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Cuba Celebrates 50 Years of Revolution As Bush Leaves Without

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Cuba Celebrates 50 Years of Revolution As Bush Leaves Without Vol. 17, No. 1 January 2009 www.cubanews.com In the News Cuba celebrates 50 years of revolution as Bush leaves without achieving goal GDP to grow 6% in ’09 BY ANA RADELAT Cuba says 2008 growth came to just 4.3%, among hardline exiles in Miami, a group that n Jan. 1, the Castro brothers marked the appears to be shrinking because younger exiles half of official predictions .............Page 2 50th anniversary of the revolution that and those who arrived more recently are more Oswept them to power. Three weeks later, moderate in their views of U.S.-Cuba relations. Marking the revolution on Jan. 20, President George W. Bush leaves But some say Bush has fallen short of his oft- stated goal of weakening Fidel and Raúl Castro Invitation-only crowd hears Raúl’s speech office — thereby ensuring his place in history as the 10th occupant of the White House who and pressuring the regime toward democratic in Santiago de Cuba ......................Page 3 tried and failed to bring democracy to Cuba. reforms. During his eight years in office, Bush moved “You can’t have influence without contact,” Pushing the limits steadily to isolate the United States from Cuba, said Phil Peters, a Cuba expert at the Lexington reducing diplomatic and “people-to-people” con- Institute in Arlington, Va. Blogger Yoani Sánchez tests tolerance of tacts with the island. Bush’s policy was an exten- Peters said Bush’s main interest was in “play- Cuba’s power elite .........................Page 4 sion of the hard line fellow Republican presi- ing to his loyal constituency” in the exile com- dents adopted towards the communist country, munity, one that “is older and votes religiously” especially that of Ronald Reagan and Bush’s on the issue of Cuba. Raúl’s Latin trip father, George H.W. Bush. “But from the point of view of influencing Visit to Venezuela, Brazil seen as a total The younger Bush maintained that policy to Cuba, the policy backfired,” he told CubaNews. “To measure its impact, all you have to do is success for Cuba’s leader .............Page 5 the very end, even rejecting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s suggestion after Barack look at the results. Everybody, including dissi- Obama’s Nov. 4 election victory that Washing- dents, said it was a threat to sovereignty.” Port of Havana ton should improve its relationship with Cuba Many analysts argue that, during Cuba’s 50 Final article in our 11-part series looks at by assigning more senior American diplomats years of revolutionary government, its leaders to the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. have turned U.S. hostility to their benefit by Cuba’s largest port .........................Page 6 Bush’s tough policy solidified his support See Bush, page 2 Trade deficit up 7% Regime warns Cuba must ‘tighten its belt’ Puerto Rico eyes post-communist Cuba due to rising food, fuel costs ......Page 11 as potential trade partner, tourism rival Business briefs BY LARRY LUXNER “I wish to do business in Cuba,” says the Social security changes approved; Etecsa bout 10 minutes east of San Juan’s Luís entrepreneur. “That’s my dream.” slashes cellphone rates ...............Page 12 Muñoz Marín International Airport, Hav- García is hardly the only dreamer here. ana-born Victor García runs a factory that Kenneth McClintock, a veteran lawmaker in A Puerto Rico’s Senate, became the island’s secre- Russians return imports reinforced steel bars from Turkey, Brazil, Mexico and the U.S. mainland. tary of state and lieutenant governor Jan. 1. 3 warships dock in Havana; a chronicle of Fast Steel Corp., based in the industrial sub- He told us Cuba represents a long-term busi- ness bonanza for this U.S. commonwealth Cuba-Russian relations ...............Page 13 urb of Carolina, employs 100 people and does $15 million in annual sales. Its sole market is whose 4 million inhabitants — despite Puerto Puerto Rico. Rico’s current fiscal crisis — enjoy the highest Neighborhood artist “We don’t export at all,” García recently told standard of living in Latin America. “Puerto Rico’s immediate problem is that we José Fuster brings color and spice to his CubaNews over cups of strong espresso. “But if Cuba opens up to tourism, there’s going to be a have a $3 billion deficit, which exceeds the per- little corner of Havana ................Page 14 lot of construction there, and they’re going to capita deficit of any state except California. We make a lot of money.” have to spend the next few months focusing on CubaNews (ISSN 1073-7715) is published monthly García, 70, is originally from Havana’s La that,” said McClintock. by Luxner News Inc. © 2009. All rights reserved. Vibora district. He left Cuba in 1962 and settled “But the short-term solution must be accom- Subscriptions: $429 for one year, $800 for two years. in Puerto Rico, returning for the first time 10 panied by mid- and long-term strategic plan- For editorial inquires, please call (301) 452-1105 ning, and preparing for the opening of Cuba has or send an e-mail to: [email protected]. years ago. He’d love to go back again, eventual- ly establishing a subsidiary on his native island. See Puerto Rico, page 10 2 CubaNews ❖ January 2009 President Bill Clinton and Fidel Castro. It’s also blocked exports of medical tech- Bush — FROM PAGE 1 Bush has also used his authority to require nology to Cuba and has dramatically boosted appealing to Cubans’ nationalistic pride. U.S. agricultural sales to Cuba to be paid for funding for U.S. Agency for International De- The best-known aspects of Bush’s Cuba in cash before leaving U.S. ports, making the velopment grants to “democratize” Cuba. policy are the restrictions enacted in 2004 on export of American food commodities under In their zeal to isolate Cuba, administration officials also tried to block its team from play- exile travel to Cuba and remittances to family the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export En- hancement Act of 2000 (TSRA) more difficult. ing in the World Baseball Championship and on the island. Those moves are likely to be He’s also tightened visas for academic ex- pressured the Sheraton Maria Isabel Hotel in reversed by President-elect Obama. changes, forcing the Latin American Studies Mexico City to expel a group of Cuban offi- But Bush’s efforts to isolate Cuba were Association last year to move its annual con- cials who were meeting in February 2006 much broader than restricting Cuban- ference from Boston to Montreal. with representatives of U.S. oil companies. American travel and remittances. In addition, the Bush administration has “Bush did succeed in reducing U.S travel to Since assuming office in 2001, Bush has stepped up prosecutions of Americans who Cuba, in making it harder for farmers to sell suspended biannual bilateral migration talks break the embargo’s prohibition of spending to Cuba, in reducing the flow of information between Washington and Havana that were money on travel to Cuba without Treasury from the United States to Cuba and in deny- the product of an accord between former Department permission. ing visa applications for cutural icons like [musicians] Ibrahim Ferrer and Carlos Var- ela,” said Sarah Stephens, executive director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas. Cuba: Economy to grow 6% in 2009 But Stephens said the successes in isolat- Cuba in the past few months. ing Cuba “bred a larger failure.” uba’s economy will grow by 6% in “It gave the United States a black eye inter- 2009 as new accords with foreign Cuba and Venezuela have signed 150 cooperation agreements for 2009 worth $2 nationally and it reduced the contact between C countries and economic reforms com- Cubans and Americans that should, in fact, be pensate for negative international factors, billion, including continued expansion of a joint venture oil refinery and petrochemical the goal of U.S. policy,” she told CubaNews. said Economy and Planning Minister José Bush administration officials counter that Luís Rodríguez. complex in central Cienfuegos province. Cuba has restructured debt and delayed their tough policies bostered the dissident The official said hurricanes and other movement in Cuba, and pressured Europeans factors restricted 2008 GDP growth to 4.3% payments to various foreign companies in recent months, its coffers hit by three pow- and other allies to take a harder line towards —barely half the original government fore- Havana. Curtailing travel and remittances cast and a sharp drop from the 7.3% growth erful hurricanes, falling nickel prices and the international financial crisis. also cut off Cuba’s access to U.S. dollars, recorded in 2007. hurting the economy, they say. Cuba was hit by hurricanes Gustav, Ike Rodríguez said growth would also get a and Paloma during 2008, causing $10 bil- boost from reforms undertaken by Raúl, WARONTERRORISM PUSHED CUBA ASIDE lion in losses. The cost of food imports also who has decentralized agriculture, boosted prices paid for farm products and begun Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutiérrez, the rose by $8 billion over the previous year. administration’s point man on Cuba, said in a Rodríguez said 2008 was one of the most distributing unused state lands with accom- panying resources to private farmers, coop- recent opinion piece that “unconditional dia- difficult since the so-called “special period” logue with the Castro brothers would only sig- began — the term used for the economic eratives and some state-run entities in an effort to reduce soaring food imports. nal that conditions in Cuba are acceptable.” crisis caused by the 1991 collapse of the He also listed a series of U.S.
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