Startling Constitutional Changes!!
{UPDATED: Saturday, July 28th, 2018}
On July 22nd, 2018, the Cuban National Assembly completed the draft of a dramatically new Constitution, far more advanced and much more modern than the last major changes back in 1976. Now the drafts will be debated outside the parliament, among the people, from August 13th till November 15th and then they will be submitted to a nationwide referendum vote.
The parliamentary changes to the new Cuban constitution are indeed drastic. Marriage in Cuba, for example, will now be defined as "a union between two people," meaning that people of the same sex can be wed on the island.
While the mainstream media in the U. S. is accustomed to either ignoring Cuba altogether or adhering strictly to the dictates of Counter Revolutionary Cuban American extremists such as self-serving Miami Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress like Marco Rubio and Mario Diaz-Balart {Mario's extremely rich father was a former key minister in the Batista dictators}. BUT, incredibly, a major CNN article written by Andrea Diaz and posted online on July 26th used the photo above while accurately and fairly reporting on the vast Cuban changes, starting with the "union of two people" significance.
Cuba's new Secretary of the National Assembly, Homero Acosta, was quoted in the CNN/Andrea Diaz article as saying: "We could not turn our backs on the marriage issue when preparing a new constitution. We studied international laws to have a better understanding of around 24 countries that have this concept incorporated. We will prevent any form of discrimination toward the Cuban people and whoever discriminates against them will be punished. The harassed, the less fortunate, the disabled...will be protected and respected as much as our strongest citizens." That comment from a newly elevated top Cuban official, Homero Acosta, was actually included in the CNN/Andrea Diaz article, which is astounding in the USA where the mainstream media usually confines its Cuban coverage to only to the anti-Cuban rhetoric of extreme benefactors like Rubio & Diaz-Balart.
The two Cuban men shown above, Rainiel Torres and Dariel Hernandez, will soon be free to get married in Cuba.
As gay men, new Cuban laws will protect Rainiel and Dariel from harassment and other forms of discrimination in Cuba.
Cuba's new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, became the island's first non-Castro and first non-revolutionary leader on April 19th. He was born in 1960, after the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution over the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. He had served the previous five years as President Raul Castro's First Vice President but earlier had attained nationwide popularity as Cuba's Education Minister. The new constitution bears his imprint. Previously since 1959, the Castro brothers -- Fidel and Raul -- had served as head of both the Council of State and the Council of Ministers. With the new constitution, Cuba for the first time will have a Prime Minister who will be head of the Council of Ministers. But as President of the Council of State, Miguel Diaz-Canel will retain the superior position on the island...apparently because that is what the Cubans...the ones in Cuba, not the ones in Miami's Little Havana and in the U. S. Congress...want and will vote on in November via a nationwide referendum.
The new Cuban constitution, at the behest of President Diaz-Canel, will step-by-step mandate private enterprise and the ownership of property. In the aforementioned CNN/Andrea Diaz article, he was quoted as saying: "The new constitution will take into account all human issues and bring social justice to the forefront to build a better political system for our people, and strengthen the national unity." Significantly, the new constitution does not mention communism but instead stresses "Socialism." But make no mistake, President Diaz-Canel worships the Castro legacy and "everything that the Revolution entails, starting with the independence and sovereignty it bequeathed to me when I was a baby."
This week -- July 26th, 2018 -- marked the 65th anniversary of what Fidel Castro mandated as the start of the Cuban Revolution. It began in earnest on July 26, 1953, with Fidel's ill-fated, out-gunned attack on Batista's Moncada army barracks on the edge of Santiago de Cuba. Few of Fidel's lightly armed associates survived the attack and he himself ended up in a Batista prison from July-1953 till May-1955. But even then and until the Revolutionary victory on January 1, 1959, the rebels wore the July 26th armbands in memory of the Moncada attack.
The 65th anniversary of Fidel's Moncada attack was celebrated off the island this week...including Italy, for example {above}.
Moncada -- one piece of Fidel's legend.
This week -- July 26, 2018 -- a tired, frail-looking Raul Castro made the above speech in Santiago to commemorate the Moncada attack 65 years ago. He stressed the threat of another Republican administration in Washington. "Once again," he said, "on the heels of the hope with had with Obama, the U. S. government is firmly aligned with the remnants of the Batista and Mafia factions we fought against at Moncada and throughout the Revolution.' "We few who remain from those necessary conflicts, and especially the new constitutional leaders who have recently emerged, must be as vigilant as ever to protect our nation against foreign aggression."
The photo above was revised this week on the 65th anniversary of the Moncada attack to emphasize the fact that the 87-year-old Raul Castro is one of the "few who remain" from the legendary rebels who overthrew the Batista regime on the first day of 1959. For example, Juan Almeida Bosque, shown on the left above, was born on Feb. 17-1927 and died on Sept. 11-2009. As a guerrilla fighter and commander, Juan was the closest rebel to Raul throughout the war and till the day he died as a top leader in Revolutionary Cuba. And, of course, on Nov. 25-2016 Fidel Castro died at age 90 in Havana.
Cuba's new president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, was right beside Raul Castro during the ceremonies in Santiago this week celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Moncada attack on July 26th, 1953. And President Diaz-Canel, as shown above, regularly pays homage at Fidel's tomb in Santiago.
At his Moncada trial, surrounded by Batista soldiers, Fidel Castro, a lawyer, defended himself, famously concluding his soliloquy with the words, "History will absolve me." Atrocities, including vicious murders of children and University of Havana students by Batista's goons, forced the United States to insist that Fidel be released from prison in May of 1955 as a token of good-will to the Cuban people, who worshiped Fidel because of what they perceived as the only hope to escape the Batista-Mafia-U.S. stranglehold on their island. Prior to the release, other Moncada prisoners had been tortured to death but Fidel's fame and the watchful eye of New York Times reporter Herbert L. Matthews spared Fidel that fate. But with his U.S.-pressured release, Batista's plan was to murder Fidel beyond the prying eyes of Matthews and other U. S. journalists. But Fidel survived those assassination attemps and hundreds more...and the rest is indeed history, which will never "absolve" Fidel in the eyes of his enemies but millions of Cubans on the island have always cherished him...and now...cherish his legacy. If that were not so, there would never have been an incredible victory for the Cuban Revolution and...EVEN MORE INCREDIBLY...Revolutionary Cuba would not still be in power in the summer of 2018. Such basic facts, while politically and socially incorrect in the Batistiano-tainted USA, is nevertheless undeniably true.
In a speech while still in his prime, Fidel Castro once said, "While some think of me as a tall rebel, I myself do not want to be remembered as tall an independence fighter as Jose Marti is remembered. Marti fought and died on Cuban soil in 1895 fighting Spanish domination. I fought and lived on Cuban soil fighting American and Mafiosi domination. As an independence fighter, he died for the most righteous cause. I have not yet died on a Cuban battlefield as an independence fighter. So, while I live, don't compare me to Marti." Also, just before he died at age 90 on Nov. 25-2016, Fidel Castro ordered that no statues should ever be built honoring him and no roads, buildings, etc., should ever be named for him. "A cult of personality," he said, "should never be built around my name. I didn't fight for that. I fought for an independent Cuba." On July 22nd of 2018, the draft of Cuba's new constitution officially acknowledged Fidel Castro's wishes and codified them into law.
In 1953 the Federation of University Students {FEU} comprised Fidel Castro's most ardent supporters. That's why Batista's goons murdered many of them, including now famously martyred FEU leader Jose Antonio Echeverria, and shutdown the University of Havana. Today -- in the summer of 2018 -- the FEU remains the most ardent defender of Fidel Castro's revolution and his legacy.
Today's inspirational leader of The Federation of University Students in Havana is Jennifer Bello Martinez, and she is cast in the mold of Jose Antonio Echeverria. Jennifer says, "If our enemies in Miami and Washington persuade the U. S. military to nuke this island, they had better get all of us. Because if they don't, those of us who are left have the revolutionary souls that Fidel would be proud of."
Ubiquitous posters in Cuba proclaim: "Cuba es Nuestra" {"Cuba is Ours"}. Spain and other imperial powers who dominated Cuba for centuries, understand that poster in the configuration of the modern world. But ultra-rich, powerful, and revengeful forces in America, which dominated Cuba from 1898 {after the Spanish-American War} till January 1, 1959, don't. Thus, the world that was astounded by the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 is even more astounded today that Cuba remains, after all these decades, free of American, Batistiano, and Mafiosi domination. But, as the simply-stated poster above indicates, those factions have always underestimated how many people on the island firmly believe "Cuba is Ours" -- not Spain's, not America's, not Little Havana's, and not the Mafia's.
"This is Cuba"
"Esta es Cuba"
"This is Our People"
"Esta es Su Gente"
"This is Cuba"**"This is our People"
In other words, it seems that a third generation of Cubans on the island subscribe to the slogan "YO SOY FIDEL" {"I AM FIDEL"}. And as long as that is so, short of getting some Republican U. S. president to nuke the island, Cubans ON the island...not Cubans in Miami and Washington...will continue to rule Cuba. Of course, merely surviving man-made and natural hurricanes as well as other such calamities like...embargoes, sanctions, other Batistiano-written congressional laws, Bay of Pigs assaults, terrorism, and whatever else nature and nearby humans have planned for them...remains a daunting task.
"Yo Soy Fidel"
If Fidel's revolution is ever overthrown, university students and graduates...like the young woman above and like what happened in the early 1950s...will again be in the forefront on the vulnerable but pugnacious island. That, of course, would mean another long-shot, but viable, revolution. From his mansion in Florida and from his safe seat in Congress, Marco Rubio doesn't believe that. But on the island, Jennifer Bello Martinez does believe it.
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