Hey rafzuh
You sound like a sensible chap. I'm sure you'll have a great time, and it sounds like you got the gist of my post about not going March Break Madness -off resort � in a police state. Don�t sweat the animosity your comment may seem to have created. You'll quickly learn who�s crazy here, and who has specific agendas, (anti-American, etc) and figure out which comments to ignore out of hand, and whose to fact-check.
Normally I don't pursue arguments here once they get too crazy, but I'm going to clear up a few muddied up points, because more than a few fools and liars have piped up and need slapping.
Danmand, you nut, the last time I checked, France wasn�t a military dictatorship. It has some nasty parallels, but it�s still a democracy. So far. Cuba is a different place. Now way the same. So why the hell did you mention it? Anyway, as I said, do as you like if you ever make it down there. Meanwhile, if ANYONE wants to BET me, that carrying ID isn�t mandatory in Cuba, and could make you subject to arrest if you are ever stopped and questioned, I should warn you that I called the Cuban consulate in Toronto, and they told me it was. The Canadian Embassy in Cuba says carrying a photocopy is fine, and a safeguard against loss. But carry something. Or not. Do what you want.
Is that clear to everyone else? The fact that many Canadians have walked around many times without ID and without ever, ever, ever, even being questioned, doesn�t mean that you/they weren�t in violation of Cuban law.
Here is the Globe and Mail story about one Canadian moop who lost a passport.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/my-holiday-in-a-cuban-jail/article518578/
Does anybody doubt that it happened? Anyone who doubts the Globe's fact checkers? Does anybody else think that that would have happened ANYWHERE else in the Caribbean except in a police state?
Oh, and Hesitant? Ur a idiott.
Poore spellin an� grammer r infairably indikitiv of sloppie thinkin
This is nott Twitter, yung mann, butt a fourum 4 grownupp peeple 2 intelligintly deebate.
Text speek not welcum. Or Stupidity
Kbear, you're either a liar or a fool. The internet is absolutely, rigidly controlled in Cuba, and beyond email, is absolutely not available to locals who do not meet State approval, and even then, it�s controlled. Anybody who bothers to Google �Cuba and internet access� can see for themselves. There are just too many reputable sources to cite, for me to pick just one.
You also say that locals can go to resorts for tourists? Technically, as recently as 1998 that�s true. But as I specifically said, "you won't find any there except for those serving beer or cleaning up." Cuban locals are as effectively excluded economically as if there was a barbed wire fence and armed guards. (Which there are, by the way. Wire fences and armed guards, that is.)
The day rate at a Varadero resort is many times more than the average monthly wage. Which is about $17 bucks US a month according to The Economist (2008.)
http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_TDRRTDDJ
(Subscription site above, and it may not load for you, but here are the deets) Wages in 2009 are less than 50% of their Soviet supported level of 1989. In March 2008 the average monthly wage was $17 US.
And paid mainly in Pesos Cubanos and very few Pesos Convertible. Who can afford a day at a resort, especially for their entire family, and how would they explain their ability to do so? Even at one reportedly discounted, off-season rate for Cubans, of 200 per person, per week? Sukdeep nailed it. Corrupt party apparatchiks and their families might be seen at some of the 3-stars, but not the "locals'. At least not the local dentists, history professors, or laborers. They all get paid roughly the same.
Rafzuh, ask a few confirmatory questions when you're down there, will you? And get back to us if I turn out to be wrong about anything I�ve stated.
Rubmeister for god�s sake, OF COURSE they don�t WANT to arrest Canadians. But give them any shit, and they will. Cops are the same everywhere. Most are ok. But some are dicks. And some, specifically, dont' like, specifically, YOU! And confrontations with cops, and sometimes specifically THAT cop, can sometimes come out of the fucking blue.
Two of the charges in your short-list of three arrest offenses are true of pretty much any place you go � messing with underage girls, and killing someone with your car. You may as well have added bank robbery, and practicing medicine without a license. But the other one is unique to military dictatorships. The criminalization of two ordinary freedoms we take for granted: simply SPEAKING ill of the government, and simply ASSOCIATING with other people who have spoken ill of the government.
Remember, the whole purpose of my post was to point out, or remind a member whom I feared might possibly be a politically unsophisticated young man, that the place he planned to party in like it�s 1999, was in fact a totalitarian, politically repressive, Police State.
Your post actually helps make that clear.
And lets do add some other uniquely Cuban, Police-State. arrest offenses you didn�t mention: photographing military installations, (some of which are unmarked) ports, and rail stations. Photographing
anything they wouldn't like to ever see show up on YouTube. (You might simply be asked to surrender your camera for scrutiny and file deletion for that one. Unless you forget yourself, and kick up a fuss.) Getting caught trading on the black market, and/or illegally trading in currency. Possession or distribution of pornography. (Just regular pornography.) or banned books. Assisting or plotting to assist Cuban nationals from leaving the country illegally, (10 � 20 years hard labor for that one but not likely to ever affect most of us.) There�s always �Suspicion of being an agent of a foreign government� of course, and quite a few more. Tack on the aforementioned �losing your passport,� Not having ID when you run into trouble, and getting into ANY kind of traffic accident, even if someone ISN�T killed� (As a driver, you might not be allowed to leave the country for months till the matter is settled.) Add all that together, and most people would agree that the place is a quite a bit different from say, Turks and Caicos.
Perfectly safe, and pleasant for thousands of Canadian visitors every year, if they behave themselves, and act sensibly, and respectfully. But a wise man knows that things can sometimes go south pretty quick, from a blue sky day to trouble an instant later, and often over nothing much - an argument with a hothead or a drunk in a bar or on the beach, over a girl, a spilled drink, a sideways look, or a simple misunderstanding � and it�s a good idea not to forget where you are.
Especially if you decide to head �off map� to look for the �Real Cuba� the brothels, and the bars where you order rum and cokes, and they bring you a bottle and leave it there.
Maybe instead of insulting the �Island Paradise� (TM) by calling it a communist military dictatorship, I should have said Single-Party-Only Democracy? Would that have made you lefty apologist pricks happier?
Opposition parties do seem to have a hard time getting a foothold in Cuba. This poor bastard went on a hunger strike - so the guards denied him water too. Until he died.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...ondemns-cuba-over-death-of-political-prisoner
