CubaNews notes from Havana, May 18, 2003

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxx>]

CubaNews notes from Havana, May 18, 2003
by Walter Lippmann, Moderator

It really IS quite warm here in the Cuban capitol
right now. Not yet awful, and not sure if it will be
awful, but yes, quite warm.

How quickly and how easily we forget!  When in
Los Angeles, the sound of those helicopters and
police sirens wail at all hours of the day and night,
reminding us even at a sensual level that we're in
a war zone, or are supposed to think we are.

In Havana, trust me on this, I think I've hear one
police siren in three weeks. My neighbors have
not had their music too loud lately (though the
TV sounds can be a bit much at times) and the
only odd sound in my neighborhood is that of a
rooster cock-a-doodle-dooing in the early hours
of the morning here. Otherwise, mine is a quite
area in the Vedado neighborhood.

Friday night I went with a friend to a major event
as part of the Cubadisco 2003 festival which
was held to honor a local composer-conductor.
Chucho Valdes participated and I've written up
a separate report on that.

The Iraq occupation continues and remains at
the heart of world events. I've nothing more to
add to what we already know: the supposed
(self-designated) liberators of Iraq aren't being
received with the open arms which the US
propagandists told us to expect before Iraq
was invaded. No more needs to be said about
this for the moment.

Supporters of Cuba are pleased that protests
against the island in three diverse cities were
unsuccessful yesterday. New York, Washington,
D.C., and Brasilia all saw small rightist actions,
but none succeeded in causing trouble as had
happened in Paris, France some weeks ago.

Again we're seeing a bit of a lull prior to Bush's
May 20th speech. I'm starting to wonder if the
speech will contain some big new horror against
Cuba. It's uncertain as to whether or not it will.

There's a most interesting article in today's L.A.
Times by Paul Richter which shows some of the
contradictory trends among the right-wing of the
Cuban American exile community. You'll want to
read that article carefully. The Foundation has
been speaking against the cutoff in remittances
and in charter flights. Their view is that measures
like those will help the Cuban government and so
they oppose them. Ninoska Perez and her Cuban
Liberty Council favor all of the toughest possible
measures to be taken against the island. All this
could cause electoral trouble in Florida for Bush
the President as well as Bush the governor.

It's been literally one month today since Cuba's
Granma newspaper published an official note
by the Cuban government in response to the
measures against Cuba which were at that time
being floated through the New York Times. In
that document, which was evidently written by
Fidel Castro personally (you can tell it's by
Fidel because of the time signature on it) that
Washington's proposed measures against the
island had been anticipated and would then be
confronted. Reading Castro's comments now,
in light of the article by Richter, should make
a valuable exercise for readers of these notes.

All of these contradictory trends and forces are
background to the Bush speech and may mean
Bush will not be able to take any major new and
worse initiatives against the island. This is not a
prediction by me, but more of a cautionary note
which readers should keep in mind.

Philosopher Mick Jagger was right when he said
"You can't always get what you want" and surely
we can't wish any success to either Bush or his
various rightist exile allies in the anti-Cuba camp,
so we'll see soon enough what Bush proposes in
relation to Cuba. Or doesn't propose. We'll see.

You know the US has tried just about everything
it can to defeat the Cuban Revolution over these
past four decades: military attack by bands of
exiles, economic hostility via denial of trade ties
with the island, political propaganda against the
island on bogus human rights ground, and more
and on and on and on. Even the fall of the USSR,
Cuba's principal trade partner and a military ally
for four decades hasn't succeeded in bring about
the defeat of the Cuban Revolution.

While the Bush team and his counter-revolutionary
exile buddies may well feel the wind in their sails
after their successes in overthrowing the Taliban
regime of Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in
Iraq, the quagmires these have already evolved
into may give them reason to pause for a time.

Yesterday's performance of NOWHERE IN AFRICA
was packed. The theater was small, perhaps 300
seats, but it was packed, and a nice group of folks
whom I'd invited did come to see the picture. All
enjoyed it and some of us went out afterwards for
a drink and some conversation.

Hopefully this movie will be shown sometime on
Cuban television. The movie is so much in tandem
with the analysis of US politics which Cuban media
has been projecting, one can very much hope the
movie will be shown here on TV.

Often on Cuban television we see the most vulgar
and violent movies about US life on Saturday nights.
Last night, however, we saw an old chestnut,
THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, the great old
romantic CIA thriller starring Robert Redford and
Faye Dunnaway and others. It was amusing to
see the picture here on Cuban TV (oddly letter-
boxed in such a way as to distort its aspect ratio
a bit). The romantic vibration between Redford
and Dunnaway was pure fun to watch yet again.

If you haven't taken a look at my webpage about
the trip to Vinales I made last week, it's still there:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/Vinales5-03.html

Enough for the moment. Best wishes to all.

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