Damning Cuba, and Profiting from it

 Cubans in Miami

    For decades rich and powerful Cubans in Miami have damned Cuba, implied that Batista's Cuba in the 1950s was a utopia for everyday Cubans, and blamed all of Cuba's problems on the Revolutionaries that chased them across the Florida Straits to Miami starting in January of 1959.

    Of course, the Cubans who have run Miami since 1959 don't seem concerned about important things like decades of starving, depriving, and making miserable the Cubans in Cuba.

     Each day, it seems, the Miami Herald blares out prime articles that damn Cuba...such as today -- July 19th, 2022.  Today the not-so-sweet Miami headline is: "A country on edge: Cubans share images of protests, police beatings and..." Such headlines imply that Batista's Cuba, prior to the Revolution, was a utopia for Cubans...but that was not exactly true.

     Indeed, Batista's Cuba was a utopian Gold Mine for the Batistianos, the Mafiosi, and U. S. businessmen...but not for everyday Cuban mothers such as those shown in the three above photos.

     The unknown history of the Cuban Revolution is the sheer fact that women were among the most influential guerrilla fighters, recruiters, and leaders -- especially Vilma Espin, Celia Sanchez, and Haydee Santamaria.

    It can easily and honestly be stated that Celia Sanchez was the most important revolutionary rebel {man or woman} as the unequaled recruiter of rebels and supplies but also as a fighter, leader, and overall decision-maker.

  One person who would know, Fidel Castro, always knew that Celia Sanchez was the main reason the rebels won the Revolution. That's why, starting in January of 1959, Celia Sanchez was the prime decision-maker in Revolutionary Cuba...with Fidel's total blessing and support. Study the above Lee Lockwood photo to comprehend that fact. While Fidel was just rocking in his chair, Celia was busily writing a rule that Fidel would then make sure became a law. That's why in the very first days of Revolutionary Cuba the new laws created the powerful Federation of Cuban Women, which also mandated that every Cuban had free food, free heath care, and free education through college!!

    Until the day she died at age 59 of cancer on January 11, 1980, Celia Sanchez remained the top decision-maker in Revolutionary Cuba.

    In fact, in 2004 in Cuba Marta Rojas told me: "Even after she died in 1980 Celia Sanchez was still Cuba's main decision-maker because Fidel continued to rule the island only as he believed Celia would have wanted him to rule it." And Marta would be the person to know that best. Starting as a key young journalist in Batista's Cuba, Marta became an anti-Batista rebel and then lived out her extraordinary life in Cuba starting in 1959 as a renowned journalist, author, and was also an intimate of both Celia Sanchez and Fidel Castro. A sweet and kind lady, Marta became my friend in 2004 and exchanged emails with me often. The Wikipedia bio of her starts with a quote from me. Born in Santiago de Cuba in 1928, she died in Havana on October 3rd, 2021.

     Marta Rojas agreed with Fidel Castro that Celia Sanchez was the most important factor that predicated the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. Moreover, Marta Rojas and millions of other Cubans today believe that Celia Sanchez is most responsible for the fact that Cuban children since 1959 have been better off, by far, than children in Batista's Cuba...even factoring in the continuous assaults from Miami and the superpower United States. Of course, the Miami Herald and Cubans in Miami will loudly dispute that.

    And, of course, the Miami Herald and the Cubans in Miami will also vehemently deny the famous words above that stand as Celia Sanchez's most famous quotation: "We rebels...get far too much credit for winning the revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots."

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