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Tag: cuba u s relations
For Some Cuban Expats, Castro’s Death Means Little

For Some Cuban Expats, Castro’s Death Means Little

For a man who lost so much — his freedom, his homeland and nearly his life — to Fidel Castro, my friend Juan Roque is extraordinarily unmoved by the tyrant’s death.

But that’s Roque’s hallmark: steady vision, calm spirit. It’s a standpoint that more people would be wise to adopt, especially now, as interested parties wait out this uncertain time between Fidel Castro’s death and the possible reversal of the U.S. rapprochement with Cuba under the incoming Trump administration.

Of all the voices chiming in on Castro’s death, Roque’s was the one I sought. We met years ago, when he was an advertising executive at The Kansas City Star. He’s mostly retired now, a grandfather of five living in a suburb of Kansas City.

At 16, Roque was a freedom fighter. He was a youngster brassy enough to alter the birthdate on his passport, convincing the CIA that he was old enough to fight in the Bay of Pigs invasion. He wasn’t, but our intelligence agents didn’t figure it out until it was too late.

Roque was dropped off, along with 1,400 other Cuban exiles, by boat near Cuba. They made it ashore and fought for three days, vastly outnumbered by Castro’s troops. More than 100 of the freedom fighters died before they ran out of ammunition.

Roque, thinking like an indestructible teenager, believed that he could swim 50 miles through shark-infested waters and reach safety. He tried but was captured. He spent the next 20 months in a Cuban jail, subsisting on noodles, bread and water.

The only times he got depressed was when he “made the mistake” of looking out the window and wondering if he’d spend the rest of his life imprisoned.

His mother, part of the underground resistance to Castro, was held in a Cuban jail at the same time. She’d been captured about eight months after sending her son and a daughter to the U.S., not knowing that her son would figure out a way to return. She’d spend 13 years in a Cuban prison.

His stepfather, who had been an adviser to the dictator Castro overthrew, Fulgencio Batista, was also jailed, for eight years. Both parents eventually made it to the United States and are now deceased.

“Nothing good happened to us as a result of Fidel Castro coming to power,” Roque told me. Still, he has long been refreshingly honest about U.S./Cuba relations, despite all that happened to him and his family.

Hatred of Castro can make people lose perspective. It’s one reason why so many, including some who have the ear of President-elect Donald Trump, continue to press for maintaining the embargo. Never mind that the economic blockade accomplished nothing to budge Castro from power — and did much to harm the Cuban people.

It’s a failed policy, although some still mistakenly cast it as a principled stand.

Roque has long favored lifting the embargo, trying to engage carefully, while remaining fully aware of the ongoing humanitarian sins of both Castro brothers. Raul Castro has been in power for nearly a decade now, so the death of Fidel is not the watershed some are celebrating.

“What can possibly happen?” Roque asked. “The Communist Party is still in control.”

Raul is 85 and set to retire from the presidency Feb. 24, 2018. Which is a reason why Roque is a patient man.

At a mere stroke of a pen, President Trump could reverse the executive orders Barack Obama has used to weave connections between the U.S. and Cuba. Those include the permission for businesses to import some Cuban goods, the relaxed regulations on what U.S. travelers can bring back from the island, an opening for U.S. interests to manage hotels in Cuba and for U.S. businesses and individuals to have bank accounts there.

The capitalism genie is out of the bottle. U.S. business interests will not willingly retreat from pursuing opportunities in Cuba.

In fact, the pace of rapprochement did not pause after Castro’s death, not even for his funeral. Two days after his last breath, as Castro’s ashes were ceremoniously making their way across Cuba, Havana was added as yet another Cuban destination reachable by scheduled commercial flights from a number of major U.S. cities.

Eventually, Roque might make a trip back to Cuba himself. He’d like for his beloved wife to see the island. But otherwise, he says, Cuba elicits sadness for him.

Before the revolution, Cuba was prosperous, with a growing middle class, Roque reflects. Castro destroyed that, but Roque refuses to waste the energy mourning it, adding philosophically, “You cannot go through life like that.”

IMAGE: Cuba’s President Fidel Castro gestures during a tour of Paris in this March 15, 1995 file photo. REUTERS/Charles Platiau/Files

Cuba’s Removal From Terrorism List May Prove More Symbolic Than Business-Friendly

Cuba’s Removal From Terrorism List May Prove More Symbolic Than Business-Friendly

By Mimi Whitefield, Miami Herald (TNS)

MIAMI — Regulations governing the United States’ new commercial opening toward Cuba were announced in January, but so far there have been few takers.

Most businesses are still kicking the tires when it comes to Cuba and trekking to the island, often with lawyers in tow, to assess the opportunities and risks. A trade delegation led by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week, however, reported progress had been made on deals in the telecom and health care fields — two areas where U.S. businesses are allowed to engage with the Cuban government under the new U.S. Cuba policy.

But even when Cuba is removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, a designation that carries some financial sanctions, analysts say they don’t expect it will set off a business stampede, either.

“I think people are re-evaluating, but they are waiting until the 45-day waiting period is up before taking the next step,” said Fernando Capablanca, managing director of White Cap Consulting Group and president of the Cuban Banking Study Group. “I think everyone wants to play it very safe — what’s 45 days after 55 years?”

In December, President Barack Obama announced a new policy of engaging Cuba after more than half a century of trying to bring about change through isolating the island, and on April 14, he informed Congress that he intended to remove Cuba from the terrorism list, starting the clock ticking on the waiting period.

With the Cuban-American delegation saying last week that it wouldn’t be mounting a challenge to the de-listing, Cuba is set to come off the list in late May. The United States put Cuba on the list in 1982 at a time when Havana was promoting armed revolution in Latin America and Africa.

Stephen F. Propst, a Washington attorney, said the de-listing will be an important step in the U.S.-Cuba normalization process, but he expects it will have limited immediate impact on economic activity between the United States and the island.

However, he said, “It’s a very important step to move forward on diplomatic relations between the two countries.” Keeping Cuba on the list, Propst said, is a “label, largely a version of diplomatic name-calling.”

Andy Fernandez, leader of Holland & Knight’s Cuba Action Team, said removing Cuba from the terrorism list removes a “barricade, a roadblock” that has made U.S. companies hesitant to even engage in legal business dealings with Cuba.

Under Obama’s new Cuba policy, Americans can trade select goods with private Cuban entrepreneurs, supply private farmers in Cuba, sell building supplies to private individuals, and participate in Internet and telecom projects that will improve the connectivity of the Cuban people.

But the impact of the de-listing will be muted because there’s still a thicket of sanctions imposed under the embargo, the Helms-Burton Act and other U.S. laws that remain in effect, including provisions that require U.S. banks to block transactions with Cuba or Cuban nationals who aren’t in the permitted category.

New regulations allow a bank to reject such transactions. “That makes a lot of difference if you’re the person whose money is blocked and you can’t get it back,” said lawyer Patricia Hernandez during a Cuba seminar organized by the Florida International Bankers Association and the Cuban Banking Study Group last week.

“The overall risk with Cuba will remain as long as the embargo is in place,” Andy Fernandez said.

Lifting the embargo “will be the new elephant in the room in future talks,” said Peter Schechter, director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin American Center at the Atlantic Council.

The United States and Cuba are currently negotiating to renew diplomatic ties and open embassies. So far, there have been three rounds of talks.

“Cuomo’s trip illustrates not only the eagerness but also the frustration that U.S. governors feel — the 1996 Helms-Burton Act handicaps their states’ trade opportunities.” he said.

The embargo, which was phased in gradually starting in 1960, was codified through Helms-Burton and cannot be totally lifted without an act of Congress.

Companies such as Netflix, IDT, which has begun offering direct telephone service to Cuba rather than making the final connection through a third party, and lodging company Airbnb, which is working with private Cuban casas particulares or bed and breakfasts, have staked out territory in Cuba. MasterCard and American Express also say they want to allow U.S. customers to use their cards in Cuba.

But not one bank has announced its intention to support the cards — meaning authorized American travelers still can’t use plastic issued by a U.S. bank to pay for their hotel and other expenses in Cuba.

However, MasterCard Vice Chairman Walt Macnee, who took part in the Cuomo trip, told USA Today that he had two meetings with Cuba’s central bank to pave the way for use of U.S. cards in Cuba. “Now we’re going to work with each of the banks individually and make some progress there,” he said.

(c)2015 Miami Herald, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

A protester holds up an American and a Cuban flag in Miami, Florida on December 20, 2014 (AFP Photo/Joe Raedle)