This is hardly news, but I suppose it bears reporting, though I can barely bother. During his meeting Wednesday with Spanish business people in Cuba, representing over 250 firms, King Felipe expressed his total support and solidarity with them. He assured them the Spanish government will do all it can to protect them against Big Bad Trump and his “illegitimate” measures, particularly the activation of Helms-Burton to permit lawsuits against those trafficking in stolen goods. The great majority of these firms operate in properties confiscated from their rightful owners by the “revolution,” though presumably that is not supposed to bother anyone but “those people” in the Cuban exile community. As I said, this is all tiresomely predictable and routine, but there you have it.
As a symbolic gesture of, uh, defiance of Orange Man, the royals are staying in the Iberostar Grand Packard Hotel in Havana, a “joint venture” between a Spanish company and the Castro military/commercial complex, which is on Trump’s “black list.” Besides US sanctions and potential legal claims, another issue of concern for Spanish vultures is the 350 million euros owed them by Castro, Inc., which have not been forthcoming (and good luck with that). However, this little problem was bound to be treated more delicately by the king. One would think these folks would know better by now, but apparently avarice can make one stupid.
Still, “those people” will keep buying Spanish goods, vacationing in Spain and priding themselves on Spanish ancestry as always, because of the hoary and by now vaguely indecent “madre patria” business. However, shameless profiteering and “validation” thereof are relatively small potatoes compared to the “accidental” genocide inflicted on some 225,000 noncombatant Cubans in 1896-97 by Spanish efforts to crush the island’s fight for independence. I bring that up because Cubans let it pass and did basically nothing about it, as if it had been minor “collateral damage” or just an unfortunate family quarrel best forgotten. In other words, Cubans have been taking all kinds of shit from Spain for a very long time, and evidently both sides consider that normal or reasonable.
Small wonder the Spanish are still at it and “never learn.” But then, neither have Cubans.
Spain has never come clean on what was in effect genocide, caused by massive deaths due to starvation and communicable diseases in highly toxic concentration camps, which were the idea of the Spanish Governor of Cuba, General Valeriano Weyler (aka “El Carnicero”). Weyler returned to Spain, where he was never held accountable in any way for the debacle he caused on the island, and where he was, in fact, a respected and important public figure.
The Spanish rationalization for the catastrophe appears to be that Weyler didn’t mean to commit genocide, which was an “accident” because things just went disastrously wrong due to spectacularly bad logistics. In other words, there was a war on, and war is hell, or shit happens—take your pick. The point is that, from a Spanish perspective, Weyler was just doing his job, which was to make sure Cuba remained a Spanish colony, and that end justified whatever means were deemed necessary to secure it.
The same mentality, in principle, is still at work today regarding Spanish business interests: Cuba is still there for the benefit of Spain, and the Spanish are entitled to profit off it as they see fit. After all, Cuba is rightfully Spain’s property, even though Spain was robbed of it in 1898. That’s what we’re dealing with, well over a century later, STILL. I’m sorry, but I’m having none of that BS, and no Cuban should.
BASTA.