Today in Cuba news: Cubans going the Central America route; CubaDebate highlights Carromero’s driving record; Amnesty calls for end to cat-and-mouse games

NEWS

US-bound Cubans pour into Panama through Colombia

Led by smugglers armed with knives and machetes, Mayra Reyes and 14 other Cubans sloshed through swamps and rivers and suffered hordes of mosquitoes as they struggled across the notorious Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia, the only north-south stretch of the Americas to defy road-builders.

Cuban wins shooting gold with record-setting final

Cuba’s Leuris Pupo won gold in the men’s 25-meter rapid fire pistol event Friday and set an Olympic shooting record in the process.

Pupo tied a world record and set an Olympic mark with a score of 34 in the final round to beat India’s Vijay Kumar by four shots. Ding Feng of China won bronze with a score of 27. All three of the countries on the podium had never medaled in this event before.

Cuba says Spaniard has lead foot, highlights history of speeding before crash that killed Paya

Cuban officials are highlighting earlier traffic violations by a Spaniard involved in a car crash that killed prominent dissident Oswaldo Paya, saying he was notified recently that his driver’s license was being revoked.

Cuban dissident’s family insists another car was involved in fatal crash

The family of the late Oswaldo Payá says a mysterious red Lada was at the site of the crash and refuses to accept the government’s finding the dissident was killed in a one-car crash

OPINION

A Diversified GOP Hammers the Big Lie

Liberal Democrat Hispanics and their polling colleagues at Latino Decisions say Rubio doesn’t help Romney among Hispanic registered voters, but there is a better answer to that question. It was provided by Hispanic Republicans in Texas on run-off day, Tuesday the 30th.

Not only did Ted Cruz receive a mountain of votes in his 56.8% to 43.2% defeat of the Texas’ Lt. Governor but he received a mountain of Hispanic Republican votes as well.

NEWS RELEASES

Amnesty International: Cuba must stop ‘cat-and-mouse game’ with political activists

The Cuban authorities must end their ongoing harassment of political and human rights activists, Amnesty International said today after a former prisoner of conscience was released following his latest arrest and detention in a police station for 36 hours.

José Daniel Ferrer García, coordinator of the organization Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unión Patriótica de Cuba, UNPACU), was set free on Wednesday, two days after police arrested him in the eastern province of Holguín.

And, finally, here is the full text of a release from Cuba Archive. This is dated July 31, but I only came across it now.

Investigate the deaths of Cuba’s Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero
Miami, July 31, 2012. The circumstances surrounding the death in a car crash last July 22nd of Oswaldo Payá,  Cuba´s foremost opposition leader, and Harold Cepero, a young member of his movement, are shrouded in suspicion and countless unanswered questions. Angel Carromero, from Spain and Aron Modig, from Sweden, both 27, survived the crash. While in detention they separately issued self-incriminating public statements validating Cuba’s official version of the crash (Carromero´s was filmed, Modig´s was in the presence of journalists from news organizations authorized in Cuba). They each faced long years of prison, apparently now “forgiven,” for violations to Cuba’s despotic national security and immigration laws disallowing “unconstitutional political activities.” Both are members of youth group of political parties from their respective countries that promote the peaceful democratization of Cuba. While Modig was released and able to leave the country, his account is compromised by his friend’s continued detention and facing charges of involuntary homicide entailing up to 20 years of prison.
The international community must investigate if these deaths resulted from state-sponsored operations or involved state agents. If suspicions prove well founded, Cuba should be held accountable at all levels –bilaterally, multilaterally, and at all appropriate international instances and bodies.
Urgent action is required to demand:
the safety and wellbeing as well as procedural fairness for Angel Carromero;
unrestricted access to Carromero by the Payá and Cepero families, trusted third parties, and the media at a safe location –outside of Cuba­ or at a trusted embassy in Havana– with no pressure from Cuban authorities and after toxicology tests have ruled out the presence of drugs;
transparency from the families and colleagues of Cepero and Modig as well as from the governments of Spain and Sweden regarding events surrounding the crash, including release to the public of records of all calls made and text messages sent by Carromero or Modig the day of the incident;
comprehensive investigations of the deaths of Payá and Cepero conducted by reliable independent international experts granted free and full access to all witnesses and material evidence;
autopsies of the bodies of Payá and Cepero by a trusted pathology team in a facility outside of Cuba.
That the Cuban regime employs terror and violence to silence its detractors is well established. Torture of prisoners —including with psychotropic drugs— is commonplace. Thus, there are no guarantees that self-incriminating testimony was not made under duress and/or in exchange for leniency in the severity of the penalties. If the government has nothing to hide, it should have no problem allowing the above.
The official newspaper of Cuba´s Communist Party, Granma, has repeated its absurd claim that the revolution has never been responsible for even one extrajudicial killing, disappearance, torture, or kidnapping. Yet, the dictatorship’s disregard for the sanctity of life and universally held norms of conduct is illustrated in its own laws as well as in first-hand accounts of its citizens and decades of reports by international human rights’ organizations and entities. Our Truth and Memory project has to date documented 27 forced disappearances and 4,652 lives lost to Cuba´s firing squads and in extrajudicial killings, including of many persons in detention or prison. This excludes many more deaths of detainees from lack of medical care and in reported suicides, for which Cuba is also held responsible. This information challenges the Cuban regime to disprove each and every one of these cases.
Furthermore, Cuba Archive has received reports of a considerable number of deaths from “accidents” of detractors of the Cuban regime —in Cuba and in several countries— surrounded by mysterious circumstances and strongly pointing to state-sponsored killings. Examples are summarized in our Report Cuba: Strange accidents and other unexplained deaths; those resulting in death appear in our electronic database of documented cases (see www.CubaArchive.orgfor both).  The sudden illness and death of Laura Pollán, leader of Cuba´s Ladies in White, deserves to be highlighted and calls for an independent investigation. (See our release of 10/25/2011.)
That the international community has not held Cuba’s government accountable for even its more evident and egregious human rights’ violations has only emboldened it further. As long as it enjoys sustained impunity and is legitimized by the civilized world, it will continue to employ terror and violence to silence its detractors.
Cuba Archive Truth and Memory Project -Free Society Project/www.CubaArchive.org

Investigate the deaths of Cuba’s Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero

Miami, July 31, 2012. The circumstances surrounding the death in a car crash last July 22nd of Oswaldo Payá,  Cuba´s foremost opposition leader, and Harold Cepero, a young member of his movement, are shrouded in suspicion and countless unanswered questions. Angel Carromero, from Spain and Aron Modig, from Sweden, both 27, survived the crash. While in detention they separately issued self-incriminating public statements validating Cuba’s official version of the crash (Carromero´s was filmed, Modig´s was in the presence of journalists from news organizations authorized in Cuba). They each faced long years of prison, apparently now “forgiven,” for violations to Cuba’s despotic national security and immigration laws disallowing “unconstitutional political activities.” Both are members of youth group of political parties from their respective countries that promote the peaceful democratization of Cuba. While Modig was released and able to leave the country, his account is compromised by his friend’s continued detention and facing charges of involuntary homicide entailing up to 20 years of prison.

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Searching for “The Shift” Part 12

This is the 12th in a series of analyses of the election results to see whether or not the Cubans are abandoning the GOP. Other posts in this series can be found here.

In this part I wanted to examine how the three Cuban-American congressional incumbents from South Florida fared in comparison to John McCain. In order to do this I had to total presidential election results for the 587 different precincts that comprise the three districts in the county (because I’m interested in the Cuban-American vote I only looked at Miami-Dade County’s election results even though the three districts contain parts of other counties).

congdist1.jpg

As you can see above John McCain actually lost the Miami-Dade portions of two of the congressional districts.

congdist2.jpg

Of course we know that all three incumbents won but it’s telling that their personal popularity is significantly higher than McCain’s was. They not only achieved higher PERCENTAGES than McCain, they received more ACTUAL VOTES than McCain. That is to say that the three candidates did not win because of the substantial number of voters who came to the polls on election day only to vote for Obama.
There’s already been a flurry of news stories about polls indicating that a majority Cuban-Americans are against the U.S. embargo on Cuba. The above elections results show that such polls are B.S. The three congresspersons that were re-elected last month are the staunchest defenders of the embargo and also represent the greatest number of Cuban-Americans in the country. The people have spoken.

Another remarkable thing to note is the total rejection of Raul Martinez in the District 21 race. In 2006 an unknown Democrat named Frank J. Gonzalez ran against Lincoln Diaz-Balart and obtained 36.7% of the vote in Miami-Dade despite only raising $16,430. Martinez, the much ballyhooed former mayor of Hialeah, was only able to obtain 40.2% even after raising almost $1.9 million and that doesn’t even include the substantial money spent by the Democratic party on the race.

Searching for “The Shift” Part 11

This is the eleventh in a series of analyses of the election results to see whether or not the Cubans are abandoning the GOP. Other posts in this series can be found here.
2004-2008.jpg
The chart above shows the 2004 and 2008 election results in the 6 zip codes I’ve analyzed. These are 6 of the most Cuban zip codes in the county.
As you can see the net gain for the Democratic candidate was 4.4%. Hardly the monumental shift that the local and national media was projecting. In fact voters in these precincts preferred John McCain to Obama by a margin of more than 2-1. I have no doubt that even this minor shift was driven partly by younger Cubans who voted for Obama but it’s not clear whether their votes were driven by ideology (meaning that they identify themselves as liberal Democrats) or simply because of anti-Bush sentiment, the economy and the charisma of Obama.
Notes: The population statistics are from the 2000 census and are therefore outdated but are the best I could obtain.
Also note the vast differences in total votes from one election to the other. That’s because absentee ballots were handled differently in 2004. They were attributed to “absentee precincts” rather than the traditional precinct the voter belonged to. In 2008 all ballots are attributed to the voter’s precinct.

Searching for “The Shift” Part 10

This is the tenth in a series of analyses of the election results to see whether or not the Cubans are abandoning the GOP. Other posts in this series can be found here.
In Part 6, I analyzed the precincts that are located in the 33010 zip code. According to 2000 census estimates (the latest info I could get) the zip code is 66.1% Cuban. We discovered that in those 10 precincts John McCain obtained 63.2% of the vote.
Well I went back to the 2004 election results and found that in the 6 precincts (there was a new one in 2008 that didn’t exist in 2004) George W. Bush obtained 70.9% of the vote. That’s a shift of 7.7%. This is more of a shift than we’ve seen in the other zip codes thus far. Consider that the proportion of Cubans in each zip code could also be shifting.
There are some other pretty big caveats to this analysis. First off some of the precinct boundaries have changed and even the locations of the precinct houses have changed. However the precincts still generally represent the same areas. The next caveat is that absentee ballots were reported differently back then. They had something called absentee precincts. Nowadays all ballots are attributed to the voters precinct regardless of whether the voted absentee or on election day (or early voted).
Until next time, I’ll be searching for the shift.
UPDATE: This post was updated to reflect the county’s revised election results as of 11/14/08.

Searching for “The Shift” Part 9

This is the ninth in a series of analyses of the election results to see whether or not the Cubans are abandoning the GOP. Other posts in this series can be found here.
In Part 4, I analyzed the precincts that are located in the 33144 zip code. According to 2000 census estimates (the latest info I could get) the zip code is 69.7% Cuban. We discovered that in those 7 precincts John McCain obtained 69.7% of the vote.
Well I went back to the 2004 election results and found that in the same 7 precincts George W. Bush obtained 70.4% of the vote. That’s a shift of 0.7%.
There are some pretty big caveats to this analysis however. First off some of the precinct boundaries have changed and even the locations of the precinct houses have changed. However the precincts still generally represent the same areas. The next caveat is that absentee ballots were reported differently back then. They had something called absentee precincts. Nowadays all ballots are attributed to the voters precinct regardless of whether the voted absentee or on election day (or early voted).
Until next time, I’ll be searching for the shift.
UPDATE: This post was edited to reflect the county’s revised election results as of 11/14/08.

Searching for “The Shift” Part 8

This is the seventh in a series of analyses of the election results to see whether or not the Cubans are abandoning the GOP. Other posts in this series can be found here.
In Part 1, I analyzed the precincts that are located in the 33175 zip code. According to 2000 census estimates (the latest info I could get) the zip code is 56.6% Cuban. We discovered that in those 14 precincts John McCain obtained 68.7% of the vote.
Well I went back to the 2004 election results and found that in the same 14 precincts George W. Bush obtained 71.8% of the vote. That’s a shift of 3.2%.
There are some pretty big caveats to this analysis however. First off some of the precinct boundaries have changed and even the locations of the precinct houses have changed. However the precincts still generally represent the same areas. The next caveat is that absentee ballots were reported differently back then. They had something called absentee precincts. Nowadays all ballots are attributed to the voters precinct regardless of whether the voted absentee or on election day (or early voted).
Until next time, I’ll be searching for the shift.
UPDATE: This post was edited to reflect the revised election results as of 11/14/08.

Searching for “The Shift” Part 7

This is the seventh in a series of analyses of the election results to see whether or not the Cubans are abandoning the GOP. Other posts in this series can be found here.
In Part 3, I analyzed the precincts that are located in the 33165 zip code. According to 2000 census estimates (the latest info I could get) the zip code is 61.3% Cuban. We discovered that in those 16 precincts John McCain obtained 68.6% of the vote.
Well I went back to the 2004 election results and found that in the same 16 precincts George W. Bush obtained 71.5% of the vote. That’s a shift of 2.9%.
There are some pretty big caveats to this analysis however. First off some of the precinct boundaries have changed and even the locations of the precinct houses have changed. One precinct house was actually was moved to a neighboring zip code. However the precincts still generally represent the same areas. The next caveat is that absentee ballots were reported differently back then. They had something called absentee precincts. Nowadays all ballots are attributed to the voters precinct regardless of whether the voted absentee or on election day (or early voted).
Until next time, I’ll be searching for the shift.
UPDATE: This post has been edited to reflect the county’s revised election results as of 11/14/08.

Searching for “the shift”, a partial recap

So far, since the election, I have analyzed six of the most high density Cuban zip codes in Miami-Dade County. The aggregate Cuban density in these zip codes is 64.5% according to 2000 census data.
electionszips.jpg
As the table above indicates, 67.6% of the votes cast for president in these six zip codes were cast for John McCain. Remember that McCain only got 41.7% of the vote in the county. This a testament to the continued identification of Cuban-Americans with Republican candidates.
Assuming that Cuban-Americans are more likely to vote for the GOP candidate than the non-Cuban 33.5% living in these zips, and also assuming that the electorate resembles the overall population, then it follows that McCain’s percentage for these zips is a baseline and that Cuban-Americans voted for McCain at a rate higher than the the baseline with the non-Cubans bringing it down to the baseline.
I’ll be trying to do a comparison to 2004 (although the precinct boundaries changed a bit). To see how much movement there was toward Obama relative to what Kerry got in those same zips. I suspect there was some movement but questions still remain:
1. Was the movement “generational”?
2. If so, was it ideological or simply a reflection of the generalized (but perhaps temporary) anti-GOP sentiment out there, discontent with economy, and the general appeal of Obama?
This second point is an important distinction. Remember that proponents of the “shift” basically allege that.
Older Cubans are Republicans because of the Cuba issue and young US-born Cuban-Americans don’t care about Cuba therefore young Cuban-Americans are “smarter” and more willing to embrace flaming liberalism.
I don’t believe that young Cuban-Americans (as a whole) have embraced flaming liberalism any more than than the rest of the country. We shall see.

Other posts in this series can be found here.

Searching for “The Shift” Part 6

This is the sixth in a series of analyses of the election results to see whether or not the Cubans are abandoning the GOP. Other posts in this series can be found here.
Each time I will be examining a different zip code with a high proportion of Cuban-Americans living in it. This time it’s 33010.
33010.jpg
As you can see from the map above this zip code is basically the southern end of Hialeah.
Unfortunately the demographic data that I can obtain is somewhat dated (2000 census):
Total pop: 45,353 (100%)
Hispanic: 41,439 (91.4%)
Cuban: 29,982 (66.1%)
Median age: 39.4
So this an area that is more than 60% Cuban (at least in 2000).
There are 10 different precincts located in this zip code that reported results. For reference they are: 333 335 339 340 342 376 380 381 382 and 387.
A total of 10,414 votes for president were cast in these precincts.
John McCain received 6,583 of those votes or 63.2%
Barack Obama received 3,800 or 36.5%
Again we don’t exactly know how many of those votes were cast by Cubans or the median age of those Cubans but it’s pretty clear that this area like the others we’ve looked at thus far with it’s large Cuban population was firmly in McCain’s camp.
This is another zip where McCain’s percentage is lower than Cuban pop. That would suggest that the Cubans in this zip were (at least slightly) less likely to vote for McCain than in other zips. But again the census data is from 2000 and doesn’t necessarily reflect voters but population instead.
Until next time, I’ll be searching for the shift.

Searching for “The Shift” Part 5

This is the fifth in a series of analyses of the election results to see whether or not the Cubans are abandoning the GOP. Other posts in this series can be found here.
Each time I will be examining a different zip code with a high proportion of Cuban-Americans living in it. This time it’s 33013.
33013.jpg
As you can see from the map above this zip code is basically the eastern side of Hialeah.
Unfortunately the demographic data that I can obtain is somewhat dated (2000 census):
Total pop: 33,365 (100%)
Hispanic: 30,134 (90.3%)
Cuban: 24,388 (73.1%)
Median age: 41.2
So this an area that is almost 3/4 Cuban (at least in 2000).
There are 8 different precincts located in this zip code that reported results. For reference they are: 314 315 329 330 337 338 378 and 379.
A total of 9,406 votes for president were cast in these precincts.
John McCain received 6,441 of those votes or 68.5%
Barack Obama received 2,920 or 31.0%
Again we don’t exactly know how many of those votes were cast by Cubans or the median age of those Cubans but it’s pretty clear that this area like the others we’ve looked at thus far with it’s large Cuban population was firmly in McCain’s camp.
This is the first zip that I analyze where McCain’s percentage is lower than Cuban pop. That would suggest that the Cubans in this zip were (at least slightly) less likely to vote for McCain than in other zips. But again the census data is from 2000 and doesn’t necessarily reflect voters but population instead.
The high cuban density zips I’ve analyzed thus far suggest that Obama probably topped out somewhere below 30% for Cubans.
Until next time, I’ll be searching for the shift.
UPDATE: This post was edited to reflect the county’s election results as of 11/14/08.

Searching for “The Shift” Part 4

This is the fourth in a series of analyses of the election results to see whether or not the Cubans are abandoning the GOP. Other posts in this series can be found here.
Each time I will be examining a different zip code with a high proportion of Cuban-Americans living in it. This time it’s 33144.
33144.jpg
As you can see from the map above this zip code is basically West Miami and Flagami (insert Oscar Corral joke here). The western boundary is 87th Avenue, the eastern boundary is 57th avenue. The southern boundary is 16th street and the northern boundary is Flagler.
Unfortunately the demographic data that I can obtain is somewhat dated (2000 census):
Total pop: 25,332 (100%)
Hispanic: 22,451 (88.6%)
Cuban: 17,451 (68.9%)
Median age: 44.5
So this an area that is more than 2/3 Cuban. It’s the oldest zip we’ve examined so far.
There are 7 different precincts located in this zip code. For reference they are: 341 404 424 426 552 553 and 555.
A total of 8,555 votes for president were cast in these precincts.
John McCain received 5,964 of those votes or 69.7%
Barack Obama received 2,556 or 29.9%
Again we don’t exactly know how many of those votes were cast by Cubans or the median age of those Cubans but it’s pretty clear that this area like the others we’ve looked at thus far with it’s large Cuban population was firmly in McCain’s camp.
As I’ve said before, Cubans are the most likely group in Miami-Dade to vote Republican (that is undisputed) and they made up 68.9% of the people in this area. Then it stands to reason that the Cubans in this area voted in significantly greater proportions for McCain than the average for the whole zip code (69.7%). We can therefore deduce again that the Cubans voted somewhere in the 70% – 80% range for McCain and that the average was brought down by the non-Cubans in living in the zip who are less likely to have voted for the GOP candidate.
Until next time, I’ll be searching for the shift.
UPDATE: This post was edited to reflect the county’s election results as of 11/14.

Searching for “The Shift” Part 3

This is the third in a series of analyses of the election results to see whether or not the Cubans are abandoning the GOP. Other posts in this series can be found here.
Each time I will be examining a different zip code with a high proportion of Cuban-Americans living in it. This time it’s 33165
33165.jpg
As you can see from the map above this zip code is basically Westchester. The western boundary is the turnpike, the eastern boundary is 87th Avenue. The southern boundary is Miller Road and the northern boundary is a few blocks south of 8th St.
Unfortunately the demographic data that I can obtain is somewhat dated (2000 census):
Total pop: 57,079 (100%)
Hispanic: 46,400 (81.3%)
Cuban: 34,997 (61.3%)
Median age: 40.5
So this an area that is 60% Cuban and still relatively young.
There are 16 different precincts located in this zip code. For reference they are: 415 419 421 435 436 437 438 439 708 709 710 712 713 714 715 and 731.
A total of 25,802 votes for president were cast in these precincts.
John McCain received 17,701 of those votes or 68.6%
Barack Obama received 7,969 or 30.9%
Again we don’t exactly know how many of those votes were cast by Cubans or the median age of those Cubans but it’s pretty clear that this area with it’s large Cuban population was firmly in McCain’s camp.
As I before, Cubans are the most likely group in Miami-Dade to vote Republican (that is undisputed) and they made up 61.3% of the people in this area. Then it stands to reason that the Cubans in this area voted in significantly greater proportions for McCain than the average for the whole zip code (68.6%). We can therefore deduce that the Cubans voted somewhere in the 70% – 80% range for McCain and that the average was brought down by the non-Cubans in living in the zip who are less likely to have voted for the GOP candidate.
Until next time, I’ll be searching for the shift.
UPDATE: The post above was edited to reflect the county’s revised election results dated 11/14/08.