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Email: coha at coha.org Website: www.coha.org
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Council On Hemispheric Affairs
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Monitoring
Political, Economic and Diplomatic Issues Affecting the Western Hemisphere
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Memorandum to the Press 04.69
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Word Count: 1000
Thursday, 7 October 2004
Disgracefully, For All of Its Talk about
Democratization, the State Department’s Ideologues Clamp Down on Open Dialogue
• State Department
officials toy with the U.S.’ major Latin American affairs
professional organization since last May, before vetoing visas to Cuban
academics.
• As part of Washington’s
“tightening…policy towards Cuba” and adhering to “the recommendations laid out
by the White House-stacked Commission of Assistance to a Free Cuba” (A solidly
unrepresentative right-wing body dominated by Miami ultras and like-minded
individuals), the State Department denies visas to 67 Cuban scholars who were
to attend the Las Vegas gathering of the Latin American Studies Association
(LASA) International Congress to be held October 7 through 9.
• The visa denials constitute an outrageous political move meant to
appease ultra-right wing elements of Florida’s Cuban-American and Venezuelan
expatriate communities, in advance of the November presidential elections.
• Secretary of State Colin
Powell repeatedly has failed to be a firewall against such past and present
Bush administration regional hardliners as Roger Noriega, John Bolton, and Otto
Reich.
In the latest unwarranted extremist attack on even
a semblance of rational bilateral relations between Cuba and the U.S., the Bush administration has denied visa requests for 67
Cuban scholars who were to participate in the Latin American Studies
Association (LASA) International Congress being held in Las Vegas,
Nevada from October 7 through 9. Darla Jordan, of the State
Department’s Office on Press Relations, gave COHA the official bureaucratic
line, stating that the scholars were denied entry under articles of the
Immigration and Naturalization Act that “suspend entry…to officials and
employees of the Cuban government and members of the Communist Party.” In
actuality, not all of the would-be Cuban visitors fall into the categories
covered by the regulation, and even if they did, analogous regulations
affecting scholars coming from other leftist and rightist so-called “rogue
nations” have routinely received waivers at the administration’s discretion.
TO READ THE ENTIRE TEXT OF THIS PRESS RELEASE, CLICK HERE
This analysis was
prepared by Gabriel Espinoza Gonzalez, COHA Research Associate.
October 7, 2004
The Council on Hemispheric
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