Caribbean & Central America - June 2012 (ISSN 1741-4458)

President Raúl Castro raised hopes of comprehensive migration reform in August 2011, saying that the government was examining a policy “to facilitate Cubans resident in the country travelling abroad as tourists”. Almost a year later, Cubans are still waiting for their tourist visas.

The president of the national assembly, Ricardo Alarcón, said in April that officials were discussing “a profound radical reform” of migration (and consular) policies. Currently Cubans need to obtain a travel permit known as the white card (tarjeta blanca) to go abroad. The permit is valid for 30 days only and to get it applicants have to endure a host of bureaucratic and security checks, as well as fork out about US$1,000. The white card can be extended a maximum of 10 times. Anyone that overstays their exit permit is considered a permanent emigrant and loses their right of residency in Cuba. Their property in Cuba also reverts to the state. Dissidents like the blogger Yoaní Sánchez are always refused travel requests, despite multiple applications (and rumoured behind the scenes diplomacy by friendly governments).

Last year Castro hinted that, in addition to allowing Cubans to travel abroad more easily, the reforms under discussion would also cover the equally complex and expensive bureaucracy imposed on Cuban émigrés wanting to visit Cuba. “Now things have changed a lot, Alarcón noted, adding,” Nearly half a million Cubans living abroad visit us each year. The vast majority of Cuban emigrants have normal relations with their country of origin. Currently it is an economic emigration, they have family and friends on the island, and they wish above all stability”. “This new reality leads us to a substantial reform of our migratory policy. Some rules must be changed and others eliminated,” he stated.

However Alarcón repeated President Castro’s warning that Cuba’s migration regulations would continue to “protect the human capital created by the Revolution”, in clear reference to Cuban doctors and other professionals who are specifically banned from travelling abroad for either tourism or family visits. He cited a special fast-track US visa program for Cuban doctors, put in place by the US to encourage them to abandon medical missions abroad and immigrate to the US. Under the 1996 Cuban Adjustment Act, Cubans automatically gain US residence after a year on US territory. The US does not offer this to residents of any other country.

The cash-strapped Cuban government is increasingly welcoming of visiting Cuban émigrés, and their hard currency. Sceptics suggest that the authorities might also welcome a wave of outward migration under more relaxed travel rules, by way of releasing a social pressure valve. However as the Castro government tries to encourage private economic enterprise on the island, neither can it afford to lose its best and brightest. The new regulations may be announced in August.

No shortage of inward tourism

Total tourist visitors to Cuba rose to 2.7m in 2011, according to the government, generating an estimated US$1.7bn in much needed hard currency revenues. José Manuel Bisbé, commercial director at the ministry of tourism (MINTUR), said in a presentation to an industry conference in Havana on 31 May that the government expects 2.9m visitors in 2012. Bisbé noted that when the US broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961, over 90% of tourist visitors to Cuba were from the US, adding that “Cuban tourism had to develop accessing only 50% of the tourists that visit the Caribbean”. Today, he continued, Cuba is connected to 82 cities all over the world via 65 regular and charter airlines; and has 10 international airports, 10 ports and three cruise ship terminals.

There are 335 hotels with 58,434 rooms, with annual average capacity growth of 6.5%, Bisbé said, adding that 65% of those are four or five star-rated. Cuba’s tourist ministry has 62 contracts in place with 13 foreign hotel operators, he noted, including Sol Meliá, Barceló, and Hoteles C (Spain) and Accor (France). The main source markets are Canada, the UK, Italy, France, Spain and Argentina.

Mexico City to Cuban idyll

From 12 July Cuba’s state airline Cubana de Aviación will offer two weekly tourist flights direct from Mexico City to Cuba’s Villa Clara keys (Cayos de Villa Clara). The Villa Clara Keys, spread along a 50km causeway, begin just east of the small coastal town of Caibarién and end at Cayo Santa María, 45km from the Cuban mainland. The keys boast 17km of fine sandy beaches. In 2008 the area, set among 500 small islands and the world’s second largest coral reef, was designated for sustainable (and more upmarket) tourism, with about 5,000 rooms available in 2011 through the chains Sol Meliá, Barceló and Gaviota. According to Alicia Pérez, head of the Cuban tourism office in Mexico, just over 76,000 Mexicans visited Cuba in 2011, up 14.5% year-on-year.

Rail repairs steam ahead

The director general of Cuba’s railways union, Miguel Acuña, said on 31 May that over 5,000km of rail track, or over half of the country’s total rail lines (9,300 km) would be repaired by the end of 2012, under plans to revive the rail sector. According to the daily Juventud Rebelde, Acuña said that rail passenger numbers totalled 3.4m in the first four months of the year (without specifying if this was up or down), while rail cargo totalled 11m tonnes, 10% above official expectations, mainly due to increased sugar loads previously handled by the now defunct sugar ministry.

Repsol quits the Cuban gulf

Antonio Brufau, the chairman of the Spanish oil company Repsol, hinted on 29 May that the company may stop looking for oil in Cuban waters in the Gulf of Mexico, after it was unsuccessful with its first deepwater well. In a statement on 18 May, the company said the well in question would be capped and abandoned. A company spokesman, Kristian Rix, said that Repsol was evaluating data collected and had not yet decided whether to sink further wells in the area. Rix stressed that it was normal to turn up dry wells, adding that it was too soon to determine whether other parts of Repsol's exploration bloc were commercially viable.

  However 10 days later, Brufau suggested that Repsol may cut its losses altogether. "The well we drilled turned out dry and it's almost certain that we won't do any more activity there," he said at a press conference. Repsol has been in Cuba since 2000 and first drilled a well in 2004. That well, in the same area, was also dry. Repsol is partnered in Cuban waters with Norway's Statoil and India's ONGC Videsh. The Spanish company’s financial position has recently taken a hit from the seizure of its local subsidiary in Argentina.

  Repol’s latest drilling off Cuba's northern coast began in February, after a deepwater Scarabeo 9 oil rig was brought from China (to bypass the US trade embargo on the island).

  The Malaysian state oil company, Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) and Russia's Gazprom Neft began drilling in mid May in a Cuban-owned area of the Florida Straits known as the Northbelt Trust, about 180km southwest of Repsol's drill site. Its results are expected in July. Petronas is also using the Scarabeo rig. Venezuela's state oil firm Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) and Sonangol of Angola also have exploration options in Cuban waters. Pdvsa is due to use the Scarabeo rig after Petronas. The rig is due to be in Cuba for another 12 months, until July 2013, at a daily leasing cost of US$0.5m. Each well costs about US$100m to sink.

The Cuban government estimates that its offshore region could contain between five and nine billion barrels of oil equivalent. Pdvsa ships 115,000 barrels a day to Cuba in an oil-for-services deal between Caracas and Havana.

• Sprightly

President Raúl Castro turned 81 on 3 June. His number two, José Ramon Machado Ventura (the first vice president of the council of state and the council of ministers), is also 81, while his effective number three Ramiro Valdés (second vice president on the council of state), is 80. Fidel Casto is 85. The average life expectancy for Cuban men is 76.

• Connected!

The new undersea fibre optic cable between Venezuela and Cuba is now fully functioning, according to Venezuela’s science and technology minister, Jorge Arreaza. “It is absolutely operational. It will depend on the Cuban government what it uses it for…That’s their sovereign matter, but we know that the cable is in full operation”, Arreaza said on 24 May. The Caribbean sea cable, laid by Alcatel-Lucent, stretches 1,600km from Venezuela and reached Siboney, eastern Cuba, in mid 2011. It then extends another 240km from Cuba to Jamaica. Arreaza said a third branch may be extended to Hispaniola.