Amnesty International and Cuba!!!!

 Yet Another Update!!

       Amnesty International is a great organization and it has been DEFENDING HUMAN RIGHTS around the world for years.

      For sure, Erika Guevara-Rosas is a great lady. She is the Amnesty International Director for the Americas. She is a Mexican-American who graduated from York University, Canada's third largest university. She also got her law degree from Mexico's University of Londres.

     Great women like Erika Guevara-Rosas and Jurema Werneck, under the auspices of Amnesty International, monitor human rights violations around the world. As the Americas Director at Amnesty International, it is Erika Guevara-Rosas who closely monitors human rights violations in Cuba.

      On behalf of Amnesty International this week -- on Nov. 20th-2020 -- Erika Guevara issued her latest Human Rights Report on Cuba. It is entitled: "CUBA: HARASSMENT OF SAN ISIDRO MOVEMENT EXEMPLIFIES ONGOING ASSAULT ON FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION." The report stressed these exact words: "The ongoing harassment and intimidation of members of the San Isidro movement, at the forefront of challenging Degree 349, a dystopian law that stands to censor artists, shows Cuba's ongoing repression of human rights, including the right to freedom of expression in the country. Authorities can continue to harass, intimidate, detain, and criminalize artists and alternative thinkers, but they can't keep their minds in prison. No one should be imprisoned for 'contempt' against a public official, a provision of the criminal code that Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have consistently called on the Cuban authorities to repeal."

      For decades, of course, Amnesty International has spotlighted the images and names of Cubans such as Eduardo Cardet as "a prisoner of conscience who must be released immediately and unconditionally." In this week's update in November of 2020, Amnesty International named current prisoners of conscience in Cuba such as rapper Denis Solis Gonzalez who was "detained on 9 November."

     So, for many year Amnesty International has kept a keen eye on civil rights violations in Revolutionary Cuba, as it should. But one problem with all that diligence, I believe, is that it tends to minimize the opinions of everyday Cubans on the island while placing an emphasize on Counter Revolutionaries that Cuba says are supported politically and financially and even militarily by Counter Revolutionary Cubans in the United States -- namely in Miami, Newark, and the U. S. Congress. Also, many unbiased observers believe that Amnesty International and other such organizations, perhaps influenced or intimidated by America's unique Superpower wealth and power, fails to compare civil rights in Revolutionary Cuba since 1959 with the civil rights in PRE-Revolutionary Cuba -- namely the Cuba supported from 1952 till 1959 by the Mafia and the United States.

     And, for example, an unbiased source -- the Encyclopedia Britannia -- used the above Library of Congress photo in a segment that detailed Fulgencio Batista's pre-Revolutionary rule of Cuba, first from 1933-1944 when Batista rose from a soldier to head of the Cuban army and then became the head of the Cuban government. In the photo above taken in the U. S. capital of Washington, Batista, as the leader of the Cuban army and leader of the Cuban government, is shown on Nov. 10-1938 with General Malin Craig, then the Chief of Staff of the U. S. Army. According to historical accounts that include Encyclopedia Britannia, "After ruling Cuba from 1933-1944, Batista traveled abroad and lived for a while in Florida, where his best friends included Mafia kingpins and where he invested part of the huge sums he had acquired in Cuba. At the behest of his best Florida friend, Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky, Batista returned to power in Cuba in March of 1952 via a military coup that deposed President Carlos Prio Socarras. Batista returned to the island as an extremely brutal dictator supported by the Mafia and the United States, and he embezzled huge sums from Cuba's soaring economy that was bulging with American tourists lured by gambling, drugs, prostitution, etc. The rich U. S. companies as well as the top Mafia kingpins including Lansky, Lucky Luciano, Santo Trafficante Jr., Carlos Marcelo and others partook in the sacking of Cuba from March-1952 until January 1-1959 when the Cuban Revolution shocked the world by overthrowing the Batista dictatorship."

     Beginning in January of 1959, as the nascent Revolutionary government was taking over Cuba, on nearby U. S. soil in the heart of Miami, a bastion known as Little Havana evolved as an unchecked creation of Counter Revolutionary zealots. With tons of Cuban money already sent to South Florida banks and invested in prime real estate holdings, along with the last of the Batistiano loot and gold that left Cuba in getaway planes, ships, and boats in the wee hours of January 1-1959 quickly and permanently overwhelmed Miami and thus Little Havana reigned, and still reigns, as a political and economic force in the U. S. to this very day. Yet, from 1959 till 2020, unable to recapture Cuba, Little Havana has nevertheless been a massive tormentor of Cubans left behind in Cuba, meaning the ones unable to leave the island or the ones unwilling to be lured off the island. Of course, early Counter Revolutionary leaders such as Rafael Diaz-Balart and Jorge Mas Canosa -- and latter day zealots such as Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart -- have believed that, with the help of the U. S. government, recapturing Cuba would take only a few weeks, and certainly not more than a few months. But all these decades later, and now in late November of 2020, the supposedly vulnerable island of Cuba is still standing as a poor but pugnacious and incredibly resilient Revolutionary Cuba while the ultra-powerful and ultra-rich leaders in Little Havana are left wondering how in the hell they are not back in control of Havana. "I mean...uh...with the help of the world's financial and military Superpower we have attacked, terrified, deprived, and starved the people on that island since 1959. So why in the hell have they not overthrown their rebel government and then handed it back over to US in the USA?" An interesting question. I will attempt to answer that question when I return within 48 hours with Part Two of "Amnesty International and Cuba!!!"

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