Congress members visit American jailed in Cuba
Source: Associated Press
Congress members visit American jailed in Cuba
| May 5, 2014 | Updated: May 5, 2014 5:48pm
HAVANA (AP) — Four U.S. House members have met with an American government subcontractor who is serving a 15-year prison sentence in Cuba.
The delegation includes U.S. Reps. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, Sam Farr and Barbara Lee of California and Gregory Meeks of New York.
Cleaver says they are hoping to start negotiations on securing the release of Alan Gross, a Maryland native.
Lee says it is time for both countries to "make a serious commitment" to serious negotiations.
The delegation also met Monday with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez.
Gross was arrested in 2009 after he was caught setting up hard-to-detect Internet networks for Cuba's small Jewish community on a U.S. government contract. Havana considers such programs to be an affront to its sovereignty.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/Congress-members-visit-American-jailed-in-Cuba-5454963.php
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MyNameGoesHere
(7,638 posts)can get you jailed. Boohoo. Don't be stupid if you can't do the time.
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)was satellite equipment the importation of which is a definite no no as is perfectly clear to all who enter Cuba.
He should just do his time and shut up.
pipoman
(16,038 posts)Your comment may be reasonable if we were talking about 15 months..
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)but Gross was in effect a spy.
Tough if he didn't really appreciate the sentence.
pipoman
(16,038 posts)Should work for his release.
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)aka The Bay of Pigs.
Suppose it might help if the US admitted he was acting as a spy.
MyNameGoesHere
(7,638 posts)He was working for a KNOWN CIA FRONT. He is lucky to still be alive. He is a spy period. He is getting off lightly.
Daniel537
(1,560 posts)All this psycho babble about "promoting democracy" is nothing but code for regime change. If the US govt. really wanted Cubans to interact with Americans it would lift the travel ban. Don't hold your breath.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Jeers for the authoritarians who think that 15 years for helping avoid totalitarian censorship is justice.
Cuba is a dictatorship that's made great progress in improving its people's lives. That doesn't mean it's not a dictatorship.
Mika
(17,751 posts)Funny thing about that "dictatorship" ... it responds to the people's needs and desires, by marshaling the power of the people to undertake the will of said people.
For example;
The "dictatorship" doesn't do medical work. Cuban doctors do it. Because they wanted to be, and are, doctors.
The "dictatorship" doesn't do the teaching in schools. Cuban educators do it. Because they wanted to be, and are, teachers.
The "dictatorship" saw to it (of the people's will) to organize resources to make this happen by and for the people, and they have it.
Etc, etc.
Funny form of "dictatorship" the Cubans have going there. They do what they want, not what US oligarchs want.
Been there. Lived there. Seen it. Lived it.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)that has achieved social goods.
One aspect doesn't disprove the other.
Mika
(17,751 posts)Cuba has a democratic parliamentary variant system of gov't.
I'm not posting this for you, gt. You remain steadfast in your adamant ignorance on this topic.
I'm posting this for others who are interested ...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x31936
EX500rider
(10,809 posts)EX500rider
(10,809 posts)Main article: Politics of Cuba
Transparency International: 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index, ranked 61 out of 182 countries
Reporters Without Borders: 2011–2012 Press Freedom Index, ranked 167 out of 179 countries
The Economist Intelligence Unit: Democracy Index 2008, ranked 126 out of 167 countries
Freedom House: 2012 Global Press Freedom: ranked 190 out of 197
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_rankings_of_Cuba
Mika
(17,751 posts)
EX500rider
(10,809 posts)Mika
(17,751 posts)As mentioned in other threads, I've been in Cuba during an entire election season.
When were you in Cuba?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)
Bacchus4.0
(6,837 posts)EX500rider
(10,809 posts).....so how many parties ran against the Communist Party during your election there?
How many people ran for the top slot, you know, the one that has said CASTRO for 50+ years?
EX500rider
(10,809 posts)Mika
(17,751 posts)They get their information from Cubanet paid "independent journalists".
Cubanet is funded by Freedom House (a Mellon-Scaife funded org), the IRI, NED, the Diaz-Balart family, and Orlando Bosch.
So, I'm sure that the Rw/oB zeroxed reports from vested interests are accurate. 
But, you knew that. Right?
EX500rider
(10,809 posts)from
Judi Lynn
(160,450 posts)03/01/07
The Freedom House Files
by Diana Barahona
"Freedom House is an independent non-governmental organization that supports the expansion of freedom in the world." -- Freedom House
~snip~
During the 1980s, the organization began to receive a majority of its grant income from the newly created NED (founded by Congress in 1983), and contracts for Latin America far surpassed those for Eastern Europe.5 Under the Reagan-Bush administrations, Freedom House continued to promote the foreign policy objectives of the United States in Central America, "supporting the death squad-linked ARENA party in El Salvador while attacking the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, championing Contra leaders like Arturo Cruz, and serving as a conduit for funds from the National Endowment for Democracy."6 Considered "neoconservative" even at that time, the group's trustees and associates were affiliated with the State Department, the National Security Council (Jeane Kirkpatrick), the CIA (through front groups), the U.S. Information Agency, the Trilateral Commission (Zbigniew Brzezinski), the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Committee on the Present Danger, Accuracy in Media, the American Enterprise Institute, Crisis, The New Republic and PRODEMCA, a group that raised funds and lobbied for the Contras. During the 1980s, Freedom House also formed the Afghanistan Information Center, one of several NED-funded groups supporting the mujahedin. This was to complement the government's US $3,000 million covert funding program for the anti-Soviet groups.7
According to Freedom House's IRS Form 990, prior to 1997 its government funding was in the form of "government fees and contracts," presumably for work performed on behalf of the State Department. After that year, however, the funding was qualified as "grants." But with neoconservatives such as Kenneth Adelman, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Otto Reich, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Samuel Huntington, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Malcolm Forbes Jr. on the board of trustees, there was no danger the organization would change its ideological course.8
Freedom House's government-linked trustees have traditionally seats in the boardroom with corrupt, right-wing union bosses. In the 1980s and 1990s there were cold warriors Lane Kirkland, William Doherty, Albert Shanker, and Sol C. Chaikin. Doherty, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, was executive director of the CIA-linked AIFLD. Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, was also on the board of the Committee on the Present Danger, the NED and the NED-funded Free Trade Union Institute. He served on a private-sector committee which advised the U.S. Information Agency on labor, "help[ing] the USIA enhance its programming through increased use of the 'international activities' of U.S. labor organizations."9
Sol Chaikin was president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and he followed the lead of his predecessor, 30-year president David Dubinsky, who eventually embraced "piece-rate wages, no-strike pledges, five-year contracts, opposition to the minimum wage, and opposition to government aid" in an attempt to keep the garment industry in New York City.10 He also embraced corruption and racketeering. By 1997, "New York City's mostly unionized garment industry, with about 35,000 workers, had become a mob-dominated racket that made a mockery of collective bargaining while pushing wages down and hours up to the limits of human endurance."11 Chaikin never tried to clean up the racketeering or better the third-world working conditions of the union's largely immigrant garment workers, but he was a crusader against communism in other countries, joining the Committee on the Present Danger and the board of the Free Trade Union Institute. Chaikin was succeeded as ILGWU president by Jay Mazur, who served from 1986-1995. Mazur is president emeritus of UNITE, the ILGWU's successor, where he banked over half a million dollars in his last year in office while representing New York sweatshop workers who earned an average of $7,000 annually.12 Mazur likewise succeeded Chaikin on Freedom House's board of trustees. Like Chaikin, Mazur allowed high levels of corruption in his union but took a hard line on international communism, chairing the AFL-CIO's International Affairs Committee from 1996 to 2001 and overseeing the Solidarity Center during that time. As of 2004 Mazur was also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, according to the Wilson Center.13
Trustees Terence O'Sullivan Sr. and Jr. come out of labor's "mob monolith," the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA). In 1975 Sullivan Sr., who was secretary-treasurer, "was forced into early retirement as punishment for disrupting" a mobster's funeral "with his importunate demands for higher office."14 His son had better manners: as top assistant to Genovese mob puppet Arthur Coia Jr., he was next in line to become the union's president when Coia was removed by the Justice Department in 2000.
More:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2007/barahona030107.html
[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
Apr 29, 2014
Laura's Blog: USAID's Cuban Twitter Scandal, US "democracy promotion" and Freedom House Mexico
~snip~
But Cuba is not the only place where these programs exist. USAID programs in Mexico should also be examined far more closely. For example, a USAID project on freedom of expression passes directly through Freedom House, a well known regime-change organization also funded by the US government for "promotion of democracy".
The Freedom House program in Mexico uses many of the same covert methods discovered in the Cuban twitter scam. It carefully covers up its ties to U.S. political aims. It also does not mention that it is a U.S. government funded program, despite the fact that according to Freedom House's own financial statement for 2013, 87% of its budget comes directly from the federal government.
The open-door policy of the Calderon government has indeed opened the door to make it far easier for U.S. programs like the fake twitter and Freedom House to make inroads in Mexico. The amount of information that U.S. government agencies have on each and every one of us goes beyond imagination.
The Peña Nieto government shook up the bilateral relationship by demanding more controls on US agency operations within Mexico. But that was more a power play than a genuine concern for national sovereignty or human rights. Now it's the Congress that should step up and carry out a full review of US aid in the country to determine if the Cuban twitter is, indeed, just the tip of the iceberg.
http://americasmexico.blogspot.com/2014/04/lauras-blog-usaids-cuban-twitter.html
[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
Freedom House gives back Cuba funds
Posted on Friday, 06.10.11
The democracy-advocacy organization says receiving USAID funds for Cuba programs is conditioned on providing too much risky information that could be leaked to Havana.
By JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@elnuevoherald.com
Complaining that the U.S. Agency for International Development is asking for risky information about how its Cuba democracy funds are spent, the Freedom House advocacy group has surrendered a $1.7 million grant from USAID.
Information about the identities and travel plans of the people involved in its Cuba programs could be leaked to Havana, said Daniel Calingaert, deputy director of programs at Freedom House.
“We take very seriously the need to be accountable for these programs,” Calingaert said. But the USAID requests for information are “not just onerous. They really raise the risk of what we do, especially in the age of Wikileaks.”
The U.S. programs are designed to support peaceful civil society activities in the communist-ruled island, but Cuba has branded them as subversive and made it illegal to deliver or accept the U.S. assistance, requiring what USAID calls “discretion.”
More:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x53038
EX500rider
(10,809 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)is a fucking dictatorship, whether it's starry-eyed fans admit it or not.
As does a country that bans all opposition parties, and foreign books that aren't cleared by a Communist party censor, and forbids private production and broadcast of television and radio programming.
Anyone who hasn't been brainwashed recognizes the lack of civil liberties in Cuba, which has a shittier record on censorship of the Internet than Saudi Arabia and China.
http://cpj.org/reports/2009/04/10-worst-countries-to-be-a-blogger.php
And is the most censored country in the entire Western Hemisphere.
http://cpj.org/reports/2009/04/10-worst-countries-to-be-a-blogger.php
okaawhatever
(9,457 posts)Mika
(17,751 posts)I have family in Cuba and the US. I also have a dental practice in Miami.
I moved back because my dad was not well and needed my help. Living in Cuba and traveling back and forth on short notices was made nearly impossible by the US gov't.
okaawhatever
(9,457 posts)their policy and letting everyone leave now. I haven't paid much attention since Raoul Castro took over.
Mika
(17,751 posts)The only travel that the US makes easy for Cubans is the immigration process.
Cubans and Cuban residents who want to visit and then return home to Cuba are thrown several expensive hurtles in their way (it doesn't fit into the US's anti Cuba propaganda model to have Cubans returning to their domicile in Cuba).
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)Cuban nationals will be allowed to leave the country without obtaining an exit permit for the first time since Fidel Castro came to power in the 1950s, as the nation's leadership realizes the economic potential of allowing its people to travel more freely.
The BBC reports that Cubans will now only need a passport and visa to travel overseas, although those who work in high-demand professions, such as doctors, may find it more difficult to leave due to the government's perceived need to protect "human capital."
Further, Cubans will be allowed to stay overseas for 24 months, instead of the usual 11.
GlobalPost's correspondent in Havana, Nick Miroff, says the move is one of President Raul Castro's most significant to date and will surely be one of the most popular.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/cuba/121016/cubans-will-be-allowed-leave-country-without-exit-permit
As for traveling to there its really only the US that has the restriction . Of the 2 million or so tourists there each year the order by way of numbers runs Canada, EU including a lot of UK and Dutch, Russia and progressively China too although many of the Chinese are there to learn Spanish - 5 year courtesy of the Chinese government.
EX500rider
(10,809 posts)
Judi Lynn
(160,450 posts)Real tyrants in this country can't accept the fact Cuban people do NOT want a government in another country making decisions about their lives, and most clearly when they have learned from experience that government would think NOTHING about destroying most all of them, if not all of them, to gain control of the island.
Absolutely pathetic.
As you may remember, some of the Democrats have been making regular visits to Cuba to speak with Cuban leaders for decades, Barabara Lewis, a strong, courageous Democrat one of those in the foreground. She has character, intelligence, and a clear picture of what has been happening from the first.
These people are true leaders. They are pointing out the need for communication with the tiny country this giant government has been trying to destroy all these years in order to control it.
It's important to post once more, the Breckenridge Memorandum, written by the U.S. Undersecretary of War on Christmas Eve in 1897:
~ snip ~
The island of Cuba, a larger territory, has a greater population density than Puerto Rico, although it is unevenly distributed. This population is made up of whites, blacks, Asians and people who are a mixture of these races. The inhabitants are generally indolent and apathetic. As for their learning, they range from the most refined to the most vulgar and abject. Its people are indifferent to religion, and the majority are therefore immoral and simultaneously they have strong passions and are very sensual. Since they only possess a vague notion of what is right and wrong, the people tend to seek pleasure not through work, but through violence. As a logical consequence of this lack of morality, there is a great disregard for life.
It is obvious that the immediate annexation of these disturbing elements into our own federation in such large numbers would be sheer madness, so before we do that we must clean up the country, even if this means using the methods Divine Providence used on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
We must destroy everything within our cannons’ range of fire. We must impose a harsh blockade so that hunger and its constant companion, disease, undermine the peaceful population and decimate the Cuban army. The allied army must be constantly engaged in reconnaissance and vanguard actions so that the Cuban army is irreparably caught between two fronts and is forced to undertake dangerous and desperate measures.
More:
http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/bmemo.htm
Freaking grotesque. It's time to retire the filthy hatred and greed .
Mika
(17,751 posts)It's gonna be hard to convince the non-educated on this topic when we have so many "democrats" straight-up lying, right here on DU. 
[hr]
Daniel537
(1,560 posts)which has been trying to economically strangle Cuba for the past 54 years.
EX500rider
(10,809 posts)
Paladin
(28,243 posts)....to turn Cuba into a vibrant democracy? Extra points for an honest answer.
EX500rider
(10,809 posts)Why?
Paladin
(28,243 posts)I'm of the opinion that the U.S. embargo has empowered them for decades beyond their time. There is no remaining excuse for our Cuba policy being set by a small cadre of vengeful, right-wing politicians with Cuban backgrounds. Enough.
EX500rider
(10,809 posts)....but they are still a police state/dictatorship
Paladin
(28,243 posts).......our Walmart and Target stores wouldn't have such a nice variety of products to sell, and this country would be scrambling around, trying to find some nation besides China to lend us money. I hope you're not losing much sleep about how things are in Cuba, these days.
EX500rider
(10,809 posts)Mika
(17,751 posts)Mika
(17,751 posts)Having a poll of persons who are as clueless as you on this topic is meaningless.
After spending quite a bit of time here since the founding of DU, EVERY SINGLE DUer (that I've encountered here) who has been there doesn't agree with your dark fantasies about Cuba.
EX500rider
(10,809 posts)Who else can you vote for except one of the castro's for president?
chirp....chirp....
There are lots of places I haven't been that I can still tell you if they are a one party state or not.
Mika
(17,751 posts)No smokey back room deals with party honchos on the take. Like here.
In Cuba the candidates run on their own platform and are nominated in open nomination sessions. I've been to several of the open nomination sessions, so, I know of what I speak.
Plus, Cuba's system is a variant parliamentary system - like most all parliamentary systems around the world, direct election of the Head of State isn't the case. The parliament (in Cuba, the National Assembly) selects the HoS from the elected body of the assembly.
You would know this IF you hadn't been a refusenik to the information I've posted for you many many a time.
It seems that your approach to this discussion is much like Fox news ... keep asking a strawman question based on a false assumption.
EX500rider
(10,809 posts)Mika
(17,751 posts)Educate yourself. Start with Oswaldo Paya's Christian Democratic Party.
Here's a list of some of the other candidates on the 2003 slate for Santiago de Cuba (Castro's home district).
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4653650&mesg_id=4653730
http://www.gksoft.com/govt/en/cu.html
* Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) {Communist Party of Cuba}
* Partido Demócrata Cristiano de Cuba (PDC) {Christian Democratic Party of Cuba} - Oswaldo Paya's Catholic party
* Partido Solidaridad Democrática (PSD) {Democratic Solidarity Party}
* Partido Social Revolucionario Democrático Cubano {Cuban Social Revolutionary Democratic Party}
* Coordinadora Social Demócrata de Cuba (CSDC) {Social Democratic Coordination of Cuba}
* Unión Liberal Cubana {Cuban Liberal Union}
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)in Cuba?
Mika
(17,751 posts)But, no party selects candidate slates. The people do - in open nomination sessions in every district.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Can one oppose the Communist party, or recommend it not be allowed to govern Cuba, at those open nomination sessions?
Can Cubans organize to make that argument to the people?
Mika
(17,751 posts)But, Cubans in Cuba like their system of gov't., they like socialism. They seek expansion of economic opportunities, but, not the elimination of their socialism nor sovereignty.
That is why candidates who run on anti socialist platforms aren't elected to offices in Cuba.
Candidates don't run on party platforms. Parties are not elected. Candidates who achieve at least 50%+1 of the votes in any district are the elected representatives of the people in said district - they're not the representatives of a party.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)the need to maintain strict government censorship?
And why are elections run by the CDRs, which are part of a state surveillance apparatus?
Judi Lynn
(160,450 posts)School children are involved in monitoring and helping inside the voting areas along with adults.
It is an important, living part of their community life.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Why didn't you know that?
Some of us find slogans like "dissent is treason" to be creepy authoritarianism, but you all obviously don't object to that kind of thinking.
Mika
(17,751 posts)I've been to many CDR offices over the last 2 decades. I have NEVER seen any such slogans as you say.
As far as monitoring US paid dissidents, Cuba has a very good secret service to do that. CDR offices are more like municipal offices here or in Canada. They're for general information about the district or neighborhood, providing information as to local doctors, clinics, community resources, recreation, etc etc. Plus, political candidate campaign information is available there also.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)associated with Cuba/Castro etc?
this is just creepy:
I'll take "things only an authoritarian would say for $600, Alex."
Mika
(17,751 posts)Cuba has a quite active and wide domestic political range. Its the US paid operatives that aren't welcome.
You know this, but, you seem committed to untruth.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)is not synonymous with opposing its sovereignty.
No, I am committed to not being a full-fledged authoritarian. This offends leftwing authoritarians here, as we can see.
Last word is yours.
Mika
(17,751 posts)Quite obviously, the astounding hypocrisy of your comment is lost on you.
Yes, the antiquated CDR offices in Cuba are collecting everyone's metadata. 
Most of the adverse comments come from readers of comics.
EX500rider
(10,809 posts)Mika
(17,751 posts)The anti Cuba know-nothings simply repeat their nonsense pronouncements (w/o knowing anything factual) and repeat strawman questions (based of false premises) over and over.
Its called forum sliding, or spamming.
