Latin America vs. USA

With Cuba Caught In The Middle
Wednesday, August 27, 2014

      This photo was taken by Enrique De La Osa and was used yesterday to illustrate an article by Reuters. It shows 8-year-old Marlon Mendez meeting his idol Fidel Castro, who turned 88-years-old earlier this month. Fidel had been told that Marlon worshiped the revolutionary leader and not only could recite his revolutionary exploits but has pictures and newspaper clippings on his bedroom walls and also often dresses like Fidel, minus a fake beard on orders from his mother.

      Fidel invited Marlon to his home and they had a long chat in the Castro living room. Impressed with Marlon's knowledge of the revolution, Fidel gifted him with the above book that featured a hand-written page dedicated to Marlon. The Reuters website includes a video that shows Marlon's bedroom and also includes the young Cuban discussing his meeting with Fidel. He said, "I felt a lot of emotion meeting Fidel. The whole family hugged him. My mother was shaking." The video also included Marlon's grand-mother who said she was amazed how healthy Fidel appeared. The grand-mother, on the Reuters video, added, "We want Fidel around for a long time."

*****************

Note: The Reuters article about a young Cuban and his family worshiping Fidel Castro was most interesting because the grand-mother effusively updated Fidel's health, which is why the article made international headlines. By the way, Fidel watchers are studying his hand-writing above to judge his physical and mental state, both of which appear to be excellent, especially for a man who is 88-years-old. As you can see, he began his dedication to his fan Marlon with these words: "Para mi gran amigo Marlon..." {"For my great friend Marlon..."}. Of course, causal observers of Fidel Castro will consider the Mendez family, as worshipers of Fidel, to be unusual on the island of Cuba. However, if they were in the minority as opposed to the majority on the island of Cuba, Fidel would not be alive at age 88 and the Cuban Revolution would not be alive into its 55th year. That conclusion is not based on a pro-Castro prism but on a fact-based belief that, admittedly, differs sharply from that of the legions of anti-revolutionary Cubans.

       Costa Rica is an awesomely beautiful, thriving little country in Central America. Strategically located, Costa Rica is bordered by Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the south with the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east. It has a population of just over 4-and-a-half million people. Yet, in this summer's World Cup in Brazil, the Costa Rican soccer team went further than the heralded, lushly funded United States squad. Costa Rica proudly proclaims that "it has been without an army for over sixty years." It is also a very safe country for its citizens and for tourists or foreign investors. And this week feisty little Costa Rica poignantly reminded the U. S. that no longer do U.S.-backed dictators do America's bidding in the Americas.

     This is Mariano Figueres. He is Costa Rico's Director of Intelligence and Security. This week he told the United States to cease using Costa Rica as a part of its ongoing program to destabilize or overthrow the Cuban government. The Associated Press, in a Friday article from the Costa Rican capital of San Jose, wrote: "The Costa Rican government will investigate undercover U. S. programs operated from the Central American country and using its citizens in a ploy to destabilize the government in Cuba. USAID and one of its contractors, Creative Associates International, used the cover of health and civic programs, some operating out of Costa Rica, in hopes of provoking political change in Cuba. The AP found the program continued even as U. S. officials privately told contractors to consider suspending travel to Cuba after the arrest of Alan Gross, who remains imprisoned after smuggling in sensitive technology. Figueres said, 'It's a matter of sovereignty and respect and we're very alarmed that they used Costa Rican citizens and put them at risk.'" 

     Costa Rica this week pointed out that Latin America is no longer controlled or dominated by foreign governments who for decades used proxy, vile domestic dictatorships to rape and rob helpless indigenous populations. Costa Rica has worked hard for its well-earned sovereignty. It is a prosperous and safe nation that is home to some of the world's most gorgeous scenery and about 5% of the world's most diverse and amazing species, such as the red-eyed frog depicted above. Costa Rica has no army and no programs designed to harm any other country. And this week Costa Rica told the United States to stop using either Costa Rican soil or Costa Rican citizens in its unceasing efforts to harm the island of Cuba or Cuban citizens.

     Luis Somoza was the U.S.-backed dictator of Nicaragua when the Cuban Revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in Cuba on January 1, 1959. In an effort to regain control of Cuba, the U.S. used its friendly dictators, like Somoza, to try to assassinate or overthrow Cuba's leader Fidel Castro. After multiple assassination attempts failed, the U. S. selected highly paid Cuban exiles to train in Nicaragua for an attack on Cuba. In April  of 1961 six U.S. warships left Puerto Cabezas on the Nicaraguan coast to attack Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Luis Somoza famously stood on the dock and loudly shouted to the departing ships: "Bring me back some hairs from Castro's beard." {If you Google that exact quote, you can learn more}

     As it turned out, Fidel Castro not only rushed to the front-lines to lead the successful defense of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, his exploits in Cuba inspired other rebels -- like the bespectacled young Nicaraguan Danny Ortega. The Somoza family dictatorship continued to control Nicaragua deep into the 1970s until the Sandinista Revolution, led by Danny Ortega, defeated the Contras who were backed by the U. S. {Oliver North, Cuban exiles, Iran-Contra scandal, etc.}. Since then, Danny Ortega has been elected and re-elected President of Nicaragua in a reconfigured Latin America.

       Thus, in 2014, President Danny Ortega of Nicaragua has joined a long line of democratically elected Latin American Presidents who regularly fly to Havana to pay homage to their idol Fidel Castro who turned 88-years-old this summer. Americans, who have been taught to vilify Castro since the 1950s, are now taught to vilify democratically elected Latin American Presidents who honor Castro. At the same time, Americans are taught to dis-remember the U.S.-backed dictators from Batista to Trujillo to Pinochet to Somoza that gave birth to young rebels like Fidel Castro who in turn spawned more young rebels like Danny Ortega. As a democracy-loving American, I remember those memorable dictators because I believe that never again should the American democracy create or support such dastardly dictators.

     This is a young John Kerry congratulating a young Danny Ortega. After a stellar career in the U. S. Senate, John Kerry today is the U. S. Secretary of State. Danny Ortega today is the President of Nicaragua. Oh, my, how things have changed!

     The rebuke this week of the United States by little Costa Rica is in stark contrast to the bygone era when murderous U.S.-backed dictators such as Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Pinochet in Chile, Somoza in Nicaragua, etc., saturated the Caribbean and all of Latin America. Rafael Trujillo, for example, was the dictator in the Dominican Republic from 1930 till 1961. Trujillo was so ruthless that historians are still amazed that he slaughtered as many as 20,000 Haitian laborers because he blamed them for a lower-than-expected sugar harvest. Georgie Anne Geyer, Fidel Castro's seminal biographer, graphically explained that Fidel, while he was still a college student, was so angered about Trujillo's treatment of the Haitian peasants that Fidel and a couple of college buddies used a speedboat to overtake Trujillo's yacht. They boarded it and searched in vain for the dictator who happened to be elsewhere that day. Later, it has been well documented that Trujillo worked hand-in-hand with the U. S. in efforts to assassinate Fidel and to overthrow Cuba's revolutionary government.

     The well-known slaughter of thousands of Haitians in the Dominican Republic did not lead to the demise of the Trujillo dictatorship. However, the murder in 1960 of the three beautiful Mirabal sisters did derail Trujillo's support from the United States and other benefactors. It has been widely reported that the U. S. even participated in the bloody assassination of Trujillo in 1961. The grisly murders of the Mirabal sisters still resonates across Latin America, as do the memories of vile dictators like Trujillo. One of the many outstanding books about the Mirabal sisters is Julia Alvarez's "In the Time of the Butterflies" and the 2001 movie that starred Salma Hayak vividly recounted the heroic but fateful resistance to Trujillo that cost the brave sisters their lives.

     This photo shows Richard Nixon with his friend Rafael Trujillo. American right-wingers, like Nixon, who supported murderous dictators, like Trujillo, have never, to this day, been held accountable by the American people for installing and/or supporting a myriad of vile Latin American dictatorships from the 1950s deep into the 1970s. But this week's rebuke of the United States by gritty little Costa Rica was a reminder that democratic sovereignty, not foreign-backed dictators, now rule Latin America. And it is a reminder that Americans should understand why, in the year 2014, many of the democratically elected Presidents across Latin America credit Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution with reminding them that their nations did not have to forever remain under the yoke of foreign domination. This is not to suggest that Americans should belatedly become fans of Fidel Castro. But it is to suggest that Americans should become bigger fans of their democracy. We can do so by researching some history of the U. S. involvement in the Caribbean and Latin America from the 1950s through the 1970s. That history would reveal why America's influence and reputation throughout its own region is not what we democracy-loving Americans would like it to be. In other words, I would prefer that today the democratically elected Presidents in Nicaragua, Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Argentina, etc. thought more of President Obama and the U. S. than they do about Fidel Castro and Cuba. One reason for that is this: Americans since World War II have simply not had the knowledge, the guts, or the patriotism to hold people like the two pictured above -- Richard Nixon and Rafael Trujillo -- accountable for their anti-democracy actions. Fidel Castro was born on August 13th, 1926 but Fidel Castro was created by the U. S. support of the vile Batista/Mafia dictatorship in Cuba. Americans too ignorant or to unpatriotic to comprehend Latin America's history also don't try to comprehend why Fidel Castro's influence in Latin America today, and the influence his legacy will have, in many areas supersedes and will continue to supersede that of the superpower United States. There is something today called the Google Search Engine. That's where Americans should get their Latin American, Fidel Castro, Fulgencio Batista, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Bush dynasty, and Rafael Trujillo data, not from two generations of the most zealous Cuban exiles. One place to start is by studying the above photo of the joyous embrace of Richard Nixon and Rafael Trujillo. To thousands of murdered Haitians, to the three murdered Mirabal sisters, and to the millions of innocent people who have suffered from such gratuitous, effulgent smiles, defenders of the U. S. democracy have been sorely lacking. And that besmirches America's reputation, which was by far the best in the world coming out of World War II. In 2014 once again the world looks to the U. S. to save it from the abominations of powerful terrorists groups. And that is the America we should be, not an America that conveniently forgets the decades of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s when the U. S. supported vile dictators like Trujillo, Batista, Pinochet, etc. while, to this day, the self-serving perpetrators are given free passes by suppliant U. S. citizens. The nexus of a Richard Nixon with a Rafael Trujillo belittles democracy. In a very troubled modern world, history -- Nixon, Trujillo, Batista, etc. -- should not be ignored.

******************************