Lawmakers push a united, hard-line front on Cuba

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Herald

Lawmakers push a united, hard-line front on Cuba
Cuban-American lawmakers are beginning an offensive to persuade foreign governments to take a hard line on Cuba
Posted on Fri, Aug. 31, 2007
By PABLO BACHELET
[e-mail]



C.M. GUERRERO/EL NUEVO HERALD
Congressmen Lincoln Diaz-Balart, left, and Mario Diaz-Balart, shown with Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, are lobbying Eastern European nations to isolate Cuba.

WASHINGTON -- After beating back efforts to ease U.S. sanctions on Cuba in Congress, Cuban-American lawmakers are embarking on a major push to isolate the Castro government on the international stage.

Miami Republican Reps. Lincoln and Mario Díaz-Balart and New Jersey Democrat Albio Sires are today wrapping up a three-day trip to the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. The trip will be followed by another to Latin America in the coming weeks, according to members of the delegation.

The trip's organizers say the idea is to raise the international profile of dissidents on the island, call on countries to settle for nothing less than free elections in Cuba after Fidel Castro dies and present a united front of major dissident and exile groups before the world community.

But it will likely be an uphill battle. While the former Soviet-bloc nations are generally receptive, other European and Latin American nations are more skeptical, believing that U.S. sanctions have not worked and more engagement with Havana stands a better chance of bringing democratic change.



Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/515/story/220979.html

---

New Jersey Republican, Albio Sires, Democrat, Robert Menendez



Florida Republican Lincoln Diaz Balart Lincoln, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Elián Gonzalez!

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

1. this is so retarded

isolating cuba demonstrably does not work!

[dipsydoodle]

2. Can't they think of something better

on which to waste their time. I hope they paid their own airfares.

Cuba is a popular holiday resort for Europeans which provides Cuba, in return, all the dollars spent there.

[L0oniX]

3. When are these ass carrots going to stop attacking Cuba?

WTF has Cuba done to us? Nothing! We attacked them! What a stupid bunch of worthless ass carrots we have in office!

[Thothmes]

4. Cuba

IMO we should normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba, end the embargo, and work on being a good neighbor.

[Mika]

5. From the article

The emphasis on the international front marks a shift of priorities for Cuban-American lawmakers, who focused their efforts in the first part of the year in fighting back congressional initiatives to ease some sanctions against the island. Opponents of President Bush's tough line against Castro had predicted that the new Democratic majority in Congress would be more receptive to the relaxations.

Instead, amendments that would have allowed more agricultural trade with the island and cut aid to Cuban pro-democracy groups on the island and in Miami were defeated in the House.

Good thing for these cretins that they have enough Dem$ rolling over for their agenda. :puke:

[grilled onions]

6. Why Are We Always Trying To Create New Enemies..

instead of trying to take care of the major ones we already have? This misadministration has spent far too much time on causing trouble instead of trying to prevent it. No wonder the world loves us so much.:sarcasm:

[LuckyLib]

7. If only these Rethuglican asshats would concentrate on real problems in the world, i.e. Darfur,

and getting their own country out of the mess it created in Iraq.

[Judi Lynn]

8. When the entire world was out in the streets protesting Bush's Iraq invasion

in March, 2004, on a Saturday, in Miami they held an anti-Chavez March, featuring, as their guests of honor, two men who together, one representing the oligarchy, who initiated a work lockout of Venezuelan workers, and the other, a corrupt Venezuelan union leader, whose group had been accepting large payments from U.S. sources. These two men lead the Miami parade, sponsored by the Cuban "exile" reactionaries who have bonded with the Venezuelan expatriot oligarchy loons who came here to escape the possiblility of higher taxes, etc.

From the Florida Sun-Sentinel:



Former opposition leaders Carlos Fernandez, at center with raised
thumb, and Carlos Ortega, in a white Venezuela T-shirt, move to
the front of the protest march as it heads east on Calle Ocho, Miami.
The two men helped lead a national strike in their homeland.

(Fernandez, oligarch, Ortega, bogus union leader)



Marchers in Little Havana demanded international help and denounced
the governments in Venezuela and Cuba as “serious threats” to Latin
America.

[0rganism]

9. What I don't get is why these dimbulbs are so fixated on sanctions anyway

If they really want to turn Cuba back into a corporate-owned banana republic, the single best way is to NORMALIZE trade relations. Anyone who's observed the effect of MFN status on China should gladly bow before the power of sheer greed on the part of government personnel to accomplish in short order that which mighty armies and decades of trade embargo cannot. The example of Vietnam is destined to be equally instructive. Bring Cuba into NAFTA, flood the island with high-tipping tourists and Walmart contracts, and within 10 years the Cuban government itself will be using its powers to enforce cheap-labor "free market" zones, just like the corporatists want.

I wonder, sometimes, if these apparently knee-jerk anti-communists are actually sleeper agents for Castro's revolution. What better way to ensure that the nation survives as a truly socialist state than to nominally isolate it from global capitalists?

[Mika]

12. A couple of problems with your analysis, imo.

First, Cubans don't want their country to be a corporate banana republic - they let this be widely known when they kicked out the US controlled oligarchy in 1959. They stood up against foreign exploitation. and are well respected worldwide for having done so.

Second, Cubans don't want to have any part of NAFTA. The people and their elected leadership have spoken volumes on this.

Third, maybe Cuba is embargoed precisely because the people simply don't endorse cheap/slave labor and "free market" zones, they have a government that represents their ideals in this area and they have union-organized every profession and trade.

Fourth, as for your comment on the hard line exiles being sleeper agents, well, see my first point. Cuba doesn't need sleeper agents to foment anti Cuba sentiment, and the Cuban exile politicians have their own monetary agenda. The government and people of Cuba have always espoused and desired good and fully normal relations with the USA - on terms of their own sovereignty.

Fifth, Cuba is NOT isolated from the rest of the world - Cuba has good trade relations with most of the rest of the world (that doesn't involve the US Helms-Burton extra territorial sanctions, that more countries are objecting to and acting against as time passes). The US has isolated itself from Cuba.



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[0rganism]

14. analysis of the problems with previous analysis

1) as to Cubans not wanting their country to be a banana republic -- what citizens do? Yet they arise nonetheless. Look at Vietnam, slowly succumbing to the lure of shiny things, after a much bloodier outkicking of French and American oligarchy back in '75. All it takes, as I said, is a few years of normalized trade relations.

2) NAFTA -- again, it's only a matter of time. Once the oligarchs can be restored to power through the apparent democratic freewill of a few bought elections, they will enter into such regional treaties as exist to further their profits and entrench their power.

3) Maybe you're right, but I'm not going to make any suppositions about the preferences of Cubans, not knowing any myself. However, I do know ideals, and ideals have a way of mutating when faced with big money. At first, they may grudgingly shift aside a bit, to let just a little investment capital through, but that capital is inevitably a wedge that forces itself in deeper and wider over time, as ideals cede more and more ground to greed.

4) I'd readily agree, except that it's been damn near 50 years since the revolution and more than 45 since the foolish Bay of Pigs invasion. Aren't we "over it" yet? The entire neo-liberal theory of passive imperialism in sheep's clothing normally pisses upon such things as ideological trade and travel embargoes, especially long-lasting ones that promote self-sufficiency on the part of the embargoed. Openness to trade (read: bribery on a vast scale) is in itself supposed to win over hearts and minds to the idea of becoming banana republicans, and where that fails, subversion and corruption are preferable to overt hostility, which is itself preferable to trade sanctions and travel bans. Now the theory itself is arguably bogus, but our government has basically followed its precepts religiously over the last 15 years, with very few exceptions. So it may be that Cubans are especially stubborn, including those living "in exile" who prop up the embargo, but something about that just doesn't seem to fit.

5) True enough, Cuba is not isolated from the rest of the world (hence the qualifier "nominally" in my other post), and viz. the previous point, it makes sense from a culturally subversive standpoint to encourage global contact by other capitalist nations. Yet here we read in this very article of the anti-Castro politicos traveling abroad apparently to shore up international support for an embargo that can never be effective.

Now I'm not saying that the anti-Castro politicians necessarily know they're inadvertently doing Cuban socialism a favor by acting like asses, but it sure does seem that way. The more they try and fail to isolate Cuba (which is really quite impossible) the more they make the US seem like an inept bully and discredit the would-be oligarchs.

[Mika]

15. Thanks for the well considered response.

:thumbsup:

I've been there many times and have many friends (and some family) there. I have faith in the good people of Cuba and their determination to resist US imperialism.

:hi:

[Vogon_Glory]

10. The Company They Keep

I think it likely that with the Diaz-Balart brothers fronting this initiative, their European and American receptions are going to be chillier than these guys expect. The brothers Diaz-Balart are likely to find European and Latin American diplomats and journalists bringing up matters like the Florida election antics of November, 2000, whether the Diaz-Balarts and Sires supported the Patriot Act and Gee Dubya Boosh's Mesopotamian adventure, Karl Rove's bogus "election fraud" campaign, and other disagreeable topics. I expect that the Diaz-Balarts in particular might have to field questions as to whether they supported the brutal governments of Central and South America during the military dictatorships in South America and the bloody civil wars in Central America.

Being a Republican does not have the moral cachet right-wingers and Beltway pundits seem to think it does.

I suspect that someone with a moral stature of a Nelson Mandela could push for pressure on the Cuban government, but the Diaz-Balart brothers don't have that.

[Judi Lynn]

11. Unfortunately, these guys aren't strangers to strong-arming the former Soviet block countries,

and European countries in general. They've been at it for years.

They go to Switzerland to some body, organization there regularly to agitate, bringing with them the radical reactionary idiots from South Florida's most extreme Cuban element, like Frank Calzon, who used to run Freedom House, who accosts Cuban diplomats directly.

They've been targeting cooperative agents in these countries any time the opportunity arises, and have engaged them in recurring provocations against Cuba. It's truly a sad, sad affair when scum like this has so very much undeserved power.

Just keep it in the back of your mind when the next unexpected attack on Cuba comes from Czechoslovakia, or possibly Poland. It'll all be traceable, in time, to the U.S., and South Florida Cuban right-wing "exiles."

They have also bonded with Venezuelan expatriots in the States, and South Viet Nam immigrants, whom they use in their assaults on Cuba, for the illusion of vast popular support.

[Vogon_Glory]

17. Poland 1939, 1945, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, Gee!...

I find any criticism of Cuba coming from Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia to carry a lot more weight of truth and accuracy than what comes from the the Diaz-Balart brothers. Poland suffered terribly under the Stalinist invasion of 1939, and the suffering resumed in 1945. The Warsaw Pact's invasion of Hungary in 1956 was bloodier and more repressive than US interventions in Cuba in the early part of the last century. Fidel Castro also ENDORSED the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Gee, you'd think the eastern Europeans might have cause to hold grudges against people touting the Marxist-Leninist ideology in general and in the case of Czechoslovakia, Fidel Castro in particular. :sarcasm:

Every so often, many DU readers are gratified to find some official of one or the other of one of Latin America's right-wing military dictatorships arrested and hauled into court to answer for his actions. Many DU readers hail justice being done, and so do I. Some of their actions, at least in the case of the Brazilian military dictatorship, date almost as far back as Castro's endorsement of Leonid Brezhnev's "socialist" Big-Stick military intervention in Czechoslovakia.

As for the Diaz-Balart brothers, they carry far less moral weight than does a Havel or a Waleska, especially considering where Gee Dubya took the Republican Party since 2001. Imagine members of the Falange protesting genocide in Darfur.

[SpikeTss]

13. And rightly so!

I mean, compare the cruel, suppressive and self-enriching Cuban president
and the elected members of the Cuban parliament to the new friends of
the Bush administration: Beacons of democracy, like Libya with its stellar
history in human rights, democracy, its stellar history regarding torture
and - most important - its efforts in terrorism.

Do I have to use sarcasm tags?

[Judi Lynn]

16. Oh, yeah! They are the worst! That island is keeping the U.S. living in fear.

What if they invade? It would be pure hell on earth!

They would force us to improve our medical system, our educational system, find new organic ways to grow crops, and become super efficient medical researchers and scientists. They'd force us to improve our longevity, reduce the numbers of infant deaths, have far more family doctors living close to American families, able to treat the entire family for years, they'd force us to follow their pattern and create far smaller classes for children so teachers are far more familiar with them, even having a night each year when the teacher has dinner at the student's home and meets the student's family! We'd have to allow everyone to receive free education up to and including college, and beyond.... What a nightmare.




Havana people.

[Judi Lynn]

18. More info. on Cuban American-directed U.S. policy on Cuba: Propaganda War Against Cuba

~snip~
Under Washington’s remote control, the meeting brought together several right and extreme right politicians on the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba, such as Vaclav Havel, former Spanish prime minister José Maria Aznar, and Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State under the Clinton administration. They are, for the most part, closely linked to the White House and the fascist wing of the Cuban exiles which is deeply implicated in international terrorism. (4)

The Czech government, which has shown its loyalty to the United States on many occasions, was the sponsor of the meeting. A unit for « promoting the transition » in Cuba has even been recently created within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, led by Gabriela Dlouha. (5). As early as 1999, at the request of Madeleine Albright, herself of Czech origin, the Czech authorities had tabled a resolution against Cuba during the meeting of the Commission for Human Rights in Geneva. Martin Palous, Czech ambassador to the USA, was delighted over the « role played » by his government concerning « the Cuban question ». Cuban-born Frank Calzon, a former CIA agent and director of the Center for a Free Cuba (an organisation controlled by the Cuban radical right), expressed his approval of the interventionist attitude of the Czech Republic. (6)

During this meeting on the theme of « Cuban dissidence », Vaclav Havel virulently condemned the arrests of 75 people by the Cuban authorities in March 2003. (7) In taking refuge behind the usual rhetoric about human rights, which crumbles at once when confronted by the facts, Mr Havel carefully evaded the details of this affair. He confined himself to calling for the release of Raúl Rivero, sentenced for conspiracy, subversive activities and collaboration with the setting up of the Washington blockade. In fact, on the payroll of the US government – a foreign enemy power which has been harassing Cuba since 1959 – Rivero participated in setting up the conditions necessary for destabilising Cuba, in flagrant violation of the laws of his country. (8).

The organisation of this meeting is far from innocent. In reality, its aim was to create within international opinion the conditions necessary for a US military invasion of Cuba. Several Latin-American personalities have joined the movement, such as former president of Uruguay Luis Alberto Lacalla, the former strong man of Chile Patricio Aylwin Azóca, and the former president of Costa Rica, Luis Alberto Monje, who did not hesitate for a single second to rub shoulders during the aforesaid meeting with individuals such as Carlos Alberto Montaner, president of the Cuban Liberal Union and also former CIA agent, who has a long criminal record linked to international terrorism. (9)
(snip/...)

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=6612

[Mika]

19. From your article link..

In the face of the growth of US hostility against Cuba, the British House of Commons recorded a 79% vote in favour of a common declaration condemning the current Bush policy against the Havana government, and warning against a future military aggression against the Cuban people. Peter Hain, Leader of the House of Commons, offered the following comments : « I am absolutely opposed to military action being taken against Cuba and also opposed to the continuing blockade of Cuba by the United States. I visited Cuba two years ago and was very impressed with the social advances that have been made despite all the pressure from the US.” (23)

The impressive level of human development reached by Cuba is totally censored by the media monopolies. On 17th September 2004, the United Nations Population Fund called the Cuban health model exemplary and praised the social policies of the Cuban government. The report of the aforementioned organisation underlined that Cuba is the only Third World country to have achieved an infant mortality rate comparable to that of industrialised nations, namely 6%.

The Caribbean region is currently being ravaged by cyclones which have caused dramatic human damage, especially in Haiti. The United Nations has praised the organisational model used in Cuba for the prevention of damage from cyclones. Hurricane Charlie cost the lives of four people in Cuba while thirty people died in Florida as it swept in. Similarly, in 1998 Hurricane George caused the death of four people in Cuba while more than 600 died in the other Caribbean countries. “Several factors can explain the low rate of mortality caused by the hurricanes in Cuba in comparison with its neighbours, such as education, damage prevention and capacity to respond”, underlined Salvano Briceno, director of the Institute for Disaster Reduction at the United Nations. As for Brigitte Leoni, spokesperson of the World Conference for Disaster Reduction which will take place in Japan in January 2005, she has commented that all countries have at their disposal the means to limit the consequences of these catastrophes, but they sometimes lack “specific programmes of action and the political will to put them in place”. (25)

In contrast to the media trans-nationals, the United Nations retains a certain objectivity about Cuba and bases its arguments on statistics and facts, putting ideological prejudices to one side. Bruno Moro, representing the United Nations Programme for Development, has affirmed that Cuba has at its disposal an advanced level of local progress with the reduction of inequality and poverty, and the country is a point of reference in this field. He underlined in particular the quality of social cover, the programmes to combat AIDS (contrary to what the international press reports on this topic) and local economic development. (26)

Cuban reality is a constant victim of distortions manufactured by the grail-bearers of the free-market religion. Washington and the extremists of the Cuban community in Florida, along with all their allies such as Havel and Aznar, seize every opportunity to destroy the Cuban revolutionary project. The American film-maker Oliver Stone had a bitter experience with them. Speaking to bemused journalists during a press conference at the San Sebastian Festival in Spain, he went back over the reasons for the censoring – which, according to him, “reached untenable levels in the USA” - of his film “Comandante”, which dealt with Fidel Castro and his vision for Cuban society:

The demonstrations that take place in the Cuban streets to favour Fidel Castro are not a fake, and if they were, the people should be awarded with the Oscar for their performance, for I have seen the joy in their faces when they approach the leader.

I found an openness and a freedom in Cuba that I have not found in any other country of the area, neither in the Caribbean nor in Central America. I have been with many world leaders in Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua and I have never seen the spontaneous affection in the streets that I have seen in Cuba toward Fidel Castro.
These crowds were totally spontaneous. There were visits to hospitals and perhaps people there could have known that we were going, but looking at the faces you know nothing was a fake. I’m a director of actors and I know when people pretend, and when they don’t. Castro asked where I wanted to go, and people approached him in a very natural way. Where in the world could this happen?

is one of the few presidents in the world who has no money abroad and has led his people to a very high educational level. <...>

Personally, I reject the "his people" comment (and Cubans do also), but, aside from that, I have been to Cuba many times and I can confirm the above observations.

Mr Castro used to drive around in an unguarded open jeep, and was regularly seen doing so all over Cuba. He'd make random stops to visit people, check up on various projects, shop at markets and such. He would usually be swarmed by well wishers and regular people wanting to meet him. He is a man of the people and has few pretenses when among them. He loved to hear directly from them, to interact and understand their situations. He'd take notes when fielding complaints and problems. He would personally oversee disaster mitigation efforts (hurricanes, landslides, droughts, etc) When in Cuba he never wore a bullet proof vest and never had anything like the extreme security that US presidents have in the US.



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[Judi Lynn]

21. Thanks for posting that snip. I've seen incidents like the ones he described, too.

Absolutely accurate of the views I've had.

Reminds one of reading reports about the time he had been speaking for a long time, at mid-day, under a broiling sun in summer, and he fainted. It was reported people were overwrought, and some were actually crying, in an enormous outdoor crowd. In looking for articles on the situation, at the time, I saw multiple articles, from different sources pointing out this crowd reaction.

Here's one I just snagged:

Castro faints during speech
Chicago Sun-Times, Jun 24, 2001 by ANITA SNOW

~snip~
Late Saturday morning, the 74-year-old Cuban leader, wearing his traditional long-sleeved uniform and heavy black boots, was about two hours into a speech under the bright sun with temperatures in the mid- 80s when his body began listing.

Government cameras suddenly pulled away and focused on the crowd, filled with surprised and concerned faces. Some people gasped and some cried.

It was the first time Castro appeared to faint in public and the first time in recent memory that he has been too weak to finish a speech.
(snip/...)

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20010624/ai_n13912514

[roody]

20. as they slide into absolute irrelevancy