30.12.22

Cuba: Batista, Castro, and Miami

   Today -- on December 30th-2022 -- this was the massive headline in the Miami Herald: "Cuban migrants awaiting deportation are freed after U. S. accidentally leaked their info." For sure, in these last few days of 2022 the Miami Herald is obsessed with all things Cuban...including the record numbers of Cubans now flocking across the controversial U.S.-Mexican border to reach the United States.
    Of course, the reasons for the Cuban Revolution from 1952 to 1959 have never been emphasized in Miami's depiction's of why or how Fidel Castro replaced the Luciano-Batista-Lansky rule of Cuba on the first of January in 1959.
    And, of course, the massive attempts designed to overthrow the Cuban Revolution since 1959 include the Bay of Pigs military attack in 1961, along with an all-time record of assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, and -- since 1962 -- including the longest and cruelest economic Embargo ever imposed by any powerful nation against a much much smaller nation.
     The Bay of Pigs military attack, the assassination attempts, the EMBARGO, etc., have somehow not overthrown Revolutionary Cuba...but have starved, deprived, and made miserable the lives of generations of everyday Cubans on the island for the past six+ decades.
    Of course, since January of 1959 Cuba in Miami has created a Welcome to Little Havana USA that has spawned a bevy of rich and politically powerful Cuban-Americans in Miami...and in Washington.

    Of course...since Batista fled Cuba and left Castro in control of Cuba on January 1, 1959, Miami has dictated much of the history and topicality of the U.S.-Cuba conundrum.
     Thus, to justify six+ decades of trying to overthrow Revolutionary Cuba it has been important to deny the truths of Batista's extreme brutality in Cuba from 1952 till 1959, events that grossly enriched the Batistianos, the Mafiosi, and U. S. businessmen. 

     In Batista's money-crazed Cuba not even a few crumbs were doled out to the non-Batistiano Cubans, as indicated by the two photos shown above that spawned the Revolution.
          If truths are ever revealed in the U. S. regarding the Cuban Revolution, they will explain that a brilliant doctor's daughter named Celia Sanchez...not Fidel, Che, or Camilo...was the most important rebel and the key decision-maker during the Revolutionary War and then in Revolutionary Cuba after 1959.
    Because Miami has basically defined the U.S.-Cuba conundrum since 1959, Americans are supposed to not be able to understand this photo in Revolutionary Cuba. So permit me to explain it: Typically, on a porch one morning, the tireless and brilliant Celia Sanchez was busy writing rules for Revolutionary Cuba while Fidel Castro casually lazed in his rocking chair. But then, most importantly, whatever decisions Celia was writing down would be supported 100% by Fidel, whether or not he agreed with them. Thus...perhaps one day the Miami Herald will try to truthfully explain this historic photo.
    Or, perhaps, one day the Miami Herald might try truthfully to explain this photo. Meanwhile...I'll try to explain it. It shows Fidel Castro intently studying the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. It was during his 12-day visit in April of 1959...shortly after he had replaced Batista as Cuba's leader. The visit was not Fidel's idea...it was Celia's. After the triumph of the Revolution, she knew that friendship and trade with the U. S. was vital to Cuba. She then worked for weeks beginning in January of 1959 to get the U. S. to allow Fidel to visit the U. S. so he could tell President Eisenhower that Cuba wanted friendly relations with Cuba and that the U. S. could closely monitor a democratic election that fall in which Fidel would not be competing in...and neither would Che or Camilo. Finally, Celia got permission from the U. S. Society of Newspaper Editors and the U. S. State Department so that Fidel could make the vital visit. The trip for Fidel, which included Celia, lasted for 12 days in April of 1959 and Fidel was wildly treated as a rebel hero who had just overthrown a brutal dictator. But, of course, the historic trip soon took some historic and cruel turns.
    During his Celia Sanchez-orchestrated 12-day trip to the U. S. in April of 1959, Fidel Castro, speaking English, appeared on the top U. S. news show, Meet the Press...as also arranged by Celia.
     But the one dark and cruel aspect on the April-1959 visit to the U. S. by Fidel Castro involved a double-cross to Celia Sanchez. She had been told that Fidel would be allowed to meet with President Eisenhower, and that turned out to be a lie. Fidel was forced instead to meet with Vice President Richard Nixon, who brashly told "Fidel" that there was no need for him to talk about such things as friendship or trade or an election because..."your revolution will end in a few months...actually in just a few weeks."
    It so happens that Celia Sanchez, the prime decision-maker in Revolutionary Cuba, returned to Cuba devastated after her 12-day visit to the U. S. with Fidel in April of 1959. She then told two people -- Fidel and famed journalist Marta Rojas -- these exact words: "Nixon is an idiot and a criminal. As long as I live or as long as Fidel lives, Washington will never end this revolution." Celia died of cancer in 1980; Fidel died at 90 of old age in 2016. And as 2022 turns into 2023 Washington has still not ended the Cuban Revolution.
     By the way, when I visited Cuba in 2004 with the permission of the George W. Bush administration, I met the legendary journalist and author Marta Rojas. My mission in Cuba was to research the legendary rebel Celia Sanchez. The first American I met in Havana was Tracey Eaton, the USA's top journalist in Cuba. Tracey told me, correctly, that Marta Rojas knew more about Celia Sanchez, Fidel Castro, and the Cuban Revolution than anyone alive. That's how I got to know Marta Rojas, and in 2005 I wrote a book in which I explained why I exchanged emails with Marta, a truly great and sweet lady, after I returned to the U. S. in 2004. It was Marta, the one person who would know, who told me what Celia Sanchez said regarding the visit she and Fidel made to the U. S. in April of 1959: "Nixon is an idiot and a criminal. As long as I live or as long as Fidel lives, Washington will never end this revolution."
*&***********************&*


 




















No comments:

cubaninsider: "The Country That Raped Me" (A True Story)

cubaninsider: "The Country That Raped Me" (A True Story) : Note : This particular essay on  Ana Margarita Martinez  was first ...