Prize-winning film's Cuban actors to seek asylum in Miami

Let's not pretend that they are seeking asylum so they can enjoy our " freedoms." No one is that naive anymore....if they ever were. It is seldom the proletariat who seeks asylum but rather those who have a skill or profession which will make them rich in the USA. But we will hear the spin from the right wing and those who still believe the propaganda.

how come the US proletariat doesn't defect to Cuba?

but folks are moving to Canada. Those who have skills/money anyway, others are trapped here.

just to be clear, your basic belief is that if not for the propaganda american workers would be flooding there, passing on the way all the Cubans rafting to florida?

propaganda rather than discussing the issues honestly.

Is there something progressive about banning people from leaving your country? If it's such a good place, why do they ban people from leaving?

why can we not travel to Cuba?

The us has a stupid law about Cuba, but we can go anywhere else. Cuba doesn't let it's citizens go anywhere. There is nothing progressive about that. It is totalitarian.

I am not saying that is the ideal form of government, but at least I can tell the difference between political and economic systems. Cuba hasn't done bad for an island nation that was under embargo (and often under attack from Imperialists - even from democrats such as the Bay of Pig incident).

I don't think Cuba is perfect nor was the USSR. But there are definitely things they accomplished - such as full employment and amazing health care. We can learn from that as we transition to Socialism - which we'll have to do sooner rather than later if we want to save this planet.

In the Latin America forum there are a whole group of people who claim it is not a dictatorship, and that there are free elections.

Pointing this out is not "red baiting" but you do get called a "right wingnut" in the Latin American forum for doing such.

Cuba is undergoing its own little perestroika from an economic standpoint, what's unfortunate is that if they do not enact political changes, as well, Cuba will wind up like China. I do think the Cuban people are coming to that realization now though and it's only a matter of time. Cuba will be a social democracy soon enough. The state communist experiment will have been shown to have failed.

but are friends won't admit it has failed, they will use that Castro quote that the revolution is always changing (i forget the exact quote) to claim that this represents the success, not the failure of Castro's policies.

Every socialist state has been an utter failure, and only those ignorant of reality would cite "full employment and amazing health care" as justification for the horrors inflicted on the population by the USSR, especially when said "full employment and amazing health care" were mirages.

And just who is transitioning to socialism? Since every socialist state has been such a disaster it seems that what one sees is country after country transitioning away from socialism, not to it.

Some people never learn. But what do you expect from adherents of a thoroughly debunked religion?

your own government has inflicted on citizens world-wide before casting stones.

...idiots, which is the only proper description for those who still believe the Marxian religion despite the overwhelming evidence piled up since 1917 showing that every socialist state turns out an utter failure, and that the people living in such failures uniformly dump socialism at the first opportunity (which is why every socialist state must be a tyranny - otherwise it collapses due to popular rejection).

Meanwhile, capitalism has been responsible for every significant advance in the human condition since the start of the industrial age. Life expectancy - 40 to 72 because of the medicine developed by capitalism. Food - so much abundance that obesity, not famine, is a problem. Information dissemination - the DU is an example and knowledge is power. Even violence has been reduced by a huge amount (google Steve Pinker on this topic). The list goes on and on. But ask the question "What great innovation that has benefited humanity broadly was invented by a socialist country?" and all you will hear is crickets.

It must really suck to have your religion so discredited.

or less of a personal attack. Capitalism is great for the top 1% - others not so much.

Enjoy your stay.

Before capitalism life expectancy was 40 - now it is 72 (roughly, in advanced countries). That is not for the 1%.

The rich used to be several cm taller than everybody else - because of high quality food. Now there is no correlation between height and income (NBA excepted). That is not for the 1%.

Leisure time - it didn't exist, now it does. That is not for the 1%.

The list goes on. Grinding poverty has always been the condition of the vast bulk of humanity everywhere - until the rise of capitalism. Try taking a look at this book, which amasses an overwhelming amount of evidence illustrating the changes in the past 300 years.

The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100 (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time)
http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Hunger-Premature-Death-1700-2100/dp/0521808782

Only those who are truly ignorant of how short and difficult life was (and is) for the vast bulk of people in preindustrial (that is to say, precapitalist) societies can write "Capitalism is great for the top 1% - others not so much." And ignorance is fixable. After all, everyone is ignorant until educated.

Regarding personal attacks, I have little patience with adherents of a religion that has only produced economic catastrophe (DPRK), environmental disaster (Magnitogorsk), misery (Cuban defectors), oppression (Stasi), tyranny (Stalin), and mass murder (Democratic Kampuchea), and which still wants another go at it because "We'll get it right next time!" Nothing personal, it is just that your religion sucks - just google the examples in parentheses - and educated people should know better.

400 families - 400 - can control the wealth of 40% of the country. Imperialists rape and pillage wherever they find natural resources they want, and if you want to talk about deaths why not look at Hiroshima/Nagasaki. And think about which folks dropped the bombs. As I said, look around your glass house before you throw stones.

I have nothing more to say to you - you're just an apologist for the wealthy. That must feel great - I hope they are paying you well for your service.

Rafters often are Cuban ex-felons who have been turned down for visas by the U.S. head of the U.S. Interests Section, renting office space in Havana at the Swedish Embassy, where they must apply to come in legally.

Most D.U.'ers who were here several years ago will recall the story of a Cuban woman and her husband who got a visa from the 20,000 available visas allowed to Cubans annually offered by the U.S., and arrived in Miami, only to be told by her husband that he was going to go live with his relatives in Miami, and she and her two children were free to go pound sand.

At some point she got a job in Miami, told people she was homesick for Cuba, and started losing her food stamps, her Section 8 government housing allottment, free medical care for her and her son and daughter, etc., etc., etc. All these things are available to Cubans through the Cuban Adjustment Act by the United States, taken from U.S. taxpayers, her benefits started being withdrawn. She became distraught, desperate, moved to Texas, trying to find work, and ended up calling the police to tell them she intended to kill herself, to come get her kids, then attempted it. Her children were taken from her, taken to Miami where a Cuban "exile" ex-baseball player agent (thrown out of baseball for stealing money from Cuban baseball players he tricked into coming here then ripped them off), Joe Cubas and his wife sued to get permanent control of the kids.

Big lawsuit, the girl's biological father in Cuba came to Miami for the trial, and FINALLY got his guardianship established, with the girl's mother testifying in court she had wanted her children to be able to return to Cuba ever since they were abandoned by her husband in Miami.

Big story. One of MANY incidences of Cubans taking THE PLANE away from Cuba, as we all know.

Regarding the Elian Gonzalez story, who doesn't know the man who owned the boat they all came in was himself, Lazaro Munero, an ex-con from Cuba who had been back and forth between Miami and Cuba before? He couldn't get a visa, clearly. Nor could the men who "drove" that old truck to Miami.
They also had been declined by the U.S. Interests Section.



Not the only way to travel from Cuba.

s

they take the plane to get here, and they don't do it because of how great cuba is.

how many americans flee the US every year for cuba?

And please, I hate US foreign policy, and our politics by and for the "too big to fail" banks, but at least we can leave.

There have been a few American defections to Cuba, as well as to North Korea, for that matter. There were a bunch of Black Panther Party members who defected to Cuba.

What a load of bullshit.

The initial wave of refugees was the upper and middle class. But the more recent ones are often wind up working as waiters, janitors, and other low-paying jobs. The actor, ballerina, or baseball pitcher is the exception, not the rule.

... a couple of "defectors" show up, who will doubtless regale us with tales about how it "really is" down there. How so very... convenient.

-- Mal

...in Cuba.

... conveniently overlooked by Cuba/Castro supporters. Any country that will not allow its citizens to freely leave is highly suspect IMO.

Time to learn a little about the subject. There are enough examples of U.S. harrassment of U.S. citizens to keep anyone busy researching.

For example:

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
February 8, 2005
Cuban exile risks U.S. prosecution

His return to island likely violates embargo

By Madeline Baró Diaz
Miami Bureau

Eloy Gutiérrez-Menoyo, a controversial Cuban exile who returned to the island two years ago to join the dissident movement, said Monday that the U.S. Treasury Department warned he could be prosecuted or fined for living in Cuba.

Gutiérrez-Menoyo, a permanent resident of the United States, fought alongside Fidel Castro to overthrow Fulgencio Batista's government. He later broke with Castro and spent 22 years in a Cuban prison after an ill-fated attempt to start an insurrection on the island.

After 17 years in Miami, he announced during a trip to Cuba in August 2003 that he would remain there as a dissident. Now U.S. government officials say he could be violating the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

In November, the Treasury Department sent Gutiérrez-Menoyo a letter that said the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control "has reason to believe" that he is subject to U.S. jurisdiction because he is a permanent resident.

More:
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/dialogue/risks.htm

Edit:
I have to add these airports where Bush posted U.S. agents, including FBI agents, to scour passenger lists of arriving flights from Cuba were in OTHER COUNTRIES like Canada, Mexico, etc. They skulked around the airports and collared U.S. travellers when the arrived from that island.

People have also been notified by mail returning to their homes of enormous fines.

~~~~~
Couple Will Appeal Fine For Trip To Cuba
February 15, 2005

DETROIT -- A couple will appeal a judge's fine of $5,250 for a trip to Cuba that they say had a humanitarian purpose, their attorney said Monday. Attorney Kurt Berggren said the fine was excessive and that he will file the appeal for Michael and Andrea McCarthy by the Thursday deadline. The McCarthys, of Port Huron, are Roman Catholics who traveled to Cuba in 2001 for a vacation but also took medicines with them and participated in religious services.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2005-02-15/news/0502150215_1_trip-to-cuba-file-the-appeal-detroit

~~~~~
Violator of Cuba travel ban seeks to force court action

A Southland woman is among 270 citizens who openly made the illegal journey in the last two weeks. 'My experience of traveling to Cuba has been life-changing,' she says.

August 06, 2009|Carol J. Williams

Erika Crenshaw returned to Los Angeles this week from a 10-day trip to Cuba with a message for authorities charged with enforcing a ban on travel to the communist-ruled island: Come and get me.

One of 270 U.S. citizens who openly made the illegal journey over the last two weeks, the 30-year-old financial advisor would like the government to fine or charge her, forcing a courtroom showdown on whether the ban is constitutional.

~snip~
During the Bush administration, the Treasury Department deployed dozens of agents to stake out airports frequented by illegal travelers and fined them or confiscated goods purchased in Cuba. The Obama administration has focused its attention on more important security issues, said Tony West, assistant attorney general for civil affairs.

More:
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/06/local/me-cuba-travel6

~~~~~
02/12/2002 - Updated 02:08 AM ET
U.S. tourists still drawn to Cuba
By Laura Parker, USA TODAY

Two years ago, Lila Irvine and Mary Rilei, both grandmothers who live in Des Moines, took a trip to Cuba set up by a local dive shop. A few months after they returned home, they received letters from the U.S. Treasury Department accusing them of violating the Trading with the Enemy Act.

~snip~

But the letters were from the Office of Foreign Assets Control, a division of the Treasury that tracks terrorists' money around the globe. The office also is responsible for tracking down, and fining, American tourists who violate the U.S. ban on travel to Cuba.

~snip~
Since the Bush administration took over, hundreds of tourists, teachers, artists, urban planners, public health workers and entrepreneurs who have traveled to Cuba are being contacted by the Treasury Department in an effort to staunch the flow of Americans visiting the communist island.

~snip~
Monday, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., took testimony at a hearing in Washington from a retired teacher, fined for taking a bicycling trip in Cuba, and the son of a missionary, fined after a one-day trip to the island to scatter his parents' ashes next to a church they had built. Dorgan calls the travel ban "absurd" and suggests taxpayers' money could be better spent.

More:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/02/12/usat-cuba.htm

~~~~~
Time for the Cuban travel ban to go
Stephen Wilkinson
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 October 2010 13.00 EDT

Of all the misguided policies that the US has towards Cuba, perhaps the most nonsensical, counterproductive and downright hypocritical is the travel ban. Cuba is the only country in the world that Americans cannot visit.

Under the current restrictions, brought in by George W Bush, only Cuban-Americans and, through a complex licensing regime, a few businessmen, journalists, students and academics can travel to Cuba. Because tourism is not allowed, 99% of their compatriots just can't go.

Quite why the citizens of what is supposed to be the bastion of freedom should be not be free to travel wherever they choose is a question that not even the supreme court has adequately addressed. It's a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and makes the US call for human rights in Cuba ring very hollow.

The US is the only nation in the world with a Cuba travel ban. If it believes it appropriate to ban Americans from visiting nations that have a deplorable human rights record then why doesn't the US declare dozens of other countries off limits? Americans are free to visit China and Saudi Arabia, as well as Iran, Syria and North Korea – so why not Cuba?

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/19/cuba-usa

ETC.

On edit:

Here's a website created by U.S. citizen, Dan Snow. He was fined, and spent time in jail for daring to travel to Cuba:

http://www.cubatravelusa.com/

Article Last Updated: Thursday, December 18, 2003 - 5:31:23 AM PST
Feds go after Berkeley man for Cuba visit
By Laura Counts, STAFF WRITER

BERKELEY -- Fred Burks was hardly the first American tourist to visit Cuba when he spent 10 days there four years ago. The documentary "Buena Vista Social Club," which reignited the faded popularity of Cuban music, had helped make the island a trendy vacation spot.

But Burks may have the distinction of being the first U.S. tourist prosecuted for violating Cuba travel restrictions.

It has been 11 years since Congress established the right to civil hearings for those accused of violating U.S. regulations. Although thousands of people have been threatened with prosecution and many have paid fines in the $3,000-$7,500 range to settle, no judges were ever assigned and no cases pursued against those who refused to pay up. Until now.

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, acting on President George W. Bush's orders that Cuba travel restrictions be more vigorously enforced, recently hired three administrative law judges to hear cases.

http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82~1865~1838547,00.html

~~~~~
The Dallas Morning News
U.S. ban hasn't slowed Americans' trips to Cuba Recent crackdown on illegal visits does little to end traffic
03/19/2002
By TRACEY EATON / The Dallas Morning News

HAVANA - Austin resident Dan Snow can't vote. Can't own a gun. Can't even go fishing where he wants to.
His crime? He hopped on a plane and went to Cuba, the forbidden island, land of Fidel Castro and rumbling '59 Chevys.

"I'm a travel felon," said Mr. Snow, 63, the only American to have served jail time for going to Cuba.

He's the most extreme example of a trend - people thumbing their noses at Uncle Sam and going to Cuba despite a decades-long ban and a recent Bush administration crackdown on travel to the island.

http://www.nlg.org/cuba/banhasntslowed.htm

~~~~~
Amazing details regarding Cuba in the 1950's, prior to the revolution. Found it unexpectedly in a search.
We have NEVER been given the truth about US/Cuba relations. You have to dig for it yourself, or live with the propaganda:


November 1957 General Batista has become a liability for the
Eisenhower Administration, which is under considerable pressure
to stop sending arms to a government that is bombing and
strafing its own people in addition to torturing and killing
suspected rebels and their sympathizers. The U.S. government is
officially neutral, but it is still supplying arms and training to
Batista’s forces and maintains military missions in Cuba until 1959.

~snip~
June 16, 1958 In a decision that later becomes important in
U.S.-Cuban relations, the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time
declares that U.S. citizens have a constitutional right to travel
abroad. The opinion in Rockwell Kent and Walter Briehl v. John Foster
Dulles holds that “the right to travel is a part of the ‘liberty’ of
which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of
law under the Fifth Amendment.”

~snip~
December 27, 1958 A Cuban Air Force pilot flies a B-26 bomber to Miami and requests asylum because, in his words, “I don’t like to bomb cities and kill innocent women and children.”

More:
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~hbf/Cuba_and_the_US_book.pdf

As you should recall, the Cuban Revolution was successful January 1, 1959.

... The issue isn't the US law concerning US citizens visiting Cuba, it's about Cubans being freely able to leave their own country. I'm fully aware of the US policy and law. But, maybe someone else can benefit from all your work.

One way to get permission to leave is to become a dissident / activist and cause trouble. It's a routine event, some even pretend to be activists just so they can get the white card to leave, then they simply drop the facade once they make land.

They would never have allowed them in if it wasn't for the film festival invite.

Cuban law is not the issue here. US law granting green cards to any Cuban who arrives is the issue.

You can still return but you are considered a non-citizen after a certain period of time.

Cuba does in fact have a better chance at naturalization, with about double (per-capita) number of Cuban's naturalizing here than, say, Mexicans: http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/natz_fr_2011.pdf

However, the Cuba Adjustment Act is still hard capped so, per-capita, you have more Jamaicans naturalizing.

So it's not really the ease of granting, it's that it's granted at all. People want to move to the United States. As a US citizen it's the one thing you can truly appreciate about the country, imho. US citizens are lucky to be born where they are.

if you leave and don't pay whatever it is to maintain residency - you just lose residency benefits if you don't make the payment. That's supposedly under review.

The Cuban Adjustment Act isn't capped, that's the immigration quota. Any Cuban who puts their foot on US soil can stay, as far as I know.

Which isn't really that big of a deal these days since Cuba routinely writes up white cards to "dissidents." They don't want "counter-revolutionaries." It's a way to get off the island but it's not easy.

Cuban dissidents and activists are routinely given a white card to travel, they are considered counter-revolutionary and can leave if they please. Then, once they leave, they're slandered as imperialist lackey's, etc. They still do it though.

Does anyone know when the next election is due?

nt

Bush had his legally mandated maximum of two terms and no matter how much he craved power he had to leave office. There is no comparison between Bush and Castro

Bush started wars in the Middle East and they're still on-going.

the difference is Bush stepped aside. Why didn't Castro? Do you approve of extended one man, one party rule?

This is not a defense of dictators, it just shows that it's not as black and white.

What people do not get is that Cuba occupied African countries and went to war in Africa for an extended period. I was pointing out a similarity that Castro has with Bush.

perhaps they should simply stop complaining, I guess.

that Cuba's part in the war had been greatly misrepresented to the U.S. American public by the Ford admonstration.

They were published in 2002:

April 1, 2002 For Further information Contact:
Piero Gleijeses - 202 363-3815 (h)
Piero Gleijeses - 202 663-5779 (w)
Peter Kornbluh - 202 994-7116

SECRET CUBAN DOCUMENTS ON HISTORY OF AFRICA INVOLVEMENT

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 67
Edited by Peter Kornbluh

NEW BOOK based on Unprecedented Access to Cuban Records;
True Story of U.S.-Cuba Cold fear Clash in Angola presented in Conflicting Missions
~snip~
Conflicting Missions provides the first comprehensive history of the Cuba's role in Africa and settles a longstanding controversy over why and when Fidel Castro decided to intervene in Angola in 1975. The book definitively resolves two central questions regarding Cuba's policy motivations and its relationship to the Soviet Union when Castro astounded and outraged Washington by sending thousands of soldiers into the Angolan civil conflict. Based on Cuban, U.S. and South African documents and interviews, the book concludes that:

• Castro decided to send troops to Angola on November 4, 1975, in response to the South African invasion of that country, rather than vice versa as the Ford administration persistently claimed;
  
  
• The United States knew about South Africa's covert invasion plans, and collaborated militarily with its troops, contrary to what Secretary of State Henry Kissinger testified before Congress and wrote in his memoirs.
  
  
• Cuba made the decision to send troops without informing the Soviet Union and deployed them, contrary to what has been widely alleged, without any Soviet assistance for the first two months.

More:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB67/

~~~~~
Nelson Mandala has thanked Cubans repeatedly over the last 20 years for their sacrifice in helping to secure freedom for Southern Africa. The Miami Cubans, under the leadership of right-wing radical reactionary Jorge Mas Canosa, who expected to be the next President of Cuba when the U.S. took over the revolutionary government, created a radio station in Africa during the war, to send messages to the Cuban soldiers concerning NOT fighting for Cuba, and promising great rewards to them for following his orders.

Mandela thanks Cuba for its solidarity
Wednesday, August 14, 1991 - 10:00
By Karen Wald

HAVANA — After three decades of supporting the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa — sometimes with their lives — the Cuban people expressed one of the most heartfelt welcomes they have ever bestowed on a visiting foreign dignitary to Nelson Mandela.

For his part Mandela, heaped unqualified praise on the revolutionary process in Cuba, the Cuban people and their leaders.

Speaking in Havana at the traditional July 26 celebration, the ANC leader told thousands of cheering Cubans that their efforts, culminating in the unprecedented defeat of South African regular troops in Cuito Cuanavale, Angola, had marked a historic turning point for southern Africa, constituting a victory for Africa as a whole.

"That impressive defeat of the racist army ... gave Angola the possibility of enjoying peace and consolidating its sovereignty", he stated. It gave the people of Namibia their independence, demoralised the white racist regime of Pretoria and inspired the anti-apartheid forces inside South Africa, he added.

More:
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/882

The Miami nutjob "exile" faction which fled the aftermath of Cuba's revolution against their class, went nearly berserk over the fact the side they hated won the war, and thanked Cuba. They have nearly declared war on Nelson Mandela, and acted like wild beasts toward the man considered a tremendous guardian and hero to his fellow citizens.

Miami Mayor to Apologize for 'Mandela Moment'

Saturday, July 12, 2003

MIAMI — Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas said Monday he would make an official apology to former South African president Nelson Mandela next week.
"If Mandela were in Miami today, I think he would receive an official welcome." Penelas said.

Thirteen years ago, that was not the case. In June 1990, Miami's politically powerful Cuban exile community protested a visit by Mandela, newly released from a South African prison, for his praise of Fidel Castro, arch-enemy of Cuban exiles but friend of the anti-apartheid movement.

Despite pleas by local African-American leaders, the cities of Miami and Miami Beach, along with Miami-Dade Country, refused to recognize Mandela when he visited the area for a labor conference. The Miami City Commission rescinded a proclamation honoring Mandela.

Tourists angry at the Mandela snub launched a boycott that cost the city $25 million in lost revenue. Business leaders helped end the boycott in 1993, but tensions continued in the 1990s between blacks and Cubans after several incidents where Miami police roughed up Haitians.

More:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,91765,00.html

But, then, Castro hypocritically decried Libya, did he not?

I am not in any way exaggerating Cuba's forays into Africa.

But to say he was any better than Obama is a total and ridiculous exaggeration, as far as Obama forced involvement is concerned.

Show of hands.

(This is the closest I could get to a raised hand.)

Is it paradise? No.

Is it hell on earth? No.

I have not been to any other Latin American country, but some people in our group had, and their take on it was that Cubans live worse than people in some of the countries and better than in some of the others.

The U.S. policy toward Cuba seems extremely hypocritical, and that was especially true in the 1980s, when Reagan was sucking up to the Miami Cubans and nattering on about democracy while supporting governments that massacred their people wholesale (El Salvador, Guatemala), tried to overthrow a government that was actually doing something for the common people for the first time in their country's history (Nicaragua), and succeeded in overthrowing a government (Grenada) that was doing something for the common people on the flimsy excuse that Cuba was going to use it as a base to attack the U.S. (Uh, Ronnie, Grenada is FARTHER from the U.S. than Cuba is.)

picnic. Of course, we were well fed and traveled to the nicest hotels, and we also went into the countryside to visit a school.

There was not a single pharmacy,The old folks are the ones who look more ragged and thin, they look for scraps from garbage bins or beg around the hotels.

When we got on the tour bus, the tour guide said, "welcome to Cuba, the largest prison in the world."

Divorce is rampant there, most couples have only one child because they cannot afford another, and the population is dwindling. The woman who pedaled us round one morning with her bicycle told us her salary is not fixed. "Sometimes Fidel gives me 40 pesos, sometimes 25". She has 2 sons, 17 and 11, and she tries to send them to school with a glass of milk and a piece of bread for breakfast.

We never saw a grocery store. Just a few tiny holes in the wall with a few lonely veggies.

Fidel gives each woman who is about to give birth or get married a nightie, a gift from Uncle Fidel. There is a joke in Cuba that Fidel gives them a gift "on the two occasions when they don't need a nightie".

Children up to the age of 10 receive a birthday cake every year from Uncle Fidel. Each family gets a certain amount of food for the month.... 5 lbs sugar... beans, rice..... and meat if it is available. And flour. Maybe some eggs if they are available.

You can pass acres of beautiful orange trees, but it is against the law to pluck one and eat it. Everything belongs to Fidel. The hotels, the gas stations, everything.

The architecture is amazing, richly detailed, beautiful buildings in need of a paint job. The people are very well educated, your bus driver can very well have a PhD in Chemistry. We visited a Jewish temple there with another couple, whose wife was looking for an aunt who "had stayed behind"... we found her! The woman working in the kitchen at the temple was a mechanical engineer. Everyone is well-educated, but cannot do a thing with their knowledge.

We were followed the entire time, wherever we went. One man came up to my husband and photographed him with his cell phone.

A beautiful, rich, warm, country, run by a despot. Medicine is for everyone down there, but foreigners and visitors come first, then athletes, artists, dignitaries, etc., and last ....... the Cuban people. Most of them had poor teeth.

I won't go into the condition of the dogs in the street, it would break your heart.

Overall, it was an eye-opening and fascinating experience, and we would go back.

s

But come on, don't they have a lot of doctors?

Are you saying a US tour guide or a Cuban tour guide said "welcome to Cuba, the largest prison in the world."?
I can't imagine anyone working in tourism saying that.

If my photo of a pharmacy were on a website, I'd show it to you.

I'd also show you the photos of a market where all kinds of produce was on sale. It wasn't a super market, just a large shed, really, but it was full of produce and even had a meat counter and a bread counter, and it was in the neighborhood near the Episcopal cathedral, not in Old Havana.

It's no longer true that everything is owned by the government, by the way. Many of the souvenir shops, book stalls, some of the restaurants, and even some of the lodgings are privately owned. The cab and pedicab drivers are mostly self-employed. There are also foreign-owned companies.

Part of our group went and worked on a cooperative farm founded by the Episcopal Church of Cuba.

Sure, there are real problems. The people you see begging are looking specifically for CUCs, the tourist pesos, which are worth 24 times the pesos that Cubans use in everyday life and are the only currency accepted in some stores. People who can get tips in the tourist industry or those who have relatives overseas live better than those who work only for moneda nacional, the regular Cuban currency.

I didn't get hustled for money so much as for soap and shampoo. You'd think that both would be easy to make, but the ration doesn't last out the month, apparently. The people who asked for money usually offered something in return, drawing a caricature in one case or posing for a picture in an old army uniform.

Our guide didn't say what she fed her son for breakfast, but she did say that he got a hot lunch at school. Now it was probably rice and beans or vegetable soup, but frankly, I found the food even in the tourist restaurants to be pretty monotonous: rice and beans, maybe a salad of greens with oil and vinegar, and some plain meat or fish.

Not much English was spoken, and even the people in the tourist-oriented businesses didn't know more than the basics. They sometimes couldn't explain, for example, what was in some of the dishes on the menu until I asked them to explain in Spanish. My high school Spanish--and my Spanish-English dictionary-- really got a workout.

Don't know how long it's been (never) since I heard anything like it from any of the many people whose comments and experiences I've heard over the years after their trips to Cuba, some of them habitual travelers there from Canada, Europe, etc.

Hilarious! It was also interesting to hear your story some Cuban just had to snap a photo of your husband using a cell phone. I'm surprised the Cuban had a camera, after all! No doubt a Cuban cop came and hauled him off to prison to be interrogated so they could find where he got that camera. Wouldn't want to be in his shoes, would you?



Has this Cuban man gone mad? Perhaps he made the phone at home.



Cubans waiting in line for a new cell phone store to open, four years ago.
So easy to see and grieve for their twisted, emaciated bodies, just wasting away.











Really sad seeing all the Cuban dogs, as you said.

with Cuba and their lack of food for even the people, I can just imagine the poor state of the animals.

pets aren't the same as street dogs. street dogs don't wear sweaters. it ain't cool.

and as for street dogs, they're hardly unique to Cuba.

My cell phone didn't work in Cuba, because no American carrier has an agreement with a Cuban carrier, but I saw British tourists using theirs.

you can then use your phone when traveling pretty much anywhere where they sell the SIM cards.

Most European carriers have reciprocal arrangements with Cuba that allow their customers to use the Cuban network.

Just as my iPhone worked in Europe without any adjustments (although it cost an arm and a leg), a European non-smart phone will work in most countries of the world (except the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Korea) without modification. The difference is that it will be charged for long-distance rates for making calls within the country being visited.

The main advantage of using a local SIM is that you don't get charged overseas rates for making local calls.

There is no particular advantage to buying a local SIM to make calls back home unless that country's long-distance rates are really, really low.

compared to if you are in the US and called Peru, I typically use the phone for local in country calls, however, I have called back to the States on occassion and its reasonable.

get all the things that our embargo keeps them from getting.

the US has plenty of trading partners. Cuba has plenty potential partners too but have no money to actually purchase anything.

water purification equipment, X-ray machines, etc., etc., even when made in other countries, should they contain ANY parts with U.S. patents, CANNOT be sold to Cuban hospitals, and other critically important entities.

Cuban people have died due to the crushing effects of this embargo.

Were the situation reversed, as you suggested, this country would be desperately troubled, just as Cuba is, as so many voices, including the Popes' voices, have stated publically when they have called for an end to this brutal embargo.

People wanting to keep the US heel on the throat of Cuba's people usually try to convince those who don't know much about it that the embargo has no teeth.

If that were the truth, why don't they throw their support in favor of removing this 50+ year old embargo and prove to the world it's Cuba's revolution which is responsible for all this tragedy.

there are plenty of companies around the world that could sell them products. they don't have any money to pay for them though.

As I said, any of these products which they would wish to buy from companies in other countries are not available to Cuba as long as there is one part in the entire machine which has a U.S. patent.

That means they do NOT have easy access to these products which are intensely important.

This article, written by the World Health Organization in 1997 remains relevant. All that has changed is that some agricultural products were allowed sent to Cuba by U.S. producers, a dramatic small window which was opened following a major hurricane in Cuba a few years ago, when their entire food supply was lost. Simply claiming they can get products from other countries is misleading, clearly, since buying products like rice from Asia involve paying many times greater transportation costs to Cuba for materials it used to get from the U.S., when the Batista government was in operation.


"Denial of Food and Medicine:
The Impact Of The U.S. Embargo
On The Health And Nutrition In Cuba"
-An Executive Summary-
American Association for World Health Report
Summary of Findings
March 1997
~snip~
The declining availability of food stuffs, medicines and such basic medical supplies as replacement parts for thirty-year-old X-ray machines is taking a tragic human toll. The embargo has closed so many windows that in some instances Cuban physicians have found it impossible to obtain life-saving medicines from any source, under any circumstances. Patients have died. In general, a relatively sophisticated and comprehensive public health system is being systematically stripped of essential resources. High-technology hospital wards devoted to cardiology and nephrology are particularly under siege. But so too are such basic aspects of the health system as water quality and food security. Specifically, the AAWH's team of nine medical experts identified the following health problems affected by the embargo:

1. Malnutrition: The outright ban on the sale of American foodstuffs has contributed to serious nutritional deficits, particularly among pregnant women, leading to an increase in low birth-weight babies. In addition, food shortages were linked to a devastating outbreak of neuropathy numbering in the tens of thousands. By one estimate, daily caloric intake dropped 33 percent between 1989 and 1993.

2. Water Quality: The embargo is severely restricting Cuba's access to water treatment chemicals and spare-parts for the island's water supply system. This has led to serious cutbacks in supplies of safe drinking water, which in turn has become a factor in the rising incidence of morbidity and mortality rates from water-borne diseases.

3. Medicines & Equipment: Of the 1,297 medications available in Cuba in 1991, physicians now have access to only 889 of these same medicines - and many of these are available only intermittently. Because most major new drugs are developed by U.S. pharmaceuticals, Cuban physicians have access to less than 50 percent of the new medicines available on the world market. Due to the direct or indirect effects of the embargo, the most routine medical supplies are in short supply or entirely absent from some Cuban clinics.

4. Medical Information: Though information materials have been exempt from the U.S. trade embargo since 1 988, the AAWH study concludes that in practice very little such information goes into Cuba or comes out of the island due to travel restrictions, currency regulations and shipping difficulties. Scientists and citizens of both countries suffer as a result. Paradoxically, the embargo harms some U.S. citizens by denying them access to the latest advances in Cuban medical research, including such products as Meningitis B vaccine, cheaply produced interferon and streptokinase, and an AIDS vaccine currently under-going clinical trials with human volunteers.

American Association for World Health
1825 K Street, NW, Suite 1208
Washington, DC 20006
Tel. 202-466-5883 / FAX 202-466-5896
Email: AAWHstaff@aol.com

More:
http://www.cubasolidarity.net/aawh.html

~~~~~
As many people know, the embargo doesn't limit itself the U.S. companies and people. It also reaches far beyond this country's borders to enforce the embargo extraterritorily. Many other countries have loudly protested this situation as being illegal by international law.

It wasn't so long ago Cuban officials had arrangements to meet with Mexican officials for discussions, and their activities were scheduled for a chain hotel in Mexico City. Word was passed to Washington and the hotel was notified it must throw the Cubans out or be guilty of violating U.S. law since the hotel was owned by a U.S. organization.

The whole event had to be transferred to another hotel in the city. It was well discussed here at D.U.

Here's another creepy situation which was also followed and discussed here at D.U. as it unfolded:

National Post (Canada)
April 4, 2002
Canadian guilty of defying Cuba embargo

Convicted in U.S. court: Many charges were for activities while living in Canada

~snip~
James Sabzali, 42, the only foreign national prosecuted for breaking the 40-year Cuban
embargo, was found guilty by a federal jury on 20 counts of violating the 1919 U.S. Trading
With the Enemy Act and one count of conspiracy.

Three of his fellow executives, all U.S. citizens, were also convicted, along with their
Pennsylvania-based chemical company Bro-Tech Corp.

"I'm simply shocked and confused," a shaken Mr. Sabzali said after the jury of seven women
and five men delivered their verdict, ending four days of deliberations.

The unprecedented case, widely regarded as a challenge to Canadian sovereignty, involved
the sale of US$2.1-million worth of water purification chemicals to Cuba.

More:
http://latinamericanstudies.org/us-cuba/canadian.htm

from Europe has it? I thought Cuba's health care system was awesome already.

anyway, Cuba needs to sell products to advance. they need revenue. as you know, tourism from Canada, Europe, Latin America and just about anywhere else is possible. Cuban cigars and rum are available in other countries. of course other rum and tobacco producing countries aren't going to undercut their own industries in favor of Cuban products so those products are more expensive in other latin countries.

how about this? say Ecuador purchases the medical equipment you say is so necessary for Cuba's development and then sells or gives it to Cuba. note that the article you cited says Canada is Cuba's largest trading partner, and Canadians are by law prohibited from complying with the embargo. the man's company was US based.

I repeat, Cuba needs to develop industry to sell products, it doesn't have money to buy alot of things, thats the problem.