August 8, 2011

The American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants requested in a letter sent to Cuban head Raul Castro that he free American contractor Alan Gross “for humanitarian reasons.”

The Section for Crimes against State Security of the Cuban Supreme Court approved Gross’ sentence on Friday, confirming the penalty of 15 years of imprisonment for “actions against the independence or integrity of the State” first passed on March 12, after which there is the possibility of a pardon.

The Vice President of the Gathering, Elan Steinberg, emphasized that Gross, 62, is “an active member” of the organization and has developed “multiple humanitarian projects across the globe,” and “improved the lives of thousands of people.”

“When he was arrested, he believed he was advancing his humanitarian labors in Cuba,” added the declaration, which emphasized that the contractor “has lost 90 pounds,” suffered “serious physical ailments,” and suffers from “stress” and “anguish” owing to “his daughter’s ongoing fight with cancer.”

Todos Somos La Resistencia (Spanish)

Raul Wants to Cash-In on Housing “Market”
at 10:26 AM Thursday, August 4, 2011
from Capitol Hill Cubans
Yesterday, the New York Times ran a story based on speculation that the Castro brothers will allow Cubans (some time next year) to sell the homes they reside in.

It was obviously pre-written in anticipation that Castro’s National Assembly might take up the issue during this week’s biannual meeting.

However, the topic wasn’t raised — at all.

Moreover, no one has actually seen the much-heralded legislation — it has only been the subject of teasers by Castro’s media.

But why stop a good headline.

Ironically, the underlying premise of the NYT story seems to be:

It’s “exiting” for Cuban-Americans to travel and send money to Cuba (and even to break U.S. law on commercial transactions) in order to “invest” in property — so long as the Castro brothers are in power.

Otherwise, as in the past, it would have been portrayed as greedy Cuban exiles preying on poor and helpless Cubans on the island.

It’s almost as if they prefer the illusion of a “benevolent dictator” to the “rule of law.”

Meanwhile, Cuba “experts” hail media reports of Raul’s supposed home sale “reform” as transformational.

Is it really?

In essence, the Castro regime is simply looking for a way to absorb, control and capitalize from a long-time practice in the black market.

But caveat emptor: confiscation remains inviable — for the Castro regime ultimately owns everything on the island.

Thus, the Castro brothers can profit in the short-term with no long-term risk to what’s ultimately “their” property.

As this 2002 paper from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies explores:

[Cuba's] 1984 Housing Law introduced important changes, permitting free market prices for sales and legalizing most other previously illegal transactions. The state retained its right of first refusal primarily as a form of land use control, but largely was unsuccessful. A year of rampant speculation prompted the government to require that most sales be directly to the state, except for property transfers to close relatives. These transactional limitations in turn motivated many Cuban families to exchange rather than sell their houses. Since home loans are personal loans, not mortgages, residents normally carried their debts with them.

Because of limitations on buying and selling in the housing market, real estate agents did not legally exist in Cuba. This private sector function, however, did develop illegally. Rather than legally swap properties without exchanging money, many Cubans either gather at an informal open-air market bearing slips of paper with their offers and demands or hire illegal real-estate agents known as permuteros to arrange land deals. A government-managed market now exists to exchange units. Buying or selling of units is allowed, but only at state-fixed prices, with the government retaining the first option to purchase. Typically, those wishing to exchange units initiate a one for one swap, although a swap of one unit for two lesser-priced units is also permitted. Land or the right to build on roofs may be purchased at free-market prices from private individuals, and permanent surface rights to state-owned land can be bought at lower “legal prices.” Because of state price-fixing, a substantial black market for real estate transactions has developed with units being exchanged for two to three times the legal value. This market has grown in recent years with the legalization of the dollar. Cubans receiving part of their salary in dollars or contributions from overseas family members have additional purchasing power for homes, but are limited in their ability to purchase via the legal market. Transactions in which homes are illegally exchanged for cash are known as “permutas.”

Recognizing this trend, government confiscation of private property and punishment for illegal housing sales has increased in recent years. Cuban officials justify their actions by contending that residents have become too greedy. Juan Contino leads the movement of Cuba’s state-affiliated neighborhood groups, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. He warns, “The day money is the factor behind distribution of the nation’s properties is the day we will be divided into social classes. We will not allow that.”

Decree 211, issued in 2000, empowers housing authorities with the right to confiscate properties and authorize constructions and remodelings. According to Granma, the Communist Party’s official newspaper, in 2000 there were 1,400 house confiscations, 548 expulsions of illegal occupants, and more than $1.5 million in fines for property crimes.

August 2, 2011

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont lifted the government’s block on funds for pro-democracy in Cuba after resolving disagreements with the State Department over democracy-promotion programs on the island.

The end of the freeze will permit the Obama administration to invest $20 million in such programs.

In a release sent to the Associated Press this Tuesday, Leahy said that he had released the funds after receiving more information from USAID on how the funds were used.

The Cuba program, established in 1996, has been the subject of an investigation following reports that suggested the recipients of the funds used them in a dissatisfactory manner, and that the government exercised inadequate oversight.

The Obama administration has agreed to revise its democracy promotion efforts, according to a spokesman for Senator John Kerry, who freed the funds last week.

July 29, 2011
by Juan O. Tamayo of the Miami Herald

Sen. John Kerry officially lifted his “hold” on a $20 million for U.S. programs to promote democracy in Cuba on Thursday after a day-long brouhaha over the funds and Havana’s possible release of Alan Gross, a U.S. government subcontractor jailed in Cuba.
Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vernont still has a separate hold on part of the funds, but three Capitol Hill staffers said his concerns could be quickly resolved by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development…
Read more

27 July, 2011

Former prisoner of the Group of 75 Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez, said from Havana that the debate between Oscar Elias Biscet and Oswaldo Payá regarding the newly released charter, “El Camino del Pueblo” (The Path of the People), is of a personal character, evincing something of a leadership contest between the two.

Biscet wrote on the website La Nueva Nación that the document – signed by most of the internal opposition’s biggest names – is “intensely socialist” in character, and lamented the fact that the document’s reform proposals are to include “the participation of the same hierarchs that have been destroying the Cuban nation for the last fifty years.”

“It’s nothing more and nothing less than the continuation of communism, in Castro-Stalinist terms, and will serve to save communism,” emphasized Biscet.

Payá and other opposition leaders have expressed dismay at Biscet’s tough stance, at the same time recognizing that his disagreement is an exercise in democratic expression. They emphasize, moreover, that “El Camino del Pueblo” stresses the necessity of legal changes to guarantee freedom of expression, the press, assembly and religion, the right to freely enter and exit Cuba, free enterprise and a new electoral procedure.

July 25, 2011

The 2002 Sakharov Human Rights Prize laureate, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, has commented that “there are many pastors, within and without Cuba, that are true pastors for peace and that have always been working for peace, for solidarity, and for the support of the needy, just like priests and religious leaders of all creeds.”

Payá made the comment in reference to the group “Pastors for Peace,” a US-based interfaith organization engaged in illegal travel to Cuba which behaves as “a political group, wrapped in the flag of the Christian Church.”

“[This characterization] is fair, considering the Christian Churches and the community of Cuban Christians outside of the island, who constantly exert themselves to help the Cuban people (…) and no one raises a political flag to give them medicine or a wheelchair.”

Payá emphasized that the Catholic Church and other Christian organizations work for peace and solidarity in Cuba, “without as much display of political propaganda or without such a close relationship with the regime as Pastors for Peace.”

Pastors for Peace is a US-based inter-religious organization with close ties to the leftist Venceremos Brigade and the US-Cuba Labor Exchange, which regularly engages in illegal trips to the island in order to bring down what they call the “immoral and unjust Economic blockade” of the regime.

July 22, 2011

Cuban Archbishop Pedro Meurice died this morning at Mercy hospital in Miami, Florida. He became immensely popular in Cuba when he in welcoming John Paul II at a mass said that Cubans “are respectful of authority and like order, but they need to learn to demythologize false prophets.” Born in Spain in 1932, he became a Catholic priest in 1955. Twelve years later in 1967 he was named bishop of Santiago de Cuba, the island’s second largest city. In the summer of 1970 he was appointed Archbishop. He also served as Primate Bishop, the traditional investiture of the bishop of the oldest diocesis in Cuba.

During his long life, the archbishop played an important role in the struggle of the Cuban people to overcome hardship, suffering, repression, and adversities. In1999, Georgetown University awarded Archbishop Pedro Meurice a doctorate honoris causa. During the early years of the revolution, when young Catholics taken to the execution wall died crying “long live Christ”, when priests were expelled from the island, and Catholic schools and other institutions were confiscated by the regime, Meurice remained steadfast in his religious and patriotic convictions, helping the poor and those unjustly persecuted.

Perhaps, his most public moment came when he welcomed John Paul II before a mass celebrated by the pontiff in Santiago in January of 1998. Addressing the Pope before thousands of Cubans, the Archbishop said: I’d like to present to you, a growing number of Cubans who have confused the motherland with a party, the nation with a historical process that we have experienced in the last decades, and culture with an ideology.”

Cuba has lost not only a religious leader but a true patriot.

July 21, 2011

The Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Dionisio Garcia Ibanez, described the aggression visited upon the Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White) this past Sunday in El Cobre as undignified and unjustifiable.

“For the events that took place, there is no justification nor motive; the acts were undignified and unjustifiable,” declared Garcia in a statement to the press, adding that the violence took place in the street near the Sanctuary, after the women had left.

Dama de Blanco Belkys Cantillo Ramirez and 15 Damas de Apoyo (Ladies of Support) visited the church to pray for the liberty of Cuban political prisoners and participate in Sunday mass. Upon leaving the church, they walked two blocks and were assaulted by Cuban state security.

“Moreover, differences shouldn’t be resolved in this way. The ladies came to see me this very afternoon, and yes, they had to go to the hospital. They were very mistreated, very mistreated. What motives can you have to assault women?” said Garcia. “I will act as I think I ought to,” he added.