Anti-American Cuban-Americans

Dictating Vile Cuban Policies!!
{Updated: Tuesday, October 31st, 2017}

       The Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas is one of the many democracy-loving organizations that work tirelessly advocating for the U. S. government to bring, at long last, some decency and sanity to its Cuban policy.

      The Executive Director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas is Emily Mendrala. Each Friday her weekly review of U.S.-Cuban relations on the CDA's Cuba Central is the best online update related to the island of Cuba, which says as much or more about America as it does about Cuba itself. On her current update, She decried the fact that a mere handful of extremists Cuban-Americans in Miami and in the U. S. Congress still essentially dictate America's Cuban policy, the policy that currently has America condemned worldwide by a unanimously loud 191-to-0 vote in the UN. Emily Mendrala put it this way on October 27th: "Indeed, support for engagement with Cuba is now a mainstream opinion among the public and in Congress. And yet, somehow, a minority group of lawmakers continues to stymie engagement."

      Emily Mendrala's Center for Democracy in the Americas, as her quotation above indicates, is appalled that the United States' Cuban policy primarily targets and harms totally innocent everyday Cubans on the island, especially young-adult Cubans trying to become entrepreneurs to support their families on the U.S.-EMBARGOED island.

      The quotation above by Emily Mendrala referenced this heart-wrenching photo of a young Cuban entrepreneur named Yamina Vicente who came to Washington to beg -- YES, TO BEG!!! -- the Trump administration to allow her and other young Cuban mothers like her to be able to continue to make decent livings for their families thanks to a brief opening provided by the decent former U. S. President Obama.

      The quotation above by Yamina Vicente in Washington BEGGED the U. S. government to allow her to continue to make a decent living for her family in the sovereign nearby country of Cuba. {Please re-read & study that sentence}. Yamina and many other young female entrepreneurs in Cuba who signed the letter that she held aloft, were BEGGING the Trump administration not to reverse the decent overtures that the previous Obama administration had so bravely provided them. Most decent, democracy-loving Americans -- such as Emily Mendrala -- are ashamed that a young Cuban mother like Yamina Vicente had to come to Washington TO BEG the U. S. government to allow her to make a decent living IN A NEARBY SOVEREIGN COUNTRY. But that's the way it has been in the United States democracy since 1959 {except for the two-term Obama presidency} since the Cuban Revolution overthrew the vile Batista-Mafia dictatorship on the island only to see it quickly and permanently, it seems, resurface violently on U. S. soil with Little Havana in Miami as its new capital. The U. S. government that backed the Batista dictatorship in Cuba in the 1950s now in the Trump era in 2017 backs Rubio as America's latest Cuban dictator.

     The Marco Rubio dictatorship of Cuba is located in Washington and not Havana because the Miami-Batistianos, after all these decades, have yet to recapture Cuba despite having the Superpower support of the U. S. economy, the U. S. military, the U.S. CIA, the U. S. Congress, and all U.S. Republican presidents...as well as the apathy of two generations of unpatriotic Americans. It is that situtation that angers decent Americans like Emily Mendrala AND the majority of Cuban-Americans even in Miami.  

       Americans are not supposed to know this man. Yet, from his home-base in Miami, he is a prolific and brilliant journalist and author. His name is...Alvaro Fernandez. His journalistic endeavors include the founding of Progresso Weekly, a starkly pro-American/anti-Batistiano/anti-Counter Revolutionary publication in the heart of Miami. He believes the polls that reveal a strong majority of Cuban-Americans even in Miami desire normal relations with Cuba, and thus he believes that the majority of Cuban-Americans -- not just a minority cabal of extremists -- should have input in Miami, in Florida, and in U. S. political circles on issues related to Cuba. He is aware that most Americans, most Cuban-Americans, and the entire world -- based on the current 191-to-0 vote in the UN -- agree with him. So, he truly believes the Cuban-exile use of the U. S. democracy to assault Cubans on the island since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 should be confronted by the less revengeful majority of Cuban-Americans and, possibly, by a more patriotic majority of Americans.

         And indeed, with 2017 being the first year in America's Era of President Trump, Alvaro Fernandez seems to believe conclusively that Miami choirboy Marco Rubio is now the self-anointed and Trump-anointed dictator of Cuba, not so unlike the U.S.-anointed Fulgencio Batista was in the 1950s on the island itself or the Bush-anointed Jorge Mas Canosa was beginning in the 1980s in the United States.

For example:

     In a recent -- Oct. 27-2017 -- Progresso Weekly update, Alvaro Fernandez used the above photo-montage to illustrate an article entitled: "The Made-for-Miami Fairy Tale of Marco the Good vs. Cabello the Bad." Here are the first two paragraphs:
               "It's hard to comprehend how people still believe Marco Rubio, or swallow the manufactured PR stunts that the press falls for that paint a picture of the U. S. senator from West Miami as the hero of some tall tale.
                "A closer and more detailed look at Rubio would show a Little Marco that is more fairy tale character than the responsible politician he pretends to be. Which goes to show how gullible Miami and so many American voters are -- a nice way of saying that too many of us are just plain stupid when voting."
        That understandable critique of Marco Rubio and the Miami-infested U. S. democracy proves that Alvaro Fernandez is both an astute and very brave observer of post-Cuban Revolution politics in Miami and, unfortunately, also in Washington.

    In another recent Progresso Weekly update, Alvaro Fernandez used the above photo-montage to illustrate an article referencing Marco Rubio entitled: "Two-faced? Cowardly? Both." The article alleges that U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillotson's Cuban policies are dictated by America's current Cuban dictator Marco Rubio. In another article, a blistering Alvaro Fernandez headline screamed: "Follow the Money...and Marco Rubio." That article, in excruciating detail, vividly discussed "a dark alley called Marco Rubio." Unfortunately, it is that "dark alley called Marco Rubio" who currently is Dictator #1 of America's cruel, undemocratic Cuban policy.

     In continuing his excoriations of Marco Rubio in his Miami-based Progresso Weekly, Alvaro Fernandez used the above photo to illustrate an article entitled: "Ileana, Marco, Curbelo, and Mario: Crippled Trump Enablers." The photo depicts entrenched Marco Rubio-like Miami members of the U. S. Congress -- Carlos Curbelo, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and Mario Diaz-Balart. Alvaro Fernandez wonders, if most Cuban-Americans even in Miami favor normal relations with Cuba, why only Counter Revolutionary extremists can get elected to the U. S. Congress from Miami.

     In another major Progresso Weekly update, Alvaro Fernandez used the above graphic to illustrate his article entitled: "Menendez Trial Update: Has the Supreme Court Legalized Public Corruption?" It is a legitimate question related to the federal trial in which the U. S. government charged U. S. Senator Robert Menendez with 18 corruption-bribery charges. Menendez, an ultra-powerful and entrenched Cuban-American Counter-Revolutionary U. S. Senator from New Jersey, is expected to be found "not guilty" despite years of expensive investigative work by the U. S. government and an expensive trial in Newark, New Jersey, that has consumed over two months as of today -- October 31st, 2017. Even the presiding judge has openly referenced the fact that the U. S. Supreme Court over-turned the apparently solid corruption charges against the convicted former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell. It was the same U. S. Supreme Court that earlier had legalized unlimited political donations by billionaires, drastically altering the U. S. politics that some, obviously including Alvaro Fernandez, now view as "for sale to the highest bidders." But while a very brave Alvaro Fernandez in Miami questions what is happening in the Menendez corruption trial -- and is the same Alvaro Fernandez who pens major articles about the "two-faced," "cowardly," and "For Sale" Marco Rubio -- the intimidated or politically correct mainstream U. S. media only portrays Rubio as a choirboy.

     One of America's most respected investigative journalists, Ken Silverstein, penned the above deeply investigated article...using a plethora of specific names, places, dates, real estate, etc...that, as far as I can recall, labels Marco Rubio the most "FOR SALE" politician I've ever read about. Interestingly, as far as I know, Ken Silverstein has not been sued by either Rubio or his wealthy supporters. Yet, aside from brave and highly respected journalists like Alvaro Fernandez and Ken Silverstein, the inept mainstream United States media lavishly promotes presidential wannabee Marco Rubio as the quintessentially American-made Mother Teresa-like saint.

   But in the heart of Miami Alvaro Fernandez and his incisive Progresso Weekly articles consistently oppose Miami's dictation of America's Cuban policies.

Which reminds me of:

     The top news anchor on Cuban television is Cristina Escobar. She is also a record-setter as the first Cuban to ask questions at a White House news conference, and she took full advantage of that opportunity by asking six very pertinent questions. Also on U. S. soil at one university in California, at two universities in Alabama, and on a Pulitzer Center-sponsored Tracey Eaton U.S./YouTube video, Cristina Escobar has made this firm statement: "Cuban journalists have more freedom to tell the truth about the U. S. than U. S. journalists have to tell the truth about Cuba." Americans, propagandized since the Batista-Mafia dictatorship retrenched in Florida and New Jersey following the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution, are supposed to quickly dismiss that observation by a respected Cuban on the island, Cristina Escobar. But she is a well-educated and brilliant Cuban broadcast journalist who also happens to believe her comment depicted above as well as her second most referenced quotation: "Cuba's fate is up to Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington." In other words, as a leader of the vital young-adult generation of Cubans on the island, Cristina Escobar staunchly disapproved the American-backed Batista dictatorship in Cuba in the 1950s and she staunchly disapproves of the American-based Rubio dictatorship of Cuba now -- IN 2017!

     While even notable Miami journalist Alvaro Fernandez calls Marco Rubio "two-faced" and "cowardly," NO ONE either in Cuba or the U. S. has ever used such adjectives to describe the thoughtful Cristina Escobar. She is a talented Cuban jewel.

Making history at the White House.

Cristina Escobar.

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U.S.-Cuba Emergenies

A Domestic & Foreign Contrast!!
{Updated: Sunday, October 29th, 2017}

      This week -- October 26, 2017 -- the Voice of America informed the world that America has a "national emergency." On video and in print the VOA said: "America's current opioid overdose epidemic started in doctor's offices. The abuse of prescription opioids along with the use of heroin killed nearly 60,00 people last year. Those kinds of numbers prompted President Trump to declare a public health emergency today."

        The VOA this week reported that over a half-century ago the U. S. declared a war on drugs but now concludes that is today "The War America's Losing." Meanwhile, the U. S. currently is deeply involved in the 16-year-old Afghanistan War as well as a plethora of proxy wars not to mention the threat of wars against North Korea and Iran and even conflicting interests with Superpowers China and Russia that could evolve into future wars. But at the moment, the VOA declares the only "War" America is "losing" is the War on Drugs, a domestic issue solely inside its own borders.

      The island of Cuba also has an emergency but the roots are foreign, not domestic -- namely, the United States embargo that has been in effect since 1962, making it history's all-time longest and cruelest embargo ever imposed by a strong nation against a much weaker nation. The current international outcry condemning the embargo...with a 191-to-0 unanimity vote in the United Nations...cannot persuade the U. S. democracy to end it. Also, the U. S. democracy maintains the embargo even though most Americans and most Cuban-Americans also strongly oppose it.

     Cuba -- with strong unanimous support throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, and the world -- calls the U. S. embargo a "genocidal blockade against the sovereign Cuban people." Cuban sovereignty was finally earned in January of 1959 with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution over the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship.

     But while the Cuban Revolution changed the island drastically, it actually, in many ways, altered South Florida and the United States democracy even more. By the end of January, 1959, remnants of the ousted Batista dictatorship had taken political-financial charge of South Florida with a new capital -- Little Havana in Miami -- and an out-sized influenced on America's Cuban policy, which has used such undemocratic things as a record number of assassination attempts in 1959 and 1960, the Bay of Pigs military attack in 1961, and the embargo that was legalized in 1962 for the precise purpose, as revealed by de-classified U. S. documents, of starving, depriving, and showering misery on the Cuban people to entice them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government. Since 1959 only two-term President Barack Obama, from 2014 throughout 2016, possessed the combination of courage and patriotism to earnestly try to end the embargo. But that Herculean Obama effort resulted in such things as the anti-Obama march depicted above in the hallowed streets of Miami.

     The Cuban-exile political takeover of South Florida includes South Florida's biggest newspaper -- the Miami Herald -- and thus the Andres Oppenheimer headline depicted above that easily predicted "Trump Could Win Florida, Thanks to Cuban Americans." With Florida's crucial 29 electoral votes, Trump the Republican replaced Obama the Democrat in the White House with Trump owing extremists a debt.

     Subsequently, on two torrid visits to Little Havana, President Trump has rewarded South Florida's dominant counter-revolutionaries with volatile Cuban promises.

       At the behest of counter-revolutionaries, Trump's Cuba Crackdown involves reversing Obama-orchestrated peaceful overtures such as reopening embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961. Also, tightening the embargo to reverse the Obama-orchestrated sharp increase in tourism to Cuba is a Little Havana priority that Trump is obligated to reverse. In the past, such things as deadly terrorist bombings of Cuban hotels discouraged Cuban tourism, which is a lifeline for the island. These days, Trump's warning to Americans not to visit Cuba is based on deeply investigated but still mysterious sonic-wave attacks on Americans at the U. S. embassy in Havana and supposedly at two rooms in the Capri and Nacional hotels.

       Since 1962 the justification for the U. S. embargo against Cuba has been "to hurt the Castros." But as everyone knows, and as the 1962 de-classified U. S. documents confirm, the U. S. embargo, for all these decades, has mostly hurt only totally innocent, non-political everyday Cubans like Julia de la Rosa. With entrepreneurial openings provided by the cooperation of Presidents Obama and Raul Castro, Julia opened a Bed & Breakfast catering to American tourists that thrived with constant bookings via the U.S.-based AirB&B service. But after Trump's reversals on behalf of Little Havana extremists, Julia cried {above} when she told NBC's Andrea Mitchell that Trump and counter-revolutionaries were destroying her livelihood.
        Here is what Julia de la Rosa told NBC's Andrea Mitchell: "With what Rubio and Trump are doing to us, unlike the opportunity Obama gave us, I am afraid. I don't want to think about it. I worry about my family but I also worry about the 17 families on my payroll who need the money I pay them." While Marco Rubio is portrayed as a Mother Teresa-type choirboy by his Miami promoters and by the U. S. media, innocent Cubans on the island, like Julia de la Rosa, consider him a self-serving pariah.

   But the U. S. democracy today still seems incapable of reigning in counter-revolutionary benefactors like Little Havana's choirboy Marco Rubio. That, for sure, is a everlasting problem for Cuba but, in essence, it is a more dire disaster for America.

      Colin Laverty, one of the many decent Americans trying desperately to correct America's genocidal Cuban policies, used the above Rubio-Trump photo to point out on his Facebook page this week: "A powerful clip/video about how the Rubio/Trump policy of driving Cuban families apart causes great suffering." Yes, a powerful video.

       The Collin Laverty video features Cuban lawyer Irina Garcia explaining precisely how "The Rubio-Trump policy...causes great suffering" to totally innocent Cubans while Rubio builds his political and economic fortunes in the U. S. telling propagandized Americans that he is only hurting the Castros. All the while, I believe, Rubio and his ilk well know they are hurting millions of totally innocent Cubans.

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US Bullies Cuba, Bows to China

China Is Too Big To Bully!!
{Updated: Wednesday, October 25, 2017}

      The insightful Voice of America this week used the above photo-caption to illustrate an important VOA article, the type of news that Americans won't get from its mainstream media -- such as CNN, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, The New York Times, and The Washington Post -- all of whom are obsessed, not with covering the news, but with engaging in a media coup against a sitting President, Trump, whom I also oppose but, unlike the extremely biased U. S. media, I respect the Office he holds and the Electoral Process that put him in the White House. Therefore, the mainstream U. S. media eschews news coverage and engages almost exclusively in anti-Trump propaganda. So, the two best places to get real and important news that direly impacts the U. S. are The BBC World News and Voice of America. The VOA this week, for example, explained the above photo-caption with this succinct paragraph:

                 "A road built on the world's highest mountain pass links China to Pakistan. The Friendship Highway, which cost China hundreds of billions of dollars, is a centerpiece of President Xi Jinping's ambitious plan to rejuvenate ancient Silk Road trade routes by linking China with Africa and Europe. However, since the road opened, Pakistani exports to China have dropped while imports from China increased, prompting concerns that Beijing's new Silk Road could become a one-way street."

           While China is spending "hundreds of billions of dollars" on things such as the Silk Road and on modernizing its already powerful nuclear-powered military, the U. S. is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on endless wars, such as the ongoing 16-year/trillion-dollar disaster in Afghanistan as well as the normal array of seemingly endless ongoing proxy wars, reminding some of President Eisenhower's warning that the "U. S. Military Industrial Complex" could be the biggest threat to America. The U. S. still has the world's biggest economy but that statistic is being overtaken by China, a fierce Communist nation that massive trade with the United States has helped create a projection that puts China in a position to have the world's #1 economy and quite possibly the #1 military in the not too distant future. Americans interested in such News should, I believe, rely on such sources as The BBC and The VOA.

    And once again -- on Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2017 -- the Voice of America expressed its concern with China's expansion while the Batistianos in the U. S. Congress seem much more concerned with punishing Cubans on the island. The above photo-caption courtesy of the VOA today made this stringent point: "In Pakistan, China is spearheading construction of one of the world's biggest ports. Three of the most commercially important regions of the world -- the oil-rich Middle East, East Central Asia and South Asia -- converge at Pakistan's Gwadar Port. China's aim is to link Gwadar to landlocked Western China." Meanwhile, according to Marco Rubio, America shouldn't worry about China because we should concentrate on punishing Cubans on the island so they will rise up and overthrow their government... ANY DAY NOW!

America's Cuban dictator?
Batista to Rubio to...WHATEVER!

       While China's enormous trade with the United States is helping China become the world's #1 economic power, the United States since 1962 has embargoed trade with Cuba in an attempt to starve and bring misery to the Cuban people to induce them to rise up and overthrow their government, presumably so the U.S.-backed Batistiano-Mafiosi rule can return to the island. The ACN photo above shows that China loves America's genocidal Cuban policy and is enticing Cuba with important new trade offers. The Wall Street Journal headline updated that status: "A U.S.-Cuba Breach Presents an Opportunity for China." The article stated: "Beijing's trade with the island is growing fast. A reversal of President Barack Obama's outreach to Cuba would leave a bigger opening off the U. S. coast for another great military power. It likely wouldn't be Havana's traditional ally Russia, however, but China." Cuba is a U. S. gift to China.

      The United States, of course, has enough problems with mighty China in China's own backyard -- the strategically significant South China Sea where all of America's friends in the vital region are direly afraid of China. America's Cuban policy, designed merely to appease a handful of revengeful bad-losers dating back to 1959's Cuban Revolution, is a God-send for China in America's own backyard. BUT WHAT THE HELL!! No matter how much America's Cuban policy shames America and threatens its national security, we must leave Cuban policy in the hands of  Rubio, the Diaz-Balarts, etc., who...many moderate Cubans say...don't even represent the majority of Cubans in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, but dictate the U. S. Cuban policies.

   Some months ago the Voice of America used the above Reuters photo to illustrate an article the mainstream U. S. media is either too afraid, too biased, or too politically correct to mention. Hugo Cancio is a well known Cuban-American businessman in Miami. Like most Cuban-Americans even in Miami, Hugo, who travels often to Cuba, favors normalizing relations with the nearby island. And, yes, he complains openly that he and the majority of Cuban-Americans are not represented in the U. S. Congress because, he says, only extremists Cuban-American hardliners -- from Ros-Lehtinen to the Diaz-Balart brothers to Rubio to Curbelo to...etc. -- "are THE ONLY candidates to get elected FROM THE MIAMI AREA." In other words, Hugo represents the most significant portion of America's Cuban-American community that the mainstream U. S. media doesn't dare include in its biased pro-Batistiano reporting.
           Speaking fairly about U.S.-Cuban relations, something the mainstream U. S. media is too afraid to do, the Voice of America said: "Hugo Cancio's credibility with Cubans in Cuba stems in part from his outspoken opposition to the U. S. embargo imposed since 1962, as well as his deep Cuban roots. 'He stuck his neck out in Miami and that's why Cubans respect him,' said Ralph Patino, a Cuban-American lawyer who was a fund-raiser for Obama." The VOA often reports fairly on Cuban issues.

     But amazinly, the United States boosts China's economy by having a massive $239 billion trade deficit with the Asian giant this year. Meanwhile, the U. S. shames itself in the eyes of the world with a genocidal embargo against Cuba that dates back to 1962 when it was first imposed to create starvation and deprivations, according to declassified U. S. documents, that was intended and expected to induce the Cubans on the island to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government. AND OH YES, America's competitors and enemies, including China, love to have the above image of the Cuban embargo to hang around America's neck like a debilitating albatross.

     Even when Trump's Wall on its Mexican border makes international headlines, the U. S. is mocked for its cowardly Cuban policy by such Editorials as the one shown above. This one makes fun of the Mexican border-wall for having an opening for "Anti-Cuba Terrorists Only" -- to appease a handful of Cuban-American miscreants still seeking revenge against Cuba for the Revolution that in 1959 overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. But for little Cuba -- the Embargo and Terror! And for big China -- a $239 billion trade deficit that favors China and is helping the Asian giant replace America as the richest nation in the world. Thus, being mocked by the "Homeland Security" Editorial exactly as depicted above is to be expected.

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Will Intimidating Cuba Work?

Probably Not!!

Photo courtesy of: WRTV in Indianapolis.

       Starting today -- Monday, Oct. 23rd, 2017 -- this group of about 120 Indiana National Guardsmen will begin preparation to deploy to the U. S. Military Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which, since 1903, Cuba considers an unlawful occupation of the island's territory. The National Guard unit today will leave for 25 days of special training at Fort Bliss, Texas, before heading to Cuba. Is this a gesture by the Trump administration to intimidate Cuba as a prelude to something more substantial?? Maybe, maybe not.

      The Cuban most attuned to intransigence or intimidation from the United States is, of course, Josefina Vidal. In that role for the past fifteen years, Vidal has never been intimidated. She merely sticks to her mantra: "Cuba will not renounce either the principles or ideas in which it has always believed." That's her mantra, and Cuba's.

Photo courtesy of: ACN.

      Perhaps not coincidentally, yesterday -- Sunday, Oct. 22nd, 2017 -- the huge Japanese Peace Boat docked in Havana Harbor, as shown above. It is the 17th time the Peace Boat has visited Cuba, more than any other country. Does this signal that Japan hears war drums beating in the Trump White House as a warning to Cuba?

    For sure, one important Cuban -- Josefina Vidal -- believes that President Trump has promised counter-revolutionary hardliners in Miami and in the U. S. Congress that "Cuba will be yours again." But that would not happen peacefully.

      And for sure, Vidal believes that the promise President Obama, Trump's predecessor, made directly to the Cuban people on his visit to the island is now just an historic memory: "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States."

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Cuban-Americans Helping Cubans

From Florida to Cuba!!
{Updated: Sunday, October 22nd, 2017}

      One of the Florida-based organizations most dedicated to normalizing relations between Cuban-Americans and Cubans is Cuba One. Over one month after Hurricane Irma devastated parts of Cuba, Cuba One will take a large contingent of volunteers, mostly young Cuban-Americans, to Cuba to help with the clean-up and rebuilding. They will leave from Florida on October 25th and Cuba One has pinpointed Ciega de Avila, Santa Clara, Camaguey, and Remedios as Cuban areas most in dire need.

       The photo above courtesy of Alejandro Ernesto/EPA was taken in Remedios in central Cuba. It shows a woman holding her dog in front of her devastated home.

      The Miami Herald used the above photo this week -- Oct. 20th, 2017 -- to illustrate this headline: "U. S. Identifies Two More Victims of Mysterious Sonic Attacks in Havana." While some positive groups like CubaOne.org based in Florida try to help Cubans, the Miami Herald seems to support and promote things that harm Cubans on the island to the benefit of only a distinct minority of hard-line Cuban-Americans.

Photo courtesy: Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press.

     The magnificent statue above immortalizing Jose Marti was unveiled in Havana this week -- Friday, October 20th. It was donated to Cuba by the Bronx Museum of the Arts and it is a replica of a statue that has been in New York's Central Park since the 1950s. In this photo, Cuban school children and tourists are admiring the statue.

      Born in Havana in 1853, Jose Marti was a world-famed poet and one of Cuba's greatest independence fighters. He died on Cuban soil in 1895 fighting imperial Spain's soldiers three years prior to the U. S. victory in the Spanish-American War.

Meanwhile:

Surviving hurricanes & the embargo!!

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