A Memory As Cuba Ends August of 2023

     Today is August 31st of 2023, a day that finds Cuba recuperating from the passage of Hurricane Idalia. But also today Cubans are remembering August 31st of 1967, the day the Guerrilla Fighter named Tania was ambushed and killed in Bolivia as she waded across a deep creek while holding her rifle high over the water as she fought with Che Guevara.

    The "Tania" that Cubans still idolize was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on November 19th, 1937 after her parents Erich and Nadia Bider had escaped Hitler's Nazi Germany. So her official name is Haydee Bider, but she will always be worshipped by Cubans for her devotion to the Cuban Revolution and her massive love of Che Guevara. 

     This was Tania the Guerrilla after she followed Che Guevara, the love of her life, to Bolivia where he hoped to create an independence movement similar to the successful one he had so famously accomplished with the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

    This was the playful Tania taking a photo of Che while he was taking a photo of her. Tania was awesomely intelligent and was fluent in multiple languages -- especially German, Spanish, English, and Russian.

This photo of Tania was taken in 1961.

     As a brave and brilliant Guerrilla Fighter with Che Guevara in Bolivia, Tania was personally singled out by both the U. S. CIA as well as the Bolivian Army that finally ambushed Tania as she crossed a swollen creek while holding her rifle above her head on August 31st, 1967.

    Of course, one of history's most famed assassinations was that of Che Guevara in Bolivia on October 9th of 1967, a few weeks after his beloved Tania and fellow guerrila fighter had been ambushed and killed in the creek.

    This was Che Guevara after he was captured and photographed standing with CIA agent Felix Rodriguez who was born in 1941 in Havana, Cuba and today is the most heralded 82-year-old Cuban-American living in Miami.

     The great journalist/author Jon Lee Anderson remains the greatest expert on the life and death of Che Guevara. His article above in The New Yorker started with this paragraph: "Moments before the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara was murdered by his captors in Bolivia, in 1967, the C.I.A. agent who was on the scene told his executioner, a Bolivian sergeant, to shoot Che from the neck down, so as to make it appear that he had died of his wounds in battle." Then after he was killed, both of Che Guevara's hands were chopped off and he was buried in a secret grave but many diligent years of research finally discovered the grave and then Che Guevara's remains, proved by DNA, were sent to Cuba where they were buried in a cherished and not-secret tomb.

    But today -- on August 31st, 2023 -- Cubans are honoring Tania, the devoted and brilliant guerrilla fighter who will forever be linked with Che Guevara. Prior to Che's assassination in Bolivia on October 9, 1967, Tania died on August 31st, 1967 while fighting in Bolivia on Che's behalf.

     To remember the day that Tania was ambushed in the creek and killed in Bolivia on August 31st, 1967, Cuban TV today showed this image of where she died.

     Both Che and Tania were notable photographers. The photo above is believed to be last one she took of Che in Bolivia while he rested and smoked a pipe; and the photo directly above is believed to be the last photo of Tania that Che took in Bolivia.

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US-Cuba Intrigues Still Defy History

 Such as the Fidel Castro Assassination Attempts!!

    A German beauty named Marita Lorenz, many historians believe, had one of the earliest and best chances to assassinate Fidel Castro in 1959, the very year his Cuban Revolution overthrew the U.S./Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship on the nearby and always coveted Caribbean nation. A lot of beautiful women in 1959, including raging rumors about Hollywood lovelies such as Ava Gardner, both caught Fidel's enticing rebel eyes, but the only one that history confirms was the only one that spent a night alone with Fidel in a Havana hotel room with the plans and means to assassinate him was Marita Lorenz!!

    Many books and newspaper articles have told the world that no person in history has ever come close to surviving as many assassination attempts as Fidel Castro did, with the most accepted number being 634 although one credible and famous documentary put the number as 638. Those figures are sort of astounding considering that the CIA and the Mafia reportedly were behind most of the attempts. The Marita-Fidel saga was perhaps best documented by the New York Post on September 2nd, 2017. That was when Marita, then in her 70s, explained that her episode in that hotel room with Fidel was true. As you can see above, Marita at the time she spoke to the New York Post was promoting her famed tell-all book as well as an upcoming Hollywood movie in which A-List actress Jennifer Lawrence was playing Marita. At this late stage of her life, Marita wanted history to know what happened in that Hotel Room in Havana when she was alone with Fidel!!! Of course, some very powerful and well-heeled assassination experts thought, for sure, it would be the night that Fidel would be assassinated.

    In her tell-all revelations the fascinating Marita Lorenz said that notable CIA operative Frank Sturges recruited her to assassinate Fidel Castro, as both U.S. & Cuban historians had already stated.

     True History registers the truly unique and fascinating relations between Cuba and the United States that began in 1492, the year Columbus discovered both of the neighboring land areas. And that History continues into August-September of 2023 with Fidel Castro still the centerpiece. For sure, for all those turbulent years and fascinating times one man, Fidel Castro, has dominated the History of U.S.-Cuba Relations.

    While History clearly registers the 600+ assassination attempts that Fidel Castro survived, History also confirms that Fidel Castro died at age 90 in 2016 as he slept peacefully and unapologetically in his own bed in Havana. The History of Fidel Castro confirms that the assassins failed to kill him although they tried over 600 times. And since 2016 the ultra-powerful forces trying to destroy Fidel Castro's legacy have also failed.

     But the most amazing and most significant aspect of Fidel Castro's life is this: As August turns into September of 2023, "Fidel" is still the leader of Cuba and still the primary reason that his revolution still rules the otherwise very vulnerable island-nation.

1952-1959 and 1959-2023!!

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CUBA: A Forever Blockade + A Hurricane Today

    Today -- on AUGUST 28th-2023 -- the vulnerable Caribbean island of Cuba is bracing for its latest threat from a dangeous Tropical Storm/Hurricane, this one named Idalia.

      But everyday since 1962 Cubans have faced the threat of what they call "the largest. longest, and most genocidal economic embargo in history maintained by our neighbor, the U. S."   

    But today -- AUGUST 28-2023 -- the photo above shows that these Cubans on the island are, at least temporarily, more concerned about Hurricane Idalia than the Blockade.

     Today in Cuba some citizens are being transported to safer areas as Idalia becomes more of a threat.

     For these three Cuban officials strategizing how to save Cubans today, Idalia is not their first rodeo.

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CUBA HAS A GREAT WEEK to End August-2023

 A Frequent Flyer President Wins Support!!

   From Cuba to Asia to Europe and to Africa...Cuba's President and First Lady -- Miguel Diaz-Canel and Lis Cuesta -- have accumulated Frequest Flyer miles trying desperately to garner support for the economic deprived Caribbean nation. In Angola a journalist asked President Diaz-Canel, "Why, sir, so many urgent trips?" He replied: "As a small nation that has been attacked longer than any nation in history by a powerful nation, the Cuban people are tired of suffering for three generations, over 62 years from it. I believe Cuba's only enemy is the United States, our close northern neighbor. I am making these long trips to confirm that belief."

     The BRICS Summit closing out AUGUST of 2023 in Johannesburg has celebrated Cuba as one of the 77 nations in attendance. BRICS now stands for just five nations -- Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa -- but dozens of others nations are hoping to join its ranks. The avalanche of photos and videos from Johannesburg reveal that Cuba's ageless struggle to survive the US economic Embargo/Blockade is being supported powerfully by these nations, a fact that President Diaz-Canel is discovering.

     While President Diaz-Canel is currently seeking and receiving support from Latin American, Asian, and European nations, the African Continent is where Cuba has been most loved and admired. Constantly at the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg the President of Cuba has heard comments such as explained by Mozambique's leader: "For too many decades nations of the world, afraid of the supreme economic and military might of one nation, has permitted the people of Cuba to be deprived illegally while we have normal trade relations with the powerful nation that deprives the Cuban masses. That cowardice finally should end." 

      The giant London-based Reuters News Agency has informed the world that the five Brics nations -- Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa -- have vowed renewed support for Cuba, but so have 75 other important nations in attendance.

    Of course, in the United States both the U. S. media and its two-party political system -- Democrats and Republicans -- have issues that don't consider the U. S. Relations with Cuba, but more-and-more nations around the world are, indeed, more-and-more concerned with the Superpower's endless blockade of Cuba that perhaps enriches/empowers some people in Miami and Washington but is designed to starve, deprive, and make miserable succeeding generations of innocent Cubans in Cuba.

Images that shame nations around the world.

Close NEIGHBORS, the big U. S. and little Cuba.

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