MPs boycott hotel over 'Cuba ban'

[Judi Lynn]

MPs boycott hotel over 'Cuba ban'
Feb 7 2007

A government group has shelved conference plans at a Hilton hotel following suggestions that the US chain will not accommodate delegates from Cuba at its UK branches.

The House of Commons Scottish Affairs Select Committee is boycotting the Dundee Hilton, where it was scheduled to meet later this month.

Member Ian Davidson MP said it was decided at a meeting that it would not be appropriate to stay at the hotel following comments made by a Hilton spokeswoman in London, who indicated that Cubans may be barred from staying in their UK hotels as part of the US embargo against the communist country.
(snip/...)

http://icdumfries.icnetwork.co.uk/othernews/news/tm_headline=mps-boycott-hotel-over--cuba-ban-&method=full&objectid=18588059&siteid=77296-name_page.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Hilton boycotted over Cuban ban

Hilton boycotted over Cuban ban
CATHERINE MacLEOD, Political Editor
February 07 2007

Scots MPs have boycotted the four-star Hilton hotel chain over the company's refusal to accommodate Cuban delegations.

The 11-strong Commons Scottish affairs committee was due to stay at the Hilton Hotel Dundee on February 18th and 19th while in the city as part of the committee's inquiry into poverty in Scotland but yesterday they agreed to find alternative accommodation.

Mohammed Sarwar, the chair of the Scottish affairs committee, told The Herald last night: "Although I don't usually approve of boycotts I feel very strongly about this. We have reached a stage where the US is dictating to the whole world and I think peace-loving nations have to stand up to US domination."

advertisementThe protest against the Hilton chain was re-ignited last month when an Oslo hotel, owned by the Hilton chain, refused a booking by a Cuban trade delegation to the city's travel fair because of the US embargo of the communist Caribbean island, and it then emerged that group had banned Cuban delegations from all of its hotels around the world.
(snip/...)

http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.1173829.0.0.php

[Judi Lynn]

2. Norwegian Activists Protest US Blockade of Cuba

February 7, 2004
Norwegian Activists Protest US Blockade of Cuba

Havana, (ACN) A group of Norwegian activists demonstrated in front of the US embassy in that country to express their opposition to the US blockade of Cuba and its negative extraterritorial effects.

The demonstration was motivated by the refusal of the Scandic hotel chain -operating in Norway, but recently acquired by US Hilton Group- to accept Cuban guests due to the policy of their new American owners.

"Despite the bad weather and the darkness, there were a considerable number of protesters gathered in front of the US embassy since 4:00 p.m.," said Horacio Farinas, a member of Cuba-Norway Friendship Organization.

According to Faninas via the Internet, the protest was filmed by the media. Participants were updated on more than 45 year social, economic and commercial blockade of the island by the US.
(snip)

Duarte noted that US authorities did not expect such a categorical response to their extraterritorial law applied in Norway.
(snip/...)

http://www.ain.cu/idioma/ingles/2007/ene12activistas.htm

[TomInTib]

3. First Starwood and now Hilton, eh?

I have not stayed at a Starwood property since that bs in Mexico with the Cubans.

And I worked hard to achieve Platinum status with them.

No more W, Westin, or any of them.

But Hilton has sucked for years.

[Judi Lynn]

6. The Mexico City expulsion was loathesome. The final blow was the Bush

administration's seizure of the Cubans' deposit, stashing it away in the U.S. Treasury. Shabby, tacky, anal beyond description!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Bush Administration Had Cuban Officials Evicted From Mexico City Hotel

I recently returned from Mexico City where, while seated in a festive cantina watching the World Baseball Classic, I was treated to a chorus of boos and cries of “estupido” and “malo” as a newsbreak featuring video of George W. Bush flashed on the television. It was hardly a big surprise. Pick a saloon or coffee shop outside of Utah or a handful of other scarlet-red American states and you’re likely to get the same reaction to Bush’s face on a TV screen.

What did surprise me was what I heard from one of my new friends in Mexico when I asked if the reaction was based mainly on the Iraq war, Bush’s general arrogance in dealing with other nations or something specific with Mexico.

In addition to the Mexican people being acutely aware that bands of armed militiamen are roaming U.S. states bordering their country, I was informed of a shocking event that took place last month in Mexico City that, my research shows, flew very much under the radar of the big mainstream media and the blogging world.

It seems that in early February, the U.S. Department of Treasury ordered an American-owned hotel in Mexico’s capital city to evict 16 Cuban officials holding meetings on the property because of the 45-year-old American embargo on providing goods and services to the people of Cuba. Bush Administration officials said that the hotel would have been in violation of the U.S. trade embargo of Cuba had it allowed the Cubans to remain, while Mexican officials said the U.S. infringed on their sovereignty and violated Mexican law.

The move enraged Mexican citizens, which resulted in loud protests in front of the Sheraton Maria Isabel hotel, which is owned by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide.

An official with the Treasury Department confirmed that the Bush administration did indeed pressure the hotel to comply with the U.S. embargo against business with Cuba or Cubans. The meeting was moved to a Mexican-owned hotel the following day after the Cuban eviction on February 3.

On March 1, Mexico City officials, upset with the U.S. interference, ordered the closing of the hotel which is, ironically enough, located directly across from the landmark, Angel of Independence monument at one of the city's most prominent intersections. While the official reason for closing the Sheraton was unclear, the official who signed the closing notice, Virginia Jaramillo, the chief of the city's Cuauhtémoc district, had promised to move against the hotel after the Cuban delegation was asked to leave four weeks before.
(snip/...)

http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/2006/03/bush-administration-had-cuban.html

[TomInTib]

7. I had no idea that we had seized their deposits

How chickenshit.

These guys just never stop, do they?

[Robbien]

4. I do not know what is worse

The US having a decades long embargo against the Cuban people, or the rest of the world going along with this decades long embargo.

[Judi Lynn]

5. No rooms for Cubans at Hilton hotels

No rooms for Cubans at Hilton hotels
Tuesday, February 6, 2007

HAVANA, Cuba (ACN): As part of the US economic blockade of Cuba, the American Hilton Hotel chain has announced a denial of bookings to Cuban delegations in all its facilities around the world.

A Cuban trade mission to a recent travel fair in Oslo, Norway, was denied a booking at a local Hilton hotel due to the US embargo on the island, the Guardian newspaper reported.

The Hilton group is barring Cuban delegations from all of its hotels elsewhere in the world, as are other American hotel companies, Hilton spokesperson in London Linda Bain told the Guardian. "We are a US company and if we took a booking from a Cuban delegation, we would be subject to fines or prison," said the spokesperson.

In view of the anti-Cuba action, Norwegian trade unions and other organisations have filed complaints and say they will protest the Hilton denial until it is changed, PL news agency reported, citing Anne Grethe Skaardal, leader of Norway's Union of Municipal and General Employees as saying that it is unacceptable that Washington rules the world.
(snip/...)

http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000057/005782.htm

[Cobalt-60]

8. It would be a real shame if these countries

Condemned the Hiltons, seized them under eminent domain laws, and then gave them to Cuba as new embassies.