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Offer Dramatic Look at US View of Cuba with US Subcontractor Still In

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Offer Dramatic Look at US View of Cuba with US Subcontractor Still In Vol. 19, No. 1 January 2011 In the News With U.S. subcontractor still in prison, Costly connection USAID freezes all new Cuba programs TeleCuba: FCC approval of rate hike may BY ANA RADELAT conTracTs: Freedom House, InTernaTional Repub- lower cost of calls to Cuba ............Page 2 he U.S. Agency for InTernaTional Develop- lican InstiTuTe (IRI), People in Need, CreaTive menT has slammed The brakes on various AssociaTes InTernaTional and InsTiTuTe for T conTroversial new Cuba iniTiaTives. SusTainable CommuniTies (ISC). National Assembly USAID and The STaTe DeparTmenT have noT USAID declined To say how much money Reform-minded lawmakers pave way from spent one cenT of The $20 million ThaT PresidenT each granTee received. BuT The acTiviTies ThaT chaos to market socialism ............Page 3 Obama asked for — and Congress allocaTed — money financed appear To be winding down. for The conTroversial Cuba program This year. Brendon Keleher, vice-presidenT aT ISC, said As lawmakers prepare To approve ThaT pro- his VermonT-based NGO had an 18-monTh, $1.2 Outlook for 2011 gram’s FY 2011 budgeT, USAID hasn’T even senT million conTracT To work wiTh arTisans in Cuba. Two Miami conferences offer rival scena- Congress iTs proposal on how This year’s funds “We wanTed To help Them undersTand The mar- keTplace and work wiTh oTher arTisans in The rios for Cuba’s future ....................Page 4 for Cuba would be spenT. “Because we have yeT To noTify Congress of Caribbean and LaTin America,” Keleher said. our specific plans To spend The funds, we have ISC’s conTracT expired Dec. 9. When Keleher Political briefs noT issued any awards wiTh fiscal 2010 funds,” asked for an exTension, he was Turned down. Board: Ice, pilot error caused ATR crash; USAID spokesman Drew Bailey Told CubaNews. “USAID chose To end The program,” he said. STeve HorbliTT, direcTor for exTernal relaTions OFAC OKs peso remittances .......Page 5 USAID and STaTe did hand ouT abouT $15.6 million To Cuba program granTees earlier This of CreaTive AssociaTes, based in BeThesda, Md., year from iTs 2009 budgeT afTer key DemocraTic said “USAID guidelines” prevenTed him from Iconic branding lawmakers released Their hold on The money. speaking abouT his company’s Cuba program. Final installment of 3-part series looks at Bailey said mosT of ThaT wenT To “incremenTal CreaTive AssociaTes’ sTaff includes Caleb funding” of five organizaTions wiTh mulTi-year Cuban consumer preferences ......Page 6 See USAID, page 3 Golf courses galore Special 2-page map pinpoints the location Secret cables unearthed by WikiLeaks of more than a dozen golf and marina pro- jects planned across Cuba ............Page 8 offer dramatic look at U.S. view of Cuba BY LARRY LUXNER To confronT drug smugglers ThaT They’ve even SPECIAL REPORT idel CasTro, bleeding inTernally on a domes- complained to their U.S. counterparts. CaTTle, livesTock indusTry — once The pride tic flight from Holguín to Havana in 2006, None of these dramatic revelations might Fnearly died from diverticulitis of the colon have ever come to light if not for WikiLeaks, a of Cuba — takes a beating .........Page 10 after refusing to submit to a colostomy. shadowy “new media” nonprofit website that Three years later, Fidel’s brother Raúl — now since Nov. 28 has been embarrassing U.S. diplo- Saving the herd running Cuba — wanted to open secret talks maTs around The world Through iTs gradual release of classified State Department cables to Florida caTTle rancher J. Parke WrighT Tells with the White House as the only way his gov- ernmenT could “make major moves Toward meeT- Spain’s El País and other newspapers. CubaNews how to do it right .......Page 13 ing U.S. concerns,” according to Spain’s ambas- While most of the uproar surrounding Wiki- sador to Cuba, Manuel Cacho Quesada. Leaks has focused up until now on Afghanistan, Business briefs Officials of the U.S. Interests Section in Hav- Pakistan and the Middle East, it’s clear that before long, virtually every country with a U.S. criticizes rice import policy; ana, while clearly opposed to the Castro regime, Trabajadores have concluded ThaT Cuba’s TradiTional dissident mission on its soil will be dragged into the fray Meliá opens 25th property .........Page 15 movement — the focus of millions in aid from — and Cuba is no exception. WashingTon over The years — is unpopular, inef- Only a fraction of these 251,287 once-secret CubaNews (ISSN 1073-7715) is published monThly fecTive, greedy for American taxpayer dollars cables has actually been published. Even so, the by CUBANEWS LLC. © 2011. All righTs reserved. and riddled with government spies. biggest diplomatic bombshell in recent history SubscripTions: $479 for one year, $800 for Two years. China, meanwhile, is exasperated over Cuba’s has already been “devastating and destructive” For ediTorial inquires, please call (305) 393-8760 or for U.S. foreign service officers overseas, says send an e-mail To: [email protected]. habit of not paying its bills on time, and the Cubans are so upset with Jamaica’s reluctance See WikiLeaks, page 14 2 CubaNews v January 2011 TELECOMMUNICATIONS TeleCuba, planning fiberoptic cable, asks FCC for rate hike BY TRACEY EATON each other to handle international calls. In benefit, said Jose Magaña, a senior analyst at alling Cuba from the United States costs May 2003, the FCC gave TeleCuba permis- Pyramid Research in Cambridge, Mass. around $1 per minute. That’s 13 times sion to pay Cuba’s state-run phone monopoly “AT&T and Verizon definiTely wanT To Cmore expensive than calling London or Etecsa 60¢ for every minute of calls it chan- strengthen their position in the Hispanic mar- Madrid, and 11 times more expensive than neled to Cuba. In turn, Etecsa agreed to pay ket, where Cuban-Americans are important,” calling the Vatican to chat with the Pope. TeleCuba that same rate for calls originating he said, adding that enhanced phone commu- “To have a normal conversation with a fam- in Cuba. nication — including roaming — would boost ily member, you must budget the cost of a din- One year later, Etecsa asked that its pay- phone companies on both sides of the Florida ner,” said Tony Martinez, a New York lawyer ment be raised to 84¢. But Treasury didn’t Straits. “There are definitely a few hundred million dollars there. There’s a good amount and editor of the United States Cuba Policy & agree, forcing TeleCuba to end direct phone Business Blog. “It’s tough on families.” service to Cuba. One reason Cuba calls are expensive is that Last March, Co- they are routed through third countries such ello requested FCC as Italy. permission to pay Etecsa at the 84¢ Miami-based TeleCuba CommunicaTions LARRY LUXNER Inc. wants to establish a cheaper direct con- rate so it could re- nection that some analysts say could eventu- establish service. ally lower phone costs for consumers and Because U.S. allow U.S. visitors to Cuba to use roaming authorities haven’t while making calls. yeT Taken acTion, To do that, TeleCuba first needs the FCC’s Coello’s May letter permission to pay Cuba 84¢ per minute of said, ETecsa and phone talk, up from current 60¢ per minute. Cuba’s Ministry of Both Verizon and AT&T have filed letters CommunicaTions with the FCC supporting TeleCuba’s request “question the com- — which is in line with President Obama’s mitment of the U.S. 2009 direcTive aimed aT improving phone to truly enact poli- links with Cuba. cies that reflect the State and Treasury don’t object, either. But directives set forth Miami storefront advertises, among other things, long-distance service to Cuba. in the April 2009 the FCC, which must approve TeleCuba’s speech delivered by President Obama.” of money to be made.” request for a waiver, has not acted. On Oct. 26, Jennifer D. Hindin, a lawyer for Asked why The FCC hasn’T acTed on An FCC spokeswoman declined To say TeleCuba, told Dortch that the company’s TeleCuba’s waiver request, Magaña speculat- when her agency might make a decision. request would “serve the public interest” and ed that conservative pro-embargo activists TeleCuba executives and their lawyers, who improve phone communication between “the may be trying to influence the regulatory have been traveling to Washington to meet U.S. public and their friends and family in agency, creating delays. wiTh FCC officials and argue Their case, Cuba … consisTenT wiTh The PresidenT’s “There are a lot of politics going on,” he wouldn’t speculate either. recently expressed policy in favor of fostering said. “President Obama was more flexible TeleCuba wants to lay a fiberoptic cable deeper communication between the United toward Cuba in the beginning of his term.” between the two countries, and put into effect States and Cuba.” But sentiments in Washington have since an international roaming agreement it has On Nov. 24, Hindin sent another letter to taken a turn to the right, and that “might with Cubacel, Cuba’s mobile phone company. the FCC, saying the public record “indicates cause things to be delayed a little bit longer.” nothing but support” for her client’s petition. Magaña said FCC approval of TeleCuba’s FIBEROPTIC CABLE CONTINGENT ON RATE HIKE Karen Zacharia, a lawyer for Verizon, told waiver would help open up Cuba’s telecom A year ago, we reported that TeleCuba, in the FCC that the TeleCuba waiver was “rea- market and eventually lower the cost of calls. agreement with Great Eastern Group Inc. of sonable” and in the public interest. As it is, calls to Cuba are expensive – from Fort Lauderdale, plans to design, construct, An FCC waiver, she said in a letter to the 91¢ to $1.20 per minute, for instance, for cus- insTall and mainTain a 110-mile-long cable agency, “would faciliTaTe greaTer conTacTs tomers of AT&T.
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