U. S. Cuban Laws

By Cubans Only For Cubans
Updated: Saturday, July 25th, 2015

      This is Fernando Ravsberg. He was born in 1957 in Uruguay but for years he has been considered by much of the world as the best and fairest journalist on all things Cuban. Fernando teaches at the University of Madrid and he has worked as a journalist for BBC, Telemundo and other networks.

        Fernando Ravsberg's blog -- "Cartas Desde Cuba"/"Letters From Cuba" -- is a must for anyone interested in Cuba. His articles are routinely picked up by international outlets. This week -- the week the U. S. and Cuba actually opened embassies in their respective capitals -- Ravsberg penned an article entitled: "U. S. Wants To Send 35,000 Criminals Back To Cuba." Here is how that article began: "While the Cuban flag is hoisted on the building of the new embassy in Washington, D. C., the U. S. Congress continues to put obstacles in the way of normalization of bilateral relations. Now they want to send 35,000 Cuban criminals back to the island. Since the initiative involves persons born in Cuba, Washington has the legal right to deport them. However, for many years the relations between the two countries are not based on law. The U. S. has a law that grants residency to any Cuba who touches U. S. soil, even if they are criminals, terrorists or murderers. Part of the 'Mariel" exodus of 1980 were criminals taken from Cuban jails to send north {to the United States}."

Fernando Ravsberg used this photo to illustrate his article.

         The 1983 "Scarface" movie remains popular. It was directed by Brian DePalma, written by Oliver Stone, and it starred Al Pacino as Tony Montana. It opens with actual black-and-white film of Cuban immigrants arriving in Miami on the Mariel Boatlift in which Fidel Castro emptied his jails and prisons and included them {along with thousands of law-abiding Cubans} among the 120,000 Cubans who settled in South Florida. Soon, exacerbating Miami's already extreme drug-fueled violence, Tony Montana became Miami's most violent drug kingpin. Castro's intent was two-fold. Obviously he wanted to spare Cuba the expense and other problems related to prisoners and, as a bonus, he wanted to transfer the expense and other problems to his main adversary, the United States. In July of 2015, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has referenced Castro's stratagem, equating it with modern-day Mexican immigrants. And the aforementioned article this week by Fernando Ravsberg indicates that anti-Castro zealots in the U. S. are intent on taking a page from the old revolutionary's book. However, while the almost 89-year-old Fidel this month has been more focused on 4-hour speeches at a cheese seminar outside Havana, it is not likely Cuba will accept 35,000 Cuban-born U. S. criminals. Cuba already has its hands full with U.S.-backed dissidents, as indicated by Tracey Eaton's very insightful article in USA Today this week, July 23rd.  

             Meanwhile, Americans must deal with a plethora of laws passed by a Batistiano-friendly U. S. Congress that, among other things, favors only Cubans and, as Ravberg indicates, continually encourages Cubans, including criminals, to relocate to the United States. The message on this T-shirt should make every democracy-lover in the United States cringe with either revulsion or embarrassment. If it doesn't, it's because Americans, since the Cuban Revolution ousted the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship in January of 1959, have been propagandized to fully and meekly accept a Cuban narrative tightly controlled by two generations of only the most extreme anti-Castro exiles from the Batista regime. But rest assured, America's best democracy-loving friends around the world, meaning those not bombarded with propaganda regarding Cuba, are ashamed and embarrassed by the message on this T-shirt. Even Peter Kornbluh, director at the U. S. National Security Archives in Washington, says such things make the U. S. appear to be "a Banana Republic." In decades past, Americans actually cared about their democracy.

          "Wet Foot/Dry Foot" is just one of many U. S. laws designed to benefit Cuban exiles at the expense of everyone else. To understand how such things embedded themselves into the fabric of the world's greatest democracy, I would suggest you read these two seminal books by renowned Cuban experts:

"Cuba Confidential"

by Ann Louise Bardach

and

"What Everyone Needs To Know About Cuba"

by Julia E. Sweig

            These two books minutely explain how, beginning in the 1980s, the Bush dynasty empowered Miami's most radical anti-Castro zealots who, shortly thereafter, were able to easily dictate such congressional laws as The Torricelli Bill and The Helms-Burton Act that clearly focused on sating the insatiable revenge, political, and economic appetites of a few Cuban-Americans while grossly infringing on the rights of all others. For example, everyday Americans are free to travel anywhere in the world...except Cuba. The freedom to travel to Cuba, a very safe country, is a privilege all people except Americans have. While crafting such laws to hurt Cuba, laws to enrich and empower select Cuban-Americans were not forgotten, as evidenced by the ongoing and unending number of tax-funded regime-change/get rich programs that blossom and flourish like swarms of locusts in Washington and Miami. But Wet Foot/Dry Foot is so fundamentally and immeasurably anti-democratic it shocks pro-American democracy-lovers the most. Wet Foot/Dry Foot emerged in the mid-1990s as an element tucked into the Cuban Adjustment Act, an act that seemed to say, "Hey, we can write all the U. S. laws relating to Cuba, so let's add this one!" And so they did, apparently assuming Americans didn't have the courage or intelligence to object. Wet Foot/Dry Foot crowns the U. S. Cuban policy that encourages Cubans -- baseball players, ballet performers, doctors, and even average Cubans -- to defect to the United States. Because of Wet Foot/Dry Foot, any Cuban -- including criminals as the Ravsberg article mentioned -- who touches U. S. soil is home free with instant benefits. All other would-be immigrants in the entire world -- including those with far better reasons to emigrate than Cubans -- are immediately subject to imprisonment or deportation. The Miami-Union City-Washington triangle controls the Cuban narrative in both the U. S. as a whole and the U. S. Congress in particular. Rubio, Menendez, Diaz-Balart, Ros-Lehtinen, etc. -- benefit from the fact that this generation of Americans is less concerned with protecting its democracy than previous American generations were.

      America's Founding Fathers never intended for their pristine democracy to begin supporting vile Banana Republic dictatorships in the Caribbean and Latin America. But that is exactly what happened beginning in the 1950s when the U. S. democracy got in bed with and toasted wine {above} with cruel dictators -- Batista in Cuba, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Somoza in Nicaragua, Pinochet in Chile, etc., etc. The justification was, in exchange for tax-funded military and economic support, those dictators would permit rich Americans {like the guy on the right in the above graphic} to also participate in the rape and robbery of those helpless nations. Waves of democracy, beginning in the 1970s, began to sweep over the Caribbean and Latin America...easing out in various forms the U.S.-backed dictators. However, the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in Cuba remains unique in all the annals of Latin American and American history, and not just because it was the only dictatorship propped up by an unlikely team -- the U. S. and the Mafia. The sheer uniqueness of Batista and Cuba lies in the fact that the Cuban Revolution in 1959 overthrew Batista but all the Batistiano-Mafiosi leaders fled to much safer havens, mostly Miami.

         "Banana Republic" is a pejorative that gets its moniker from the United Fruit Company, which was based in Boston. Beginning in the 1950s, throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, the United Fruit Company -- sometimes actually supported by U.S.-backed soldiers -- emerged as the company most hated and reviled by the maligned peasants of those unfortunate countries, including Batista's Cuba. A medical graduate named Che Guevara took a motorcycle ride down through Latin America on a vacation before returning to Argentina to start his career as a medical doctor. But on the trip he noticed that companies such as the United Fruit Company were indeed raping and robbing those helpless countries at will. In Mexico City, Guevara met Raul Castro and then Fidel Castro. They told him the United Fruit Company was doing the same in Cuba and they were going back to join a revolution to do something about it. Che Guevara, forever forsaking his career as a doctor, jumped at the chance to become a Cuban revolutionary.

This map depicts primary holdings of the United Fruit Company in the 1950s.

Only the Cuban Revolution began the demise of the United Fruit Company.

 The United Fruit Company became Chiquita!!
Chiquita today supplies most of the bananas Americans buy.

          In the 1950s as the United Fruit Company was helping create Banana Republics all over the Caribbean and Latin America, two of the most powerful men in the United States were the Dulles brothers. Allen Dulles, on the left above, was CIA Director. John Foster Dulles was the Secretary of State. The Dulles brothers, both with impeccably sanitized reputations then and now, were big supporters of Banana Republics. Decades after they had left office it was learned that they had, in the 1950s, financial ties to...The United Fruit Company. Then and now, classified documents protect such dubious reputations.

 Secrets and sanitized reputations mitigate against democratic transparency.

        This classified letter dated July 12-1956 was a sanitized secret till, decades later, it was de-classified. It was a sweet letter on official CIA stationery from CIA Director Allen W. Dulles to his dear friend, Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Both men at the time were big fans of both the United Fruit Company and their Cuban Banana Republic, which reveled in making a few incredibly rich and the majority incredibly poor.

         Cuba's Banana Republic in the 1950s was dictated by Fulgencio Batista {upper-right} and his two best Mafia buddies -- Meyer Lansky {center} and Lucky Luciano {upper-left}. All had previous ties to Miami.

But...Haydee Santamaria and Celia Sanchez didn't like bananas. 

And the rest is history,

including Wet Foot/Dry Foot.

       This photo is courtesy of Yamil Lage/Getty Images. It shows tourists in Havana enjoying 1950-era American convertibles. Cuban ingenuity has many of them still running and still shining on the fast-changing island, still the Pearl of the Antilles.

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Guantanamo Bay Rankles Cuba

Cuba Wants It Back
Updated: Thursday, July 23rd, 2015

         Carlos Gimenez {Photo: progressoweekly} was born in Havana in 1954. His parents were well-to-do Cuban ranchers. In 1959, when Mr. Gimenez was 7-years-old and the Cuban Revolution defeated the Batista dictatorship, his parents resettled in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood. Today Mr. Gimenez is the Mayor of Miami-Dade County. For the first time since 1961 the Cuban flag was raised at the Cuban embassy in Washington on Monday, July 20th, to signify major changes for Cuba...and Miami! On Tuesday, July 21st, the Miami Herald featured a major article, written by Douglas Hanks, expressing Mr. Gimenez's alarm. The article is entitled: "In Miami, Worries About Cuba Include Grains of Sand." The article stated: "In pitching his new $40 million plan to combat beach erosion, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez on Tuesday pledged to find replacement sand white enough to hold its own against Cuba's famously gleaming coast. 'It has some of the best beaches, and most beautiful beaches, in the world,' Gimenez said of Cuba. Gimenez's warning captures the anxiety in tourism circles over how a newly accessible Cuba might upend the Caribbean vacation market once U. S. tourists are free to travel there. Miami is seen as vulnerable..." The article went on the explain that Miami, facing serious erosion problems, desires tons of white sand...just like Cuba's!

      This photo is courtesy of Roman Lyskowski/Miami Herald. It was used to illustrate the aforementioned article in Tuesday's Miami Herald. This shows a section of Varadero Beach, which is an hours drive southeast of Havana. {A gorgeous drive on the coastal highway that I've taken several times}. The white Cuban sands bathed with the green palm trees, the blue ocean waters, and the emerald Caribbean sky makes for a breathtaking experience, one that direly concerns Miami Mayor Carlos Gimenez and others competing for the tourist trade. In the background of this photo is the famed DuPont mansion. For decades, as one of the many Cuban exile-directed punitive actions against Cuba, everyday Americans have been the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba. That basic right, at long last, seems to be gradually returning in the closing months of President Barack Obama's second term.

Since the 1950s, no President has changed Cuban policy as much as Obama.

          Monday -- July 20th -- Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez and America's Secretary of State John Kerry held a joint news conference {above} to herald the opening of embassies in the two capitals for the first time since 1961. But even on that historic occasion, Mr. Rodriguez brought up a topic that spawned the above expression on Mr. Kerry's countenance. The topic was: Guantanamo Bay!! Cuban wants it back. As the July 21st USA Today reported, Rodriguez surprised Kerry at the news conference when he cogently stated that "compensation for our citizens for human and economic damages is crucial."

         The history of Guantanamo Bay favors Cuba getting it back...some day. All nations against imperialism, past and present, support Cuba's efforts regarding its own land. The U. S., then a rising imperialist power, gained dominance over Cuba from Spain, a declining imperialist power, with the easy victory in the 1898 Spanish-American War. No Cuban attended the treaty ceremony that ended the war. In 1903 the U. S. easily mandated the theft of 45 square miles of Guantanamo Bay, a very valuable spot on Cuba's southeastern tip. The U. S. mandated that it would pay Cuba $2000 a year, which it did. In the 1930s the U. S. mandated that it would increase the amount to $4000, which it did. Since 1959, when the Cuban Revolution defeated the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship, Cuba has refused to cash those yearly checks from the U. S.

 U. S. flag being raised at Guantanamo Bay in 1903.

U. S. flag flies high over Guantanamo Bay today.

         Unlike the rest of Cuba, the U. S.-occupied Guantanamo Bay is very Americanized as this www.businessinsider.com photo illustrates. That Americanization irks Cuba's idea of sovereignty.

The U. S. has a powerful military base at Guantanamo.

         The world thinks of Guantanamo Bay as "Gitmo" because, after 9/11, the Bush-Cheney administration created an infamous prison there. Amnesty International still calls it "The gulag of our time." President Obama, when he succeeded Bush-Cheney in the White House, vowed to close Gitmo. In over six years he hasn't been able to do it because the U. S. Congress dictates most of the nefarious aspects of America's Cuban policy. It has been estimated that it costs U. S. taxpayers about $1.3 million each year to house each of the hundreds of Gitmo prisoners, while it would cost about $40,000 per year per prisoner if they were housed in a maximum security federal prison on U. S. soil. Congress is well aware of the damage Gitmo does to the U. S. image worldwide but it apparently believes that having the prison on occupied Cuban soil softens the image, meaning that it is less of a bad thing as long as it is on Cuban, not American, soil.

         In any case, the continued U.S.-occupation of Guantanamo Bay embarrasses America's best friends around the world and it embarrasses the United Nations. If Cuba manages to get the dispute arbitrated in an international court, it expects to win. However, an island trying to exorcise the hurtful symbols of a superpower's imperialist past clearly remains a distinct underdog even while it benefits from having a sympathetic Democratic President in the White House. And Obama's presidency ends in 17 months. 

        Meanwhile, now that the U. S. and Cuba have embassies in their respective capitals, the sticky issue concerning Guantanamo Bay will get stickier. At least, the two top diplomats -- Bruno Rodriguez of Cuba and John Kerry of the United States, are now shaking hands and talking to each other. This week, when he attended the historic raising of the Cuban flag at its embassy, marked the first time Rodriguez had ever been to Washington. On August 14th Rodriguez will host Kerry in Havana for the ceremonial raising of the American flag at the U. S. embassy. It is a bit surprising to some that Rodriguez, both at the joint news conference with Kerry and later in a private meeting Monday, stressed that the return of Guantanamo Bay to Cuba is something that Cuba will not let go of. Rodriguez, aware that the thawing of relations has Cuban-Americans more than ever demanding compensation for lost property in Cuba, sharply countered that with Kerry Monday. Rodriguez stressed the hundreds of billions of dollars the embargo has cost Cuba since 1961; the billions of dollars that the 45-square miles of Guantanamo Bay is worth; the Batista-Mafia-U.S. theft of Cuban assets from 1952 till 1959; and, most of all, the compensation that innocent Cubans are entitled for terrorist acts that have killed or maimed thousands of Cubans -- including coastal assaults, the bombing of Cubana Flight 455, etc. Rodriguez also has already let Kerry know that Cuba wants the U. S. to cease or sharply curtail the numerous ongoing Congress-funded regime-change programs and he wants U. S. diplomats at the new U. S. embassy in Havana to refrain from fomenting dissent on the island. Of course, the U. S., even apart from appeasing Cuban-exile extremists, has demands of Cuba too.

         So, even as the Cuban flag now flies high in front of its splendid new embassy in Washington, many chasms that have separated the nearby island from the U. S. remain. In fact, if past history is a guide, the opening of embassies will soon generate additional fireworks designed to turn back Obama's clock on Cuban rapprochement. And, for sure, past history will factor sharply into the future of U.S.-Cuban relations.

             Guantanamo Bay, USA and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba will be just one of many battlegrounds that U.S.-Cuban/Rodriguez-Kerry diplomacy will have to deal with in the coming hectic months that lie ahead. 

And by the way:

          This is Sarah Obama, President Barack Obama's step-grandmother. She still lives in Kogelo, Kenya. Kogelo is in western Kenya near Lake Victoria and northwest of Nairobi. President Obama is visiting East Africa this week. Sarah hopes he visits her. President Obama very lovingly calls her "Mama Sarah."

{The next ten photos are courtesy of Carl Anthony Online.}

Sarah Obama as a baby.

Barack Obama visiting his father, Barack Obama Sr.

Barack Obama Sr., a student at Harvard University.

Barack Obama Sr. and his wife Ann Dunham, the President's mother.

Barack Obama and his beloved mother.

Barack Obama and his mother in Hawaii.

A young Barack Obama visiting Sarah, his step-grandmother.

Young Barack Obama helping Sarah in Kenya.

Barack Obama visiting Sarah in 2006 before his bid for the presidency.

In 2008 Sarah predicted Barack Obama would be elected U. S. President.

Photo courtesy parade.condenast.com

President Barack Obama with his two daughters.

Photo courtesy Aljazeera America.

       Sarah Obama holding a cherished photograph and hoping for "one more visit from Barry." Barry is her grandson -- Barack Obama, the President of the United States. Although he is visiting Africa this week, he might not be able to visit Sarah in Kogelo because of the political and military strife roiling Kenya. Sarah and the President's father were born in Kogelo, which is 200 miles northwest of Nairobi, Kenya's capital. Kenya's President, Uhuru Kenyatta, and some of his top aides are currently being charged with serious crimes by the International Criminal Court. Sarah is now 95-years-old. She visited the U. S. two years ago and had extremely warm visits with President Obama, her step-grandson. She now says she wants him to visit her again so she can show him where his father is buried in Kogelo, and where she will be buried.

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U.S.-Cuba: What Now?

As The Hard Part Begins

         Yesterday -- July 20th, 2015 -- was an historic day in U.S.-Cuban relations. This Wall Street Journal photo shows the opening of the Cuban embassy in Washington for the first time since 1961. An extremely bold and pragmatic U. S. President Barack Obama, in the homestretch of his two-terms in office, pleased most of the entire world -- everyone from Pope Francis to the majority of Cuban-Americans in Miami -- with his Herculean efforts to normalize relations with the nearby island. The opening of embassies in Washington and Havana is emblematic of that boldness. Yet, it displeases a visceral array of Miami Cubans, behemoths who are both rich individually and powerful politically. Thus, the hard part, and the most dangerous part, now commences with what will certainly be a continuum of stupefying confrontations pitting a majority against a minority that is, at best, merely a standoff, like a small nuclear nation holding its own against a much larger, non-nuclear nation. The world's greatest democracy has proven incapable of dealing democratically with Cuba. And surely, that scenario will not end anytime soon, unfortunately.

         Still, this was a truly remarkable scene in Washington yesterday as the Cuban flag was raised in front of the stately mansion that will now be home to the Cuban embassy. Yes, those were three Cuban soldiers standing at the base of that flagpole, ceremoniously guarding the Cuban flag on U. S. soil. For sure, Mr. Obama has a legacy whether or not the diplomacy he has orchestrated succeeds. He at least has tried. 

The building housing the Cuban embassy in Washington is magnificent.

Inside the huge mansion is ever more ornate and more magnificent.

And did I mention the Cuban flag now flies high in Washington?

        President Obama went on television to explain his gigantic Cuban overtures: "It is long past time to resume relations with Cuba. We must not be imprisoned by the past. This is a new chapter with our neighbors in the Americas." With those three sentences, a brave President was reminding the world that he is ashamed that America's Cuban policy has hurt the United States in the unanimous opinions of all other nations in the Americas -- namely the Caribbean and Latin America. He is also aware that such unanimity does not faze a handful of Miami Cubans who believe their views and goals should supersede America's.

President Obama; July 20, 2015.

"It is long past time to resume relations with Cuba."

"We must not be imprisoned by the past."

"This is a new chapter with our neighbors in the Americas."

"We must move forward with Cuba, not backwards."

It took a brave and decent President to utter those four quotations.

        U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry will be in Havana on August 14th to attend the ceremonial opening of the U. S. Embassy in Cuba. Meanwhile, thanks to Obama and Kerry, the embassy is already opened.

                 Yesterday -- July 20th, 2015 -- Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez and America's Secretary of State John Kerry held a joint news conference to explain the opening of embassies in Washington and Havana. Mr. Rodriguez said, "This is a new beginning for our two countries and for our region." Mr. Kerry said, "Nothing is more futile than trying to live in the past." The aforementioned six quotations -- four by President Barack Obama, one by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, and one by Secretary John Kerry -- are, of course, indisputable. Yet, there remains a vicious and self-serving few who will not only vigorously dispute them but they also have the ability to dictate to the U. S. media how to vilify them.

        Generally speaking, the U. S. media, especially cable television "news," are too intimidated or too politically and socially correct or simply too inept to fairly cover U.S.-Cuban relations. However, London's BBC is not nearly as restrained in those three vital journalistic areas. The BBC this week has one of its best reporters, Katy Watson, in Havana to cover the reaction of Cubans to the opening of embassies in Washington and Havana. That's Ms. Watson above standing between Havana's famed Malecon seawall and America's new 7-story embassy. Her BBC report expressed the fact that the vast majority of Cubans on the island are both excited and enthused about the thawing of relations between the two nations. Ms. Watson, unlike U. S. journalists, also utilized her freedom to call the U. S. embargo against Cuba "a blockade" and define it, in the view of most Cubans, as "the longest genocide in history." In other words, Katy Watson of the BBC has the courage and the integrity to report on both sides of the two-sided Cuban conundrum.

       This map says, "Guantanamo Bay (USA)." That's one-side of a two-sided story. Cuba calls it "Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." That's the other side. All the Caribbean and Latin American nations, as well as the United Nations, agree with Cuba regarding the rightful or wrongful ownership of Guantanamo Bay. Miami Cubans believe having a U. S. military base on Cuban soil shames Cuba. Most non-Miami Cubans believe it shames America, reminding the region and the UN of past imperialism and U.S.-backed dictators such as Batista, Trujillo, Somoza, Pinochet, etc. President Barack Obama and Secretary John Kerry seem intent on erasing or easing such shame between now and the advent of the next presidential administration in 2017.

       Katy Watson's superb reports from Havana on the BBC this week cover both sides of two-sided U.S.-Cuban issues, such as "Guantanamo Bay, USA" and "Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." What can be more two-sided than that? Thanks, Katy.

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