Bacardi Continues Legal Actions to Protect Its Havana Club Rum
Tuesday, Mar. 15, 2011
Bacardi Continues Legal Actions to Protect Its Havana Club Rum
HAMILTON, Bermuda — Bacardi Limited, the largest privately held spirits company in the world, continues to pursue all available legal options to protect its legitimate ownership and trademark rights to the Havana Club brand in Spain.
In a brief filed with the High Court earlier this month, Bacardi Limited asked the Spanish Supreme Court for clarification of some aspects of its ruling where the High Court recognized the respect of Spanish law for fundamental rights violated by an expropriation without compensation. While the Court clarified its interpretation of some of the technical aspects in the initial ruling, Bacardi remains focused on the remaining legal options available.
On February 3, the High Court of Spain released its decision that the transfer of the trademark registration of Havana Club rum in Spain by Cuba and its partners was not consistent with Spanish public law. The Spanish Court ruled that Havana Club Holdings "does not deserve to be considered a good faith third party purchaser of the Spanish trademark of Havana Club," and noted that the company Jose Arechabala, S.A. (and Bacardi as its legal successor) was illegally deprived in Spain of the Spanish trademark registration for Havana Club. The Court however did not restore the Spanish trademark registration to Bacardi solely on the grounds of a technicality involving the statute of limitations applied to the claim.
It is critical to note that Spain's High Court declared that Spanish law does not recognize in Spain the validity of the transfers to Cuba and its partners of the Spanish Havana Club trademark registration on the basis of the confiscation of Havana Club ordered by the Cuban State in 1960.
Bacardi will continue to defend its fundamental rights against expropriation having purchased the trademark rights in Spain from the original legal owners, creators and proprietors of the brand.
Bacardi has won all U.S. court cases relating to the rights to use the HAVANA CLUB brand, up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
About Bacardi Limited
Bacardi Limited is the largest privately held spirits company in the world and produces and markets a variety of internationally-recognized spirits and wines. The Bacardi Limited brand portfolio consists of more than 200 brands and labels, including some of the world's favorite and best-known products: BACARDI® rum, the world's favorite and best-selling premium rum as well as the world's most awarded rum; GREY GOOSE® vodka, the world-leader in super premium vodka; DEWAR'S® Blended Scotch whisky, the number-one selling blended Scotch whisky in the United States; BOMBAY SAPPHIRE® gin, the top-valued and fastest-growing premium gin in the world; MARTINI® vermouth and sparkling wines, the world-leader in vermouth; CAZADORES® 100% blue agave tequila, the number-one premium tequila in Mexico and a top-selling premium tequila in the United States; and other leading and emerging brands.
Bacardi was founded in Santiago de Cuba, February 4, 1862, and currently employs more than 6,000 people, manufactures its brands at 27 facilities in 16 countries on four continents, and sells in more than 100 markets globally. Bacardi Limited refers to the Bacardi group of companies, including Bacardi International Limited.
www.bacardilimited.com
http://www.sunherald.com/2011/03/15/2942370/bacardi-continues-legal-actions.html
A Gross miscarriage of justice?
Cuban-American relations
A Gross miscarriage of justice?Mar 15th 2011, 10:12 by D.A. | MIAMI
BARACK OBAMA has tried to encourage Cuba's government to liberalise by promoting "people-to-people" contact with the United States. Since becoming president, he has relaxed most limits on travel and money transfers to the island. Cuba's ruling Castro brothers have indeed shown increasing flexibility of late, releasing dozens of political prisoners and legalising some private economic activity. Nonetheless, they do not seem interested in reciprocating America's gestures of rapprochement. On March 12th Cuba sentenced Alan Gross, an employee of a company contracted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), to 15 years in jail for crimes against the state.
Mr Gross, who worked for a firm called Development Alternatives Inc., was participating in a programme to improve internet access for Cuba's Jews, which the government deemed "subversive". His job allegedly involved distributing internet-connectivity devices, which are strictly controlled by the state, and possibly satellite equipment as well, which is banned. Foreigners arriving in the country are specifically asked to declare to customs officials whether they are carrying any satellite devices, and any that are found are swiftly confiscated.
American officials have called the sentence "appalling" and called for Mr Gross to be released. Although Cuba says that during his trial, Mr Gross "recognised having been used and manipulated" by his company and the United States government, they note that he can still appeal the sentence, and could possibly receive a pardon on humanitarian grounds. According to his wife, Mr Gross has lost more than 40 kilograms (90 pounds) since his arrest, and his mother and daughter are both suffering from cancer.
The Cuban government may well decide that it has milked the Gross case sufficiently to allow him to go home, after an appropriate interval. "I don't think [the verdict] is necessarily the final word," says Philip Peters, a Cuba analyst at the Washington-based Lexington Institute. "I don't see it in Cuba's interest to hold him for a long period of time." However, the Castros might feel tempted to hang onto Mr Gross and use him as a bargaining chip to gain the release of five Cubans who were convicted in the United States of espionage in 2005. In that case, it might be quite some time before Mr Gross is allowed to go home.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2011/03/cuban-american_relations
ACLU Asks for Review of Cuba Travel Ban
ACLU Asks for Review of Cuba Travel BanDaily Business ReviewMarch 15, 2011
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of a state law banning public universities from using any funds for research and travel to Cuba.
The ACLU, representing the faculty of Florida International University and other professors, is appealing a ruling by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed a 2006 decision by U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz in Miami declaring the law unconstitutional.
"This law allows Florida to be the only state in the country with its own foreign policy which runs over, above and contrary to the foreign policy of the United States," said Howard Simon, executive director of the Florida ACLU.
The state law prohibits professors, scientists and students from using public university funds for work in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.
The 11th Circuit decided restricting publicly funded travel was "not beyond a state's valid powers."
The petition filed Friday claims the law "meddles with foreign commerce by imposing restrictions on commerce with certain foreign nations that exceed the restrictions already imposed by federal law."
Paul F. Brinkman of Alston & Bird in Washington is serving as ACLU counsel in the case along with the Flordia ACLU legal director Randall Marshall.
"Crude censorship like this only serves to keep Americans uninformed," Simon said.
The state attorney general's office, which has defended the law, did not respond to a call for comment by deadline.
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202486137450&ACLU_Asks_for_Review_of_Cuba_Travel_Ban&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1
Despotic Cuba yields a little
Despotic Cuba yields a littleMonday, March 14, 2011
Raul Castro, seeking a better economic deal with the European Union, has promised to release 10 more political prisoners, including the justly celebrated Afro-Cuban medical doctor Oscar Elias Biscet, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George Bush in 2007. In absentia, of course. Dr. Biscet was serving a 25-year sentence for political activity at the time.
The question is whether the Cuban government is truly turning over a new leaf or simply trying to curry favor in Europe. The release of Dr. Biscet may be the test case.
The Cuban government this week also gave permission for the family of deceased political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo to emigrate to the United States. Mr. Zapata died in prison last year on a hunger strike to protest his mistreatment.
In recent months Mr. Castro has released 80 political prisoners amid indications that he believes such measures will satisfy conditions set down by the European Union in 1996 requiring Cuban respect for human rights and freedom of expression before normal relations could be established.
Many European nations maintain embassies in Cuba and pursue their own interests without regard to the EU common position. But a decision by the EU to negotiate aid and trade agreements with Cuba requires a unanimous decision, and in recent years Britain has held out for stronger evidence of Cuban compliance with EU conditions.
The latest releases, negotiated by the Catholic Church's representative in Cuba, Archbishop Jaime Ortega, still leave three prominent political prisoners in captivity, Librado Linares, Jose Daniel Ferrer and Felix Avarro, the Miami Herald reports. Along with Dr. Biscet, the three were among the Group of 75 dissidents arrested by the Cuban government in 2003 and accused to being in the pay of the United States.
Most of the freed prisoners have been exiled from Cuba. But Dr. Biscet, who has been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize, has announced his intention to remain in Cuba to fight for political rights. That sets up a confrontation with Mr. Castro over the extent to which he is ready to allow anti-government, pro-democracy political activity. That confrontation could become an acid test on Cuba's new policies and how they are interpreted in Europe.
Could it also become the spark for an Egyptian-style public uprising? Revolution, after all, is very much in the air in 2011.
http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2011/mar/14/despotic-cuba-yields-a-little/
Our Cuba students Frustrated
Our Cuba students FrustratedTuesday, 15 March 2011 16:04
Over 7 months allowance delay
Solomon Islands students studying in Cuba are frustrated over the delaying of their semester allowances.
Reports reaching Solomon Star yesterday claimed that it was almost 7 months now and most of the local medical students have yet to be paid.
"We've never received allowances from the government; 4months last year and including this semester.
"Since December last year we lived without money, assuming that the government should pay our outstandingfor the 4 months last year and this new semester early this year but nothing has happened," a spokesperson for the students said.
A student speaking on behalf of the student said hunger is affecting them, the food is less in quantities and each day they never had enough.
"We begin the day with empty stomach until the dusk fall and it becomes our daily routine.
"The diet is lacked quality and quantities that can't sustain us longer while doing more loads of works and studies," the student claimed.
As result some of students are admitted at the hospital and some are on treatment.
"Their sick are related to hunger and we don't know how life would be for us if we continue to live in this condition," the student said.
The students are now appealing to the government through its responsible ministries to help assist them in their plight."We appeal to the government to seriously look into our plight," the student said.
The report said apart hunger some of the students also lost their belongings such as clothes, towel and personal belongings.
"Stealing is commonly practiced here and that made some of us become poor," the student said.
Report said the students have nothing to keep them continue on with their studies.
"So sad that now 4 boys can use one towel and some they don't have enough clothes to keep them for sometimes.
"The conditions that we are facing here is not an easy. Living many miles away on foreign land without money and continue to live in such conditions is painful," the student.
The students are also appealing to their parents to form a committee to approach the government.
"Because our affairs with regards to allowance is ignored or overseen," the student said.
Attempts to get responsible officials from the Health Ministry for comments were unsuccessful yesterday.
http://www.solomonstarnews.com/news/national/10312-our-cuba-students-frustrated
Cuba’s cynical maneuver
Posted on Monday, 03.14.11The Miami Herald | EDITORIAL
Cuba's cynical maneuverOUR OPINION: No improvement in U.S.-Cuba relations until Alan Gross is free
The 15-year verdict handed down by a Cuban "court" against U.S. citizen Alan Gross is the deeply unjust result of events that bear no relationship to due process in an impartial legal system. Let's call this cynical maneuver what it really is — blackmail.
The 61-year-old Mr. Gross is not a criminal of any sort. He's a chess piece manipulated by the Cuban regime in the relentless war against its own people. The Castro brothers want to stop ordinary Cubans from obtaining the slightest bit of information from the outside world from any independent source. Punishing this envoy from a private U.S. company financed by a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development is a convenient way to deter further efforts to circumvent Cuba's extensive system of communications surveillance.
Satellite phones are increasingly common instruments used to make calls around the world. But not in the Orwellian world run by Fidel and Raúl Castro and their paranoid minions. In Cuba, a satellite phone like the one Mr. Gross is accused of carrying for use by the island's tiny and impoverished Jewish community is deemed a dangerous weapon in an alleged "cyber war" being waged by the U.S. government to bolster a web of spies plotting to bring down the government.
In most any other country, a violation of customs regulations might result in a stiff fine and possible expulsion from the country. In Cuba, where the state controls all information outlets, violations that threaten the state's hegemony are seen as crimes that endanger the security of the state.
The real target of this mock-judicial charade is the "pro-democracy" funding from USAID designed to promote Cuba's budding civil society movement. People who can think for themselves, talk to each other and learn from each other without government intrusion represent a danger to the state's tyrannical masters, which practice various forms of mind control designed to snuff out any kind of independent action.
At a minimum, the punitive actions against Mr. Gross should throw a splash of cold water on what some call the warming in relations between Washington and Havana. He should be released unconditionally and immediately. As long as Alan Gross remains in jail, there can be no improvement in U.S.-Cuba relations.
President Obama came to office saying his administration would respond positively to an unclenched fist from previously hostile governments. We doubt that the mistreatment of Alan Gross by the Cuban government is what he had in mind as an appropriate response.
Oscar Elías Biscet, a longtime dissident, was released by the Cuban government last week after enduring years of suffering following an arrest in 2003 for the crime of speaking out against the government. His release is gratifying to his many admirers in and out of Cuba, but it doesn't change the fact that the physician should never have been imprisoned to begin with.
On Monday, the courageous Mr. Biscet called the Castro regime a "total dictatorship" that fears an informed citizenry. The actions against Alan Gross prove his point.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/14/2114984/cubas-cynical-maneuver.html
Biscet exige la renuncia de Castro
Publicado el martes, 03.15.11
Biscet exige la renuncia de CastroPor JUAN CARLOS CHAVEZ
Tres días después de haber salido de prisión, el disidente Oscar Elías Biscet, la más importante figura opositora de Cuba, exigió el lunes en su primera conferencia de prensa la inmediata renuncia de los hermanos Fidel y Raúl Castro, cuya "dictadura totalitaria'' comparó con las de Hitler y Stalin.
También precisó que las autoridades cubanas eran "antinorteamericanas, antisemitas y antinegras''.
"Exijo inmediatamente la renuncia de Fidel Castro, de Raúl y sus acólitos para nombrar el gobierno de transición nacional'', dijo Biscet.
Biscet, de 49 años, pidió la inmediata excarcelación de los presos políticos y criticó la condena a 15 años del subcontratista norteamericano Alan P. Gross por llevar equipos de comunicación a grupos independientes a fin de promover el desarrollo de la sociedad civil en la isla.
"Creo que la comunidad internacional debe enfocar este caso para evitar las arbitrariedades que se han cometido con nosotros'', dijo Biscet. "Gross no debe estar preso. Detrás de esta detención hay alguna estrategia política''.
El fundador y presidente de la Fundación Lawton habló, desde un lugar no revelado de La Habana, con los reporteros reunidos en el recinto Wolfson del Miami Dade College, en el downtown. Durante la conferencia por Skype, respondió a preguntas por alrededor de una hora.
Biscet señaló las severas condiciones de las prisiones cubanas, donde permaneció desde 1999, excepto por 36 días, sirviendo una condena de 25 años acusado de atentar contra la seguridad del estado. Su liberación el viernes se inscribe en el marco de las negociaciones celebradas en julio entre el gobierno de Raúl Castro y la Iglesia Católica. Más de 90 presos han sido liberados y, en su mayoría, desterrados a España.
Con un tono firme y decidido, pidió la inmediata e incondicional excarcelación de tres de los prisioneros políticos: Librado Linares, José Daniel Ferrer y Félix Navarro. Las autoridades cubanas guardan silencio sobre la prolongación del encierro de estos tres disidentes.
Reacio a ser liberado bajo condición de abandonar la isla, Biscet dijo que la oposición va "por el camino triunfador''.
"Los cubanos no debemos pensar en marcharnos sino en buscar soluciones a los problemas que resulta urgente resolver'', declaró. "Terminar mi labor es conquistar la libertad del pueblo cubano para que viva en paz y bienestar''.
Al preguntarle sobre su candidatura a la presidencia de un posible gobierno de transición, respondió que había que pensar primero en el respeto a los derechos humanos. Precisó que si tuviera que ocupar un cargo público no defraudaría a los cubanos.
"Yo amo a este pueblo'', dijo.
Indicó que una vez que en Cuba se respeten los derechos humanos y haya justicia social, seleccionará un partido político y definirá su pensamiento.
Destacó que las reformas económicas prometidas por Castro no van a solucionar los problemas de la población. A pesar de las promesas, observó, cada vez es peor la "profunda crisis económica, moral y social''.
"Estos [los Castro] han propuesto ideas y métodos [. . .], pero cada vez son peores las condiciones de vida de nuestro país'', añadió. "Los que incurrieron en estos graves errores todavía persisten en que pueden enmendar su sistema''.
Añadió que el movimiento opositor en la isla está ganando cada vez más seguidores y subrayó que existen líderes conocidos y una oposición que ha logrado "avances''. Entre éstos enumeró el freno de la pena de muerte, la disminución de los abortos y el hecho de que la gente puede opinar en la calle ''algo más'' y sin miedo a caer preso enseguida. Según él, hasta en las filas del Partido Comunista hay simpatizantes del movimiento disidente.
"En Cuba existe una oposición fuerte y diseminada en todo el país'', enfatizó. "Esto me hace pensar que, en realidad, el gobierno cubano está en quiebra porque cada vez hay más personas dentro de la oposición a pesar del terror que existe''.
Biscet criticó el relajamiento de las restricciones de viajes y envíos de remesas a la isla, ya que estas medidas no tienen un impacto directo sobre el marco de derechos de los ciudadanos.
"Esto se usó con China hace 30 años y veo que sigue con la misma dictadura'', indicó. "Aunque China ha mejorado económicamente no hay libertades civiles ni políticas''.
Alabó la tarea de los exiliados en la búsqueda de un cambio pacífico y consistente por las libertades individuales de los cubanos. Insistió en la necesidad de unir fuerzas dentro y fuera de Cuba para alentar el desarrollo de nuevas oportunidades democráticas.
"Obtendremos esos cambios a través de una revolución de los derechos humanos de forma no violenta'', señaló.
Las primeras horas tras su excarcelación, dijo, habían sido de "alegría y tristeza''. En el viaje hacia casa en La Habana, observó, había presenciado la destrucción y la tristeza de los cubanos.
"Me di cuenta de que todavía vivimos bajo la esclavitud'', sostuvo. "A pesar de todas estas dificultades, me llené el corazón de alegría porque sé que hay un trabajo muy duro que hacer por el bienestar de mi pueblo''.
Calificó de "buena'' la gestión de la Iglesia Católica en el proceso de excarcelación de los presos de conciencia y comentó que ésta será una institución clave en una transición democrática.
"En un futuro, si podemos convencer a los que están en el poder para hacer el gobierno de transición, el que tiene que estar como mediador de esta gestión será la Iglesia Católica'', manifestó. ''Esto es importante para el país porque así evitaremos derramamiento de sangre. El sistema tiene los días contados''.
http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/03/14/v-fullstory/902991/oscar-elias-biscet-llama-a-los.html
Resucitan los "nidos de amor" en Cuba
Resucitan los "nidos de amor" en CubaFuente Notimex 14 de marzo de 2011 19:40 hrs
La Habana, Cuba.- El gobierno cubano aprobó 178 categorías de trabajo por cuenta propia, a fin de ampliar el trabajo en el sector "no estatal" para asimilar la reducción de plantillas infladas en centros laborales.
Una de esas modalidades extiende la posibilidad de permuta, compra, venta y arrendamiento de viviendas para facilitar la solución de las demandas habitacionales de la población.
Por tanto, los dueños de las viviendas provistos de licencias y con el pago de impuestos están sustituyendo sus letreros de "Rent Room" para extranjeros por otros en que indican que se rentan habitaciones por horas, noches o días.
La aparición de estos mensajes recuerdan a cubanos mayores de 60 años nombres como "Canada Dry", "Diana", "Las casitas de Ayesterán", "Pampa", "La Campiña", "11 y 24" y otros populares "nidos de amor", donde se podía rentar una habitación por unos pocos pesos.
La crisis económica en Cuba hizo desaparecer los llamados hoteles de paso, por tanto la resurrección de estos sitios no obedece a nuevas construcciones sino a locales que ya cuentan con servicio de bar y refrigerios, música, y algunos con estacionamiento para vehículos.
El envejecimiento, el deterioro por la falta de mantenimiento, los continuos derrumbes, el efecto de los huracanes y la disminuida capacidad constructiva del Estado, marcaron en las últimas décadas el deterioro habitacional de la isla.
Por tal motivo, el gobierno de la isla brindó especial atención a la medida aprobada que algunos ya aprovechan para revivir los desaparecidos "nidos de amor", que tiempo atrás servían a las parejas para evitar las escaleras de edificios, azoteas o lugares apartados de la ciudad donde estaban expuestos a la acción de atracadores o violadores.
A mediados del año pasado, tras reiterados incumplimientos en el plan de edificación de viviendas, las autoridades anunciaron que planean construir hasta 60 mil casas, así como conservar y rehabilitar cerca de 500 mil de forma anual hasta el año 2015."
http://www.aztecanoticias.com.mx/notas/internacional/45674/resucitan-los-nidos-de-amor-en-cuba
How best to empower Cuba’s civil resistance
Posted on Tuesday, 03.15.11
How best to empower Cuba's civil resistanceBY ORLANDO GUTIERREZ-BORONAT
People-power revolutions have changed the political landscape of the world over the last 25 years. Most, such as those in formerly Communist Central and Eastern Europe, have succeeded. Others, as in China and Burma, have failed for now.
In those where violence has broken out, it has been instigated by a repressive regime rather than by the peaceful protesters who began the movements. Where political change has been brought about civil resistance, democracy seems to have taken a deeper hold.
Nonviolent popular revolutions have sprung from sustained civil-resistance struggles. Wishful thinking did not cause these transitions to materialize out of thin air. They were not products of improvisation or spontaneous fortune. Disciplined and committed networks of nonviolent human-rights activists worked courageously for years in spite of persecution and repression to inspire populations, to organize them along lines that constituted an alternative to regime control and to propagate a consciousness that would result in increasingly active noncooperation by the members of those oppressed societies.
The final acts in these social processes have brought us the dramatic images of courageous people taking their sovereignty back from the grip of autocracy.
As many look at the most recent wave of civic defiance in the Middle East they wonder whether Cuba will be next, as well they should. Many of the key factors present in other regime transformations are also present on the island. Widespread citizen noncooperation confirms what survey after survey indicates: Cubans desire to exercise their individual freedoms, and they are frustrated by a political and economic system that refuses to truly open.
Additionally, Cuban streets have been the stage for mass demonstrations, as took place in 1980 in the Peruvian Embassy in Havana, in 1994 along the Havana sea wall known as El Malecon, and in 2006 when the people of Madruga rallied to defend their neighbors.
These instances of large-scale protests by the Cuban people are important, but they are not the most significant development in Cuba's path toward freedom. What is critical is that an extensive civil-resistance movement has flowered throughout the island. As the release of dozens of political prisoners over the past months shows, the resistance has gained traction in its efforts. Many of these organizations of human-rights defenders have come together in the National Civic Resistance Front, led by former political prisoner Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez."
If the Cuban people are to have an opportunity, as befits them, to live in freedom and dignity, then this citizen vanguard needs support.
This week, the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, which brings together some of the main pro-democracy organizations of the Cuban-exile community, will do its part to help those on the island by beginning a drive titled "We All Are the Resistance" ( Todos Somos Resistencia) for private support, on a person-to-person basis, for those in Cuba who are leading the civil-resistance struggle for freedom.
Key artists in this community such as Willy Chirino, Donato Poveda, Lissette and Luisa Maria Guell, as well as prominent civic leaders such as former Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, have lent their voices and personal support to this important effort. They know that without money with which to transport activists, aid families of political prisoners and empower civil society with the technology to connect to the outside world the already heroic nonviolent fight of Cuba's dissidents becomes even more difficult.
This aid cannot depend on the ups and downs of the foreign policy of any one state, but instead on the steadfast conviction of Cubans that freedom and democracy are intimately tied to their very sense of solidarity and national identity and to the help that we, as free citizens close to their shores, can offer them.
History has thoroughly ratified what ethics indicate: It is freedom and not tyranny that is the best guarantor of stability. Without the peace that Cubans need to live their lives as they see fit, Cuba will continue to be an unpredictable den of oppression doomed to become a failed state.
Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat is a member of the Secretariat of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance in Miami.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/14/2114963/how-best-to-empower-cubas-civil.html
El ajefismo en Cuba
El ajefismo en CubaTuesday, March 15, 2011 | Por Gustavo E. Pardo
LA HABANA, Cuba, 15 de marzo (Gustavo Pardo Valdés, www.cubanet.org) -En la noche del viernes 11 de marzo, la Academia Cubana de Altos Estudios Masonicos efectuó una Sesión Solemne y Pública, la cual sirvió de marco al Sr Roberto S. Ramírez Galdurralde para exponer el tema "El Ajefismo en Cuba"; acto que tuvo lugar en el piso 10 del Gran Templo Nacional Masónico. En el vvento se hallaban presentes miembros de la tres Secciones que componen la Corporación; así como representantes de las logias masónicas y acacistas de la ciudad.
En su discurso, el orador expuso una síntesis de los principales eventos ocurridos durante la existencia de la Asociación de Jóvenes Esperanza de la Fraternidad; matizando dicha exposición con numerosas anécdotas y experiencias personales vividas, especialmente durante los últimos años de esta Organización.
Galdurralde, en el transcurso de sus 52 años de vida masónica, ha ocupado cargos de relevancia en los Gabinete de distintos Grandes Maestros; además, presidió de la Sección de Historia de la Academia de Altos Estudios Masonicos. El año 1961, este masón fue nombrado Secretario de la Comisi0on Nacional Asesora del Ajefismo y Asesor Provincial de la Habana; cargos que desempeño hasta el año 1965; fecha en que el Gran Maestro Francisco M. Còndom Cestino, declaró en suspenso los trabajos de esta Asociación.
La Asociación Juvenil Esperanza de la Fraternidad (AJEF), fue fundada en 1936 por el ex Gran Maestro don Fernando Suarez Núñez. En ella podían ingresar adolescentes y jóvenes de edades comprendidas entre los 14 y los 21 años. Esta Sociedad tuvo un rápido desarrollo en el país, extendiéndose a todas las provincias de la Isla, e inclusive, a otras naciones de la America Central, en donde aun existen asociaciones de este tipo.
A partir de 1959, los cambios políticos, económicos y sociales introducidos en Cuba por el nuevo régimen; originaron la polarización de la sociedad cubana de la época. Esta situación causó que muchos jóvenes abandonaran las instituciones fraternales y religiosas en las cuales hasta ese momento habían militado, para integrarse a nuevas asociaciones juveniles progubernamentales; tales como la Asociación de Jóvenes Rebeldes (AJR). Esta situación implicó que en las logias ajefistas quedaran integradas por jóvenes desafectos al nuevo estado de cosas, lo cual provocó frecuentes roces entre las logias AJEF y el Gobierno. No fueron pocos los ajefistas que fueron enviados a los tristemente celebres "campamentos" de las "Unidades Militares de Apoyo a la Producción" (UMAP).
A pesar de la oposición de los Ajef y de muchos masones; esta situación obligó a que en 1965, Còndom Cestino, decretara el receso los trabajos de la Agrupación AJEF de Cuba. En ese año, los Ajef contaban con 147 logias.
http://www.cubanet.org/noticias/el-ajefismo-en-cuba/
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