A Cuban man in the town of Vinales. Photo: Flickr user alschim

On October 13, we told you the story of Yoani Sanchez, who was denied permission by the Cuban government to travel to the United States to receive a prestigious award because she openly criticizes the Cuban government’s communist system on her blog, Generation Y.

On Friday, Sanchez and another blogger say they were forcefully detained and beaten by government agents as they were on their way to a march in Havana. Sanchez said that two agents stopped her and another blogger, then ordered them into a car and proceeded to kick her and pull her hair.

Here is an excerpt from her blog on Sunday, describing her obstacles after the attack, called Blame the Victim:

After an attack there are certain myopics who blame the victim herself for what happened. If it is a woman who has been raped, someone explains that her skirt was very short or that she strutted provocatively. If it is a robbery, there are those who will say a flashy purse or shiny earrings provoked the criminal’s greed. In the case of someone who has been the object of political repression, there is no lack of people who will justify it, saying that imprudence was the cause of such an “energetic” response. In the face of these attitudes, the victim feels doubly assaulted.

The dozens of eyes that watched as Orlando and I were forced into a car with blows would prefer not to testify, and so they put themselves on the side of the criminal.

Our question today is:
As the Obama administration begins talking to repressive countries like Cuba, is the administration doing enough to hold them accountable on human rights?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

Jose Moya, professor of Latin American history at Barnard College, speaks with Martin Savidge about the state of press freedom in Cuba and tolerance of government criticism.

Moya also discusses other aspects of the human rights situation, in addition to Internet access and the potential softening of the economic embargo.

Should the United States normalize relations with Cuba, as some have called for?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

Even with the embargo, the United States is Cuba’s fifth largest trading partner — there are exemptions on food sales to the island. Photo: USDA

There’s no reason to be surprised by President Obama’s decision this week to renew the U.S. embargo with Cuba — he was sticking the script followed by presidents since John F. Kennedy.

Not doing so would throw a wrench into his efforts in Congress on universal health care. Without even arguing pro or con on the issue, let’s just state the obvious — the president is dealing with pressing matters that take front-burner attention right now. Cuba and Latin America are way down on the list of problems to deal with.

All this despite the emptiness and loneliness of the embargo. Many Americans don’t realize the oddities of the U.S. stance — it can’t be called a policy. Something like 178 other countries have normal diplomatic relations with Cuba. Even with the embargo, the United States is Cuba’s fifth largest trading partner — there are exemptions on food sales to the island.

A majority of Cuban Americans now support an end to the embargo. Some of the most vociferous supporters of a change are midwestern Republicans, who want to open new markets for their constituents. And it should be made clear: Those suffering the most are the Cuban people, not the Cuban government.

President Obama’s decision therefore may be disappointing to the coalition of Americans who think it’s time to acknowledge the failure of the 50-year economic embargo of Cuba. But they won’t scream as hard as the other side would if the president endorsed a new policy. Obama can’t stand potential defections of support for the health care bill.

Cubans in Cuba and Miami tend to see their own issue as the only issue. But even they know the reality.

The Cuban government has expressed doubt for some time that Obama would strike up a new, close friendship with the Communist country. Ricardo Alarcon, the president of Cuba’s National assembly, told me in Havana this year that he hoped, but didn’t think the new president would live up to his billing as an agent of change.

Watch: Cuba embraces Obama and clamors to end the embargo.

Any idea of quick change comes from an early flurry of talk that Obama might be willing to drop a travel ban to Cuba affecting most U.S. citizens. There was a lot of noise in the spring when Obama suggested changes in U.S. Cuban policy. But he’s taken minor steps other than to eliminate restrictions imposed by George W. Bush on Cuban Americans traveling and sending more to relatives on the island.

Actually, there were two small changes that are worth mentioning. One is that the United States and Cuba have begun holding regular occasional meetings on immigration and other matters. So there is some level of official contact between the countries. There was also an odd contact point recently when Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico paid a visit to Havana and said he held unofficial meetings with high-ranking Cuban officials. It’s not clear whether he was carrying water for the president or not, and it’s also not clear who he really met with, besides Alarcon.

The real point person on Cuba and Latin America should be Arturo Valenzuela, who President Obama has designated as the deputy assistant secretary of state for Inter-American Affairs. He’s not on the job yet — Congress is stalling on confirmation hearings.

Latin America, as usual, is an afterthought in U.S. foreign policy planning.

- Peter Eisner

He trains with the best young boxers in the country, following a strict regime designed to keep them at their best — since losing is not an option.

Watch the full film and find more information at the Wide Angle website.

The Cuban government had erected flags to block the view of the U.S. interest section’s news ticker in Havana.

It’s interesting to hear — but not very significant — that the United States under President Obama has turned off the useless news ticker that was running in the windows atop the U.S. interest section in Havana. The move is one more in a series of steps that leaves U.S.-Cuban relations still awaiting some major breakthrough after 50 years of hostility.

The news crawl was a vestige of the belligerent and unsuccessful U.S. policy toward Cuba during the administration of George W. Bush. The Bush administration pretended that it was a means of providing unfettered news to the Cuban people, but the streaming headlines did little more than to give the Cuban government a chance to rally support against American policies. At the time, Fidel Castro established a freedom plaza in front of the U.S. diplomatic building –- located along the Malecon, Cuba’s seafront — and big black flags obscured vision of the ticker when people drove past.

While Obama has rolled back a few other Bush era measures — allowing easier transit by Cuban-Americans to the island, and dropping strictures on how much money family members were allowed to send to their relatives on the island — nothing else has changed. The Cuban government, under Fidel’s brother, Raul, has toned down anti-U.S. rhetoric hoping for an eventual opening to U.S. tourism and other measures that could bring big economic changes in Cuba.

When I was in Cuba earlier this year, I didn’t see any indication that Cubans on the street were lacking information about the basics of what is happening in the United States and the world. And those I spoke to were also surprisingly willing– on camera — to criticize the government for not providing enough
employment, food and opportunities for improving their lives. Young and old were as enthusiastic as people around the world about the prospect of a vigorous, open-minded president of the United States, who happened to be a person of color. And they hoped that Obama would break the logjam.

Cubans appear to know the score, and they’re just tired of waiting for changes that will give them more contact with their friends and relatives in the outside world. Fifty years of the U.S. economic embargo has done nothing to incite popular insurrection in Cuba — if that was the goal — and most people in the United States, even a majority of Cuban-Americans, think it’s time for the embargo to go.

Political reality in the United States makes that difficult. Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, is promoting phased-in engagement with Cuba, and an eventual end of economic sanctions. The rationale is that increased contact will put the United States in a better position to promote a shift toward democratic change.

His middle-of-the-road approach clashes with hard-line opponents of the Castro brothers who want no change in relations unless Cuba makes a move first on political freedom. They note that several hundred political prisoners are held in Cuban jails. But the United States is unlikely to have leverage to bring any change under the current stagnant formula.

So Cuba and the United States continue plodding along, dealing with vestiges of failed rhetoric and policies passed. The news sign is off on the U.S. interest section, but there’s no sign in the short term that the Obama administration plans to go much further than that.

- Peter Eisner

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Indrani Soemardjan under a Creative Commons license.

A hospital in Varadero, Cuba.

Apropos of the current health care debate in the United States: What happens when a government you happen not to approve of does some good things? The case in point is Cuba, where the level of health care is startling.

Medicine has long been held up as one of the success stories of Fidel Castro’s half-century tenure.

During a Worldfocus reporting trip several months ago (February 2009), I had the chance to check out the reality of the claim at various points along the health care track. At one end of the spectrum, I spoke to a retired woman who lives with her daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren in a small apartment in downtown Havana. The family’s basic income is about $40 a month. They could use more money, but not for health care.

The woman, in her 70s, was considering the merits of having a foot operation. It was a standard problem to straighten out some toes. I did hear some complaints from people who complained about a shortage of doctors and waiting times. Not in this case, which I chose at random. The decision was based on the timing; she was confident in her doctor’s skill, was not worried about a delay in treatment and didn’t even consider the cost. It was free.

There was an 80-year-old writer who had a quadruple bypass several years ago. He was taken to the provincial hospital with the best reputation for the surgery, recovered at the hospital and at a facility where his family joined him, and now has regular checkups with a doctor who reminds him to keep exercising. No bill for him or his family. It was free.

I spoke to an African-American woman from New York who attends the Latin American School of Medicine in Cuba. The students there are Cubans and foreigners from two dozen countries; the young woman told me the program was life-changing; she would never have had the means to study medicine in the United States. It’s free — but wait; there’s a catch. Americans who attend must promise the Cuban school that they will practice medicine in poor or under-served communities in the United States.

Finally, I interviewed Dr. Gerardo Guillen, the research director of the Cuban Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, who described pioneering pharmaceutical research. The center is experimenting with drugs to treat and cure prostate cancer and hepatitis C. The center already produces and distributes a drug that treats and cures deep wounds characteristically suffered by diabetes patients. Guillen estimates that tens of thousands of people in the United States could be saved from amputations if they had access to this particular drug. It’s not licensed in the United States.

Cuban Americans, among others, sometimes come to Cuba for treatment or for other medical intervention they could not afford back in the United States. The cost for visitors? Not free — but a fraction of what it would cost at home.

- Peter Eisner

Photo courtesy of Flickr user scaturchio under a Creative Commons license.

Former State Department employee Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn, are being held without bond on charges of spying for Cuba.

A strange case of alleged spying on behalf of Cuba has popped up in Washington, raising fascinating questions about personality, motivation and Cuba’s goals in espionage.

The case involves Kendall Myers, now retired from the State Department’s intelligence branch, and his wife Gwendolyn, a former computer specialist at Riggs National Bank.

The couple is portrayed as enthusiastic converts to the cause of protecting Cuba against the United States and providing information to the Cuban government for years.

They were caught by a sting in which an FBI agent posed as a Cuban operative and asked them to return to the fold after several years of avoiding spy activities.

The magistrate who denied bail in the case indicated, as reported by the Washington Post, that they were caught red-handed.

The judge also noted that Walter Kendall Myers, 72, and his wife, Gwendolyn, 71, had marked on their calendar a yacht trip to the Caribbean in November with no return date, indicating a possible escape plan.

“To put it bluntly, the government’s case seems at this point insuperable,” wrote U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola, in an opinion issued after a hearing in U.S. District Court.

Former colleagues of Kendall Myers are obviously upset, as the Post also reported:

“The bureau people are very angry about it. Really angry. But also bewildered,” said Wayne White, who worked on Middle Eastern issues in the bureau for a quarter-century before retiring in 2005. “This seemingly intelligent and urbane person was convinced that Castro’s Cuba was this terrific place?”

Among the interesting side notes to the case is the fact that Myers has an interesting pedigree. He has a PhD from John Hopkins and is a descendant of Alexander Graham Bell.

My friend Jeff Stein points out another interesting sidelight to the story, reported by The American Thinker.

A writer for the Web site noted that Gwendolyn Myers’ position at Riggs Bank, a prominent Washington, D.C. bank which folded several years ago, could have been more valuable to Cuban intelligence than the State Department link:

She could have provided valuable information on her own to the Cubans. At that time Riggs bank was the premiere banking institution in the Washington metropolitan area. It had branches in many big embassies, laundered money for people and governments, had CIA officials on its payroll and otherwise was the repository of significant amounts of information which would be of considerable use to Fidel.

Fidel Castro, for his part, said last week he knew nothing about the couple, and thought their arrest was related to opposition in the United States to a political opening toward Cuba.

He expressed doubt that any of it ever happened, but if it did he admired the Myers for what they might have done.

“The confrontation with the United States is of an ideological character and has nothing to do with the security of that country. Don’t you all find the whole story about Cuban espionage quite ridiculous?”

- Peter Eisner

Photo courtesy of Flickr user aylaleia under a Creative Commons license.

The Organization of American States has voted to rescind the ban on Cuba’s membership. Photo: OAS

The Organization of American States has voted to rescind the ban on Cuba’s membership in the largely U.S.-financed, Washington-based assemblage, but don’t stop the presses (or click the send button) on that one. Nothing has happened — not quite, not yet.

The decision was a perfect compromise at the end of an OAS meeting in San Pedro Sula, Honduras this week. The definition of a perfect compromise? Neither side is particularly happy.

Thirty-three of the 34 members of the OAS want to bring Cuba in from the political wilderness and have diplomatic relations with Cuba. But the United States pays for 60 percent of the OAS budget, and OAS headquarters is an august building about a block and a half from the White House. Attention must be paid.

Opponents of the Cuban government in Washington immediately called for a re-examination of providing $47 million toward the OAS budget for the next fiscal year.

The compromise vote to end the Cuba ban came after the United States managed to get a little codicil added to the declaration, in diplomatic speak:

The participation of Cuba in the OAS will be the result of a process of dialogue to be initiated at the request of the Government of Cuba and in compliance with the practices, goals and principles of the OAS.

Apparently, Cuba can only rejoin the OAS if it meets democratic and human rights guidelines, part of the OAS charter. In any case, Cuba hailed the OAS decision as historic, but said it isn’t interested in rejoining, for now.

Nevertheless, the reaction from Havana was triumphant. This was the online headline of Granma, the official organ of the Cuban Communist Party:

Fidel and the Cuban people have been absolved by history

The case is left in President Obama’s very full court. U.S. policy, despite some changes in recent months, is pretty much where it was before George W. Bush took office. Opponents of Cuba in Congress will make lots of noise if the Obama administration moves quickly to end the 47-year U.S. trade embargo on Cuba.

Here’s what William Leogrande, Dean of the American University School of Public Affairs, said, quoted by the Miami Herald:

It was a ”perfect compromise” — with both the United States and its ”antagonists,” chiefly the leftist governments of Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua — declaring victory.

[...] if the United States had failed to accept a compromise it would have left “with a resolution that made no mention of any underlying principles and with the creation of deep animosity toward the U.S.’”

- Peter Eisner

Cuba is not a member of the Organization of American States. Photo: OAS

The wittiest of the Marxes (Groucho, not Karl) said famously, “I wouldn’t join a club that would have me as a member.” It is an often-used quote that fits well with news about Cuba coming from a meeting this week of the Organization of American States in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.

Hillary Rodham Clinton faced a harangue from OAS members demanding that Cuba be invited to become a member of the organization. A New York Times piece about the meeting said this:

On one level, it seems a sterile debate: Cuba has said often and loudly that it does not want to rejoin the organization. But on a deeper level, the meeting has showcased Latin America’s resurgent political left, which has seized on Cuba as an issue with which to press the United States.

How much does this involve the misapplication of those overused words, “left versus right?” It can also be argued that all of Latin America yearns for a different relationship with the United States under the new presidency of Barack Obama. Cuba has diplomatic and trade ties with something like 170 countries around the world — left, center and right.

Back in Washington, the dominant move for a change in stagnant and stymied Cuban relations comes from the offices of Republican Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, who only Rush Limbaugh might try to label as a leftist. Lugar doesn’t support OAS membership for Cuba, but he calls for rethinking U.S. relations with Cuba. 

The OAS is a sideshow compared with appeals from Lugar and others, including U.S. businesses looking to open Cuba as a lucrative new market. Meanwhile, a majority of Americans and even a majority of the Cuban-American community in the United States support an end to the 47-year-old U.S. trade embargo of Cuba. 

So whether or not Cuba is invited to join the OAS, the focus is on Washington: How quickly and to what extent will the Obama administration promote the changes that appear close at hand?

- Peter Eisner

For more, watch Martin Savidge’s interview with Shannon O’Neil of the Council on Foreign Relations: Clinton outlines conditions for Cuba entry to OAS.

One issue on the table was Cuba, which was kicked out of the OAS in 1962. While most of the 34 nations in the group want Cuba to be reinstated without conditions, Clinton said there must be changes made by the Cuban government, including the release of political prisoners, respect for basic human rights and democratic reforms. That position comes despite recent overtures by the United States to improve relations with Cuba.

Shannon O’Neil, an expert on Latin America with the Council on Foreign Relations, joins Martin Savidge to discuss what it would take for Cuba to be re-admitted into the organization, overtures from Cuba to the U.S. and Iran’s interest in Latin American countries.

Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro, has championed for gay rights on the island.

On Wednesday, Cuban President Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela announced that the island would reinstate sex-change operations that had been banned. 

Mariela Castro, a sexologist, has also championed for gay rights. Earlier this month, in support of the International Day Against Homophobia, she led a group of hundreds in a conga line down a Cuban street.

Marina Sitrin is a writer and lawyer living in Havana, Cuba, who attended the recent street dance. She writes at “Upside Down World” to describe how life has changed for gays and lesbians in Cuba.

A rainbow flag over Havana

We are on a main city block early Saturday morning. People gathering are high spirited, almost giddy. As people begin to form a line I exhale deeply, imagining it is just one of many lines that are the Cuban reality. This line, however, is different. This line begins to shift, snake, jump and dance. This is a conga line. There are hundreds of us, perhaps even a thousand, and we are dancing in a conga line down one of the most central streets in Havana. And we are not just some random group of people, we are a group of lesbians, gay men, transvestites, transsexuals and bisexuals, along with heterosexual friends and sometimes even families, all gathering for the International Day Against Homophobia. For over a week activities have been taking place throughout Havana, as well as in a few provinces in the country to educate about sexual diversity, and, to celebrate it.

The main event Saturday began first thing in the morning, something not typical of a weekend celebration in Cuba, or, better said, a country where things typically begin early, but people attend late. But on this day, despite the early hour, by 10am thousands were flowing in and out of the Pabellon Cuba, one of Havana’s main exhibition centers.

[...] In many ways it was a scene not dissimilar from any Gay Pride event around the globe. Though this is Cuba. And this is la Rampa. It was not even a decade ago when young gay men would come and find one another outside one particular cinema on la Rampa, their dress not so flamboyant, people learning by word of mouth which theater it was, and then continuing on to the late night roving roof top parties. Parties that were gay, and were not legal, or at were always broken up by police, when found, under the pretext they were not legal. Over the years this scene has continued, and has become increasingly public, often on the Malecon, the famous wall along the sea edge that runs the length of Havana. This area too, is only a few blocks from where la Rampa meets the water. This is a long way from the 1970s, when there were jails specifically for the reeducation of those who were “counter revolutionary” and “sexually deviant”.

While the harassment of gays and lesbians is nothing like what it was in Cuba’s past, it does still exist, from the formal harassment by police on the street, to discrimination in workplaces and at school, and that is to not even speak of the cultural and social taboo. These were the main topics people spoke out about in the open mic sessions it the Pabellon. The anger and frustration spoken forcefully by one man, “In a country that says all are equal I still have to be afraid! I don’t have the same rights! I cannot kiss my partner! I can get kicked off the bus! I can lose my job! That the police always harass me! It is wrong!” was responded to with applause, whistles and a lively standing ovation of the many hundreds participating. This was an exciting and inspiring space, the diversity and openness with which people were claiming political space and equal rights was powerful. People were simultaneously celebrating identity and diversity and shouting for more space and rights. Rights they want respected in the day to day. As another man shouted “I want diversity everyday! I don’t want one day or one week of acceptance! I want a life of acceptance! A country of equality!”

A friend of mine, who identifies as a lesbian and has attended all of the past events related to sexual diversity, had more tepid enthusiasm. She commented, “Sure, this is good, sure, but it has happened before and it is not enough. What is going to happen? People will go home and things will not change.”

I don’t know. In all my years living in or visiting Cuba I have never seen such a display, and especially in such large numbers and in such an important public space.

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user bbcworldservice under a Creative Commons license.

A vendor in Cuba.

About a year before the Iraq War began, I had a chat with a U.S. Coast Guard officer who had been assigned to work with his Cuban counterparts in Havana on drug interdiction, piracy and other maritime issues. Those interchanges were more than useful, the officer said, and such cooperation made a real difference in U.S. security efforts.

The problem was that he had to work quietly and unnoticed. He heard criticism and reprimands from back home any time the Bush administration got a whiff of “too much” cooperation. Eventually, he got shut down, along with most other contacts between the United States and Cuba.

Last week, the State Department told the Cuban government it wants to resume twice-yearly talks with Cuba about migration issues, which were suspended by George W. Bush in 2004. Presumably, the Coast Guard would have a role there once again, and that is helpful in monitoring safety — potentially even terrorism — on the high seas.

Cuban officials quoted by the Miami Herald were enthusiastic:

A spokesman at the interests section [Cuba’s diplomatic representation in Washington], Alberto González, said Cuba ‘is always in the best position to sit at the table and talk about any kind of topic with the U.S., including immigration…It’s important for us, it’s important for the United States.

Timing is everything. President Obama announced a series of concessions earlier this year, just before attending the Summit of the Americas meeting in Trinidad. In that case, he rolled back Bush administration restrictions on travel and money transfers by Cuban exiles in the United States to the island. He also authorized new communications licensing measures with Cuba.

This time, the decision on migration precedes a visit by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the 39th General Assembly of the Organization of American States in Honduras on June 2 and 3. In both cases, the changes look like they were aimed at defusing criticism of U.S. policy on Cuba. Many world leaders — almost all in this hemisphere — are urging Obama to drop the half-century old Cuban trade embargo.

A majority of Americans — even a majority of Cuban Americans polled in Miami — support an end to the embargo. A small group of politicians in the United States loudly protest any changes in U.S.-Cuba policy, demanding democratic reforms in Cuba that are unlikely to come any time soon.

The latest changes take U.S.-Cuban relations basically back to where they were when the Bush administration took office. But there’s no sign that Obama will drop the trade embargo altogether any time soon.

- Peter Eisner

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Paul Keller under a Creative Commons license.

Barack Obama meets with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

At the 34-nation Summit of the Americas over the weekend, U.S. President Barack Obama promised a new approach to Latin American relations, meeting with such harsh critics of the U.S. as Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. 

Cuba was a hot topic, as Obama recently loosened travel and remittances restrictions for Cuban Americans. ”The policy that we’ve had in place for 50 years hasn’t worked the way we want it to. The Cuban people are not free,” Obama said at the close of the summit on Sunday. 

Worldfocus editorial consultant Peter Eisner, the former deputy foreign editor of the Washington Post, puts Obama’s position on Cuba in context. 

No question about it: President Barack Obama brought his A-game to the Trinidad summit of Western Hemisphere leaders over the weekend and upstaged potential efforts to embarrass and castigate the United States over its 50-year embargo against Cuba.

The president was warm to overtures by Cuban President Raul Castro and held out the possibility for real changes; he also disarmed Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, by sprinting across the dance floor to break the ice. As in Europe, as in Mexico, President Obama also talked about a new beginning and said that the United States has made its share of mistakes.

The question is: How soon will action follow all the words?

Antonio Caño of the Madrid newspaper, El País, saw little more than “handshaking and good intentions.” Even that was an accomplishment, he said, compared to disastrous, confrontational meetings during the Bush era. However, he said, the good intentions “will be erased from memory quickly if no there are no quick, recognizable results.”

President Obama’s position on Cuba has to be viewed in context. So far, he’s done little more than roll back restrictions imposed by George W. Bush that limited the ability of Cuban-Americans to visit Cuba or send money to family members. Obama has opened the possibility of licensing telecommunications contacts with Cuba.

In fact, the president hasn’t completely rewound U.S.-Cuban relations to where they had been before the Bush years. It doesn’t take an act of Congress, for example, to quietly resume bilateral talks with Cuba. The president has not reinstated periodic meetings with Cuba as part of a 1995 migration agreement. The meetings, halted by Bush, grew out of decades of periodic chaos caused by Cuban refugees fleeing the island –- sometimes meeting death in the treacherous Florida Straits.

Phillip Brenner, a professor at American University who specializes on Cuban-U.S. relations, told me U.S. overtures so far “will move the two countries towards a normal relationship only a little.”

“Cuban officials rightly view President Obama’s decision as signifying nothing more than fulfillment of a campaign promise to Cuban-Americans.”

He said the U.S. plan on telecommunications with Cuba “was couched in the same language the United States has used for fifty years. They are intended to bring ‘freedom’ to Cubans, which Cuban officials see as code for ‘regime change.’ ”

President Obama has enough problems as he deals with the ongoing economic crisis, and the dire problems of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Certain to face conservative ire, including a vocal minority in Congress, how much Cuban political capital is the president willing to spend?

- Peter Eisner

Photo courtesy of Flickr user El_Enigma under a Creative Commons license.

In an online column, the ailing former president Fidel Castro said the U.S. had announced the repeal of “several hateful restrctions,” as he put it. But “of the blockade, which is the cruelest of measures,” said Castro, “not a word was uttered.”

Peter Eisner, who recently spent several weeks in Cuba reporting for the Worldfocus signature series “Cuba After Fidel,” joins Martin Savidge to discuss how these changes will impact the average Cuban, if more changes on the part of the U.S. are expected and if the U.S. will ask the Cuban government for changes.

For a background on U.S.-Cuban relations, listen to our online radio show on Cuba and the U.S., featuring Peter Eisner.

Another move could represent one of the biggest breakthroughs in Cuban-American relations since Fidel Castro took power 50 years ago —  the perjury indictment that attracted little attention last week when it was issued in El Paso, Texas, against an 81-year-old Cuban exile linked to bombings in Cuba. Worldfocus correspondent Peter Eisner reports on the implications of the indictment.

For people who worship baseball, Cuba could become a hot destination if the travel ban were to be lifted. The game is a year-round sport, and while it may look the same, it is a far cry from the money game it has become in the U.S.

As Worldfocus correspondent Peter Eisner and producer Ara Ayer found on their recent trip, Cubans play baseball for the love of the sport, from the stadiums to the streets. Channtal Fleischfresser edited this video.

Cubans in line for food. Photo: Peter Eisner

Worldfocus editorial consultant Peter Eisner recently reported on the signature series Cuba After Fidel. He describes political life in Cuba and the changes in society he’s seen over the last couple of decades.

Before my recent reporting trip to Cuba for Worldfocus, I hadn’t been back to this island nation for 14 years.

I’d spoken with Cubans here and kept up with developments, but with the Fidel Castro era at the crossroads, I was interested in reporting firsthand what might be changing on the political and economic fronts as well as on the street.

Politics in Cuba is largely a guessing game. Since Fidel Castro receded from view, his brother, Raúl, has tantalized the country with scenarios hinting of a new era — do they await a Cuban glasnost?

Cubans have been encouraged to debate more in public, and the gregarious islanders are doing that, gingerly. I heard little griping in public back in 1995. This time I found Cubans, old and young, far more willing to speak outside the party lines, and give their names.

Not enough food, too much bureaucracy, too few jobs — the complaints came from people not about to jump on inner tubes and make their way to Florida. I spoke to people who complained but also valued what the Cuban revolution had accomplished.

Some wanted to leave, no question; but I heard mainly political discontent far short of insurrection, from people intent on staying. They did not mass behind the old party line. I was hearing both the complaints and the aspirations of people who were frustrated enough to try out the freedoms that apparently were being offered them. Stay tuned.

Cubans have more food to eat than they did back in 1995, the toughest part of the “Special Period” when the Soviet Union stopped its food supplies and financial aid, further isolating its statist model in the Americas.

Back then, I spent time with a group of Cuban writers and was overwhelmed by their creativity, their poetry and their generosity of spirit. One day back then, at lunchtime, I was hanging out with a group of five or six writers; one pulled out a package wrapped in paper from his shoulder bag. It was two homemade flour tortillas with processed cheese melted in the middle. Everybody tore off small pieces of the tortilla and they offered a bit to me — they called it Cuban pizza. There was hardly enough lunch for six.

It is evident — and Cubans agreed when asked — that life is much better now. State-controlled rations “guarantee” a decent amount of food to everyone, though there are often shortages in the stores where ration coupons can be used. Scrounging the money for extras, and sometimes for basic necessities such as shampoo, requires conniving or bending the rules and working the black market.

Cuban government officials argue that the U.S. trade embargo is not only unjust, but also anachronistic. While we were there, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet came to town for the annual Cuban Book Fair. Progressively, other countries have disregarded the U.S. trade embargo, which a succession of presidents enforced with pressure tactics on U.S. allies, especially those in the hemisphere.

That policy has collapsed; Ricardo Alarcon, the president of the Cuban National Assembly, told me that at first he considered the U.S. trade embargo a nearly successful effort to isolate or even annihilate the Cuban revolution. But he was proud to say that Cuba survived, and “few countries could have withstood that pressure for even three months.”

Now, 47 years later, “it is the United States that is isolated,” he said.

- Peter Eisner

The view of Cuba from a plane.

Worldfocus editorial consultant Peter Eisner recently reported on the signature series Cuba After Fidel. He describes encountering young Cubans leaving behind loved ones and heading to the U.S., knowing full well that they may never return to their homeland due to U.S. travel restrictions.

One day in Havana, I had to go down to the state tourism office to change my travel arrangements back to the States. As most people don’t realize, there are a number of charter flights daily between Cuba and the United States carrying Cuban-Americans, journalists, members of non-profit organizations, students and educators who, among others, are in some cases exempt from U.S. prohibition from traveling to Cuba.

At the tourist office, I started chatting with a young Cuban woman who told me she was flying to Miami that Friday and was to be married to her Cuban-American boyfriend and remain there.

Three days later at the airport, by chance, I bumped into the woman, who I hardly recognized — she’d spruced up for the 45-minute flight to Miami. She was weepy, having just said goodbye to her parents and friends, not knowing when she would see them again.

It was the first time she’d ever left Cuba, the third time she’d ever been on an airplane — she’d once taken a domestic flight from Havana to Santiago de Cuba to the east. A number of other people on the plane were similar: Young, single women who had obtained visas to go to the United States.

A flight attendant asked for a show of hands: “How many people on the plane are leaving Cuba definitivamente?” (a dramatic word in Spanish which could be translated as “permanently” or “for good”). The young women raised their hands.

It is hard to describe the emotions running through the plane, a lifetime of feelings compressed into a short jet hop across the Florida Strait. When the plane took off, there was applause, and the Cuban woman I’d met was crying as she craned her neck to see the Havana shoreline disappear under the clouds.

Only 30 minutes later, the attendants were announcing the final descent into Miami. There was no single emotion, just bits of emotion tossed together. At wheels down, the flight attendant came on the air again, using that same word. “For those of you who have left Cuba definitivamente, bienvenidos a los Estados Unidos!”

Welcome to the United States.

For me, that bittersweet moment summed up the contradictions of the situation. These were young people leaving everything they knew and loved behind, cheered by the possibilities that the United States seemed to offer, frightened by the unknown. One could only wish them well, hoping that politics and ideology on both sides give a chance to the people who have been suffering all along.

- Peter Eisner

Photo courtesy of Flickr user yosemitewu56 under a Creative Commons license.

But as Worldfocus special correspondent Peter Eisner and producer Ara Ayer report, despite years of ill will between the U.S. and Cuban governments, many Cubans still have fond feelings for America — and look forward to changing relations under U.S. President Barack Obama.

Also, listen to our radio show exploring the roots of U.S.-Cuban relations and potential changes under President Barack Obama.

For another look inside Cuba, go inside Cuba’s boxing rings with PBS Wide Angle’s “Victory is Your Duty.”

He has held the post as president of the national assembly in Cuba. His influence and prominence are based not only on his longevity but also on his keen analysis of the United States. Alarcón spoke about the Cuban people, U.S.-Cuban relations and the promise of Barack Obama.

Peter Eisner interviewed Alarcón, and Ara Ayer shot the interview.