U.S.-Cuba Talks Recap: Castro Coerces, Obama Acquiesces

capitolhillcubans

This week's "normalization" talks between the United States and Cuba were akin to the secret negotiations that preceded them. Namely, the Castro regime seeks to coerce the U.S., while the Obama Administration plays along.

Let's not forget that this entire process stems from the Castro regime taking an American hostage, development worker Alan Gross, in order to coerce the United States into releasing Cuban spies and easing sanctions.

And, as we all know -- once you cave to coercion, you will be coerced time and again.

Prior to the U.S. delegation arriving in Havana, Castro's mouthpiece, Granma, listed (as Cubans say, "con cara dura") its conditions for "normalization." They are:

1. Repealing the Cuban Adjustment Act.
2. Lifting the embargo.
3. Removing Cuba from the "state-sponsors of terrorism" list.
4. Recognizing the Castro regime's "official NGOs" -- e.g. Committees for Defense of the Revolution, Youth Communist League.
5. Compensating "damages" caused by the embargo.
6. Ending the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program.
7. Opening embassies in Havana and Washington, D.C.

So what does the Cuban regime have to do in return for all these demands of the Obama Administration?

Nothing, of course.

Asked whether Cuba's regime might at least examine how to expand freedoms to help the Obama pitch Congress on lifting the embargo, Castro's top negotiator Josefina Vidal said:

"Absolutely not. Change in Cuba isn't negotiable."

After all, they haven't needed to do anything for all the concessions they've gotten -- thus far -- from the U.S. Instead, the Obama Administration has also decided to role play and give credence to Castro's rhetoric: the brutal totalitarian regime is the "victim" worthy of concessions and the world's greatest democracy is the "victimizer" that shouldn't ask for freedoms in return.

No wonder Vidal was all smiles.

Moreover, upon concluding the first round of talks, the lead U.S. negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State, Roberta Jacobson, admitted she wasn't very sure whether the Obama Administration's new approach would be successful.

In other words, the Obama Administration's new strategy policy boils down to acquiescing to coercion, handing over all the U.S.'s economic and diplomatic leverage to the Castro regime and its monopolies -- leverage that will be nearly impossible to pull back once given -- in the hopes that it will play nice (or nicer).

That's not a strategy. It's wishful thinking (based on a dangerous premise). It's being a push-over.

Meanwhile, the talks took place under the watchful eyes (and ears) of The Viktor Leonov, a Russian spy ship docked in Havana.

Quite a week.

Miami: entre la espada y el ébola

Cuba Encuentro

Eugenio Yáñez

Patético, sin dudas. Lo mismo que preguntar cómo están tratando en Cuba a los enfermos de ébola. ¿Acaso en la Isla hay algún enfermo reportado que no sepamos?

No tener nada serio que decir parece no ser óbice para quedar callado ante determinadas cámaras de televisión en Miami, ese páramo entre La Habana y Macondo que no queda corto ante ninguno de esos dos parajes y es capaz de expresar insensateces como las mencionadas, y muchas más.

Una malsana costumbre de algunos adversarios del régimen, que en ocasiones florece como el marabú en Cuba, es creer que para rechazar la dictadura no hace falta mantener límites éticos o morales, ni respetar verdades, y que todo lo que se diga está bien siempre que se “denuncie” al castrismo, aunque sea hablando necedades o disparates: actuación al mismo nivel moral de los más repugnantes apologistas del castrismo y la dictadura.

Con tantas cosas que hace mal la tiranía, comenzando por mantenerse en el poder sin consultar la voluntad popular por más de medio siglo, haber destruido hasta los cimientos no solamente la economía, la sociedad, la cultura y la familia, sino incluso la nación cubana como tal, no hay que inventarse “razones” para acusar al régimen que, por mucho que lo proclame y que lo repitan sus amanuenses, nunca será absuelto por la historia.

Me parece muy correcto y positivo que una doctora y profesora cubano-americana que vive en Miami y estuvo en África combatiendo el ébola junto a otros colegas, sea invitada a la televisión, explique sus experiencias, y se reconozca como merece su actitud y su aporte a esta épica batalla por la vida humana.

Simultáneamente, considero bochornoso que, a la vez que se hacía eso con relación a la destacada especialista cubano-americana de Miami, se pretendiera ignorar o silenciar la realidad de los 165 cubanos de la Isla, médicos y enfermeros, que ya en esos momentos se había anunciado que irían a las zonas donde existe la terrible epidemia, y mucho más posteriormente, cuando se supo que un total de 461 médicos y enfermeros cubanos serían enviados a combatir la epidemia en Sierra Leona, Liberia y Guinea Conakry, hecho que convertía a Cuba en el país que más profesionales aportaría a la lucha contra el ébola sobre el terreno.

Limitarse entonces a destacar los peligros que correrían los cubanos al participar en esa epopeya sanitaria —como si el resto de los trabajadores de la salud de otras partes del mundo fueran inmunes al virus— además de distorsionar la realidad, ocultaba un cierto sentimiento bochornoso para algunos en Miami: creer que los cubanos de la Isla son tan tontos, o tan muertos de hambre, que estarían dispuestos a irse al África porque habían sido obligados, cobrarían mucho más de un puñado de dólares, o no tenían noción del riesgo que enfrentarían o el peligro que estarían corriendo.

Como si el altruismo y la inteligencia fueran virtudes exclusivas de la Calle Ocho o Flagler, imposibles de encontrar en La Rampa, Pueblo Nuevo o La Trocha santiaguera.

Sin embargo, que no se confundan los sicarios verbales del régimen que abundan por estas páginas: todo lo que he dicho, y lo que me queda por decir, ni justifica ni pretende justificar la brutal dictadura que ha imperado en nuestro país por más de medio siglo, ni ignora toda la demagogia, politiquería y oportunismo del régimen aprovechando la crisis del ébola para presentarse como un gobierno bondadoso y desinteresado, aunque Raúl Castro dijera lo que dijo en la Cumbre Extraordinaria del ALBA en La Habana o Fidel Castro publicara lo que publicó en sus incoherentes reflexiones.

Tampoco pasa por alto la desaforada campaña que los lobbies anti-embargo en Estados Unidos, al servicio de poderosos intereses comerciales norteamericanos (encabezados por The New York Times y contrarrestados por The Washington Post), o de los más bajos y oscuros intereses de la dictadura cubana, han incrementado, aprovechando el desarrollo de la epidemia en África y la participación de los cubanos enfrentándola, para pedir a Obama —casi exigir o hasta chantajear— que premie al régimen “normalizando” las relaciones diplomáticas entre ambos países, retirando a Cuba de la lista de patrocinadores del terrorismo, permitiendo viajes ilimitados de turistas americanos a la Isla, y levantando el embargo, para que la dictadura disfrute de créditos, tanto de bancos de Estados Unidos como de organismos internacionales donde la participación americana es básica, como el Banco Mundial y el Fondo Monetario Internacional. Créditos que, como todos sabemos, no serán pagados nunca, porque los hermanos Castro son lo que en Cuba llamaban “marugas”, esos tipos que no pagan sus deudas.

No estar de acuerdo con las incoherencias de algún que otro Tarzán vertical de Miami no tiene qué llevarnos a los brazos del castrismo, ni viceversa: uno de los grandes dramas de todos los cubanos es vernos siempre en una realidad binaria, donde solamente funcionan el 1 y el 0, y donde si no te ubicas en uno de los dos extremos automáticamente quieren que te ubiques en el otro, olvidando fácilmente las tantas veces que esos contrarios no solamente se acercan, sino que hasta se abrazan.

No vendría mal, entonces, recapacitar un poco más antes de soltar los perros de la guerra en estos temas. Porque si Miami continúa pretendiendo vivir entre la espada y el ébola, y de espaldas a la realidad, sus posibilidades de subsistir como alternativa política en la tragedia cubana serán cada vez más limitadas.

Y algo así solamente le conviene a La Habana.

Cuba conoce perfectamente la vida privada de Maduro

Oscar Suarez

Castro Rejects US Banking Solution, Opts for Blackmail

Capitolhillcubans

The State Department has helped the Castro regime identify a solution for its current .S. banking dilemma.

Yet, the Castro regime has rejected it, opting for blackmail instead.

According to a State Department spokesperson:

"[W]e had helped the Mission identify a workable solution to its consular fee-processing needs with ample time for its implementation. That the Cuban Interests Section has not effectively pursued this option will result in hardship to Cuban and U.S. citizen travelers alike."

The Castro regime has rejected State's solution in order to give its lobbyists in the U.S. time to mount a campaign against its inclusion in the "state-sponsors of terrorism" list.

They want to try to convince policy-makers that banks are refusing to do business with the Castro regime because of its terrorism listing.  Of course, policy-makers know this is not the case -- so it's unlikely they will fall for Castro's blackmail.

And, as we predicted in November, once the Castro regime begins to feel the cash-crunch from a downturn in U.S. travelers, it will accept a workable solution -- particularly as its Venezuelan piggy bank is looking more unstable by the day.

In the meantime, the Castro regime is giving its lobbyists, propagandists and spies some time to execute their strategy.  

The short-wave codes from Havana must be a-buzzing (see here for more context).

Cuban Blackmail, 50 Years After the Missile Crisis

Chris Simmons

The past decades have shown that the Castro brothers' behavior in October 1962 was perfectly characteristic.

By Jeb Bush & Frank Calzon, Wall Street Journal --  October 23, 2012, 7:16 p.m. ET

With this week marking the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, Americans are recalling the 13 days in October 1962 when the Soviet Union and Cuba's Fidel Castro brought the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon.

But in assessing the crisis, and President John F. Kennedy's decisions over those 13 days, it is equally important to consider what has happened since. Using what the late U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick called the "politics of deception," Cuba's Castro brothers have maintained power through international deceit, blackmail and hostage-taking.

The past decades have shown that the behavior of the Castro brothers in 1962 was perfectly characteristic. Fidel Castro has never shied away from a political gamble such as deploying secret Soviet missiles and then lying about them. He assured other governments that he would never do such a thing, just as the Soviet Union's ambassador to the United States told the Kennedy administration that rumors about missiles were false. But the missiles were there, and their deployment was an effort to intimidate and blackmail America.

Today, Havana's intimidation and blackmail are of a different magnitude, but there are plenty of examples.

Days ago, a Cuban court sentenced young Spanish politician Angel Carromero to four years in prison for committing manslaughter in the death of Oswaldo Payá, one of Cuba's most prominent human rights leaders. Payá died while a passenger in a car Mr. Carromero was driving, when it veered off the road and hit a tree under suspicious circumstances. Payá's family says that Mr. Carromero has sent text messages saying that a vehicle (presumably driven by Cuba's state security police) was attempting to force him off the road. The family was prevented from attending the trial and is calling for an international investigation.

For years, state security had tried to intimidate Payá and his foreign visitors, part of a larger effort to discourage democracy advocates from visiting or contacting Cuban dissidents. Havana similarly tries to intimidate other countries—such as Spain, whose nationals have business interests in Cuba—into accepting its routine violations of human rights, including the beatings of dissidents.

Joining Mr. Carromero as a hostage in Cuba is Alan Gross, an American development worker held since December 2009. His supposed crime: giving a laptop computer and satellite telephone to a group of Cuban Jews.

Mr. Gross has lost some 100 pounds in prison, according to his wife, who also reports that he has a growth on his shoulder that may be cancerous. The Castro regime intends to keep him in prison until the U.S. government releases five Cuban spies from prison in the U.S.

There is long history here. In 1962, Fidel Castro wrung $53 million from Washington in exchange for releasing the prisoners he had taken after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Before that, during the guerrilla war against the Batista dictatorship, Raúl Castro extorted thousands of dollars from owners of sugar mills, threatening to burn down their homes and mills unless they aided the guerrillas. In June 1958, he tried to force negotiations with Washington by kidnapping 29 American sailors and marines; when word got out that Washington might send U.S. Marines to rescue the hostages, the Castros freed them.

In dealing with Cuba's regime, the Obama administration has too often sent contradictory signals of U.S. resolve. Though Raúl Castro (who now heads the Cuban government) has refused to allow Mr. Gross to return to the U.S. to visit his seriously ill mother, the Obama administration allowed a Cuban spy to leave an American halfway house to visit his sick mother. While Mr. Gross remains in prison, the Obama administration last year issued visas to Raúl Castro's daughter and her retinue so they could visit America and attack its Cuba policy.

The lessons of October 1962 must not be forgotten. President Kennedy showed fortitude and resolve in forcing the Soviet Union to stand down. Whoever wins the Nov. 6 election ought to deal similarly with today's intimidation and deception from the Castro regime.

Mr. Bush is a former governor of Florida. Mr. Calzon is executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba in Washington, D.C.

Cuba's oil blackmail finally revealed

Especially thanks to  Capitol Hill Cubans

capitolhillcubans.com

The AP ran an article over the weekend, which reveals how the intense Cuba oil campaign of the last few years has simply been a ploy to pressure the U.S. to lift sanctions.

The fact remains -- as we've been stating for years -- that U.S. sanctions remain the biggest impediment for the Castro regime to ever become a petro-dictatorship.

Read the following article carefully (with our observations in parenthesis):

It was supposed to be Cuba's economic savior: vast untapped reserves of black gold buried deep under the rocky ocean floor.

But the first attempt in nearly a decade to find Cuba's hoped-for undersea oil bonanza has come up dry, and the island's leaders and their partners must regroup and hope they have better luck - quickly.

Experts say it is not unusual that a 3-mile (4.8-kilometer) deep exploratory well drilled at a cost of more than $100 million by Spanish oil giant Repsol was a bust. Four out of five such wells find nothing in the high-stakes oil game, and petroleum companies are built to handle the losses.

But Cuba has more at stake, and only a few more spins left of the roulette wheel. The enormous Scarabeo-9 platform being used in the hunt is the only one in the world that can drill in Cuban waters without incurring sanctions under the U.S. economic embargo, and it is under contract for only one to four more exploratory wells before it heads off to Brazil.

"If oil is not found now I think it would be another five to 10 years before somebody else comes back and drills again," said Jorge Pinon, the former president of Amoco Oil Latin America and a leading expert on Cuba's energy prospects. "Not because there is no oil, but because the pain and tribulations that people have to go through to drill in Cuba are not worth it when there are better and easier options in places like Angola, Brazil or the U.S. Gulf of Mexico."

(CHC: Chalk one up for sanctions.)

A delay would be catastrophic for Cuba, where 80-year-old President Raul Castro is desperately trying to pull the economy out of the doldrums through limited free-market reforms, and has been forced to cut many of the subsidies islanders have come to expect in return for salaries of just $20 a month.

It could also leave the Communist-governed island more dependent on Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez is ailing with cancer. Chavez provides Cuba with $3 billion worth of heavily subsidized oil every year, a deal that might evaporate if he dies or fails to win re-election in October.

(CHC: Chavez's billionaire oil subsidies to Castro have left Venezuela's national oil company, PDVSA, on the verge of collapse, so he needs an out.)

An oil find, on the other hand, would potentially improve Cuba's long-bitter relations with the United States, some analysts suggest. They say the U.S. oil industry could lobby Congress to loosen the embargo so it could get in on Cuba's oil game. At the very least, coordination between the Cold War enemies would be necessary to prepare for any spill that could coat beaches in the U.S. and Cuba with black goo.

(CHC: There you have it.)

The Cuban government has not commented on Repsol's announcement May 18 that the first well came up dry, and declined to make any oil officials or experts available to be interviewed for this article.

(CHC: Note how it is the Castro regime that makes "experts" available to the media.)

Next in line for using the drilling rig in Cuban waters is Malaysia's Petronas, which holds the rights to explore an area in the Florida Straits known as the Northbelt Thrust, about 110 miles (180 kilometers) southwest of Repsol's drill site. Wee Yiaw Hin, Petronas' executive vice president of exploration and production, told The Associated Press that drilling has begun and he expects results by the end of July.

(CHC: It is not a coincidence that Petronas is now going through the same dog-and-pony show as Repsol, as they were both "coincidentally" granted billions worth of Venezuelan oil concessions by Chavez in 2010 -- around the same time they signed commitments to drill off Cuba's shores. Remember, Chavez needs an out quickly. Can you say blackmail?)

After that, two industry experts said, Repsol is under contract to drill a second well, though it could get out of the deal by paying a penalty to Saipem, the Italian company that owns the rig. Kristian Rix, a spokesman for Repsol in Madrid, said a decision on whether to sink another well was still being evaluated.

(CHC: Not going to happen. Repsol already announced that it is pulling out of Cuba altogether.)

Venezuela's PDVSA and Sonangol of Angola have options to drill next, but are under no obligation if they don't like their odds. While both countries are strong allies of Cuba, at $100 million a well, the decision to drill will likely be based solely on economics.

(CHC: Key phrase here is no legal "obligation.")

Even if oil is found, the Scarabeo-9 is under contract to power up its eight enormous thrusters and sail to Brazil after that, with no date set for its return to Cuba. The bottleneck highlights the difficulties Cuba faces, and why it could be well into the 2020s before the island sees any oil windfall.

(CHC: Say bye-bye Scarabeo.)

"Assuming they're successful in finding oil, to bring the oil to market will take years of development efforts," said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with consulting firm Purvin & Gertz in Singapore.

Once an exploratory well finds oil, companies generally drill between 10 and 20 additional wells nearby to get a sense of the reservoir's size. The process can take several years even under normal circumstances, and circumstances are not normal in Cuba.

The Scarabeo-9 was built in Asia with less than 10 percent U.S.-made parts to avoid violating Washington's embargo, making it the only rig in the world that meets the requirement. That means no other rig could be used in Cuba without risking U.S. sanction, and the additional wells would have to be drilled by the rig one at a time, with each taking about 100 days to complete. At about three wells a year, it could take up to six years for this second phase - assuming the rig is available.

After gauging a reservoir's size, an oil company then must assess whether the economics of a field make it a prime spot for exploitation, or whether to concentrate resources elsewhere.

If exploitation does go forward, complicated equipment is required to pull oil from such depths. Several industry experts said the only country that produces the necessary apparatus is the United States, although Brazil and other countries are working to catch up. Unless they do, the oil could not be removed unless the U.S. embargo was lifted or altered.

(CHC: There you have it. Even if oil is ever found, it cannot be extracted unless sanctions are lifted. Thus, this is all a big lobbying bet.)

"A lot of folks are looking at the energy sector in Cuba because they are looking at a Cuba of five years from now, or 10 years from now," said Pinon. "So a lot of people are betting that either the embargo is going to be lifted, or the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba is going to improve in some way."

(CHC: Like we said.)

Still, the benefits of hitting a gusher would be enormous for Cuba, and the impact could be felt long before any oil was pumped.

Because of the embargo, Cuba is shut off from borrowing from international lending institutions, and the island's own poor record of repayment has left most other creditors leery. Cuba, for instance, owes the Paris Club of creditor nations nearly $30 billion.

An oil find could change the game, with Cuba using future oil riches as collateral to secure new financing, economists say. They point to China and Brazil as potential sources of new funding, but say neither is likely to put money into the island without reasonable confidence they will get their investment back.

Lee Hunt, the recently retired president of the Houston-based International Association of Drilling Contractors, said the stakes are enormous for Cuba that one of the wells hits oil before the Scarabeo-9 leaves. Hunt has worked to bring U.S. and Cuban industry and environmental groups together.

"If the only rig you can work with is gone, it's like somebody took your shovel away," Hunt said. "You are not going to dig any holes without a shovel, even if you know the treasure is down there."

(CHC: Isn't this the same guy on the D.C. lobbying circuit pretending he's only concerned about the potential environmental impact if a spill were to happen? Sounds like he has a bigger stake than that.)

El chantaje "trancoso" al cardenal Jaimito "El Ladino"

Desde Alana 1962

Forbes "eat" the Castro's oil blackmail to US

Christopher Helman, Forbes Staff/

In a few months Spanish oil company Repsol will start drilling for oil off the coast of Cuba, in a spot just 70 miles south of Key West. Soon Repsol–and its JV partners Norway’s Statoil and India’s ONGC–will be joined by rigs from PetroVietnam, Malaysia’s Petronas and Venezuela’s PDVSA. But you won’t see any U.S. companies there. Inexplicably, the U.S. maintains its economic embargo against the Castro regime.

This wrong-headed policy represents a dangerous threat to the environment and a huge missed opportunity to the U.S. oil industry. The U.S. embargo will do nothing to prevent oil drilling from taking place in Cuban waters. But it will prevent that work from being done by the most experienced companies with the highest-quality equipment. Norway’s Statoil is a proven operator with a long history in the North Sea and the Gulf. The rest of those companies are just getting started offshore.

A group of U.S. lawmakers in September urged Repsol (ticker: REPYY.PK) to call off its Cuba plans or face the threat of U.S. lawsuits. Repsol wisely called that bluff.

At least the Obama administration is doing something to ensure that Repsol’s drilling rig is up to snuff. According to an excellent article from Bloomberg today, Repsol’s Chinese-built Scarabeo 9 rig will soon by boarded by four U.S. inspectors (two from the Coast Guard, two from the Dept. of Interior) who will do what they can to check out the rig and watch some drills. But, according to the article, there will be real limits to what the inspectors can inspect. They won’t get to check the rig’s all-important blowout preventor, or the well casing or drilling fluids that are to be used. Though the U.S. inspectors will discuss any concerns they have with Repsol, they will have no enforcement authority.  More >>

Amenaza de secuestro al hijo de Tony Cortes