Cubans, Idahoans Agree on Hemingway Research, Food

[Osolomia]

Sat February 7, 2004



HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba, where Ernest Hemingway lived for two decades, and a foundation in the U.S. state in which he died agreed on Saturday to swap information contained in books and documents the American writer left behind.

The co-president of the Hemingway House Foundation in Idaho, Martin Peterson, struck the deal with Cuban officials at Finca Vigia, the estate on the outskirts of Havana where Hemingway lived from 1940 to 1960.

... Two Idaho Republicans, U.S. Sen. Larry Craig and Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter, signed a memorandum of understanding on Saturday under which Cuba's communist government committed itself to buying at least $10 million in farm products, including 5,000 tonnes of potatoes and 10,000 tonnes of beans.

Craig, who last year co-sponsored a measure to end travel restrictions on Americans wanting to visit Cuba, said it was time to start a fresh relationship with Havana.

... Overcoming four decades of hostility with the United States, Cuban President Fidel Castro's government last year opened Hemingway's house and a basement full of documents to American scholars and a U.S.-funded restoration project.

More...
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=4307432

[Judi Lynn]

1. Knock me over with a feather!

Larry Craig's joining the crowd, too. This is amazing.

One staunch Republican saying it's "time to start a fresh relationship with Havana." Very, very interesting.

I have to post the larger version of the photo, if you don't mind. Too good to pass up a chance to get a better look at Larry Crag meeting Alvarez, also.


Idaho Senator Larry E. Craig (R), shakes hands with Pedro Alvarez, chairman of Cuba's food import agency, as Idaho Congressman C. L. Otter looks on during a signing ceremony in Havana February 7, 2004. Cuba, where Ernest Hemingway lived for two decades, and a foundation in Idaho, where he died, agreed to swap information contained in books and documents the American writer left behind. Photo by Rafael Perez/Reuters

Wasn't that long ago we saw Wyoming Senator Max Baucus and Rep. Denny Rehberg sitting with the same guy. September, 2003!


(HAVANA, Cuba, September 14, 2003) - From left: Senator Max Baucus; Pedro Alvarez, Cuba's top importing official; and Rep. Denny Rehberg celebrate after signing an historic $10 million agriculture sale to Cuba.

[Judi Lynn]

2. It's almost at the point it would be easier to name the Congresscritters

who have NOT been to Cuba!

They just keep going, and going, don't they?

In the meantime, _{George Bush} and his right-wing nutso Miami Mafia keep on plotting to invade the place and do some serious butt-kicking.

[Osolomia]

3. Like the Grammy award musicians, Bush wont let Pedro Alvarez into the US

That's why a steady stream of US Senators and House Representatives and Governors and State Legislators and businessmen and other "Castro apologists" have been flocking to Havana to see him!

State Department Denies Visa to Cuba Food Imports Agency Head
Tuesday, April 30, 2002
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,51570,00.html

Embargo tensions blamed as Cuban officials denied visas
St Petersburg Times
April 5, 2002
WASHINGTON -- At first blush, it seemed like a typical international business deal.

A foreign government was in the market for food. Several American companies wanted a piece of the action. The State Department had granted the foreign officials visas for a visit to the United States to see what they were buying.

But being that the foreign government was Cuba, the story didn't end there.

When Bush administration officials at the highest levels got wind that the U.S. Interests Section in Havana had approved the visas last week, they balked. The next day, they had the visas yanked.

The move, which could endanger a deal worth $25-million, infuriated the U.S. companies. They insisted that what they, and the Cubans, were doing was perfectly legal under U.S. law. The dispute also underscored the growing tension between the White House, which supports the decades-old U.S. embargo against Cuba, and powerful political and business forces in the United States who oppose it.

In a testament to the stakes involved, a group of U.S. wheat interests issued a rare but stinging rebuke of Otto J. Reich, the administration's top Latin America diplomat. Reich, a Cuba native, had a hand in having the visas revoked.

In a statement, the group alluded to an earlier comment by Reich that "we are not going to be economic suckers" to the regime of Cuban President Fidel Castro.

"Reich evidently views pro-trade American farmers as "suckers,' " said the National Association of Wheat Growers, the Wheat Export Trade Education Committee and U.S. Wheat Associates. "Reich's anti-Castro preoccupation apparently blinds him to the best interests of both the U.S. agricultural economy and the ordinary citizens of Cuba."

More…
http://ciponline.org/cuba/cubainthenews/newsarticles/spt040502garzaadams.htm

Cuba Trade & Investment News
September 2003

… According to people who attended a recent meeting in Miami with Otto Reich, the administration’s point man on Cuba, Reich said Bush is trying to inflict irreversible damage on U.S.-Cuban trade by denying visa to the head of Cuba’s Alimport S.A., Pedro Alvarez, and by withholding a license to hold another U.S. agricultural fair in Cuba. Reich also said that Bush will not yield to efforts to lift the travel ban. The measures seem to have calmed critics for now

http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:mJR9ks91CakJ:www.uscuba.org/pdf/news_0309.pdf+%22Pedro+Alvarez%22+visa+denied&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[Mika]

4. The real suckers are us Americans

The real suckers are us Americans who are still travel banned from Cuba by our own government irrespective of the bipartisan majority of Americans and their representatives who sought and voted for an end to the travel and trade sanctions on Cuba and Americans.


For Otto Reich to say that we would be suckers for increasing trade and job opportunities (both here and in Cuba) really does indicate this admin's core anti democratic, anti jobs, anti (bilateral) free trade mission.