The Most Important Cuban

Her Name Is Ana!
{UPDATED: Monday, February 6th, 2016}

    The most important person in Cuba is Ana Teresa Igarza. 

       Most Americans have never heard of Ana, and that's Okay. But all of the ultra-powerful counter-revolutionaries in Miami and in Washington know Ana, and that's okay too. She is still Ana and she has emerged as the most important person on the vulnerable, pugnacious and beautiful Caribbean island.

     If Cuba is to survive the death of Fidel Castro, the nascent American presidency of Republican Donald Trump, the Republican and Batistiano-controlled U. S. Congress, and the Batista-like Banana Republic that has ruled nearby Florida since 1959, it's basically in Ana's capable hands. She is the Executive Director of Cuba's Special Economic Development Zone that encompasses over 300 acres built around the ultra-modern, deep-water Port of Mariel, which is about 30 miles southwest of Havana. Mariel is basking in a billion-dollar refurbishment largely financed by Brazil just before its Cuba-friendly, two-term President Dilma Rousseff was ousted in a coup-like impeachment engineered by unsavory forces, domestic and foreign, that didn't like her devotion to Brazil's and Cuba's poorest people. Ana has two plans for Mariel: {1} To make it the engine that puts Cuba on a sound economic footing despite the U. S. embargo that has existed since 1962; and {2} to stabilize Cuba's always very tenuous sovereignty that has barely managed to hang-on since the Revolutionary victory in 1959 but for centuries prior to that phenomenon it was under the imperialist might of foreign powers, namely Spain and the United States.

To be sure, Ana is a BIG fan of the Cuban Revolution.

Moreover, Ana fervently cherishes Cuba's independence.

 Economic viability, Ana believes, is vital to Cuba.

      Inspired by U. S. President Obama's brave and herculean efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, Ana convinced Cuban President Raul Castro that "We must take advantage of the window that Obama is giving us or this island will forever be just holding on or lose its independence altogether." That was three-and-a-half years ago. Since then, the soon-to-be-retired Raul Castro has put Cuba's diplomatic survival in the hands of the very capable Josefina Vidal and its economic survival...the key to everything...in Ana's hands. The photo above shows Ana, on the right, showing Obama's very impressed Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker around the refurbished Port of Mariel. But since then the friendly President Obama's most Cuba-friendly officials -- Pritzker, Kerry, Rhodes, Power, etc. -- have all been replaced by the unfriendly President Trump's Batistiano-friendly anti-Cuban zealots. Ana, knowing the "window" provided by Obama could quickly close with the startling election of President Trump, has tried to make the Obama-provided overtures as hard as possible for Donald Trump and the Batistianos in Florida and Congress to reverse.

       In this photo Ana is signing a deal in which a Russian company is investing in her Mariel Port Economic Zone. Russia, China and other U. S. competitors are convinced that Cuba is the pathway to stronger Caribbean and Latin America relations for far-flung U. S. competitors. Ana is willing to take advantage of that situation but she desires friendly relations with the neighboring U. S. superpower first and foremost.

      This photo shows Ana on the right answering questions at a news conference after she signed Mariel Port deals with Mexico and the Netherlands. The U. S. embargo of Cuba since 1962 has restricted Cuba's economic relations internationally because of the superpower status of the United States, which allows it to successfully fine, punish and threaten other nations that do business with Cuba, with immediate payoffs of fines if those foreign companies desire financial relations with America. So Ana has had to delicately navigate around the massive restrictions mandated by what historians and the United Nations consider the longest and cruelest economic embargo ever imposed by a truly powerful nation against a weak nation.

      For the past two weeks Ana, shown above on the right at a news conference in Florida at the Port of Palm Beach, has been on U. S. soil seeking vital deals between her Mariel Port and key American ports. She was about to sign contracts with the ports of Palm Beach and Everglades till Florida Governor Rick Scott sent a last-minute Tweet threatening to cut-off state funds to those ports if they signed any deal with Ana. The Cuban-born boss at the Port of Palm Beach, Manny Almira, is shown on the left above. He was as dismayed as Ana at Governor Scott's belligerence and lack of respect for the economic and job benefits the Cuban contract would have meant to the Port of Palm Beach and to South Florida. The Sun-Sentinel, South Florida's top newspaper, also excoriated Governor Scott in a scathing editorial but since 1959 the state of Florida and since the 1980s the U. S. Congress have routinely caved in to any and all Cuban demands made by the most visceral counter-revolutionary Cuban remnants of the long-ago overthrown Batista regime...overthrown in Cuba but resurrected on U. S. soil. So Ana, on her otherwise successful mission to the U. S., like most Cuban-Americans such as Manny Almira, was stymied in what essentially amounts to America's very own Banana Republic headquartered in Miami and Tallahassee.

     An article in the Palm Beach Post reported that Ana Teresa Igarza "invited Florida Governor Rick Scott to visit Cuba" so he could judge it for himself. She made the invitation off-the-cuff after Scott's threat caused the Port of Palm Beach and the Port of Everglades to back-off deals with Ana, confirming that her power to make such decisions on behalf of Cuba did not require her to call back to Havana to get permission.

On the other hand, it appears that Florida Governor Rick Scott needs to get permission from anti-Cuban extremists in his state before he can or will make any major decisions, or threats, related to Cuba.

       And also, while she was in South Florida, Ana Teresa Igarza was aware that the major newspapers in South Florida -- with the exception, of course, of the Miami Herald -- took editorial stances excoriating Governor Scott for not considering the financial benefits Ana's proposal would afford Florida and its citizens. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel denounced Scott harshly but so did the Palm Beach Post and the Bradenton Herald. The Herald's editorial included this exact sentence: "Scott's threat puts Florida at a competitive disadvantage to ports along the Gulf Coast, East Coast, Caribbean island ports, and Central American ports -- which are signing agreements with Cuba." So even in South Florida, Ana Teresa Igarza easily won the moral battle against the extreme prejudice that exists against Cuba and against moderate Cuban-Americans among Florida officials dating back to the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

        Yet, the most important Cuban, Ana Teresa Igarza, returned to the island after a successful trade mission to the United States. The hugely important major ports of Norfolk, Virginia and Mobile, Alabama signed deals with Ana. And except for the obstacle presented by Florida's Governor Scott, all the other American and Cuban-American business and political executives she met seemed to support Ana's goals for Cuba, which she believes will greatly benefit Cubans as well as foreign companies investing in Cuba.

        Meanwhile, on the island of Cuba this Sputnik International photo reveals the hope of the Cuban people for the Obama-like friendly ties to the United States to survive the anticipated unfriendly reversals of the Batistiano-inspired threats from the new Trump administration in Washington. This photo shows the U. S. and Cuban flags side-by-side and looking out onto a Havana street from the very popular and privately owned La Moneda Cubana Restaurant. Left to their own devices and choices, the majority of Cubans and Americans want friendly relations between their two countries but those desires for decades have been held hostage by an unsavory few nestled permanently it seems in Florida and in the U. S. Congress. Sadly, the U. S. democracy, except for the window provided by the brave and decent President Obama, seems incapable of correcting that interminable situation, as Florida's Governor Scott reminded Cuban-American businessmen and Cuba's most important person, Ana Teresa Igarza, again this month.

        As so often happens, Sarah Stephens -- the head of the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas -- had the wisest and most cogent comment regarding Governor Rick Scott's anti-democracy and anti-Florida rebuke of Cuba's Ana Teresa Igarza and Cuban-American Manny Almira this week. On her Website Friday-February 3, 2017, Sarah Stephens wrote, "When Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus folded its tent last month, 400 Floridians lost their jobs. Now, Florida's Governor Rick Scott appears determined to turn his state's drive for jobs into a Cuba policy clown show. When it comes to Cuba, Florida -- to put it mildly -- has always been a paradox unable to come to terms with itself. No state in the union has worked harder to impose sanctions on Cuba, and no state has benefited more from trade and travel with the nearby island." 

         By way of contrast to Governor Scott, Ana Teresa Igarza is Cuba's most important person because she is looking forward to trade and commerce that will benefit her people, not staring backwards motivated by revenge and greed. She says, "I want to help Cubans by helping people, the workers, in other countries, which in turn helps my people. My feedback on Mariel deals with businesses in Belgium, Mexico, Spain, Brazil and elsewhere is doing that, for their people and ours. I want someday to say the same about America."   

          A young and well-educated hydraulic engineer, Yanelis Tellez now works for Ana at the Port of Mariel. Yanelis says, "I was born and raised in Mariel. Now look at it! I'm proud of Ana and Cuba and of myself too." 

        The strategic location of Cuba's Port of Mariel along with its billion-dollar deep-water refurbishment has the potential to make it the centerpiece for increased commerce for the entire Caribbean region.

Cuba's Port of Mariel.

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