Photo credit: AP/Luis Soto.
The photo above was featured in an article by the London Telegraph entitled: "Guatemalan Clown Who Went On To Become President." Indeed, Jimmy Morales was a famous comedian in Guatemala before he became President on January 14th, 2016. He is called "Guatemala's Donald Trump" and, for sure, there are many parallels, and not just the fact they were both television stars. Supported by the conservative Guatemalan military, Jimmy Morales had just one major opponent and that was former First Lady Sandra Torres. Crime-ridden Guatemala, however, wanted a non-establishment politician and that surely fit the Guatemala Clown's profile, so Jimmy Morales won the election with 72% of the vote about the same time the USA's former First Lady, the prototypical establishment politician Hillary Clinton, was gifting the U. S. Presidency to the long-shot Donald Trump. But beyond all that, the photo above of the 48-year-old Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, also known as Guatemala's Clown, reflects the shifting sands of political hierarchies in Latin America, sands that Trump and his prime anti-Cuban pal Marco Rubio are busy sifting to gather more-and-more anti-Cuban allies in the region. It seems to be working in Guatemala and elsewhere.
Guatemala's President Jimmy Morales...the more presidential pose above is courtesy of Wikipedia...seems desperately to be courting the U. S. in an effort to dip more deeply into U. S. foreign aide tax dollars. That, like several other Latin American nations, means Guatemala might be willing to sell off Cuba to satisfy Trump and the Miami-Cuban hardliners in Washington. Morales, by the way, survived corruption charges in Guatemala on his way to becoming President. In fact, his older brother and key adviser, Sammy Morales, was arrested on corruption and money laundering charges. But, hey! That's no REAL problem.
Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales is shown above being warmly greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Israel's AIPAC convention. AIPAC is by far the richest and most powerful lobbying source in American history, powerful enough to dominate U. S. politics. In fact, although it's not politically correct to say so, AIPAC is one reason that former President Obama had less power in the Republican-controlled U. S. Congress than Netanyahu had, a fact Obama learned when he TRIED to prevent Netanyahu addressing Congress at a crucial point leading up to the presidential election. That being said, note the Morales-Netanyahu handshake above after Morales was invited to the AIPAC USA convention. So now, Guess What? Guatemala's President, Jimmy Morales, has just announced at AIPAC that he is following Trump's and Netanyahu's very controversial decision to move Guatemala's Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
This photo taken Sunday, March 4, 2018, is courtesy of Prime Minister Netanyahu's office and shows Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales speaking at the AIPAC convention. That speech bodes ill-will for Cuba because it shows that Morales will, like Netanyahu, also follow Trump's antipathy towards Cuba.
This Jimmy Morales-Benjamin Netanyahu photo was taken in Washington Sunday, March 4th, 2018. It too bodes ill-will for Cuba. As mentioned, Morales survived corruption charges and being a comedian in Guatemala to become President when his rival was a former First Lady. Well, while he and AIPAC reign totally supreme and unchallenged in the U. S., back home in Israel Netanyahu is undergoing massive corruption charges, an ongoing news item the U. S. media, of course, ignores.
And this photo too bodes ill-will for Cuba. It shows U. S. President Trump greeting Guatemalan President Morales as U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson looks on in the background. Cuba believes Tillerson himself recently flew to Jamaica, the island due south of Cuba, to line up regional support for the Trump administration's economic war on Cuba. The Trump-Morales handshake in Washington on March 4-2018 portents, it appears, that the Republican White House and the Republican Congress this first full week of March-2018 is bursting with anti-Cuban allies.
Shortly, in April-2018, Raul Castro, tired and nearing his 87th birthday, will retire as Cuba's President and leave Havana for the other end of the island, near Santiago de Cuba, where he and his late brother Fidel always felt most comfortable. Raul, after taking over from the very ill Fidel in 2008 as Cuba's President, has surprised many people by grooming a non-revolutionary, Miguel Diaz-Balart, as his successor.
As Cuba's President, Raul Castro also surprised many people by working very closely...on the phone mostly but also in person...with the United States President Barack Obama to normalize relations between the two nations.
But all the heady normalization hopes for Cuba and for America died on June 16-2017 when the new U. S. President, Donald Trump, went to Little Havana in Miami and held court before the Counter Revolutionary choir in a building, the Manuel Artime Theater, named for a leader of the 1961 Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba. In that setting, as shown above, President Trump signed an executive order reversing much of President Obama's Cuban advances. The Counter Revolutionary choir that cheered the reversal included two members of the U. S. Congress from Miami -- Mario Diaz-Balart, shown peering directly down over Trump's right shoulder, and Marco Rubio, standing third from the right. Mario's father was a powerful Minister in the Batista dictatorship and, after 1959, a rich and powerful Counter Revolutionary in South Florida. Marco reached the U. S. Senate still claiming his parents fled the Castro tyranny in Cuba when, in fact, they fled the Batista tyranny in Cuba long before the Revolutionary triumph chased the Batistianos to Miami. Today most of the 2+ million Cubans in the Miami area favor normalizing relations but it seems only vicious Counter Revolutionaries get elected to the U. S. Congress from Miami.
Trump's June 16-2017 appearance at the Manuel Artime Theater in Miami's Counter Revolutionary Little Havana bastion was the last straw for Cuba's next President, Miguel Diaz-Canel. The photo above shows Diaz-Canel glancing around at Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez. It is known that Diaz-Canel has informed Rodriguez about how he feels about Trump's mission to Little Havana.
Meanwhile, poor little Cuba hopes its tiny, sovereign flag can continue to wave in the Caribbean breezes at least until next month when Miguel Diaz-Canel becomes the first non-Castro and the first non-revolutionary to be Cuba's leader since 1959.
Future President Miguel Diaz-Canel is considered more anti-American than out-going Cuban President Raul Castro, who at least worked closely with former U. S. President Obama in trying to normalize relations between the two neighboring nations. But Diaz-Canel? He thinks Cuba working with Obama was "time wasted that we could have been spending with friendlier nations because the United States has only a billionaire-controlled two-party system and one of them is the Republican Party."
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