23 August, 2011

Republican congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen urged the Obama administration to strengthen its sanctions against Havana in retaliation for attacks on the Damas de Blanco.

“Once more, the henchmen of the perfidious Cuban regime have assaulted the Damas while they march peacefully in support of liberty and human rights in Cuba,” expressed Ros-Lehtinen, president of the House Foreign Relations Committee.

“The Castros’ regime of violence against women, including the Damas de Blanco, is increasing,” the legislator emphasized in a press released, in which she accused Havana of attempting to suppress and silence the Cuban people’s calls for liberty.

Ros-Lehtinen said that those democratic nations that express solidarity with freedom fighters in the Middle East and North Africa ought to support the democratic opposition in Cuba as well.

She urged the Obama administration to take measures against Havana similar to those it has adopted against the Syrian government.

“I urge the administration to demonstrate the same firmness against Castroite tyranny and repeal the relaxation of regulations against the regime in Havana,” she said.

August 21, 2011

by Mauricio Claver Carone

There’s a fine line to be drawn between Cuban-Americans visiting and sending money to relatives in Cuba and Cuban-Americans enjoying a cheap vacation on the island with a cursory nod to a second cousin. While the first is imbued with genuine humanitarian purpose, the latter is tantamount to tossing a financial lifeline to the Castros’ repressive dictatorship.

Unfortunately, over the last two-years, the Obama administration has made crossing that line all too easy and done so at a time when the Castros’ regime faces the greatest political, social and economic crisis of its 52-year history…Read more

August 18, 2010

During the last few weeks, the Castro regime has increased its control on opposition members, using new measures designed to prevent them from mobilizing in areas away from their home neighborhoods.

“We’re recognized wherever we go now. It’s a systematic persecution,” said former political prisoner Raul Risco, spokesman of the Democratic Alliance of Piñar del Rio. “We’re seeing more watchpoints equipped with computers to identify dissidents.”

Opposition member Guiller Fariñas, winner of the European Union’s 2010 Sakharov Human Rights prize, declared in Miami’s El Nuevo Herald that, in the interior of the country, the police have deployed more united and effective units to take over observation tasks. He added that police pressure and a mounting campaign of violence have been especially pronounced in the eastern provinces, such as Gutantanamo, Holgun, and Santiago de Cuba.

The increased vigilance on roads and highways has coincided with a growing wave of aggression and arrests in towns across Cuba. According to Elizardo Sanchez, spokesman for the banned Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation, in the first six months of 2011 there have been 1,727 arrests, in comparison with 821 for the same period in 2010.

August 17, 2011

Florida Republican Congressman David Rivera presented a bill to remove migratory status from Cubans who return to the island before completing five years’ residency in the United States, alleging that some abuse a loophole in the Cuban Adjustment Act and aid the Castro regime.

Rivera said that the original intent of the law was to provide legal status to Cuban refugees, because they could not return to Cuba. The situation requiring this move has not changed, with a communist totalitarian dictatorship still in power.

“We have to do something about those that use a law designed to protect them from persecution, who then travel back to the persecuting country in evident abuse of the law,” he said.

Rivera presented the proposal amid growing criticism that many people benefit from the Cuban Adjustment Act as seekers of refugee status, later to return to the island to visit their families or as a vacation.

The law, approved in 1966, offers Cubans residence in the United States 366 days following their arrival in the country, as well as other benefits. No other country’s citizens receive this treatment.

“El régimen militar de Cuba no reconoce ni respeta el derecho universal a viajar libremente de los cubanos, pero de esta manera trata a mi familia como un rehén y niega el encuentro entre nuestros familiares cubanos y españoles”, añadió Payá Sardiñas.

The Castro regime has prohibited Oswaldo Paya Acevedo, son of dissident leader Oswaldo Paya Sardinas, from traveling to Madrid to visit his family and attend World Youth Day, which will be hosted this week by Pope Benedict XVI.

Paya Acevedo, a 23 year old university student, received by the deadline permission from the dean of the Jose Antonion Echevarria Superior Polytechnic Institute, as well as a letter of invitation from his aunt, a Spanish citizen.

Finally, he presented to Cuban Immigration Services all of the required documentation, including a Spanish visa.

Immigration officials told him that he “could not travel, offering no excuses and that he could inquire at the Provincial Immigration Office. Having there inquired he was told that “the decision stands, he cannot travel,” denounced Paya, president of the Christian Liberation Movement.

August 15, 2011

The prices of basic foodstuffs in Cuba rose 7.8% in the first quarter of this year and sales decreased by 5.7%, according to figures released by the National Statistics Office (ONE) published in the official newspaper Juventud Rebelde.

The news organ cites ONE specialists who claim that agricultural products have decreased in volume while increasing in price. Nevertheless, in the last quarter it was necessary to make “unforeseen” imports of food, owing to low agricultural production.

The Minister of Economic Planning, Adel Yzquierdo, recently informed the National Assembly that the failure of the Ministry of Agriculture in the production of pork, milk, and beans has made necessary “millions of unplanned purchases” in the external market and the spending of $300 million on imports.

Raul Castro has maintained in his addresses that the production of food is a matter of “national security,” since the country annually spends more than $1,5 million to import 80% of its comestibles.

August 12, 2011

CFR

Cuban-American Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen met Tuesday with John Caulfield, the man slated to assume the post of Chief of the United States Interests Section in Havana in September, and urged him to continue promoting human rights and democracy on the island.

During a meeting in her office in Miami, Ros-Lehtinen, president of the House Committee on Foreign Relations, discussed the nature of the posting in Havana.

“It’s important that the Interests Section actively engage with the Cuban people, including Cuban civil society and dissidents, with the goal of helping foment democratic principles on the island, such as freedom of expression, of the press, and of assembly,” said Ros-Lehtinen in a statement.

The Congresswoman added that she hopes “to work closely with Mr. Caulfield in his new position, and we all hope that he works to promote US interests of helping the Cuban people succeed in a transition to a multi-party representative democracy.”

August 11, 2011

Human rights activits and opposition politicians are denouncing a noticeable increase in repression of the last few weeks, particularly pronounced in the eastern parts of Cuba. The repressive actions of the police and government agents range from denouncements of the Damas de Blanco in Santiago to assaults on opposition members with cold weapons.

“There’s a disquieting level of physical violence,” explained opposition member Rogelio Tabio Lopez, spokesman of the Democratic Resistance Movement in Guantanamo. “I can tell you that it’s going very badly,” said Tabio. “The political system in Cuba continues attacking us with paramilitary outfits and riot brigades. They don’t hold back.”

Tabio was among the group of 20 protestors who met to demonstrate solidarity with a fellow opposition member receiving treatment at Guantanamo Hospital for injuries received from a police beating. They had been attacked earlier this week by a large group of police.

Jorge Corrales, independent journalist from Guantanamo and director of the underground monthly Porvenir, commented that denouncements and harassment by organized gangs of thugs are as common as police displays designed to terrify the populace.

“There are more bands than ever before working in a concerted fashion against activists,” added Corrales. “This is something we’ve expected, since Castro himself authorized it.”

August 10, 2011

The Castro dictatorship criticized the American travel agency Abercrombie & Kent (A&K) for its move to suspend American tour trips to the island, attributing the decision to pressures from what Havana called “the Cuban-American mafia” in Florida.

On Tuesday, communist party organ Granma published a front page story affirming that the airline’s decision was made after questioning from the Office of Foreign Assets Control, a part of the US Treasury Department.

Granma also signaled that Cuban-American congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, whom Granma referred to as the “witch of the Capitol,” complained to the OFAC about the planned trips.

A&K, a luxury travel firm, had sold 13 excursion packages organized jointly with the Foundation for Caribbean Studies, which possesses an OFAC license, after Obama’s announcement on the 28th of last January easing travel restrictions to Cuba.

Corruption again alleged in Cuba

August 9, 2011
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO of the Miami Herald

A corruption scandal in Cuba has led to the dismissals of two deputy ministers of communications and the head of the state’s ETECSA telecommunications monopoly, according to reports Monday.
Another senior official of the Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A. (ETECSA) is “under a criminal process” and yet another has defected in Panama, according to the reports.
The reports appeared in the blogs Diario de Cuba, based in Spain and run by a group of well known exiled journalists, and A Vox Populi, written by Pablo Mendez Piña, an independent journalist in Havana.
They did not identify their sources and could not be independently confirmed. But El Nuevo Herald reported Sunday that Cuban prosecutors were investigating several top ETECSA officials for corruption.
Cuba’s official news media has reported nothing at on the scandal, but Havana residents said that word of the investigation and arrests has been circulating in the Cuban capital for a few weeks…
read more in The Miami Herald