Aid for dissident causes delayed (Cuban exiles mewling for US gov money)

[Mika]

Aid for dissident causes delayed
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/special_packages/interactive/14273891.htm

Administrative snags are delaying government aid to U.S.-based groups that support pro-democracy organizations and dissidents in Cuba, several U.S. officials and recipients said Wednesday.

The delays, though said to be a routine result of U.S. government operations, come at a time that the Bush administration is under pressure to cut spending, fueling nervousness among grant recipients.

The University of Miami's Cuba Transition Report, for example, is awaiting a payment of $400,000 from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) that was due Jan. 1. ''I presume that it's going to come in,'' said Jaime Suchlicki, who heads the project.
Since the university advances the money for the two-year program, which began last year, financing for the program is guaranteed, Suchliki added, but smaller operations will feel the pinch.

Javier de Céspedes, who heads the Cuban Democratic Directorate, a group that seeks to provide support for pro-democracy organizations in Cuba, said he is temporarily using other funding sources to cover what USAID is late in delivering. ''We just shift funds from other areas,'' he said.

Condi says that the money is on the way.

No money for ed or health care or day care or school breakfast/lunch programs, but there will be money for this.

The University of Miami's Cuba Transition Report is co-sponsored and housed in the U of M's Casa Bacardi.





••• Please Boycott Bacardi Products & the University of Miami •••--> http://www.miami.edu/iccas/casabacardi.htm
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43b/116.html
http://www.rcgfrfi.easynet.co.uk/ratb/boycott/wysk.htm
http://perso.club-internet.fr/vdedaj/cuba/lazy_cuba_bacardi_hb.html
http://www.cpa.org.au/garchve1/982bac.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cuba/story/0,11983,774849,00.html

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click the pic to find out why


Can't spell scum without UM.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Good grief. How much HAS been slashed away from services for

actual American poor while these absurd dissident-funding projects remain intact? It would make a maggot gag.

From the article:

In the 2004 fiscal year, USAID disbursed $21.3 million for Cuba programs, thanks to a big one-time allotment called for by President Bush's Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba.

The amount decreased to $9 million in fiscal 2006, although the State Department says it is adding $2 million to be allotted through its Development Assistance program.

On March 16, Miami Republican Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen and seven other lawmakers wrote to Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), chairman of the subcommittee on foreign operations of the House Appropriations Committee, asking that funding for Cuba democracy programs be increased to $23 million for the 2007 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. No action has been taken to date.
(snip/)

[Mika]

2. Castro/Cuba hating is a booming S Florida industry.

Of course, without Castro what platform would they seek such funding and political office?

Oh well.. most Americans seem to not care that this is how their tax money (debt) is being spent.

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Castro is the reason for the season. :rofl:

[LynnTheDem]

3. No money for the VA, so our damaged troops suffer without treatment

& meds.

But there's ALWAYS money to pay for propaganda. Funny.

[rodeodance]

4. oh, he will find the money someplace. This is his legacy.

[Judi Lynn]

5. There's a film which played on PBS in 2000, seen by a lot of people

who used to post on the old, now closed, CNN US-Cuba Relations message board. That's where I heard about it, and when I kept watching my local PBS schedule, I eventually saw it, myself.

The documentary concerns a wealthy Cuban "exile" who came here as a young woman with her family, lived here decades, and returned to Cuba, with her son, for a visit to see her childhood home. Here's a photo of that wee bungalow:



Here's the PBS site:

Our House In Havana



By Stephen Olsson
Premiered: July 25, 2000

After 40 years, Silvia Morini returns to the palatial house of her youth in Cuba, where her nostalgia for a pre-Castro world confronts modern Cuban reality. Filmmaker Stephen Olsson presents Silvia's tapestry of rose-colored memories, history, culture, and tragi-comic encounters, contrasting sharply with recollections from working-class Cubans. Yet as Silvia discovers an evolving Cuba, she herself undergoes a surprising change-not entirely altering her political outlook but becoming, as she puts it, "more human."

There are a few comments on the film posted on the site:
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2000/ourhouseinhavana/#pressreaction

More reviews:
http://www.linktv.org/programming/programDescription.php4?code=havana

Comments by the filmmaker:
http://www.hrw.org/iff-00/ourhouseinterview.html

Miami New Times review:
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/2000-07-13/nightday2.html



Available on DVD and casette!

OUR HOUSE IN HAVANA follows the emotionally charged return trip of Silvia Morini, a vivacious 68 year old Cuban, who after 38 years living in the U.S.A., decides to return to Cuba to search for the house, the neighborhood and the faded remains of her once-opulent, privileged life. Silvia's pilgrimage is full of discoveries engaging interactions, and personal confrontations, which carry her from exhilaration to depression, and, ultimately, in a surprising twist, to an astounding personal transformation.

OUR HOUSE IN HAVANA is an intimate, thought-provoking cinematic journey, seasoned with Cuban history, culture, music and passion.

http://www.cemproductions.org/havana1.shtml

[Judi Lynn]

6. Thanks for the links, especially the Guardian + the Helms-Burton ones.n/t