Campaign against Bacardi

The Australia-Cuba Friendship Society is waging a national campaign 
against the Bacardi rum company, which falsely markets itself as Cuban. 
First came Bacardi's "Cuba" Festival, an advertising campaign with the 
illusion of Cuban bands celebrating Cuban rum.

But Bacardi is not Cuban. The company's headquarters are in the Bahamas and 
the rum is made in Puerto Rico. The bands played Cuban music but they were 
not Cuban bands. It was a Bacardi Festival, not a Cuban Festival.

Bacardi's website proclaims its "Cuban heritage", never mentioning that its 
Cuban phase ended very soon after the Cuban people gained independence from 
their cruel foreign oppressors who had turned Cuba into a gambling, crime 
and sexual playground for rich Americans.

Since then, the only Cuban rum has been Havana Club.

Now comes Bacardi's new cocktail, the "Cubano", another reference to 
Bacardi's "Cuban" identity invented by its advertising agency.

This "Cuban image" of music, dancing and rum is simple and appealing and 
totally dishonest.

Cuba is a nation suffering from the effects of nearly 40 years of a harsh 
economic blockade imposed by the United States. It is an illegal blockade 
that includes food and medical supplies and which has been condemned by 157 
member nations of the UN.

It has no international support. And yet Bacardi, which pretends to be 
Cuba's friend, not only lobbied for the recent Helms-Burton law which 
tightened the blockade even further, but helped to draft it. Bacardi is an 
enemy of Cuba!

Cuba is a country with free, high quality, lifelong education and health 
care, a country with very high literacy rates, high life expectancy and 
very low infant mortality rates. It is a third world country that has 
achieved great things in the face of much adversity.

So if Bacardi opposes Cuba, why is it so intent on having the public 
identify its product with Cuban culture? Cuba is challenging Bacardi in the 
US courts over alleged breach of international trademark norms. Its attempt 
to usurp a Cuban icon is an offense to the Cuban people.

Anyone wanting to celebrate Cuban culture should make sure they are 
drinking the genuine article, Havana Club.

For more info contact the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society, PO Box 1051, 
Collingwood, Vic, 3066.

Bacardi is as Cuban as McDonalds is Scottish!