Cuba's Survival Plan

Embargo Or No Embargo
Updated: Thursday, November 19, 2015

        This photo was used Wednesday {Nov. 18th} to illustrate a BBC article that explained how U. S. laws specially favoring Cubans creates criminal activity, such as human trafficking, as well as a blockage of further positive steps to normalize relations between the U. S. and Cuba. The two Cuban men above are among about 2,000 Cubans currently stuck at a border crossing between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. The Cubans are seeking to reach the United States where, because they are Cuban, they would have permanent residency and immediately get on welfare roles. The 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, known as Wet Foot/Dry Foot, affords special privileges available only to Cubans, massive enticements for them to defect to the United States. The U. S. has not intervened in the impasse between Costa Rica and Nicaragua but Cuba released a statement saying that anti-democratic U. S. laws relating only to Cubans not only are extremely discriminatory but also cause problems for other nations. Moreover, Cuba referenced reports that human traffickers have increased their fees from about $5,000 per person to $10,000 or more with the traffickers warning Cubans that they need to hurry up because efforts ongoing to normalize relations between the U. S. and Cuba might mark the end of Wet Foot/Dry Foot, which would hurt the traffickers.

       Yesterday the BBC used this map to explain the Cuban migration problem currently pitting Costa Rica against Nicaragua at a border crossing where about 2,000 Cubans trying to get to the U. S. are in limbo. A favorite route of traffickers, the BBC says, involves Cubans flying to Ecuador, "which does not require Cubans to even have visas." Then the Cubans travel north through Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, etc., on to the Mexican border. At the Mexican border Cubans, unlike all other immigrants, are free the moment they set foot on U. S. soil -- the Wet Foot/Dry Foot factor. But after moving through Costa Rica, this batch of Cubans was stopped by Nicaraguan soldiers. Nicaragua is a close Cuban ally but all nations in the region are a bit tired of the Cuban Adjustment Act that, since 1966, has been one of the most controversial...and many believe undemocratic...of all the U. S. laws designed to single out Cubans for special benefits if they can be persuaded or encouraged to defect to the U. S. The BBC indicates that the expensive South American Ecuador-to-Mexico route is now favored by traffickers over the traditional water routes from Cuba to South Florida. The U. S. Coast Guard can and does return Cuban defectors to Cuba if they are apprehended on water prior to setting foot in Florida. U. S. friends around the region and the  world are embarrassed by special decades-old Cuban laws that right-wingers in the U. S. Congress applaud.

        Reuben Ramos Arrieta is one of the busiest Cubans at the island's newly opened Embassy in Washington. He is the Minister Counselor at Cuba's Economic and Trade Office. Reuben is shown here with Puerto Rican executive Adalen Still, one of Cuba's many foreign friends trying to help the island.

       As a Cuban trade minister, Reuben Ramos Arrieta is reviewing a plethora of foreign deals. He is shown above about to sign one with Dr. Gustavo Bell of Colombia. Reuben says that currently 65% of Cuba's exports are service related. The island has contracts with 60 countries involving about 25,000 Cuban doctors, nurses, and paramedics. The powerful anti-Cuban segment of the U. S. Congress has continued to fund unending regime change programs that include incentives and enticements for Cuban medical personnel to defect to the U. S. where special laws applicable only to Cubans would give them instant residency and welfare. Reuben wants to diversify Cuba's exports and imports, fueled by an influx of tourism since President Obama initiated efforts to normalize relations with the island on December 17, 2014. The island is already finding it difficult to handle the increased tourism. Reuben says, "We now have 25,000 hotel rooms and 8,000 additional rooms-to-rent in private homes. By 2015 we will need at least 25,000 more such rooms. We are improving the rooms we have and adding more, but we would not have enough available in 2020 if the U. S. embargo is lifted by then. We want to have a normal relationship with the United States as we have with the rest of the world but, regardless, we actually plan to survive."

         In April of next year Cuba will announce an elaborate economic plan. Much of it revolves around the Mariel Economic Zone. It is connected to the Mariel Port 28 miles southwest of Havana and due south of Key West, Florida. The deep-water port has undergone a billion-dollar upgrade largely financed by Brazil.

This map shows the location of the Mariel Port.

        The French shipping giant CMA-CGM has signed a joint venture to operate a logistics platform at the Port of Mariel. Vietnamese, Chinese, Brazilian and Mexican companies have signed key investment deals.

       This is a welcoming sign on the road from Havana to Mariel. Since this sign was put up, the Cuban government has built both a new and much wider road plus a railroad line between the two cities.

       This photo was taken in July as two bike-riding Cuban boys paused to observe the dredging taking place at the Mariel Port. By the time they are in high school, an economic revival in Cuba may or may not improve their lives. The Mariel Economic Zone, as Ruben Ramos Arrieta stated this week, would love to have "normal" participation from U. S. companies. But he is surely counting on "the rest of the world."

        The color photo of the two Cuban boys observing the refurbishing of the Mariel Port is not as familiar to Americans as the above black-and-white photo taken in 1980. The Mariel Boatlift is one of the most pertinent events in the pantheon of U.S.-Cuban relations. Above are Cubans bound for Miami in one of countless boats that left Mariel. It evolved from the tumultuous status of U.S.-Cuban hubris that has existed since the Cuban Revolution defeated the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship in January of 1959. On January 11th, 1980, Fidel Castro's revolutionary soul-mate, Celia Sanchez, died of cancer at age 59. For days thereafter, as depicted in Georgie Anne Geyer's seminal Castro biography, Fidel pined away in darkened rooms, telling his brother Raul, "I will not rule without her." Raul changed his older brother's mind but a still distraught Fidel to this day has never recovered from Celia's death. His still-living associates from the 1980s -- Marta Rojas, Pedro Alvarez Tabio, Roberto Salas, Ricardo Alarcon, Raul Castro, etc. -- still believe Fidel was mourning Celia in 1980 when he impulsively invited all Cubans who wanted to go to the U. S. to congregate at the Mariel Port and he would wish them bon voyage, which he did. But his legion of critics maintain that Fidel emptied his prisons and insane asylums to punish the U. S. while also relieving problems on the island. While that is true, most of the Mariel Boatlift Cubans were/are honest.

       While the Cuban narrative in the U. S. since 1959 has primarily been controlled by anti-Castro, pro-Batista sources, sometimes Hollywood movies have chronicled U.S.-Cuban relations far better than the news media. Such is the case with the Mariel Boatlift of 1980. The talented movie-maker Oliver Stone in 1983 wrote the script for "SCARFACE" that starred Al Pacino as Tony Montana. Stone opened his wildly successful movie, which is still a cult staple on late-night television, with actual footage of Cubans arriving in Miami during the Mariel Boatlift. One of them is Stone's legendary character Tony Montana. Shortly, Tony Montana -- depicted above by Al Pacino -- became Miami's most vicious drug dealer. After the ouster of the Batista-Mafia regime in Cuba in January of 1959, Miami quickly became the hub of North America's devastating drug trade and unprecedented crime wave throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and deep into the 1980s. A brave Oliver Stone, unlike the mainstream media in the U. S., correctly informed movie-goers.

        Lucky Luciano remains notable as the all-time most powerful American-Italian Mafia leader. After World War II, Luciano made his headquarters at the famed Hotel Nacional in Havana. He made Havana the drug capital of the world although drugs were only one component of his vast criminal enterprise that included gambling, extortion, prostitution, murder, etc. Luciano's undoing in Cuba was the murder of children.

       Outraged Cuban women -- especially Celia Sanchez and Haydee Santamaria -- were most responsible for history's most improbable revolution -- the one that booted the Batista-Mafia dictatorship off the island of Cuba although Fulgencio Batista and Lucky Luciano were supported by the nearby United States, the strongest nation in the world. The wholesale robbery of the island didn't inflame Celia and Haydee nearly as much as the murders of Cuban children and the use of kidnapped Cuban girls, some as young as ten, to facilitate the prostitution trade. To this day, with a Cuban narrative still controlled by a second generation of Batistiano-Mafiosi types, Americans do not understand the unique genesis of the Cuban Revolution.

        After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, this was a familiar scene on the streets of Havana. That's a former guerrilla fighter enforcing new laws that particularly outlawed the mistreatment of women and children as mandated by the new Federation of Cuban Women and by the new street-by-street Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. Both those new mandates -- created by Celia Sanchez, Haydee Santamaria, and Vilma Espin -- remain today as two key reasons Revolutionary Cuba survives.

       To understand the Cuban Revolution, you need to understand this photo. It was taken in December of 1956 when Fidel Castro joined Cuba's Revolutionary War that had already been led for over two years by Celia Sanchez, in the middle, and Haydee Santamaria. As guerrilla fighters and as recruiters of rebels and supplies, Celia and Haydee were by far the two most important figures in the inimitable Cuban Revolution.

        To understand the Cuban Revolution, you need to understand this photo taken soon after Fidel Castro, following his harrowing journey from Mexico, joined the Celia Sanchez-Haydee Santamaria guerrilla fight against Batista. As fighters and as recruiters of rebels and supplies, Celia and Haydee had sustained the revolution. Young school teacher Frank Pais, the other main recruiter, had been captured and gruesomely murdered. Pedro Alvarez Tabio, Cuba's greatest historian, wrote: "If Batista had managed to murder Celia Sanchez anytime between 1953 and 1957, there would have been no viable Cuban Revolution, and no revolution for Fidel and Che to join." In the above photo, Celia and Haydee are showing an astonished Fidel some of the money they had recruited. This particular loot is believed to have been hustled by Haydee when Celia sent her to Miami on a dangerous mission at a time when every Batista soldier was assigned to capturing Celia and Haydee, for which they would have gotten huge bounties. 

      To understand Cuba in 2015, the year Fidel Castro turned 89-years-old, you need to understand this photo. It shows Fidel Castro flanked by Celia Sanchez and Haydee Santamaria shortly after the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution. Fully appreciating that Celia and Haydee were primarily responsible for defeating the Batista-Mafia dictatorship, there was never a single instance while these two remarkable women lived that Fidel Castro, whether he agreed with them or not, failed to capitulate to their decisions regarding Revolutionary Cuba. That includes major decisions such as the creations of the Federation of Cuban Women and the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution that, to this day, sustain the revolution. And it includes Celia's decision, which Fidel initially opposed, to align Cuba with the Soviet Union after two key events convinced her that the U. S. was determined to recapture Cuba: {1} In April of 1959 Vice President Richard Nixon made that exact prediction face-to-face to Fidel in Washington; and {2} in April of 1961 the U. S. and the Cuban exiles indeed tried to recapture Cuba with the attack known as the Bay of Pigs. Such facts, including the significance of Celia and Haydee, do not comport with the Cuban narrative in the U. S. that has fanned the lucrative Castro Industry since 1959, but they comport with the known history of U.S.-Cuban relations. Inconsolable after Celia died of cancer in 1980, Haydee committed suicide.

        In Batista's Cuba in 1955, Marta Rojas was a very young journalist. Batista had no idea she was working with Celia Sanchez's urban underground, so Marta had access to the imprisoned Fidel Castro. Fidel at the time had never laid eyes on Celia but he idolized her anti-Batista heroism. Marta carried notes hidden in her bra from Fidel's cell to the underground pipeline that reached to Celia in the Sierra Maestra Mountains on the eastern tip of the island. In the same manner, Marta carried notes from Celia to Fidel in his cell.

          After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, it was Marta Rojas {above} who introduced Fidel Castro in December of 1959 for his first televised address to the nation. To know Cuba, you should know Marta.

        As an internationally acclaimed and highly respected journalist/author, Marta Rojas today knows more about Celia Sanchez, Fidel Castro, and the Cuban Revolution than any living person. In 2004 as I was researching my biography of Celia Sanchez, Marta told me in an email: "Since Celia died of cancer in 1980, Fidel has ruled Cuba only as he precisely believes Celia would want him to rule it." Marta had no reason to distort that fact although, I believe, many of Cuba's fervent enemies since 1959 direly desire to do so.

           Throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and into the 1980s, Edna Buchanan reigned as America's top crime reporter. She was based in Miami by the Associated Press, which spread her reports around the U. S. and the world. The U. S. government that had supported the Mafia criminal rule of Cuba didn't exactly try to rein in the Batista-Mafia criminals that had been chased out of Cuba. With no help from the federal government, local police forces, including Miami, were simply overwhelmed by the criminal empire's firepower. You may have seen the recent documentary in which Edna Buchanan stood on a Miami balcony and gestured back at the skyline, explaining that much of that magnificent high-rise skyline was built with drug money.

      While all that Cuban-Mafia mayhem was going on, a Cuban-American named Emilio Milian was the most popular newsman in Miami. A totally decent man, Emilio used his broadcasts to denounce terror against innocent people, such as the 73 victims aboard the child-laden civilian plane, Cubana Flight 455, that was bombed into the ocean on October 6, 1976. After leaving the WQBA studios just after 7:00 P. M. one night in 1976, Emilio was car-bombed, a favorite tactic of the Cuban-Americans trained at the then-secretive Army of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, beginning in 1959. The infamous Luis Posada Carriles famously praised his explosives training at Fort Benning in a New York Times article. Note above that the aforementioned Edna Buchanan co-wrote the huge article that told Miami about the car-bombing of Emilio Milian. To this day, Americans are not supposed to remember Emilio Milian, Cubana Flight 455, and other such nefarious anti-Cuban aspects of U.S.-Cuban relations. Today in Miami the still-living Posada Carriles is much more famous and much more heralded than the ill-fated Emilio Milian. And that's par for the course.

Posada Carriles at Fort Benning, 1962.

Now 87, Posada Carriles in Miami demonstrating against President Obama.

And Speaking of Mariel........

           The Economic Zone centered around the refurbished Port of Mariel is today the primary hope for Cuba's economic survival. It's survival would be a tribute to women like Celia, Haydee, and Marta Rojas.

        Remember Tony Montana, Oliver Stone's cocaine kingpin in Miami following the famed Mariel Boatlift? I know I've jumped around a bit but...DON'T FORGET TONY.

      And don't forget what happened at High Noon on December 17th, 2014. At that very moment American President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro went on television in their respective countries to tell their people that they were trying to normalize relations between the U. S. and Cuba. As November of 2015 winds to a close, great strides in that almost-impossible endeavor have been made, but much more remains. Since 1959 the lucrative Castro Industry in the United States has successfully dictated America's Cuban policy and that grip remains extremely tight.

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