Yoani was granted a visa by Brazil, and denied an exit permit by Cuba. I didn't see that in this blog.

Why can't she get an exit visa? We have been told, laughably, on this forum before that people are free to exit Cuba. Obviously that is a lie.

That's supposed to be changing but of course it's not in the interests of the USA that it does, especially considering all the Florida relatives who would take in their kin. There's always more than meets the eye going on with Cuba due to proximity and the political interests at stake.

People can leave when they have their ducks in a row, an invitation meaning support. Otherwise it would be chaotic as many would leave and have no means ..as happened in Spain. Then they go on welfare.

In Yoani's case she can return to Switzerland where she used to live. But then she cannot return. She choses to stay. What the government will not tolerate is a dissident supported by the right wing outside of Cuba coming and going and grabbing headlines.

It's really not in anyone's interest that Yoani becomes the go to person for all things Cuban change. There are many people who are able to bring all sides together, if the USA allows it.. but Yoani is all about Yoani. Most people cannot see through her schtick and her lies/exaggerations, like comparing herself to someone who suffered under a military dictatorship in Brazil, 100 times more brutal than anything in Cuba. But facts are not her forte.

I understand your problems with her. But, in the US for example, you are free to leave.

Now, in the first sentence, are you suggesting that it is the US keeping her from leaving?

and they are reviewing this requirement.

My point is that the US doesn't want Cubans freely entering the United States because they can stay under the Adjustment Act.

So there are many behind the scenes factors at work. I believe that one is sensitive enough that the Cuban govt. doesn't come
right out and blame the US. I think there are negotiations going on that will end wet foot/dry foot.

they do this for every country except those countries in the visa waiver program.

I am unaware of any other country that has an exit visa requirement in latin america like Cuba has.

and as the case with Yoani shows, countries may grant Cuban citizens a visa to enter, but Cuba doesn't permit them to leave.

and say they are persecuted and want to stay.

In fact they get help from the US government to transition to living in the US.

who have dozens of relatives on the island -- they'll have to explain denying visas to those huge numbers who'll want to join the clan in Florida, etc.

that is another story.

if the White Card was not needed. It's already a zoo.

even if you don't think Yoani is deserving. writing a blog and criticizing the government only seems to be a problem for authoritarian governments.

and to give an inch to the right wing interests that want to destroy Cuba is to give many miles.

Those interests do NOT CARE about the Cuban people, only their own power, and this is what caused the problem in the first place.

Brazil didn't have a problem with her going there.

writing a blog is a pretty innocuous activity IMO.

and this is not going to help Cuba gain advances politically because the press eats her words right up and she trashes Cuba 100%

I would rather see them let her travel but I understand why they do not.

It's fascinating that they got it wrong with exactly the same wording. This supports the suspicion that all these corporate 'news' organizations get their "feeds" from Langley--and they're all so "down-sized" these days, they don't even bother to change the wording.

The photo (which the rightwing agent Yoani Sanchez described more accurately than Reuters and Bloomberg) was posted here some time ago by Judi Lynn and shows the young Rousseff at her trial by the U.S.-supported fascist pigs of that era. She is not blindfolded. Her judges are hooded. They went on to convict her and then subject her to horrible torture--something Ms. Sanchez has never suffered. How can Sanchez compare not getting a visa for a self-promoting event to what Dilma Rousseff suffered? What an unconscionable, self-serving and utterly false comparison!

Sanchez may be the victim of an unfair political act (one that is replicated frequently by the U.S. State Department in its "no fly" lists and its denial of visas for speaking engagements or honorary events to those whom the U.S. government disagrees with--censorious acts, nearly all--and also its barbarous practices against illegal immigrants), but Sanchez is free to walk around in Cuba, free to speak in Cuba; she is not in prison; she has not been harmed and her grievance remains in the venue of politics, where it needs to be addressed. We have a political system. They have a political system. It's not even a tossup, in my opinion, which is the more repressive system. That would be ours. Is there anything more repressive than one, private, far rightwing-connected corporation--ES&S, which bought out Diebold--gaining monopoly (80%) control of U.S. voting results, all tabulated with 'TRADE SECRET' code--code that you and I are forbidden to review--and with virtually no audit/recount controls?

Nothing in Cuba's system is comparable to this, for repressive tactics. Nothing!

Is there anything more repressive than the Citizens United decision, by which a person who may want to run for Congress has to have multi-millions of dollars IN HAND to even think of doing so?

Is there anything more repressive than the "Patriot Act" which now permits the arrest, detention and effective disappearance of U.S. citizens?

Is there anything more repressive than what has been done to Bradley Manning, or to thousands of innocents and prisoners-of-war at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and torture dungeons around the world?

Is there anything more repressive than the "prison-industrial complex" here, or the corrupt, failed, murderous U.S. "war on drugs," imposed on us here and on others far away?

Is there anything more repressive than the "shock and awe" bombing of Baghdad and the wholesale slaughter of some one hundred thousand innocent people, or the U.S. drone bombings of alleged "enemies" and the "collateral damage" associated with those lawless bombings in at least half a dozen countries around the world, now, today?

Nothing in the Cuban government's activities--or even in its past history of fighting, for instance, in Africa--is comparable to any of the above, for repression, horror, war profiteering and defiance of all legal and humane curbs on predatory states.

It may be unfair of the Cuban government to stop Sanchez from slandering Cuba in other countries and to try to dampen her role as "Little Miss Superstar" of the Miami Mafia. I would prefer to let idiots cavort. But to compare that to what Dilma Rousseff and many others suffered during the U.S.-supported reigns of fascist terror in Latin America is an abomination--and Reuters and Bloomberg are quite deliberately assisting that abomination, on orders from their masters.

That is the point of this OP. It is not about what may be a political visa denial. It is about THIS outrage by the Corporate Press--the kind of outrage they repeat every day about Latin America, diminishing what the U.S. and its rightwing allies in Latin America DID to leftists (and are doing now, today, in Colombia, Honduras and other places--the murders of thousands, torture, brutal repression) and actively propagandizing against good leftist governments that are trying to correct many terrible historical wrongs.

There is no equivalency here, between the Cuban government's action on Sanchez and Dilma Rousseff's trial, imprisonment and torture. They are INVENTING an equivalency for propaganda purposes. And there is really nothing quite like this suffocating circle of propaganda--where the USAID scribbles the propaganda tack of the day, they all copy it down, the CIA creates/funds the "media star" who will spout that line, and they all dutifully quote, inflate and fawn over the groomed "star" as she speaks her lines. I'm surprised that they don't all strangle themselves on their intertwining shackles as they put on this "show"--like some Marx Brothers movie. It is truly disgusting--and at times hilarious. (Sometimes you just gotta laugh!)

You touched on the nuances. I agree, I'd rather see her cavorting in Miami to know how she functions -- and for others to see her amigos derechistas -- but I don't buy her being the spokesperson for discontent in Cuba. She's playing the game as others have before her and most of them were despicable characters who ultimately damage our democracy.

That's how I'll always think of her, anyhow.

lol

I'll have to check.

She really knows how to work the system, that's for sure. Both sides!