ASCE CUBAN ECONOMIC NEWS CLIPPINGS SERVICE – Release # 10 – 8/17/01 - p. 1
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Every week we will select news related to Cuba’s economy that usually are not carried in mainstream media and on Friday will forward them to member e-mails. This will spare you the need to pursue the information in the various media by digging it out by yourself, while at the same time, as an ASCE member, you will be well informed of relevant economic trends and events in relation to the sugar crop, tourism, corruption or whatever. We will limit our selections to economic events, trends and commentaries from sources such as The Economist, El Nuevo Herald, Cubanet and Cuban publications.
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LIST OF CLIPPINGS IN RELEASE
p. 38/16 -The NYT, Cuba on the Morning After.
p. 58/16 -CNSNews, arrest of IRA men in Colombia highlihts Cuban connection.
p. 78/16 -The Washington Post, Fidel’s Irish Friends.
p. 88/16 -Granma, Legan al millon de toneladas petroleros del Centro.
p. 9 8/15 -El Nuevo Herald, Reduciran la cuota de azucar a la poblacion.
p. 98/16 – Cubanet, Aceite por azucar?
p. 108/15 - Granma, La mayoria en Estados Unidos apoya viajes turisticos a Cuba
p. 118/15 – Granma, Navegan y producen 255 barcos pesqueros de plastico
reforzado
p. 128/10 -CNN, Today overseas visitors generate more than 40 percent of Cuba’s
income.
p. 138/14 – Cubanet, Reflexiones sobre la produccion tabacalera cubana.
p. 15 8/14 – Cubanet, Ministerio de la Agricultura emite cifras enganosas.
p. 168/13 – Clarin, La situacion cubana: cambios profundos en la isla caribena,
Nace en Cuba “la clase media de los dolares.”
p. 188/12 -Revista Proceso, Creciente turismo de Estados Unidos hacia la isla de
Castro.
p. 228/11 – El Economista de Cuba, Industria alimentaria.
p. 248/11 -El Nuevo Herald, Castro gasta incontrolablemente en campanas de
propaganda.
p. 258/10 – Cubanet, Cuentas mal sacadas.
p. 278/10 - Granma, Sesiona en la Habana congreso bancario latinoamericano
THE NEW YORK TIMES, August 16, 2001
Cuba on the Morning After
By WILLIAM D. ROGERS
WASHINGTON
The state of Florida, Dade County and the city of Miami have an extensive plan for handling the departure from power of Fidel Castro. They expect a fiesta of no common size. Cuban exiles danced in Miami's streets when Mr. Castro fainted a few weeks ago. They watched hopefully as he stumbled Monday, in Venezuela, while celebrating his 75th birthday. The end does seem nearer. The average life expectancy for a Cuban man is 68.4 years. Nonetheless, Mr. Castro's father lived to 82, his mother even longer. Having stumbled in Venezuela, Mr. Castro went on to denounce the United States, drink champagne and make merry until dawn. Miami's party had to wait, again.
The most pressing question, however, is not how to handle the inevitable celebration but what to do the morning after. Mr. Castro's departure will leave a very large hole. He has dominated his country for more than four decades, reigning longer than most dictatorial leaders of the last century and, of course, much longer than the leaders of any of the democracies. Mr. Castro has survived an invasion of 1,200 troops backed by the United States Navy, a nuclear confrontation that came close to incinerating the island and desperate efforts to bring him down by nine American presidents. He now is working on his 10th.
For 42 years, he alone has exercised decisive power. Mr. Castro is himself the system, and when he goes he will take the system with him.
The "transition" has been a taboo subject in Cuba, but some there are beginning to speak more openly about it. Not that the issue is treated with clarity. To the suggestion that Mr. Castro is mortal, Cubans respond that though the leader may pass from the scene, "Castroism will live forever."
It is likely that the Cuban inner circle has some understanding that authority will be exercised collegially. Raúl Castro, Fidel's brother and head of the armed forces, is tipped as first among equals. But even Raúl has stated that no successor will have Fidel's hold on the Cuban people. Therefore, he has said, the United States should normalize its relations with the island while Fidel is alive.
But the point is, of course, that "normalize" is precisely what the United States has refused to do for 40 years. The embargo, as the Cubans call the American policy, bans any trade or commerce with the island.
This policy derives from a utopian conviction that when Mr. Castro goes, all will naturally change for the better. The island will transform itself into a happy free-market democracy. Therefore, the exiles contend — and they have persuaded Congress to go along — that we should allow only minimal human contact with Cuba, permit no trade and sue any European company that "traffics" in nationalized property.
This is where sober second thoughts should kick in. American policy plays into Mr. Castro's hands by giving substance to his charge that the United States, driven by the Cuban exile leadership, threatens Cuba's independence. More important, the dreamy view of post-Castro Cuba that underlies the embargo is belied by history.
No former Communist state has made a soft landing to democracy. When Communism disappeared in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, disaster ensued. The economies of all the members of the former Communist bloc collapsed. Those who could helped themselves to state property. Inequality skyrocketed. Health systems fell apart, life expectancy plummeted, jobs disappeared.
Even today, governments across the former empire function poorly. Human rights are in short supply, dictators abound and corruption is pervasive. Few of the former Soviet bloc economies have recovered the levels of production of a decade ago.
The post-Castro transition could likewise be grim. And if Cuba does mimic post-Communist Eurasia, this will not be a matter of indifference for the United States. Cuba could emerge, as it was in President Fulgencio Batista's days, as a refuge for organized crime; Cuba lies squarely between the narcotics labs in Colombia and ravenous drug markets in the United States. If the transition is unstable and the economy falls apart, there is also the distinct possibility of another wave of raft migration.
What the United States does now can affect the course of the transition after Mr. Castro. We should be searching for ways to make clear to the Cuban people that Washington does not regard them as permanent enemies. We should pursue opportunities for personal, commercial and diplomatic interchange with Cuba and cooperate in narcotics interdiction and international criminal justice.
In particular, we should establish contact with younger Cubans entering into responsible positions in the state enterprises, government departments and universities. There is a generation of Cubans reaching middle age with no memories of the revolution. This generation has enjoyed the broad access to education and the health-care protection possible under Mr. Castro's rule, and it is entirely possible that one legacy of the past 40 years will be the preparation of an educated middle class capable of building a prosperous nation. That legacy would indeed raise Cuba above all similar countries in the Caribbean and Central America, regardless of what systems they may have tried for themselves since 1959.
Above all, we should find ways to transform the image of the Cuban exiles in the United States from a threat to a promise — a promise of a better future for the 11 million Cubans who stayed on the island — which builds on the positive contribution that the Cubans here can make to a post-Castro Cuba. They are a remarkable bank of talent, in the arts, in politics, and most notably in business and commercial management. This has been the critical missing factor in the transformation of socialist economies to market systems. And in Miami, as in Cuba, there is an emerging generation ready to work and uninterested in fighting old battles.
Havana has held out a tentative hand of reconciliation. Cuba's foreign minister has said that his government would welcome a more open relationship. Cuba has embraced the exiles who return to visit.
Present United States policy is a collection of devices supposedly designed to bring the Castro regime to an end. It has been a signal failure. More important, for the present situation, it ignores both American and Cuban national interests, post-Castro. Indeed, it is making a dangerously hard landing all the more probable.
It is time for a change here, in anticipation of the coming change there.
William D. Rogers is a former assistant secretary of state for inter-American Affairs, co-chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations Cuba Task Force and Board Chairman of the Cuba Policy Foundation.
By Patrick Goodenough. CNSNews.com, London Bureau Chief. August 16, 2001
London (CNSNews.com) - As more information emerges about three Irish militants arrested in Colombia, the leading unionist party in Northern Ireland has called on Washington to take "stern steps" in the face of alleged terrorism and narcotics collaboration between the IRA and anti-U.S. Marxist terrorists in Latin America.
The development was not just a setback for the peace process, unionists said - it called into doubt the republicans' commitment to a non-violent resolution of the 30-year communal conflict.
President Bush should take steps to show that "democracy will not be held to ransom by Marxists whether they are Irish or Columbian," said the Ulster Unionist Party's Sir Reg Empey.
The UUP, embroiled in a bitter dispute with the IRA's political wing, Sinn Fein, over terrorist disarmament, has seized on the arrests as evidence that the republicans have not abandoned violence.
Although it has observed a ceasefire since 1997, the IRA this week withdrew an offer to disarm.
Three IRA men arrested in Colombia at the weekend are suspected to have been training Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels in bomb-making techniques. Police found traces of explosives and drugs on their clothing.
Their arrest has embarrassed Sinn Fein, which under the Good Friday agreement shares power with unionists and others in a self-rule government in Belfast.
Security sources say that one of the men - a Spanish-speaker who has been living in Cuba for several years – arranged an official trip to Havana next month for Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.
Another was filmed sharing a platform with Adams at a Sinn Fein party conference a decade ago, and the third was a Sinn Fein election official in 1996.
During the Clinton era, Sinn Fein leaders received a warm reception in Washington as the president pushed the parties toward an agreement often presented as a highlight of his foreign policy initiatives.
Clinton controversially granted a visa to Adams to visit the U.S. seven years ago, at a time the IRA had yet to agree to a ceasefire. He maintained that only by bringing the republicans in from the cold could a peace deal be achieved.
The UUP's Empey said that if the allegations against the three men arrested in Latin America were upheld, Bush and senior Irish-American figures should review their approach to Sinn Fein.
"The issue of visas to Sinn Fein members was based on their commitment to exclusively peaceful means. This is now in question, and President Bush may have to review his policy in this area," he said.
Empey argued that the alleged IRA activities in Colombia showed that while Irish terrorists had been saying they were committed to peace, they have been "engaged in exporting terrorism throughout the Western world."
The IRA links to FARC could only mean one thing, he said - "they are still wedded to their murderous ways in pursuit of their Marxist ideology."
Empey stressed FARC's actions against American citizens and firms, including terrorism and extortion.
"That's the misery Irish terrorists want to see inflicted on the free world, and that's what President Bush now needs to confront ... these people peddle drugs and inflict misery and death through their ruthless activities."
Another unionist politician in Northern Ireland, Peter Robinson, said he had learned from British intelligence sources information that made it clear the IRA-FARC cooperation was a two-way process.
"The relationship is that of an international terrorist exchange program to exchange knowledge, technology and training between the two organizations on armaments and explosives," Robinson said.
It appeared the Irish militants were learning from FARC about the use of a new type of explosive more powerful than Semtex, the IRA's standard bomb-making ingredient.
This information was in the possession of the British government, he said, and yet it persisted in making concessions to the republicans when it was clear they were not acting in good faith.
Cuba
FARC was designated as foreign terrorist groups by the State Department in 1997. The department's most recent global terrorism report says the group gets "some medical care and political consultation" from Cuba.
One of the three men being held in Bogota, Niall Connolly, is allegedly the IRA's link man in Cuba, and is understood to have been involved in organizing an eight-day trip by Adams and a Sinn Fein delegation to the communist nation next month, according to UK security sources quoted Thursday.
Sinn Fein, which has long attempted to keep a distance between itself and the IRA, has denied that any of the three men are currently party members.
A spokesman denied that Connolly had been involved in arranging the visit to Cuba.
Sinn Fein has no representative in Cuba or in South America, the spokesman said, adding that only its international department, based in Ireland, had been involved in preparation for the visit to Cuba.
For years many Irish republicans have seen the Cuban government as a natural ally.
Twenty years ago, President Fidel Castro publicly supported the IRA during a dramatic hunger strike which culminated in the deaths of 10 IRA prisoners. Sinn Fein's planned visit comes around the 20th anniversary of that episode.
The Irish republican mouthpiece, An Phoblacht, has long been supportive of Castro and critical of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.
In a typical two-part piece last spring, the weekly newspaper gave considerable space to a meeting in Dublin of "Cuban solidarity groups" from across northern Europe.
All original CNSNews.com material, copyright 1998-2001 Cybercast News Service.
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THE WASHINGTON POST - Editorials
Fidel's Irish Friends
Thursday, August 16, 2001; Page A24
NORTHERN IRELAND'S peace process is fraying, and it's increasingly clear who's to blame. The Irish Republican Army has precipitated the breakdown of Protestant-Catholic power-sharing in the territory by refusing to deliver its part of the peace bargain, which is to get rid of weapons. Last week the IRA did propose a plan to put its arsenal beyond use, and (despite the lack of a date on which this disarmament would start) called its gesture "historic." But on Tuesday it withdrew this piece of history. Unless the movement has the courage to return to the peace process, Northern Ireland may forfeit some of the benefits of the 1998 Good Friday agreement -- including benefits such as further British demilitarization that the IRA's Catholic constituency wants.
The IRA's excuse for withdrawing its disarmament offer is that the British government suspended Northern Ireland's power-sharing assembly for one day. But Britain did this with the tacit support of the Irish government, and it did so because there was no better alternative. The IRA's foot-dragging on disarmament had driven David Trimble, the Protestant leader of the assembly, to resign in protest. This left the British government with an unpalatable choice between calling new elections, which would probably have been won by anti-peace extremists, and temporarily suspending the assembly. It chose the better option.
If the IRA really objected to the one-day suspension, it could have prevented it. It had six weeks between Mr. Trimble's resignation and the suspension to persuade Mr. Trimble to seek reelection; the destruction of some token weapons would have been enough. But instead the IRA waited until the eleventh hour before offering a disarmament proposal, without offering dates for implementing it. By this action, the IRA made suspension inevitable.