If you follow the Miami press, blogs, and radio, you have seen that columnist Ana Menendez has experienced un tremendo acto de repudio for pointing out, in a way many found disrespectful, that the Cuban American community is selective in its outrage.
Her case in point: While the community leads boycotts against smaller targets, there seems to be no organized effort to block a French company, Bouygues, from carrying out a huge Miami tunnel project on which it submitted the winning bid, even though Bouygues has built hotels in Cuba.
Bouygues, it turns out, is represented by Washington attorney Ignacio “Iggy” Sanchez, who is a founder and director of the pre-eminent hard-line organization, the Cuban Liberty Council. He says a Bouygues affiliate may have built hotels in Cuba, but the unit that will build the Miami tunnel has not done so. Sanchez is described in press reports as someone instrumental in the writing of Helms-Burton – as is his legal adversary in this case, Miami attorney Nick Gutierrez.
The Cuban Liberty Council requested Sanchez’ resignation and yesterday he tendered it, Rui Ferreira reports. His elegant letter of resignation reaches back to 1770 and quotes John Adams (“The law no passion can disturb.”)
Bouygues is not the first target of U.S. sanctions that Sanchez has represented; last year, when Treasury jumped all over Sheraton for renting rooms in its Mexico City hotel to Cuban officials attending an energy conference, Sanchez appeared in Capitol Hill offices representing Sheraton.
Menendez’ latest column is here.
4 comments:
Cuba is changing and so is Miami, if these old standard guard politcos don't change they'll be left in the dust!Cuban dissidents put overall unemployment at 30% and youth unemployment at 50%.
Government subsidies sustain a very large portion of the population; 42% of the non-agricultural population is employed by the Cuban state, Within fewer than 10 years, Cuba will become a net importer, at which point the government no longer will be able to provide subsidies. Cuba's economic implosion is a source of imminent strategic risk.
What most analysts,, foresaw as a medium-term problem seems to have confronted Cuba much sooner than expected. The present inflation rate of about 20%, driven by a 40% rate of monetary expansion. suggests that government resources are already exhausted.
Cuba's prospective demographic implosion, pushes Cuba toward disaster. It is difficult to see a way out for Cuba and manufactures nothing the world will buy. Its most pressing problem, unemployment among the 60% of its population now under the age of 30, will turn into a much worse problem as this generation ages.
If a future catastrophe is inevitable, its impact has a way of leaping back into the present. Monetary disorder of the magnitude we now observe suggests an internal collapse of confidence.
What strategic consequences ensue from Cuba's economic misery? Broadly speaking, the choices are two. In the most benign scenario, Cuba's communist establishment will emulate the Soviet Union of 1987, when then-prime minister Mikhail Gorbachev acknowledged that communism had led Russia to the brink of ruin in the face of vibrant economic growth among the United States and its allies. Russia no longer had the resources to sustain an arms race with the US, and broke down under the pressure of America's military buildup.
Or Cuba will resort to brute force and follow the path of Stalin and try to forcfully engage in hostile,threatening behavior and start to enforce a more gulag style governing style!
I continue to predict that Cuba will gamble on the way of Gorbachev. A fundamental difference in sociology distinguishes Cuba from the Soviet Union at the cusp of the Cold War. Fidel Castro's terror saw to it that the only communist true believers left alive were lecturing at Western universities. All the communists in Cuba were dead or in the gulags. Now the Cuba's communist power structure is left only with, only the most cowardly, self-seeking, unprincipled careerists who had survived to hold positions of seniority in the communist establishment. Only in the security services were a few hard and dedicated men still active . These men who see no reason to fight for communism 50 years after the Cuban Revolution. They are now fighting to maintain power,save there families from prison and make enough money in case they have to leave in exile to Spain!
If we are going to make the changes neccessary to change Cuba without further bloddshed we must change our tatics and engae in talks.
An old piece of diplomatic wisdom states that one always should give one's enemy a way out.We exile Cubans must learn from history and take the intiative and move Cuba forward and progress the thinking inside of Cuba,eventhough we might lose some battles, but in the end we will win the War!!!!!
wow, bis!
Que crees de esta idea, que Cuba se incorpora hacer un estado de espana? Seria mucho mejor que lo que nos espera.
Tambien me encanto leer el escrito de Viva Cuba Libre.Creo que ese correcto pensar, que el futuro de Cuba se va a tener que arreglar entre los dos pueblos, y que los viejos antagonisticos politcos que han mandado dentro y fuera de Cuba, van a tener que ponerse de lado para que nuestra situacion se arreglar. Los viejos del exilio han echo mucho por Cuba, y tambien han sufrido mucho en sus vidas pelando por el pueblo Cubano, pero ahora es tiempo de reflecion sobre que quiesieran ver para ese pueblo que tanto sudor y lagrimas y sangre han echado por ellos.La ideas de Libertad,de paz y prosperidad y de las ideas Martitianas tiene que vivir y ganar, y los odios y rencor se tiene que poner de un lado,para que las ideas de libertad para Cuba se realiza!!!!! Viva Cuba Libre,para siempre, y gracias al exilio que nunce se olvidaron de Cuba y su pueblo y sus hijos!!!!!
ANA MENÉNDEZ, ¿CÓMO TE ATREVES A LLAMAR MAFIOSA A LA COMUNIDAD CUBANA DE MIAMI?
MGuatyMarrero
2007-05-23
Cancún, México, Martes, 22 de mayo de 2007. En su artículo del Miami Herald: Rabble-rousers gravitate to easy targets, 05/16/2007, Ana Menéndez critica, difama, y se burla despectivamente del exilio histórico cubano. Lo más doloroso es que ella misma proviene de ese grupo al que desacredita tan ferozmente.
Se hace eco de una frase creada por la indecorosa propaganda castrista para desprestigiar al exilio cubano. Es increíble que una de las nuestras nos llame “Mafia cubana”, y como colofón nos cuelgue, con otras palabras, el cartel de viejos “chochos”.
Tu trayectoria tampoco es del agrado nuestro Ana, tú amor por el Ché haciéndolo acreedor de una novela de tu autoría, es pro castrista desde nuestro “limitado” y “fósil” cosmos.
Como parte del exilio histórico cubano me siento aludida y despreciada por una periodista que es hija de cubanos, ¡Que vergüenza Ana! ¡Que vergüenza!
Tienes todo el derecho de no estar de acuerdo, tienes todo el derecho de escribir lo que te plazca, pero a lo que no tienes derecho es a maltratar, difamar y ofender.
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