7/21/08
Since May 19, June 13, 21 and 23rd, 2008, numerous newspapers in Florida, websites, bloggers and newswires, have reprinted an in-depth, comprehensive and award deserving journalistic research “A bit of Cuba in Daytona Beach” 6/13/08, in which Laura Stewart painstakingly gathered and documented irrefutable evidence, demonstrating how hundreds of pieces of invaluable Cuban arts have been willfully and illegally withheld for the past fifty years by the Cuban Foundation Museum, who have trafficked with and presented it to the public as their own.
Not satisfied with stealing more than 700 million dollars from Cuba’s public funds, priceless pieces of arts, jewelry and other valuables as he fled the country under the cover of night on January 1, 1959, dictator Fulgencio Batista donated part of his loot to this Foundation, which is now presided over by his grandaughter out of Miami.
As despicable as it is to see the children of Cuba wickedly deprived of their arts, culture and patrimony, so is the deafening silence of many moralists, ethicists, intellectuals, clergy, educators and others, who have chosen to turn a complicit blind eye, pretend it never happened, while they applaud many law enforcement agencies, chasing across the globe and apprehending others involved in the heists of pieces of arts, belonging to the rich and famous.
The friendly and respectful relation that have existed between Daytona Beach and Cuba since the early 40’s was reinforced during the 90’s with the collapse of the Cuban economy, when hundreds of ordinary citizens and especially our healthcare community generously donated tens of thousands of dollars in medicine, medical supplies, childcare, educational material and others, cannot and should not be tarnished by the actions of a few selfish and heartless individuals.
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