Cuba Prevents Entry to OAS Head Luis Almagro
To collect a prize from an opposition youth group
HAVANA TIMES – The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, denounced today that the Cuban authorities denied him a visa to attend the event on the island where he was to receive a prize from the hands of opposition activist Rosa Maria Paya, reported dpa news.
On Tuesday former Mexican President Felipe Calderon was denied entry. Likewise, unable to attend was, Mariana Aylwin, daughter of former Chilean President Patricio Aylwin, who was to receive a posthumous mention of honor for her father.
In a letter to Rosa Maria Paya published today, Almagro explained that the Cuban consulate in Washington denied the visa for his diplomatic passport of the Organization of American States (OAS) and also the possibility of entering with his Uruguayan passport, for which in theory he would not require a visa.
According to Almagro, an OAS official was summoned last Thursday by the Cuban consul in Washington. The official was told that the Castro government was not going to allow the Secretary General to enter, accusing him of being involved in “anti-Cuban activities” and considered the visa application “an unacceptable provocation.”
“My visit to Cuba was no different from other events in Latin America organized by civil society,” Almagro said on Twitter.
Almagro said he had asked Cuban authorities to review their decision, denying that his activities were anti-Cuban, but they refused to change their position.
The Latin American Youth Network for Democracy, chaired by Rosa Maria Paya, planned to award him today the Oswaldo Paya award for “Freedom and Democracy.”
In October, Almagro and Paya’s daughter met in Washington and signed an agreement whereby the OAS would support connecting young leaders of Latin America and the Caribbean in the defense of democracy and human rights.
Oswaldo Paya, who died in 2012, was the promoter of the “Varela Project”, with which he collected signatures in 1998 for a constitutional referendum calling for political changes in Cuba.
Since 1962, Cuba is not a member of the OAS. In that year it was separated from the regional body over the confrontation with Washington. Havana criticizes the OAS as an instrument that defends the regional interests of the United States.
Forensic evidence? Lol, Cuba don’t share its forensic evidence with third parties, even less its enemies, fool.
What I know is that your comments always seem oddly fixated on the Batista dictatorship and a handful of Cuban women. I also know of NO ONE wants to “recapture” Cuba. I do agree, however, that you should “revisit and reevaluate the situation”. Your first impressions are very wrong.
Batista and his right-wing thuggish supporters in Washington UNDERESTIMATED Celia Sanchez, Haydee Santamaria, Vilma Espin, etc., and that’s why the Batistianos were booted off the island all the way to Miami in 1959, and remain there {or in the U. S. Congress) till this day. Moses, if y’all UNDERESTIMATE Josefina Vidal, Cristina Escobar, Jennifer Belle Martinez, etc., you guys MIGHT NOT RECAPTURE Cuba for ANOTHER SIX DECADES. I say that because Vidal and the wave of young women behind her seem to have the same type of support that Sanchez, Santamaria, and Espin had in 1953. If you know differently, let us know and I may revisit and reevaluate the situation.
Everything you mentioned about the road on which Paya was murdered is true. If there had not been forensic evidence that contradicts the government version claiming an accident due to driver error, as well as an EYEWITNESS, the government version would have to be accepted. However, there is an eyewitness so calling Paya’s murder an “accident” is ignorant and cruel.
You overestimate these twenty-somethings. They are simply an iPhone 7 or a Michael Kors handbag away from capitalism. Born into comfortable circumstances, the specific Cuban youth you seem to believe will choose to remain socialist and poor are sure to disappoint.
Wonderful answer, Moses. AT LEAST, you didn’t dismiss Cuba’s important wave of twentysomethings such as Jennifer Belle Martinez and Cristina Escobar for being “Commies” because they have resisted Miami and Washington while fervently championing Cuban independence. Cuba will likely, 20 years from now, be what Cubans like Cristina and Jennifer make it, which is what it should be as opposed to what foreign elements like the Batistianos, the Mafiosi and revengeful or rich Cuban exiles desire it to be, which is a imperialist colony.
For the same reason that African-Americans survived slavery, European Jews survived the Holocaust and likewise, Cubans have survived the Castro dictatorship. The indomitable human spirit.
Playing defense? That’s like calling a pack of wolves a few puppies.
Your one-sided “BS” regarding Cuba is endless, Moses. Revolutionary Cuba supposedly has been in its “LAST DAYS” since January of 1959. It has bucked those odds by playing some defense, such as at least trying to protect itself against counter-revolutionaries.
The “other side of the story” includes this comment by Josefina Vidal, Cuba’s Minister of North American Affairs: “I don’t want anyone to shoot Cuba in the foot and I don’t want Cuba to shoot itself in the foot.”
It’s about time someone told the other side of the story. Everyone is so quick to demonize Cuba without loooking at both sides of the issue.
Whatever side of the Cuban political environs anyone may be, this crude, tasteless and self-aggrandizing, poorly thought out event, was bound to crash as stridently as it did.
Anyone who has visited Cuba and travelled to the Eastern province of Granma or Santiago de Cuba knows, that an unpaved stretch of a number of kilometers between Bayamo and Las Tunas, has numerous warning signs about the dangers of speeding on this dirt/gravel compacted road.
Like Paya, many vehicular accidents, some fatal have taken place on this road, including vehicles like public buses, trucks and jeeps that traverse this terrain on a daily bases, without any sinister reasons except, for not heeding the warnings and Cuba’s horrible construction and maintenance record.
Furthermore, if Rosa Maria Paya and her mother who are living in Miami for years, created this baseless homage for her father, why not hold this event in Miami, which Luis Almagro, Mariana Aylwin and Felipe Calderon could attend without all of this drama, intrigue, inconveniences and unnecessary Radio and TV thriller, wondering if they would be allowed into the country or not.
The hypocrisy is clear because the same day that the government of Mexico was holding tense conversation with members of the Trump administration, who are threatening to deport 11 million Mexicans, rip thousands of families apart, rather than helping to organize millions of these defenseless people without any sense of direction to fight back, Felipe Calderon chose to invest his precious time and reputation as a former president to tweet, that he is unwelcome in Cuba.
No one can condone breaking the law or illegal entry into any country, but everyone knows that many huge corporations in the US, have encouraged, hired, exploited and depend on their unskilled labor. Leaderless Mexican and Central American migrants have a powerful weapon in their hands that need to be mustered and used in their defense, by stop wasting their time marching and yelling, but responding with a united, coordinated work stoppage to see, who will collect our vegetables, fix our roofs, clean offices, take care of the sick, cut our lawns and make millions of dollars for the IRS, Western Union and others, for sending remittances back home.
All that “peace and brotherly love” BS that the dictatorship puts out as propaganda disintegrates when it is forced to show those “true colors”. Behind a very thin veil is a cruel and vindictive regime fully aware that they are in their last days.
The Cuban dictadura showings the true colors. I can wait for those haggard Canadians leftist excuses for the Castro king to denies the entry.