Will Rubio's Cuba Grievances Keep Farrar out of Managua?

[flamingdem]

http://www.thehavananote.com/2011/06/will_rubios_cuba_grievances_keep_farrar_out_managua

--- Does Managua trust this guy after Honduras?

excerpt:

Anya Landau French — Jun 14, 2011

With a thirty year career in the Foreign Service, including having served as the Acting Assistant Photo courtesy of: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/108143.htmSecretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, and having just completed a 'hardship' post as Chief of Mission at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana (which doesn't carry the title of Ambassador), Jonathan Farrar might reasonably have expected to now take an ambassador posting, even if the one he got was to another politically-charged post, in Managua,Nicargua.

Unfortunately for Farrar, Newly-minted Cuban American Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Western Hemisphere Subcommittee seems pretty likely to hold up his nomination, despite having never met with Farrar to discuss his grievances before last week's nomination hearing. (You can view Rubio's criticism of Farrar and Farrar's response here.)

What has Farrar done to possibly tank his nomination? Apparently he wasn't "abrasive" enough. Farrar got on the wrong side of Rubio by taking down the polemical electronic billboard ticker he inherited, telling the truth as he saw it about a fractured and weak Cuban dissident community in now-Wikileaked State Department cables, and apparently inviting the wrong people to his events and not inviting the right ones. Oh, and rather than staying at Farrar's residence, U.S. diplomatic delegations overnighted in - gasp - the Hotel Nacional, the same hotel in which visiting members of Congress usually stay.

In reality, Rubio is punishing Farrar for the instructions he received from Washington and carried out both dutifully and effectively. I met Farrar several times while he was posted in Havana, and while we didn't always agree, he earned my respect. I found him well-informed and fair; He refused to tell you whatever you wanted to hear. He struck me as a realist who nonetheless expected Havana to live up to far better. Whereas his immediate predecessors were toxic among private Cuban citizens due to the more confrontational policy they served under the Bush administration and the flamboyant, non-diplomatic way in which they carried it out, Farrar and his wife regularly visited a different church in the greater Havana area every Sunday and held auctions for independent Cuban artists, without stirring up an international crisis.

Recall, it was during the tenure of Jim Cason when 75 Cuban dissidents were rounded up and hastily sentenced to long prison sentences for collaborating with a hostile enemy (the United States), and it was during Farrar's time in Havana that nearly all of the 75 were finally freed (though I give credit to the United States mainly for staying out of the way of the talks that made that possible). And when Farrar took down the ticker and other provocative props Senator Rubio preferred, the Cuban government responded by taking down dozens of giant black flags from in front of the Interests Section, and by finally removing the noxious billboards suggesting that the United States under George Bush was behaving like Hitler's Nazi Germany. During Farrar's tenure, Havana became less confrontational and less 'anti-American'. Isn't that the sort of record we want our diplomats to leave behind?

[Judi Lynn]

1. In the end, it was Farrar who did the right thing by removing Cason's (Bush's) filthy ticker.

He knows in his heart he's right!

So does everyone else.

Thank you for this material on this gusano scum senator. I had no idea he had already gained that spot on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Western Hemisphere Subcommittee. That's just goddawful, especially considering Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee again. Absolutely unacceptable.

That Miami group has far, FAR too much power for such a small population. Everyone knows it. It's because everyone's hot to befriend the people who control Florida's electoral votes, of course.

[flamingdem]

2. Some surprising news about what's going on in the house

Latin America Working Group
End the Travel Ban on Cuba

Dear Cuba Policy Advocate,

We fought for "travel for all" and we got "travel for some." Now we face the possibility of "travel for none. "

The House Appropriations Committee is meeting first thing tomorrow morning, and Cuba may very well come up. Opponents of exchange with Cuba will likely offer amendments to the financial services appropriations bill that will reverse the changes the President has made during his term in office – which has allowed travel by Cuban-American families, students and professors, religious groups, academics, musicians. We can't let this happen.

If your representative is a member of the Appropriations Committee, ask your representative to vote against ANY amendment that tightens travel restrictions. To find out if your representative is on the committee, go to: http://www.lawg.org/component/content/article/77/877

Call your representative's DC office. Find the number at http://www.dnet.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt

Send her/him an email, too. Go to: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/625/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=7128

Call your member of Congress now so that YOU can help retain the progress that we've made, while we at the same time continue to fight for everyone's right to travel to Cuba.

Sincerely,

LAWG's Cuba team
Mavis, Paulo, Emily, Andrew

[Judi Lynn]

3. Oh, jeez. Didn't know. Will do this tomorrow. Thanks, so much.

I never DREAMED this could happen, who would, other than the radical Miami reactionaries?

Someone's got to defang these idiots.

Thank you for getting the information out while we can, at least, try to help.