This is how the BBC made the announcement this morning:
I am trying to imagine how speculation will run wild in the next few days as everyone with an interest in Cuba starts to mouth off about US and Cuban relations. Even though Castro has announced he's stepping down I find it hard to imagine his slightly younger brother Raul will make huge changes when he is elected President on Sunday by Cuba's legislators.
I am trying to imagine how speculation will run wild in the next few days as everyone with an interest in Cuba starts to mouth off about US and Cuban relations. Even though Castro has announced he's stepping down I find it hard to imagine his slightly younger brother Raul will make huge changes when he is elected President on Sunday by Cuba's legislators. I don't think too much will change for a quite a long time around here, other than Cuban migrants getting in a ferment and embarrassing everyone as always with wild statements about how they are going to get back what's theirs in Cuba and so forth. Perhaps if they can contain their mad anger things will improve enough in the short run they will get to see their families as often as they want. Which would be nice.
Key Westers will be pinning their hopes on improved relations with Cuba to increase tourism but I think it will be a mixed bag, depending on what Cuban leaders manage to arrange with our next President (George Bush is a lost cause in foreign relations - even in Kosovo they are cheering Bill Clinton which I find a little...odd)
It's hard to imagine people by-passing Miami to come to Key West to fly to Havana. I wonder how the cruise ships will plot their futures when they have to choose between Key West and Old Havana? If they are generous they will include us as well in their itineraries. My fondest hope is for a high speed car/passenger ferry from Stock Island to Mariel, but that seems a long long way away, and rather trivial at this moment in history.
I think, when all's said and done, that nothing much will change between Cuba and the US until Fidel, the bearded One, is finally dead and all the heartache since 1959 is buried with him.
2 comments:
I know a man who came to Key West as a 12-year old in the Mariel Boatlift. He's still here and doing well as an entreprenuer/artist. We had a conversation recently and he told me that there is a contingent of the Miami Cubans who pray that Fidel and Raul "stay the course" and that the United States embargo remain in place. Why? Because they profit from serving as facilitators for exchanges between Cubans here and their families still in Cuba.
For example, he told me that anyone wishing to fly between Miami and Havana must book their flights with a particular agency in Miami and pay substantial fees in addition to the cost of their transportation. Cuban immigrants, those with family ties in Cuba, are allowed by the U.S. government to make one trip every three years, a further restriction compared to the past, but still enough to represent a profitable business for the intermediaries.
As to travel to Cuba, if the Key West - Havana Bridge/Tunnel Authority can get its act together, we might not need the ferries.
http://therealkeywest.blogspot.com/2005/01/key-west-havana-tunnel-authority.html
I've heard that too, plus the Cuban government takes 20 percent off the 100 dollar allowance they are allowed to send to Cuba each quarter. The embargo has done nothing but keep Fidel in power, Us corproations out of a lucrative market and make life miserable for ordinary Cubans. Oh and kept me and my Triumph out of those mountains! Long live the Tunnel I say.
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