Photo taken from Florida Politics
Text: Cuba News 360 Writing
The state senator from Tampa, Jay Collins, presented a resolution to the US Senate, where he prosecutes several local leaders for holding a dinner with Cuban diplomats during their recent visit to that city.
Collins believes that “it is inexcusable that these officials break bread with members of an oppressive and tyrannical government…”, argues the resolution, quoted by the local media Spectrum News. Likewise, the senator reiterates his support for the Cuban community in Florida and supports the fact that the federal government reiterates the classification of the Cuban government as a “sponsor of terrorism.”
The resolution names several local leaders, including Tampa Councilman Guido Maniscalco, Hillsborough County School Board Member Karen Perez, and Hillsborough County Clerk of Court Cindy Stuart. They, among others, joined Cuban delegates at an upscale restaurant, Mise en Place, in Tampa earlier this month.
“Here in the Free State of Florida we have nothing to gain by meeting with the leaders of that totalitarian regime,” Collins said during a public appearance at the US Capitol.
Collins is referring precisely to the dinner where the Cuban authorities were questioned by a group of Cuban-American citizens about the violations of human rights in Cuba. In this sense, the document considers the meeting between the two officials “inconceivable and inexcusable.”
Although the resolutions within the US Senate do not have legislative power, but constitute a symbolic gesture, the one presented by the Tampa senator was scheduled for a stop in the body’s Committee before the final vote.
Since the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two nations, this type of meeting has become regular, and not only for diplomatic reasons, but it is increasingly common for US authorities, or even senators from other states, to receive government officials from the Caribbean island to continue developing possibilities for collaboration or business.