JUAN CARLOS CHAVEZ

La posibilidad de que los gobiernos de Cuba y Brasil alcancen un acuerdo que abriría las puertas al envío de 6,000 médicos cubanos a ciertas áreas del territorio brasileño que carecen de atención generó una fuerte polémica en ese país sudamericano y cuestionamientos sobre el nivel de preparación de los profesionales que se gradúan en la isla.

“Brasil quiere traer escoria”, dijo Florentino Cardoso, presidente de la Asociación Médica Brasileña. “Desafío a cualquiera a demostrar la excelencia de la medicina cubana. Médicos que se graduaron allí y estudiaron cuatro años , tienen que estudiar otros dos años más pero con el fin de ejercer la profesión en su propio país”.

El tema fue abordado en una audiencia entre miembros de la Comisión de Relaciones Exteriores de la Cámara de Diputados y representantes de gremios y sindicatos médicos de Brasil.

La discusión tomó fuerza dos semanas después de que el canciller brasileño, ... Read More

BY JULIAN SHER OF THE TORONTO STAR AND JUAN O. TAMAYO

Speaking over a scratchy telephone line from inside a Cuban prison, Sarkis Yacoubian’s voice goes suddenly silent. He’s crying.

“I was so depressed at times, I wanted to commit suicide,” says the 53-year-old entrepreneur.

In exclusive interviews from the La Condesa prison, Yacoubian provides an insider’s view of a sweeping anti-corruption campaign by the government of Raúl Castro that has seen several foreign businessmen — including himself and another Toronto-area businessman — jailed.

A joint investigation by The Toronto Star and El Nuevo Herald has found that in a corruption-plagued country described in secret U.S. government cables as “a state on the take,” the two jailed Canadians are embroiled in a high-stakes diplomatic and legal stand-off between Havana and Ottawa, potentially jeopardizing millions in taxpayer dollars that underwrite Canada’s trade with Cuba.

Arrested in July 2011 and detained for nearly two years without charges, ... Read More

BY MARK FRANK

Canadian and British executives of three foreign businesses shut in 2011 by Cuban authorities, ostensibly for corrupt practices, have been charged after more than a year in custody and are expected to go on trial soon, sources close to the cases told Reuters.

The arrests, part of a broad government campaign to stamp out corruption, sent shockwaves through Cuba’s small foreign business community where the companies were among the most visible players.

Until then, expulsions rather than imprisonment had been the norm for those accused of corrupt practices.

The charges against the executives involve various economic crimes and operating beyond the limits of their business licenses on the communist-run island, according to the sources, who asked to remain anonymous and who include a close relative of one of the defendants.

Some of the foreigners are alleged to have paid bribes to officials in exchange for business opportunities.

Dozens of Cuban state purchasers and ... Read More

El pasado 23 de abril, el espurio venezolano, Nicolás Maduro, designó a Calixto Ortega como su nuevo representante diplomático ante los Estados Unidos. Su intención dijo, es la de “mejorar” las relaciones diplomáticas con EE.UU.

Es difícil creer que Maduro realmente crea lo que dice cuando sus acciones simbolizan lo contrario. Un día después de la designación de Ortega, Maduro anunció la captura de un supuesto “espía” estadounidense al que acusó de planear acciones desestabilizadoras en contra de su gobierno y de querer provocar una “guerra civil”. Timothy Hallett Tracy es un cineasta que estaba documentando la elección en Venezuela. Su injusta captura es una señal más de la desesperación Cubanomadurista.

Si queremos ser congruentes con nuestros principios, debemos pedir la liberación inmediata de Timothy Hallett Tracy y negar la visa diplomática de Calixto Ortega.  Aunque Tracy sea liberado no podemos otorgar una visa como si esto fuera el pago de un ... Read More

BY ALBERTO DE LA CRUZ

On the Friday of the last weekend in February, Cuban dictator Raul Castro caught the news agencies covering his island nation by surprise when he dropped a hint that he was thinking of retiring. Later that Sunday, at a meeting of Cuba’s communist National Assembly, Castro went much further and announced that he would step aside at the end of the five-year presidential term to which he had just been “elected.” Adding fuel to the fire was the announcement that Miguel Diaz-Canel, a relatively unknown 52-year-old communist party apparatchik, had been appointed Castro’s second in command—and would thus theoretically be next in line to take command after the aging dictator’s exit.

Naturally, journalists, analysts, and so-called Cuba experts immediately began to explore the possibilities and ramifications. Many of them proposed the Western Hemisphere’s bloodiest and longest-running dictatorship was now possibly just five years away from its end. ... Read More

BY JUAN O. TAMAYO

Cuban government officials must fight “a grand battle” against corruption in areas such as business deals with foreigners and the distribution of gasoline, according to an official news media report Monday.

Rodrigo Malmierca, Minister of Foreign Commerce and Investment, gave a cabinet meeting Friday a report on the “irregularities detected in the functioning of businesses with foreign capital and international contracts,” the state-run Web page CubaDebate reported.

“He declared that among the principal causes … that make these acts possible, the foremost are the lack of rigor, control and exigency all along the deals, as well as the conduct and attitudes of the officials implicated,” CubaDebate added.

The Web report did not detail the cases, but the Cuban government has been rocked in recent years by a long string of corruption scandals involving top figures, from a former armed forces general to a couple of deputy ministers and even the ... Read More

BY HUMBERTO FONTOVA

On May 2, the FBI announced a $1 million reward for “information leading to the apprehension” of Joanne Chesimard, also known as Assata Shakur, who they named a “most-wanted terrorist.” Chesimard is the first woman to make the FBI’s list. The New Jersey State Police then added another $1 million to the reward pot.

Convicted cop-killer (of a New Jersey state trooper) and “domestic terrorist” Chesimard has been living in Cuba since 1984 as a Castro-coddled celebrity of sorts. And it’s not like bounty hunters can operate freely in a Stalinist country. So the $2 million may be symbolic. As in the U.S. Justice Department putting on a game face and saying: “Look, Castro, we’re serious here.”

In the early 1970s, Chesimard belonged to a Black Panther offshoot known as the Black Liberation Army. “This case is just as important today as it was when it happened 40 years ago,” according to a recent press release from Mike Rinaldi, of the New Jersey State Police. “Chesimard was a member of the Black Liberation ... Read More

WITH a narrow and disputed election victory last month and an accelerating economic crisis, the man who succeeded Hugo Chávez as Venezuela’s president got off to an inauspicious start. Now Nicolás Maduro’s efforts to establish authority are making matters worse at home, and setting alarm bells ringing abroad.

After appearing to promise a full audit of the election results, as demanded by Henrique Capriles, the candidate of the Democratic Unity (MUD) coalition, the government backtracked. Human-rights groups say that more than 200 protesters, including teenagers, were detained by the military and many beaten up. Antonio Rivero, a retired general and leading opposition member, was arrested. He is on hunger strike, charged with “inciting hatred” and “criminal association”. Mr Capriles, who has asked the supreme court to annul the election, is threatened with jail.

There was violence even in the National Assembly. The MUD’s 67 legislators were barred from speaking and had their ... Read More

BY LAURA PAZ

Cuban reporter Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias, freed in April after six months detention without trial, has spoken of his time in prison, and the poor conditions suffered by fellow-inmates.

Martínez Arias, who reports for the independent news agency Hablemos Press, was arrested in September while investigating allegations that an imported shipment of medicines contained faulty items. He was then accused of a serious offence – insulting Cuba’s past and present presidents, Fidel and Raúl Castro. Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience.

No trial date was set, and he was released on April 9, the same day a group of foreign journalists were allowed a rare visit to the Combinado del Este prison where he had been held, although by then he had already been transferred to another jail, Valle Grande. (See Freedom for Detained Cuban Journalist on his release, and Cuba Grants Prison Access on Own Terms on the visit.)

Now feeling “emotionally, ... Read More

BY RAUL LOTITTO

CARACAS – With the death of Hugo Chávez, Chávismo has lost its supremacy in Venezuela. It does not matter that so-called Chávistas still control Venezuela’s parliament, 17 of 23 provincial governments, and all key state institutions, including the judiciary. Nor does it matter that Chávez’s handpicked successor, Nicolás Maduro, has already assumed the presidency. All of the signs point to the decline of Chávismo and to the end of Venezuela’s role as Latin America’s populist core.

Between last October’s presidential election and the one held last month, Chávismo lost almost 700,000 votes to Henrique Capriles’ Democratic Unity Roundtable – a shift that many, including Chávistas, attribute to “Maduro not being Chávez.” This was the first presidential election in Venezuela that resulted in an almost even split among voters (and the outcome itself remains hotly contested). If Venezuela continues along this path, Chávismo could not only lose its majority; it could collapse altogether.

... Read More

As the facts behind Nicolás Maduro’s fabricated electoral “victory” on April 14 are disclosed, his legitimacy and ability to govern will be decimated.  Reams of confidential official documents obtained from Venezuelan sources reveal the existence of a sophisticated political machine – developed and managed by Cuban advisors – that gives chavista party bosses an unfair advantage in mobilizing their voters and manipulating election results.

This complex system was created in the last several years under the direction of Cuban advisors, working with Cuban-trained Venezuelan hard-liners associated with the “Francisco de Miranda Front,” and micromanaged by a database operated in Pinar del Rio, Cuba.  The Cuban electoral team is headed by Raciel Garcia Ceballos, who visits Venezuela on a weekly basis.  Here’s how the Cuban-engineered system works:

Using official data that is provided exclusively to the chavista party by the National Electoral Council (CNE), a database has been developed that cross references the list ... Read More

By Guillermo I. Martinez

Slowly, a growing number of Venezuelan exiles living in South Florida are realizing it will be hard for Henrique Capriles Rodonski to peacefully get the government of Nicolás Maduro to accept a true recount of the vote count in the presidential election of April 14.

Capriles has the facts to back up the charge the government cheated to win the election.

He has pointed out that in 737 voting precincts his supporters were ousted by government thugs at gunpoint; at another 39 voting precincts Maduro got 100 per cent of the vote; and in 1,176 precincts; Maduro, whose ineptness as a speaker and leader has been acknowledged by many, got more votes than his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, who had defeated Capriles by more than 1.5 million votes in last October’s elections.

Unfortunately where governments rule by force, being right does not mean those in power will play by the rules. ... Read More

Cuba‘s communist regime is like an ageing house on the verge of collapse, leading dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez said Thursday, insisting Havana’s timid reforms were a smokescreen.

“The so-called Raulista changes are superficial,” Sanchez told reporters, referring to President Raul Castro, who replaced his ailing brother and 1959 revolutionary leader Fidel seven years ago.

“The Cuban model is like a house in Old Havana. You look at the house and ask how it’s possible that it’s still standing,” she said in Geneva, where she was attending a UN human rights meeting.

“Then the owner comes along and wants to change the door. He unscrews one screw, and with that screw, the whole house comes down. The question is, which screw is it going to be?”

She said Cuba’s ageing leadership faced a stark “biological reality”, growing public criticism, and political change in Venezuela whose oil wealth has kept Havana afloat.

Named by Time magazine as one of ... Read More

BY STEPHANIE NEBEHAY

The Castro government’s easing of foreign travel restrictions on Cubans has not led to greater freedoms on the island, a leading dissident said on Wednesday.

Elizardo Sanchez said 19 opposition activists had been allowed to leave since a new exit policy was introduced on January 14. Dozens more would go in the next few weeks, he said.

But the Communist government, in power since 1959, was keeping strict control on dissident voices at home, he said.

“They calculate it will be freedom of expression for people outside Cuba but the voices will not be reproduced in Cuba. They control all communications, radio, newspaper, local and international television, and access to Internet,” Sanchez said.

A total of 92 political prisoners were currently held in Cuban jails, which the International Committee of the Red Cross has not been allowed visit since 1989, he said. A further 350 were held in short-term detention on political grounds.

Sanchez is president ... Read More

Se ha terminado la elección presidencial en Venezuela? Al parecer no. El ganador auto proclamado, Nicolás Maduro, se comporta como alguien que sabe que perdió el 14 de abril – usando la violencia para acallar la demanda de la oposición para que se realice un recuento de los resultados.

Al recurrir a la violencia, el ignorante de Maduro ha firmado la sentencia de muerte para la legitimidad del chavismo.

En varios videos que le han dado la vuelta al mundo se puede apreciar a soldados y a chavistas matones persiguiendo, golpeando y disparando contra manifestantes desarmados el dia de las elecciones el mes pasado.  Anoche, archivos de video de la Asamblea Nacional de Venezuela mostraron como opositores eran golpeados mientras protestaban por una ley mordaza impuesta por el presidente de la asamblea Diosdado Cabello.

Los análisis post-electorales han demostrado que incluso muchos de los que apoyaron a Hugo Chávez se encuentran entre la ... Read More

BY JOSÉ AZEL

The succession from Fidel to Raúl Castro, programmed since the early days of the Cuban revolution, was efficient, effective and seamless. Gen. Castro now is orchestrating his own succession, but this one lacks the historical legitimizing elements of the 1959 revolution.

The recent appointment of Miguel Diaz-Canel, a 52-year-old party apparatchik factotum, as first vice president of the Council of State places him in line to succeed Raúl Castro in that state body. This, however, is not equivalent to being No. 2 in the regime as the international media seem to have concluded.

Article 5 of the Cuban constitution makes it clear that the Communist Party is “the superior leading force of the society and the state.” The 15-member Politburo of the Communist Party remains headed by Raúl Castro as first secretary, and by 82-year-old Machado Ventura as second secretary.

It is not often understood that Raúl Castro leads Cuba not because he ... Read More

By Carlos Batista

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has renewed a strategic alliance with Cuba, signing $1 billion in cooperation agreements two weeks after his election to replace the late Hugo Chavez.

The 51 agreements signed Saturday during Maduro’s visit to Cuba encompass health, education, transportation, sports, energy and special “social missions.”

An estimated 40,000 Cuban doctors, technicians and advisers work in Venezuela, which supplies Cuba with 130,000 barrels of oil a day as part of a 12-year-old relationship that has closely bound together their leftist, anti-US governments.

“Cuba and Venezuela are going to continue working together,” Maduro said, calling it “a strategic alliance that transcends the times, which, more than an alliance, is a brotherhood.”

Cuba is only the second country Maduro has visited since his election April 14 by a narrow margin that is the subject of a bitter, unresolved dispute with the opposition charging the vote was stolen.

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council said late ... Read More

While en route to accept Europe’s top human rights prize, the leader of a leading Cuban dissidents group spoke strongly against the Castro brothers to an exile community that received her message with enthusiastic applause.

“We want a Cuba in which liberty exists,” Berta Soler, co-founder of the Ladies in White, said. “Where there is democracy. And where there is respect for human rights. And also, we are fighting pacifically for a Cuba without the Castros.”

The wife of a former political prisoner traveled to the United States after receiving the Sakharov Prize with other members of the Ladies in White Tuesday in Brussels. She met with Cuban-American political leaders in Washington and spent Saturday uniting with exiles in Miami, where nostalgia for Cuba still dominates many aspects of daily life.

Her visit comes shortly after that of two other prominent Cuban dissidents, blogger Yoani Sanchez and Rosa Maria Paya, the daughter of ... Read More

JUAN O. TAMAYO

La negativa de visas por parte de Estados Unidos a tres cubanos invitados a un congreso académico ha destapado una protesta sorprendente, tanto en contra de Washington como de los tres académicos estadounidenses pro-Castro que supuestamente controlan la agenda sobre Cuba de la conferencia y los espías de La Habana que asisten a la misma.

La influencia de Cuba sobre la Asociación de Estudios Latino Americanos (LASA) se ha rumorado por largo tiempo entre los académicos estadounidenses. Pocos se han quejado públicamente, por miedo a que La Habana les prohíba la entrada o les niegue acceso a materiales de investigación.

Pero ahora las quejas se han hecho públicas.

“La sección de Cuba de LASA ha caído en manos de partidarios de la revolución, y ha sido completamente politizada”, dijo Ted Henken, profesor de Estudios Latinoamericanos de Baruch College en Nueva York.

“Los que hemos estado en LASA también sabemos que dentro de ... Read More

BY FRANK CALZON

The Obama Administration soon will be releasing its list of countries that support international terrorism. Currently on the list are: Iran, Sudan, Syria and Cuba. Cuba has been listed since 1982 but Reps. James P. McGovern, D-Mass., and Kathy Castor, D-Fl., propose to remove Cuba from the list. They argue that because Raúl Castro has taken control of the island from his brother Fidel, Cuba no longer poses a threat to the United States.

An article appearing in Sunday’s [April 21] Washington Post presents a less benign appraisal of Cuba’s intentions. The author, Jim Popkin, focuses on the career of a Pentagon intelligence analyst, Ana Montes, who for 17 years fed highly classified information about the U.S. military to the Cuban government, which the Castro brothers routinely shared with their anti-American allies. The unrepetant spy is serving a 25-year sentence in a U.S. penitentiary.

Nevertheless, some say Havana is still ... Read More