Human rights and academic freedom under the new regime at the University of Miami's Cuba programs

Worse than it first appears

Taking a closer look at the special report titled "Cuba and the Caribbean" prepared by UM News, a part of University Communications at the University of Miami and some observations arise that undermine the claims made by UM political science assistant professor Michael Touchton that there is "so much superior work that could be done if we team up with Cuban academics." Without academic freedom and the knowledge that careers can end and doors can be closed by raising certain issue, central to them are human rights and civil liberties in the area of political science scholarship is effectively neutered. Now associate professor and department chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Lillian Manzor, is right when she says that “engagement with other countries has proven to be better than isolationist tactics,” but Cuba like North Korea is not just "another country."

This can be seen in the UM special report itself where there are no references by UM faculty to human rights with regards to Cuba and the only Cubans in prison talked about are innocent migrants in U.S. prisons.  . Miami Law’s Immigration Clinic Director Rebecca Sharpless and Professor David Abraham address the changes to migration within the narrative of  normalized relations and putting the Cold War past behind us.

Rebecca Sharpless: We are seeing Cuban immigrants detained in county jails for the first time ever—Cubans with no criminal history who would be eligible for the Cuban Adjustment Act. I think the new normal is that Cubans and non-Cubans will be treated the same way, which is not well, even with respect to people fleeing persecution or extreme poverty.

David Abraham: The future of Cuban-American relations, particularly regarding immigration, seems very much up in the air. The longtime special quality of Cuban migration, hung on anti-Communism, is behind us. The Cuban Adjustment Act is behind us. Just as Cuba becomes an ordinary foreign country, the entire immigration regime in the U.S. is in question, and we may be operating in an entirely new environment.
For the past 50 years, we've been operating like the Cubans get a free pass because any Cuban who touches American soil was a year away from permanent residency unless they committed a felony, whereas every Haitian was headed to detention and deportation. One was fleeing a failed state and a bad economy, and the other was a victim of a Communist monster. I find it ironic that they are now simply in the same lousy situation.

First, I found it interesting that no mention was made of President Obama gutting the Cuban Adjustment Act or the fact that the "Communist monster" continues to destroy lives and murder Cubans on the island for thinking differently in the article "On the Frontlines of Immigration." The only direct reference made to human rights referred to Haiti but none concerning Cuba.

Second and more disturbing are the comments by Kenneth W. Goodman, professor and director of the UM Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy, and co-director of the University of Miami Ethics Programs. He claims that Cuba is changing in a positive direction. In the article "A Hemispheric Approach to Bioethics and Health Policy" the claim is made that  "[w]hile Cuban scholars do not yet enjoy academic freedom of speech or press, that is reported to be changing, he added, noting that Cuban scientists and clinicians want to be “participants on the global stage.” In keeping with that objective, Cuba’s researchers appear to follow international standards of informed consent and patient privacy when conducting clinical studies." Professor Goodman should talk with Felix Llerena who visited the University of Miami to take part in a human rights workshop and was expelled from his university when he returned to Cuba earlier this year. There have been others. Professors have also been fired for their political beliefs or merely having a dissident in the family.

Many other universities have academic exchanges with Cuba and self censorship is part of the game of continuing the programs running and scholarship suffers. This practice of self-censorship to maintain access has been seen and reported on explicitly with regards to foreign journalists based in Cuba

The only bright spot in this dreary affair is the interview with Yoani Sanchez that addresses some of the realities on the ground in Cuba. One can agree or disagree with her policy prescription, but her journalism is spot on.

With regards to healthcare in Cuba one should review the case of Sirley Avila Leon carefully that shines a light on what happens when the dictatorship tells doctors not to treat gravely injured patients.

On the subject of academic exchanges the University of Miami would do well to study what happened to Florida International University's academic exchange program when Carlos Alvarez, one of the leaders of that initiative was arrested by the FBI, along with his wife, for being a spy.

Cuba is a unique country in the Western Hemisphere because for the past 58 years it has had more in common with far away North Korea than its neighbors. It is a communist, totalitarian dictatorship with a very dark past and it continues to write new chapters in a terrible history that those engaging with the regime will refuse to do out of a fear of losing access and having their programs shut down. Hence why human rights, academic freedom and labor rights are at the margins, if mentioned at all. Sadly this special report by the University of Miami confirms it.

Following controversy UM postpones event but the drive for engagement with the Castro regime continues.

UM's drive to engage with the Castro dictatorship continues.

The University of Miami has been under a cloud of controversy following the announcement that the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies (ICCAS) would be closed, then back tracked that it would remain open, with a new director. Furthermore that the founding director Professor Jaime Suchlicki had not retired but resigned in protest over the direction Cuba Studies was taking under the new UM President Julio Frenk.

As the weeks went by the claims made by Professor Suchlicki's about the University of Miami going in a different direction that requires placating the dictatorship in Cuba became more evident. The University of Miami has now produced a special report titled "Cuba and the Caribbean" that has a clear editorial line, including a slanted poll that makes little or no mention of human rights or dissidents.

Screen grab from A University of Miami Special Report

ICCAS had a track record of serious scholarship that debunked Castro regime propaganda and opened its doors to Cuban dissidents from the island. This included important studies and books on the nature of health care and education in Cuba that no doubt irritated the Cuban dictatorship. The shuttering of ICCAS and replacement of the entire faculty of the the institute is troubling and an assault on academic freedom, but makes sense if the priority is having a relationship with the communist regime in Cuba that does not tolerate critical academic inquiry. Dr. Suchlicki resigned from the University of Miami but continues his highly respected academic inquiry into Cuba at the new Cuban Studies Institute, along with Jose Azel and Pedro Roig, who were also forced out of ICCAS despite their academic credentials and numerous publications. Dr. Jose Azel had been the Senior Research Associate and Pedro Roig, the Senior Consultant at ICCAS.

One would hope that a university would challenge communist propaganda in an academic setting with an exchange of differing views with the goal of getting at the existing reality. Unfortunately what had been planned at the Department of Public Health Science at the University of Miami was a one sided presentation by Professor Roberto C. Villafranca, MD, MS, PhD of the University of Medical Sciences in Matanzas, Cuba. The flier reproduced below is an uncritical repetition of Castro government propaganda. There is plenty of evidence that the Cuban Public Health System has serious problems that are not reported in the official statistics provided.

Roberto Cañete Villafranca is a visiting scholar at the University of Miami

Katherine Hirschfeld, an anthropologist, in Health, Politics, and Revolution in Cuba Since 1898 who spent time in Cuba studying its healthcare system, contracted dengue while there, experiencing first hand the 'discrepancies between rhetoric and reality,' She found a repressive, bureaucratized and secretive system, long on 'militarization' and short on patients' rights.  Professor Hirschfeld had spoken at the old ICCAS.  One wonders if she would be invited to speak at the new ICCAS?

Professor Sherri L. Porcelain who has taught Global Public Health in World Affairs at the University of Miami for more than 30 years wrote an important analysis titled U.S. & Cuba: A Question of Indifference? I could not find this article on the ICCAS web site but found it instead at Professor Suchlicki's Cuba Studies Institute and what it reveals is disturbing.

"Investment in the health of people includes protecting human rights. This means allowing the health community to speak out and not to be jailed for releasing information about a dengue epidemic considered a state secret, or not sharing timely data on a cholera outbreak until laboratory confirmation of travelers returning from Cuba arrive home with a surprising diagnosis. This causes me to reflect upon my personal interviews where the remaining vigor of public health actions in Cuba exists to fight vector and water borne diseases. Sadly, however, health professionals are directed to euphemistically use the vague terms of febrile illness in place of dengue and gastrointestinal upset for cholera, in contradiction to promoting public health transparency."

 This led to cries that the agreement reached with Julio Frenk that the University of Miami did not want to set up academic exchanges that would legitimize the Castro dictatorship was not being fulfilled. On October 17, 2017 after requesting the day before what steps would be needed to attend the event on the 18th the following message was received from one of the organizers of the event:

"Thank you for your interest in attending the Department of Public Health Sciences’ Grand Rounds on the Cuban Public Health System. As you might have heard, this event has been postponed till further notice. It was decided that for this topic, a different structure that incorporates presenters with different viewpoints on public health in Cuba will be more beneficial. We will announce through our usual channels once another date and time has been decided."

Meanwhile reviewing the section on Politics and Policy finds the "party line" of the new Administration being repeated in the article "A Renewed Tenuous Relationship" with statements such as Michael Touchton, a UM political science assistant professor in the College of Arts and Sciences: “[t]here is so much superior work that could be done if we team up with Cuban academics,” he says. “They don’t have the resources, but by combining our expertise we can do excellent work.” It is repeated once again by Lillian Manzor, associate professor and department chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the College of Arts and Sciences who said: "I think the establishment of relations is long overdue,” she says. “Engagement with other countries has proven to be better than isolationist tactics.”

Equally disturbing is the article "A Trusted Ally for Leftists" on the negotiations between the Colombian government and FARC guerillas in Cuba. The article fails to even mention the explosion in cocaine production during these negotiations and makes the charge that the vote by Colombians to reject the peace agreement was based on "partial lies and misinformation" and "post-truth." Colombian voters understand that the FARC will use drug money to finance its entry into Colombian politics and attempt a Venezuelan style take over over the span of a few election cycles. This point of view is not reflected in this "special report" because dissenting points of view were purged from ICCAS back in August of 2017 and replaced by an Interim Director willing to adopt the new line from the University President that echoes those already mentioned above and are now found on the Institute's new website.

ICCAS, under Dr. Suchlicki, produced serious scholarship that not only embarrassed the Castro regime by debunking its propaganda but was also a challenge to other academic centers that study Cuba and are compromised by their need to satisfy the Castro regime's demands to be able to continue to have access to the island. Professor Suchlicki is the co-editor of the tenth edition of Cuban Communism. Reviewers of the 901 page tome say that it "has widely come to be known as 'the Bible of Cuban Studies.'" The distinguished periodical Foreign Affairs said of it: "There is no handier guide to the Castro regime and the debates swirling around it."

 Mike Gonzalez, currently a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation think tank, has written an important analysis of how foreign governments influence what Americans learn in college. The term "influence" is an understatement. He outlines how China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Cuba have successfully censored and propagandized what is taught at American colleges and universities.  The section of the article on Cuba described what is now taking place at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies:

Long a thorn in the side of the communist dictatorship in Havana, ICCAS has constantly received vituperative attacks by the regime’s propaganda outlets. Never before, however, has it come under the threat of the university’s own leadership. Frenk is a long-standing and well-known admirer of the Cuban regime’s health practices. As Mexico’s health secretary in 2001, he said Cuba had the best health indicators in Latin America, and Mexico would benefit from learning about Cuba’s success.

Unfortunately for Frenk, the ICCAS kept saying the truth about Cuba’s failed health system, as it did on July 20 in a report called “Cuba’s Silence is Dangerous to Your Health.” That report notes that “After a century hiatus, cholera, malaria and dengue have returned to Cuba.” I post the report here because it seems to have disappeared from the ICCAS website.

 Let me be clear. Believing in academic freedom I have no problem with Cuban "academics" speaking at the University of Miami or any other college. The word academics are in quotation marks because in a totalitarian communist dictatorship there is no academic freedom and academics are constrained by the demands of the dictatorship in what they can say and write and that needs to be taken into account.

However I do have a problem when dissenting voices are silenced or purged to satisfy the demands of a dictatorship for the sake of access or funding.  Incorporating presenters with different viewpoints in an academic setting to debunk propaganda and get to the facts is a positive step. Unfortunately, American academia seems to have been corrupted and the University of Miami that it in the past with ICCAS had been an oasis of academic excellence is eager to join the desert of accommodation with tyrants repeating the same lies in order to have a relationship with a totalitarian dictatorship. One can call that many things, but academic scholarship is not one of them.

Meanwhile I salute Professor Jaime Suchlicki for his truth telling and look forward to continue reading the work of the Cuban Studies Institute. I look forward to seeing who is finally selected as the new permanent director of the Institute of Cuban and Cuban American Studies at the University of Miami and pray that he can fill the chasm left by Dr. Suchlicki.

UM shutdown ICCAS and Dr. Suchlicki opens the Cuban Studies Institute

UM's Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies shutdown while Suchlicki's Cuban Studies Institute opens.

Back on July 10, 2017 this blog first raised the call that the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies (ICCAS) was under threat. The University of Miami claimed otherwise that only Dr. Suchlicki was going to retire and ICCAS would continue, but facts demonstrated otherwise. All staff at ICCAS were let go and by August 15, 2017 Casa Bacardi where ICCAS was located had been shut down. Dr. Suchlicki resigned from the University of Miami and has now announced that he, many of the former staff and other distinguished scholars are forming the Cuban Studies Institute which basically continues the mission that had been pursued before at ICCAS. Today received the following e-mail reproduced below and look forward to reading CSI's research and attending their events. 

Dear Friend:

Thank you for your support of ICCAS for the past two decades and for your continuing support now during a difficult time.

We have organized a new research, non-profit center, the Cuban Studies Institute (Instituto de Estudios Cubanos), and will continue the work of disseminating the reality about Cuba and its foreign policy.

Following is the Cuban Studies Institute staff:

Director: Jaime Suchlick, Ph.D. International Relations
Executive Director: Pedro Roig, J.D., Legal Issues
Program Coordinator/Office Manager: Maria Urizar
Research Coordinator: Jennifer Hernandez

The following colleagues are also joining us as Senior Research Associates of the new institute:

Alvaro Alba, Journalist
Jose Azel, Ph.D., International Business
Robert Cruz, Ph.D., Economist
Ignacio Uria, Ph.D., International Relations
Mario Gonzalez Corzo, Ph.D., Economist
Carlos Alberto Montaner, Author, Columnist
Sherri Porcelain, Ph.D., Public Health
Marco Antonio Ramos, Ph.D., History
Ambassador Otto Reich, American Foreign Policy

Research and Administrative Offices:
1500 South Dixie Highway (corner of Madruga)
Bank of America Building, 2nd floor
Coral Gables, FL 33146

E-mail: cubanstudies@cubanstudiesinstitute.com


Activities and Programs:
American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora
1200 Coral Way
Miami, FL 33145

We look forward to seeing you in our new offices and in our programs and activities.


Un fuerte abrazo,

Jaime Suchlicki

Assembly of the Cuban Resistance issues new statement on ICCAS scandal at UM

"Institutional engagement between our beloved University of Miami and the murderous Castro Regime, and safeguarding the objectivity and integrity of ICCAS are essential concerns of our community." 

Assembly of the Cuban Resistance at the Brigade 2506 Museum and Library

STATEMENT OF THE ASSEMBLY OF THE CUBAN RESISTANCE ON UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI’S INSTITUTE OF CUBAN AND CUBAN AMERICAN STUDIES (ICCAS)

August 17, 2017

Throughout the years, the University of Miami has been an important part of our Cuban-American community and the Cuban American community has greatly supported the University of Miami. Many generations of Cuban-Americans whose families made Miami their home have pursued their higher education studies at the University of Miami. As our community grew, so did the University. We are as much a part of the University of Miami as the University is a part of us. Our community has made significant contributions to the University’s growth and current reputation throughout the world for its educational excellence. The Institute of Cuban and Cuban American Studies (ICCAS) has been a key component of this relationship, and it has objectively and factually reflected the truth about Cuba and our community since it was founded almost twenty years ago.

At a time when freedom of speech and academic freedom are challenged by the influence of both authoritarian and totalitarian regimes on campuses across the country, we must all remain vigilant about the Castro regime’s efforts to influence Cuban and Latin American studies at American universities. The issue of ICCAS has to do with our concern about hostile foreign government disinformation, and as the FBI has reported, the Castro regime’s recruitment efforts in the academic community in the United States.

A meeting has been scheduled for tomorrow by the President of the University of Miami with a limited number of members of our Cuban American community -as well as others- to discuss the controversy regarding ICCAS. Many prominent Cuban exile and Cuban American academics and intellectuals, as well as community leaders have been regrettably excluded from this meeting.  The Assembly of the Cuban Resistance as a plural, inclusive and democratic institution of this community, stands together as one to express our concerns and reiterate that in order to safeguard ICCAS’ future as a truthful, balanced and objective institute for Cuban and Cuban American studies within the University of Miami, we recommend the following:

• That the University/Institute does not engage in any exchange with Cuban academic institutions because they are under the direct control of Cuba’s one-party totalitarian state.  As has been amply demonstrated, academia is seen as a tool of intelligence gathering and influence peddling by the Castro dictatorship.  We are steadfastly opposed to opening up the University of Miami to this poisonous exchange.
• That the University/Institute rescinds the appointment of Dr. Andy Gomez as ICCAS interim director. Dr. Gomez has been publicly recognized for promoting ventures with commercial enterprises that do business with Cuba under its totalitarian regime. Dr. Gomez’ as interim director will further divide the Cuban American community from the University of Miami, rather than bridging the divide that has been created.
•  That the University/Institute formally include the Cuban American community in the search committee for the new interim director and the permanent director of ICCAS.

It is our sincere hope that our fellow Cuban Americans attending tomorrow’s meeting make the above recommendations their own.  Institutional engagement between our beloved University of Miami and the murderous Castro Regime, and safeguarding the objectivity and integrity of ICCAS are essential concerns of our community.

ASSEMBLY OF THE CUBAN RESISTANCE

The Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami is worth saving

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." - William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming (1919)

Farewell Casa Bacardi?

 The Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS) has been an important point of reference for Cuban Studies based at the University of Miami with an international reputation that debunked disinformation and misinformation about the regime in Cuba. In 2017 the Center has published authors and academics Dr. Jaime Suchlicki, Dr. José Azel and Dr. Pedro Roig heading ICCAS.

Dr. José Azel with Yoani Sanchez at ICCAS

 World renown author and journalist Carlos Alberto Montaner annually gives a series of community lectures on the history of Cuba that are heavily attended.  The Institute opened its doors both to the Cuban American community and the Cuban dissident movement on the island.  All voices and views were welcome in an atmosphere of rigorous academic exchange.

Dr. Jaime Suchlicki with Rosa María Payá

 The director of the Institute, Professor Jaime Suchlicki is the co-editor of the tenth edition of Cuban Communism. Reviewers of the 901 page tome say that it "has widely come to be known as 'the Bible of Cuban Studies.'" The distinguished periodical Foreign Affairs said of it: "There is no handier guide to the Castro regime and the debates swirling around it." Dr. Suchlicki wanted "to create a place where young Cuban-Americans could come and learn about Cuba’s history and culture,” and for the last 18 years he created that space at the University of Miami. This tradition of academic excellence and seeking out the facts has made it a long time target of the Castro regime.

The Hurricane used cover for Castro's 2016 death but appropriate today with ICCAS

 Mike Gonzalez, currently a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation think tank, has written an important analysis of how foreign governments influence what Americans learn in college. The term "influence" is an understatement. He outlines how China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Cuba have successfully censored and propagandized what is taught at American colleges and universities.  The section of the article on Cuba described what is now taking place at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies:

Long a thorn in the side of the communist dictatorship in Havana, ICCAS has constantly received vituperative attacks by the regime’s propaganda outlets. Never before, however, has it come under the threat of the university’s own leadership. Frenk is a long-standing and well-known admirer of the Cuban regime’s health practices. As Mexico’s health secretary in 2001, he said Cuba had the best health indicators in Latin America, and Mexico would benefit from learning about Cuba’s success.

Unfortunately for Frenk, the ICCAS kept saying the truth about Cuba’s failed health system, as it did on July 20 in a report called “Cuba’s Silence is Dangerous to Your Health.” That report notes that “After a century hiatus, cholera, malaria and dengue have returned to Cuba.” I post the report here because it seems to have disappeared from the ICCAS website. The move to close the ICCAS by Frenk, whose wife Felicia Knaul was installed as the university’s director of the Miami Institute of the Americas after he became president, proved highly controversial in Miami. He now says he never wanted to close the center at all, but only to change its leadership.

Frenk’s version of events is disputed by Jose Azel, one of the academics whom Jaime Suchliki, the esteemed ICCAS director, had to summarily dismiss when he was informed by the university’s provost on July 9 that he had to close the institute on August 15. In an article recently in El Nuevo Herald, The Miami Herald’s Spanish-language edition, Azel says “I have verified that Dr. Suchliki’s termination agreement explicitly requires him to ‘effect the cessation of operations for the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies’.”

When I passed by the Institute of Cuban and Cuban American Studies (ICCAS) last week the moving truck was there and the movers were carrying everything out.  Last month when conflicting accounts emerged about what would become of ICCAS my experience in dealing with University bureaucrats as an undergraduate led me to believe Dr. Suchlicki, the faculty member with a half century of dedicated scholarship and service to the community, over Dr. Julio Frenk, the newly arrived bureaucrat with a fondness for Cuba's totalitarian healthcare system.

Dr. Suchlicki has not abandoned his mission but will now continue it outside of the University of Miami and that is a great shame. The lack of candor and coverup by the UM administration is an even greater shame and another black eye for academia.

Panel organized by the Cuban Democratic Directorate in 2015

For the record I was proud to have participated in several panel discussions over the years at the  Institute of Cuban and Cuban American Studies (ICCAS) and mourn its passing at the University of Miami.

Keeping ICCAS at the University of Miami and maintaining the tradition of critical inquiry established by Dr. Suchlicki in 1999 is sorely needed in today's academic environment where academic freedom is under assault. I pray that this little platoon of society against all odds is maintained at the University of Miami. Today is supposedly Dr. Suchlicki's final day at the University of Miami after a half century of service. I hope that this will not be the case and that Professor Suchlicki will be able to continue and oversee the transition to new leadership that will keep his dream alive at the University of Miami.

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

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.

Two years + three months later the demand for truth and justice for Oswaldo and Harold continues

"The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits 'atrocities' but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future." - George Orwell

Two years, and three months ago today Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante were killed in Cuba. The Christian Liberation Movement continues to gather signatures for a petition demanding an international investigation. International dignitaries are already demanding an investigation among them Nobel Peace Laureates Lech Walesa (1983) and Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1984).

One of the survivors of the incident on July 22, 2012, Ángel Carromero, has spoken on the record and last week visited Miami to give his testimony at the University of Miami, Radio República, Voces de Cuba and other media outlets.

On October 20, 2014 The Washington Post published an editorial challenging the Cuban dictatorship's version and lack of a proper and thorough investigation into the deaths of Oswaldo and Harold below is an excerpt pertinent to their case:

THE OTHER day, Fidel Castro wrote an opinion column for Cuba’s state-run newspaper, Granma, as he has done periodically from retirement. He lavished praise on an editorial in the New York Times that called for an end to the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba. But Mr. Castro had one complaint: The Times mentioned the harassment of dissidents and the still-unexplained death of a leading exponent of democracy, Oswaldo Payá, and a younger activist, Harold Cepero, in a car wreck two years ago.

The assertion that Cuba’s authoritarian government had yet to explain the deaths was “slanderous and [a] cheap accusation,” Mr. Castro sputtered.

So why has Cuba done nothing to dispel the fog of suspicion that still lingers over the deaths? If the charge is slanderous, then it is long past time for Mr. Castro to order a thorough investigation of what happened on an isolated Cuban road on July 22, 2012. So far, there has been only a crude attempt at cover-up and denial.

We know something about what happened, thanks to the eyewitness account of Ángel Carromero, the young Spanish politician who was at the wheel of the rental car that was carrying Mr. Payá and Mr. Cepero to a meeting with supporters. Mr. Carromero, who visited Washington last week, told us the car was being shadowed by Cuban state security from the moment it left Havana. He said his conversations with Mr. Payá as they traveled were mostly about the Varela Project, Mr. Payá’s courageous 2002 petition drive seeking to guarantee democracy in Cuba. Many of Mr. Payá’s supporters in the project were later arrested and imprisoned. 

After the wreck, Mr. Carromero was pressured by the Cuban authorities to describe it as an accident caused by his reckless speeding. But he reiterated to us last week that what really happened is that the rental car was rammed from behind by a vehicle bearing state license plates. Mr. Carromero showed us photographs of the damaged car, damage that seemed inconsistent with a wreck caused by speeding. But the precise details of what happened are unknown and need to be cleared up by a credible investigation. Mr. Payá’s family has sought one for two years, without success. When the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States sent a query to Cuba about the case, they got no answer. Nothing.