Meeks' trip to Venezuela raises some hefty ethics questions

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Sunday, 12.27.09
Meeks' trip to Venezuela raises some hefty ethics questions

Three years before Allen Stanford's worldwide banking network collapsed, he called on a key member of the Caribbean Caucus to help him settle a crisis.

The president of his bank in Venezuela had turned on Stanford after being accused of stealing from the company, filing a lawsuit and publicly questioning whether Stanford was orchestrating a fraud.

Enraged at his former executive, Stanford placed a call in March 2006 to Democratic House member Gregory Meeks with a rare request: Go to President Hugo Chávez and seek a criminal investigation of Gonzalo Tirado.

Meeks, a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, agreed to carry the message, according to two former U.S. federal agents working for Stanford who were listening to the call on speakerphone.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/breaking-news/story/1399731.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. The Miami Herald has pandered completely to the hardliner Cuban right-wing "exile"

and right-wing expatriots from various Latin American countries.

This pandering has been going on since the radical reactionary Jorge Mas Canosa warred against a former Miami Herald publisher who printed an article he didn't like. After the bomb threats started arriving, the publisher, David Lawrence started employing people to check, and start his, and his wife's car every day. He quit his job.

~~~~~~~~
May/June 1992
TRYING TO SET
THE AGENDA IN MIAMI

Bashing the Herald is only part of Jose Mas Canosa's strategy

by Anne-Marie O'Connor
O'Connor, who is based in Miami, is Latin America and Caribbean correspondent for Cox Newspapers.

The Miami Herald usually takes and assumes the same positions as the Cuban government. But we must confess that they were once more discreet about it. Lately the distance between The Miami Herald and Fidel Castro has narrowed considerably. . . . Why must we consent to The Miami Herald and ElNuevo Herald continuing a destructive campaign full of hatred for the Cuban xile, when ultimately they live and eat, economically speaking, on our support?

Jorge Mas Canosa, chairman of the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation, in a local radio broadcast, aired on January 21 and printed in full in El Diario las Americas.

The revelation that The Miami Herald and its Spanish-language counterpart, El Nuevo Herald, were in bed with Cuban leader Fidel Castro must have confounded the editors of the Cuban Communist party organ, Granma, since the Havana daily has repeatedly portrayed them as right-wing tools of the eternal CIA campaign against the thirty-three-year-old revolution.

Anywhere else, Mas Canosa's remarks might have been ignored. In the darker recesses of Miami's exile community, however, his words were clearly a call to arms. Within days Herald publisher David Lawrence, Jr., and two top editors received death threats. Anonymous callers phoned in bomb threats and Herald vending machines were jammed with gum and smeared with feces. Mas Canosa's Cuban American National Foundation quickly denied responsibility and condemned the hijinks, but Mas's words were highly inflammatory in a city where public red-baiting has served as a prelude to bombings and, in past years, murder.More:
http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/92/3/miami.asp

[Downwinder]

2. Was Stanford suspect in 2006?

"according to two former U.S. federal agents working for Stanford who were listening to the call on speakerphone."

Why the rush in 2009?