Cuba TV Analyst Taladrid in Miami
HAVANA TIMES — TV analyst Reinaldo Taladrid, one of Cuba’s fiercest critics and voices against exiles in Miami and Cuban American politicians, is currently in… Miami.
Taladrid’s visit to a house in Coral Gables was reported on Tuesday on social media, accompanied by a photo of him.
“With my great friend Taladrid, who is making his own judgements about my work here in Miami of all places… Who would’ve thought?,” wrote artist Michel Mirabal, who resides in Cuba and is a frequent visitor to the south of Florida.
Mirabal didn’t specify whether the reporter was on holiday or why exactly he was visiting the United States. Since late-May, a landslide number of Cuban academics, researchers, writers, journalists and intellectual personalities have gone to the US in order to take part in the 34th International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), which ended last Monday in New York.
Cristina Escobar, one of Cuba TV’s youngest faces in official journalism, was amongst the reporters present at LASA.
Journey into the Unknown
Graduating in Law from the University of Havana where he wrote his thesis on US power groups, Taladrid never worked as a lawyer and instead focused on journalism. His family owned Havana’s famous Tropicana Cabaret, which was opened to the public in 1939.
His ties to Cuba’s DGI intelligence service, which belongs to the Ministry of the Interior, go back to his university days. He was the director of Cubavision Internacional and since 1997, has served as the head of the program “Journey into the Unknown”, where he presents reports from international TV channels.
In December 1999, Cuba TV created “The Roundtable” on Fidel Castro’s orders and Taladrid became one of its founding panelists.
Since then, he has regularly criticized Cuban exiles as being “the mafia of Miami” and of Hispanic media platforms in the south of Florida.
Today, he still frequents the Roundtable to share his comments on international events and what’s going on in US politics. Over the last few months, he’s been giving us his predictions about the battle between Republican and Democrat candidates for the White House.
IN CUBA, there is ONE slate of candidates. That’s to say that at the “grassroots”, Cubans are given a choice of say 8 candidates for 8 positions. There are no candidate debates and no campaigning, only a one page resume which includes a b/w photo and boilerplate election information. You seem to make comments that sound a lot like the Castro propaganda BS published to fool idiots into believing that Cuba is a democracy. You have obviously never seen Cuban “democracy” in action, let alone participated in an election. Cubans choose only at the municipal level. In more than 57 the Cuban people have never chosen their elected officials above the local level “directly”.
You don’t seem to understand grass roots democracy. The people are far more involved in the decision than many countries. Choosing between tweedledee and twidlediddle with no real grass roots choice in choosing the candidates is harldy democracy. The CANDIDATES in that type of an election are chosen by a tiny minority of the people, and rest of the people have to chose between the two,but it remains they are the candidates of a tiny minority (who chose them as candidates). In grass roots democracy the whole nation participates in the choosing directly.
I have watched CiberCuba and it’s well put together. Just this evening they have Ms. Gloria Estefan on the front and center and she is quoted as saying; “Cuba needs freedom and food!” I’m a fan of you Carlyle but this isn’t what I would call censored propaganda. CiberCuba is a decent site. I prefer Fox news but that will take time!
Democracy is not a function of elections regardless of the number or level. Democracy is better defined by the choices within the election. Cuban elections are strongly influenced be the PCC, the only political party allowed in Cuba. What takes place in Cuba is far from democratic.
…but the same is so for Americans…So what? We are talking about Cuba.
You just don’t read what others write. Now, you tell us which countries Cubans can visit without a visa?
My advantage is that I am not a Cuban citizen. But obviously from your repeated views, you consider that it would be proper for me to not be allowed to visit Cuba. you can sit in comfort in the free capitalist world where you are allowed freedom of speech and propose that I should not! Typical of supporters of dictatorship.
Which Cuban sports have not had anyone defect?
Answer the question, don’t prevaricate!
Are you joking. MOST Cubans return back to Cuba after their visits elsewhere, just like every other country. They come and go all the time. Comprende? Most do not travel out of their country, it’s true, but the same can be said for Americans, the huge majority of which don’t even have passports. The vast majority of Cuban sports teams DO NOT defect. They are loyal Cubans, loyal to their nation and their revolution. Amazing that they even left you live there, if you really do. It must be an exceptionally free country to allow somebody with your views to even be there, albeit temporarily.
They’re all over the place. You are grossly uninformed.
That is true…not many are traveling, but the same is so for Americans, the huge majority of whom don’t even have passports.
They have a grass roots democracy and there are elections all the time on many levels, indeed, probably too many.
What makes you think that the Cuban people support the Castro revolution “overwhelmingly”? Was there an open and independent election that I didn’t hear about confirming your suggestion? Says who?
The TRUTH is a relatively small percentage of Cubans are traveling back and forth between the US and Cuba. The price of the plane ticket among other reasons limits Cuban travel. Please be careful to distinguish between anecdotal information and empirical data.
I understand that the site named CiberCuba is a regime program and note that Talidrid appears there.
The difficulty for Cubans wishing to travel is not obtaining a passport, that is comparatively easy. The difficulty is in obtaining a visa to visit another country. Other countries being fully aware that Cubans entering their country are unlikely to leave and the experience of so many members of visiting Cuban sports teams defecting and claiming political asylum.
Understand now? Comprende?
The article mentioned one. How many do you know of?
I couldn’t find anything in Google about “His family owned Havana’s famous Tropicana Cabaret”.
Put your whitewash brush back in the bucket. You have such an obvious lack of knowledge about the reality of life in Cuba for the average Cuban that your remarks are irrelevant. But, note that I don’t deny your right to express them – in Cuba no such right exists.
Let as many Americans as possible travel to Cuba. Let as many Cubans as possible travel to America. Nothing but good can come of this.
I believe Cuban print and broadcast media should include a wide range of opinions. But I would like to point one thing out: these media do not pretend to be ‘neutral’. No one who reads or listens to them thinks they are getting objective news.
Now consider Twitter. Supposedly a neutral platform, it was recently revealed that it is in fact edited, to, among other things, ‘trend’ hashtags that the editors like, and to downplay the ones they don’t like, thus subtly influencing opinion. (Needless to say, it was conservative views, and news favorable to conservatives, that was discriminated against. I won’t go into the liberal bias of the more traditional mass media, as that’s a more complex issue. The Twitter Big Brother manipulation is more blatant.)
Now, I’d rather be in the US fighting to make Twitter more objective than to be a Cuban fighting to make Granma more objective, but … at least Cubans know they’re getting propaganda, not news. Twitter users didn’t.
With all due respect, you really seem to be determined to paint the Cuban revolution with a black brush. Why are you so against the revolution the Cuban people have created, and support overwhelmingly? Is there something you are not telling us? It’s great to see how many Cubans are going back and forth between Cuba and the United States, and BACK AGAIN. I thought Cubans can’t travel? Maybe that is just propaganda. The truth is coming out isn’t it, and some people don’t like it.
But I thought “you people” said Cubans can’t travel? Hmmmm????
It’s so interesting how sooo many Cubans visit the United States, and go back and forth freely. Tells you something about just how free the Cuban people are. So much for all the anti-Cuba propaganda.
This is revolting! Another achievement of the policy of the Obama’s administration towards the oldest dictatorship in this hemisphere.
Mesa Redondo has to be the most boring discussion program in the world. With contributors all of similar political viewpoint controlled by the smarmy host Randy Alonso Falcon and broadcast every evening at the prime viewing time of 7.00 p.m., it frequently includes Alonso Falcon having ‘discussion’ about significant matters with Taladrid posing as the expert.
Both are periodistas employed by the state and driven by the Propaganda Department of the PCC.
The most skilled of the interviewers is Arlene Rodriguez and she was selected to interview Nikolai S. Leonov in April this year. Her skill level is such that in an hour long interview she managed to avoid mention of Leonov’s occupation as a KGB officer, of his involvement with Raul Castro in the USSR in April, 1953, of his appearance in Mexico in 1956 to advise and guide the Castro brothers and Che Guevara, and of his becoming the KGB’s ‘man in Havana’ following the revolution. Rodriguez described Leonov as a “writer”, this because of his biography of Raul Castro and his earlier one of Fidel Castro. Her skill level can only be admired.
My wife is a former colleague of Taladrid. With her permission, I can write that he is among those few fortunate Cubans who never wanted for the finer things in life, even during the Special Period. Satellite TVs, beef steaks, french champagne, etc. Somehow neither the embargo nor Castros socialism managed to effect his life.