AfroCubaWeb

Articles/Artículos

Bacardi: from C-4 to flamethrowers  9/28/2006 Granma: "IT is pretty ironic that the Bacardi company, which for 50 years has financed the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF) and the C-4 of Posada Carriles, would be victims of a consumer demand, victims of a bottle of the controversial rum converted into a flamethrower. Three women in South Florida suffered burns in 2002, when a client of the adult Secrets club converted a bottle of Bacardi into a flamethrower during a drinks promotion. Drunk, the client set fire to a menu in order to light the rum that he was drinking in a cup. The flames spread to a bottle of 75.5-proof Bacardi rum, which then exploded."

Bacardi charged in Texas election scandal  9/23/2004 Miami Herald: "A Texas grand jury has indicted Bacardi USA on charges of making a $20,000 illegal campaign contribution to Texas Republican state legislative candidates in 2002, in a case linked to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's political fund-raising activities. Miami-based Bacardi was named in the indictment along with seven other companies, including Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, and three top political aides to DeLay. The House majority leader was not indicted. But a money laundering allegation in a congressional ethics complaint filed against DeLay involves the same $190,000 in political contributions that led to indictments of the aides."

Defending Bacardi - DeLay attempts to slip a little Cuba Libre into defense authorization bill  10/21/2003 Working for Change 

Bacardi accused of campaign to oust Castro  8/15/2002 Guardian, UK: "The Bacardi rum company has been engaged for more than 40 years in clandestine attempts to overthrow the Cuban government by both violent and other means, according to a new book. The company is accused of bankrolling extreme rightwing groups and American mainstream politicians in an effort to remove Fidel Castro and re-establish its profitable empire on the island. Bacardi is the world's largest rum company, with annual sales of more than 240 million bottles in 170 countries. Its history stretches back to 1862 when it was founded in Santiago de Cuba by a Frenchman and a Catalan. But behind its image of a fun drink for partygoers, is an empire that has devoted millions of dollars of its profits towards removing Castro and the current Cuban government, which nationalised its properties in 1959, according to the Colombian journalist Hernando Calvo Ospina in his new book, Bacardi, the Hidden War." Not to mention that from its founding in 1862, Bacardi was built on slave labor and owes REPARATIONS.

BACARDI ACCUSED OF FUNDING CAMPAIGN TO DESTROY CUBAN REVOLUTION  8/15/2002 Radio Havana: "The book "Bacardi: The Hidden War," by Colombian writer Hernando Calvo Ospina, also explains that directors and leading shareholders in Bacardi were instrumental in the establishment in 1981 of the Cuban- American National Foundation, which became one of the main players in the effort to kill Fidel Castro and overthrow the Cuban Revolution."

Bacardi buys Mexico's Cazadores tequila company  6/7/2002 The News, Mexico: the Bacardis continue their expansion, based on the start they got thanks to Cuban slaves, of whom they owned many in the 19th century. The Bacardis were primarily responsible for Helms Burton.

Study details how Cuban exiles have aided key U.S. lawmakers  5/20/2002 Dallas Morning News: "Ms. Thomas said that few foreign citizens play a more active role in seeking to influence U.S. foreign policy than the Bermuda-based Bacardi Martini rum company and sugar barons Alfonso and Jose Fanjul. The Cuban-born brothers, better known as Alfy (a Democrat) and Pepe (a Republican), are Spanish citizens but have homes in West Palm Beach, Fla. Of the $1.8 million contributed between 1999 and 2002, the Fanjul brothers; their corporation, Flo-Sun Sugar; and Bacardi contributed $1.34 million, or 71 percent of the total."

Links/Enlaces

Bacardí: The Hidden War
by Hernando Calvo Ospina, Hernando Calvo Ospina, Stephen Wilkinson (Translator), Alasdair Holden (Translator). Reviewed by Pedro Pérez-Sarduy
Obtain directly on-line at the Amazon Bookstore ==> .

Entrevista de Juventud Rebelde con Hernando Calvo Ospina, autor de Ron Bacardí: La guerra oculta: http://www.sodepaz.org/boletin/bacardi-hernan.html

Gov. Bush reveals lobby effort: documents show intervention in trademark case of GOP donor, Washington Post, 10/18/02

House Select Committe on Assassinations
FINDINGS OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS IN THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY IN DALLAS, TEX., NOVEMBER 22, 1963.  VOL. X

Despite such strong sentiment, the DRE continued to accept support although its more militant member had been urged to join Manuel Artime's Movimiento de Recuperacion Revolucionaria (MRR) forces.(43) Whether or not this suggestion was ever taken by any DRE members is not documented, but the top leaders remained a homogeneous group and, by 1964, were soliciting additional financial support outside the U.S. Government. They were successful in receiving some funds from the Bacardi rum family in Miami.(44) -- http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/belligerence/hsca.htm