Letters to the Editor: Biden must minimize overtures to Cuba | The Miami Herald

The Miami Herald, February 18, 2021

Letters to the Editor

Biden must minimize overtures to Cuba

The tip of the iceberg.

Source: The Miami Herald

Kudos to Kevin G. Hall and Nora Gámez Torres for their well-researched Feb. 12^th article, “Brother of powerful Cuban general moves like aphantom in embargo-evading offshore world.”

It exposed the links between Guillermo Faustino Rodríguez López-Calleja who controls the Luxembourg registered Mid Atlantic company and his brother Gen. Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja who runs Cuba’s military-industrial conglomerate, Grupo de Administracion Empresarial S.A., (GAESA), that reportedly controls 60 percent of Cuba’s economy.

Monies generated by Mid-Atlantic and GAESA go to the repressive elements of the Castro regime that finance mistreatment of Cubans, and funds Castro’s military and intelligence personnel propping up Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.

 

The Prague-based CASLA Institute in its 2021 report “Venezuela: Crimes Against Humanity, Systematic Repression and Torture, Responsibility of the Cuban regime” presented testimonies they obtained in 2020 from Venezuelan civilian and military witnesses who were tortured by Cuban officers. A rape was also reported.

 

Greater military control of the Cuban economy occurred during the warming of relations between the United States and Cuba, between January 2009 and January 2017.

 

The Obama Administration's 2014 opening to Havana resulted in Castro’s military exponentially expanding "its economic empire under detente" seizing control of economic sectors previously controlled by civilian elements.

 

Resuming détente with Havana will provide more resources to commit atrocities to spread Cuba’s communist ideology.

 

 

John Suarez

https://www.pressreader.com/usa/miami-herald/20210218/page/10/textview

BBC reports Thomas Cook holidaymakers and crew 'trapped' in Cuba

Tourists trapped in Cuba. Prevented from leaving hotel by security guards.

Text messages say Cuba is the "worst place to be stranded" and ask for help.

 Thomas Cook, a 178-year-old British travel company and airline, declared bankruptcy on September 23, 2019, suspending operations and leaving hundreds of thousands of tourists stranded worldwide. It also exposes how tourist industries in different countries respond to this mess.

Cuba has proven to not be a normal country, and their hospitality industry has more in common with a military command style then with the service industry.  BBC News reported today in the article "Thomas Cook holidaymakers and crew 'trapped' in Cuba" reported how the Cuba tourist industry operates in a military like fashion:

"There are security guards at the hotel the crew are at to prevent them from leaving. They haven't even been guaranteed rooms for tonight, so it could be a case of sleeping on the reception floor," a colleague of the staff affected told the BBC. She urged action to get the staff home, saying 'they've already been through more than enough'. Another holidaymaker, Shaun Woods, said his flight was due to depart on Wednesday, but the hotel said it would not let them get on the bus to the airport until they paid."

Tourists have consistently been warned of the dangers of traveling to Cuba, and the failure of the travel industry to accurately inform their clients. Travel agencies have been sued by their clients for misrepresenting conditions in Cuba. 

Please share! This is mental and this is REAL! My friends are being held in Cuba!!! #Thomascookcrew #ThomasCookcollapse #thomascookairlines pic.twitter.com/cE1TNO9Vpc

— Natalie Sandiford (@NatSandiford) September 24, 2019

Tourism in Cuba is run by the Cuban military conglomerate GAESA. On September 9, 2016 the Associated Press in the article “Cuban military expands its economic empire under détente” reported:

“The military’s long-standing business wing, GAESA (Armed Forces Business Enterprises Group), assumed a higher profile after Gen. Raul Castro became president in 2008, positioning the armed forces as perhaps the prime beneficiary of a post-detente boom in tourism. Gaviota, the military’s tourism arm, (a subsidiary of GAESA) is in the midst of a hotel building spree that outpaces projects under control of nominally civilian agencies like the Ministry of Tourism.” The same article also reported that “Gaviota has 62 hotels with 26,752 rooms across Cuba, pulling in some $700 million a year from more than 40 percent of the tourists who visit Cuba.”

The military general in charge of GAESA is Luis Alberto Rodriguez, is General Raul Castro’s son in law.  Obtaining hard currency for the dictatorship is GAESA's chief objective.  This includes covering up epidemics to ensure that tourists continue visiting the island.

On January 8, 2019 New Scientist reported, "Cuba failed to report thousands of Zika virus cases in 2017." Havana also failed to report outbreaks of Dengue (1997) and Cholera (2012). Jailing those who warned the world of the threat. 

In the case of Spain that translated into 42 imported cases of the Zika virus in travelers to Cuba.     While travelers had visited other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, "the Zika cases were only identified in those who visited Cuba."

It is important to inform prospective tourists both on the risks and also on how to engage in purposeful travel to Cuba. This includes how to avoid becoming a mouthpiece for the dictatorship. The bottom line is that Cuba has a lot more in common with North Korea than with Jamaica or the Dominican Republic, and tourists should take that into account.

Get help to Cubans impacted by Irma without filling the coffers of the Castro dictatorship

Hurricane Irma relief effort in Cuba: How to really help

Hurricane Irma flooded Havana neighborhoods although worse impact was elsewhere.

Cubans are in desperate need of help
Despite the official propaganda channels trying to portray a speedy government response in Cuba, independent press say different. Luz Escobar reported on September 23rd "Hurricane Victims Along Havana’s Coastline Wait for Help That Never Comes." In years past support sent through official channels ended up on sale in government stores. Independent channels are the best way to get help to Cubans devastated by Hurricane Irma. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called for a special collection for Hurricane Irma victims for the week of Sept. 23-24. The effort is to cover all the areas impacted by Irma although one can directly select which impacted countries to send aide to victims.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article173653801.html#storylink=cpy

Gathering belongings following Hurricane Irma

 Beware using official regime channels
On September 18, 2017 Babalu Blog reported that "Mariela Castro Espin, the jet-setting daughter of Cuban dictator Raul Castro, posted a request for hurricane relief donations on Facebook and included a bank account number to where donations could be sent. A little research turned up that the bank account is from the Cuban regime’s International Finance Bank and it belongs to a Cuban company named GAESA." On September 15, 2016 in testimony before the House Agricultural Committee Mauricio Claver-Carone gave the following description of GAESA:

Today, the Cuban military owns and operates one of the largest conglomerates in Latin America, known as the Grupo de Administración Empresarial, S.A., or GAESA. Its portfolio includes companies that dominate ports, trade zones, tourist attractions, restaurants, hotels, real estate, retail stores, currency exchanges, gas stations, airlines, and other transportation services. Its head, Gen. Luis Alberto Rodriguez Lopez-Callejas, is Raul's son-in-law.

Sending donations through the account promoted by Ms Castro Espin will end up in the dictatorship's coffers, and will most likely not get to the average Cuban. There is an alternative with a proven track record.

Good way to get aide to Cubans
However if you want to get aide directly to the Cuban people there are other options and one of the best is through Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami and  its Disaster Relief Hurricane Irma effort.

Archdiocese of Miami: To donate to Catholic Charities, visit www.ccadm.org and https://give.adomdevelopment.org/irma.

Destruction in Cojimar, Cuba

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article173653801.html#storylink=cpy

Cuba: Change for the preservation of the dictatorial status quo

More things change the more they remain the same

Reforms seek to preserve central planning. Eusebio Leal loses autonomy to military 

The Associated Press broke the "news" on August 16, 2016 that the Castro regime would sacrifice the well being of Cubans in order to hang on to power. The communist dictatorship remains committed to maintaining a centrally planned economy, it also will not permit property or wealth concentration, and will "gradually" advance internet service: 

"Cuba's ruling Communist Party released a new set of economic guidelines Tuesday that emphasize the slow-moving and limited nature of the country's reforms amid a sharp national economic downturn. The guidelines "recognize the objective existence of market relationships," but they also restate Cuba's commitment to a centrally planned economy. The 274 rules say concentration of property and wealth will not be permitted and promise to advance internet service only "gradually, according to our economic possibilities," in one of the world's least-connected nations. They update a document that laid out President Raúl Castro's vision of economic reform at the Cuban Communist Party's twice-a-decade congress in 2011."

This should not surprise anyone. Five years ago when the so-called reforms were initially announced I made the following conclusion that remains true today.

"If there is one lesson over the past 52 years it is that political considerations have priority over economic considerations in order to preserve the regime. When it is convenient to decentralize in order to survive the regime will do that as it did in the early 1990s and as it appears to be doing today. At the same time when things improve and regime survival depends on the re-centralization of economic control at the expense of economic growth as was the case in the late 1990s and through the 2000s they will do that as well, but the important consideration is that the Cuban people are tired of this regime and want change."

 Since 1959 the Castro regime has carried out numerous changes in the service of two goals: entrenching the communist dictatorship in power and perpetuating its rule. Now the regime continues to consolidate economic control in the military. The latest victim in this trend is Eusebio Leal Spengler and his Office of the Historian of the City of Havana (OHCH) that according to The Miami Herald "rescued at least one third of the buildings in the historic heart of the Cuban capital and won lavish international praise" in the 1990s during the special period. Leal had autonomy but that has been upsurped by the Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA), a holding company controlled by the Cuban military.

Democratic Senator Robert Menendez speaking on the floor of the United States Senate gave a more detailed analysis of GAESA on October 17, 2015:  "Raul Castro named his son-in-law, General Luis Alberto Rodriguez Lopez Callejas, as head of GAESA, which stands for Grupo de Administracion Empresarial, S.A or translated Business Administrative Group.  GAESA is the holding company of Cuba’s Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, Cuba’s military.  It is the dominant driving force of the island’s economy.  Established in the 1990s by Raul Castro, it controls tourism companies, ranging from the very profitable Gaviota S.A., which runs Cuba’s hotels, restaurants, car rentals and nightclubs, to TRD Caribe S.A., which runs the island’s retail stores.  GAESA controls virtually all economic transactions in Cuba."

In short the Castro family and the military control and run the economy in Cuba.  They are now consolidating economic control directly to perpetuate themselves in power with the help of the Obama administration. Meanwhile the human rights situation is worsening, religious repression is exploding along with violence against activists,