LETTER TO A TRAVEL MERCHANT IN CUBAN SUFFERING By Rogelio Madrazo Serra July 29, 2003
Vantage Deluxe World Travel Dear Sir or Madam: After receiving many of your travel brochures, you had convinced us to take, in the near future, one of your Europe River Cruises. Those were our plans until we received your brochure about the upcoming excursions to Cuba under the heading CUBA: The People, Art and Lifestyles. Please take my name off your mailing list immediately, as it is my policy not to do business with any one who takes advantage of the suffering of the Cuban people for their pecuniary benefit. Your intention is to circumvent US policy on Cuba tourism under the disguise of an "Architectural and Cultural Tour,", although I realize that your are not the first to exploit what Cuba has become under Castro the Tyrant, for the amusement of naïve or poorly informed tourists, this does not makes your actions less despicable. In a "Free Cuba," there most be a special category reserved for those whose business with Cuba, prolonged the suffering of the Cuban people. I have a few suggestions to add veracity to the tour you offer: 1- Make certain that it is understood that the way the Cuban people live is not the way they would like to live, nor the way they lived prior to 1959. The poverty that you will see is the result of the tyranny that has ruled the nation for the last 44 years. 2- The absence of Cuban nationals from the Hotels, Restaurants, Night Clubs etc. that your "study group" will have the privilege to enjoy, is because the government bars the Cubans from them 3- As you will tour the area of the Escambray Hills, teach the tour participants that in order to deny support from the people to those fighting the incipient Tyrant, the inhabitants were rounded up and relocated to towns two provinces away. A fitting addition would be a visit to one of those towns, for example Lopez Pe~a in the Pinar del Rio Province. I have many more suggestions but I know that your sponsor "The Center for Cuban Studies" will object thus foiling your moneymaking enterprise. I am making this letter available on the internet in order to alert the largest possible audience of your rapacity and the thinly veiled violation of US laws. Please do not forget to take me off your mailing list. Hoping for a Free Cuba and just treatment for companies like yours. Sincerely,
Rogelio F. Madrazo Serra
6277 13TH AVE. N. Este y otros excelentes artículos del mismo AUTOR aparecen en la REVISTA GUARACABUYA con dirección electrónica de: www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org Las credenciales específicas del columnista Rogelio Madrazo Serra están descritas para información del lector en: http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/g_madrazo.html
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