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Odds and ends
- $1,087, $411.04, $400 – those are fines levied against Americans, according to a recent OFAC enforcement report (H/T Havana Journal) for “allegedly dealing in property in which Cuba or a Cuban national had an interest.” In these three cases, that meant buying Cuban cigars on-line. Let’s hope the cigars weren’t fakes.
- Is there a potential for revolt among Cuban youths, as has been speculated? No, that’s “wishful thinking” according to Cubanet writer Luis Cino, writing from Havana.
- “The Castro Clan,” a fact sheet from the University of Miami’s Cuba Transition Project, lists Castro relatives in government and party positions in Cuba. It includes Marcos Portal, “married to Raul Castro’s niece,” as being “in charge of nickel industry.” The fact sheet notes, “Two former officials of the Cuban government, Roberto Hernandez del Llano and Eugenio Yáñez, contributed to this report.” Did I miss something? Wasn’t Portal dumped from his position as minister of basic industries in 2004?
- The idea of replacing Little Havana’s Bay of Pigs Museum with a new one on bayfront land north of the American Airlines Arena was deferred for further study by Miami-Dade commissioners.
6 comments:
Cino is correct. There is - on the one hand - a sort of apathy in Cuba that may never stir the masses to revolution. There is also a sort of "listen, we're just trying to get by mentality," spawned from the constant struggles the dictatorship imposes upon its own people. Who has time to foment revolution when we're so busy "resolviendo" every damn day of the weak? It's easy to talk about how the system must be overthrown from an easy chair hundreds of miles away. It's a whole other ballgame when you're on the inside. Sure, Cubans want change. Sure, most want an end to the dictatorship - but it just isn't that simple.
To be quite frank, it's depressing - but it's reality.
Anatasio Blanco
and then you have people on the outside like Peters who take money from businesses in Cuba and say it is the United States policy that needs to change not the dictatorship.
If you talk with Cuban youth they will have no trouble listing their complaints. They may or may not list U.S. policy as one of their main complaints, since they are more focused on the daily struggle. However, it's hard to argue that U.S. policy should not change. Anyone can see that the average Cuban is not helped by the embargo. The youth may be less likely to march in lock step with the "Castro Clan" than previous generations, but this doesn't mean they are stupid. One has to admit that part of the youth's demands are material, and these demands will certainly be met one day by U.S. products. The question is how much longer can the hard line exile groups keep their capitalist friends, who have much $ to gain from an end to the embargo, in check?
No way I can tell anyone in my family but the plan for the museum is ridiculous. I would love a museum but that site is too good for a museum of such limited scope. It's nice that it would keep it near Freedom Tower, but no, it should be in Little Havana
Everyone knows what should be done but no one has the nuts to do it. Apathy may be rife in Cuba, with some justification it seems to me in a dictatorship where its clear to all the Castros cannot soon be removed. In Miami a similar lassitude when it comes to the embargo is not so easy to justify inasmuch as no one in the US (yet) faces imprisonment for protesting stupid government policies. Everyone knows the Embargo supports injustice in Cuba but no one of influence has the nuts to stand up in Miami and say so. The Castros and the Diaz-Balarts: two sides of the same inhumane coin.So please don't lets blame the "youth of today" for wanting improved "materialism" but for being too scared to ask for it openly.
I am a US citizen and i want to say that US should lift its sanctions from Cuba. after all Cuban's are also human being. it should be make legal to smoke cuban cigars in US.
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