A Rejuvenated Cuba

Foreign Firms Plunge In!!

        This brand-new and magnificently modern hotel signals that the island of Cuba plans to survive physically and economically regardless of the threats from the new Trump administration in the United States and the near-collapse of Venezuela, its long-time major financial partner. The official name for this hotel is Gran Hotel Kempinski Manzana La Habana and it is almost ready to open for business as Cuba's first five-star hotel. The Kempinski group is a 120-year-old Swiss company that operates 75 famous five-star hotels in 30 countries. This one is located in Habana Vieja {Old Havana} and has 246 rooms and suites.

  A Kempinski 5-star hotel room in Old Havana.

A Kempinski 5-star terrace, dining, swimming area in Havana.

A powerful, beautiful Swiss investment in Cuba.

       China is among the countries trying to help Cuba recuperate from its massive loss of oil that oil-rich Venezuela had provided in exchange for massive health care provided by Cuba. In the second half of 2016 the oil shipments from Venezuela to Cuba had shrunk by about 50%, down to 55,000 barrels a day. With China's help, Cuba is attempting to sharply increase its own production of oil but also is concentrating on developing renewable sources of energy such as solar, wind and even oceanic. The Miami Herald reports this week that Cuba in 2016 repaid $5.2 billion of its foreign debt as a gesture toward encouraging other nations to invest in what looks like a more stable island that is now brimming with economic potential.

       Although his two-term presidency ended a few weeks ago, the legacy of President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba are still in drastic contrast to the previous half-century of U. S. antagonism -- economically, militarily and otherwise -- following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution over the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship on January 1, 1959. Although Obama defied the U. S. Congress by bravely and astutely using Executive Orders to roll back staunchly mandated Congressional laws designed to annihilate Cuba while also enriching and empowering Cuba's prime enemies in the U. S., the new President Trump can rescind Obama's Executive Orders with his own, which he is likely to do. Cuba, anticipating that possibility, is working feverishly with other nations -- from Switzerland to China -- to counteract what might be a sharp renewal of U. S. hubris at a time when the island's two prime Latin American supporters -- Venezuela and Brazil -- are embroiled in economic and political turmoil. But Cuba's famed resilience, boosted by Obama's dynamic tactics that revived long-dormant U. S. commerce, was already legendary.

         Donald Trump fancies himself as a master builder of hotels, such as the one above bearing his name in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Even as President, he may still be fixated on luxury hotels, even in Cuba.

       If his aides show President Trump photos of Cuba's newly built 5-star hotel -- the Gran Hotel Kempinski in Old Havana -- it would be interesting to see what his reaction would be, don't you think?

      Last week American Airlines opened an office in Havana and is now training Cubans to soon run what figures to be a very busy U.S.-Cuba connection. In fact, American is one of nine major U. S. airlines now making daily round-trip flights to ten Cuban cities, including Havana, from many major American cities. 

      This week -- February 7th, 2017 -- Norwegian Cruise Line -- announced that it is sharply "bulking up" its cruises from Miami to Cuba. Norwegian is based in Miami and it is one of many Florida businesses in heated competition with each other to take advantage of the still viable Obama-mandated overtures.

     The leader of Miami's Norwegian Cruise Line is Andy Stuart. Yesterday Andy Stuart released this official statement: "We have seen great demand from our guests for sailing to Cuba and we look forward to providing more opportunities for them to experience the incredibly culture-rich destination on a weekly basis."  

       In 2016 a record four million tourists visited Cuba and that Obama legacy, if it is to be blunted, will take some obnoxious doing by President Trump, hurting American businesses. The two tourists above were watching a huge cruise ship filled with more tourists arrive in Cuba. Prior to President Obama, commercial cruise and air traffic from the U. S. to Cuba had been illegal for over half-a-century to sate the revenge, economic and political motives of a few extremists who still chafe from the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution over the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship. The photo above, made possible by Obama, also spawned such things as the new 5-star Swiss-built Kempinski Hotel in Old Havana but, more importantly, already the influx of legal cruise and air traffic from America has created many jobs and some significant profits for American businesses, including many in Florida run by Cuban-Americans. And as Cuba waits to see if President Trump will return to the pre-Obama U. S. tactic of regime-change and other fierce animosity towards Cuba, the island itself is casting sterner gazes elsewhere...from Switzerland to China.

      At this Havana news conference, Josefina Vidal -- Cuba's Minister related to U. S. relations -- was asked about the U. S. presidential transition from "the friendly Obama to the supposedly unfriendly Trump." She replied, "Every day since January 1, 1959, our primary goal has been to defend our hard-earned sovereignty and to make our citizens safer, better educated, healthier and more prosperous. We have succeeded in many of those things but not-so-much in others, with fierce opposition from neighboring America being an ongoing obstacle. The Obama presidency, for the first time really, has afforded us at least the opportunity to prioritize things other than just survival. If the Obama advances are curtailed, we will just have to adjust...again." 

Cuba's primary ADJUSTER -- Josefina Vidal.

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Visit Cuba to Know Cuba

Or Listen to Lies!

      The Governor of Colorado, John Hickenlooper, just returned home after visiting Cuba this first week of February, 2017. 

           In other words, Governor Hickenlooper can judge Cuba for himself and not have to depend on six-decades of self-serving and usually uncontested lies from America's Castro Cottage Industry, which, among other mendacious things, has allied with a few self-serving U. S. Congressmen to deny everyday Americans the freedom to visit the gorgeous Caribbean island, lest they might challenge their Batistiano distortions. Governor Hickenlooper, like many prior U. S. leaders, was in Cuba to primarily benefit the citizens and businesses of Colorado. Back in Denver, he said, "The Cuban people are wonderful, friendly, and anxious to engage with Americans. They are also well educated and quite capable, especially a new breed of entrepreneurs spawned by former President Obama's historic efforts to engage with them. Engagement with those entrepreneurs will help Colorado workers and businesses. This is not the Cold War. This is 2017. Punishing innocent people is un-American and undemocratic, as is punishing American entrepreneurs in order to punish innocent Cubans."

      I have been to Cuba, so I can understand Governor Hickenlooper's reaction to his visit. But even after President Obama bravely and astutely loosened as many of the restrictions on American visits as he possibly could, many millions of everyday Americans in 2017 remain the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba, one of many U. S. laws designed purely to sate the revenge, economic and political appetites of a few beneficiaries still unhappy with the Cuban Revolution that overthrew the vile Batista-Mafia dictatorship way...WAY back in 1959. Americans who have allowed such laws to exist decade-after-decade are currently denounced 191-to-0 in the United Nations. The photo above is a reminder of a typical scene that Governor Hickenlooper may have seen in Cuba this week. The photo was taken by Linda Klipp and is used courtesy of Circles Robinson, the editor of Havana Times.org. It shows a very old Cuban man who has been punished all his adult life by the Castro Cottage Industry in the United States. So have his adult children. And so has the Cuban boy shown above playing with the scooter. When such punishments of innocent people in a foreign, sovereign nation are meted out in the name of the American people, decade after decade, those Americans richly deserve the unanimity of the glaring 191-to-0 vote in the UN.

      If the U.S.-based and Congress-entrenched Castro Cottage Industry and an intimidated U. S. media distort Cuba, a Cuba Travel Show might be in order, even if everyday Americans are still the only people in the world prevented from visiting the island to judge it for themselves. Yes, there are some Travel Shows and Travel Writers who will actually tell you the truth.

           An adventurous young lady named Jenn Brown has emerged as a world-class travel writer as attested by her blog Jetsetter Jenn and articles in international forums such as The Huffington Post.

         This month of February-2017 Jetsetter Jenn Brown has told us all about Cuba after jetting over to the island and then riding and hiking all over it to provide us the "Beginners Guide to Cuba." Replete with colorful photos and interminglings with everyday Cubans, it is very interesting and quite informative.

      To view Cuba first-hand, as Jenn Brown is doing in the above photo, is the only way to know and understand the mysterious island and its intriguing people. That is especially true for Americans, I believe, because for half-a-century everyday Americans have been the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba, an injustice dictated by remnants of the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship that was overthrown by the Cuban Revolution in 1959, only to quickly reestablish its counter-revolutionary apparatuses on U. S. soil first and then in the U. S. Congress. Preventing Americans from seeing and judging Cuba for themselves, of course, has conveniently permitted the transplanted Batistianos to much more easily influence the Cuban narrative in the United States and help forge a repulsive Cuban policy that currently has saddled the United States with a stark 191-to-0 condemnation in the United Nations.

          In the first week of February-2017, Jenn Brown used the above Cuban photo in an insightful article in the Huffington Post that is entitled: "8 Things to Expect When Visiting Cuba." Her first two sentences establish this preamble regarding the fast-changing island: "Cuba is the hot spot for travelers in 2017. With recently relaxed political relations, an uncertain future, and a rich history, plenty of adventurous travelers are putting this Caribbean nation on their must list." Indeed, in 2016 for the first time tourism to Cuba exceeded 4 million thanks to brave and heroic efforts by President Obama to confront the Batistianos and attempt to normalize relations with the island. However, at the start of 2017 the Cuba-friendly Obama administration has been replaced by the Batistiano-friendly Donald Trump presidency, so expectations of further increases in tourism to Cuba is quite "uncertain" in 2017 like so many other things, as Jenn Brown stated.

      This photo courtesy of Jetsetter Jenn shows Jenn Brown and two friends during their hikes and drives around Cuba. The photo was used in the aforementioned Huffington Post article. I believe that Americans, especially those who still do not have the freedom to visit Cuba, should carefully read and study Jenn Brown's closing paragraph that summarized her "8 Things to Expect When Visiting Cuba" article: 

                "Of all the places I have traveled, no group has stolen my heart quite like the Cuban people. Despite financial hardships, they are some of the friendliest, kindest, and most gregarious people I have ever met. They shrug off their difficulties and genuinely love connecting with foreigners, from impromptu salsa lessons, passionate discussions about politics, and an eagerness to show off the natural beauty of their homeland. Some of my most treasured memories of Cuba revolve around my new Cuban friends." 

            Prior to that closing paragraph depicted above, Jenn Brown documents her conclusions about the island with photos, videos and discussions with everyday Cubans. The entire article and the documentations reminded me of what I saw and detected in Cuba, but most of all it reminds me of why a mere handful of extremely biased Cuban-Americans, many with easily documented family ties back to the Batista dictatorship, through two generations now, have insisted that everyday Americans are the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba, lest they judge the island and its people for themselves as opposed to being told how to judge Cuba itself and the Cuban people themselves. 

     The American democracy that permits, decade after decade and generation to generation, a mere handful of obviously self-interested individuals to dictate America's Cuban narrative and America's Cuban policy is an American democracy that deserves the unanimous 191-to-0 denunciation in the United Nations.

       And that's why I heartily recommend that pusillanimous and/or unpatriotic Americans who, generation to generation, accept their lack of freedom to visit Cuba and judge it for themselves at least study Jenn Brown's "Beginners Guide to Cuba." After all, she eased through a loophole in the Batistiano maze and actually got to see, observe and experience Cuba and its "friendly, kind and gregarious" people for herself.

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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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Florida's Cuban Hypocrisy

Opposed by Most Floridians!

       This photo is courtesy of Desmond Boylan/AP and it reveals on Feb. 3-2017 how most Cuban-Americans and most businesses in Florida and the U. S. are battling Florida's extreme hypocrisy related to Cuba. The above photo shows American Airlines on Feb. 1-2017 opening an important office in Havana. In the center cutting the ribbon is the airlines' Regional Operations Manager Lorena Sandoval and to her right in the black dress is the airlines' Regional Sales Manager Christine Valls. The two women told the AP "We are extremely delighted this U. S. business with Cuba has reached the level of our needing an office in Havana." Second from the right is Gala Beltran, the airlines' Manager of Cuban Flights. American is one of nine U. S. airlines now making the first commercial U.S.-to-Cuba flights since 1961 as a part of President Obama's historic efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. Beltran told the AP, "We cannot speculate what the new President Trump's next step will be, but I can assure you that we are moving our machine forward. You are a witness to the investment and how important Cuba is to America as a U. S. entity doing business." American Airlines has 13 daily flights to Cuba from Miami and Charlotte that land in the cities of Havana, Camaguey, Cienfuegos, Holguin, Santa Clara and Varadero. Beltran said American Airlines is currently training Cubans on the island so they will soon take over its office in Cuba, which he says has been "very cooperative."

     

    
    As more and more Florida businesses make plans to get deeply involved in commerce with Cuba, one key television station in Miami has become the first in South Florida to establish a bureau in Havana. WPLG Channel 10 is Miami's ABC-TV station and it regularly and enthusiastically sends unbiased reports from Cuba back to Miami, where the majority of Cuban-Americans eagerly favor President Obama's courageous openings to the nearby island. And, of course, most Florida businesses relish opportunities to make money and create jobs related to Cuban commerce.

WPLG's reporter stationed in Cuba is Hatzel Vela.

        This Feb. 1-2017 photo is courtesy of Richard Graulich/The Palm Beach Post. It also reflects how major businesses in South Florida are desperately trying to buck politics and sign deals with top Cuban commerce officials such as Ana Teresa Igarza. That's Ana on the right at this weeks's news conference in Palm Beach with Port of Palm Beach Executive Director Manuel Almira and Vice-Chair Dr. Jean L. Enright. The Port of Palm Beach was about to sign a major contract with Ms. Igarza UNTIL Florida's Governor Rick Scott, always beholden to South Florida's vast counter-revolutionary Cuban-Americans, threatened both the Port of Palm Beach and the Port of Everglades if they did business with Cuba. That prompted a editorial in The Palm Beach Post assailing Governor Scott's hypocrisy in courting massive business with China while bowing to the minority but powerful anti-Cuban Cuban-Americans. The strong editorial stated: 

                   "This is a well thought-out growth plan led by Port of Palm Beach Executive Director Manuel Almira, who was born in Cuba. Ground was broken in July, 2016 on a $10.4 million mini-slip at the port's southernmost berth that could eventually serve as a base for cargo service to Cuba and boost local businesses. The economic potential deserves the state's support, not to be held hostage to politics of the moment. But Governor Rick Scott...has unfortunately lost focus when it comes to the state's doing business with Cuba." The editorial's reference to Governor Scott as a hypocrite related to his "hypocrisy" in eagerly seeking business with China while threatening to cut $920,000 in state funds if the Ports of Palm Beach and Everglades signed deals with Cuba. The hypocrisy also relates to China being a big boy while Cuba is a little island...but also to the fact that China never teamed with the Mafia to support a brutal and thieving Batista dictatorship in Cuba and then China never allowed the overthrown Batista dictatorship to set up shop on nearby U. S. soil in South Florida and eventually extend its hypocrisy to the U. S. Congress.

        Florida Governor Rick Scott, shown here with Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who has represented Miami in the U. S. Congress since 1989, seems quite typical of most powerful political figures in Florida as depicted by the editorial in The Palm Beach Post that assailed Governor Scott for his Cuban hypocrisy.

Ros-Lehtinen & Carlos Curbelo flanked by the Diaz-Balarts.

          Just in the last 48 hours American Airlines, the Port of Palm Beach, the Port of Everglades, WPLG-TV 10 in Miami, The Palm Beach Post and many other entities in Florida have tried or are trying to rise above a half-century of self-serving hypocrisy related to Cuba. Whether they succeed or not is probably more vital to America and to democracy than it is or will be to Cuba itself. U.S.-Cuba relations in Washington and in the American psyche are dwarfed by many other factors, including intimidation, but this fact remains: From an image standpoint, the only thing that could possibly get a unanimous 191-to-0 worldwide condemnation of the United States in the United Nations is America's HYPOCRITICAL CUBAN POLICY. Now chew on that basic fact while you contemplate the image above of the American Airlines jet on a smooth flight to Havana, Cuba.

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Cuban Regime Change, Uh?

In 2017, Finally?

     Meet Leonardo Padura. The photo is courtesy of Wikipedia. He was born in Havana in 1955 during the Batista dictatorship and he still lives in Havana. He is the type Cuban that Americans are simply not supposed to know, else they might question the Cuban narrative in the United States that the transplanted Batistianos have dictated since 1959, along with a U. S. Cuban policy also primarily dictated by the ousted but reconstituted Batistianos, especially after forming an indelible and mutually rewarding alliance with the Bush dynasty as early as 1959 but especially since the 1980s when Jorge Mas Canosa was anointed the leader of the Cubans-in-exile. From Batista-to-Canosa-to-Castro-to-today, Leonardo Padura stands tallest as the type Cuban we Americans are not supposed to know. For two generations now Americans have meekly allowed a small cabal of miscreants to dictate a Cuban policy that currently gets a 191-to-0 denunciation in the United Nations, which correctly and primarily blames everyday Americans because they pusillanimously permit it to exist.

       From his home in Havana, Leonardo Padura has evolved into Cuba's greatest journalist and author. His articles are carried worldwide by such venues as the New York Times and his books are available in Spanish, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Greek, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, etc., etc.

One of the best Leonardo Padura books.

        On this first day of February-2017, Leonardo Padura has penned the most insightful article about U.S.-Cuban relations and it comes at a crucial juncture -- the giddy, uncharted days at the start of the Donald J. Trump presidency. Trump's comments and tweets have convinced the Batistianos that, at long last, they will, in short order, regain control of Cuba. The aforementioned Padura article appeared this week -- Jan. 31-2017 -- in the New York Times with this intriguing title: "TRUMP, A CHEVY AND CUBA'S UNCERTAINTY." 

       This is the Chevy that Leonardo Padura referenced in this week's New York Times article. The photo is courtesy of Desmond Boylan/Reuters. The car, shown driving along Havana's famed seafront Malecon boulevard, is a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air built in the U. S. and shipped brand-new to the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship almost two years before the Cuban Revolution chased Batista, the Mafia and greedy U. S. businessmen off the island. The Batistianos and Mafiosi, after the fall of Santa Clara in the closing hours of Dec.-1958, chose not to hang around Havana and fight the charging rebels because they already had shipped tons of loot to banks in Switzerland as well as to Mafia-aligned banks in Miami and Newark. And, of course, historians have documented that the last of the loot from Batista's Cuba, including gold bullion, had been stashed on getaway planes, yachts and ships that began to flee Havana by 3:00 A. M. Jan. 1-1959 for safer havens...such as nearby Miami as well as Dictator Trujillo's Dominican Republic, which was actually Batista's first stop. Left behind in Cuba, of course, were buildings, businesses, and other iconic items -- such as a plethora of 1950s American cars like the still-humming 1957 Chevy shown above.

      With that backdrop, I'll return to Leonardo Paduro's insightful New York Time's article entitled "TRUMP, A CHEVY AND CUBA'S UNCERTAINTY." The uncertainty concerns whether the nascent Trump White House -- aligned with a Republican-controlled Congress -- can or will gift the Batistianos will their long-craved regime change in Cuba. The Chevy in the article is owned by a 40-year-old Cuban entrepreneur that Paduro identifies as "R. P." R. P. inherited the car from his father and six years ago Cuba opened up private enterprises for budding entrepreneurs like him. R. P. revitalized the old Chevy and began making a living by driving tourists around Havana. It was a hardtop, not a convertible that the tourists much preferred. So R. P. spent his savings...$3,000...on what Padura called "reconstructive surgery" to make it a convertible. And now, thanks to the new entrepreneurial opportunities in Cuba buttressed by President Obama's efforts to circumvent the Batistiano-controlled Congress, the newly configured convertible is making money as tourism on the island exceeded four million for the first time in 2016...with more to come in 2017 unless a Trump-and-Batistiano-orchestrated regime change effort results in the expected guerrilla-style resistance. Padura points out that "American President Donald J. Trump threatens to role back Obama's newly restored relations. Now R. P. has no idea whether his business will continue to prosper or if he made the worst investment of his life." Padura writes, "President Trump is threatening this freedom, saying that either Cuba changes its political system or he will reverse Obama's stance." In his article, Padura makes it plain that, to him and other freedom-loving Cubans, the new threats from Trump and the Batistianos means that Cuba must either submit to a return of the Batista/Mafia-type rule in Cuba or...fight. He points out that Cuba has always been a massive underdog but won its revolution in 1959 and since then has sustained its sovereignty by withstanding, from the nearby world superpower, a record number of assassination attempts, a military attack in 1961, terrorist attacks including coastal cannon-fire shellings of fishing villages as well as hotel and civilian airplane bombings, and since 1962 history's longest and cruelest economic embargo ever imposed on a weak country by a powerful country. In referencing those facts, Leonardo Padura in this week's New York Times wrote: "The Cuban government withstood those assaults, but it was the Cuban people who bore the brunt of the sacrifices and suffering."  

        Cuba's most honored and renowned journalist and author, Leonardo Padura, is not just blowing smoke in this week's New York Times article. A lifelong but well-traveled resident of Havana since 1955, Padura wonders if the Trump presidency and the rejuvenated Batistianos in Miami and Congress will in 2017 fulfill their threats of a regime-change in Cuba. The Batistiano narrative in the U. S. since 1959 has justified all of its unmerciful counter-revolutionary assaults on Cuba as being strictly against the government while claiming to support everyday Cubans on the island in their quest to return democracy to the island. To Padura in Cuba and to at least brave and insightful Americans in the United States, that is a joke...and all the nations of the world, with that 191-to-0 vote in the UN, agrees it is a joke. Re-read Padura's sentence: "The Cuban government withstood those assaults, but it was the Cuban people who bore the brunt of the sacrifices and suffering." The American people are supposed to believe that the Batistianos and Mafiosi chased out of Cuba in January of 1959 were Mother Teresa-type angels by the time they regrouped, richer and stronger than ever, on U. S. soil. Padura believes that's a lie that has been perpetrated in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave since 1959...and so do brave democracy-lovers around the world. 

        This bucolic Havana Times.org photo correlates to this week's searing article penned by Leonardo Padura. It reminds us that three generations of innocent Cubans "have borne the brunt of the sacrifices and suffering" heaped on them by a U. S. policy designed since the 1950s to appease the offshoots of the long-ago ousted U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. The topical photo shows a young Cuban mother feeding pigeons while her gorgeous little girl sits behind her posing gorgeously for the photographer. That mother, that mother's mother and that mother's little girl comprise three generations of totally innocent Cubans on the island who have been punished by a rich and powerful minority hiding behind the skirts of the nearby world superpower, while the majority of Americans seem not to have the guts, the intelligence or the patriotism to even acknowledge what Padura wrote about and wants to stop. The entire world in unanimity also wants it to stop. Yet...as Leonardo Padura hinted in this week's New York Times...the U. S. democracy, severely weakened by the transplanted Batistianos, seems incapable of correcting that abomination. The little Cuban girl in the orange outfit above is not America's enemy and neither is her mother or her grand-parents, and they should not be treated, all their lives, as if  they are.

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