Spring in Miami and a Conference on Cuba
Yasmin S. Portales Machado
HAVANA TIMES – I left Miami airport, starving of hunger as usual, not because of the 45 minutes flight, but because of the three hours I spent at the airport in Havana, plus another hour standing in line at the US customs control. All in all, four hours on top of the actual travelling time. International flying times may be short but it just goes to show how much time is spent on security in the post-September 11 world.
Now I have nothing against aviation security, but I do object to prices in the cafeterias at the José Martí airport and I would also appreciate a hot dogs at the little stalls – with their soft drinks and vegetarian options – at the US border control. Maybe Washington could make use of the money for its war on terrorism.
The difference was that this Friday, March 14th I got to stay in the city and was nervous about the engagement I was sharing with my fellow passengers: the publishers of Espacio Laical: a conference in Miami against the Blockade organized by the groups CAFE, FORNORM, Generacion Cambio Cubano, Cuba Educational Travel with the support of the Latin American Working Group.
Miami, as we all know, is the operating base of the wealthiest, most conservative sector of the Cuban community in the United States. The fact that the CIA cooked up many of its covert operations against Cuba here goes without saying. The Cuban Adjustment Act has also benefitted locals trafficking in contraband goods and people when not milking the funds provided by the Federal government to “promote democracy” in Cuba.
But Miami above all is a place where political intolerance is on a par with political intolerance in Havana, where the Miami Herald babbles incoherently like Granma, where Ileana Ros tries to upstage Fidel and Vigilia Martiana tries to outdo the CDR in controlling the population.
Once settled into the Sofitel hotel, we had time to catch up on the last-minute changes imposed on the program. On Thursday afternoon, the State Department denied a visa to Arboleya Jesus, invited as a specialist on bilateral relations; at the last minute permission was also refused to the Cuban Head of Mission in Washington to travel to Miami. I do not think the latter would have contributed much to the debate, but I condemn the authorities for the waste of time and money just to remind you that the will of the people is secondary to the power of government.
We spent the night cutting out cards with the names of those registered and stuffing them into envelopes. We also reviewed the menu, my paper, apparel and comments on the conference on the internet.
I must confess I did not expect so many people to turn up with a positive attitude: over a hundred! One man dropped off some flyers denouncing us for supporting the “Castro dictatorship” and left. The organizers respectfully left the flyers for anyone wishing to read them, a practice I have noted for future use.
The presentations covered a wide variety of themes: from the history of the Doña Eutimia restaurant – recommended by Newsweek as one of the 101 best places to eat in the world for its takeaway food – to how the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) made a deal with Ronald Reagan to finance its terrorist activities in exchange for supporting him in his covert operations in Nicaragua.
We also discussed academic exchange, Cuban artists, the importance of registering voters and raising funds so politicians can see for themselves the benefits of improving relations with Cuba and even reconciliation following on the such traumatic events as Operation Peter Pan.
Comments on the people-to-people exchanges and the role of the Cuban-American community were highly illustrative. Collin Laverty, Hugo Cancio, Silvia Wilhelm and Geoff Thale took stock of their values, the legal limits of these initiatives and possible resources required to expand their application frameworks. There was consensus on the fact that the goal ultimately is to ensure the restrictions disappear entirely and that the policy of blockade be broken through the proliferation of travel. The more people travel between Cuba and the US, the more absurd the blockade becomes.
Most instructive for me was what Guillermo Grenier had to say on the results of the survey of Cuba – US relations conducted for the Atlantic Council in January 2014 by the bipartisan team of FM3 (Democratic polling research agency) and Public Opinion Strategies (biggest Republican pollster in the country).
I was given a new angle on things; nothing to do with sentiments, desires, experiences or tales of the intrigues and machinations of the powerful. Here we had numbers, facts, research carried out methodologically with calculable margins of error. Something concrete and up to date. Professor Grenier also accompanied his exposition with tables accompanied by simple explanations of the processes involved and based on his personal experience as a researcher of Cuban-American political attitudes since 1991.
Personally, what touched me most was the participation of Antonio Zamora. I am the daughter of a former member of the Marina de Guerra Revolucionaria, pupil of Eduardo Heras León and Fernando Martínez Heredia whose lives were changed by the Bay of Pigs. I was thunderstuck to realize I shared the platform together with certain objectives with a member of the 2506 Brigade [who attacked at the Bay of Pigs] and founder of the CANF.
Zamora explained that he left the CANF after the Cuban regime survived the collapse of the USSR and its satellites. The survival of the regime threw the basis of his analysis and its assumptions overboard so much so he was obliged to totally revise his thinking about Cuba. After visiting the island in 1994, he concluded that he knew nothing about the real Cuba.
There was plenety of debate both inside the hall at the various panel discussions and outside among the groups interested in specific topics and issues. Most of the questions I heard were very thoughtful and respectful. As usual in meetings of a general nature, most of the discussion was about geopolitics and less about the problems of minorities – religious, racial or sexual. There was also a constant line of concern on how to articulate human rights for everyone in the light of the economic changes that are coming.
We ate at the world’s most famous Cuban restaurant, the Versailles in Miami, which says much about about the Cuban situation.
On Sunday, under the weather with a cold, and inspired by the excellent imperial rice of the Versailles, I published the paper on my blog and answered a questionnaire on my experiences for Sandra Alvarez for On Cuba magazine.
I returned home to Havana on Monday, amazed at the service at Fort Lauderdale airport and Xael Charter Co.
So far so good. What marred the idyll was the media silence. Voice of Russia, Reuters and other international news agencies were there but for reporting the news to Miami we only had Progreso Semanal and Marti Noticias whom I am grateful for the seriousness of their report. Later the Miami Herald published a totally distorted account.
Where were Univision and CNN in Spanish? Why ignore a conference on Cuba if Cuba is the burning topic of the day in South Florida?
Meanwhile, CubaDebate and Juventud Rebelde published a 318 words news report of Prensa Latina without mentioning the fact that three of the people referred to live in Cuba or taking exception to the fact that a visa was denied to Arboleya!
CubaDebate shamed itself by inserting a photo of an act of solidarity with Cuba in Madrid – the incongruity was denounced by one commentor under the name of “Gilberto” and the photo was deleted. They have now included a video, for reasons that are beyond me, starring Daniel Keohane of FRIDE, the European think tank.
I spent the weekend in Miami and we talked about Cuba, about the evils and the futility of the blockade and not a sign of Vigilia Mambisa. And there I was, an ex-militant of the UJC (Communist Youth), shaking hands with a man from the 2506 Brigade and agreeing that Cuba has no need of US permission to exist.
I was up in the clouds. The silence and the half-truths in the media supposedly most interested in Cuba brought me back to earth. This is a partial Spring, no doubt. But then again, when has such stopped anything from happening in Cuba?
Moses get just to it , Roberto is nothing more than the usual “agent” trained for propaganda purposes and endorse by Castro’s Stalinist and totalitarian regime .. Remember their rhetoric language is always the same, that’s everything you need to know to be aware of and identify them, they are not genuine people, their identity is just a facade
Yasmin wrote, “And there I was, an ex-militant of the UJC (Communist Youth), shaking hands with a man from the 2506 Brigade and agreeing that Cuba has no need of US permission to exist.”
Again you deliberately misrepresent the US policy toward Cuba. The US does not withhold their permission to Cuba to exist. The US is only restricting trade with Cuba until Cuba agrees to negotiate certain bilateral issues to the satisfaction of specific US conditions. The Cuban government may chose to do so, or they may chose not to. Cuba has continued to exist for decades, and will do so, in one form or another in the future.
Also, shaking the hand of somebody who was once an enemy of the revolution but is now a supporter is not a sign of your broad minded ness, if that’s what you were implying. Go and shake the hand of a former rebel ally of Castro who was forced into exile when the Communist nature of the Revolution revealed itself. Then you can smile and consider yourself broad minded.
No links to support your libelous comments makes you
the liar. Then, to change your ridiculous attack to from “said that you are Cuban-American” in your first comment to “talked there as a Cuban-American” in your second comment makes you a coward as well. I don’t aim to be “creative”. I strive to be truthful. I have NEVER criticized Obama in this blog or any other. I support his People-to-People travel program as presently regulated. Lifting
the embargo will support the Castro regime, hence the appellation “Castro-sympathizer”. The stupidest policy America has is letting numbskulls like you into the country.
First, you didn’t answer my question: Can you be more creative? Go and check your own opinions in The Havana Note and here, Moses, you are a liar. You talked there as a Cuban American. You criticized Obama for opening people-to-people travel to Cuba saying he was naive. You called names such as Castro simpathizers to everybody who is anti-embargo , the stupidest policy America ever has.
Never said I was Cuban-American. My children are. Prove otherwise with a link. I gladly voted for Obama…twice. I never said he was naïve about Cuba. Again…prove otherwise with a link. I am staunchly anti-Castro, not anti-Cuban. Learn the difference. If you fail to prove your comment with links, then you, Sir, are the liar.
Moses Patterson: You are so predictable. Let me guess everything in favor of the embargo is fabulous, everything against it, it is not important. Everything in favor of the embargo is done by angels, everything against the embargo is done by Satan. Can you be a little more creative? Then you are creative in your lies. In the Havana Note you have already said that you are Cuban American before you said that Cuba is not important for non Cuban Americans like you. In one post you said you voted for Obama before you said that the president was naive about Cuba. You are representative of the anti-Cuban right. Zero ethics and all lies. At least you should lie consistently.
It’s unfortunate that Univision and CNN in Spanish chose not to report on the conference. In the short term it is our loss. But in the long term it is their loss. As word gets out, people will realize that they cannot rely exclusively on such news outlets.
Clearly you are unaware of the cartoon by Pat Oliphant which ran in the Washington Post a few years ago:
http://blogforcuba.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/08/25/elcolmocuba.gif
Many Cuban-Americans found it extraordinarily offensive and yet the Washington Post is still in business and Pat Oliphant is still working as a cartoonist.
Don’t forget that push-poll from last month which purported to show that there was a growing support in the US for lifting the embargo on Cuba.
And there there’s that pair of adoring biopics about Che which Hollywood released recently, Che (parts one and two) & the Motorcycle Diaries.
If you care to pull your head out of that dark, warm & cozy place you keep it you could read a hundred similarly pro-Cuban articles.
…and of course you avoided my question. The author attempted to draw a parallel between political intolerance in Havana and Miami. There is of course no comparison. The US government does not bus mobs to someones house to beat them up, or arrest and incarcerate them for unpopular views. The US certainly does not have a “dangerousness” law that allows for Carte blanche detention of anyone Havana considers a political threat.
The excuses you make for the Cuban totalitarian communist system is the same one that Tyrants have made throughout history! And your analogy with Nazi sympathizers does not hold water. Just look at Paya, who following the Cuban constitution, attempted to enact change via the Varela project. …well, we all know what happened!
Yasmin overvalues the importance of this “conference” to US/Cuban relations. Most of the speakers were shills for the Castro regime and are not to be taken seriously. It is worth reemphasizing the when an equivalent attempt to debate US/Cuban relations is planned to take place in Havana, as was the case with the Estado de STATS event held in February, invited conferees were arrested, detained or, in the case of two Argentinians, deported.
You mean someone like Henry Ford? Nothing did happen. This is America.
You obviously have no idea of how the corporate U.S. media operates and MUST operate.
Printing anything that is pro-Cuban in the U.S. and especially in south Florida would be economically suicidal for any media outlet doing so .
The corporate media knows this.
You CHOOSE to not know this because it is extremely inconvenient for you to do so given your ignorance-based thinking on the U.S. media .
Also- did you forget that the U.S. is openly trying to destroy the Cuban economy and revolution and that ANY country under such an existential attack from a foe as dangerous as the U.S. would certainly impose censorship on pro-U.S. writings and public proclamations ?
What would have happened to a Nazi sympathizer in 1943 America ?
The essay includes an outrageous attempt at moral equivalence:
“But Miami above all is a place where political intolerance is on a par with political intolerance in Havana, where the Miami Herald babbles incoherently like Granma, where Ileana Ros tries to upstage Fidel and Vigilia Martiana tries to outdo the CDR in controlling the population.”
Miami has it’s fanatics, but there is no comparison with Havana where the forces of intolerance command the tools of a police state to repress all dissenting political opinion, including the CDR’s which exist in every neighbourhood and monitor the behaviour of all residents. One cannot equate the heckling of a few anti-Castro protestors (or the lone man who quietly handed out brochures and then left peacefully) to the violent repudiation rallies in Havana.
If you want to make a comparison, consider how the Cuban authorities would react to a similar conference on the other side of the debate, if it attempted to convene in Havana? Would the Cuban authorities allow such a thing, with veterans of the Bay of Pigs calling for strengthening the embargo? How about defectors from the Cuba who fled to Miami in disgust at the excesses of the the Revolution, would they be welcome to attend such a conference in Havana?
No such conference will ever be permitted, so let’s drop the facile attempt at moral equivalence. The political climates in Miami & Havana are not at all the same.
It’s informative to see in a photograph of attendees, one Arturo Lopez-Levy of the organization, CAFE. Levy is a cousin of the son-inlaw of Raul Castro, Col. Luis Alberto Rodriguez Lopez-Callejas. Arturo-Levy was himself at one time an officer of the MININT, before taking up his new post as an “academic” and “Cuba Expert” at the University of Denver. No doubt his family and profession connections with the Castro regime proved useful for guiding the direction of this conference.
The author lamented the lack of interest from the media. The lack of interest may be due in large part to the serious questions of a lack of political independence by the conference organizers. The positions of the Cuban government are well known already and repackaging them as “conference”, does not make them newsworthy, even if the pseudo-conference was held, ironically enough, in Miami.
“But Miami above all is a place where political intolerance is on a par with political intolerance in Havana “…How absurd! Can you name ONE person who has been thrown in jail for their political views…Just ONE will do! To trey an create an equivalency where none exists is ridiculous