Cuba Shuns America

  Seeks Asian, European Business 
{Thursday, Nov. 3rd, 2016}

         The major editorial in the Chicago Tribune yesterday -- Nov. 2nd, 2016 -- referenced this week's Cuban Trade Fair taking place in Havana where a record 3,500 exhibits from 73 nations are trying to arrange business investments. The editorial astutely pointed out that U. S. companies are at a disadvantage because of the U. S. embargo that no nation in the world, including the U. S. itself, supports but which a few Cuban-American hardliners in the U. S. Congress maintain as a revenge tool and, apparently for them, an economic and political bonanza. The Tribune editorial said: "Momentum is building in the ongoing detente between the U. S. and Cuba. Yet, something still isn't right. The economic embargo that the U. S. imposed on Castro more than five decades ago remains in place. It's an anachronism that simply doesn't make sense to enforce any more, a formidable barrier to unfettered trade..." No one, except a few in the 535-member U. S. Congress, could possible disagree with that logic. The Tribune pointed out that last week in the UN's emphatic 191-to-0 vote against the embargo even the U. S. refused to support it.

         This Bloomberg/Getty Images photo of a Cuban cigar factory illustrates a Bloomberg article that discusses how Cuba is not anxious to deal with U. S. companies because of the embargo. Caterpillar, the heavy equipment giant, said it is still seeking American licenses to invest in Cuba. Hernandez Gordils, the development executive at auto parts retailer Napa, said, "We are here in Havana so that the day the market opens up our brand has recognition, so people know us in Cuba." To appease a few self-serving extremists in Congress, U. S. businesses may have to suffer in future decades too. Meanwhile, Cuba says it is behind schedule in finalizing investments because it is "not accustomed to volumes" but it has completed $1.3 billion worth of projects and has $9.5 billion pending in foreign investments. The deals primarily involve health care, tourism, transportation, sugar, mining and renewable energy...but not its famed cigars and rum. Cuba also said it is "holding back" on many tourism investments in the iconic capital city of Havana in order to try to spur tourism investments elsewhere around the island.     

        The Voice of America network, representing the views of the U. S. government, used this AP photo to illustrate a major article about this week's start of the 34th Cuban Trade Fair in Havana. The photo shows Cuba's Foreign Trade Minister Rodrigo Malmierca, on the right, watching Vice President Ricardo Cabrisas Ruiz cut the ribbon to open the Fair. The theme of the VOA article stresses these points: "Investment from European companies appears to be picking up...formal trade between the U. S. and Cuba remains at a trickle...as Cuba trumpeted new deals with Russia and Japan...Observers note that Cuba's small but growing private sector has been able to flourish and produce tens of thousands of new jobs despite the strictures of the U. S. embargo." The VOA said there appears to be "a conscious decision by the Cuban government to limit commerce with U. S. companies while funneling most business toward European and Asian companies." The VOA concluded, correctly, that Cuba prefers to deal with nations that have never had an embargo against the island, and that happens to include every nation in the whole wide world except the United States.

     This REUTERS photo shows Cuba's Foreign Trade Minister Rodrigo Malmierca speaking this week -- Nov. 1, 2016 -- at the opening of the island's 34th Trade Fair in Havana. Malmierca began his address by saying: "We are below our expectations," meaning that he expected more foreign investments in the past two years following monumental U. S. efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. Malmierca made it plain that Cuba's distrust of the U. S. embargo makes him less anxious to close deals with U. S. companies. Yet, it's the busiest Trade Fair in Cuba's history with 73 nations and 3,500 exhibitors participating this week in Havana.

       On this entire planet, as America's President Obama well knows, there is not a single nation in the whole world that supports the American embargo of Cuba. Yet, unconcerned with shaming America and democracy, just a few rogues in the 535-member United States Congress can maintain it...perhaps forever.

       For the record, this photo shows the panel at the United Nations last week where the United States UN Representative, Samantha Power, pushed BUTTON #3 -- circled in red above -- to vote "abstained" because the U. S. government no longer had the heart to support the cruel, congressionally mandated embargo against Cuba. Thus, the worldwide 191-to-0 vote against the embargo stands as the biggest testament yet against the sheer hypocrisy of a few rogues in Congress who benefit from it. But, of course, in the eyes of the world it also reveals a weakness of the U. S. democracy in being unable to correct a Cuban policy that, more than any other single item, continuously hurts America's international image...decade after decade after decade. The irrefutable proof of that non-hyperbolic statement is the #3 circled in red in the above photo. 

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Treating Cuba Unfairly

Starts with Sanitizing Batista!

       This photo is courtesy of REUTERS/Alexander Meneghini. It showcases the ten-day Havana Ballet Festival. It is particularly memorable because the renowned Martha Graham Dance Company is making its Cuban premiere to absolutely thunderous applause. It is the first time since 1941 that the prestigious Graham troupe has performed in Cuba and it is just one of seven American companies participating.

      The superb journalist at the London-based REUTERS bureau in Havana, Sarah Marsh, has written major articles on this week's Havana Dance Festival. She said, "It underscores U.S.-Cuban cultural exchanges in the wake of the Obama detente. The Cuban and American ballet worlds have a deeply entwined history and the father of Cuban dance, Ramiro Guerra, studied under Martha Graham in New York City in the 1940s." 

       Catherine Conley, shown here with Rene Marsh of CNN, is an 18-year-old American ballerina who has moved to Cuba to train at the Cuban National Ballet. Ms. Conley says, "I feel incredibly honored to be here with such wonderful people. The Cubans at the school have been so open and welcoming. I think this is a reflection of where the two countries want to go and I cherish my decision to come here." The website EuroNews.com has an excellent video report on this week's Ballet Festival and it includes interviews with both Catherine Conley and Alicia Alonso, the 96-year-old founder of Cuba's renowned ballet school. 

 Catherine Conley at the Cuban National Ballet school. 

       All of the major Cuban cultural programs -- from free health care to free education through college to ballet, etc. -- stress children. That includes these children at the current 10-day Havana Ballet Festival.

       Even with eight major U. S. companies, including Martha Graham, on hand for the Havana Ballet Festival all this week, the superstar, of course, is the legendary Alicia Alonso. This REUTERS photo shows her being helped onstage at the Festival. She is now 96-years-old and has been legally blind for many years, but she is still the incomparable...Alicia Alonso. She is still the world's greatest ballet instructor, on the heels of a nonpareil career as the world's superstar ballerina. Since 1959, or since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, Ms. Alonso has personally scoured the island in search of children that she would bring to Havana on full scholarship-and-board to be trained to be world-class ballet stars. Over the decades, the greatest ballet companies in the world -- San Francisco, New York, London, Paris, Moscow, etc. -- have benefited from superstars selected and trained by Alicia Alonso. Many of those stars are now millionaires but they still love Alicia Alonso and she still loves them just as dearly as she did when they were her kids.

       This photo shows Alicia Alonso when she was the world's greatest ballerina. She had left Cuba "for good" in the 1950s because of the vile Batista-Mafia dictatorship. But, a ballerina superstar, she joyously returned to her beloved homeland in 1959 after the Cuban Revolution defeated the hated Batistianos.

      This iconic WordPress.com photo is historic because from 1959 till today Alicia Alonso has been an integral part of Revolutionary Cuba. As soon as the pig-tailed Alicia returned to Cuba after the Revolutionary victory, Fidel Castro went to see her, as this photo attests. According to the famed Cuban journalist Carlos Franqui, Fidel told her, "I know you are the world's dance star, but your first love is Cuba. I want you to start a ballet school in Havana for Cuban children. You would be in total charge and I will provide you $250,000 to get the school started and then make sure it stays funded, come hell or hurricanes. I want you home here in Cuba." The pig-tailed Alicia Alonso accepted that historic offer, and the rest is also history.

     She built the National Ballet of Cuba into the world's best school.

    Fidel, "come hell or hurricanes," kept his promises to Alicia.

Fidel attended many performances with Alicia.

        Over the years as they have aged...Alicia is now 96 and Fidel is 90...he has bestowed upon her all of the top medals, honors and awards that he could think of. At the ceremony above, an audio recording captured a soft, private exchange as he pinned a medal on her chest. She said, "You have always been so very kind to me." He replied, "No one, myself included, has ever given you the total kindnesses that you deserve." 

Typical Cuban children in pre-revolutionary Cuba.

   Cuban children yesterday at the Havana Dance Festival.

 Cuban women started the Revolution.

Cuban women fought the Revolution to the end.

      Beginning in 1959, Cubans who could read and write -- like the young woman here on the right -- were sent into homes across the island to teach millions of illiterate adults, like the young mother above. 

Cuba's literacy rate today is world-class. 

       From 1959 till today, Cuba provides totally free and excellent health care for all Cubans, especially the women and children. Cuba's infant mortality rate is lower than most far richer nations, including the U. S.

        Alicia Alonso told the London newspaper The Guardian: "The Western media will never give him credit for it, but Fidel made the Revolution a female-driven affair right from the start. That is monumental considering how the plight of women and children created the need for such a revolution. You asked me a tough question, 'Why have you stood by Fidel for all this time?' Well, it's not a tough question. I know of no significant Cuban women -- Celia, Vilma, Haydee, Tete, Melba...the ones who fought beside him...none ever left his side till the day they died in Revolutionary Cuba. I, who joined him in early 1959, will do the same. In Washington and Miami some say he lied to them and he is a not good man. Well, he never lied to me and to the women of Cuba. He may not be a good man to his enemies but he is a kind man to me and to the women of Cuba. That means he is also good to Cuban children, don't you see? And what did that replace? It replaced all the Mafia unkindness."  

Alicia Alonso, a Cuban Revolutionary legend at age 96.

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Travel to Cuba Opening UP

Another Obama Action!!
{Updated: Monday, October 31st, 2016}

        The President of tripadvisor, Stephen Kaufer, says his company has received permission from the U. S. government to book accommodations to Cuba, another major slice the Obama administration is making to combat the decades-old stranglehold the U. S. Congress has had on America's much-hated Cuban policy. Mr. Kaufer's powerful travel agency will soon be allowed to book travel to Cuba for both U. S. and non-U. S. citizens for hotel, flight, cultural tours and short-term rentals. Because of the congressionally mandated U. S. embargo of Cuba, everyday Americans are the only people in the world without the freedom to travel to Cuba but, using his Executive Powers, President Obama has gradually loosened many of those laws.

       Stephen Kaufer, the President and CEO of TripAdvisor, is merely one of thousands of top U. S. executives anxious to begin doing business with Cuba. After getting permission this week, Mr. Kaufer said, "We look forward to helping travelers all over the world discover Cuba's vibrant history, people and culture as we begin the important work to make these trips possible. We applaud President Obama's continuing efforts to ease these restrictions and build relations with our island neighbor just 90 miles south of Florida."  

        As evidenced by the 191-to-zero vote in the United Nations on October 26th, all nations of the world, including the United States itself, oppose the United States embargo against Cuba that, among many other dastardly things, makes it illegal for everyday Americans to travel to Cuba, a freedom all citizens of all other nations have. Such humiliating anti-democratic laws appease a few in the 535-member U. S. Congress and have existed almost since the Cuban Revolution overthrew the Batista-Mafia dictatorship on the island on January 1, 1959. The majority of Americans -- including businessman Stephen Kaufer -- are tired of such restrictions and, inspired by the leadership of President Obama, are finally beginning to speak out against and even break down some of the barriers that harm 300+ million Americans and 11+ million Cubans.

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Fidel Comments on UN Vote

And Meets Portugal's Leader!
{Updated: Sunday, October 30th, 2016}

         Wednesday -- August 26th, 2016 -- Fidel Castro met with Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the President of Portugal, in the living room of his Havana home. The photo was taken by Fidel's son Alex Castro. The visit from President De Sousa occurred after this week's 191-to-0 vote at the United Nations denouncing the U. S. embargo against Cuba, with even the United States abstaining and refusing to support it even as the U. S. Congress maintains it. Both Fidel and President De Sousa issued official statements about the vote. 

        President De Sousa: "The UN vote rightfully, unanimously and universally rejected the embargo as an illegal extraterritorial practice." 

            Fidel Castro: "It is important not to forget the considerable human and economic damage caused by the blockade. The world unanimous vote of 191-to-zero shows the United States not to be the great democracy it purports to be. And by abstaining, even the U. S. government seems to admit that basic fact that its Cuban programs have revealed to the world. The undemocratic and self-adorned American Congress can keep the blockade in place but it cannot hide the criminal aspects of it from the world. That point is made 191-to-0."

       After the private meeting with Fidel Castro, Portugal's President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa had a formal meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro at the Palace of the Revolution in Havana. President de Sousa congratulated President Castro on "the unanimity of the UN vote" and quipped, "See, I told you that Obama was a brave man." President de Sousa, more seriously, then added, "I like being able to celebrate that UN vote with the people of Cuba. But I want the leaders of Cuba and the people of Cuba to know that Portugal plans on increasing trade and investments in this beautiful island filled with deserving, wonderful people." 

    The Cuban media's graphic on the  191-to-0 UN vote.

        At the United Nations this week, Samantha Power had the unenviable task of becoming the first United States Representative to the United Nations to admit before the world that the United States government could not support the United States embargo against Cuba. The photo is courtesy of Voice of America/AP. Ms. Power said, "Instead of isolating Cuba, the embargo isolates the United States from the rest of the world, including right here at the United Nations." It was and is a truly historic and amazing statement, but most of all it is an indictment of the weakest link in the United States government, the 535-member United States Congress, and of this generation of Americans who have shocked the world by not defending their great democracy against a handful of right-wing rogues and political opportunists who use the power of the United States to punish innocent people, decade after decade, in a nearby weaker nation. "Instead of isolating Cuba, the embargo isolates the United States from the rest of the world, including right here at the United Nations." In other words, the rogues and political opportunists in the United States Congress could care less about the harm their Cuban policy does to America, to democracy, and to innocent Cubans.

      The BBC used the above AFP photo of this white-haired Cuban to illustrate an article that explained how the U. S. embargo has punished innocent Cubans since 1962. Americans, meanwhile, have been propagandized or intimidated to accept the premise that the embargo only harms the Castro brothers. As the U. S. UN Representative Samantha Power said this week, it has produced "the exact opposite" effect, meaning that it has only succeeded in harming everyday Cubans as well as the United States itself.

       Cuba's talented and out-spoken 28-year-old television anchor, Cristina Escobar, said, "The Cuban people didn't deserve the United Nations 191-to-TWO vote in the past against the blockade. They deserved only a 191-to-zero vote. And that's exactly what they got this week. AND THAT'S WHAT THEY GOT THIS WEEK."

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NO NATION Supports Embargo

Yesterday's UN Vote: 191-0
{Thursday, October 27th, 2016}

        Yesterday at the United Nations, the entire world opposed the American economic embargo against Cuba! The vote was 191-to-zero. Not even the United States, the nation that has bent its democracy to allow a few right-wingers to dictate its Cuban policy for decades, could bring itself to vote to support the embargo that Cuba calls a blockade. At the UN in New York, the U. S. abstained and then was joined by Israel.

       At the United Nations this sign denounced Israel as the only nation in the world in recent years that has joined the United States in supporting the embargo against Cuba. In the eyes of the world, that Israeli vote had been bought-and-paid for because Israel is by far the biggest recipient of U. S. economic and military aid. But yesterday after the U. S. abstained, so did Israel. So the world sees a 191-to-0 vote.

       At the UN, Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez made an impassioned denunciation of the embargo. He said, "The human damages caused by the blockade are incalculable. There isn't any Cuban family or sector in the country that has not suffered from it, especially the lives of the everyday Cubans." 

The U. S. UN representative Samantha Power agreed. 

She abstained.

         Representing the four Cuban-American members of the U. S. Congress from the Miami area, Mario Diaz-Balart issued this official statement: "In today's UN vote, President Obama continues to side with the Castros instead of the Cuban people." Mario Diaz-Balart followed his Havana-born brother Lincoln to the U. S. Congress from Miami, which only sends anti-Castro zealots to Congress although most Cuban-Americans even in the Little Havana section of Miami support Obama's Cuban policy, not the Diaz-Balarts. The Diaz-Balart brothers are the sons of Rafael Diaz-Balart who was a key Minister in the Batista dictatorship before becoming one of the richest and most powerful exiles in Miami after the Cuban Revolution ousted Batista on January 1, 1959. A handful of anti-Castro zealots like the Diaz-Balarts in the 535-member U. S. Congress -- with a few easily obtained sycophants -- have dictated America's Cuban policy, which includes the embargo that now no nation in the world including the U. S. supports.

      Cuba has no trouble convincing the world that the United States of America's embargo/blockade against the island is the longest and cruelest embargo ever imposed by a powerful nation against a weak one. Unpatriotic Americans have pusillanimously allowed it to demean their democracy since 1962. 

The UN vote: 191-0.

        Almost eight years ago when he began his two terms as President of the United States, Barack Obama -- being a democracy-loving American -- was ashamed about the decades-old U. S. embargo of Cuba. So was President Kennedy back in October of 1963 when he informed his top aides that his top priority when he returned from Dallas was to normalize relations with Cuba; so was President Carter in the 1970s till he was replaced by right-wing Republicans in the White House; and so was President Clinton in the 1990s till Miami-based Brothers to the Rescue airplanes taunted Cuba with overflights and produced a provocation that forced Clinton, instead of normalizing relations with Cuba, to sign the Helms-Burton Bill that has since debilitated millions of innocent Cuban people and the U. S. democracy. But of all the American presidents since the 1960s, Mr. Obama has shown the most guts, the most intelligence and the most concern for the U. S. democracy by powerfully and astutely using his executive powers to slice into the Batistiano-directed congressional laws regarding the embargo...an embargo that ALL THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD OPPOSE. Yet, the dysfunctional U. S. Congress with an approval rating in single digits still maintains the essence of the embargo without even having to acknowledge that the nations of the world oppose it 191-to-zero and that even the United States of America no longer supports it. So study the graphic above and comprehend how democracy-lovers like the decent President Obama view the embargo opposed by the entire world. If you do that, I believe you will feel sorry for the U. S. democracy.  

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U. S. Recognizes Cuba

Obama's Legacy at Work?

       This photo is courtesy of Sara Krulwich/The New York Times and it reflects another tribute to President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, which includes the apparently begrudging admission that it is a sovereign nation even as forces opposed to Obama and Cuba continue numerous, unheralded, tax-funded regime-change programs targeting the island. The photo above shows Genaro Mauricio at the American Museum of Natural History working on a coral reef exhibition entitled "iCuba." It's just one part of the Cuban displays and it's the very first time the museum has ever recognized the island of Cuba.

A model of the Cuban solenodon at the Museum.

       Both the VOA, Voice of America, and ACN, the Cuban News Agency, used the above REUTERS photo to report this week that Cuba will greatly expand Internet access by the end of this year. The Cubans shown above are using a Wi-Fi hook-up to access the Internet. There are already just over 200 such hook-ups across the island, but the hourly fees are rather prohibitive for many Cubans. The VOA estimates that there are only about 5% of Cuban homes currently with Internet access but the ACN says Cuba is working to increase that availability now and that Cuba will offer Internet service on mobile phones in 2017. At the same time, Cuba has clearly indicated to the U. S. that it will back-track on such efforts if "we detect, as we have in the past, concerted efforts by foreign regime-change factions to grossly misuse Internet advances."

     This photo is courtesy of Havana Times.org. This little Cuban girl's proudest possession is her squeezable doll. This beautiful little girl is no one's enemy. But the U. S. embargo is her enemy.

   The photo of the little girl in today's Revolutionary Cuba holding her beloved squeezable doll reminds me of this historic photo from the 1950s during the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba. This photo of a little Cuban girl clutching a block of wood and pretending it was her doll was taken by the great Alberto Korda. As poignant and as famed as it is, it is not the photo that made Korda an historic legend; that was his still ubiquitous photo of Che Guevara. But this is the one that he was most proud of, the one he said, "touched my heart and taught me the difference between right and wrong, the difference between the innocent and the guilty." Korda realized this little girl was no one's enemy but the Batista-Mafia dictatorship was her enemy.

Poverty in Batista's Cuba that impacted Alberto Korda.

      Alberto Korda was born in 1928 in Havana. He died of a heart attack in Paris in 2001 while showing an exhibition of his renowned photos. He is buried along with other notable Cubans at the Colon Cemetery in Havana. After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959, Korda became Fidel Castro's and Che Guevara's favorite photographer as he, too, became a legend. In addition to the famed Che photo that still adorns millions of coffee mugs, T-shirts, and dorm rooms, Korda took other famous photos such as the one depicting Fidel at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington in April of 1959 and Fidel with Nikita Khrushchev in the Soviet Union in 1963. But the photo that he said most "touched his heart" was the one of the little Cuban girl pretending that the block of wood was her doll. If the other photos made Korda rich and famous, it was the one he took of that little girl that proved he, indeed, was a good man and one with a heart.

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