Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06LAPAZ3321
2006-12-08 13:35:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy La Paz
Cable title:
BOLIVIA: INPUT FOR REVIEW OF TITLE III OF THE
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C O N F I D E N T I A L LA PAZ 003321
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
WHA/CCA
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/18/2016
TAGS: ECON PGOV PREL BL
SUBJECT: BOLIVIA: INPUT FOR REVIEW OF TITLE III OF THE
LIBERTAD ACT
REF: A. SECSTATE 191752
¶B. LA PAZ 1172
Classified By: ECOPOL Andrew Erickson for reasons 1.4(b) and (d).
(C) The following responses are keyed to the questions in
reftel A:
-- Bolivian businesses have no significant investments in
Cuba.
-- Bolivia and Cuba signed a limited Economic Cooperation
Agreement in May 2005. The accord offers preferential tariff
treatment to specified goods from each country but has had
little impact on the volume of bilateral trade, which totaled
an estimated $5,000 in 2005 and $200 in the first half of
¶2006. Bolivia,s trade with Cuba has remained negligible,
even after the GOB signed a Peoples' Trade Agreement with
Cuba and Venezuela on and joined the Bolivarian Alternative
to the Americas (ALBA) on April 29, 2006. The agreements are
meant to advance economic, political, and cultural
integration but have generated few results. (Reftel B)
-- Under the Peoples, Trade Agreement, Cuba promised to
provide free eye treatments to all Bolivians lacking
appropriate financial resources; to assist Bolivian and other
doctors in providing these services; and to provide 5,000
scholarships to train Bolivian medical personnel. An
estimated 2,000 Cuban doctors are currently working in
Bolivia.
-- The GOB has not worked to promote the advancement of
democracy and human rights in Cuba. The GOB is increasingly
aligned with the Cuban government and is not likely to make
any public statements that would be critical of human rights
abuses in Cuba, to support civil society, or to take any
other actions which could be perceived as subversive by the
Cuban government.
-- In the past six months there were approximately four high
level visits between Cuba and Bolivia:
-- August 6: Vice President Carlos Lage accompanied
President Evo Morales and representatives of Argentina,
Venezuela, and Chile to Sucre for the inauguration of
Bolivia's Constituent Assembly.
-- September 6: President Morales made a surprise visit
to Cuba to visit ailing Cuban President Fidel Castro as well
as to meet with Raul Castro, Cuban Vice President Lage, and
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque.
-- September 15: President Morales attended the
Non-Aligned Movement Summit held in Havana, Cuba. During his
visit, Morales visited Castro and held meetings with interim
leader Raul Castro.
-- December 1: President Morales traveled to Cuba to
Castro's the 80th birthday celebration.
URS