As reasonable Cuba watchers were tearing our hair out over Bill Richardson's failed mission to Cuba, and growing increasingly despairing over the bitter tit-for-tat that followed, two fugitives from American justice were apprehended in Cuba and turned over to U.S. marshals, who then escorted them back to New Jersey where they appeared in court on murder, kidnapping and arson charges.  The two stand accused of killing a 23 year-old man just over one year ago.  Senator Bob Menendez's press release thanking Cuban authorities for their cooperation is here (Just kidding).  Makes you wonder when Cuba informed U.S. authorities that it had apprehended the two suspects relative to the August release of the 2010 terrorism report (in which the subject of fugitives living in Cuba was not, for the first time in a number of years, included in that report, which I think makes sense - it should be a law enforcement issue). 

Meanwhile, Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon, a tireless advocate for the Cuban Five, advises U.S. authories to pull up a chair and get comfortable if they are waiting for Cuba to release USAID subcontractor Alan Gross unilaterally.  But, Alarcon points out, a trade of Rene Gonzalez, who had nearly finished his term in jail (but is still stuck in the U.S. for three years of supervised release) for Alan Gross, two years in on a 15 year sentence, would not have been equitable.  But by that rationale, expecting a trade for the other four of the Five wouldn't be reasonable either. 

The U.S. Coast Guard reports that illegal migration from Cuba is on its way - sharply - back up, after declining for several years.  That decline was probably due to several factors - a program to fast track backlogged visa requests by Cubans with family in the U.S. to sponsor relatives wanting to join them, and perhaps declining incomes with which American relatives could pay fast boat smugglers to bring their loved ones over.  But with the popular family reunification program still in place, why the uptick in illegal trips?  The folks at CATO think it means reforms to the Cuban economy aren't working.  Perhaps that's not too far off the mark - the reforms have certainly taken time to implement, and then in a number of cases, they've been revised and restarted.  Some small businesses will suceed, but so many face high taxes and arbitrary rules.  As Raul Castro made clear in his speech earlier this summer to the Cuban parliament, resistence by bureaucrats is also a big problem, one with which he's growing impatient.

But what to do about it?  He can't go intervening in every instance rules implementing changes are so tight as to make some reforms meaningless.  Word is more changes are coming that will better encourage private enterprise and better release the productive energies of such a highly educated workforce.  But I think if he wants these reforms to work, and bureaucrats to get out of the way, the best way to push them out of the way is go further out on a public limb about what the end result should look like.  Maybe it's time for Raul Castro to lay out for the public more specifically what changes he wants to see (beyond ending the "stupidities", and advancing the principles of efficiency and each earns according to their contribution).  He should emphasize broad economic opportunity with exceptions to that being just that - exceptions - and maybe in this way, forcing the bureaucrats' hand and moving the reforms more quickly ahead.