Editor Leaves “Granma” for Miami
HAVANA TIMES – Mairelys Gomez Cuevas, an editor who put the print edition of Granma newspaper to bed on many nights, took advantage of a trip abroad to leave Cuba and take refuge in Miami, reports the Café Fuerte website on Friday.
Cuevas, 27, arrived last Sunday in Miami after crossing the Mexican border and seeking asylum from US authorities. She had arrived to Mexico on September 12th invited to an event, with the permission of the managers of Granma, noted Café Fuerte.
In another loss of a journalist, Luis Lopez Viera, sports editor of the newspaper Juventud Rebelde, sought political asylum in London in August after covering the Cuban delegation at the Olympic Games.
You blame the shrinking and aging ” “Cuban lobby” on the “absolutely unfair” privilege that illegal Cuban émigrés receive. And their motivation is? Presumably not to increase the size of Little Cuba with fresh blood that turns its nose up at their out of date, corrupted cuisine and customs.
There are other equally powerful lobbies in swing states, including Florida, who desire to see the blockade dropped, to no avail.
The American government typically hides behind groups that work to accomplish what it wants, both internally and overseas. It allows it to issue pious declarations decrying “absolutely unfair” privileges, while being the driving force behind the scenes.
Whether or not the US is the active player, you cannot legitimately claim Cubans are “GOING to the US as much as they are LEAVING Cuba.” The pie has been sweetened. The waters have been thoroughly muddied.
I don’t want to shake your confidence in your marriage, thinking your wife would only go with another man because of something lacking in your relationship, but many a spouse’s head has been turned, not by lacks, but by “promises of a better life with another man.” Literature abounds with the story. Ever read “Anna Karina”? Or seen any of the movies?
‘Moses’ may choose to “believe these Cubans … are leaving Cuba because life today in Cuba, however comfortable in comparison to other Cubans is still lacking in an essential human need…freedom,” but that of course doesn’t make it so. Factors less lofty, like consumerism and free entry into the US with a right to work there seem more logically to be the reasons.
Cubans, in order to find “freedom”, of course could emigrate to a number of Spanish-speaking Latin American countries. The total Cuban Diaspora population in Mexico numbers around 12,000. In the six years between 1994-2000, more than 174,000 emigrated to the US.
Seems there’s something more than “freedom” they are leaving Cuba for.
As a “strident apologist”, I seem to have logic on my side, something uncommon to strident apologists for outrageous US policies. Definitely a good idea for ‘Moses’ to regularly check on his wife though. She might be off seeing the newest version of Anna Karenina starring Keira Knightley. Her cuckolded husband, played by Jude Law, is getting sterling reviews. It might pay to see how he handles the situation.
Like with Cubans, you never can tell when heads get turned by false promises.
Not rats, ‘Griffin’, gusanos. Did you flunk biology?
And the Cuban ship of state sails right on whilst capitalist tubs are floundering before our very eyes under the on-going five-year economic debacle. And the capitalist rats have no where to go.
It is absolutely unfair that illegal Cuban emigres enjoy the priviledge (yes priviledge) to remain in the US through the Cuban Adjustment Act that other illegal emigrants do not enjoy. This is, of course, owed to the powerful Cuban lobby that has protected their special interests since even before the revolution in 1959. However, that fact is not the point being discussed here. What is at issue here is that despite the incentives to migrate to the US, Cuban nationals who currently enjoy the most comfortable of lives to be had in Cuba still choose to LEAVE Cuba. They are not really GOING to the US as much as they are LEAVING Cuba. I would like to think that no matter how attractive an offer another man may make to my wife, if she should leave and divorce me it is only because of something lacking in our relationship and not just because of promises of a better life with another man. I believe these Cubans, like the daughter of the Cuban Vice President Marino Murillo who also recently defected, are leaving Cuba because life today in Cuba, however comfortable in comparison to other Cubans is still lacking in an essential human need…freedom. Something even the most strident apologists for the regime like Lawrence W appear to take for granted. I think I hear my wife calling me, better go….
‘Moses’ writes that “Despite all the economic, racial and judicial problems that continue to face the US, these Cubans saw a better future for themselves in the US” counting on folks not knowing how Americans have ‘sweetened the pie’, exempting Cubans from having to deal with the “racial and judicial problems” others emigrating to the US have to face.
Al Jazeera is currently running a documentary about these people. There are 11 million undocumented people in the US, many of whom will be deported with criminal records by the Obama administration at record numbers. Eleven million – mostly from Latin America – the population of Cuba!
If the US was ever to succeed in bringing down the Cuban government, it’s obvious it wouldn’t be long before Cubans’ special status came to an end, leaving them to contend with the “racial and judicial problems” that others have to endure.
Writing that the two people are among Cuba’s privileged, ‘Moses’ seems to have forgotten or chooses to ignore that it has always been the privileged who mostly emigrated to the US, right from the beginning.
Being a capitalist country with a class system based on money – the 1% – 99 % divide – Americans like it that way. The ‘wet foot, dry foot’ policy the US initiated when too many ‘unprivileged’ Cubans were getting into the US, insures that unprivileged Cubans who attempt to leave Cuba on rafts will not have to be dealt with, either picked up and returned by the US Navy, or drowned. The few who make it are statistically insignificant for the Americans to worry about.
Repelling the unprivileged has reached very ugly proportions at times, with the U.S. Coast Guard using pepper spray and water cannons to prevent unprivileged Cubans from reaching Florida.
Keep this in mind when ‘Moses’ seems to care for ” Cubans who live day’-to-day without perks and privileges”. The hypocrisy is legion so it should come as no surprise when he writes he is ‘amazed’ at what “the greatest defenders of the Cuban regime, some of whom often comment here with HavanaTimes”, are writing.
I, for one, am proud of being able to amaze ‘Moses’. I would worry if I wasn’t.
Not even the propagandists believe the propaganda.
Rats, ship.
Or perhaps they are just taking advantage of the Cuban Adjustment Act and the fact that Cuba is unfairly recognized as being in the ‘axis of evil’ to ride on the wave of immigration that occurs from poorer to richer countries.
Many Mexicans who risk their lives crossing the desert don’t have that luxury.
The dead leaves are falling from the tree.
Yet, If the tree were not thoroughly diseased by Marxian state monopoly ownership, the leaves would not be dying.
What eventually happens in Cuba may resemble what happened in China after the death of Mao. The people in the party who see clearly that Cuba needs an economic principle other than state monopoly may someday come to power, and then give their country workable, cooperative, state co-ownership socialism.
Please keep in mind that these two people are among those Cubans who, through their jobs, enjoyed the priviledge of travel abroad and I am sure many other perks. Yet, despite these advantages, sought refuge in a country they no doubt have called ¨the enemy¨. Despite all the economic, racial and judicial problems that continue to face the US, these Cubans saw a better future for themselves in the US. How much more so for those Cubans who live day’-to-day without perks and priviledges? It continues to amaze me how the greatest defenders of the Cuban regime, some of whom often comment here with HavanaTimes are those foreigners who do not have to live in Cuba and suffer as the Cubans suffer.