Disgusting. How can a free journalist stomach Alarcon's lies? What's the skinny on Mirta Ojito? All I know is that she's a writer who came over in Mariel.

Here is my annoying letter to them - please lets all send one! Hispanic journalists my foot!

To Whom It May Concern:

I have some questions for your organization.

Does the NAHJ want to be associated with individuals and dictatorships that jail and torture poets and journalists? Where books from independent libraries in Havana are sized and burned?

Does the NAHJ know that Reporters Without Borders Annual World Wide press freedom Index 2005 ranks Cuba as #161 right next to Libya, Burma, and Iran?

Does the NAHJ know that Twenty-two Cuban journalists who are in Castro’s prisons? Arrested in March 2003, they are serving prison terms of up to 27 years in terrible conditions. Journalists who are not in prison are constantly threatened with the same fate. The release of journalist and poet Raúl Rivero at the end of 2004 was not accompanied by any significant change in press freedom. Does the NAHJ care? Is the NAHJ going to bring this up in the convention?

Why is The National Association of Hispanic Journalists giving so much time and attention to Ricardo Alarcón, who is directly connected with human rights abuses in Cuba? Alarcón is a member of the Cuban dictatorship – a dictatorship that has been sited for years by such center left organizations as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters sans frontières – (Reporters Without Borders), amongst others, as THE major human rights abuser on the island.

Do you mind if I contact Reporters Without Borders and tell them about your convention and its guest? I think I will contact them anyway and tell them about Ricardo Alarcón and the NAHJ.

Ricardo Alarcón, who is the president of Cuba’s national assembly – a wing of the Cuban dictatorship that acts as a room filled with “yes” men and women, all of them belonging to the same political party because other political entities are outlawed, rubber stamping every whim and declaration by Fidel Castro? Is this the same Ricardo Alarcón that I know?

Please don’t tell me your organization didn’t know this. I hope the NAHJ knows that Fidel Castro’s Cuba is the longest running dictatorship in Latin America?

Why does your organization want to interact with a functionary of a repressive nation like Cuba? What can your organization possibly learn from this? Is Mr. Alarcón going to have a member of Castro’s opposition with him? A Cuban dissident reporter perhaps? To make it fair? To make the conversation balanced and diverse? As journalists, especially Hispanic journalists, isn’t your organization curious about those reporters imprisoned in Cuba for writing the truth? Is the NAHJ going to have Cuban dissidents at the convention to tell a different account regarding Cuba?

Does the NAHJ understand that Cuba under the Castro dictatorship is an extremely repressive island that jails independent journalists, independent librarians, poets, human rights dissidents, artists, or any individual that thinks contrary to Fidel Castro's state controlled media outlets?

Why did your organization chose to have Mirta Ojito as the one conducting the interview? Does the NAHJ know that Ms. Ojito is soft and sympathetic with Cuba’s revolution? Why couldn’t the NAHJ chose someone like Dr. Carlos M. N. Eire, a Cuban American professor of religion at Yale University and author of Waiting for Snow in Havana (2003), which won the National Book Award in Nonfiction?

Cuba is a nation where independent media is not allowed - why does your organization want to patronize the status quo – especially the dictatorship media control on that island? The NAHJ interviewing Ricardo Alarcón is the same as interviewing Joseph Goebbels (Hitler's propaganda minister) or any minister from the dictatorships of Pinochet, Stalin, Perron, Pol Pot, the Argentine Generals, Afrikkaner South Africa, Franco, Idi Amin…

Sincerely,

Cc:
Amnesty International
Human Rights Watch
Reporters sans frontiers

Mandingo,

Post the mail address for Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Reporters Sans Frontiers.

~ Josue

Folks,
Please note that the association of Hispanic journalists (amazingly enough, I am NOT a member of it!) will allow the audience to submit questions that, suppossedly, will be advanced by Mirta Ojito to Mr. Alarc'on.
I'd like that discussion to start with the following: Why are you and the government that you represent --both non-elected by the Cuban people, by the way-- allowing Mr. Ricardo "Coco" Fari~nas to continue a hunger strike that has lasted nearly two whole months on behalf of getting access to the Internet? What are you and your government so afraid of by granting Mr. Fari~nas, and the rest of the Cuban people, access to the Internet?
We're waiting for your answers... Mr. Alarc'on...
Responde, cobarde...!
Julio

Oh, and another thing...
It will be extremely interesting to see Mr. Alarc'on try to answer the questions, and treat in a civil manner, a person like journalist Mirta Ojito --who left Cuba through the Mariel Boatlift... after being called "escoria" and God knows how many more vile epithets by the goons hired by Alarc'on and the tyranosaurius rex expressly for that purpose.
It's all in her book, called "Finding Ma~nana," which I recommend heartily to everyone who might desire to learn more about the background of Cuba's situation.
I wonder if that book was available at the last book fair held in Havana? Mr. Alarc'on...?
Julio

"What the fuck" may not cut it as a description for this. We are supposed to accept what these clods write about on a daily basis simply because they are "professional journalists." Hell, you get more accuracy on porn sites than you do in the mainstream media.

Finally,
Yes, I know it's *Guillermo* Fari~nas.
Sorry, but when I try to type fast and think at the same time, my fingers just can't keep up with my emotions.
The basic situation remains unchanged, however.
I can't wait to hear Mr. Alarc'on answers!
Julio

Reporters sans Frontieres cites Cuba as the second largest prison for journalists in the world. Let's concentrate our efforts on contacting them, any correspondence to the "Hispanic journalists" will undoubtedly fall on deaf ears.

You think Alarcóns going to answer any questions? Sir, why doesn´t the average citizen have internet access in Cuba? Ans. Every Cuban citizen has access to the internet, just like every Cuban citizen has free healthcare, full employment, and rice cookers. Of course because of the embargo sometimes there are problems getting connected, President c (barf, I can't even type the name) and I are hopeful that talks like this....caca...caca..caca....if you listen to this better have a can of lysol handy because its going to nothing but bullshit.

I've always thought that a better thing to call that budall by would be Ricardo *Maricon*, since that's what he is-Castro's butt boy.

I think Mirta's ok, she's not a pig or anything, she might even forward some of our questions. She may well want to talk to the little puke just to ask him such questions. God knows, the coward doesn't hold press conferences or come to the phone or consider himself accountable or anything.

Reserve judgment on Mirta and let's try to get her to ask the Barfbag some really good questions.

It's all incredible. So these journalists enjoy freedom of expression yet they are conducting an interview with someone who's part of a regime that denies access to a free press, the internet and then persecutes those who openly oppose the system. Great!!

Mirta Ojito is NOT a fence straddler. Her book, "Waiting for Mañana" has nothing but praise for dialogueros castristas the likes of Bernardo "El Colorao" Benes and confessed Castro agent Napoleón Vilaboa. Dime con quien andas y te diré quien eres.

I'm a member of NAHJ's University of Missouri-Columbia chapter (one of just a few student chapters... all of which started popping up this year). (I'm also the President of the newly formed Mizzou Cuban American Undergrad. Student Association)

I have to stay in Missouri during the summer to become a resident (gotta get that in state tuition)... needless to say I was BEYOND disappointed when I found out I woul be missing this. Hopefully there will be someone else there to submit at least a question or two from a point of view other than the leftist castro-loving one.

That said, if any of you know any young Cuban journalism students, find out of they are members and are going to this. It would be great to get their take on how this went.

Thank you all for the thoughtful comments, but let's get to the root of the matter which is neither Alarcon nor his oversized Cabezon. What would be nice to know is, who is the communist asskissing "Hispanic Journalist" asshole who made the invitation.

Mirta is a cubana resentida - she is a closet castroite.

What's the skinny on Mirta Ojito? Read that garbage that she wrote, "Finding Man~ana" and you'll see. Among other things, she praises Bernardo Benes, el dialoguero sucio ese, she, says that her father came to the USA to get a better job [not to find freedom, not because the government was suffocating, totalitarian, etc..but to find a better job], she says that when she interviewed Castro she felt no emotion whatsoever, other than satisfaction at having gotten the opportunity to interview him [something that most mainstream journalists consider a once in a life time opportunity], etc.. if you read her "memoirs" you would think that Cuba is just like any other country [not particularly repressive] and that Cuban immigration to this country is nothing special. Remember, her father came here to get a better job, not to run away from a tyranny.

Ojito, cultivates her career very well, never saying anything that is too controversial. Remember, she was a journalists for the pro-Castro NYT's and she wants to get her books published and praised by the MSM. What's more, she wants to keep on getting these wonderful interviews with Cuba's mafioso leaders.

Do you think that Castro and Alarcon would have accepted that she interview them if they thought for a single moment that she was a "gusana?" I think not. They know that she will behave and not put Alarcon on the spot.

She is una resentida..

Actually, Ray, Ojito is more than a resentida. I did read the book last year and never found her nor her family openly against the regime. She's one of those who is indifferent to the person in power. They came here for money and that was it. She figured she and her family couldn't make in Cuba financially and made their way here. As far as I am concerned, she's indifferent to the situation in her former country. And I wonder whether she landed that job because of her last name or the university needed to fill its quota of minorities.

My God! Cuban-Americans have definitely surpassed the endurance and patience of the biblical JOB. What is wrong with these people? I think it’s time they stop mistaking appearances for reality get out of the “cave”.

>>And I wonder whether she landed that job because of her last name or the university needed to fill its quota of minorities.

No, she didn't get her job because of her
"minority" status, she got her job because of her attitude. She has separated herself from those "repellant" Cuban Americans as we are called by some in the mainstream media. She understands all too well on what side her bread is buttered, and she won't do anything to jeopardize that. I speculate that is why her shitty book was so carefully crafted, so that she wouldn't step on any of Castro's sensitive toes and she could continue to get these lucrative interviews.

Honesty, that book is shit. There is nothing in her book that tells me anything of substance about the Mariel boatlift. Reinaldo Arenas in his autobiography, "Before Night Falls," dedicates a few pages to Mariel and in a few pages he manages to tell us more about that horrible caotic and cruel period in our history than Ojito does in an entire book over 300 pages long as she carefully tip toes all over the place.

WHAT!?>!!>!?