Cubans Should Rule Cuba

Not Exiles and Not Foreigners
Updated: Friday, April 3rd, 2015

          CNBC, America's top business network, used this Getty Images photo this week to illustrate a major article about Cuba written by Michelle Caruso-Cabrera. It used multiple graphics and polls to show that the majority of Americans, INCLUDING MOST CUBAN-AMERICANS, support President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with the neighboring island. However, majority opinion in the world's most famed democracy has never factored into America's Cuban policy. That's includes the decision of a few to go to war in 1898 to wrest dominance of Cuba from Spain, strong-arm the lush port of Guantanamo Bay from Cuba in 1903, team with the Mafia in the 1950s to support the vile Batista dictatorship, and blunt the efforts of Democratic Presidents Kennedy, Carter, Clinton, and Obama to end or at least ease the embargo against Cuba, an embargo that has been in existence, to America's shame and democracy's shame, since 1962.

          This week Politico used this photo of President Barack Obama to highlight a major article written by Nick Gass. The article was entitled "Polls: Most Cuban-Americans Back Obama's Cuban Shift." Unfortunately, a few self-serving Cuban-Americans still have far more influence over Cuban policy than the combined influence of the U. S. President, the majority of Americans, and the majority of Cuban-Americans. 

      Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, has been the most powerful pro-embargo/anti-Cuban Cuban-American in the U. S. Congress. Till recently he was the omnipotent Chairman of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee and he has remained the top Democrat on that significant committee. Mr. Menendez is 61-years-old and has been in the U. S. Congress since 1993 and in the U. S. Senate since 2006. For years federal prosecutors and the FBI have investigated Mr. Menendez for corruption related to New Jersey, Miami, and the Dominican Republic. This week, -- April 1st -- the U. S. government indicted Mr. Menendez on 14 corruption charges, which he very heatedly denied...again.  

Isabel dos Santos. {Photo: Bruno Fonseca/EPA/Newscom}

      Isabel dos Santos at age 40 is the youngest billionaire on the African Continent. Forbes conservatively puts her wealth at $3 billion. She is her father's favorite daughter. Her father is 71-year-old Jose Eduardo dos Santos, the dictator of oil-rich/mineral-rich Angola, one of the poorest and most corrupt countries on the planet. Her father has ruled Angola since 1979; because of its vast natural resources, many countries want to do business with Angola. According to Kerry A. Dolan, the lady who tracks huge fortunes for Forbes Magazine, if foreign business tycoons want to do business in Angola, a good way to start is to deal with Isabel upfront. Much of Isabel's fortune involves Portuguese businessmen. Ms. Dolan explains the connection: "For three centuries the Portuguese extracted wealth from this mineral-rich country on Africa's southwestern coast. Almost immediately after Angola won independence in 1975, various internal factions began battling one another for the right to do the exact same things." Isabel's dad Jose dos Santos won that battle in 1979 and has maintained his power since then. Meanwhile, Isabel -- to consolidate her personal fortune -- apparently studied the Batistiano Cubans who fled the Cuban Revolution to relocate and enlarge their fortunes, especially in Miami. Ms. Dolan explained it this way: "Isabel dos Santos' formative business experience came at Miami Beach. Not the Florida city, but rather a rustic chic beach-side bar and restaurant in Luanda, Angola's capital, that tries to emulate its namesake." In other words, to amass her fortune in Angola, Isabel dos Santos very astutely studied the post-Batista fortunes of Cubans in Miami and equated that situation to the post-Portuguese situation in Angola. She studied well.

Meanwhile.................

     .............in my opinion, this was the most pertinent photo taken on the planet this week. Photojournalist Nadia Abu Shaban was covering a camp that supposedly was a safe haven for Syrian children who have managed to survive the endless bloodshed that has killed many thousands of children and left millions more on the brink of starvation according to urgent pleas from Save the Children and the United Nations. This little Syrian girl walked up behind Nadia, who turned and aimed her camera at the child. Believing the camera was a gun, the little girl instantly raised her arms in a surrender mode. Nadia posted the photo and that explanation on Twitter. As this little girl and so many like her around the world well know, there are far two many guns and far too little compassion in far too many places around the world. This little Syrian girl is actually one of the lucky ones. If some sanity enters her life, she even has a chance to become a big girl. Based on her reaction to Nadia's camera, this child's young eyes have seen many little Syrian girls who will never have that chance.

All of which reminds me...........

      .......of the Time Magazine cover story this week: "CUBA: What Will Change When the Americans Arrive?" The 12-page article written by Karl Vick pointed out a rather unique feature of Cuba: That it is practically drug-free, crime-free, and war-free. That's quite unlike the Batista-era in the 1950s and it is quite unlike most other regions of the world today. Although they are cruelly and unfairly embargoed, Cuban children today are basically safer, healthier, and better educated than most other children around the world. Would a return of the Americans, especially the Batistianos, change that back to the hedonistic days of the 1950s? It is a question, I believe, that is well worth asking. 

******************************