongoing demand that Cuba dismantle its system in exchange for loosening the U.S. embargo—rightly or wrongly, the Cuban leadership sees a continuation of policies that look like the Cold War past rather than the promising future heralded by Obama's election.
Reconciliation is still possible, because Obama's instincts are not to be
the eleventh president to fail with Cuba."
EEUU ofrece suministros a los doctores cubanos
EL NUEVO HERALD
Por JUAN O. TAMAYO
January 25, 2010
El gobierno de Estados Unidos ha ofrecido suministros médicos a los médicos de Cuba que están sirviendo en Haití, devastada por el terremoto, pero los cubanos todavía no han aceptado la ayuda formalmente, indicó el viernes el Departamento de Estado.
Se informó que los cubanos estaban quedándose sin suministros en los tres hospitales de Puerto Príncipe en que tratan a cientos de pacientes cada día y hacen operaciones casi las 24 horas.
“Nosotros hemos ofrecido suministros médicos, pero los cubanos no han aceptado formalmente dicha ayuda, y tampoco se ha entregado material alguno hasta el momento”, aseguró Charles Luoma-Overstreet, vocero de asuntos hemisféricos del Deparrtamento de Estado.
“Nosotros seguiremos identificando áreas donde nuestra cooperación [con Cuba] pueda apoyar los esfuerzos generales de ayuda en Haití”, añadió Luoma-Overstreet en un correo electrónico desde Washington.
Cuba ya tenía un equipo médico de 340 personas en Haití, donde la semana pasada el terremoto destruyó gran parte de Puerto Príncipe, matando a decenas de miles y dejando a muchos más con heridas y fracturas. Luego, la isla envió un equipo de emergencia de 60 personas y 10 toneladas de suministros.
El periódico Irish Times reportó el martes que varios de los equipos médicos cubanos se habían quedado sin anestesia y estaban realizando amputaciones en pacientes que estaban conscientes.
Cuba está permitiendo que los vuelos estadounidenses que trasladan heridos desde la Base Naval de Guantánamo a Miami pasen por encima de su territorio, ahorrándoles hasta 90 minutos de viaje.
Los partidarios del mejoramiento de las relaciones entre ambas naciones han estado insistiendo constantemente en aprovechar el desastre de Haití como una oportunidad para coordinar esfuerzos de ayuda y desarrollar la confianza mutua.
“Oportunidades como esta de que nuestros países trabajen juntos, hagan el bien juntos, ayudan a desarrollar la confianza necesaria para con el tiempo normalizar las relaciones a nivel político”, aseguró Sarah Stephens, directora del Centro por la Democracia en las Américas, según la página de internet TPMMuckraker.
Estos argumentos causaron una severa reprimenda de Mauricio Claver-Carone, director del Comité de Acción Política por la Democracia EEUU-Cuba, que está a favor de mantener las sanciones estadounidenses a La Habana.
“La tragedia del terremoto en Haití no tiene nada que ver con las relaciones EEUU-Cuba”, escribió en el portal Capitol Hill Cubans (Cubanos del Capitolio). “Una cosa es que los defensores de normalizar incondicionalmente las relaciones con la dictadura de Castro ignoren sus brutales abusos de los derechos humanos del pueblo cubano, pero es absolutamente inconcebible tratar de usar desastres trágicos [....] como trampolín para relaciones bilaterales”.
“Concentrémonos en ayudar a las víctimas de la tragedia haitiana: el pueblo haitiano”, añadió Claver-Carone. “Y, cuando nos ocupemos de las relaciones EEUU-Cuba, concentrémonos en ayudar a las víctimas de su trágica dictadura: el pueblo cubano (y no el régimen que los oprime con la única intención de seguir para siempre en el poder)”.
Personal médico cubano fue por primera vez a Haití tras el huracán George en 1998, y a través de los años más de 3,000 han trabajado allí bajo un acuerdo entre ambos gobiernos, según reportajes de la prensa cubana.
Los cubanos han vacunado a 370,000 haitianos y han hecho operaciones de la vista a más de 41,000, de acuerdo con estos reportajes. Alrededor de 540 haitianos se han graduado de las escuelas de Medicina de Cuba.
source: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/america_latina/cuba/story/635274.html
U.S. And Cuba Showing Signs Of Cooperation In Haiti Relief Effort
TALKING POINTS MEMO
Justin Elliott
January 22, 2010
The United States is prepared to give medical supplies to a team of Cuban doctors in Port-au-Prince who reportedly ran out of anaesthetic this week, a State Department spokesman tells TPMmuckraker.
"The United States has communicated its readiness to make medical relief supplies available to Cuban doctors working on the ground in Haiti as part of the international relief effort," said spokesman Darby Holladay.
Over 300 Cuban doctors were already in Haiti doing humanitarian work when the earthquake hit, and 100-plus more have since arrived, according to CNN. But a report in the Irish Times Tuesday describes how a Cuban medical team in Port-au-Prince ran out of key supplies, forcing them to perform amputations without anaesthetic.
Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, tells TPMmuckraker he and other pro-engagement advocates have been involved in an effort to reach out to U.S. officials and encourage cooperation with the Cubans in Haiti. He calls the State Department statement "tremendous if true."
In another sign of rare cooperation between the two adversaries, Cuba last week authorized American medical evacuation flights to go through Cuban airspace, cutting 90 minutes off the travel time from Guantanamo Bay to Miami.
"Non-politicized opportunities like this for our countries to work together, to do good together, help build the confidence needed to eventually normalize relations on a political level as well," says Sarah Stephens, executive director of the pro-engagement Center for Democracy in the Americas.
Holladay, the State spokesman, tells us the U.S. offer of medical supplies "reflects our overwhelming concern for the welfare of the Haitian people. We will continue to identify areas where our cooperation can support the overall relief effort in Haiti."
Meanwhile, some groups that favor the continuation of the Cuban embargo, are not pleased with the signs of cooperation. It's "absolutely unconscionable to try to use tragic disasters -- such as Haiti's earthquake -- as a springboard for bilateral relations," wrote Mauricio Claver-Carone, executive director of the hardline Cuba Democracy Advocates.
source: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/us_and_cuba_show_rare_...
Haiti quake may be opening for U.S.-Cuba cooperation
By Esteban Israel
January 20, 2010
HAVANA (Reuters) - The earthquake in Haiti is an opportunity for the United States and Cuba to set aside politics and work together to help a neighbor after it seemed their brief rapprochement under U.S. President Barack Obama was over, Cuba experts said.
Cooperation to help quake victims in the poorest state in the Western Hemisphere might allow the long-time ideological foes find common ground and lay a base for better long-term relations, they said.
In one tiny step, Communist-ruled Cuba last week allowed U.S. aircraft evacuating the injured from Haiti to cross its airspace, saving critical flight time.
And Cuban officials have said they are willing to work with anyone, including the United States, to help Haitians.
Ailing former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, a long-time critic of Washington who has handed over the presidency to his younger brother Raul, said Cuba was ready to "cooperate and join forces" with all other medical personnel deployed in Haiti.
"Haiti could become an example of what humankind can do for itself," Castro wrote in a column published in state-run media.
Dan Erikson of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington said that meant the earthquake, estimated to have killed up to 200,000 people, may be above politics for a while.
"The magnitude of the crisis is likely to eclipse political differences with the U.S. in the short term and smooth the way for Cuban participation in the multinational relief effort," Erikson said.
Joint efforts could include using airports in eastern Cuba to deliver aid to Port-au-Prince, 250 miles across the Caribbean, easing the air traffic bottleneck that has delayed international aid to Haiti.
"If so, and if Cuba would agree, all nations with airlift capability could then deliver the aid as fast as Haiti can absorb it," said Phil Peters, a Cuba expert with the Lexington Institute in Virginia.
The U.S., which is spearheading the huge international relief effort and has around 12,000 military personnel in and near Haiti, could also provide needed supplies and medicines to over 400 Cuban doctors and paramedics who were already there when the quake struck on January 12.
CUBAN DOCTORS AT GUANTANAMO?
It also has been suggested the U.S. could bring Cuban doctors on to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in eastern Cuba to help treat Haitian quake victims.
"Enlisting with the Cubans in a joint effort to speed and magnify aid efforts to Haiti would set a new example for U.S. diplomacy that will return long-standing benefits to our nation and our relationships across the Western Hemisphere," said Sarah Stephens of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, a Washington group advocating closer relations with Cuba.
"And possibly, (it would) even set a new tone for the U.S.-Cuba relationship," Stephens said in a recent newsletter.
Not everyone is putting politics aside. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a Cuban ally, has accused the U.S. military of using aid operations as a cover to occupy Haiti.
Whatever the extent of U.S.-Cuban cooperation, analysts caution against expecting too much.
"The test should be to do anything that helps Haitians now, regardless of any political consideration," said Peters.
Cuba-U.S. relations appeared to warm last year under Obama, who promised to recast Washington's tense ties with the Communist-run island.
He slightly eased the longstanding U.S. trade embargo, lifting restrictions on Cuban-American travel and remittances to their homeland. He initiated talks on migration and a possible resumption of postal service.
But a series of diplomatic rifts including the arrest last month of an American contractor accused of delivering satellite communications gear to civilians in violation of Cuban law chilled the brief thaw.
After faintly praising Obama at the beginning of his presidency, Cuba has in recent weeks accused him of following the same policies as his predecessors.
source: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60J48820100120
Haiti: Out of the ruins
THE SCOTSMAN
By Richard Luscombe
January 19, 2010
The devastated nation needs help on a massive scale to get back on its feet – but though US aid is welcome, there are concerns over where the balance of power in Haiti will eventually lie
THE first images seen around the world of the earthquake in Haiti carried a powerful symbolism. Alongside the widely-seen pictures of the toppled presidential palace in Port-au-Prince came the sense of a country stripped of its leadership as it tried to come to terms with the devastation of its worst natural disaster of modern times.
Amid the chaos emerged its president, Rene Garcia Preval, his sleeves rolled up and his face covered in dust, as he and his staff helped pluck victims from the rubble, sometimes stepping over dead bodies to free them.
But with his government and its infrastructure lying as ruined as the city around them, it soon became clear that strong leadership, through the early stages of the crisis at least, would have to come from outside. Step forward the United States, which quickly took a controlling role in the immediate rescue and relief effort. Now, one week after the earthquake struck, America is beginning to look at its longer-term role in the rebuilding of the poorest country in the western hemisphere – and probably figuring just how much control it will allow others to exert.
“The classic US role is either complete neglect or, ‘We come in and run the show’,” said Sarah Stephens, executive director of the Centre for Democracy in the Americas, a group that monitors US policy in the region. “Here’s a great opportunity for the US and President Obama to take a different role, and to work with the Haitian government as it is. Haitians know best what Haitians really need.”
After a visit to Port-au-Prince on Sunday, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, was keen to promote the concept of an international coalition to help heal the wounds of the tragedy and rebuild the nation, with the will of the Haitian people at its heart. She issued a joint communiqué with Preval pledging co-ordination “among the various parties, including the Haitian government, the United Nations, the United States and the many international partners and organizations on the ground”.
In Haiti, however, there is growing concern that Preval has been a largely invisible spectator as the week unfolded. What is left of his government has bunkered down in a police station close to the airport, protected by a well-armed security team, and there have been sporadic demonstrations against the government’s perceived lack of action. “The government has lost its capacity to function properly, but it has not collapsed,” Preval assured his people.
Haitian citizens have a long history of disillusionment and distrust with their leaders, dating back to 1804 when the nation was founded. During and since the brutal rule of father-and-son dictators François “Papa Doc” and Jean-Claude Duvalier from the 1950s to 1970s, corruption was rife and any dissent brutally put down. A brighter future beckoned after the Haitian rebellion of 2004, in which another despised and corrupt leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was removed from office with unofficial help from the US, and France, a former colonial power.
Preval won the subsequent election and returned for his second spell as president, and has widely been perceived as a stabilizing influence. Despite four massive hurricanes that struck in 2008, the nation’s economy had returned to a relatively secure financial footing and the previously frequent violent uprisings became rare.
Until the earthquake, he remained relatively popular among Haitians, even though there remained criticism that Preval and his fellow ministers would regularly travel first class on flights to the US and drive around Port-au-Prince in a fleet of gleaming, top-of-the-range 4x4s, while more than 54 per cent of Haitians live on less than $1 (about 60p) per day, according to United Nations figures. Many of the bigger questions will now focus on what role Preval, and what is left of his government, will be able to take in the rebuilding of their own country.
Currently, Preval meets the US ambassador to Haiti, Kenneth Merten, at breakfast time each day, and various other ministers hold what are called “cluster meetings” at other times. It gives the impression, at least, of some kind of functioning government which has a hand in events. But with communications so poor, and almost all of the Haitian government ministries barely operating at all, the driving force realistically would seem to be coming from the Americans. The US will need to be sensitive to avoid a perception that it is taking over completely, experts say.
“If the US continues to play that controlling role, then yes, that could happen,” Stephens said. “In a crisis such as this, someone has to step up and take a controlling role and issue orders to get things done. As long as that is for practical reasons rather than political ones, then it is OK for us to have a heavy-handed role at the moment. But if we go in, take over and then leave it without leadership, it will leave Haiti weaker than before.”
Already squabbles are breaking out among coalition partners over the US control of airspace around Port-au-Prince. Both France and Brazil – which has control of United Nations forces in Haiti – protested to Washington that their own planes carrying aid were diverted to the neighbouring Dominican Republic, while priority was given to US military planes that brought in troops and then evacuated US citizens back to their homeland.
The US insisted that the airspace, though in the operational hands of its civil Federal Aviation Authority, is controlled only in consultation with the Haitian government, which it said had the final say over which flights came and went. But it was clear from comments made by Denis McDonough, the US deputy national security adviser, that the White House is keen not to upset its partners in the relief effort and assure them that Washington hasn’t just muscled in to take complete control.
“I don’t think any of this is petty,” he said when asked what he thought of the Brazilian and French protests. “When you’re dealing in life and death I think that everybody feels very strongly.
“But the bottom line is we’re working in very close co-ordination with the United Nations. We’re obviously making very clear that we’re doing everything in close consultation with the Haitian government. And we’re obviously drawing on the established networks and others who have been working here for years.
“So it’s absolutely understandable that tempers would flare and that frustrations would come forth here. And I think that’s all being directed toward improving the process and to making sure that it runs more smoothly.”
To emphasize it further, the US yesterday welcomed news from the European Union that it would send 330 million (about £290m) in emergency and long-term aid to Haiti. America’s own initial pledge of $100 million (about £61m) is certain to rise in the coming weeks, as the rescue and recovery effort morphs into a rebuilding operation, administration officials insist.
Meanwhile, Haitian-American groups in Florida – a state which is home to about half of the estimated 800,000 Haitians in the US – welcomed the American involvement but warned that it must not squander the opportunity.
“Once the television cameras go home again, the tendency is to revert to normal,” said Jean-Robert LaFortune, president of Miami’s Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition. “In the first days there is a lot of focus and right now there is a lot of sympathy from the international community, but we don’t know how long that sympathy will last.
“The task is Herculean to put Haiti back in the right spot, but the earthquake is an opportunity to not only put the country back together, but to make it better. We are hopeful that transformation will be not only physical but put things on a better path. The challenge is that the Haiti government, and the US, do not have enough resources to start rebuilding. The US has committed a lot to us but it can’t do it alone.”
A BLIGHTED HISTORY
• 1492: Christopher Columbus lands and claims the island of Hispaniola for Spain.
• 1697: The island is divided into French-controlled St Domingue and Spanish Santo Domingo.
• 1791-1803: Slave rebellion led by Jamaican-born Boukman Dutty against St Domingue colonists and Napoleon’s army. The former slaves triumph in 1803.
• 1804: The hemisphere’s second Republic after the US is declared on 1 January, 1804, by General Jean-Jacques Dessalines.
• 1806: Emperor Jean-Jacques Dessalines is assassinated.
• 1838: France recognises Haitian independence.
• 1915: The US president, Woodrow Wilson, orders Marines to occupy Haiti and establish control over customs houses and port authorities.
• 1934: The US withdraws from Haiti.
• 1957: Military-controlled elections lead to victory for Dr François Duvalier, pictured top, who in 1964 declares himself president for life and forms the infamous paramilitary group Tonton Makout.
• 1971: “Papa-Doc” Duvalier dies in office after naming his son Jean-Claude, 19, inset top, as his successor.
• 1983: Pope John Paul II visits Haiti and declares publicly: “Things must change here.”
• 1986: Widespread protests against “Baby Doc” lead him to exile in France.
• 1990: Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide, above, a parish priest, is elected president with 67.5 per cent of the vote.
• 1991: Aristide is deposed by the military, left
• 1994: The UN passes Resolution 940 authorising a multinational force “to use all necessary means” to facilitate the departure of the military régime.
• 1995: René Préval wins presidential elections.
• 2000: Aristide is elected president for a second non-consecutive term.
• 2004: Uprising against Aristide forces him into exile.
• 2006: A democratically-elected government headed by Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis takes office.
source: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/features/Haiti-Out-of-the-ruins.5992401.jp
U.S. Mulls Role in Haiti After the Crisis
NY Times
January 18, 2010
By HELENE COOPER and MARK LANDLER
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s aggressive response to the deadly earthquake in Haiti has led to criticism from the far right that the United States is taking on too much, at a time when its foreign-policy plate is already full.
But the more relevant question, experts on the region say, is whether the United States will maintain a muscular role in the reconstruction of Haiti once the news cameras go home. The United States has a history of either political domination or neglect in its backyard, and administration officials acknowledge that for Mr. Obama, striking the right balance in Haiti will be crucial.
“The classic U.S. role in the whole hemisphere is either complete neglect, or we come in and run the show,” said Sarah Stephens, executive director for the Center for Democracy in the Americas. But with Haiti, a mere 700 miles from Miami, “there is a great opportunity for the United States to do this in a new way,” she said.
Mr. Obama has pledged that the United States is in Haiti for the long haul. On Sunday, he mobilized military reserves — particularly medical staff for hospital ships — signing an executive order that said it was necessary to back up active-duty troops “for the effective conduct of operational missions, including those involving humanitarian assistance, related to relief efforts in Haiti.”
American troops have taken control of the airport at Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, and are helping to provide security for the enormous international relief effort. A steady stream of administration officials have headed south, from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton — who cut short a trip to the South Pacific, rushed home, and then flew to Haiti on Saturday — to one of Mr. Obama’s closest aides, Denis R. McDonough, the National Security Council’s chief of staff.
“We will be here today, tomorrow, and for the time ahead,” Mrs. Clinton said to Haitian journalists in Port-au-Prince, standing alongside President René Préval.
With so many others in the Haitian government missing or dead, the Obama administration is already facing questions of whether the United States is the only entity capable of bringing order to Port-au-Prince. Beyond that is the question of whether Mr. Obama can handle Haiti at a time when he is already grappling with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“The short answer is yes,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois and a frequent visitor to Haiti. “As challenging as it is, there is no question about it straining our capacities at home. This is a tiny country. It’s close, and it’s not going to be our job alone to rebuild.”
Mr. Obama has indicated that the amount the United States has pledged so far to Haiti, $100 million, is bound to go up significantly. Still, it is well below the $350 million that President Bush pledged in the early weeks of the Asian tsunami, which killed 226,000 people after it struck in December 2004.
And while Mr. Obama has increased the number of American troops in Afghanistan by 30,000 to just below 100,000, and promised ambitious efforts to stabilize Yemen and Pakistan, the number of American troops being sent to Haiti is of course smaller — some 10,000 Marines and soldiers by Monday, military officials said.
The bigger issue may be sustaining the effort. In 2009, much of the administration’s energy was focused on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, with little time on this hemisphere. The administration’s new point man for Latin America and the Caribbean — Arturo Valenzuela, the assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere — was confirmed only in November.
In the past, American interest in Haiti has waxed and waned. President Clinton sent 20,000 troops there in 1994 to restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power, an intervention still viewed today as producing, at best, mixed results.
If Haiti’s only problem were poverty, American officials discovered at the time, the job of building its economy would have been one thing. But endemic government corruption and a history of post-colonial abandonment left Haiti in shambles 10 years later, when Mr. Aristide was finally driven from power in 2004.
In the years since 1994, Haiti has resurfaced in the American conscience only during times of crisis: the Aristide meltdown; and after four devastating storms in 2008 that wiped out most of the country’s food crops and damaged irrigation systems, causing acute hunger for millions.
Some Haiti experts say that despite the criticism from conservative commentators — Glenn Beck complained that Mr. Obama spent more time reacting to the Haiti earthquake than he did to the attempted Christmas Day terrorist attack — the heart-rending tragedy in Haiti may make it impossible for the United States to ignore it once the news media attention goes away.
Mr. McDonough, the national security aide, spoke to that in a call with reporters on Sunday, saying that the administration was determined to do everything it could to alleviate the suffering in Haiti. “The more we hear criticism, the more we are intent on trying to improve the lot of the Haitian people,” he said.
What is more, the administration and the international community appear to be uniform in their belief that Mr. Préval, unlike Mr. Artistide, is someone with whom they can deal. They credit him with taking steps in recent years to develop the economy.
Mrs. Clinton said a major reason for her four-hour visit to Port-au-Prince was to buck up Mr. Préval. At one point on Saturday, the Haitian president walked through the makeshift American command center at the airport, appearing dazed by the clamor.
But he seemed comforted by the presence of Cheryl D. Mills, Mrs. Clinton’s chief of staff, who is in charge of the Haiti portfolio at the State Department and who has made multiple visits to Port-au-Prince over the last few months.
Administration officials say the White House can handle Haiti without neglecting its other concerns. They noted that Mr. Obama convened a National Security Council on meeting on Friday to discuss the implementation of his new Afghanistan policy.
“It’s only a problem if the whole government isn’t functioning properly,” a senior administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he did not want to publicly discuss internal matters. “What you see here is a good example of the government functioning well.”
Helene Cooper reported from Washington, and Mark Landler from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/world/americas/18policy.html?pagewante...
U.S. Involvement in Haiti
January 18, 2010
KCBS All News 740 AM
Sarah Stephens, executive director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, on the federal government's lasting role in Haiti, long after the media's focus on relief efforts in the region...
Listen to the interview here.
Latin America Advisor - January 15, 2010
Sarah Stephens, executive director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, was quoted in the Latin America Advisor which is published by the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington:
"Roberto Micheletti, along with his government, is the source of Honduras' problems; not the solution. They have been intransigent from the outset of the coup through the balance of Honduras' political crisis, and unwilling to honor the San Jose Accords. Neither U.S. nor regional policy should reflect what Micheletti does or doesn't do between now and the inauguration of the Lobo government. Rather, the focus of policy going forward should be restoring the democratic order and fully protecting the human rights, press freedoms and other political rights that Hondurans need and have been denied since June 28. The changing of the guard in Honduras offers U.S. policymakers the opportunity to get back into alignment with majority sentiment in the region, and the chance to insist that the Lobo government honor elements of the San Jose Accords like supporting a truly inclusive national dialogue and creating a real and effective truth commission. This is the right direction for U.S. policy, for the region and for the future of Honduras and the restoration of its democracy. Whether the Lobo government breaks decisively with the patterns and practices of the coup government will determine what the region does in terms of recognition but also in dealing with Honduras' government going forward. For U.S. policymakers, it is my hope that they'll work harder at getting the aftermath right, after falling as short as they did at a time when it counted during the election campaign."
Read the full issue of the January 15th Latin America Advisor here.
To increase help for Haiti, Obama should let U.S-Cuba cooperation take flight
Huffington Post
Sarah Stephens, Center for Democracy in the Americas
January 15, 2010
After a sub-par performance in Latin America during 2009, the Obama administration has truly risen to this occasion with its forceful response to the humanitarian crisis in Haiti. President Obama has ordered his agencies to put this disaster on the top of their agendas, and has already committed $100 million in U.S. assistance. But the President, wisely, has cautioned it will take some long days before the full measure of U.S. relief can arrive in Haiti and show results.
These efforts will move faster because of an agreement with Cuba's government made public today that the United States can operate relief flights destined for Haiti over Cuban airspace.
No one should be surprised by Cuba's decision; they have a decades' long commitment to international cooperation in the face of national disasters, and our government has previously received cooperation from Havana on over-flights for weather detection and fighting hurricanes, on matters relating to security, and during disasters in Venezuela and Pakistan.
But the President should think about this: If Cuba is willing to cooperate with the United States in the air, shouldn't we cooperate with Cuba on the ground on initiatives that reflect our countries' shared interests in helping the people of Haiti? Doing so would quickly multiply the force of our efforts.
Let's not forget, Cuba is already there.
Haiti and Cuba signed a medical cooperation agreement in 1998. Present in Haiti before the earthquake struck were 344 members of the Cuban medical brigade who have been providing primary care, obstetrical services, and operations to restore the sight of Haitians with various eye diseases. Earlier this week, Cuba sent 30 more physicians along with food, medicine, plasma, and other items.
According to Spanish press reports, this contingent is already providing emergency medical care across Haiti for patients that Cuban doctors had already been treating for many years. Immediately following the earthquake, these doctors opened up two make-shift clinics in their residences because local hospitals were destroyed. Cuban doctors then moved to reopen the "Social Security" hospital and started operating on the injured. A day ago, the Cubans reopened the national hospital and started to treat people.
Their work could form the foundation for broad Cuban-U.S. cooperation.
First, as U.S. AID and military teams roll into Haiti, the U.S. government should make it clear that our personnel should cooperate, coordinate, and work with the Cuban medical personnel in Haiti. They know Haiti, they've been providing health care in Haiti since 1998, and they have been running a highly effective medical response since the earthquake occurred.
Second, the U.S. can help expand the reach and impact of the Cuban medical brigades. When they experience supply shortages, we should offer the Cubans medicines and other necessary assistance to help with their effort. Gary Maybarduk, a veteran of relief efforts with experience in Haiti, has urged lending the Cuban brigades durable medical equipment and using U.S. helicopters to transport them to inaccessible locations.
Third, we've seen reports that injured Americans - and possibly, injured Haitians – are being airlifted to the medical facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Our colleague at the New America Foundation, Col. Larry Wilkerson, has proposed that we open up Guantanamo to Cuban doctors.
Cuban doctors should be welcomed on to the base to assist in treatment and operations. Our armed forces - which have lengthy experience in cooperating with the Cuban military - could allow Cubans to come pick up (or they could transport) victims to Cuban hospitals for treatment.
Our militaries carry out exercises to practice for fires and other big accidents near the base that require joint efforts to treat the victims - this would be effective and it would assure quicker attention for the wounded.
Fourth, global leaders are calling for a summit to coordinate global responses to the Haiti tragedy. That summit could take place in Cuba, which is ideally located. If it doesn't happen there, Cuba should be invited and encouraged to play a leadership role in the coordination of response efforts.
President Obama knows the Cubans can do more than open up airspace to American flights. When he attended the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago last year, he made a public statement about the respect shown Cuban doctors by the heads of state he met at the Summit, and conceded that the U.S. had to engage in efforts like medical cooperation to reconnect our country to the people of the region.
The previous administration couldn't bring itself to do this. After Hurricane Katrina, Cuba's government offered to send 1,586 doctors and 25 tons of medical supplies to buttress what was obviously an insufficient response to the suffering of American citizens on our own Gulf Coast. Bush being Bush, his administration not only declined the offer but insulted the qualifications of Cuban doctors.
We need to be Samaritans and not silent or sarcastic about what Cuba has to offer. We have seen the better angels of Obama's nature, and we're hopeful that he would seriously consider cooperating with the Cuban government especially if it meant saving Haitian lives.
This tragedy is about Haiti, not Cuba or President Obama, and I recognize that. But we can help Haitians by enlisting with the Cubans in a joint effort to speed and magnify aid our efforts. Doing so would set a new example for U.S. diplomacy that will return long-standing benefits to our nation and our relationships across the Western Hemisphere. And possibly even set a new tone for the U.S.-Cuba relationship. We need it.
Follow Sarah Stephens on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sarahatcda
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-stephens/to-increase-help-for-hait_b...
Obama gets a black mark for 'black list' after promising to improve relations with Latin America
By Albor Ruiz
NY Daily News
January 10, 2010
It wasn't that long ago - barely a year - that a new, sane policy toward Cuba seemed possible after half a century of failure, absurdity and gratuitous cruelty.
Those were the days when candidate Barack Obama promised a "new partnership" with Latin America and a "recasting" of relations with the island.
"We've been engaged in a failed policy with Cuba for the last 50 years," the young, inspiring Illinois senator told a Miami crowd during his campaign for the White House.
Oh, but how things have changed in one year!
Now, because the State Department had designated Cuba as a "state sponsor of terror" in 1982, Cuban travelers will be subjected to extra security checks, along with those from Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Notice that Cuba's inclusion on the "black list" goes back 28 years, making even stronger the creepy sensation that U.S.-Cuba relations are preternaturally frozen in time.
"Obama's continuing to keep Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terror is a mistake," said Sarah Stephens, director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas.
"First, Cuba is not a security threat to the U.S. This is the view of many highly decorated U.S. military officers and experts on terrorism. Second, putting Cuba on this list gives the appearance of politicizing our effort to protect airline security rather than being focused on real threats. Third, Cuba's presence on the terror list is about domestic politics; we know that. And last, it is a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money."
Stephens is not the only one who thinks that way. After all, the only Islamic radicals in Cuba are in the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay.
"Cuba is a designated state sponsor of terrorism, and we think it's a well-earned designation, given their longstanding support for radical groups in the region," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said last week, referring to Colombian guerrillas. The State Department also mentions on its Web site that Cuba hosts several militants from the Basque separatist group ETA.
What Crowley didn't say is that the ETA militants live in Cuba as the result of an agreement with Spain, and that the Colombian government has asked Cuba to be a mediator in its negotiations with the insurgents.
He also failed to mention that although some people coming from Cuba have tried to smuggle in cigars and rum, not a single one has been found with anything that could be even remotely used in a terrorist attack.
Crowley also forgot to say that the U.S. has given refuge to the likes of Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative who was imprisoned in Venezuela (and escaped) for blowing up a Cubana flight in 1976, killing 73 people.
Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.), in a letter last Thursday to President Obama, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Secretary of State Clinton, demanded Cuba be removed from the "black list." McGovern called the department's reasons "shopworn arguments that run contrary to fact."
"U.S. attention, resources and energy [should be] focused on where threats genuinely reside, rather than squandered where there is no documented threat," the letter said. "The U.S. has many longstanding political and diplomatic problems with Cuba, but none of them relate to terrorism. In fact, engaging, collaborating and enlisting Cuba in the fight against international terrorism would be to the advantage of U.S. national security."
So much for Obama's "recasting" of relations
Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/01/10/2010-01-10_obama_gets_a_b...
Once riding high, Democrats in Washington now fear a fall
In an apparent reversal of fortunes, Democrats are now on the defensive heading into next fall’s elections.
By Steven Thomma and David Lightman
Jan. 7, 2010
McClatchy News Service
WASHINGTON -- What a difference a year makes. Last January, Democrats were streaming into Washington eager to celebrate not just the inauguration of Barack Obama as president, but also their party’s ascendancy.
They’d gained ground in once-Republican turf such as the Mountain West and the Border South, added to their majorities in Congress and topped it all by seizing the presidency. “Yes, we can,” a triumphant Obama trumpeted, and the country seemed to cheer in agreement.
Now, the country seems to be yelling back, “No, you can’t,” and putting the Democrats on the defensive heading into next fall’s elections, when the entire House of Representatives, 37 seats in the Senate and 39 governor’s offices are up for election.
PARTY’S SETBACKS
The president’s poll numbers have dropped. The party’s top domestic agenda item, healthcare, is unpopular. Its candidates lost key statewide races in New Jersey and Virginia in November, and now high-profile Democrats such as Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter and Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd say they’ll retire rather than risk losing next fall.
Whether it’s caused by a backlash against the Democratic agenda or the natural swing of the pendulum against the party that’s in power at a time of economic struggle, the result is the same: trouble for the Democrats.
Clifford Young, however, a pollster for Ipsos Public Affairs, sees a normal turn against the party in power, saying the Democrats overstated the significance of the 2008 election results.
“It was basically an election for change, so it favored the party out of power,” Young said. “But it didn’t say anything about a major shift in values. We didn’t see a huge shift in values that would favor the Democrats in the long term.”
Either way, the Democratic Party’s push to build a durable political majority is stalling.
ON CUBA POLICY
The early retirements of Dodd and Dorgan could affect ongoing efforts in Congress to ease U.S. sanctions against Cuba. Both senators -- Dorgan in particular -- have championed efforts to ease trade and travel restrictions against the communist government and their support would be key in the Senate.
“From an ideological point of view, no senator has been a bigger opponent of U.S. policy than Dodd, and from a business perspective, no one has advocated doing business with the Castro regime more than Dorgan,” said Mauricio Claver-Carone, director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee, which lobbies in support of the embargo.
Claver-Carone noted the pair still has several months left in their tenure, but added that “it’s a game changer for 2011.”
Both senators last March introduced legislation that would allow all Americans to travel to Cuba. Dorgan in 2000 authored legislation that opened up agricultural trade with Cuba and has been a major supporter of normalizing relations with the island. Just last month, Dorgan succeeded in softening restrictions on agricultural exports to the island, but complained that another proposal to strip funding to Radio and TV Martí was “emasculated” and failed to pass.
Sarah Stephens, the executive director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, said there’s still support in the Senate for easing restrictions.
Still, she said, “Our hope is that since it’s been such a priority for both of them that maybe there will be an extra effort during this last period of their tenure to make it happen.
“There are a lot in the Senate who want the policy to change, but the ones who have stepped up are the two of them,” she said.
Miami Herald staff writer Lesley Clark contributed to this article from Washington.
source: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/story/1413130.html
Inertia on US-Latin America Relations
By: Jim Lobe
January 6, 2010
HAVANA TIMES, Jan. 5 (IPS) - Nearly one year after his inauguration, hopes that President Barack Obama would bring fundamental changes to U.S. relations with Latin American have faded badly.
Distracted by the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, a major legislative battle over health care policy, and the two wars in the Greater Middle East left to him by his predecessor, George W. Bush, Obama has had very little time to devote to tending ties with Washington’s southern neighbors.
And it didn’t help that some of his most important appointments, notably Arturo Valenzuela as his assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs and Thomas Shannon as his ambassador to Brazil, among others, were held up for months by right-wing Republican senators determined to prevent Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, viewed by them as a proxy for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, from returning to power.
But, despite a promising start with Obama’s appearance and pledge to pursue “engagement based on mutual respect” at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad last April, his administration has fumbled a number of issues in ways that have contributed to what appears to be the growing disillusionment.
About Face on Honduras, Accord on Colombia Bases
Most recently, the administration abruptly reversed its demand - along with that of all of the Latin American states - that Zelaya, who was ousted in a military coup d’etat last June be reinstated before the November elections. And the U.S. failed to consult and reassure its sister nations in advance about a new, 10-year accord with Colombia that gives Washington access to seven military bases around the country.
“The administration’s about-face in Honduras over recognizing the legitimacy of the elections prior to Zelaya’s restoration appears to have had more to do with pressure from Senate Republicans over the confirmation of Valenzuela,” according to Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin America program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
“The Colombia case had more to do with a profoundly inadequate process of consultation and vetting with regional allies,” she noted.
In both cases, Washington found itself isolated from most of the rest of the hemisphere, notably from Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in whose embassy in Tegucigalpa Zelaya continues to be living.
Lula Frustrated with Obama
Obama has ostentatiously courted Lula - he called him “my man” and “the most popular politician on Earth” at the G20 Summit in London last April - as Washington’s most important South American partner. However, Lula recently accused the U.S. president of “ignoring Latin America” and failing to follow through on his Trinidad pledges.
“While Obama began the year hoping to forge a truly strategic partnership with Brazil, the mishandling of both Honduras and the bases agreement in Colombia, whose precise implications for the region remain pretty murky despite the administration’s efforts to reassure the region, have caused serious friction and damaged the bilateral relationship,” according to Geoff Thale, program director at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).
Aside from those snafus, the Obama administration has also failed to address more enduring problems in its relations with Latin America.
Little Movement Regarding Cuba
While he has made several conciliatory gestures toward Cuba, he has not gone nearly as far as many of his supporters here and in the region had anticipated in lifting the nearly universally detested trade embargo or normalizing ties with Havana.
“Although President Obama departed from the Bush policy - by restoring Cuban American travel to Cuba, granting visas to some artists, and restarting the migration talks - he has preserved much of the Cold War essence of our policy just like every president since Eisenhower,” noted Sarah Stephens, director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas. “And like them, he has nothing to show for it.”
“While Cuba is not very important to the U.S. strategically, it’s symbolically tremendously important to Latin America,” noted Thale. “Many people in the region expected the Obama administration, if not to end the embargo, to at least take significant steps in that direction.”
“What we’ve seen so for is very little and very limited,” he went on. “So, the message to the region is not much has changed from Bush.”
Drug War Strategy Remains “Supply Side” Oriented
Similarly unchanged is Washington’s policy on Colombia, by far the biggest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, and the “war against drugs” that has been conducted mainly in the Andean countries, although increasingly in Mexico and Central America.
Shortly after taking office, Obama had explicitly recognized that reducing demand in the U.S. needs to be given a much higher priority, a sentiment that was echoed in a hopeful public statement by respected former presidents of Colombia, Mexico and Brazil last February.
“Despite acknowledging the demand side of the problem, we still appear to be fighting it on the supply side,” according to William LeoGrande, a Latin America policy expert and dean of the School of Government at American University here.
“The real issue is, what’s the long-term strategy that shifts the focus from trying to stop supply to reducing demand? Because we’ve got almost half a century now of fighting the war on the supply side, and it’s pretty clear that we’re losing it,” he added.
Meanwhile, reform of U.S. immigration laws, another longstanding irritant in U.S.-Latin relations, has been forced to give way to more urgent domestic priorities.
A long-pending Colombia free-trade accord - which some consider another key test of Washington’s commitment to the region - appears unlikely to be submitted to Congress for ratification during the coming election year.
“The Obama administration really has yet to make its mark on hemispheric relations simply because it’s been overwhelmed by other crises and priorities,” according to Arnson, who said there has been “significant continuity in practice” despite “a profound shift in diplomatic tone and style in favor of a more collaborative approach.”
LeoGrande, however, sees a greater structural problem. “The fact is, every administration comes in promising a new policy toward Latin America, and none of them, with the exception of Ronald Reagan, ever have one. They all had to cope with much more pressing problems elsewhere in the world.”
“So Latin America policy is sort of on autopilot, because the (the top officials) don’t have time to focus on it, and the assistant secretaries don’t have the authority to make fundamental changes,” he added.
Publican fotos de Fidel Castro en silla de ruedas
Por JUAN O. TAMAYO
El Nuevo Herald
5 de enero de 2010
Tres páginas de internet nicaragüenses publicaron nuevas fotos de Fidel Castro usando una silla de ruedas y lo que parece ser una furgoneta de transporte para asistir a varias reuniones con el presidente Daniel Ortega en La Habana el año pasado.
Las 12 fotos a color fueron publicadas el lunes por El 19 Digital, La Voz del Sandinismo y El Pueblo Presidente, todos con lazos estrechos con el Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional de Ortega. Posteriormente se publicaron también en Cubadebate, una página oficial de internet de Cuba.
El Nuevo Herald no pudo confirmar independientemente la autenticidad de las fotos. De confirmarse, sería la primera vez que Castro se ve en silla de ruedas desde que fue sometido a una operación de emergencia en el 2006.
Un texto breve que acompaña las fotos afirma que fueron tomadas durante dos visitas de Ortega a la isla en abril y diciembre del 2009, pero no especifica cuántas veces se reunieron. A juzgar por los cambios de ropas de Castro y otros en las fotos, parece que se tomaron por lo menos en tres ocasiones.
Cinco de las fotos muestran a Castro sentado en un tipo de silla de ruedas que se usa en los hospitales de Estados Unidos, con cuatro ruedas pequeñas y un apoyacabezas alto. En siete de las fotos está sentado a una mesa con ruedas del tipo que también se usa en los hospitales.
Tres de las imágenes lo muestran de pie sin ayuda de nadie y en otra está parado pero apoyándose en Ortega y un hombre no identificado con un conjunto de entrenamiento deportivo rojo, blanco y azul, los colores de la bandera nacional.
En otra fotografía aparece en exteriores, de pie detrás de lo que parece ser una furgoneta de transporte, con las puertas traseras abiertas y un apoyamanos de metal. La esposa de Castro, Dalia Soto del Valle, se ve dentro de la furgoneta.
Los fotos también muestran a la esposa de Ortega, Rosario Murillo; a Raúl Castro, al canciller cubano, Bruno Rodríguez, y a Fidel Castro con un grupo de niños y jovencitos que una de las páginas de internet nicaragüenses describió como miembros de la familia Ortega.
El rostro de Castro no parece muy diferente al de otras otras fotos dadas a conocer en el 2009, dijo Dan Erickson, analista de asuntos cubanos en Diálogo Interamericano y autor de The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States, and the Next Revolution.
"Está hablando en un entorno normal y parece que participa en la conversación'', dijo Erickson. "Está haciendo afirmaciones y la gente claramente le está prestando atención''.
La furgoneta de transporte indica que puede moverse por la Habana y que no está restringido a su casa o un hospital.
Pero la silla de ruedas y la furgoneta, agregó Erickson, también muestran que Castro sigue "afectado y necesita asistencia para subir y bajar del vehículo. Eso indica que no se ha recuperado completamente, y en esta etapa es muy poco probable que se recupere totalmente''.
La mayoría de las fotos muestran a Castro, de 83 años, sentado y hablando con Ortega en una casa de La Habana, con lo que parece ser un par de colmillos de elefante debajo de un vitral al fondo.
Otras lo muestran con calzado negro de caminar y tres juegos diferentes de entrenamiento deportivo, uno de chaqueta blanca y pantalones grises, otro de chaqueta blanca y pantalones negros y el tercero rojo, blanco y azul.
Castro ha permanecido alejado del público desde que se informó que le extirparon parte del tracto digestivo en el 2006. Fue reemplazado formalmente por Raúl Castro al frente del gobierno a principios del 2008.
Pero varios informes lo presentaron en mucho mejor estado de salud en el 2009, caminando por un vecindario del oeste de La Habana, escribiendo más de 100 de sus ‘‘reflexiones'' y todavía con una poderosa influencia sobre los asuntos del país.
Max Lesnik, comentarista de radio de Miami que visita La Habana con frecuencia, dijo que altos funcionarios cubanos le dijeron que ‘‘no se siente temor por su vida en lo inmediato'' y que "mentalmente está muy claro''.
Lesnik recordó, además, que el presidente Franklin D. Roosevelt gobernó Estados Unidos desde una silla de ruedas durante más de una década.
Sarah Stephens, directora del Centro de Democracia para las Américas, con sede en Washington, dijo que la "preocupación... obsesiva por la salud de Fidel Castro no nos ha llevado a ninguna parte. Es una falta de respeto para el pueblo cubano y contraproducente para la política estadounidense''.
"La transición en Cuba ocurrió hace dos años y necesitamos lidiar con el presidente Raúl Castro, de manera directa, sin importar cómo aparezca el ex presidente en fotografías'', escribió Stephens en un mensaje electrónico a El Nuevo Herald.
Source: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/ultimas-noticias/story/621389.html
A terrorism designation Cuba doesn't deserve
The Washington Post
By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, January 5, 2010; A15
Under new rules prompted by the failed Christmas Day terrorist attack, airline passengers coming to the United States from 14 nations will undergo extra screening: Afghanistan, Algeria, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. For our first quiz of the new decade, which country doesn't fit with the others?
The obvious answer is Cuba, which presents a threat of terrorism that can be measured at precisely zero. Cuba is not a failed state where swaths of territory lie beyond government control; rather, it is one of the most tightly locked-down societies in the world, a place where the idea of private citizens getting their hands on plastic explosives, or terrorist weapons of any kind, is simply laughable.
There is no history of radical Islam in Cuba. In fact, there is hardly any history of Islam at all. With its long-standing paranoia about internal security and its elaborate network of government spies and snitches, the island nation would have to be among the last places on Earth where al-Qaeda would try to establish a cell, let alone plan and launch an attack. Yet Cuba is on the list because the State Department still considers it -- along with Iran, Sudan and Syria -- to be a state sponsor of terrorism.
Really? Despite the fact that the U.S. Interests Section in Havana was one of the few American diplomatic posts in the world to remain open for normal business, with no apparent increased security, in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks?
The Obama administration has made many admirable moves to bring U.S. foreign policy into closer alignment with objective reality. But progress toward a fact-based relationship with Cuba has been tentative and halting, at best. Obvious steps that could only serve U.S. interests -- and, in the process, almost surely make Cuba a more open society -- remain untaken.
Last month, New York Times correspondent Tim Golden and I hosted a lunchtime conversation -- and mini-concert -- in Washington with Carlos Varela, a singer-songwriter who is often called Cuba's Bob Dylan. The event, sponsored by the New America Foundation's U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative and the Center for Democracy in the Americas, was notable for the fact that it could take place at all: Varela's only previous trip to the United States was in 1998. He wanted to come again in 2004, but the U.S. government refused him a visa.
The George W. Bush administration adopted a hard-line policy of denying visas to most Cuban artists, including some who were trying to come because they had been nominated for Grammy Awards. The fact that Varela got a visa this time is indicative of a partial thaw, but there has not yet been a full return to the pre-Bush status quo, when the question that preoccupied Cuban musicians was whether the Castro government would let them out, not whether the U.S. government would let them in.
In May, the Obama administration denied a visa to world-famous Cuban folk singer Silvio Rodriguez, who had hoped to perform at a concert in New York marking the legendary Pete Seeger's 90th birthday. I suppose it's possible to draw a distinction -- Rodriguez is known as a true believer in the communist system that Fidel Castro installed, while Varela, without explicitly criticizing the regime, uses nuance and metaphor to question the government and express the impatience of Cuban youth. But since when is the United States afraid of exposure to a competing ideology?
The Obama administration has inched forward in the right direction. Last April, the president lifted restrictions on how often Cuban Americans can visit relatives on the island and how much money they can send to family members. Basically undisturbed, however, are the main pillars of a half-century's worth of failed policy toward Cuba: the ban that effectively keeps almost all other Americans from traveling to Cuba, and the trade embargo that forbids U.S. companies from doing business there.
Granted, the president already has plenty on his plate. He may be reluctant to introduce yet another variable. It's not hard to imagine a senator or a group of House members holding, say, health-care reform hostage over Cuba policy.
But it's difficult for me to believe that Obama fails to see how insane our current policy really is. He needs to change it -- and he can begin by ceasing to pretend that looking for al-Qaeda terrorists on flights from Cuba is anything but a big waste of time.
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/04/AR201001...
