Cuba Solidarity Homepage
Project USA/Cuba InfoMed
January 19, 1999
Dear Friend :
This is an invitation to join, endorse, support the "Truth About Cuba Coalition". Already more than 30 organizations and 100 activists from 55 cities in 22 states have joined this coalition.
The coalition is just emerging! Be a co-founder! We hope that you will consider joining our efforts to bring to Washington DC politicians and to others involved in Cuba related policies the perspective of the U.S. Cuba Solidarity and Progressive Movements. Currently, most of what we see emerging in DC is either statements by Track II proponents (see below) or statements and lies by the most reactionary sector of the Cuban American pro-blockade forces. When did we last hear calls for normalization of diplomatic relations, respect of self-determination and collaboration with the Cuban government for development and expansion of Cuba's outstanding record of partnerships for health and education around the world?
Why are these concepts completely absent from the discourse ? We need your voice to tell the truth about Cuba. Join us!
GOALS: The "Truth About Cuba Coalition" comes together as: A clearinghouse for information supporting the lifting of the US blockade of Cuba. For the general public, the Cuba Solidarity activists, the media and for elected officials.
A clearinghouse for information on the Cuban American National Foundation and its corrupt practices.
A source of information supporting legislative (and other) efforts to end the blockade, along with legislative efforts to weaken the blockade. A source of information for elected officials sponsoring and/or voting on such legislation. An organization representing its members in Washington DC in meetings and forums congregating different sectors and groups promoting a change in policy towards Cuba.
In Solidarity,
David Wald, (USA-Cuba InfoMed) (david@cubasolidarity.net)
Michael Parenti, (Author, Lecturer)
Ben Treuhaft, (Send a Piana to Havana) (blt@igc.org)
Delvis Fernandez, (Cuban American Alliance) (delfern@igc.org)
Juan Reardon, MD, MPH, (USA-Cuba InfoMed) (juan@cubasolidarity.net)
PS: Track II refers to the strategy of undermining the Cuban society by means of injecting into that society massive amounts of ideology hostile to the revolution's ethics and principles of cooperation and fraternity, substituting the ethics of capitalist greed, materialism and consumerism.
PPS: We intend to build upon the great work developed by Paddy Newell during 1998 ( paddyn@erols.com) and the Cuban Solidarity Globalization Network.
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December 1998
The Truth About Cuba Coalition
Dear Friends and Comrades in Solidarity with Cuba,
We write on behalf of the USA/Cuba InfoMed Project to request your approval and participation in a project to enhance our capacity to achieve our common goal of lifting the blockade of Cuba.
Significant movement is occurring in Washington DC in relation to the blockade of Cuba. Very interesting possibilities are emerging for 1999. The heroic resistance of the Cuban people and its government, and the many battles fought over these years in many places of the US and the world have allowed us all to get to this point in time and in the evolution of the politics. The empire is arriving at the conclusion that it cannot obliterate Cuba with the blockade. It is therefore getting ready to cut its losses, regroup and move on to the alternative strategy: Track II. (1) The next two years will be crucial for a resolution that is favorable to our cause. We are, however, far away from a victory.
The most reactionary Cuban-American forces, historical instigators of the policy of the blockade, are not defeated nor abandoning their objective. On the contrary, although presenting some level of disarray since the death of their leader, Mas Canosa, and the emergence of evidence linking their main organization (CANF) with international terrorism, they continue on the job 365 days of the year, 24 hours a day. Not just in Florida, but visibly in Washington DC. They are lobbying daily, meeting with politicians and staffers, kick-starting pro-blockade initiatives, holding press conferences, sponsoring fancy luncheons, cocktail parties, films, lectures, mobilizing campaign contributions. They pro-actively court and feed the press, and whenever a key newspaper has something to say unfavorable to their position, they are right there in their face via a meeting, a phone call, a press release, a Letter to the Editor. The forces for the blockade will not just move aside and let change happen. They will oppose every single step towards a more humane policy. They will also counterattack with attempts to further tighten the blockade and to remove from executive power whatever is left of decision making capacity on this subject and to bring that capacity to congress, where their cancerberos (mythological dogs with seven heads) are positioned as gate keepers and controllers of key committees and subcommittees. There will be many more days of struggle before this awful nightmare is over.
The question is posed: How are we responding there ? Who is representing the interests and the voice of the many individuals and grass root organizations who have worked in so many different ways and for so long in solidarity with the Cuban people and its government? Is there a full time readily available voice in Washington DC speaking for those of us in the US who stand for an immediate lifting of the blockade and absolute respect for the sovereignty and self-determination of the Cuban people ?
We are clear that no individual or group promoting Track II efforts represents what we think and need, nor can speak for us. We do commend and applaud some progressive lobbying efforts done in DC for the lifting of the blockade. Nevertheless, we believe that there is a large vacuum and a specific need to tell the media and the DC politicians "our side" of the story.
Many, many times the reactionary forces of CANF get away with murder without any one, not a single soul, putting out a press release to counteract their lies and deceitful statements. An example: On November 24, 1998 the press carried all over the nation articles titled Cuban Legislators Slam US Cuba Policy Review (Reuters), Three lawmakers assail call for review of Cuba Policy (AP) . The Cuban-American legislators used everything in the book to head off the initiative by Senator John Warner and advocated by Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, Lawrence Eagleburger, Frank Carlucci and Howard Baker, calling for a commission to review the policy towards Cuba. The CANF-supported trio (Menendez, Dias-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen practically accused the supporters of the initiative of representing the ( capitalist greed (go figure!) of ) US business sectors.
Probably hundreds of newspapers around the nation carried their statements and there was no statement to the press to represent the views of the Cuba solidarity movement. There was no statement of any type coming from our side. We missed, one more time, another window of opportunity. Our side could have been in the mentioned articles, but we were not and we are not positioned for these opportunities. The press can be blamed for being biased and opportunistic, but we all have some responsibility for not filling in the vacuum of alternatives perspectives. Although it is difficult we must not lose the opportunity to participate in the discourse, injecting new terms and ideas into the discussion. There should be something that counteracts the extreme right (CANF) and at the same time challenges Warner-Kissinger types of initiatives from appearing to be the only alternative envisioned.
Without a progressive-left discourse, the center-right ends-up presenting the better terms of the argument. When did we ever hear calls for normalization of diplomatic relations, respect of self-determination and collaboration with the Cuban government for development and expansion of Cuba s outstanding record of partnerships for health and education around the world? Why are these concepts completely absent from the discourse ? Why does it seem that the only two perspectives in DC are a hard and a soft modality for the common goal of getting rid of Fidel, the revolution and introducing capitalism as they attempt it via one or the other approach? We need another perspective introduced into the public s consciousness, and we need it now as we start 1999.
What can we do?
Probably none of the many organizations in our country working in the Cuba Solidarity movement has the capacity to assign a person in Washington DC to work on these tasks on a daily basis and all year around. We invite you to join in a coalition which allocates representation for our voices in a person representing us and our positions.
We ask you to agree to participate with us in this tool ( the coalition ). The coalition will nominate and support a person in Washington DC to speak with one voice in the nation s capital, to be a participant in forums and committees and who strategizes and makes decisions on how to take the initiative and how to respond to challenges as they arise.
Each of us will increase our influence over the media, congressional representatives, politicians, their staffers, and NGOs in DC who deal with the Cuba question. Each of us will gain a more prompt and accurate flow of the key information. We will have better opportunities for our local solidarity work to have a significantly larger impact on the institutions where Cuba policy is being made.
For this reason we invite you to lend your individual and/or organizational name as an endorser of the Truth About Cuba Coalition . In so doing, we propose to give the authority to the coalition representative in DC to act specifically in the following capacity:
If you agree with this approach we invite you present any candidates you may have for this role. The coalition could certainly benefit from having several members working in DC as a team, with one Coalition Representative (coordinator) to communicate with this team and with the authority to act quickly when necessary.
DC Coalition Representative (coordinator)
We, from our part , would like to introduce for the position of DC coalition representative Ms. Paddy Newell. Many of us have come to know and highly regard Paddy for her tremendously effective work in the past year. During that time, she has been a one-person clearinghouse of information of importance to the Cuba Solidarity movement in legislative efforts to bring an end to the blockade. Based in Washington, DC, she has come to be regarded as a valuable and trustworthy source of information for legislators such as congressional representative Esteban Torres and his aide Eric Reuther in their efforts to pass Torres HR 1951, which seeks to exempt food and medicine from the US preposterous embargo laws. She has also done extraordinarily well in coordinating efforts to collect data on CANF political contributions. This avenue has begun to bear important fruit toward making CANF money dirty money with so many political liabilities that elected officials are beginning to think twice about accepting it.
Paddy comes to our movement through her background in working with the Sinn Fein's Washington press office. As such, she has added her considerable experience in mustering press and public support, as well as experience and insights in dealing with US elected officials inside the Beltway. She comes well recommended by many Cuba Solidarity activists throughout the United States.
We believe that her willingness to devote time to the important task of cultivating relations with the Washington, D.C. press, could be invaluable to the cause if a number of our groups could come together in the coalition to give her the authority, under the auspices of our names, to respond rapidly to issues in DC, as they develop. We envision that the opportunities for passing legislation that strategically weakens the blockade and legislation that will end the blockade are becoming quite viable in the coming year or two. It s conceivable that events will move even more rapidly. Those of us who have been watching events unfold in the Congress, on this and similar issues, know one thing: Critical moments occur in the life of such bills often with no advance notice! Something happens -- positive or negative --which provides us with the narrowest window of opportunity to communicate our side of the issue in the media, to the public and to politicians. We can and should make great use of Paddy's willingness to offer any time she could possibly volunteer as our coalition representative and rapid response coordinator in DC. Members of the coalition will be invited in the future to support financially in different possible ways the efforts of our DC coalition representative. A few resources from each of us will give us all a larger impact for our work and move us closer to our goals. This is not, nor will it be, a condition to participating in the coalition.
We hope that you will consider this proposal an important step forward and will endorse it. We might get closer to tipping the balance! We look forward to hearing your thoughts.
In Solidarity,
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