Bacardi, the Castro regime, and the Havana Club Trademark: An injustice that needs to be remedied

Bacardi environmental stewardship recognized while Castro regime's rum maker harm's Cuba's, yet a travesty continues

CubaBrief by Center for a Free Cuba

Bacardi is in the news again. The rum maker founded in 1862 in Santiago de Cuba has a positive track record on environmental stewardship that has again been recognized. Bacardi USA was awarded the SmartWay® Excellence Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the fourth time.

Meanwhile, the Castro regime continues to sell their stolen version of Havana Club, that today "pumps 1,288 cubic meters of waste liquids into the Chipriona inlet in Cuba every day, mostly vinasse (a residual liquid remaining from the fermentation and distillation of alcoholic liquors). It has been doing that since the 1990s, although the problems became more acute starting in 2007," according to Julio Batista in his 2017 report described the impact of this pollution as follows:

"The Chipriona inlet is a place where no one goes, where no one fishes, that doesn't need a fence because no one wants to swim in the boiling filth that flows into its waters every day. The waters of what used to be a beach are now soupy and have the sour smell of decomposition. No studies about the marine life in the inlet are publicly available, but fishermen say there's no fish there." ..."In the last decade, Chipriona has become the drainage point for the Ronera Sana Cruz, the biggest distillery in the country and one of the four owned by Cuba Ron S.A. It's the end point of the sewage of the only place where the white and 3-year-old brands are distilled by Havana Club International (HCI). And the dumping ground for a company that earned $118.5 million in profits in 2016 from the sale of 4.2 million boxes each with nine liters of rum."

Despite the Castro regime's poor record on environmental stewardship and overall terrible record on human rights the United States in 2016 stripped Bacardi of its right to the Havana Club brand and turned it over to a company of the Castro dictatorship. According to Reuters, "in January, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office decided to allow Cuban state firm Cubaexport to register the Havana Club name once again in the United States." Bacardi "acquired the rights to the Havana Club trademark from its pre-revolutionary owner whose distillery was nationalized" by the communist regime.

Ambassador Otto J. Reich, president of the Center for a Free Cuba, on January 31, 2020 in The Miami Herald called on the United States to undo this wrong that continues to favor the Castro dictatorship and gutted the rights of a Cuban family business. "The Obama administration allowed Cuba to renew an expired trademark registration for the confiscated Havana Club rum. The Trump administration should reverse that action and demonstrate to unscrupulous foreign companies that there are grave risks to economic deals with a regime that has stolen billions of dollars in properties from Americans and Cubans, and thus stop dishonestly enriching the Cuban government."

This action by the United States in 2016 against Bacardi, and in favor of the Castro dictatorship was a deeply unpopular move for Cubans with a sense of history. Business Insider on October 28, 2020 broadcast a podcast on "Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba" that explored the company's history back to Cuba's colonial period under Spain in beginning in 1862. 

Emilio Bacardi, son of one of the two founders of Bacardi, Don Emilio Bacardi, "was a field officer for Gen. Antonio Maceo in 1895 during the invasion of Cuba by independence forces, and reached the rank of colonel by the age of 22," according to his obituary in The New York Times on October 16, 1972 when he died at the age of 95 in exile in Miami. 

Emilio Bacardi Lay

He was "the last surviving ranking officer of Cuba's war of independence with Spain," according to the paper of record. The Bacardi family throughout the struggle for independence, and during the years of the Republic defended democracy and Cuban national identity, and remain a historic example. They also resisted all of Cuba's dictators: Machado, Batista and Castro. 

This is in stark contrast to the history of the Castro family. Fidel Castro's father, Angel Castro, enlisted in the Spanish army and arrived in Cuba to defend Spain's colonial possession from forces battling for independence. He returned with the Spanish armed forces to the Iberian Peninsula following their defeat in 1898, but shortly after emigrated to Cuba and established himself there. This allegiance to Spain would continue through his sons Fidel and Raul Castro.

In 2016 TV3 produced a documentary "Franco and Fidel: A Strange Friendship" that explored this relationship between the two dictators and is available online.

The documentary revealed how pro-Castro Cuban exiles were able to celebrate Fidel Castro's triumph in 1959 with a mass protest in Retiro Park in Spain. This was at a time when Spaniards could not do that. Latin American Herald Tribune reported on this and more regarding the TV3 production.

Also revealing are accounts by Castro revolutionaries who said that during their struggle against dictator Fulgencio Batista their lives were saved thanks to the help of the Spanish Embassy, as well as images of Ernesto "Che" Guevara walking in Madrid and attending a bullfight with members of Franco's secret police. 

Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Franco Spain at a Bullfight

Following the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the US pushed for tight economic sanctions on the Castro regime, the rest of Latin America, France and the United Kingdom all went along with Washington, but Franco's Spain continued trading with Havana.

On Franco's death in 1975, Fidel Castro decreed three days of mourning in Cuba, although he made sure that it went unnoticed by the press, it was an official decree signed by Cuban president Oswaldo Dorticós. This relationship with the Spanish dictator should not be a surprise when one considers that the Castro regime had a close working relationship with former high ranking Nazis.

This is why the United States siding with the Castro dictatorship in an issue of private property rights against Bacardi is so deeply offensive, and needs to be remedied. Cuban Americans and Cubans on the island would remember this gesture.