Bush appoints Cuban-American as Republican leader
Campaign News | Friday, 17 November 2006
Mel “Bacardí” Martínez is chief benefactor of the USAID slush fund scandal
BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD - Special for Granma International
AT the same time that the USAID scandal about the mis-spending of millions of “anti-Castro” dollars is circulating around Miami, George W. Bush has chosen Senator Mel Martínez - one of the politicians who contributed the most to this immense waste of taxpayers’ money - as leader of the Republican Party.
The senator who transformed the Housing Department into an Ali Baba’s cave will now be responsible for administrating and representing the party that suffered a humiliating defeat on November 7.
A report from a federal auditing body has reported how millions of dollars set aside for Plan Bush and allocated to fill the coffers of the counterrevolutionary movement in Cuba were spent on electric chainsaws, leather jackets and boxes of chocolates in mansions belonging to the ringleaders in Hialeah.
One of the most enthusiastic godfathers of this purchasing apparatus for “dissidents” was always Melquiades “Mel” Martínez, the buddy of Adolfo Franco, another Cuban-American who organized the distribution of “Cuban” funds from the offices of USAID (United States Aid for International Development), in Washington.
A “close buddy” of Miami multimillionaire Armando Codina, who was implicated with his soul brother Jeb Bush in banking scandals during the 1980s, Martínez owes his “brilliant” career - developed under the protective shelter of Bush and his thinking man, Karl Rove - to his network of insensitive relationships.
As secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, (HUD), Martínez was accused of a series of embezzlement frauds that translated into a gaping hole of $59 billion from that department’s finances.
An eminent member of the Cuban-American network which Bush has infiltrated into the federal administration, this is the scheming comrade of Otto Reich - well-known for his audacity - and the ineffable Roger Noriega and Colonel Emilio González.
“FOUNDER” OF ZUÑIGA AND NINOSKA’S GANG
On October 10, 2001, Martínez presided over the meeting in which they announced the creation of the terrorist Cuban Liberty Council (CLC) at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables.
The CLC is the dissident branch of the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF) which became independent, strangely, a few days after September 11. It brings together the most violent and recalcitrant CANF members and is currently organizing the activities to support the release of Luis Posada Carriles, the Bin Laden of Latin America.
At the event where the CLC was created, Mel Martínez contentedly fraternized with such pillars of anti-Cuban terrorism as José Antonio “Toñín” Llama - who has recently confessed to the purchase of remote-controlled planes to bomb Revolution Square. He also had the pleasure of conspiring with Alberto Hernández, Ninoska Lucrecia Pérez Castellón, Horacio García, Elpidio Núñez and Luis Zúñiga Rey.
So influential is Martínez among the leaders of the Miami mafia that on the day of his inauguration as U.S. senator, Jorge “El Niño” Mas Santos, lifelong CANF leader, studiously attempted to invite him to the event accompanied no less than by the super-corrupt Mireya Moscoso, former Panamanian president who famously accepted $40 million to free Posada in August of 2004.
FINANCED AND ASSESSED BY THE BACARDI TERRORIST
The latest barbarity attributed to Mel, is nothing less that the decision by the government of George W. Bush to allow the Bacardi firm to take control in the United States of the famous Havana Club brand of rum.
As was published in GI recently, on August 7, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a U.S. group that monitors political corruption, accused Bush’s former minister and current senator of having illegally accepted funds worth over $60,000 from the Bacardi firm to carry out his latest campaign.
CREW alleges that Bacardi violated the Federal Election Campaign Act and FEC regulations by asking a list of the corporation’s distributors for contributions for Martinez’ Senate campaign, and for using corporate funds to pay for catering services at an event for the same end on May 11, 2004.
Bacardi is famous for having created, financed and directed the RECE (Cuban Representation in Exile), a terrorist group that brought together at the beginning of the 1960s, Jorge Mas Canosa, Ramón Escarda Rubio and Luis Posada Carriles.
“THANKS, LITTLE SISTER”
As well as maintaining his seat in the Senate, Martínez will be the principal spokesperson for the party and number one fundraiser after Bush.
His rising career will now depend, more than ever, on the electoral fortunes of the imperial clan.
According to The Miami Herald, Martínez responded with the reply “thanks, little sister”, to a congratulatory e-mail sent to him by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who was obviously attempting to forget the disastrous election results for their party.
“Mel represents the future of our party because he’ll work very hard to extend our base,” Ros-Lehtinen told the daily. If the past is any guarantee of the future, members of the U.S. Republican Party could be prepared for many other emotional moments yet.
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2006/noviembre/juev16/48mel.html
