Cuban Colada

McCaffrey turns down 3-day visit to Cuba, citing 'vitriolic' comments by a top official

Comments about President Obama and the United States voiced by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla and Raúl Castro have caused Gen. Barry McCaffrey, U.S. Army (retired), an advocate of unfettered travel to Cuba, to turn down an invitation to visit that country, Jan. 3-6.
Addressing the United Nations summit on global climate changes on Dec. 18, Rodríguez said that Obama, a previous speaker at the meeting, "disrespect[ed] the international community" and "behave[d] like an imperial chief."
In another statement in Havana on Dec. 21, Rodríguez said, according to Radio Habana, that Obama is "imperial, arrogant, doesn't listen, imposes conditions and even threatens the developing countries."
Gen. McCaffrey, who on Nov. 19 told a House panel that Americans should be allowed to travel to Cuba without restrictions, took offense at Rodríguez's words.
In a message Tuesday to Wayne Smith, director of the Cuba Program at the Washington-based Center for International Policy, McCaffrey said that he had read reports that Rodríguez had "denounced President Obama at the Copenhagen Conference as an 'imperial and arrogant liar' in the most vile and personal terms imaginable."
"The Foreign Minister could not have borrowed talking points from Cuba's worst enemies to more effectively harm the country's future economic and political  interests," McCaffrey wrote.
"The [Associated Press] wires also note Raúl Castro mentioned Cuba's recent 'war games' to prepare for U.S. invasion," the general continued. "What a laughable assertion of an external U.S. military threat."
"This type of shallow and vitriolic 1960s public diplomacy also makes Cuban leadership appear to be non-serious, polemical amateurs. President Obama is the most thoughtful and non-ideological U.S. Chief Executive that the Cubans have seen in 50 years. This Foreign Minister Rodríguez speech probably slammed the window shut on U.S. Congressional and Administration leaders being willing to support bringing Cuba back into the community of nations."
"This situation makes me very sad for the Cuban people. I see little reason to visit Cuba and deal with leadership of this appalling lack of good judgment. Please withdraw my name for the proposed visit to Cuba in January."
Castro referred to the defense-preparedness exercise Bastion 2009 in an address to the National Assembly on Dec. 20.
–Renato Pérez Pizarro, with thanks to Lesley Clark.

Valdés promoted to VP of Council of State; so is Bejerano,Cuba's Comptroller General

Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, Minister of Computer Sciences and Communications, and Gladys María Bejerano Portela, Comptroller General, were elected vice presidents of the Council of State by the members of the National Assembly, the Cuban media announced Sunday.
Valdés, 77, is a vice president of the Council of Ministers; so is Bejerano.
A veteran of the Revolution with the rank of Comandante, Valdés joined Fidel Castro in the attack on the Moncada army barracks in 1953 and was a founding member of the 26 of July Movement. He has held many government posts, including chief of State Security, Minister of the Interior, and First Vice Minister of the Armed Forces.
Bejerano, 62, former Minister of Auditing and Control, was elected to her current post in August of this year by the National Assembly. A Communist Party cadre for more than 30 years, she has held various posts in the Council of Ministers.
Marino Murillo Jorge, Minister of the Economy and Planning, and Liudmila Álamo Dueñas, First Secretary of the Union of Communist Youths, were elected members of the Council of State.
Deputies Isis Diez Duarte, Kirenia Díaz Burque and Sergio Rodríguez Morales were also named members of the Council of State.

Elián González, 'the little rafter,' is 16

Marches through the streets of Cárdenas, in Matanzas province, celebrated the 16th birthday of resident Elián González on Sunday, the Cuban media reported.
The marchers also honored the “Battle of Ideas” between Cuba and the United States that began in November 1999, when Elián arrived in South Florida, clinging to an inner tube, and was sheltered by relatives in Miami. The legal battle over custody between those relatives and Elián's father lasted for months.
Elián finally returned to Cuba in June 2000.

Greg Craig quits as White House counsel; spoke for Elián's father in custody tussle

White House counsel Greg Craig resigned Friday and was replaced by President Obama's personal lawyer, Bob Bauer.
McClatchy Newspapers pointed out that Craig "had been deeply involved in the planned shutdown of the prison for terrorism suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a process marked by delays." There is talk that Craig's failure to get the prison closed by the Jan. 22 deadline led the White House to ask for his resignation.
No doubt, some cheering will be heard in Little Havana. Craig represented Juan Miguel González, father of Elián González, in the tug-of-war for the boy's custody in 2000, which ended in Elián's return to Cuba.
Many in South Florida reviled Craig for allegedly acting on behalf of the Castro government, which supported Juan Miguel in the legal battle.
A CNN interview with Craig on April 22, 2000, the day Elián was removed from the home of his Miami relatives, will take you back to those troubled days. Click here. At left is a recent picture of the 15-year-old Elián.
–Renato Pérez Pizarro, with thanks to Lesley Clark.

Up on the wall – the Ayatollah Khamilo?

A large image of revolutionary fighter Camilo Cienfuegos has gone up on a wall of the Ministry of Communications in Havana, near the equally large image of Ernesto Che Guevara that overlooks Revolution Square. It is the work of artist Enrique Ávila, who also authored the Guevara portrait.
A Cuban Colada reader, who identifies himself as Felix Rex, sent us a picture of the Cienfuegos image and asked if it wasn't reminiscent of Iran's Ruhollah Khomeini, the late Ayatollah.
I dunno. Both men had beards and wore head cover. What do you think?
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Michael Douglas in surprise appearance

Michael Douglas spent some time Sunday at the Havana bar "El Floridita," schmoozing with fellow actor Sean Penn, according to the official website Cubadebate, which gave no indication of what Douglas is doing in Cuba. (The two played brothers in the 1997 movie The Game.)
On Tuesday, Douglas toured the historic quarter of Havana and stopped at the Conde de Villanueva hostel, where he watched cigar makers at work. He also posed for pictures with construction workers and startled residents, The Associated Press reported.
According to the AP, Douglas plans to be on the island for four days. He's staying at the Hotel Nacional..
(PHOTO SHOWS Douglas listening to a guide at the Casa del Habano cigar factory.)
In recent months, several American movie actors have visited Havana, including Benicio del Toro, James Caan, Robert Duvall and Bill Murray. The usual reason given for their trip is "film research."
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Penn flies to Cuba on journalistic mission

Actor Sean Penn left Las Vegas for Havana in a private jet on Saturday, the entertainment news website TMZ.com reported.
"Sean is going to the land of Fidel as a journalist, writing a story for Vanity Fair about how the Obama administration has affected Cuba," the brief article said. Penn reportedly was traveling in a plane owned by Diana Jenkins, the wife of Barclays Bank executive Roger Jenkins.
Penn met with Raúl Castro in Havana in October of 2008 and wrote an interview that was published in The Nation the following month. In it, Castro said he would be willing to meet with Obama "in a neutral place," perhaps the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base. "We must meet and begin to solve our problems," Castro said at the time. [An account of that meeting appears in Ann Louise Bardach's new book, Without Fidel. To read it, click here.]
A spokesman for Penn told TMZ.com that there is "no appointment scheduled and no current plan" for Penn to meet with Raúl Castro's brother Fidel.

[UPDATE: Penn spent Sunday on the Isle of Youth, talking with Cuban artists, reported the official site Cubadebate in a lavishly illustrated article. His host was painter Alexis ("Kcho") Leyva. Others included singer Kelvis Ochoa, trumpeter Yasek Manzano and painters Ernesto Rancaño and Sándor González.
Penn visited an arts gallery in the city of Nueva Gerona and toured an arts camp called The Second Front. For details, click here.]
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Trial is planned for individuals whose acts led to the ouster of Lage and Pérez Roque

Several Cuban personalities associated with ousted Vice President Carlos Lage and Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque will go on trial next year on charges that may include espionage and the disclosure of state secrets, El Nuevo Herald has learned from sources in the Cuban Prosecutor General's office.
The Prosecutor General himself, Juan Escalona Reguera, is expected to present the government's case. The defendants include:
• Entrepreneur Conrado Hernández, who worked for a Basque trade association and is believed to have delivered information about affairs of state to the Spanish intelligence service;
• Hernández's wife Amalia, a physician who worked at the Havana hospital where Fidel Castro was operated in 2006. She allegedly gave information about Castro's condition to Hernández, who in turn passed it on to his Spanish handlers.

• Raúl Castellanos Lage, cousin of the ousted Vice President, who allegedly made "counter-revolutionary statements" and disparaging remarks about First Vice President José Ramón Machado Ventura. (For background on the ouster in March of the two high officials, click here and also here.)
Prosecutor Escalona, 78, a retired Army general, is described as a hard-liner, whose prosecution of the case does not bode well for the defendants. According to Alcibíades Hidalgo, a former Cuban deputy foreign minister, Escalona's assignment to the case "is a terrible sign. [It] means that these people are going to be tried with the maximum severity. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes."
For the full story in El Nuevo Herald, click here.
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Cuba concert backlash for Cucu Diamantes

Cucu Diamantes, the Cuban-born, New York-based singer who was one of 14 artists to join Juanes in his enormous concert in Havana's Plaza de la Revolución, is suffering some backlash from an unexpected quarter – the New Jersey public school system. The singer, whose real name is Ileana Padrón, was supposed to perform at the opening of Union City High School last Saturday. However, on Thursday the Union City Board of Education cancelled the show, saying the city's heavily Cuban community would be "enraged" at their young people being entertained by an artist who had performed in Cuba.
Here's the main text of the email to Padrón's agent from Suzanne Lavelle, an attorney for the Union City Board of Education.
"This letter will serve to confirm Ms. DiNardo’s conversation with you on Thursday, September 24, 2009, wherein the Union City Board of Education cancelled the contract for the Cucu Diamantes’ performance at the Union City High School on September 26, 2009.
"As advised during said conversation, it is unfortunate that we must cancel the contract; however, due to your client’s recent performance at the Paz Sin Fronteras in Cuba, our community, which is comprised of approximately 85 % Cuban immigrants, became enraged at the thought of the High School supporting an artist who would perform in Cuba. The community perceived Ms. Diamantes’ performance in Cuba as support of the current political regime in Cuba. The community came together and threatened civil unrest, protests and the like at the grand opening gala if the High School went ahead with its plans to allow Ms. Diamantes to perform. Clearly, this is not the atmosphere we envisioned for the grand opening of our new High School." [Italics mine]
Amazing. Another Cuban-American city has usurped Miami's reputation for reactionary backlash. Here we got rid of the Cuba Ordinance, which prohibited local arts groups from presenting Cuban artists, years ago. Concert supporters outnumbered concert protesters on Calle Ocho two to one. The hundreds of thousands of young Cubans on the plaza in Havana weren't enraged. And there were certainly tens of thousands of Cubans avidly watching the show on TV in Miami.
Somebody should ask the New Jersey school board – did New Jerseyans protest when Springsteen sang for East Germans at the Berlin Wall? What would the Boss have done if they had?
Juanes expressed indignation and anger on his Twitter blog.
“Es sorprendente que esto pase en Nueva Jersey, estado hermano de Nueva York, donde siempre se han respetado todas las libertades propias de un individuo en un país democrático… vivimos en un país democrático, donde todas las opiniones pueden y deben coexistir,” he said.
“Eso es para los que hablan de represión y falta de libertad… y más vergüenza aún viniendo de una escuela… absurdo total. Qué tal el ejemplo de educación que quieren dejar, qué mensaje tan negativo, y eso, que estamos en USA, donde sí hay "libertad". ¡Me da risa!”
In Cuba, Radio Baraguá made a gargantuan leap of logic to blame the cancellation on the loooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnggggg arm of Emilio Estefan, head of the Miami Mafia's musical arm, and Ricardo Alarcón, head of radio chain SBS and Miami's Mega TV (whose influential talkshow host, María Elvira Salazar, literally wept with gratitude as she thanked singer Olga Tañón – on behalf of the Cuban-American community – for her performance in Havana.). Apparently blaming Union City would require too big a propaganda shift.
–JORDAN LEVIN.

Fidel has 10+ children, new book says

A new book about Fidel Castro contends that the 83-year-old Comandante has sired at least 10 children during his lifetime, says an article Saturday in the British newspaper The Telegraph. "That is more than previously believed, but very possibly not the full tally."
The tentative tally appears in "Without Fidel: A death foretold in Miami, Havana and Washington," by Ann Louise Bardach, which will be released Oct. 6.

• Fidel had Fidel Angel ("Fidelito") with his first wife, Mirta Díaz-Balart, in 1949 (PHOTO SHOWS mother and son in November 2008);
• Alina Fernández, daughter of Natalia Revuelta, in 1956;
• Francisca "Panchita" Pupo, with an unidentified woman, in 1956;
• Jorge Angel, son of María Laborde, an admirer, in 1956;
• Ciro, with an unidentified woman, in the early 1960s;
• Five boys with his second wife, Dalia Soto del Valle, between 1962 and 1974; Antonio, Alejandro, Alexis, Alexander and Angel.
• "And if claims made earlier this year by a Cuban intelligence defector that he sired another son in 1970 are true, that would take the count to 11 children by seven women – and counting," The Telegraph says. The son's name is given as Fito.
To read the article in The Telegraph, click here. For a long excerpt from Bardach's book, published in the website The Daily Beast, click here. The Spanish daily El Mundo also previews the book; click here.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.