Cuban Americans cynical over anti-Castro rhetoric (used by campaigns)

[Mika]

Cuban Americans cynical over anti-Castro rhetoric
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections08/story/0,,2248561,00.html

The monument to the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion stands in a park off Calle Ocho, the strip of Cuban American shops and restaurants that runs through Little Havana in Miami. The names of the "martyrs of Giron" - the beach where the anti-Castro landing took place with such disastrous results - are etched on its granite façade, which is crowned by an eternal flame.
At least it used to be. Now all that sits on top of the memorial is a soot-blackened wick. The eternal flame has gone out.

There is a lesson here for the Republican candidates in today's Florida primary. Many Cuban exiles blamed the Bay of Pigs fiasco, in which 68 exiles died and 1,200 were captured, on the then US president, John F Kennedy, and flocked in protest into the hands of the Republican party.

Now, 46 years later, the Republican flame is flickering. New generations less versed in the events of 1961 are more open to Democratic advances. "It would be dangerous for the Republicans to take the Cuban American vote for granted," said Damien Fermandez of the Cuban research institute at Florida International University.

All four main Republican candidates - John McCain, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee - have been courting the Cuban American vote, homing in on older exiles where affiliation with the Republicans holds strong. About 400,000 of the 3 million Republicans in Florida are Hispanic, most of Cuban descent.

The candidates have been seeking to outdo each other in terms of their anti-Castro credentials. McCain evoked memories of having been a pilot on board a US aircraft carrier involved in the Cuban missile crisis the year after the Bay of Pigs.

"Those of us who were there had a pretty good idea that we would have to put our lives on the line for the people of Cuba. Many years ago I was committed to the freedom of the people of Cuba and I still am today," he told a largely Cuban American crowd at the weekend.

Mel Martinez, one of Florida's two senators, has broken his promised neutrality to back McCain, praising him as a potential president who "will be Castro's worst nightmare in this crucial moment".

But along Calle Ocho, the prevailing emotion is cynicism. Juan Avalos, playing dominoes in a park, said it would be foolish to vote for any politician on the basis of what they said about Cuba. "They talk tough, but then do nothing. I would like to see the next president of the United States tighten the economic boycott of Cuba, but I'm sure they never will."

A mile down Calle Ocho at the Café Versailles, where older exiles gather, Dr Carlos Fontanills carries a calling card that reads: "Amigos de Rudy Giuliani de Versailles". He is supporting Giuliani, he said, because of his record as former mayor of New York and because he is the outsider. "The Republican establishment says no to Giuliani because he is a leader for the people and they can't control him."

Claudio Miro is voting for Romney because the former governor of Massachusetts has huge personal wealth "and that means he can win the presidency".

Roberto Andreu, a strong trade unionist and a Democrat, has no illusions about the next president's approach to the island he left eight months after the Bay of Pigs: "They all come here and sing Viva Cuba Libre! and then go away again. They don't give a damn about Cuba. None of them."

-