A Cuba "fan" - U.S. tourists rush to Cuba as White House tightens travel -

Orlando Sentinel ^ | July 14, 2003 | Vanessa Bauzá

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

And Forbes Magazine listed Castro as one of the riches people in the world. The Cubans are his underfed slaves. Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing any overweight Cubans.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Those taxis are great. They are called Coco Taxis. They were first put out on the street for use by the everyday citizen. They became so popular among the tourists, that now only tourists use them. They sit two in the back; and because it's so open, there is a continuous flow of a nice breeze. The view from inside those taxis is great as one can imagine. I hired one for $9.00 an hour. A regular taxi only charges $8.00 an hour. The Coco Taxi is the only way see Havana.

[Texas_Dawg]

Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing any overweight Cubans.

Funny you say that because it reminded me of a left-wing columnist in the U.S. who a few years ago wrote a column praising the Communist government there and "not as many overweight people as America" was one of her praises.

There are some, but it's usually not a "healthy" overweight when they are. It's more a bloated, carbohydrates-filled overweight. Not that being overweight is ever good, but being full of beef means you are at least living a more comfortable life than does being full of water and bananas.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Yes, there are parts of Havana that look like living photos of Europe after WWII. A lot of Havana (I am pretending this is s photo of Havana without really knowing) will have to be bulldozed once Castro is gone. The TV in the photo is a nice touch. What a maravilla!!!!

[oyez]

I guess the tour didn't go by this square.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Hey CW,

Thank you for the photos. I was never able to get a photo of those “camellos” (camels) busses. In my mind’s eye, I thought the ones I saw were even larger (longer), the front part anyway. Heavens. I’m going to have to return to refresh my memory. Anyway, that one is certainly long enough. I had heard they can stuff 300 people into those death traps, but the one in the photo doesn’t look that it than hold that many. I suppose it’s the difference between a 747/777 and a 767. Notice the size of the cab that is pulling it.

As I said above but didn’t explain fully, the Coco taxis were suppose to be a cheap source of transportation for the Cubans until the tourists decided they liked them too.

There is a large mall in Panama that is using something similar to the Coco taxi to transport patrons from one section of the mall to the other. It is something a little new, an idea obviously taken from Cuba.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

I LOVE that photo. Its so...so CUBAN! I'm not being sarcastic. That IS Cuba.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Funny you say that because it reminded me of a left-wing columnist in the U.S. who a few years ago wrote a column praising the Communist government there and "not as many overweight people as America" was one of her praises.

This is why it’s good to travel. How many people that read her column took in her BS because they have not been there to see, learn, and compare?

[oyez]

How about this Cuban version of Wallgreens? Notice the "Long live our Socialist revolution." There must be a slogan on every wall(that's left standing) down there.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

I’m not sure what the photo is all about, but it does look like a pharmacy, like what a pharmacy looked liked many years past in Panama. Panamanian pharmacies are now patterned after the U.S.A. in displaying their products. If it is a Cuban pharmacy, poor souls. “Cheers to our socialist revolution” so says the banner at the counter front.

Can anybody identify the following: The brass knobs /scrapers on the floor…are they to wipe ones shoes? I haven’t seen those in a century if it is so.

[oyez]

The brass knobs

Do you think that could have been mounts for a brass rail like to old pubs used to have?

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Do you think that could have been mounts for a brass rail like to old pubs used to have?

I have no idea. It could be. After looking at the photo again, I’m not even sure it’s a pharmacy. I’d hate to fall on top of and clean through one of those knobs. It sure could ruin ones day. The fellow in the blue shirt is well fed so he must be one of the socialist revolutionaries. Qué maravilla!!!

That sure is one beautiful piece of carved furniture with that beautiful marble top. It sure would be fun to own it if one had a room large enough in which to place it and show it off. It wouldn’t be complete without those brass fixings on the floor.

[Dqban22]

THIS IS THE REAL CUBA

ON SANCTIONS AND SUNBATHING IN CUBA


By © Ileana Fuentes
Miami
USA
Contributor:
Paul Echániz
USA
La Nueva Cuba
September 6, 2003

---

On August 21st, the state of Alabama signed trade agreements with Cuba worth 10 million dollars in poultry, dairy products and other undisclosed items. Are these items to be sold in pesos by the ration card, or freely at the chopins where the government can hoard the coveted dollar? As Alabamans celebrated their chicken deal, Cuba's daily Granma announced a national inventory of all
computers to identify and seize those of "dubious provenance."

In July, Pinar del Río police confiscated sewing machines and sewing supplies from local women engaged in dressmaking, an anti-social form of self-employment by Cuban standards. Others engaged in selling ice cream, ham snacks and fruit drinks for a living also had their supplies seized.

Last January, the Cuban government started to random search people's homes to weed out drug dealers and black-market operators, or so it said. In February, the Holguín police confiscated legally purchased wares and cooking supplies from countless licensed female cuentapropistas in the food-to-go business. Neither pots, nor pans, nor sewing machines have yet been returned.

It should surprise no one that the Cuban regime should show such blatant disregard for privacy, private property, contracts, entrepreneurship, and the sanctity of sales transactions. After all, the revolution started out in 1959 confiscating all privately owned land larger than 990 acres; then all national firms and urban property in 1960; and between 1960 and 1961 the property of foreigners, Americans first and foremost. Soon even the smallest mom-and-pop stores were nationalized. In 1963, the government confiscated further all farms larger than 165 acres, causing agricultural production -traditionally the
bountiful accomplishment of small farmers- to go down the drain.

Most confiscations went un-compensated, an early sign that the regime disregarded fair business practices, ownership rights, contract compliance, and honesty. Cuba is a rogue state, run by military thugs who have excelled at thievery. This is the trade partner the foes of the U.S. embargo are peddling to American business.

A few months ago, the International Labor Organization denounced the exploitation of Cuban workers at the hands of the sole employer -the Cuban State- and its foreign corporate accomplices. These companies pay workers salaries directly to the Cuban State in hard currency. They look the other way when the government turns around and pays a minimal fraction to the Cuban worker, in
worthless Cuban pesos. As reported recently by Dr. Jorge Salazar-Carrillo, a Brookings Institute senior researcher and chair of the Economics Department at Florida International University, foreign hotel concerns, like the Spanish Sol Meliá, in partnership with Cuba, pay US$400 per worker "hired." The government then pays the worker 400 worthless Cuban pesos. Net gain per worker is $384. Is
this a government with whom decent Americans want to trade?

The 20-year policy of engagement with Cuba -trading and people-to-people contact-practiced by dozens of countries in Europe and Latin America has failed to transform repression into tolerant diversity, exploitation into fair labor practice, or tyranny into democracy. So, it begs the question: why will U.S. engagement and "gringo-to-asere" contact bring about any kind of improvement?

Not that commerce and trade -much less tourism- exists to reform dictatorial regimes, or bring civil and human rights to the natives. The business of business is business. Trade has to do with profit, making money, multiplying assets and developing markets, not with justice or human rights, even if the prospective trade partner is a dismal autocracy like Kuwait, or a genocidal power like China (the female infanticide that results from China's reproductive policies is genocide), or a military bully the likes of pre-perestroika Russia.

Thirty years ago, that kind of "ugly American" was despised, for he cared little about rights, whether human, women's, workers', or blacks'. That is, until the question of apartheid in South Africa shook international conscience. In December of 1985, the World Council on Churches gathered in Harare, Zimbabwe, to discuss the South African drama. In the end, the Harare Declaration stated clearly:

"We call on the international community to apply immediate and comprehensive sanctions in South Africa…the minimum requirement of which must be to promote divestment and end all investments in South Africa."

Divestment and sanctions did influence greatly the repeal of apartheid and the advent of a free and democratic South Africa. Now, if sanctions were moral and good for South Africa, why are they immoral and evil for Cuba? Is Castro's 44-year tyranny any less offensive to human dignity than apartheid? American business trading with a quasi-capitalist ruling class that allows only the spoils to its people, will only make the oppressor wealthier, the dictatorship stronger, and 11 million disenfranchised and rights-less Cubans a lot poorer and miserable.

The stampede of farm, cattle and grain interests storming the halls of Congress to influence legislation that will allow them to trade with the Cuban dictatorship is a despicable performance by opportunist capitalists. Whatever happened to the passion with which liberals hated money-grubbing capitalist pigs?

Last week, Florida's cattle industry scored a deal to sell 450 heads of Holstein and Jersey cattle to ALIMPORT, the Cuban government's all-powerful imports monopoly. Let's talk cattle for a moment. In 1958, the year before the
revolution, there were 1.2 heads of cattle -Holstein and Jersey among them- per person: 7 million heads of cattle amidst 6 million Cubans. Today, there are 0.4 mooing quadrupeds per Cuban citizen, some 4 million heads of cattle in a population of 11 million people. Every cattle expert will assure you that the U.S. embargo did not cause the demise of the cattle industry in Cuba. So, what will
the 450 heads these Dixie ranchers will sell to ALIMPORT do for 11 million hungry people, when INTUR -the State tourism agency- has to feed like royalty an estimated 1 million tourists -not counting Americans- expected to vacation in the island in 2004?

This takes us to the subject of travel restrictions. I empathize with American citizens who want to vacation at Varadero Beach, or have medical treatment in Cuba's SERVIMED health facilities. But, just like I am against American business helping Cuba's white oppressive military elite become any richer or powerful, I am against my next door neighbor going to Cuba to consume the medical and food supplies that my people -who are almost 70% "of-color" -are entitled to, and ain't getting.

If moral or ethical considerations don't matter, let the business community take into consideration, at the very least, Cuba's appalling business record and credit history. Cuba has debt payment and accounts payables in long-term arrears with France, Italy, Venezuela, Mexico, Spain, and even Russia -a country whose multi-billion claims Fidel Castro cynically dismisses saying it was owed
to the now defunct Soviet Union. Most of these countries have suspended credits to Cuba, and their attempts to negotiate payment schedules on the arrears have failed. Who, but a greedy and/or misguided lot, could recommend that American business trade with that Cuba?

The cash-only option is not the answer. First, the cash that goes into American coffers will not translate into economic or political benefits for Cubans. The argument that lifting U.S. sanctions will benefit the Cuban people is sheer demagoguery. It would have been racist demagoguery in the case of South Africa. Secondly, if anyone has priority in receiving cash payments from Cuba's
government, it is:

Foremost, the dozens of foreign trade partners and creditors, as well as those countries whose Cuban receivables are in arrears; and secondly· The hundreds of corporate and individual American claimants registered
with the Joint Corporate Committee on Cuban Claims to which Castro's regime owes an estimated $6 billion dollars in compensation for the expropriations of the early sixties.

Is Cuba a nice place to visit? Of course! Cubans are a hospitable and warm people. But, why should freedom-loving Americans spend their hard-earned vacation dollars boosting a ruthless regime?

Is Cuba a desirable trade partner at present? An old Cuban proverb says it best: "He who trips twice over the same stone is a damn fool."

Nobel Peace laureate, South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke relevantly about South Africa back in 1988, with words that fit Cuba today:

"The only peaceful way of forcing [the South African government] to sit at the negotiations table is through properly-enforced and comprehensive diplomatic and economic sanctions. I reiterate my call for such sanctions."

The South African government freed its violent opposition, Mandela and Sisulu among others. Let's hold out touring and trading with Castro until his regime is compelled to free its internal peaceful opposition and negotiate a full
transition to democracy.

[Rome2000]

Basically, they were just a bunch of morons

Without morons, there would be no Democratic party.

[Dqban22]

WHAT WOULD REAGAN DO?

Miriam J. Masullo, Ph.D.
October 24, 2003


Defying a veto threat, the U.S. Senate approved a measure that eliminates funding to enforce a travel ban to communist Cuba. The White House argues, correctly, that travelers are allowed minimal contact with the people of Cuba, who are denied access to the same beaches and shops in their own country that tourists enjoy. There is no empirical evidence or studies to prove that tourism might improve democracy in Cuba. In fact, experiences in Eastern Europe before and after the demise of communism hint at a very different reality. Nevertheless, policy decisions will be made that could affect many lives, not in Cuba but here in the US. At this time some have asked, what would Reagan have done?

President Reagan's legacy is, among other things, a symbol of American ideals. Very few politicians have conducted their careers primarily as a struggle between right and wrong, good and evil. But, it is those few Americans who have left the greatest mark in our history by virtue of their profoundly inspirational vision of government. America was to President Reagan "the last best hope of man on earth."

During the Cold War, President Reagan's vision for a ballistic missile shield combined his belief in an unlimited American technological ability and a sincere desire to eliminate nuclear weapons because they were fundamentally evil. While there's a political inclination to give Mr. Gorbachev more credit than President Reagan for the end of the cold war, we know for a fact that the former Soviet Union could not afford to spend enough to match the development of the American shield, but they were going to do it anyway, something the President knew in his heart and mind.

President Reagan thus devised a brilliant defense strategy leading to the moral and economic demise of the Former Soviet Union, which resulted in the US emerging victorious without loss of human life or expenditures of defense moneys in active field engagement. Many Americans feel that it was good for us to emerge victorious, that it was good that we did no disintegrate politically and economically during the cold war. All Americans have enjoyed the victory. In addition, the investments in the "Star Wars" Program, indirectly aimed at US technological supremacy (of some sort) had the added benefit of increasing our national technology portfolio.

Scientists know that the fundamental principle of a "Star Wars" defense mechanism was flowed, but strategically it was a brilliant move, motivated by patriotism based on a simple principle: the President wanted America to be strong, stronger than its enemies. President Reagan's decision-making was as simple and elegant as it was advanced. It would work well even today, decades later and in the presence of a different situation, the new war on fear.

Today, as we battle the threat of terrorism, a Reaganesque approach to National Defense would serve us well. We need to be strategic, not tactical, and, we need to use intelligence, not like in G2, but like in using our heads to make decisions. That is where simplicity provides the technical advantage. Rather than intelligence we are using the bottom line and assumptions to decide how to treat our enemies. Cuba is our enemy. Instead of valuing the human aspect of the struggle in front of us, we are assessing the political trade-offs.

Seven nations are on the "state sponsored terrorism" list. We have reason to believe that these nations are working against us in ways that make us hostages of fear. Unfortunately, what we have to fear in the war against terrorism is in fact fear itself. That's what terrorism is all about. Fortunately, what we have to fight with to overcome fear is not politics, but intelligence and our technological superiority which has been long in the making.

Let's consider Cuba. Experts have documented four areas in which Cuba presents a terrorist threat to the US. The areas are:

1. Cuba's military elite force.
2.
An island country, with no border disputes should have no reason to maintain such an expensive resource, unless of course, it is intended to participate in foreign subversion.

3. Cuba's telecommunications resources, capable of interfering with our command, control and communications infrastructures.
Such capacity was assessed by the US government and documented on American TV. This is a force capable of compromising our own security, civil defense capabilities, and even cause irreparable damage to our commercial technological resources.

4. Cuba's capacity to support bacteriological and chemical warfare.
Experts known that the island has in operation several very advanced centers of research, where pharmaceutical, biotechnology and biomedicine sciences are progressing at a very fast rate, with no known commercial applicability and no visible products.

5. Nuclear radiation.
Cuba is known to be building a nuclear plant. The risks involved by such an initiative, under the current economic climate on the island, far outweigh the wisdom of this activity for the small nation in our close vicinity.

In conclusion, these activities are a) exceedingly expensive, b) not sensible national priorities, and c) of questionable cause. We are justified in suspecting that these activities may pose a threat to our national security, a threat that can and has been classified of a terrorist nature. There's ample evidence that the Cuban government, under Castro, views the US as its main enemy.


We know this from decades of well documented speeches and explicit statements that require no semantic interpretations. The debate about the so called embargo only intensifies the discord. While Cuba spends money it doesn't have in order to support activities suspected of being aimed at our destruction, the debate about the embargo is shifting the focus from the real issue which is and has always been our national security.

So what would President Reagan do? The first order of business in a Reaganesque strategy to combat the possible threat of terrorism in this case, would be not to fuel the threat with American dollars. That is why the so called embargo makes such good sense. We should start by eliminating the ambiguous language. Instead of embargo, our current policy should be simply called what it is: "cash only sales," something most Americans have to live with when they have little money and no credit. Something any merchant in American has the right to impose on its customers. Cuba can buy from the US by paying with cash. Cuba trades with all other countries however it wants and can trade.

Secondly, we should not help to supply the island with American dollars. Tourists from all over the world visit the island and stay in wonderful hotels, and bathe in beautiful beaches that the average Cuban is not allowed to enjoy. This is not the kind of society we should patronize with dollars. Without a doubt, tourism has neither enhanced democracy nor the quality of life for the people of Cuba. Much the opposite, the tourism industry in Cuba has created an institution of servitude for the Cuban people.

Nevertheless, some freedom loving members of our own Congress can find it in their hearts to justify unrestricted travel to the island. Some of these men have been in Cuba, stayed in the best hotels and seen for themselves that the average Cuban lives in dilapidated dwellings. Why would they want to participate and encourage this injustice? More tourism flowing freely to the island from the US will bring in more dollars that would in turn fuel the state's agenda. That would be a stupid thing for the US to do because it would fuel those potentially dangerous terrorist threats.
A cash only sales and justified lack of participation in what is at best an unjust tourism industry is not only the moral thing to do, it is the American way, and should force Cuba to prioritize its expenditures in food and medicine rather than in advanced and obscure technologies. It is conceivable that such priorities have not be put into effect in Cuba because of the debate in our Congress and the expectation of more dollars. If the debate had ended sooner things would have been much different in Cuba by now. This is the kind of thinking that President Reagan would consider common sense. The President would have asked Castro to feed the people and let them go.

We should be able to understand, by means of collecting intelligence, analyzing and correlating information, and extrapolating possibilities, where the strengths of potential terrorism activities are in each case, nation by nation, in that list of seven, where Cuba is now number three. We should then put in place plans to undermine those activities that threaten us, not fuel them. We should demand change before we bend to the wishes of a dictator and the speculations of special business interests. That's what President Reagan would do.

The question we should really ask, however, is not what President Reagan would do about Cuba, we know the answer to that. We should not even wonder what will happen in Cuba after millions of Americans start to spend money for travel to the island. What we should be asking, something that nobody stops to think about, is: what will happen to us? Interestingly enough, this issue comes to surface exactly forty years to the day of the October crisis. Remember the Maine!

Miriam J. Masullo, Ph.D.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Thank you for the post. It is so true.

[Marcus Antony]

I do not understand this obsession with Cuba. Cubans are thinking that if they get rid of Castro they will be as rich as their nephews in the US. They should better compare themselves to Santa Domingo, but they seem to blind or to hysterical to understand their own attitude is not fit for capitalism either. Everything is to blame for Castro, they themselves never do anything wrong and everybody has to help them. Please, please, go bother someone else please, thank you! And they wonder why nobody cares about Cuba?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Welcome to Free Republic!

Fidel Castro - Cuba