Bitter Disappointment for Progressive Cuba Policy

[Judi Lynn]

Bitter Disappointment for Progressive Cuba Policy
Monday, 22 November 2010, 9:29 am
Press Release: Council On Hemispheric Affairs
The Mid-Term Elections: An Easy Prediction for the Future of U.S.-Cuba Relations
by COHA Director Larry Birns and Research Associate Kelsey Strain

As the April 2009 Summit of the Americas drew to a close in Trinidad and Tobago, President Obama’s statement that the U.S. was prepared to seek new relations with Cuba favorably resonated with the assembled Latin American leaders. But up to now, only minimal progress has been made in implementing a new policy, with the exception of relaxed restrictions on travel and remittances for Cubans living in the United States. Echoing the same formulaic slogans uttered by former U.S. presidents for half a century, Obama, on the relatively rare occasion that he has anything to say about Latin American issues, continues stress a “wait and see” approach, in which Havana will have to earn the right to be a negotiating partner.

Undeniably, in the year and a half following the 2009 summit, Cuba repeatedly has demonstrated its willingness to begin thawing its frozen ties with Washington, giving Obama a timely opportunity to make substantial changes in U.S. policy towards the island. However, since then, the administration has appeared to be increasingly uninterested in moving matters forward. Placing the Cuba issue within the broader context of U.S.-Latin American relations, the hope for a bold revision of hemispheric policy under Obama’s administration has been diminished. Simply put, U.S.-Latin American diplomacy hovers alarmingly close to nonexistence, and is almost indistinguishable from what it was during the Bush presidency. What is more, it is unlikely that much will change with a right wing majority-Republican House taking over in January.

The Implications of the Mid-Term Election Results

Although a handful of surviving House liberals and centrists will continue to maintain a strong opposition to travel restrictions and the trade embargo, Cuban policy is likely to remain on the backburner for the time being in Washington, if not completely at a standstill. Veteran Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, herself a Cuban-American, is expected to block any remaining efforts to change the U.S.’s modest policies. Taking over as chairwoman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) will replace Democratic Representative Howard L Berman, who collaborated with Republican Senator Richard Lugar in April 2009 to formulate a convincing argument in favor of terminating the embargo.

Ros-Lehtinen’s track record and her sustained, aggressive stance on Latin American issues demonstrate that she has little tolerance for regional dissidents who oppose the United States’ hemispheric policies. Her extremist line of moderation when it comes to the U.S.-hemispheric issues is shockingly uncompromising. For example, in 2006 she candidly stated, “I welcome the opportunity of having anyone assassinate Fidel Castro and any leader who is oppressing the people.” Additionally, she has supported every coup that has attempted to overthrow left-leaning governments in Latin America. In 2002, shortly after the coup in Venezuela, she declared that Venezuelan Pedro Soto, who called for Hugo Chávez’s overthrow, was a “great patriot,” despite the fact that Chávez had been elected through a fair and democratic process. In a similar situation, she strongly supported last year’s coup in Honduras, and she continues to help block any movement by U.S. diplomats favoring dialogue with Venezuela and its fellow ALBA nations.

More:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1011/S00414/bitter-disappointment-for-progressive-cuba-policy.htm

http://narcosphere.narconews.com.nyud.net:8090/userfiles/70/RosLehtinenBush.JPG.jpeg http://www.cubademocraciayvida.org.nyud.net:8090/media/0%200%200%20a/1-1-A-A-1.jpg

"La Loba" ("The She-Wolf" as she's called in Cuba) beat tracks to Honduras to huddle immediately with the coup-leader, Roberto Micheletti, and lend her "moral" support, conducting her own foreign affairs, even after U.S. President Obama requested Congresspeople to leave the foreign relations to the White House at that sensitive time.

Editorials:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x571547

[DCKit]

1. "La Loba": insulting to wolves and all other canines.

The Republics sure have some characters.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Yes, it IS an insult, isn't it? There isn't anything low enough in the natural world,

unless it would be something like the bottom of the ocean!

Wolves are wonderful creatures. Not an attribute you could ever attach to a Republican as we know them!

[Peace Patriot]

2. "the hope for a bold revision of hemispheric policy under Obama... has been diminished."

To put it mildly.

Obama is supporting the rightwing junta in Honduras, where rightwing death squads are murdering teachers, trade unionists, human rights workers, political leftists and others, just like in that other U.S. client state, Colombia.

They have also shredded Colombia's legal system to extend their immunity for Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld to one of the Bush Cartel's "made men," Alvaro Uribe. See my post here
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4625399

They demonize the democrats and fawn over the fascists. They gave Uribe, who presided over the one of the bloodiest governments in the history of U.S.-supported bad actors in Latin America, a prestigious appointment to an international legal commission and academic sinecures at Harvard and Georgetown. (What can he be teaching our young, one wonders?) Meanwhile, they can't get enough of dissing the good guys--the leaders of governments that run honest, transparent elections, leaders who are greatly reducing poverty and increasing educational opportunities, leaders who greatly encourage public participation, leaders who are using the country's resources to benefit their people. These leaders--Chavez in Venezuela, Morales in Bolivia, Correa in Ecuador and others--can't do anything right, but Uribe, with close ties to rightwing death squads and drug trafficking, who ran a domestic spying program--spying on judges, prosecutors, trade unionists and others--can't do anything wrong!

Hope in Obama's Latin American policy "diminished"? Yeah, there was hope. Even those of us who paid close attention to his speech to the Miama mafia during the campaign, held our breaths, hoping. Dangerous venue, that. Speech full of cant and Miama fascist "talking points" but he mentioned an opening to Cuba. Now that's gone and all hope. There is absolutely nothing positive to say about Obama and Latin America two years on. He supports the murderous fascists--the ones killing trade unionists and other community activists and dissenters. The ones impoverishing and grievously oppressing their people. The ones who serve Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Monsanto, Chiquita, Dyncorp, Blackwater. The unmitigated bad guys. Pouring USAID funds (our tax dollars) into rightwing groups all over the region. Pouring $7 BILLION in military aid (our tax dollars) into a country--Colombia--with one of the worst human rights records on earth and THE most serious human displacement crisis--5 MILLION peasant farmers driven from their land by state terror.

It is disgusting.

[Judi Lynn]

3. A large fish in the Miami "exile" community, besides Ileana is Lincoln Diaz-Balart,

also a Congressman, one of the sons of Rafael Diaz-Balart, who was a company attorney for United Fruit, which became Chiquita. He became the Speaker of the House in Cuba's Congress, then he became a cabinet member of the bloody dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Small world, isn't it? Look how far they went, after the Cuban people threw them all out of office. They moved from Cuba to Florida! Hell, that's 90 miles!

We also remember Eisenhower's Secretary of State and his head of the CIA, John Foster Dulles and Allen W. Dulles were both deeply connected to the United Fruit when it was THE company in Guatemala, before Eisenhower overthrew the populist leftist president, Jacob Arbenz. What umbearable devastation of the human race United Fruit, (Chiquita) has wrought.



Lincoln Diaz-Balart with the _Bushes, his brother, Mario behind them,
and Lincoln standing with Ileana Ros-Lehtinen holding Elian Gonzales during the
time the child was been held hostage in Miami while the Cuban "exile" community
formed a crowd 24/7 to support the great-grandfather in his stand against the
government's legal order to return the child so that he could be reunited with
his father, brother, step-mother, 4 grandparents, many cousins, school mates,
neighbors, and teachers.His whole world, minus his drowned mother,in other words.

You may never have known, but there were TWO OTHER survivors of that boat sinking
who were NEVER glorified or discussed in the national corporate media: 33 yr. old
Nivaldo Fernández, and 22 years old Arianne Horta.

Here's a passage in a book about the disaster
by Ann Louise Bardach, who made multiple trips to Cuba to research this book:

Chapter 1

THE SHIPWRECK

Dos patrias tengo yo-Cuba y la noche.
I have two countries-Cuba and the night.
-JOSÉ MARTÍ

~snip~
Around 6:00 a.m. on Thanksgiving day, Juan Ruiz and his friend Reniel Carmenate were coming ashore after an evening of fishing off Miami's Key Biscayne. Ruiz said that as they docked they could make out the forms of two people huddling and shivering on the shore by the water's edge. Nearby was an oversized Russian-made black truck tire. "They were in really bad, bad condition," said Ruiz. "Their skin was a sickly purple color, all ripply with wrinkles and covered in blisters. I wanted to help them take their clothes off because the material was welded into their skin but I was afraid that their skin would tear. The man was in the worse shape, almost going in and out of consciousness. They kept asking for water but I knew from experience that water could really hurt them unless it was given to them through an IV drip. We called the police and I ran to my truck and got some dry clothes."

The man was almost delirious; the woman's bones had decalcified from days of ocean immersion. Their bodies were latticed with the bite marks of fish. "The lady was the one who spoke and told us what had happened," said Ruiz. "She said they left Cuba with twelve others but that everyone had drowned-including a little boy." The young couple were the fleeing lovers-thirty-three-year-old Nivaldo Fernández and his twenty-two-year-old girlfriend, Arianne Horta.

~snip~
After surviving a perilous shipwreck and excruciating ordeal in the raging Atlantic, Nivaldo found himself in a home feeling unwelcome. Indeed, when I spoke with her weeks later, Arianne's aunt couldn't have been more candid about her feelings. Repeatedly tapping her forearm with two fingers-Cuban for signifying that someone is black-she found my eyes and sighed. Racial prejudice is not uncommon in Miami's exile community, which is roughly 95 percent white. Local talk radio speculated that had Elián González been black-as are 65 to 70 percent of Cubans on the island-"he would have been tossed back into the sea."

More:
http://www.mostlyfiction.com/excerpts/cubaconfidential.htm

[kenfrequed]

6. Agreed + (a lot)

I can't believe that we keep ending up with presidents that support the right wing lunatics and fascists of latin America. When are we going to just let them vote and let it stand?

[WhiteTara]

5. and people just think these elections are about local

problems. People around the world can not tolerate any more of the (I have no more words for who they are).

edited to add: Here is another petty little tyrant we must keep our eyes on!