Leonard Weinglass’s questions for Hillary Clinton

A story filed by Associated Press journalist Anita Snow last Tuesday, April 21, included the following sentences: “Obama could suffer serious political fallout if he agreed to swap the so-called Cuban Five — communist agents who were convicted of espionage in Miami in 2001. The ringleader was implicated in the death of four exiles killed when Cuban military fighters shot their planes down off the island’s coast in 1996.”

In a reflection published soon afterwards, Fidel wrote, “Isn’t that…an indirect threat to the president of the United States?”

Indeed it is a curious comment, detached from any person interviewed in the story, and therefore presumably Snow’s original creation.  Nevertheless, the fallout Obama might expect to encounter through such a swap would likely rest with the minority of Cuban exiles in Miami who never voted for him in the first place.  He won Florida without, or despite, them, and most U.S. citizens outside of Miami have little memory of the February 24, 1996 shootdown and less still of the Miami trial of five Cubans, five years later, where the U.S. Government, the families of the downed pilots and Cuban exiles with a long history of terrorist action against Cuba joined in a simmering fury in search of a victim.

Ultimately they found five victims, but their rage was focused on one in particular: the one Snow pejoratively calls the “ringleader,” Gerardo Hernandez. 

Cuba’s Rubicon

“We’ve said to the North American government, both privately and publicly, that we’re ready…to discuss everything: human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners, everything…but on equal terms.” – Raúl Castro

Speech by Cuba’s President at the Fifth ALBA Summit in Cumaná, Venezuela, April 16, 2009

English translation by Machetera, revised by Manuel Talens

Raúl Castro (to Hugo Chávez): Remember that you need to give me the floor to thank everyone, especially those who’ve spoken – and I’m not going to exclude Daniel, because he’ll also speak as well, just as he’s done throughout his entire life as a revolutionary – in the name of the Cuban people, all the expressions of solidarity and support for our Revolution, to our people, and I believe, therefore, also the Leader of the Revolution, comrade Fidel Castro, who’s listening to us directly. [Applause]

I’m not going to go on, I’ll speak on the other points.  I have to speak – according to what they tell me – at the mass meeting in the Plaza, don’t I?  I still don’t know how it’ll be.  Are we going to speak there in the Plaza?

Hugo Chávez: Yes.  We’ve asked you to speak in everyone’s name.

Raúl Castro: No, that’s a huge responsibility.  If anything, [it should be] the main host.

Anyway, I think that what we’ve heard here this afternoon, that doesn’t surprise us, the whole world knows it, except the United States, its main ally, Israel, and one country or another that occasionally abstains or has even voted against the United Nations General Assembly, is that the entire planet condemns the blockade.

I don’t want to talk about the OAS, I already spoke in Sauípe, at the Rio Summit, right?  And furthermore, our friend Zelaya will meet with all the delegates at the end of May and the beginning of June; I don’t want to answer what Mr. Insulza recently said, because Fidel already did it some hours ago.

We can talk about many other things besides the OAS.  The OAS, it might be said, has oozed blood since its very creation; Cuba is one example, but before Cuba there were plenty more. 

Heelary Cleenton joo espeek espaneesh?

On Wednesday, April 22, while Machetera was admiring new developments in pediatric dentistry (she herself was a victim of the dark ages of the trade),  USA Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was appearing before Congress to discuss foreign policy.  On Venezuela, she repeated the line that her boss tossed out at his limited press conference in Port of Spain – that dangerous handshake between Chávez and Obama?  You know that rascal Chávez, so good with the cameras!

On Cuba, she uttered something truly amazing, and the major media rushed to repeat and amplify it, like a hall of mirrors:

President [Obama]’s actions did draw a response from Raúl Castro which was then contradicted today by Fidel Castro saying that my brother didn’t really mean that we would talk about political prisoners and human rights so I think you could see there’s beginning to be a debate, I mean, this is a regime that is ending.

Whoa Nellie.  I mean Hillary.  That’s some Spanish translation you’ve got going there.  Check it again with your sister-in-law.

What did Raúl actually say?  Since nobody has produced an English transcript of Raúl’s extemporaneous speech at the ALBA Summit, Machetera will oblige.  Here’s an excerpt:

Patron saint of Cuban mercenaries and lazy journalists

AP journalist Anita Snow reports that according to Cuban “dissident” Elizardo Sánchez (El Camaján) more than 200 Cubans serving time in Cuban prisons for taking money from the United States to overthrow the Cuban government, are “nearly unanimous” on the idea that they would rather stay in prison than be traded for the Cuban Five.

Now, Machetera’s just a humble blogger, picking over the carcass of a story dragged back by a beat reporter, but still, she has a few nagging questions.  First of all, it can’t be pleasant talking to someone as slimy as Sánchez, and Snow probably wanted to get off the phone as fast as possible, but Machetera wonders if it occurred to her to ask him how he came by his information?  Did he take a poll?  Snow mentions that Sánchez talks to some of these people and their families every day, but it’s kind of a leap between talking to “numerous” prisoners and saying that “most of the 200″ are unanimous on the idea of serving their entire sentence.  Isn’t it?

Second of all, it’s not Sánchez doing the time, is it?  Sánchez is free to continue hanging out in public parks, trading info for whiskey. So maybe it’s easy for him to say?

And when would it be worth mentioning to readers that Sánchez is a man notorious for playing both sides of the fence – working Cuban security at the same time he worked Frank Calzon – not because he cared about either, but because his main allegiance was to himself?

Waiting for Godot

Obama’s Cuban Dilemma

One of the most painful things about being a citizen of the United States of America over the past several decades has been living aboard a political ship that is constantly listing to the right even as it sinks. Just when you think it can’t get worse, it does, and our foreign policy, which was never much good to begin with, grows ever more appallingly belligerent. This means that any course correction from aggressive belligerence, no matter how small, is greeted as remarkable change, even when it leaves you worse off than when you started. The mass media have a lot to do with it of course, framing the issues for a general public that is poorly educated and therefore ignorant by design.

CANF to the back of the class!

The Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) has just written a term paper for Obama. Machetera gives it a D.

On the bright side, if CANF really has the inside track with the Obamans now (and they might, if Obama’s terrible pandering speech to CANF in 2008 is any indication) it looks like one of Machetera’s friends at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington will finally be able to realize his dream of shopping at Ikea before he leaves for Cuba later this year. (See CANF’s suggested removal of the 25 mile travel restriction on Cuban diplomats in the U.S. in return for allowing USA diplomats free roaming for subversion in Cuba.)

High noon at the socialist corral

Governmental Reorganization in Cuba and the Solidarity Shootout

By Ángeles Diez (and Eduardo Hernández)

English translation by Ana Atienza, revised by Machetera

The ministerial reorganization in the Cuban government, Fidel Castro’s letter explaining the reasons for such changes, and the publication of self-inculpatory letters from two significant officials belonging to the political leadership of the country have triggered a blind shootout within the Cuba solidarity movement which should be analyzed in order to avoid what has come to be usual practice in the European left: permanent atomization around superficial issues and the rejection of reflection and debate.

In this article we have summarized the general opinions taken from multiple published articles and opinion pieces from different sectors: What had happened? What was behind those changes? Why was nothing reported? These questions were not made solely by groups close to the Revolution, but also by those clearly against it. Surprisingly enough, such confusion has placed all of us in the same space: the void which, as we all know, relentlessly tends to be filled with value judgments. And that’s where we’ve engaged, some for the better, some for the worse.

Cuban institutions have not tackled this confusion, nor did they take the time to fill that void. But, should they have? The only certainty is that accomplished facts have been the only available explanation, thus leading to proliferation of the most surprising and contradictory hypotheses, thus resulting in a new fragmentation of solidarity.