January 1, 2009
Published in The Miami Herald
Fifty years ago Cubans rejoiced in the downfall of Fulgencio Batista. Today joy isn’t the overriding emotion. Other feelings — such as apathy, anger, despair and rancor — dwell in our hearts. Loss and sadness — over the lives lost, the families sundered, a people’s broken faith — are [...]
December 18, 2008
Published in The Miami Herald
On Jan. 20, 2009, Barack Obama will finally assume the U.S. presidency. On April 17-19, he’s scheduled to travel to Trinidad and Tobago for the Summit of the Americas. Though he’s sure to be warmly greeted, Obama can add to the warmth if he has ended all restrictions on [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
November 20, 2008
On Jan. 1, 2009, the Cuban Revolution marks its 50th anniversary. Three weeks later, Barack Obama will step into the Oval Office as the 11th U.S. president to face a Castro-led government in Havana.
Several plates full of problems await the new administration. Still, President Obama should quickly implement what [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
November 7, 2008
”It is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once,” said candidate Barack Obama in late September amid the financial meltdown. And so it will be for President Obama after his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2009.
Though Latin America won’t be [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
October 24, 2008
Last month, Freedom House issued Change in Cuba: How Citizens View Their Country’s Future, based on 180 in-depth interviews in Havana, Villa Clara, Holguín, Camagüey and Santiago de Cuba. In April 2008, five field researchers traveled to Cuba to conduct face-to-face interviews using a 35-question template on three overarching [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
September 25, 2008
Hurricanes Gustav and Ike devastated Cuba. Preliminary estimates put damages at more than $5 billion. The United Nations and more than 20 countries have already sent planeloads of humanitarian aid. Many Cuban exiles, too, are sending donations in cash, clothes and food.
On the question of U.S. aid, the United [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
September 11, 2008
Today we remember the 2,974 lives lost seven years ago at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the United 93 crash. Not that we will ever forget, but anniversaries — whether of loss or happiness — bring back memories in full force.
In July I attended a memorial at [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
August 28, 2008
Politics is a contact sport. In the United States, we’ve been at it for the past 18 months even if Barack Obama and John McCain are only now officially donning the title of candidate. The next 70 days promise a match like we’ve never seen before.
In Latin America, 2008 [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
August 14, 2008
Taking the long view on U.S.-Cuba relations isn’t easy. In my two most recent columns, I laid out in broad strokes the long historical arc as I see it. My basic point is simple: The United States and Cuba have never had normal relations. To make an eventual rapprochement [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
July 31, 2008
During the Cold War, the United States was of two minds regarding the Third World. Did the new nations in Africa and Asia provide fodder for Soviet expansionism? Were Iran under the reformist Mohammed Mosaddeq or Guatemala under Jacobo Arbenz on the brink of becoming Soviet outposts? Should Washington [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
July 17, 2008
Great powers have rarely tempered their actions out of respect for their weaker neighbors. U.S.-Mexican relations are a case in point. By 1850, Mexico had lost half of its territory to U.S. expansionism, a loss that suffused Mexican political culture with a mistrust of the United States that lingers [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
July 3, 2008
Chile is Latin America’s success story. Per capita income has grown from $4,720 in 1990 to $13,936 in 2007. By leaving unperturbed market-based economic policies instituted in the 1980s, the Concertación, the center-left coalition in power since 1990, led Chile to where it is today. The next frontier [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
June 19, 2008
”Global growth is the big story of our times,” says Fareed Zakaria in his must-read book, The Post-American World. His subtitle — The Rise of the Rest — tells the story of why we’re at the cusp of a truly global order. Countries all over are growing, a trend [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
June 9, 2008
Hugo Chávez again overreached. On May 28, a spine-chilling intelligence decree went into effect. After a week of public uproar and the prospect of mass demonstrations, he withdrew the decree.
Ostensibly issued to deflect national-security threats, the decree threatened Venezuelans who refused to act as informants with up to four [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
May 22, 2008
Interpol’s technical report is crystal clear: Colombia did not alter the computers salvaged from the rubble of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) camp in Ecuador on March 1. Evaluating the substantive content of the 10,000 files is another matter altogether. That’s for politics to sort out.
”Those responsible [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
May 8, 2008
Free trade is getting a bum rap everywhere. Long gone is the spirit of the early 1990s when the Americas jointly raised the banner of integration. Held in Miami, the first Summit of the Americas embraced the idea of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). What in [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
April 24th, 2008
Between April 10-13, 200 Cuban-American students and recently minted professionals gathered at Duke University for the annual meeting of Raíces de Esperanza. Older folks like me also participated in what has become a spring rite of conversations about Cuba. In its fifth year, Roots of Hope is now firmly [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
April 10, 2008
On March 1, Colombia’s attack on a camp set up in Ecuador by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) triggered the most recent Andean crisis, which Venezuela quickly joined. Troops were mobilized and ambassadors recalled. War drums beat on until March 7. At a Río Group summit, Presidents [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
March 27, 2008
Latin America is doing better but still not good enough. One reason lies in the quality of its labor force and its schools.
A good education lies at the heart of a virtuous circle: rising skills, promoting growth and reducing poverty. Governments, the private sector and civil society need to [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
March 13, 2008
Despite all the changes of titles and position-shuffling within the ruling circle, Cuba remains a dictatorship. Neither Fidel nor Raúl Castro brooks political opposition or respects civil liberties. Both are threatened by citizens gathering signatures as Oswaldo Payá did, promoting civil society as Martha Beatriz Roque has, defending a [...]