Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s recent visit to Havana could easily have
been a tense one. On Thursday, January 19th, jailed Cuban
dissident Wilman Villar died in a prison hospital under murky circumstances,
while Brazil recently
granted a visa to well-known online journalist and longtime Castro critic Yoani
Sanchez to leave her native Cuba
and attend a documentary film premier in BrasĂlia. Rousseff avoided
publicly criticizing the Castro administration when pressed by reporters on
what the Cuban opposition calls human rights abuses, instead referencing the
human rights record of the United States
in regard to the Guantanamo
Bay military
prison. However, she seemed perfectly happy to discuss Cuba and Brazil ’s burgeoning economic
partnership, which has grown significantly in recent years.
The renovation and expansion of
Mariel, a key port near Havana ,
represents the latest manifestation of the aforementioned partnership between
the two countries. Brazil
has provided USD 683 million in loans to the Cuban government for the project,
which is spearheaded by Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht. Brazilian
officials have also signed a 10-year agreement to help modernize Cuban sugar
company Azcuba’s sugar mills in Cienfuegos .
Brazil has given Cuba another
USD 400 million in credits to buy Brazilian agricultural projects and USD 200
million more for tractors and other agricultural equipment. These loans
are crucial for Cuban agriculture, which is struggling to expand and modernize,
and are essentially stimulus packages for Brazil in the sense that they will
pour money back into the Brazilian economy. Rousseff defined this
collaboration as a “historic commitment” to “help the progress of economic
development” in Cuba , which
continues to endure the U.S.
trade embargo.
Continuing her Caribbean tour, the
Brazilian president headed to Port-Au-Prince
later in the week. Her delegation’s meeting with the Haitian government
will focus on the refugees that have fled to Brazil since the ruinous Haitian
earthquake in January 2010. Those leaving the country without official
visas expose themselves to the caprice of human traffickers, nicknamed
‘coyotes’, who have little regard for their safety or well-being upon arrival
to their destination. Many in both Brazil
and Haiti expect that
Haitian immigrants, with their lack of Portuguese language and basic skills,
will flock to the favelas of Brazil ’s
urban centers and become trapped in the ongoing cycle of poverty and
crime. Earlier in the week, the Brazilian government announced that it
had set aside USD 500 thousand to aid the roughly 4,000 Haitian refugees who
have settled in Brazil and been granted permanent residency during the two
years since the quake. Brazil ’s
Ministry of External Relations also has promised to issue 100 visas every month
for Haitians travelling to Brazil .
The Haitian ambassador to Brazil ,
Idalbert Jean-Pierre, has extolled these efforts to accommodate Haitian
immigrants.
In addition to providing sanctuary
for a significant number of refugees as a short term measure, Brazil has begun construction projects aimed at
getting Haiti
back on its feet. Brazilian firm Odebrecht is expected to help rebuild
damaged infrastructure in Port-Au-Prince and elsewhere, while Brazil has also
pledged its assistance in building a new power plant on the banks of the
Artibonite River, about 60 km from the capital. The plant will generate
32 megawatts, providing electricity for over 250,000 homes.
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