Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08HAVANA88
2008-01-25 16:59:00
CONFIDENTIAL
US Interests Section Havana
Cable title:  

DIPS CORPS COMMENTS ON CUBA

Tags:  CU PINR PREL 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXYZ0008
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHUB #0088/01 0251659
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 251659Z JAN 08
FM USINT HAVANA
TO RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING PRIORITY 0064
RUEHBM/AMEMBASSY BUCHAREST PRIORITY
RUEHJA/AMEMBASSY JAKARTA PRIORITY 0001
RUEHMO/AMEMBASSY MOSCOW PRIORITY 0009
RUEHRO/AMEMBASSY ROME PRIORITY 0024
RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2781
C O N F I D E N T I A L HAVANA 000088 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/25/2013
TAGS: CU PINR PREL
SUBJECT: DIPS CORPS COMMENTS ON CUBA

Classified By: COM Michael E Parmly for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


C O N F I D E N T I A L HAVANA 000088

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/25/2013
TAGS: CU PINR PREL
SUBJECT: DIPS CORPS COMMENTS ON CUBA

Classified By: COM Michael E Parmly for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)



1. (C) SUMMARY: COM and other USINT officers have been
making the rounds of the Dip Corps in Havana to gauge third
country views and experiences on the situation in Cuba. The
following reports meetings with officials in the Russian,
Chinese, Romanian, Italian and Indonesian embassies.

Meeting with the Russian Embassy
--------------


2. (C) On January 22, COM, accompanied by Poloff, paid a
courtesy call on Russian Ambassador Andrey Dmitriev.
Dmitriev said thought that Fidel Castro will rule Cuba "until
his last breath," dismissing any notion that another leader
would emerge while Fidel is still alive. He jokingly queried
whether we could envision Fidel retiring from politics and
retreating to his garden to water flowers. He confidently
assessed that Fidel remains involved in all of the GOC's
major decisions.


3. (C) Dmitriev downplayed Russian trade with Cuba, noting
that China, Spain, Canada, and Venezuela were much larger
players than Russia. He did not consider it likely that
Russia would be involved in trade of agricultural products to
Cuba. He remarked that Russia had no expertise in dealing
with tropical/subtropical climates and consequently was
unable to offer much to Cuba in terms of agricultural
assistance (this argument, of course, holds little water as
Belarus is Cuba's principal exporter of tractors and other
farm machinery, and is not exactly located in a tropical
climate). Of note, when COM mentioned Iran as being a
significant trade partner with Cuba, Dmitriev disagreed,
describing Teheran as only being interested in developing
ties with Cuba for "political" reasons.


4. (C) Dmitriev said that roughly 40,000 Russian
tourists/business people visit Cuba annually, primarily
flocking to resorts such as Varadero. He added, however,
that the high cost of airfare--despite the direct Cubana
flights from Moscow--prevents Cuba from being a top choice
for Russian tourists, although it is becoming a more popular
destination.


5. (C) Dmitriev dismissed the possibility of a Russian
presidential visit to Cuba in 2008, citing the Russian
elections in March as being the year's principal event. He

also touched briefly on the recent sale of five
Russian-manufactured commercial aircraft to Cuba, although he
did not specify whether the planes were covered under a
recent line of credit given to the GOC by Russia.

Meeting with the Chinese Embassy
--------------


6. (C) COM accompanied by Poloff called on Chinese
Ambassador Zhao Rongxian on January 22. The meeting was
principally a New Year's courtesy visit. Zhao said that, in
spite of the recent interview with CUBINT Chief Bolanos
suggesting otherwise, he believes that Cuba genuinely wants
to dialogue with the USG, and is sincerely interested in
improving relations. He acknowledged that this is only his
impression, and that he had no specific information to
support this postulation.


7. (C) Zhao remarked that over the past two years he has
seen more debate and internal discussions amongst Cubans
regarding the direction of their country. However, he
emphasized that any transition in Cuba will take a long time.
Overall, Zhao said he believes that the economic situation
in Cuba has improved compared to two years ago. He expressed
confidence that the GOC would implement incentives to
stimulate the production of agricultural products such as
tobacco and sugarcane in 2008, noting that the GOC understood
the necessity of being more self-sufficient and relying less
on imports. He asserted that milk production is up
substantially from last year, but did not have any specific
figures.


8. (C) Zhao noted that about 10,000 Chinese tourists came to
Cuba in 2006 (figures for 2007 are still unavailable),and he
expects this sum to increase as Chinese citizens begin to
gain more wealth and freedom of movement. In spite of these
numbers, the Chinese Embassy has only one consular officer,
who handles all consular duties.

Meeting with the Italian Embassy
--------------


9. (C) Poloff met on January 15 with Italian Embassy DCM
Marco Giomini. Giomini recounted an interesting case study
in dealing with the Cuban foreign ministry (MINREX). He said
that Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema and Deputy Minister for
Foreign Affairs for Latin America Donato Di Santo are (and
continue to be) interested in making an official visit to
Cuba during 2008. The GOI had determined that 2008 would be
a crucial year for Cuba, and as they consider Italy to be one
of the three most influential EU countries towards the GOC
(along with Spain and France),they believe a visit now would
be appropriate. Giomini said that, in seeking to arrange the
visits, the GOI insisted that the officials meet with Cuba's
dissident community as well, in accord with the "dual-track"
EU policy of engaging with both the regime and civil society.
As both GOI officials anticipated that the request would be
denied, they made the concession that the civil society
meeting would not be publicized and could occur at the
residence of the Italian Ambassador to Cuba, away from the
public eye.


10. (C) In a January 2008 meeting with MINREX regarding the
proposed visit, Giomini found his counterparts in the GOC
entirely unwilling to consider a meeting between the senior
GOI officials and Cuba's dissidents. The MINREX officials
remarked that they would only permit a meeting with Cuban
dissidents by a GOI official lower-ranking D,Alema or Di
Santo. MINREX cited the example of the April 2007 visit to
Cuba by Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos as an
acceptable template for the visit. Giomini proposed the
concession noted in para 9 above, but this option was
immediately dismissed as well. The MINREX officials noted
that news of such a meeting between the GOI and Cuba's
dissidents would certainly be leaked to the press, and that
allowing such a meeting would set a negative "precedent" for
other EU member countries represented in Cuba. At this
point, both sides agreed to terminate the meeting as it was
evident that neither side was willing to accommodate the
other.

Meeting with the Romanian Embassy
--------------


11. (C) Poloff met on January 18 with Romanian Embassy
Minister Counselor and acting-Ambassador George Apostoiu.
Apostoiu had re-opened the embassy in mid-Dec 2007 following
its having been closed for about 18 months due to
deteriorating relations between the Romania and Cuba. He is
the only diplomat at the embassy and does not expect an
ambassador to arrive until November 2008 at the earliest. He
explained that the GOR refused to discuss any other matter
with the GOC until it received a pledge from Cuba to begin
repaying its approximately USD one billion debt to Romania,
which dates back to the 1980s. He said that this matter had
led to the Jan 2006 closing of the embassy, and remarked that
it only had been re-opened after the GOC had pledged to
address the matter of the debt in return for Romania's
re-opening the embassy. Now that the embassy is open again,
however, Apostoiu stated with dismay that his MINREX
counterparts adamantly refuse even to address the issue of
the debt, describing the matter as having been long-since
tabled.


12. (C) Apostoiu also commented at length on the visit of
MINREX vice-minister Eumelio Caballero to Bucharest. Upon
learning that Romania intended to have a normal dialogue with
Cuba's dissident community (per the EU established dual track
policy),Caballero warned the GOR officials that Cuban
dissidents were only interested in receiving free items from
the USG. Further, Caballero noted that the GOC had been able
to penetrate the dissident groups successfully, leaving them
largely marginalized from Cuban society.


13. (C) Apostoiu noted that Romanian-Cuban ties are
virtually non-existent, with no trade nor cultural exchanges.
He commented that Cuba had very little to offer Romania and
expressed pessimism regarding the outlook for the
relationship. Apostoiu said he believed Romania's successful
transition to democracy could not be duplicated in Cuba,
mostly due to geographic differences. He thought Cuba's
relative isolation as an island with powerful state security
services which had effectively sealed it off made it less
likely that it would be susceptible to influence from its
neighbors, as Romania had been.

Meeting with the Indonesian Embassy
--------------


14. (C) Poloff met with Indonesian Embassy Counselor Dewi
Kejora on January 23. Kejora held firm on the Indonesian
Government's unwillingness to "meddle in Cuba's internal
affairs," and stated that her embassy had no contact with the
dissident community. Kejora remarked that Indonesia's
previous efforts to influence the GOC in the 1970s resulted
in the cessation of diplomatic relations, which were not
restored until 1995. She explained that Indonesia's
objectives in Cuba were primarily related to two issues: 1)
increasing trade between the two nations, which currently is
limited to Indonesia's importation of Cuban medical products,
and 2) working with Cuba through the NAM to ensure shared
objectives. That said, Kejora thought that the geographic
distance between the two countries would prevent them from
ever becoming significant trade partners, as it would prevent
Cuba from becoming a preferred tourist destination for
Indonesians. In addition to increasing trade, Kejora noted
that Indonesia and Cuba are actively cooperating in the
fields of agriculture and biotechnology.


15. (C) Kejora said Cuba has an active medical mission in
Indonesia with circa 135 doctors, a program which she claimed
was provided "free of charge" to Indonesia. She commented
that Cuba had offered free scholarships to an unspecified
number of Indonesian students, but the offer remained on the
table due to the lack of Indonesians who speak Spanish.


16. (C) BIO COMMENT: Kejora is a recent-arrival at the
Indonesian Embassy, which staffs five diplomats and is
awaiting the arrival of an ambassador to replace Indra Cahya
Sempurnajaya. She noted that two of the Embassy's diplomats
were frequently out of the country, tending to matters in the
other two countries for which Indonesia has regional
responsibility, Jamaica and the Bahamas.
PARMLY