Canada Remains Cuba's Friend

 

     The most important airplane flights to and from Cuba involve Canadian airlines that have defied U. S. sanctions/embargoes/blockades to disrupt or destory the Caribbean nation's economy to provoke anti-Cuban reactions from the Cubans in Cuba. Thus planes ferrying tourists and businesspeople to and from Canada are more important than ever in April of 2023. Today this Sunwing airplane flying back to Canada made some Cuban news.

     A mechanical problem caused this Canadian flight to return to the Varadero Airport but everyone was safe today.

    The ageless U. S. sanctions/embargoes/blockades of Cuba block cruise and cargo ships from visiting the Caribbean's largest island so today when this ship appeared off the coast at the Port of Holguin it was another News Story for the Cuban media.

A Cubavision International news story today.

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Cubans Cry About the Death of a U. S. Icon

    The death this week of the legendary American entertainer and Civil Rights leader Harry Belafonte has greatly saddened Cubans in Cuba.

     This week major television news programs in Cuba, such as the one above, have led with the sadness Cubans feel after the death of Harry Belafonte at age 96 this week. Whereever he went, especially in Cuba and the U. S., Mr. Belafonte showed his support and respect for the Cuban Revolution and the Cuban people that overthrew the U.S.-backed/Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship on January 1st of 1959.

The Cuban Revolution and Harry Belafonte.

     There were many public visits and many private discussions between Harry Belafonte and Fidel Castro.

The legends: Castro and Belafonte.

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Why Does the US EVEN HAVE an Embassy in Havana?

A Fresh Look At The Situation 

    Yes, the United States still maintains a ubiquitous 7-story Embassy Building in Havana. The question is...why? There is, of course, no U. S. ambassador in Cuba.  But Benjamin Ziff is the Charge'/D'affaires at the U. S. Embassy Building in Havana.

       Back in 2016 U. S. President Barack Obama became the first U. S. President since 1959's Cuban Revolution to have the courage to try to normalize relations with Cuba. As shown above, President Obama even had the courage to visit and even use statewide Cuban television to tell the Cuban people: "Cuba Does Not Need To Fear A Threat From The United States." History registers the fact that President Obama meant those words but, within days, it was apparent that rich and powerful Counter Revolutionary Cubans in Little Havana/Miami and in Washington quickly overturned that courageous promise to the Cuban people in Cuba.

    As shown above, President Obama was also even courageous enough to name Jeffrey DeLaurentis, one of the USA's greatest and most respected diplomats, as the new U. S. Ambassador to Cuba. But, of course, Cuban-Americans such as Marco Rubio from Little Havana/Miami quickly also ended that brave Obama appointment too.

     So, except for the few days that President Obama in 2016 named the brilliant and decent Jeffrey DeLaurentis as the USA's badly needed Ambassador to Cuba, U. S. relations with Cuba have been dictated by counter revolutionaries in Miami and in Washington since 1959. This week -- in late April of 2023 -- NBC News had a major report on the ongoing disastrous 6-decades of the USA's acrimonious relations with Cuba, now led by Charge D'affaires Benjamin Ziff, not by an Ambassador like the great Jeffrey DeLaurentis.

     The NBC News report this week -- late April-2023 -- stressed the "dangerous" migration of Cubans to the U. S.: "Over 16,000 Cubans have emigrated to the US through a humanitarian parole program since it began in January, US Charge d'Affaires in Havana, Benjamin Ziff, told NBC News." As the dangerous treks from Cuba to the U. S. across the Caribbean Sea or across the U.S.-Mexican border continue unabated and with mounting lures, it means more-and-more problems for US-Cuban Relations, as apparently many powerful people desire. Meanwhile {see below} on April 21-2023 NBC News reported that: "The U.S. is making efforts to expand the number of people in organizations who are willing to sponsor immigrants from Cuba and other countries, according to the U.S. Charge d'affaires in Havana, Benjamin Ziff." 

The U. S. "parole program." {above}

      Remember what the courageous President Barack Obama, on his Historic Visit to Cuba in 2016, sincerely told the Cuban people: "Cuba Does Not Need To Fear A Threat From The United States." As the Democratic President of the United States and as the strongest person in the World in 2016, Obam's decent overtures to the Cuban people were quickly dumped into the political trash cans in Miami, Newark, and Washington.

     In the USA's two-party political system, Democratic Cuban-American U. S. Senator Bob Menendez from Newark and Republican U. S. Senator Marco Rubio from Little Havana/Miami are the two most powerful people in charge of U.S.-Cuban Relations. President Obama in 2016 faced that fact and since 2017 so have the last two U. S. Presidents -- the Democrat Joe Biden and the Republican Donald Trump.

President Biden, former President Trump.

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Cuba Needs Help to Survive

 

     The powerful Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has a lot on his plate these days but today -- April 20th-2023 -- he was in Havana strongly protesting the U. S. economic embargo of Cuba. He says, "The times deep into 2023 should remind us all that imperative powers should not forever be allowed to target much weaker nations. Targeting Cuba for decades by the United States should one day be stopped."

    The Andrea Rodriguez/Associated Press article above shows Lavrov in Cuba placing a wreath today to honor Cuba's revoloutionary icon Jose Marti.

     The AP reported {above} today that Lavrov "condemned U. S. sanctions against Cuba as he visited the island during the last leg of a Latin American tour that took him to Brazil, Nicaragua and Venezuela."

     Above the article by Dave Sherwood/Reuters today reported that, mostly, Lavrov's visit to Cuba was to hold important meetings with "Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez in Havana, the latest in a series of visits to shore up support among Russia's closest allies in Latin America."

     The Dave Sherwood/Reuters article today said that Russia has already sent some fuel and wheat to Cuba and that Lavrov today promised that more "such desperately needed aid" will be sent.

    Major powers such as Russia, China, and the United States are aware that Cuba's influence in the Caribbean expands into other nations in Latin America and can be used as a pawn by friends as well as foes. As the wily Sergei Lavrov reminded worldwide News Agencies today, Cuba continues in April of 2023 "to have just one foe, one enemy, and that remains the United States, a fact that the suffering Cuban people understand."

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A Second 5-Year Term for President Diaz-Canel

 

    On Wednesday, April 19th-2023, the 470-member Cuban parliament re-elects Miguel Diaz-Canel to his second 5-year term as President of Cuba. He was born 62-years-ago, right after the triumph of the Fidel Castro-led Cuban Revolution defeated the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship on January 1st, 1959. Diaz-Canel is the first non-Castro since 1959 to lead Cuba.

The headline above is by London-based Reuters.

  

   The Reuters article explained that Diaz-Canel's first five years as President of Cuba included added sanctions from the Trump-Biden adminstrations that enhanced the six-decade-old Economic Embargo of the nearby island nation. Also, Diaz-Canel had to deal with disastrous fires-explosions that destoryed a key tourist hotel in Havana as well as the island's main fuel facility in Matanzas. Discussing the "record 220,000 Cubans" that reached the U.S.-Mexican border in 2022, Reuters added: "He {Diaz-Canel} has also wrestled with sanctions imposed on the country by the then-U. S. President Donald Trump, piling onto a decades-long trade embargo." In other words, Reuters reminded the world that President Diaz-Canel has had to deal with history's longest and cruelest economic Embargo that any small nation has ever endured.

        The Reuters article quoted Dr. Carlos Alzugaray about what to expect from President Diaz-Canel's second 5-year term as President of Cuba that starts on April 19th, 2023. Dr. Alzugaray was born 80-years-old ago in Havana and as a Professor and Diplomat he is still the person most honest News Sources turn to for true insight about what relates to Cuba.

      As shown above, Dr. Alzugaray told Reuters that somehow trying to revive the Cuban economy in the face of the devastating U. S. Embargo as well as Cuba's own economic mistakes is the nearly impossible challenge confronting President Diaz-Canel: "Diaz-Canel will be looking to cement his legacy in his second term, but must effect the changes the country needs, Alzugaray said."

      Although born after Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution replaced the Batista/Mafia dictatorship in 1959, President Diaz-Canel idolizes both Fidel Castro and the Revolution.

        Although Fidel Castro's tomb in Santiago de Cuba is almost 500 miles from Havana, President Diaz-Canel often visits the shrine to pay homage to his idol.

    Well known to Cubans from his days as Education Minister, President Diaz-Canel is believed to be supported as Cuba's leader by most of the everyday citizens whom he also often visits across the island. Yet...as he now begins his second 5-year term as Cuba's President, the odds appear to be stacked against his attempts to revive the dismal Cuban economy that is endlessly shackled so powerfully by its Northern Neighbor that remains the richest and most influential nation in the world.

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Cuba Returns To Dollar Exchanges

 

      Back on April 10th-2023 OnCuba News reported that "The Cuban government announced the bankability of the dollar, a measure that has caused intense exchanges of criteria among the population."

      The London-based BBC reports that "Banks in Cuba will again accept cash deposits in US dollars after a ban prohibiting the practice was surprisingly lifted on Monday."

     Today -- Monday, April 17th, 2023 -- OnCuba News reports that: "More recently, Casas de Cambio S.A. {Cadeca} announced that as of Monday, April 17, users will be able to deposit cash in USD at all their offices." Expert economists on Cuba's economic had differing views regarding the island's return to the dollar, but perhaps the most important comment was Pavel Vidal said: "The relationship of the Cuban financial system with the USA has been very irregular. It is hard to understand its logic. It has been part of the government's preference to only introduce partial, fragmented changes and managing industries and markets in a segmented way {"handmade"} economy."

     But whether it is problems in Cuba attributed to the endless U. S. economic embargo or to internal decisions by Cuba's revolutionary government, the Washiongton-based Center for Democracy in the Americas used the photo above to point out that the most important aspect of Cuba is its children, and neither foreign nor domestic players should ever forget that fact. These two children in Cuba, as well as their parents and grandparents, have all lived under the shackles of the U. S. economic blockade...and someday some decent people should correct that situtation. No one in a a more powerful nation should ever benefit from the misery of children in a much weaker nation.

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