The Answer? Yes.
REUTERS is an international news agency and that fact alone gives it a huge advantage over U. S. media outlets when it comes to unbiased or courageous reporting on Cuban issues. Also, REUTERS has a fair-minded correspondent, Marc Frank, who has spent a quarter of a century in Cuba understanding the island and its people. By contrast, almost without fail, journalists in the U. S. are far too intimidated, too politically correct, or simply too incompetent to report fairly about Cuba.
A case in point is an article written yesterday -- March 9th -- by Marc Frank with a REUTERS dateline from Havana. It concerned a 3,000-word editorial in Granma, Cuba's state newspaper: "Cuba said it would welcome President Barack Obama later this month..." That was the opening salvo but the gist of the article added this caveat: "...but Cuba has no intention of changing its policies in exchange for normal relations with the United States." Then Frank reported that "The editorial acknowledged Obama had taken positive steps," yet, Frank went on to explain frankly that Cuba expected to be treated as a sovereign nation when it came to dealing with its own priorities and what it called "intimidation caused by the overall blockade that has been in force for more than 50 years." The Granma editorial, as reported by Frank, explained its rationale: "The United States should abandon the pretense of fabricating an internal political opposition, paid for with money from U. S. taxpayers." The sheer fact that Marc Frank and REUTERS correctly quoted Cuba's side of a two-sided issue is more than can be expected from the U. S. media, which...for example...in 1976 reported that the terrorist bombing of a Cuban civilian airplane, Cubana Flight 455, was "The biggest blow yet against Castro" while the more fair-minded international media, as well as history, registers the fact that such events and policies were/are, in fact, mostly big blows against very innocent Cubans.
Cuba's official and updated reaction yesterday to President Obama's scheduled two-day trip to the island beginning on March 21st was in response to an unfortunate statement by White House spokesman Josh Earnest back on Friday. In a total capitulation to right-wing anti-Cuban extremists in the United States, Earnest poignantly explained that Cuba, the host sovereign country, would have no say as to who President Obama saw or what he did on the island in regards to dissidents, which Cuba believes are funded and mostly created by the U. S. government. Earnest said: "The guest list for that meeting will be determined solely by the White House. The President will meet with whomever he chooses to meet with." IF ANY OTHER NATION IN THE WORLD WAS INVOLVED, including many nations that have flagrant human rights violations, Josh Earnest would not remotely use such words. But, of course, in no other nation in this world did an overthrown U.S.-backed dictatorship flee to U. S. soil and immediately set up a situation in which it dictated America's policy pertaining to that country. That alone makes Cuba unique in the world.
Presidential candidate Marco Rubio, not unexpectedly, was among the Miami contingent in the U. S. Congress that viciously assailed President Obama's plans to visit Cuba. Right-wing editorials in even once-great newspapers such as the Washington Post also, not unexpectedly, viciously attacked the President's impending visit and all of his other positive overtures regarding the Cuban people. Rubio, who has a lot of compassion for himself and his financial donors but none for Cubans on the island, said: "Despite concession upon concession by the United States, detentions of activists have increased." Of course, Rubio and Miami's other contributions to the U. S. Congress never have to to justify such statements nor do they ever have to defend the unending parade of congressionally funded tax dollars designed to bring about regime change in Cuba and to support Cuban dissidents.
Yoani Sanchez is the darling of the U. S. media and, as one of the world's most popular bloggers, her anti-Cuban views from Cuba are never questioned by the U. S. media. While the United States embargo still prevents everyday Americans from visiting Cuba, which might allow them to judge things for themselves, Cuba permits Yoani Sanchez to travel overseas, including Miami and the fawning U. S. Congress, to gain sustenance and apparently funding for her blog and digital newspapers before returning to Havana to express her anti-government sacrosanct but one-sided and never challenged views.
Yoani Sanchez, on her Cuba-approved visits to the United States, has stopped off in Miami to utilize Radio-TV Marti to broadcast her anti-Cuban views back to Cuba. Since the 1980s, Radio-TV Marti has swallowed up billions of U. S. tax dollars that, perhaps, could have been better spent on such things as childhood hunger in the United States instead of propagandizing Cubans to oppose their government and hopefully to overthrow it to suit Cuban exiles.
Berta Soler is one of the high-profile anti-government dissidents in Cuba. In the aforementioned REUTERS article, Marc Frank quoted Ms. Soler's anti-Cuban rants but it is the Cuban government's position that she and her celebrated Ladies in White are not only encouraged but also funded from Washington. On the other hand, the U. S. media refrains from presenting both sides of the issue, always emphasizing only the dissident side of that two-sided equation. For sure, well-funded and well-publicized situations can easily be concocted to provoke incidents that shed negative spotlights on authorities while displaying positive images of the perpetrators. When that's the case, REUTERS will report both sides of the issue while the U. S. media and the vast U. S. Castro Cottage Industry mentions only the anti-Cuban side of the situations.
Yoani Sanchez is the darling of the U. S. media and, as one of the world's most popular bloggers, her anti-Cuban views from Cuba are never questioned by the U. S. media. While the United States embargo still prevents everyday Americans from visiting Cuba, which might allow them to judge things for themselves, Cuba permits Yoani Sanchez to travel overseas, including Miami and the fawning U. S. Congress, to gain sustenance and apparently funding for her blog and digital newspapers before returning to Havana to express her anti-government sacrosanct but one-sided and never challenged views.
Yoani Sanchez, on her Cuba-approved visits to the United States, has stopped off in Miami to utilize Radio-TV Marti to broadcast her anti-Cuban views back to Cuba. Since the 1980s, Radio-TV Marti has swallowed up billions of U. S. tax dollars that, perhaps, could have been better spent on such things as childhood hunger in the United States instead of propagandizing Cubans to oppose their government and hopefully to overthrow it to suit Cuban exiles.
From Miami, Yoani Sanchez went to the U. S. Congress in Washington to gain sustenance from viciously anti-Cuban Cuban-American U. S. Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez. If Cuba permits Yoani Sanchez to visit anti-Cuban havens such as Miami and the U. S. Congress, perhaps Rubio and Menendez should allow everyday Americans to visit Cuba...even if it might let Americans judge the island for themselves instead of just being told what to think.
Cristina Escobar is a Cuban who disagrees strongly with the anti-Cuban views of Yoani Sanchez, Berta Soler, and the other dissidents on the island who are so one-sidedly celebrated by the U. S. media. The 28-year-old Escobar happens to be the island's brilliant news anchor and a leader of Cuba's young-adult generation that is determined to keep Cubans in Miami and Washington from dictating the island's impending post-Castro future. Escobar, who has closely monitored the U. S. government and the the U. S. media, says, "I don't want the United States to bring me democracy. That is a project for Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington." By contrast...Sanchez, Soler, Rubio, Menendez, etc., believe Cubans in Miami and Washington should dictate Cuba's future. And that's a two-sided proposition that the U. S. media is either too biased or too intimidated to acknowledge. Regarding the issue of President Obama's scheduled visit to Cuba later this month, Escobar has an opinion on that subject too: "I welcome his positive overtures to Cuba and I welcome his planned visit. But if he plans to only provide further support to the U.S.-supported dissidents as opposed to supporting everyday Cubans, I believe he should stay home." Regarding the U. S. media, Escobar, while in Washington to cover the last Vidal-Jacobson diplomatic session, pointedly said, "The lies the U. S. media tells about Cuba hurts everyday Cubans the most."
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President Obama has offered many more positive gestures to help everyday Cubans than any President in America's history. But if the statements by his spokesman Josh Earnest are correct regarding his upcoming visit to Cuba, Cristina Escobar is correct to dis-invite him. After all, at a White House news conference she was the journalist who first asked Josh Earnest, "Can we expect President Obama to visit Cuba in 2016?" And after all, when it comes to the much-maligned everyday Cubans on the island, Cristina Escobar has proven conclusively that she cares for them much more than extremists Cubans in Miami and Washington or U.S.-backed dissident Cubans on the island. If Obama visits Cuba...or, say, Egypt, or, say, his hometown of Chicago...he has every right to mention human rights violations. However, to announce prior to his visit that a sovereign host country or city has no say-so as to what he does when he is there may impress imperialist bullies but it doesn't impress democracy-lovers or...Cuban journalists like Cristina Escobar.
Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones will hold a free concert in Havana on March 25th. It's a lavish tribute to everyday Cubans. Jagger visited Cuba to arrange the visit a few months ago. And he didn't tell the Cuban government that it had no say-so about the much-anticipated concert.
A kind and respectful gesture.
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