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US-CUBA RELATIONS IMPROVING SLOWLY

Cuba, Havana.  Cuban officials offered optimistic during discussions on increasing migration with U.S. diplomats yesterday even though there was no reference on other problematic issues such  as the jailing of an American contractor accused of spying for the USA while working in Havana.

Cuba's minister of foreign affairs, Dagoberto Rodriguez, had gracious meetings with American counterpart Craig Kelly, an American assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs and the highest ranking American official to come to the island in 20 years.

The historic meeting took place in an atmosphere of mutual respect. The Cuban side said  the talks went very well with many issues including Cuban Hospitals and medicine were discussed and was wrapped up at an secret location in Havana. The American Government had no official comment on the talks, which lasted over 6 hours. The American delegation also met with Cuban dissidents later Friday, according to a leading human rights activist who told the international news reporters that he was among those invited to attend.

The regularly scheduled migration meetings were almost canceled between two Cold War enemies that have been blaming each other for years over a range of problems. Last year Cuban officials arrested an American contractor who was in Cuba on a program financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development which Cuba accuses of being a subversive spy agency for US Intelligence operators.

The accused American spy been held without formal charge in a well furnished penthouse at Havana’s high-security Villa Marista jail. Cuban President Raul Castro has said officially that the American Contractor was spying, and that his presence was more proof that Washington is saying one thing publicly but still trying to damage Cuba’s government 50 years after the revolution started.

This American Aid Program that was begun under President George W. Bush devotes millions of US Taxpayers dollars to the promotion of democracy on the island yet has been accused by the Cubans as being nothing more than a front for American spies to filter into the Cuban island paradise to foster discontent among Cubans.

The American company that employees the American spy is Bethesda, Maryland-based DAI, and there story is that he was distributing communications equipment to Cuba’s minute Jewish community and not to Cuban dissidents. Unfortunately for him this specialty communications equipment is tightly controlled by the communist government.

U.S. diplomats are concerned about the timing of the Cuban arrest, saying he had been to Havana many times before without problems on the same program and never had a problem. The American Ambassador issued a video Thursday requesting his release and saying he loved Cuba and was a humanitarian not a spy.

There has been many rumors that Cuba will eventually trade the American spy for five Cuban agents that were falsely arrested and imprisoned in Miami since the 1990s after being convicted of spying. Cuba sent them to combat terrorism against Cuba and considers them anti-terror fighters who were trying to shut down a bombing campaign organized and led by fiercely anti-Castro Cuban-Americans.

Cuban government leader Ricardo Alarcon did not  answer any questions on Friday, but said Cuban authorities would use the good faith of the immigration talks to bring up the fate of their own agents.

Alarcon added that Havana has offered to expand many other issues and continue open and fair discussions with the United States, and is still waiting for their answer. Cuba is  hoping that the United States will respond to the additional proposals Cuba has made in efforts to reach agreements in other areas like the fight against terrorism, drug-trafficking and also the possibility of improving the immigration accord.

U.S. officials have not accepted nor replied to the Cuban offer, describing it as a vague proposal to continue talking with no concrete policy changes on their part. US officers say Cuba should have already responded to the good-faith gestures President Obama has already taken, such as loosening all restrictions on travel and remittances for Cuban Americans to travel to Cuba to visit thier families.

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Cuba however, stated it hoped that future negotiations could convince Washington to end their unfair immigration policy known as "wet foot, dry foot where Cubans reaching American soil are granted instant asylum, while those captured at sea are deported back to Cuba.

The U.S. delegation would not continue additional meetings with Cuban officials on the side issues until after these immigration talks have been completed.

The leader of the independent Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, said he and many other popular Cuban opposition leaders were invited to talk to the American delegation following the official discussion were completed.

Meetings with the Cuban dissidents have become routine when American diplomats travel to Cuba. These open meetings with the unpopular dissidents are a thorn in the Cuban government image and is sure to upset Cuban leaders, who have repeated that the dissidents are highly paid stooges of Washington anti-Cuba propaganda.

Cuba and the United States have been waging a nonstop war of words in for over 50 years over nearly every issue possible, from President Barack Obama’s performance at climate talks, which Cuban Comandante Fidel Castro called deceitful and demagogic, to the U.S. relief effort in Haiti, which he termed an another illegal occupation of a suffering nation.

However the crowing glory of upsetting actions by the USA again Cuba in which Cuba is  particularly angered by is Obama's unexpected decision to continue to include Cuba on its International list of state sponsors of terrorism even though there is not a shred of evidence to support this cold war claim.

There are also the thorny issues such as Washington’s persistence that Cuba open its one party political system to democratic reform and free hundereds of jailed political prisoners, and Cuba’s unbending demand that Washington drop its 50 year blockade and stop interfering in what Havana considers its internal affairs.

Cuba experts all agree that the incident over the American Spying contractor is just  another sensitive issue to a long list of problems between the two countries.

Anything that complicates U.S.-Cuba relationship is definitely not going to help bring the two sides together.

The Cuban-USA immigration talks that were started in 1994 and were suspended by Bush were resumed in July and are to be held bi-annually. Their purpose is to monitor the terms and implementation of the previous immigration agreement under which the United States issues at least 20,000 emigration visas to Cubans per year via a Cuban Lottery system. So far the talks have not centered around the possibility of American companies traveling and investing in Cuban Hotels nor investing in the Cuban economy. We will keep you posted.

CUBA CLASSIC CARS A STRANGE COMBINATION

 

 CUBAN1950'S CHEVY CLASSIC ANTIQUE CAR 

CARS AND CUBA. A STRANGE COMBINATION

Havana, CUBA- Cuba is a world of its own often compared with a walk into a time machine.
An interesting example of this is that unbeknown to the rest of the world, Cuba even has its own unique system of branding your license plate to quickly identify to the world who you are and what rights you have and don't have in Cuba.

The spectrum of color coordinated license plates and special codes tell the ever watching eye of authority how important you are in the Cuban political and Economic system, your nationality, where you work and your rank.

In short your Cuban license plate say it all as you drive in posh 5th avenue or along the seaside Malecon.

Cuba's  system of colored license plates was copied directly from the KGB in former Soviet Union. This coding system is yet another way Cuban authorities have kept control on their people and foreigners for decades.

Cuba Government Owned Cars
To be fair the fact is that the Cuban government owns most 95% of all the cars in Cuba. Cuban Government vehicles have blue plates with letters and numbers that indicate when and where the vehicle can operate.
Blue Cuban Cars cannot be used for personal use and can only be used for official government or professional purposes.

The risk to take your car to the beach is that there are many Traffic Inspectors strategically planted along most highways out of town and other high-traffic areas, stopping official cars to check their routes and to make sure they aren't being used for taking your family to the beach.

Top Cuban executives at government firms have light brown colored plates that allow more leeway yet they still may only be allowed to use their vehicles to travel to and from work.

Yet another form of control is what it really is said Emilio Perez, a chauffeur who is driving a Black Mercedes to escort elite foreign officials around Havana.

Russian Cars in Cuba
Since 1960's the Soviet Union was Cuba's God father and benefactor. For decades all Cuban license plates were boring black and white, and the first two letters specified the province where the car was registered.
The third letter determined the state or private ownership depending on the status.

The Soviets also had a very special Code of numbers for embassy license plates determined by country's recognition of the Russian Revolution: Plates for Britain, which is the first foreign country to accept the czar's ouster are still 001.

Cuba fashioned its own similar system with the first letter in the license plate indicating the 14 provinces the car originates, H is from Havana.
The letter K is "Particular" or "privately owned" car by a person or by a foreign firm.

Military Cars in Cuba
The powerful Military vehicles have mint-green with no front and only rear plates. Olive-green plates are for vehicles of the Ministry of the Interior, including El Comendante, Fidel Castro's fleet of armored black Mercedes 280s, which were built in the early 80's.

The  most valuable seem to be  the black plates are for reserved exclusively for foreign diplomats who don't have to adhere to traffic laws.
White plated cars of Cuban government ministers or heads of state organizations also drive as if they have diplomatic immunity but with reserved caution in case they are in danger of being replaced.

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Diplomatic Cars in Cuba
Ironically its the last 3 numbers on diplomatic plates that show the professional rank of the driver. If you're behind a Mercedes with black license plate 179-002, that means the car belongs to the second most-important officer from the Russian embassy.
Even though everyone's supposed to be equal under Cuban socialism most everyone in Cuba knows that that is not true especially when a modern shiny black sedan with black license plates speeds along 5th Avenue in Miramar, Havana as if to show "I'm more important than you"

Decades ago Cuban officials' cars were Soviet imports, as the Cubans were encouraged to drive Russian Ladas or other square slow cars. Now many Cuban vehicles are imported from China or bought from Havana's Peugeot, Fiat and Mercedes dealerships, adding variety to the white-plated fleet.

Tourist Rental Cars in Cuba
Even the Toursit rental cars get maroon plates and foreign journalists, religious leaders and Cubans managers for overseas firms have orange plates.

If you see Red then its provisional plates that allow vehicles to circulate while Cuban authorities sort out just what color category is required.

American Classic Cars in Cuba
Best of all the countless 50year old American Classic roadsters that create a living moving museum along the island's potholed streets have bright yellow license plates, meaning they are normal vehicles owned by ordinary Cubans.

These dinosaurs from the good old days of Detroit's chrome-and-tail-fin era are still dominant on most Cuban roads because ordinary Cubans can not own new cars. Cubans can  buy and sell only cars manufactured before the Castro's took power in 1959.

As yet another form of Control the buying of any newer vehicles requires Cuban government permission - including justifying how you can afford a car when the communist state controls well over 90 percent of the economy and pays employees an average of about $10 to $20 a month.

All this maybe confusing for a foreigner, but for Cubans it's normal.  As they say in Cuba "No es Facil"

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