Miami man who says he's rightful owner of Havana's airport sues American Airlines

[Judi Lynn]

BY NORA GÁMEZ TORRES
SEPTEMBER 25, 2019 06:44 PM

In an anticipated legal case, American Airlines on Wednesday became the first air carrier to be sued for conducting business on properties confiscated by the government in Cuba, despite having obtained authorization from the Barack Obama government to fly to the island.

The federal lawsuit, which also includes Chile’s LATAM Airlines, was filed in Miami on Wednesday by José Ramón López Regueiro. He is the son of José López Vilaboy, a businessman close to Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista who was the owner in 1959 of what is now Havana’s José Martí International Airport before it was confiscated by the revolutionary government led by Fidel Castro.

According to the lawsuit, filed by the Rivero Mestre law firm, López Vilaboy bought the land of the Rancho Boyeros airport from its previous owner, Pan American Airways, in 1952 for $1.5 million in cash. The Cuban businessman then modernized the runway and built the airport terminal that he renamed José Martí.

. . .

A Florida court declared López Regueiro his father’s legitimate and only heir. In addition to the airport, López Vilaboy was a shareholder of the airline company Cubana de Aviación, and owned a newspaper and a hotel, among other properties. All were confiscated by the Castro government, which accused him of having exploited his relationship with Batista to obtain loans from the government and sometimes act as the “frontman” of the Cuban leader.

López Vilaboy denied the accusations in a memoir.

More:
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article235480742.html

LBN:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142372609



From left on the right, Alfredo Hernández, consul of Cuba in
New York, José López Vilaboy, president of Cubana and
James J O´Brien, representative of the mayor of New York,
on May 15, 1956



The lawyers of the law firm Rivero Mestre, Nick Gutiérrez (i), Manuel Vázquez (2i), and Andrés Rivero (2d), and José Ramón López Regueiro (d), sole heir of businessman José López Vilaboy, who also owned Cuban Aviation, during a press conference held Wednesday at the office headquarters in Coral Gables, near Miami, Florida. EFE / Giorgio Viera

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Earlier article:

Cubans ready to sue in US courts for confiscated properties

Issued on: 02/05/2019 - 04:02

Miami (AFP)

Jose Ramon Lopez Regueiro claims to be the sole heir of the once privately-owned Havana airport -- and he is preparing to sue in US courts to recover the property confiscated in Cuba under Fidel Castro.

The case is the result of President Donald Trump's administration announcement in April that it would allow lawsuits in US courts over properties seized by Cuba's communist government, enforcing a provision of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act that had been waived by successive presidents.

"I'm very optimistic that justice will finally be served. I've been waiting 60 years for this moment," Lopez Regueiro told AFP.

The plaintiff was just six years old when his father, Jose Lopez Vilaboy, fled Cuba after revolutionaries overthrew his close friend, dictator Fulgencio Batista.

He was the main shareholder of Havana's Rancho Boyeros airport, and of the Cubana de Aviacion airlines, four hotels and a newspaper, among other properties confiscated by Castro.

More:
https://www.france24.com/en/20190502-cubans-ready-sue-us-courts-confiscated-properties

~ ~ ~

Earlier article:

Cubans ready to sue in US courts for confiscated properties

Issued on: 02/05/2019 - 04:02

Miami (AFP)

Jose Ramon Lopez Regueiro claims to be the sole heir of the once privately-owned Havana airport -- and he is preparing to sue in US courts to recover the property confiscated in Cuba under Fidel Castro.

The case is the result of President Donald Trump's administration announcement in April that it would allow lawsuits in US courts over properties seized by Cuba's communist government, enforcing a provision of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act that had been waived by successive presidents.

"I'm very optimistic that justice will finally be served. I've been waiting 60 years for this moment," Lopez Regueiro told AFP.

The plaintiff was just six years old when his father, Jose Lopez Vilaboy, fled Cuba after revolutionaries overthrew his close friend, dictator Fulgencio Batista.

He was the main shareholder of Havana's Rancho Boyeros airport, and of the Cubana de Aviacion airlines, four hotels and a newspaper, among other properties confiscated by Castro.

More:
https://www.france24.com/en/20190502-cubans-ready-sue-us-courts-confiscated-properties

[Judi Lynn]

1. Here's an excerpt from a great U.S. historian, which might move people to start researching Cuba/US

history, long enough to realize what has been passed off as authentic, truthful information on this long history has been close to a fairy tale.

Taking the time to start your own search for the facts will bring you to a totally different awareness which you will not regret.



William Blum
Cuba, 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution

The existence of a revolutionary socialist government with growing ties to the Soviet Union only 90 miles away, insisted the United States Government, was a situation which no self-respecting superpower should tolerate, and in 1961 it undertook an invasion of Cuba.

But less than 50 miles from the Soviet Union sat Pakistan, a close ally of the United States, a member since 1955 of the South-East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), the US-created anti-communist alliance. On the very border of the Soviet Union was Iran, an even closer ally of the United States, with its relentless electronic listening posts, aerial surveillance, and infiltration into Russian territory by American agents. And alongside Iran, also bordering the Soviet Union, was Turkey, a member of the Russians’ mortal enemy, NATO, since 1951.

In 1962 during the “Cuban Missile Crisis”, Washington, seemingly in a state of near-panic, informed the world that the Russians were installing “offensive” missiles in Cuba. The US promptly instituted a “quarantine” of the island – a powerful show of naval and marine forces in the Caribbean would stop and search all vessels heading towards Cuba; any found to contain military cargo would be forced to turn back.

. . . .

In the American lexicon, in addition to good and bad bases and missiles, there are good and bad revolutions. The American and French Revolutions were good. The Cuban Revolution is bad. It must be bad because so many people have left Cuba as a result of it.

But at least 100,000 people left the British colonies in America during and after the American Revolution. These Tories could not abide by the political and social changes, both actual and feared, particularly that change which attends all revolutions worthy of the name: Those looked down upon as inferiors no longer know their place. (Or as the US Secretary of State put it after the Russian Revolution: The Bolsheviks sought “to make the ignorant and incapable mass of humanity dominant in the earth.”)

More:
https://williamblum.org/chapters/killing-hope/cuba