Richmond extends friendship to Cuba

The West Contra Costa Times

Published on July 18, 1999

The city has proposed an exchange of ideas with Regla, a waterfront suburb of Havana

REGLA FACTS

Regla is a commercial and industrial suburb of Havana. The site of an Indian settlement in the 16th century, Regla developed around the shrine of Nuestra Senora de Regla, Our Lady of Regla, a harbor-front hermitage church established in 1690. The town was officially founded in 1765.

During the colonial period, Regla was a smuggling center for Havana. On Sundays, devout Habaneros flock to the church to pay homage to the black Virgen de Regla, patron saint of sailors and the Catholic counterpart to Yemaya, the African goddess of the sea in the Yoruba religion. The town is famous for a Spanish baroque chapel catering to santeria, Cuba's voodoo variant, and for the Cupet oil refinery. On the eastern outskirts of town, the refinery is known to give off a horrible rotten-egg stench.

Regla residents enjoy the Fiesta de los Orishas, a quasi-religious Ceremony featuring Afro-Cuban music and dance.

Regla is also the birthplace of professional baseball player Jose Canseco, the former Oakland A's slugger. His family left Regla after he was born.

-- Shawn Masten =================================================================

By Shawn Masten, TIMES STAFF WRITER

RICHMOND -- Extending a hand in friendship, Richmond may soon join the growing number of cities forming relationships with sister cities in Cuba despite a 40-year U.S. embargo.

The City Council in September will consider forming a friendship city relationship with Regla, a tiny poverty-stricken town in Cuba with a smoke-belching refinery and a diverse population.

If the council approves the pairing, Richmond would become the second Bay Area city to establish a bond with the Caribbean nation. It would also join the growing ranks of cities nationwide connecting with their Cuban counterparts, even as the United States continues to ban the exchange of goods between the two countries.

"I think Americans are beginning to wake up and see that the policy is outdated and it's wrong," said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, an outspoken critic of the embargo. Lee, who has made numerous trips to Cuba, said people-to-people links might be the key to changing that controversial restriction.

"We need to have the entire Bay Area on record in terms of the exchanges," Lee said. "It's just so important for people to see the realities of Cuba." Richmond Councilwoman Irma Anderson thought of twinning with Regla because the two cities have a lot in common, including a refinery, a port, and significant black and Latino populations.

Regla has long been the home of black Cubans, who have maintained Strong ties to their African heritage. Most of Regla's 40,000 people work either at oil refineries or the port. The main power plant for the nearby capital, Havana, is there, along with a petrochemical facility.

"Both of us are striving for the best quality of life for both of our cities," Anderson said.

Last year, she formed the Cuba Friendship Committee, a 20-member group that hopes to visit Cuba, possibly in November.

She has introduced a resolution, which the council is set to vote on after its summer recess, that would formalize relations with Regla. Recent visits between Richmonders and Cubans inspired the idea for a relationship with Regla.

First, Gina Rey, a planner from Havana, came to Richmond and recognized right away its likeness to Regla.

Then Upesi Mtambuzi, Richmond's director of employment and training, traveled to Regla. "Regla very much mirrors Richmond," said Mtambuzi, a member of the Cuba Friendship Committee. "It's on the bay. It has refineries. It has a very diverse population.

"There's a significant proportion of people with African ancestry. And it has a very rich cultural center in terms of music and performing arts."

And in April, Felix Wilson, deputy chief of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, attended a reception in Richmond celebrating the committee's inception. "We're always interested in having this kind of relationship with other cities," Wilson said. "It's a good way to bridge the gap between Cuba and the United States." The United States is one of only a few countries worldwide that doesn't have official sister city relations with Cuba, he said.

Already, there are unofficial sister city relationships between Mobile, Ala.,and Havana; Pittsburgh and Matanzas; Madison, Wis., and Camaguey; and Lowell, Mass., and Santa Clara.And Oakland has taken steps to bridge the gap with Cuba. In 1997 the Oakland City Council established a friendship city relationship with Santiago in an effort to implore the United States to open lines of communication.

But Richmond's endeavor would be for purely humanitarian reasons, Anderson said. "It wouldn't be a deal that would bring them money or anything like that," she said. "It would be an exchange of ideas and information about how they've been handling, education, health and cultural arts issues and how we've been dealing with them here."

Formal city-to-city relationships usually are established through Sister Cities International.

Based in Alexandria, Va., SCI acts as matchmaker, provides advice and technical assistance, and helps arrange conferences. But the embargo and the lack of diplomatic relations with the country prohibits the organization from officiating sister city declarations with the country, said Lewis Harwood,SCI's regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean. "We do follow the U.S. government policy, which means that cities aren't allowed to establish official relationships, but nothing prohibits cities from establishing relationships on their own," he said.

It is not uncommon for American towns to adopt sister cities to show their disapproval of U.S. policies.

During the 1980s, Sandinista sympathizers in hundreds of North American and European cities used sister-city ties in Nicaragua to channel opposition to the Contras and dodge the U.S. trade embargo.

Such unofficial municipal pairings can help ease hostilities between governments, said Pam Montanaro, coordinator of the Cuba program at the San Francisco-based Global Exchange, which has taken thousands of people to Cuba on educational trips over the past 10 years.

"It provides an opportunity for people in so many different fields to form meaningful exchanges with their peers," Montanaro said.

Lisa Valenti, president of the fledgling U.S. Cuban Sister Cities Association based in Pittsburgh credited the pairings with stabilizing U.S. relations with Nicaragua. "It seems to be a movement that is very common among ordinary people," Valenti said.

Valenti said SCI's position on Cuba is galling, especially since former President Eisenhower proposed the program in an attempt to involve ordinary citizens in American foreign relations. "If you're going to have people-to-people diplomacy it needs to include all the world's citizens. You can't just decide that because you have an embargo, you're not going to recognize sister cities in Cuba."

SCI, a private foundation created in 1967, now recognizes 1,200 sister city arrangements between nearly 800 American and more than 1,000 foreign cities.

Anderson said it doesn't trouble her that the organization won't Formally recognize Richmond's relationship with Regla. "I hope the embargo will be lifted but my goal is for us to go and see its affects and also to learn about the country," she said. "If more of us go, it might stir more of an interest on the part of the Cubans to want to come here, and this is the kind of thing that will help bring down some barriers."

Shawn Masten covers Richmond. Reach her at 510-262-2725 or e-mail smasten@cctimes.com