Save The Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami

"To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections."  - Edmund Burke

An iconic South Florida institution, the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS) under threat of being radically transformed or closed at the University of Miami by an out of touch university bureaucracy.

The Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies was established by the University of Miami and approved by the Faculty Senate in May of 1999. Over the next 18 years this institute has not only become a world-class academic center for research on Cubans and Cuban-Americans, an integral part of the Cuban cultural landscape in South Florida, and a gathering point for Cuban dissidents from the island  and Cubans in exile to nurture a democratic renaissance in Cuba.

Dr. Jaime Suchlicki, the Director of the Institute, in 2002 explained its importance in Veritas online: “Casa Bacardi is my dream come true. For years I have wanted to create a place where young Cuban-Americans could come and learn about Cuba’s history and culture.”

Dr. Suchlicki (left) and Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (center) 2002

This Institute is unique and unlike most other Cuban research centers around the country, that have been co-opted by the Castro regime into self-censorship and marginalization of dissenting voices, has embraced Cuban democrats and developed an organic relationship with the local Cuban-American community. News that ICCAS maybe closing its doors is generating both concern and outrage in the surrounding community.

Professor Jaime Suchlicki who has spent 50 years at the University of Miami said to El Nuevo Herald that his leaving "is not a retirement", but a "resignation" due to differences with UM President Julio Frenk over the future direction of Cuban studies at the university.

 Professor Suchlicki adds that "I am going to reestablish ICCAS somewhere else, possibly in the Museum of the Cuban Diaspora, and the staff is leaving with me,"

d more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article160633594.html#storylink=cpy

he added.

The University is now singing a different tune claiming that there are no plans of consolidating academic programs and the fortifying of institutional relations with Cuban universities. 

My experience in dealing with University bureaucracies and administrators as an undergraduate leads me to believe the faculty member with a half century of dedicated scholarship and service to the community over the newly arrived bureaucrat.

The Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies must continue its good works and hopefully Dr. Jaime Suchlicki will reconsider his resignation as the director and oversee the transition in years to come to new leadership that will continue his good works.

The Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies over the past 18 years has developed into "a little platoon" of society in South Florida that should be nurtured and preserved not radically altered to advance a narrow ideological agenda.

Read more here: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/sur-de-la-florida/article160564809.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/sur-de-la-florida/article160564809.html#storylink=cpy

Vacation Travel to Cuba: How it shores up a totalitarian dictatorship

“Tourism only fuels the [Castro] regime's repressive machinery.” - Sirley Ávila León

Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet and Ambassador James Cason

 Today at the University of Miami the words of Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet on the current reality in Cuba and its parallels with the Apartheid regime led to a new reflection on tourism to the island.  In the past have written on the fact that the Cuba is a totalitarian dictatorship and visiting it will not lead to a better understanding of the island, but often just the opposite being turned into an agent of influence for the Castro regime. This has happened before to travelers who visited the Soviet Union during Stalin's mass killings and manufactured famines, or Nazi Germany in the midst of Hitler's holocaust. In both cases travelers returned praising the dictatorships and proclaiming that "they worked" and were the future.

Dr. Biscet today at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies explained that freedom to travel in Cuba remains non-existent and all travel is controlled by the Castro dictatorship.  Furthermore as was the case in South Africa during the Apartheid regime Cubans must show identification to travel between provinces, and report to the Committee in Defense of the Revolution if they wish to stay at the home of a friends or family member when traveling in the island.

Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito denied entry to her homeland to see ailing mother

The reality that Cubans do not have the right to enter and exit their homeland was also demonstrated today with Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito. She was born in Sancti Spíritus, Cuba and immigrated to the United States in March of 2012. Ana Margarita was forced to return at 10:00am this morning after having arrived yesterday at 2:00pm at José Martí International Airport. She had traveled to Cuba to see her mother who is ill and may soon die.

Ana Margarita shows cuts from broken glass during scuffle at airport (CubaNet)

The independent news platform CubaNet reported that Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito was an independent journalist who had worked with various independent publications, including CubaNet among them. CubaNet reached her brother, Pablo Perdigón who had gone to pick up his sister only to find as he informed the reporter: "A colonel from the airport told me that she is turned around, that I could not see her. I had to return to Sancti Spiritus, because we rented a car to go get her." Her brother added that the soldier who met with him told him "some glass was broken and she was injured." This was the second time she had tried to travel to Cuba, the first being in March of 2015 when she and her daughter were taken off the plane while it was still in Miami and told that she was not permitted to enter. However her Cuban passport remained valid and she thought she could try again at a future date. Yesterday she learned that was not the case and spent the night detained on the airport in Havana and was sent back to Miami today.

This is not the first time that a daughter born in Cuba is unable to return to see a dying parent. In the summer of 2013 Blanca Reyes, a Cuban national living in Spain was denied permission to see her dying father. Her dad died on October 15, 2013 and the grieving daughter tweeted: "My father died today in Cuba did not see him for 9 years the Cuban government stopped me. UNTIL WHEN MY GOD?"  Three years later and the question continues to resonate. Both Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito and Blanca Reyes were nonviolent civil society activists who respectively practiced journalism and defended human rights as a Lady in White. There is no reason that they should not be able to enter and exit their homeland, especially when a loved one is ill or dying.

However, some of the Cuban Americans that have been granted entry to Cuba ended their visits tragically.

• Young Cuban American Víctor Barroso lost an arm on November 18, 2012 and spent 28 months falsely imprisoned following a car crash in Cuba. He went to Cuba to visit family and is now trying to raise funds for a prosthetic arm. 
• On November 22, 2013 Brandon Bjorn Ross, a 31 year old American citizen visiting Cuba with his mother Onelia Ross, who is of Cuban origin, went out to take pictures in the early morning around the Hotel Nacional in Havana. The next time his mom saw him was at the morgue to identify her son's body. Government officials said that he had fallen from the roof of the hotel, but refused to provide Onelia an autopsy report and quickly cremated her son's body without her authorization. 
• Alberto Romero (age 39), a Tampa based marital and family law attorney, was murdered in Cuba while visiting extended family on January 8, 2015. He was found tied up with a family friend, beaten, stabbed multiple times and with one hand severed.

There have been other cases involving non-Cubans over the years, but the fact that speaking the language and having family there does not guarantee a safe stay should speak volumes to prospective visitors.

Cuba remains an island under the brutal grip of a totalitarian dictatorship with an economy run by the military and the Castro family. This also means that tourism dollars go straight into shoring up the dictatorship's Ministry of the Interior and the Military. There is no due process and the legal system is subject to the arbitrary whims of the dictatorship. Reporting on outbreaks of disease are also subject to the whims of the dictatorship. Independent media are persecuted and outlawed and independent reporting on crime is incomplete and accurate information hard to come by.

Daisy B. Peñaloza, a preschool teacher residing in Bakersfield, California on June 28, 2016 wrote "Thinking about a vacation in Cuba? Don't" in The Bakersfield Californian that summed it up best:

Obama’s rapprochement has not empowered Cuban society. Every dollar that tourists spend in Cuba exclusively strengthens and enriches the billionaire Castro family and literally hurts the Cuban people. Worse yet, as in Nazi Germany, tourists unwittingly become tools of the regime. Communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union was toppled, not by tourism and commerce, but by economic ruin, a globally sustained dissident movement and persistent sanctions.

However she did allow that principled travel to the island could serve a positive purpose.

A humanitarian or religious visit, whereby the seeds of free expression are scattered and left to germinate, is the type of visit that will make a true and lasting difference in the lives of Cubans.

It is important to remember that Cubans do not have the freedom to travel in their own homeland and as Dr. Biscet observed are subjected to an internal pass system reminiscent of the South African apartheid regime. Visiting Cuba for sun and fun while Cubans are being discriminated against in their own country while tourism dollars go to perpetuate their repression is immoral.

Cuban human rights defender Frank Calzon physically prevented from providing information at Cuba Summit hosted by The Economist

12 months later and Castro-lite thuggish censorship on display in Washington D.C.

Activist roughed up today at Cuba Summit hosted by The Economist

The Economist, the influential British magazine, does not want people to read this report, which was published by the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. The Economist held a conference at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington on December 3rd. The event’s attendants read like a who’s who of businesses wanting to have the United States lift its trade embargo against the Cuban regime.

Frank Calzon, Executive Director at the Center for a Free Cuba, has distributed similar reports at numerous conferences at universities, think tanks, and hotels. Calzon, a Cuban native is regularly featured in such national newspapers as the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. He has appeared on such television broadcasts as The News Hour on PBS and on several MSNBC, CNN, and FOX programs. He also has testified before congressional committees and been a guest speaker at more than 30 universities in the United States and abroad. In the last 40 years, Frank has been expelled from three events at the request of Cuban diplomats present. In the United States, as long as there is no disruption and one conducts themselves civilly, the distribution of academic reports are usually welcomed.

At the Four Seasons, Frank was first told he would be allowed to make available the report outside the conference room during one of their breaks. Later, he was told they would call the police to arrest him if he did not leave. The police came and did not arrest him.

An Administration official attending the conference offered to make the report available to the participants. Mr. Calzon went home. But The Economist, perhaps trying to accommodate the Cuban government (as a Professor of the University of Havana spoke at the conference), used heavy-handed methods which are most common in Havana.

Frank Calzon is a human rights defender who has spoken before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva Switzerland on several occasions. He was physically assaulted by a Cuban diplomat in 2004 after the Castro regime lost a key human rights vote, in part, thanks to Calzon's advocacy work. Eleven years later he continues to speak out for human rights in Cuba and on October 29, 2015 Frank gave a presentation on the human rights situation in Cuba that is available below.


Anyone interested in calling attention to these heavy handed tactics and/or engaging in a serious debate can contact The Economist at letters@economist.com. Challenge them to open its pages to a discussion of the subject beyond the obvious public relations goals of its Cuba Summit Conference. My own response to this outrage is to boycott The Economist and the Four Seasons Hotel.