Cubana Flight 455

Lest We Forget

      I subscribe to the premise that the Cuban Revolution says more about the United States than it says about Cuba. After all, Cuba is a small island and the United States is the world's economic and military superpower. And, after all, what happens to a small island, unlike with a superpower, doesn't normally translate to gargantuan historic and topical news. In a similar vein, I believe the fate of Cubana Flight 455 (the actual airplane is shown above) says a lot more about Miami than it says about Havana. Therefore, primarily what the Cuban Revolution says is: The United States, the world's greatest democracy, should not be in the business of supporting murderous/thieving dictators like, for example, Batista in Cuba. And, primarily what the fate of Cubana Flight 455 says is: The United States, the world's greatest democracy, should never have permitted the overthrown Batista dictatorship to immediately (and it seems eternally) reconstitute itself on U. S. soil, namely  South Florida with Miami as its capital.

      Of the million or so prime reasons one could put forth as indisputable evidence that Miami and South Florida indeed constitute a dictatorship, the linchpin is Cubana Flight 455. That particularly includes the decades that preceded the historic flight and the decades that have followed it.

        Cubana Flight 455 was a Douglas DC-8 aircraft with the tail number CU-TI201. On October 6, 1976, the plane took off from Caracas with 73 passengers and five crew members. The passengers included 24 teenage members of the Cuban Fencing Team that had just won the Central American Championship in its age group. A 7-year-old girl was also on board. On the trek from Caracas to Havana, there were scheduled stopovers in Barbados and Jamaica. After ascending skyward from Seawell Airport in Bridgetown, Barbados, over the ocean about 8 kilometers west of Bridgetown, two time bombs -- one featuring dynamite and the other the C-4 explosive -- blasted Cubana Flight 455 from the sky, murdering all 78 on board. Within hours, CIA operatives tightly linked to the anti-Castro factions that ruled South Florida were blamed.

George H. W. Bush

      George H. W. Bush was CIA Director on October 6, 1976, the day Cubana Flight 455 was blown out of the sky.

Luis Posada Carriles

      Luis Posada Carriles, the most infamous of the CIA-trained explosive experts and history's most famed anti-Castro zealot, has -- from October of 1976 to this very day -- been branded as the ringleader of the terrorists who bombed Flight 455 from the sky. He remains today a totally free and much-heralded (and protected) citizen of Miami, Florida.

Orlando Bosch (on the left) and Luis Posada Carriles

     Orlando Bosch will forever be labeled the second most infamous CIA-trained explosives-and-sabotage expert as well as the second most famed anti-Castro terrorist (or, as they say in Miami, freedom fighter). Like Posada Carriles, Bosch will always be tied to the bombing of Cubana Flight 455. And like his friend and colleague Posada Carriles, Bosch relished four decades of active terror against anything remotely related to Fidel Castro, such as the 7-year-old girl on the doomed airplane. The most famous quote attached to Bosch regarding Cubana Flight 455: "There were no innocents on that plane." The most famous quote attached to Posada Carriles regarding that bombing: "It's the biggest blow yet against Castro."  The most famous historical quotation related to the airplane bombing (derived from de-classified U. S. and Venezuelan documents) is a confirmation cable from the two terrorists who placed the bomb on the plane to the masterminds: "73 dogs just went over the cliff."  I will always believe the little girl on that plane was innocent; I will always believe she was not the biggest blow yet against Castro; and I will always believe she was not a dog. And I believe the same could be said for the other 72 civilian passengers and five crew members on that airplane.   
      Both Bosch and Posada Carriles spent time in Latin American prisons for the airplane bombing and other acts of terror against Cuban interests but, incredibly, the Bush political dynasty (GHW, G. W., and Jeb) in association with the two most powerful Cuban exiles, first Jorge Mas Canosa and then Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, secured their freedoms from prisons to the sanctuary of Miami.  Considerable controversy and criticism have always been attached to America's sponsoring, coddling, and protecting Posada Carriles and Bosch but, like a big bully,  America has persisted in undaunted fashion.  President George H. W. Bush on July 18, 1990 pardoned Bosch of all American charges at the direct request of his son Jeb Bush, who had been Ros-Lehtinen's congressional Campaign Manager in 1989 on his way to becoming the two-term governor of Florida.  During the pre-Obama two-term presidency of George W. Bush, the U. S. tried mightily to persuade many other countries to grant asylum to Posada Carriles and Bosch, but to no avail. Orlando Bosch died as a heralded citizen of Miami on April 27, 2011; Posada Carriles remains a ubiquitous free man in Miami.   

      Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, has a fair compendium of "Cubana Flight 455," including this paragraph: "Evidence implicated several CIA-backed anti-Castro Cuban exiles...CIA documents released in 2005 indicate that the agency 'had concrete advance intelligence, as early as June 1976, on plans by Cuban exile terrorist groups to bomb a Cuban airliner.' Former CIA operative Posada Carriles denies involvement but provides many details of the incident in his own book Caminos del Guerrero (Way of the Warrior)...Orlando Bosch was acquited because of technical defects in the prosecution evidence..." Wikipedia and the U. S. National Security Archives website provides many links to declassified U. S. (CIA, FBI, etc.) documents that clearly reveal the CIA-Posada Carriles-Bosch ties to the bombing of Cubana Flight 455.

 Ann Louise Bardach

      Ann Louise Bardach, a truly great journalist/author, is America's best expert on post-revolutionary Cuba. Bardach's prolific Cuban books provide irrefutable evidence of the warping of the democractic process in the U. S. beginning in January of 1959 when the overthrown Batista/Mafia dictatorship in Cuba merely reconstituted itself on U. S. soil in South Florida. The sheer economic and dictatorial power that had dominated Cuba in the 1950s -- such as top Batista officials like Rafael Diaz-Balart and Meyer Lansky and wealthy companies like Bacardi Rum and Fanjul Sugar -- had planned ahead and thus quickly overwhelmed South Florida and shortly elevated their power northward to the White House and the halls of Congress. Bardach in Cuba Confidential quoted a veteran and very knowledgeable FBI official: "The gansterismo of Havana was transported to Miami by a handful of early Batistiano arrivals. They set up shop here just like they did in Havana." Of course, the insatiable appetites of the Batistianos to recapture Cuba with the help of the U. S. government, the U. S. treasury, and the U. S. military led not only to the infamous Bay of Pigs military attack but also to countless acts of terrorism and sabotage, none of which bothered the U. S. government, including the bombing of Cubana Flight 455. The recapture of Cuba was supposed to take only a matter of days or months but, after more than half a century, it continues to this day, much to the detriment of everyone except, as the FBI official told Bardach, "a handful of early Batistiano arrivals" (and now, of course, a second generation of them, such as the two sons of Rafael Diaz-Balart elected to the U. S. Congress from Miami).

      In the new Guinness Book of World Records, Fidel Castro gets prominent mention because the famed chronicler of world records now officially recognizes that the old revolutionary has survived the most assassination attempts in all of history -- a whopping 638! That may have to be updated in the next yearly tabulation because he is set to turn 86-years-old on August 13, 2012, and because...the Batistiano dictatorship still reigns in South Florida and still rules U. S. Cuban policy.

      Since 1990 Bardach has interviewed all the pertinent parties involved in the Cuba-U.S. imbroglio. Her New York Times interview with Luis Posada Carriles is a classic historical document in which Posada Carriles lavishly praised the CIA and Jorge Mas Canosa (later recanted, of course) for their diligence in training and financing his escapades. Bardach's three most scintillating, accurate, and gripping books are: (1) Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana (Random House, 2002); (2) Cuba Confidential: The Extraordinary Tragedy of Cuba, Its Revolution and Its Exiles (Penguin, 2004); and (3) Without Fidel: Death Foretold in Miami, Havana and Washington (Scribner, 2009). Bardach's books, articles, and essays remain and continue as perhaps the best sources for understanding the true nature of Cuba-U. S. relations in the post-revolutionary period. And Bardach's long essay entitled Twilight of the Assassins, which was published in The Atlantic Magazine in November of 2006, provides a chilling but valuable and indispensable crystallization of how the U. S. democracy has been affected by the reconstitution of the Cuban/Batista dictatorship to South Florida. The aforementioned three Bardach books, her NY Times' interview with Posada Carriles, and her essay in The Atlantic Magazine are must reads for anyone still claiming that South Florida, with Miami as its capital, IS NOT A DICTATORSHIP.

Peter Kornbluh (Photo courtesy: Tracey Eaton) 

       Peter Kornbluh, the Cuban/Latin American expert at the U. S. National Security Archives, rates with Ann Louise Bardach at the top of any lists of the best Cuba-U. S. experts in America. When it comes to history, journalism, democracy, Cuba, and Latin America, Peter Kornbluh is the American that stands the tallest. The painstaking work he has done to De-classify long classified (hidden) U. S. documents relating to clandestine U. S. involvements regarding Cuba and Latin America is both unrivaled and priceless in its luminosity. The fruition of his remarkable De-classifications are posted on his U. S. National Security Archives website. If you are interested in the true facts about Cubana Flight 455 and its deleterious effect on our democracy, for example, depend on Peter Kornbluh and not the legions of  obfuscating pundits spawned by the uniqueness of having a real live, thriving dictatorship on U. S. soil, a true ubiquity amidst America's vast democracy. 

                         Judy Jackson

      Judy Jackson of London's BBC has won more awards as a documentarian than any living soul, and her sterling reputation as a democracy-loving Human Rights advocate is beyond reproach. No one compares with Judy for exposing the evils of brutal dictators/despots, and getting results. Her documentary The Hidden Holocaust (about Guatemala) touched hearts around the world, including some dictators; her documentary In Search of the Assassin (about Central American killer squads) made sponsors of dictatorships, especially in the UK and the U. S., at least have second thoughts and feel tinges of embarrassment; and her documentary They Shoot Children, Don't They? made many millions of people around the world, including me, literally cry unabashed tears. Most of mine, I admit, was because Judy Jackson cogently revealed that the U. S. government, the world's greatest democracy, trained many of those child-killers and the taxpayers in that democracy paid for it with their money but, apparently, not with their tears, which, in this day and time, seem reserved for more monumental things, such as the latest Kim Kardashian divorce.

Mariana van Zeller

     Mariana van Zeller of Vanguard/Current TV is the best American documentarian. She speaks five languages, especially English and Spanish, and travels anywhere in the world for her stories regardless of the danger, such as confronting masked terrorists in remote jungles.  She graduated from the Columbia School of Journalism where she met her husband (and now her photographer/producer) Darren Foster. She has lived in London and even in Syria when she studied Arabic at Damascus University. Several of Mariana's best documentaries, such as The OxyContin Express, have graphically chronicled how the dictatorship in South Florida harms not only its own citizens but people in other states thousands of miles away. Drugs, both of the illegal and prescription variety, spread away from South Florida like a cancer spreading from one place to other areas of the body. Unlike typical electronic journalists who sit behind a desk and pontificate with other pundits (saving their corporate owners money by not going out to actually cover a story), Mariana doesn't just tell you that the  easily obtained drugs in Miami destroy little towns in, say, Kentucky or Ohio and make the overwhelmed sheriffs in those towns actually cry. Mariana leaves those drug dispensers in Miami and travels to those little towns, and shows you the actual tears and heartbreak of those sheriffs, faraway tears based on the effects of a dictatorship on U. S. soil, the one in South Florida that has Miami as its capital.

     All of which takes us circuitously to Fort Benning, the U. S. Army post located just south of Columbus, Georgia. You see, the genesis for the terrorist bombing of Cubana Flight 455 goes all the way back to 1959 at Fort Benning. In the 1950s the world's greatest democracy, the United States, began supporting killer-thief dictators throughout the Caribbean and South America -- such as Batista in Cuba, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Somoza in Nicaragua, etc., etc. And in places like Chile the U. S. was not at all adverse to overthrowing a decent and popular democracy to install a more U. S. - friendly killer-thief dictator, such as Augusto Pinochet. Thus, beginning in the 1950s the U. S. had, in both Panama and at Fort Benning, a secretive outfit internally called The United States Army School of the Americas. It's sole purpose was to take carefully selected soldiers and policemen from U. S. - friendly dictatorships, train them in areas such as explosives and torture, and then send them back to those dictatorships to deal with dissidents or anyone that threatened the dictatorship. Of course, the U. S. taxpayers who paid for it all didn't have a clue as to what the Army School of the Americas was all about. But then, during the Clinton administration, details emerged from Latin American nations trying mightily to embrace democracy. Then, and only then, did President Clinton hold a news conference and apologize for the horrors inflicted across the Caribbean and Latin America by the Army School of the Americas. After that apology, the U. S. government simply changed the name to The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Panama, in one of its flirtations with democracy, had already kicked the infamous School out of its country all the way back to its home-base at Fort Benning.  But will we have to wait another few decades till a Mariana van Zeller or Peter Kornbluh or the saintly child-loving Judy Jackson breaks down normally impenetrable and classified barriers at Fort Benning and D. C. to inform us about what the renamed outfit has done and is doing?  Western Hemisphere Institute. Nice name. But Army of the Americas was once considered a nice name too. 

       After the Cuban Revolution in January of 1959 booted the Batista-Mafia dictatorship all the way from Havana to Miami, the richest and most radical of the Cuban exiles expected, thanks to their relationship with the ultra-powerful U. S. government, to recapture Cuba within weeks if not days. To that end, the U. S. government selected the most visceral Cuban exiles and sent them -- you guessed it! -- to the Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. Luis Posada Carriles was, of course, one of the first star graduates. He is shown above at Fort Benning in his 2nd Lt.'s uniform.

Felix Rodriguez

George H. W. Bush with Felix Rodriguez

      Felix Rodriguez is another famed (infamous) graduate of the Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning and yet another of the most radical Cuban exiles tightly aligned with the Bush dynasty, which has never seemed very interested in the majority moderates within those ranks.

      Above is a famously sweet note that President George H. W. Bush wrote to Felix Rodriguez whose main infamy, aside from his closeness to the Bush clan, is his key role (below) in the assassination of Che Guevara in Bolivia in 1967 and his primary involvement with Oliver North in the Iran-Contra scandal.

      Felix Rodriguez, now in his early 70s, remains one of the most influential power-brokers in Miami. Not coincidentally, he has had uniquely close, decades-old friendships with George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Jeb Bush.

    The above photo shows President George H. W. Bush (seated) meeting with his two definitive choices as the leaders of the Cuban exiles; Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is on the left with Jorge Mas Canosa directly at her left. The Bush dynasty (George H. W., George W., and Jeb) has never needed to explain why they have so mightily sanctioned only the most radical Cuban exiles and not the majority moderates, which great journalists such as Robert Parry consider a palpable warping of the democratic process.

Robert Parry 

     A Google search of the award-winning (AP, Newsweek, Bloomberg, etc.) journalist/author Robert Parry's plethora of anti-terrorism reports, such as "Bush's Hypocrisy: Cuban Terrorists," is an absolutely chilling experience. That essay by Parry detailing the Bush dynasty's incredible ties to Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch included this paragraph: "But there is nothing really new about these two terrorists (Carriles and Bosch) -- and other violent right-wing extremists -- getting protection from the Bush family. For three decades, both Bosch and Carriles have been under the Bush family's wing, starting with former President George H. W. Bush (who was CIA director when the airline bombing occurred in 1976) and including Florida Governor Jeb Bush and  president George W. Bush." (Parry wrote that essay on April 16, 2006).

Jorge Mas Canosa telling President Clinton how to support his anti-Castro policy

      The all-time most powerful Cuban-exile leader in Miami has been Jorge Mas Canosa, yet another star graduate (above, top) of the Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning. George H. W. Bush, as Vice-President in the Reagan administration, anointed Canosa as  the leader of the Cuban exiles, after which Canosa formed the Cuban-American National Foundation, created gravy trains such as  Radio-TV Marti, crafted the most pertinent congressional bills related to Cuba, became a billionaire in Miami, and was unchallenged, until his death at age 58 in 1997, when it came to anything pertaining to Cuba.  

     Until the decisive anointment by George H. W. Bush, Jorge Mas Canosa competed with two other famed Cuban exiles, Rafael Diaz-Balart and Rolando Masferrer, for leadership of the Cuban government-in-exile in Miami. Masferrer, on the left in the above photo (his brother is on the right) was head of the vile and infamous Masferrer Tigers as the brutal enforcer for the Batista dictatorship; Diaz-Balart, shown above in the center with the holstered pistol, was a key minister in the Batista dictatorship.  Miami's deadly internecine warfare eliminated Masferrer early on, with a car bomb in 1975.  Diaz-Balart didn't lose out till Vice President Bush anointed Canosa but Diaz-Balart remained a force. He, too, was a billionaire when he died of leukemia at age 79 in 2005 and two of his sons, Lincoln and Mario, were elected to the U. S. Congress from South Florida. Lincoln, amazingly, recently resigned his safe seat in the U. S. Congress to form another La Rosa Blanco (The White Rose) anti-Castro group in honor of his father; in January of 1959 Rafael Diaz-Balart had formed La Rosa Blanco as the very first anti-Castro organization in South Florida. 

      Rafael Diaz-Balart (top photo) was Fidel Castro's good buddy when they were law students at the University of Havana. And Rafael was the brother of Mirta Diaz-Balart, Fidel's first wife and the mother of his first child (bottom photo above). At the close of 2011 Mirta, whom Fidel divorced in 1955, is once again Fidel's friend and a frequent visitor to Cuba. Four of her nephews (the sons of Rafael) -- the two powerful politicians, a wealthy banker, and a nationally famed T-V anchor -- remain fiercely anti-Castro with heady visions of a post-Castro Cuba.

Naty Revuelta and daughter Alina Fernandez

      Naty Revuelta was considered the most beautiful socialite in Havana (married to a wealthy doctor) in 1955 when she had an extra-marital affair with Fidel Castro and gave birth to his only daughter, Alina. In 2011 Alina is an extremely wealthy Cuban exile in Miami where she hosts an anti-Castro radio show, writes her anti-Castro books and articles, and flies all across the country making anti-Castro speeches on college campuses at $7,000 a pop plus expenses. Meanwhile, Alina's mother, Naty, says to this day she remains madly in love with Fidel and she is also a frequent and welcomed visitor to Cuba.

Dalia Soto del Valle (Mrs. Fidel Castro)

     Meanwhile, Fidel -- aged 85 and still recovering from his near-fatal 2006 illness -- is married to his devoted wife Dalia, shown above in the baseball hat and below with one of the five sons (and his girlfriend) she has had with Fidel.  All this, I think you'll agree, makes the Cuban Revolution and its American repercussions resemble a soap opera, especially the epic As The World Turns. However, let's not get deterred from the prime theme of the seminal Cuban Revolution and its unending American aftermath. And that overriding theme is unmistakable: The Cuban Revolution spawned the first dictatorship on U. S. soil, namely in South Florida with Miami as its capital. And that salient fact, lest we forget, is best personified by Cubana Flight 455 -- especially when the decades prior to and after the 1976 bombing are factored into the enigmatic equation.

      Jim DeFede succeeded Edna Buchanan as South Florida's greatest investigative reporter and he later became the top columnist for the Miami Herald. He now is the top investigator reporter for CBS-4 Television in Miami. In what he must have known would be one of his final efforts for the Miami Herald, DeFede's column in June of 2005 is must reading for anyone rendering a judgment as to whether or not the overthrown Batista dictatorship in Cuba reconstituted itself in South Florida beginning in January of 1959. DeFede's very bold column was entitled: "Terror is Terror Whether It's in London or Cuba." Below, word for word, is that column:

      "Bodies were still being pulled from the wreckage Thursday when U. S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen issued a statement condemning what she called the 'barbaric' terrorist attack in London. 'The targeting of innocent lives is insidious and shows the utter disrespect that perpetrators of terror have for humanity,' the Miami Republican declared. 'Those who committed this callous act must know that our determination to neutralize terrorism is unshaken and that we will not yield in the face of such perfidy.'

         "Strong words. But where was the congresswoman's outrage when she came to the defense of Luis Posada Carriles, a man who bragged about masterminding a series of hotel bombings in Havana that killed an Italian tourist? A man suspected of blowing up a Cuban airliner?

           "Where was her desire to 'neutralize terrorism' when she pleaded two years ago with the president of Panama to release Pedro Remon, Guillermo Nova and Gaspar Jimenez? Those men, along with Posada, were convicted in Panama of endangering public safety, a charge stemming from an alleged plot to blow up a university center where Fidel Castro was scheduled to visit.

           "Ros-Lehtinen, along with fellow Reps. Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, quietly wrote to Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso asking that she pardon the four men. And in one of her last acts before leaving office, Moscoso did just that.

             "Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balarts defended the letter, which The Herald recently uncovered in Panama, saying the four men were being held 'under questionable legal and procedural circumstances.'

               "Ros-Lehtinen is currently vying to become the next chair of the House International Relations Committee, which would make her one of the leading voices in Congress on matters of foreign policy and the worldwide fight against terrorism.

                "But what moral authority can she bring to such a post when she helps individuals who many consider to be terrorists themselves? Remon, for example, pleaded guilty in 1986 of trying to blow up the Cuban Mission in New York.

                 "Nova, a member of the violent anti-Castro group Omega-7, was convicted in the 1976 bombing murder of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier. The verdict was overturned on appeal.

                 "Jimenez and another man served six years in prison after they tried to kidnap a Cuban diplomat in Mexico and killed his bodyguard instead. Federal prosecutors also indicted him for placing a bomb in the car of radio commentator Emilio Millan, who lost both of his legs in the blast. A new U. S. attorney quashed the indictment, citing problems with a witness.

                   "And finally, there is Posada.

                   "How is placing bombs in hotels and restaurants in Havana any different from placing bombs on trains and buses in London?

                   "Posada -- who denied blowing up the Cubana jetliner -- bragged to the press about the Havana hotel bombings.

                 "When his bragging caused problems for his supporters in Miami, he recanted. Today he won't discuss the bombings.

                   "I wanted to talk to Ros-Lehtinen. Friday morning I called her press secretary and explained precisely what I was working on. He said he would get back to me, but I never heard from him or the congresswoman, despite subsequent calls.

                   "Ros-Lehtinen's efforts on behalf of these four men shouldn't have surprised anyone. When she first ran for Congress, she came to the aid of another Cuban militant, Orlando Bosch, and it helped get her elected.

                   "But what wins elections in some parts of Miami will likely smack of hypocrisy elsewhere. 

                   "Either you believe that terrorism is barbaric or you don't. Either you believe those who commit such acts disrespect humanity or you don't.

                    "The nobility of your cause cannot be a justification for terror, because every terrorist believes that what he is doing is right.

                    "Which is why the only way to fight terrorism is to condemn it in all its forms and not just when it is politically convenient."

         I asked and received Jim DeFede's permission to use his column in its entirety. I also asked him if he felt the column got him fired at the Miami Herald. In an e-mail I received back from him today (Dec. 7-2011) DeFede wrote: "No, I don't believe that column resulted in my firing. I think there are many reasons for my firing. And yes I do believe the fact that I was willing to take controversial stands that alienated both my bosses and different interest groups in the community played a role in my firing. But no single column was the cause."

 Mireya Moscoso

     You'll recall that Jim DeFede documented that Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers, as members of the U. S. Congress from Miami, persuaded Panama's president, Mireya Moscoso, to free Posada, Remon, Jimenez, and Nova from prison in her country. It should be noted that Moscoso is the widow of former Panamanian president Arnulfo Arias and that accounted for her becoming Panama's president from 1999 to 2004. She was considered a puppet of the Bush administration and had strong ties to the most radical Cuban exiles in Miami, where her primary home was even when she was president of Panama. Moscoso graduated from Miami-Dade Community College with a major in interior design. From beginning to end, her presidency in Panama was mired in scandal. In 1999 she quickly gave her top 72 aides Cartier watches and earrings worth "an estimated $146,000" according to Wikipedia and when it reached the press she declared she had paid for the gifts with her own money; numerous staff members were accused of "corruption scandals" but "none" were ever investigated. But Moscoso is best remembered for her final act of releasing the four Cuban exile militants back to Miami. Her successor in Panama, Martin Torrijos (a friend of Fidel Castro's as was his father, also a former Panamanian leader) was furious regarding the pardons but was unable to get any cooperation from the U. S. to get them overturned.

     DeFede mentioned in his epic 2005 column that Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, because of her longevity in the U. S. Congress from Miami, was about to become head of the Foreign Relations Committee, which, of course, has become a reality. Like all of the elite Cuban exiles in Miami with strong national influence, Ros-Lehtinen is a product of the Bush dynasty. Jeb Bush, in fact, was her Campaign Manager in 1989 on his way to his two-term governorship in Florida. DeFede mentioned Ros-Lehtinen's congressional bid received impetus from her strong defense of the notorious Orlando Bosch. Within a year of her election to Congress, President George H. W. Bush, at the request of Jeb Bush, pardoned Orlando Bosch from all U. S. charges that might have arisen against him, and the same cabal protected Bosch and Posada from foreign countries, and not just Cuba, that begged for them to be tried for the Cubana Flight 455 bombing. One thing that convinces some people that the so-called Batistiano dictatorship in Miami, like the Batista dictatorship in Cuba, is so firmly backed by the U. S. government is the fact that George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, Ros-Lehtinen, the Diaz-Balarts, etc., have never been hurt one iota by their close ties to the likes of Luis Posada Carriles. Thus Jeb Bush and the latest Cuban exile protege from Miami, Senator Mark Rubio, will be presidential and vice-presidential candidates, respectively, as early as 2012 but definitely by 2016. Anyone who has read Ann Louise Bardach's two truly brilliant Cuba Confidential books (detailing Jeb Bush's entry into South Florida politics and real estate shenanigans in 1989) might, I believe, ask themselves this question: "You mean he wasn't put in jail but went on to be elected twice as the governor of Florida?"  All of which reminds me of the final sentence in the Jim DeFede column: "The only way to fight terrorism is to condemn it in all its forms and not just when it is politically convenient." Jim DeFede, as a great journalist, is an anomaly in the U. S. today; a car bomb silenced Emilio Millan; and "mysterious deaths" ended the notable careers of Lisa Howard, Gary Webb, and many others in their journalistic prime.

      And, in their stead, the likes of Sean Hannity are now considered "journalists?" God help us newshounds. And the United States of America. And democracies all over the world. 

     So, who in the U. S. is left to weep for the little girl on Cubana Flight 455? Maybe Judy Jackson, the great journalist at the BBC in London. Anybody else?

A sister and mother were waiting in Havana for the return of Cubana Flight 455.

Declassified U. S. document first mentioning Posada Carriles and Bosch "as almost certain" masterminds of Cubana Flight 455 bombing

Eleven victims of the Cubana Flight 455 bombing.

      Memories as well as photos of Cubana Flight 455 will linger as long as generations of mourners and the history of Cuba and the United States exist. Cubana Flight 455 says more about the United States than it says about Cuba. And the prime thing it says is: The United States should support neither foreign dictatorships, like in Batista's Cuba, nor domestic dictatorships, like in Batistiano South Florida.

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Special Note

Melissa Lockhart Fortner

     I consider Melissa Lockhart Fortner to be the most diligent researcher and both the fairest and best columnist regarding the U. S. relationship with Cuba. She is senior Programs Officer for the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles and her articles on Cuba can be found at http://foreignpolicyblogs.com if you hit the "Americas/Cuba" icon at the top. Because of my respect for her expertise I asked her if she agrees or disagrees with my views regarding such things as Cubana Flight 455. Her reply: "Hello Rich (if I may) for...your insightful points about the uniquely interconnected nature of the United States and Cuba, given the exile community migration to Florida. You're quite right that this makes the relationship considerably  more complex than that with a country like Burma, and complex often means tangled -- in this case in a web of outdated policies that the United States finds itself unable to sort through." Note: The reason the Cuban issue is "considerably more complex" than, say, dealing with Burma or any other country is simply this: Cuba is the only nation in America's history in which an overthrown U. S. - backed dictatorship reconstituted itself on U. S. soil, namely South Florida. Ms. Fortner is thus correct when she concludes that the unique Cuban diaspora has, for over half a century, strangled the U. S. democracy "in a web of outdated policies that the United States finds itself unable to sort through." In other words, the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba was strong and lucrative, but not as strong nor as lucrative as the Batistiano dictatorship on U. S. soil. Cubana Flight 455 will always loom as a vibrant microcosm of that salient fact.

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Some Say Miami IS NOT a Dictatorship!

Edna Buchanan

     Edna Buchanan was born in 1939 in New Jersey and she started her journalism career in Miami, so it's safe to say she learned early in life about the Mafia in particular and crime in general. She became arguably the greatest crime journalist in American history and also one of America's most successful crime novelists. Her initial fame came in daily articles in crime-infested Miami as a reporter for the Miami Beach Daily Sun.  Soon her bravery and insightfulness were regularly featured in major articles for the Miami Herald and the Associated Press. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for her coverage of Miami crime. When she turned her unique expertise into writing crime books, she quickly won the Edgar Award in 1995 for "Miami, It's Murder."  In 2006 Billy Corben directed and Alfred Spellman produced a superb two-hour documentary entitled Cocaine Cowboys, which expertly chronicled the incredible dominance the drug cartels had over Miami in the 1970s and 1980s.  It explained that the banks, including the Federal Reserve in Miami, were literally overflowing with drug money, and even the so-called "legitimate" businesses were drug controlled or merely fronts for the drug trade. Appropriately, Cocaine Cowboys featured the expert knowledge of Edna Buchanan. The documentary's coda depicted Ms. Buchanan on a balcony with the truly beautiful Miami skyline in the background.  She gestured back over her left shoulder, pointing out how gorgeous it was, before sadly lamenting that it was financed with bushels of drug money and rivers of bright, red blood.

          The above photo shows a typical front-page article by Edna Buchanan in the Miami Herald as she led the chronicling of America's Batistiano Banana Republic, one whose speciality was car, boat, and airplane bombs. This article is dated May 1, 1976.  It began: "A bomb planted under the hood of his station wagon shattered the legs of the news director of radio station WQBA in Little Havana Friday night. Emilio Milian, 45, who had editorialized against terrorism and violence in Miami, stepped out of the station after a show, got into his WQBA car, turned on the ignition and the device detonated at 7:17 p.m. Late Friday doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital amputated both of Milian's legs."

     The car-bombing of Emilio Milian in 1976 is just one of many terrorist acts that has defined the reconstitution on U. S. soil of the overthrown Batista dictatorship in Cuba. At the time Emilio was the most popular newscaster in South Florida.  Despite threats, including unmistakable ones sent by earlier bomb victims, he railed against fellow Cuban exiles murdering innocent Cubans and then bragging about it in the Miami media.  His views were supported by the majority of Cuban exiles, but not by the far richer and more powerful fanatical fringe that controlled the dictatorship. Suffice to say, the bombing that maimed Emilio sent the desired message. Born in the little Cuban village of Sagua la Grande, Emilio quit medical school at the University of Havana to pursue his first love, radio broadcasting. He left Cuba with his wife and three children in 1965 to seek radio work in Miami. Like many truly decent and great journalists before him, such as Lisa Howard, and many after him, such as Gary Webb, Emilio's reporting on  America's first and only dictatorship resulted in tragedy.  His pleas, to stop the terrorism against innocent civilians and to stop bragging about it, was his undoing. As befits a Banana Republic, no one was ever charged with his bombing although Cuban exiles Gaspar Jimenez and Gustavo Castillo were openly hailed as the bombers. The legless Emilio lived on until his death on March 15, 2001, at age 69. The headline in the Miami Herald on March 16-2001 was: "EMILIO MILIAN, BROADCASTER WHO DENOUNCED TERRORISM, DIES."  The article, written by Liz Balmaseda, included these exact words: "At the height of his popularity, Milian frequently denounced terrorist bombings, saying the bombers were...criminals. But he also was the subject of constant death threats. A virtual state of siege existed at the Milian home, where his children had been warned about opening mail packages and talking to anonymous callers. The bomb that ripped off his legs proved powerful beyond the physical damage to Milian. Even now...no one has been prosecuted, even though the investigations of several agencies and witness testimony pointed to three suspects. Former U. S. Attorney Atlee Wampler obtained a four-count jury indictment on April 30, 1981, just hours before a five-year statute of limitations would lapse. But the suspects -- exiles Caspar Jimenez, Gustavo Castillo and an unnamed third person -- were never arrested. For reasons that remain unclear, Wampler's successor, Stanley Marcus, dismissed the indictments."  Before and after the Milian bombing, FOR REASONS THAT REMAIN UNCLEAR has been the phrase that journalists and historians have used over and over again to describe Cuban exile terrorism related to Miami, words analogous to any two-bit Banana Republic dictatorship. And the Milian bombing, once and for all, chilled freedom of expression in Miami and, in the eyes of many, cemented the transfer of the Batista dictatorship from Cuba to the United States. FOR REASONS THAT REMAIN UNCLEAR. In fact, those reasons are quite clear and the U. S. democracy should be strong enough to confront that reality, but apparently it is not.  

      Yes, America...since January of 1959 a perfidious Banana Republic dictatorship, much richer and more powerful than Fulgencio Batista and Meyer Lansky ever dreamed of in Cuba, has existed on U. S. soil.

Fulgencio Batista, 1936

      Fulgencio Batista, an undistinguished army sergeant (notable only for his already-cultivated ties with the Mafia in South Florida) became Cuba's dictator in a 1934 coup known as The Revolt of the Sergeants. Antonio Guiteras, a decent and very popular rival, was brutally murdered in Matanzas in 1935. All other rivals, real or perceived, met the same fate as Guiteras. Batista, strongly supported by the Communist Party of Cuba, actually won a rigged election that made him President of Cuba in 1940. The United States, the overall dominant force on the island since the 1898 Spanish-American War, strongly supported the murderous Batista because, with hefty kick-backs, he sold out as readily to U. S. capitalists as he did to his Mafia friends from South Florida.

       Therefore, as pictured above, Batista was a superstar at events such as Armistice parades in Washington, D. C., as the U. S. government tried to convince the American taxpayers that their friend in Cuba was a decent leader. From 1934 till 1944 Batista fleeced so much money from the island via those Mafia and U. S. kickbacks that he actually had trouble banking it in Swiss numbered accounts and in the Mafia strongholds of Miami and Union City (NJ). In 1944 Batista allowed Grau San Martin to ascend to the Presidency while the little sergeant mostly counted his money and kept tabs on the businesses and mansions he kept buying in South Florida. Soon, he moved into his favorite mansion in Daytona Beach while still trying to manage his money spigot in Cuba. In the early 1950s Batista didn't even mind that an old rival, Carlos Prio Socorras, had become Cuba's President in an almost fair election.

Meyer Lansky

     Batista's all-time best friend was Meyer Lansky, the Mafia's Jewish mastermind and financial genius. Even with Batista's sojourn to South Florida beginning in 1944, both men were still raking in Cuban cash and living high on the hog in South Florida.

Photo courtesy: Brule Laker

      The above photo shows Meyer Lansky's home in Hallendale Beach, one of his favorite retirement mansions in South Florida. By this time the Mafia kingpin was reportedly worth $300 million but he had not been satisfied when his dear friend Batista moved back to South Florida and slowed the money spigot in Cuba. At the start of 1952 Lansky told Batista, "Both you and I have enough money that anyone with our bloodlines will all be rich for the next thousand years. But I've always wanted to own my own country. That's why I want you back in Cuba."

      The above photo, taken from the epic Godfather movie, shows the Meyer Lansky-inspired character Hyman Roth telling the Michael Corleone character about how he always wanted to own his own country, namely Cuba. The real Meyer Lansky actually made that statement to his best friend Fulgencio Batista. That wish by the Mafia kingpin significantly advanced the future reality of a dictatorship on U. S. soil.

       Meyer Lansky on U. S. soil never had any worries about going to prison even though it was well known he was the prime Mafia instigator of drug smuggling, pornography, prostitution, gambling, and extortion rackets. In 1970 the U. S. government estimated Lansky was worth $300 million and there were suggestions in Congress that he at least should pay income taxes.  After reading that pertinent suggestion in his newspaper, Lansky fled briefly to Israel, till his associates paid off the proper people and all charges against him were dropped in 1973. He died of natural causes (lung cancer) on May 15, 1983, as one of the leading citizens in Miami Beach, Florida. At his death, Meyer Lansky was worth approximately $450 million, much of it thanks to his associations with Fulgencio Batista in both South Florida and Cuba.  From 1959 to 1983, much of the Lansky fortune was spent trying to kill Fidel Castro or in repeated Mafia/Cuban exile/U. S. government bids to recapture Cuba. 

"I'm backkkkkk!"

      Strongly prodded by Meyer Lansky, Fulgencio Batista returned to Cuba and on March 10, 1952 -- almost twenty years after the Revolt of the Sergeants -- his coup overthrew the government of Carlos Prio Socorras and created the second Batista-Mafia (and U. S. - backed) dictatorship in Cuba. Very quickly, the U. S. (on March 27, 1952) officially recognized the Batista/Mafia dictatorship and lavishly heralded its official return. The timing was inauspicious for Cuba and for a popular and very energetic young anti-Batista lawyer who had envisioned a democratic Cuba that would include him.

Fidel Castro; April, 1952: Candidate for a democratic election in Cuba

      The second Batista coup took place three months before what Cubans were told would be an honest election on the island, an election in which a popular young lawyer, Fidel Castro, had already filed the appropriate papers to be a candidate for a judicial position. Batista -- backed by the Mafia, the Communist Party of Cuba, and the United States -- canceled the election, of course, because he well knew he could never win anything that even resembled an honest election. In 1959 Fidel reminisced back to March of 1952 as he told the famed journalist Carlos Franqui, "I guess Batista and the United States educated me that month about guns, money, and democracy."  Franqui said, "How so?"  Fidel replied, "Guns and money trump democracy, so why waste your time pretending that is not so?"

      Shortly after Batista's pernicious March-1952 coup canceled the promised democratic election in Cuba, the young lawyer and political hopeful Fidel Castro took off his suit and tie, stopped parting his hair on the left side, grew a beard, and began showing how much he had learned about guns trumping democracy.  That education and that resolve would, seven years later, spawn a new and different dictatorship in Cuba and, even more significantly, the first ever dictatorship on U. S. soil.

Santo Trafficante Jr.

      Next to Meyer Lansky, Fulgencio Batista's best friend in his South Florida Mafia circles was Santo Trafficante Jr. He was born in Tampa to Sicilian Santo Trafficante Sr., who died of natural causes in 1954 when he was the undisputed Mafia kingpin in Tampa.  Jr., even more bloodthirsty than his father, took over that role and became the #3 man in the Batista-Lansky dictatorship in Cuba. As Lansky concentrated on building Cuba's burgeoning drug operations, Trafficante Jr. took over the syndicate-owned gambling casinos in Cuba -- including the Hotel Habana Riviera, the Tropicana Club, the Capri Hotel Casion, the Sans Souci, the Sevilla-Biltmore, the Commodoro, the Deauville, and the Havana Hilton. All the while Trafficante Jr. maintained close Mob ties to the Bonanno family in New York City and to Mafia kingpins Sam Giancana in Chicago and Carlos Marcello in New Orleans. In addition to kickbacks to Batista, Trafficante Jr. was responsible for paying off the Bonanno, Giancana, and Marcello operations. He also made Havana the prostitution center of the Caribbean as well as the dominant drug and gambling hub in the Americas. 

     Like his father and most Mafia bosses, Santo Trafficante Jr. lived out his long life without ever having spent a day in a U. S. prison.    

      One thing Al Capone, Trafficante Sr., Trafficante Jr., and all the Mafia bosses had in common was to incessantly complain about how much money they had to pay lawyers as well as Police Chiefs, Governors, Congressmen, etc., to stay out of U. S. prisons. Thus, some mob lawyers became almost as famous as their main clients. The photo above shows Tampa Bay/Havana Mafia boss Trafficante Jr. (center) toasting New Orleans/Dallas Mafia boss Carlos Marcello (to his right) and their famed lawyer Frank Ragano (to his left). Ragano would later reveal that Trafficante and Marcello not only financed terrorist and assassination attacks on Castro's Cuba but both of his prime Mobster clients powerfully targeted both John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy for assassinations in the 1960s.

       If Trafficante Jr. and Marcello -- along with Giancana and Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa -- were not directly involved in the heart-wrenching assassinations of the Kennedy brothers in the 1960s, it is only because someone else beat them to it. That is not a conspiracy theory because Ragano's claim is backed up by key members of the Bonanno family in New York, by famed undercover FBI agent Joe Pistone (alias "Donnie Brasco"), and even by the declassified CIA "Family Jewels" documents finally released in 2007.  Also, Mob Lawyer: Frank Ragano published by Random House in 1996 is an interesting read.

      While it is true that Mafia thug Santo Trafficante Jr. typically never served a day in prison in the U. S., he did spend two weeks in a Cuban prison in January of 1959. That's because, totally sure he could buy Cuba's new leader Fidel Castro for the Mafia just as the ousted Batista had been bought, Trafficante Jr. didn't flee the island with the other Batistiano leaders on January 1, 1959. He stayed behind and made an offer, 40% Mafia kickbacks, that he thought Fidel couldn't turn down. Fidel not only summarily turned down the offer, he tossed Trafficante Jr. in prison. Che Guevara, in charge of the La Habana Fortress trials of the captured Batista leaders, sentenced Trafficante Jr. to death by firing squad.

Celia Sanchez & Che Guevara

     Celia Sanchez, the prime decision-maker in Revolutionary Cuba (always fully supported by Fidel Castro) over-ruled the Che-orchestrated death sentence for Trafficante Jr.  The pragmatic Celia did that as a favor, not to the Mafia, but to the U. S. government, which she hoped would come to accept both Cuba's sovereignty and its new leadership.  Releasing Trafficante Jr. back to his Mafia roots in South Florida was one of the few major decisions Celia regretted making, as she confessed years later to friends Marta Rojas and Nora Peters. Oddly enough, just prior to over-ruling Che regarding Trafficante Jr., Celia had actually fired the lawyer Fidel as the Chief Prosecutor of the Batistianos because she felt he was "far too soft in his treatment of the child killers."  That's when the doctor Che in Havana and Fidel's brother Raul in Santiago de Cuba became the two key prosecutors of the Batistianos. Che and Raul, not Fidel and Celia, have taken most of the historic heat for the up-to-700 executions of Batista associates in the days following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

Marta Rojas; legendary journalist, author, and revolutionary

      Marta Rojas -- the greatest living expert on Celia, Fidel and Cuba (she is a healthy 82) -- once remarked: "Celia, the child-loving doctor's daughter, was angelic, except when it came to those she called Batistianos."  

Roberto Salas; renowned Cuban photographer and author 

      Roberto Salas -- the second greatest living expert on Celia, Fidel and Cuba -- stated in his book The Pictorial History of the Cuban Revolution: "Celia made all the decisions for Cuba, the big ones and the small ones."  

      The inimitable Marta Rojas also told me in a 2005 email: "Since Celia died of cancer in 1980, Fidel has ruled Cuba only as he precisely believes Celia would want him to rule it."  

     If you study and comprehend the aforementioned three quotations, I believe you will better understand why Celia Sanchez later  concluded that her decision to release Trafficante Jr. from his Cuban prison and Che's firing squad was among the biggest regrets of her life. They also help to demystify the transfer of the Batista dictatorship to U. S. soil, especially when aligned with a sentence Celia Sanchez wrote in a 1973 letter to her American friend Nora Peters: "If nothing else, we chased the Batista and Mafia criminals to Miami and, I believe, it's the first indigenous dictatorship on American soil, or am I wrong, Nora?"  

      Above is the only mug shot ever taken of Santo Trafficante Jr. -- this one by the Tampa sheriff's department on May 19, 1954. However, his lawyer Frank Ragano got him released the same day and their friends at the Florida Supreme Court quickly dismissed all charges before his scheduled trial.  After Celia Sanchez, of all people, released Trafficante Jr. from his Cuban prison in January of 1959, he was instrumental in relocating the Batistiano capital from Havana to Miami, thereby creating the first-ever dictatorship on U. S. soil, one that continues to this very day.

      Reminiscent of other Banana Republics, America's tells Americans what to believe and not believe.  Thus, Americans are often told that Batista's Cuba in the 1950s was one of Latin America's wealthiest countries. That's like saying that, between them, Bill Gates and the man living under the bridge are worth $50 billion, implying that each man, including the penny-less man under the bridge, is worth about $25 billion.  But photos are often worth a thousand words and capable of superseding a thousand lies. The above photo from 1954 depicts the real story of Batista's Cuba. Notice the Mafia casino going up in the background overlooking a helplessly poor Cuban family. Or, better yet, check the History Channel documentary entitled Declassified: The Godfathers of Havana. It states that the Cuban majority in the 1950s went to bed hungry at night and repeatedly it showed a malnourished young mother trying unsuccessfully to nurse her infant. And the documentary shows black-and-white film of Cubans being beaten with baseball bats in the streets of Havana...as well as huge ships in the harbor loaded with cocaine bound for Miami. But the dichotomy between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, was not what created the Cuban Revolution that ousted the Batista-Mafia dictatorship on the island of Cuba.

      And it wasn't the ubiquitous Batista firing squads, like the one shown above, that spawned the anti-Batista Cuban Revolution.

      The death knell for the Batista dictatorship in Cuba, and its reconfiguration in South Florida, was the unconscionable series of murders directed at Cuban children as a warning for the peasants on the island not to resist. The embers of the revolutionary fire were lit by Cuban women, outraged over the murders of their children, who courageously took to the streets with massive anti-Batista marches that soon resonated across the island, across the Caribbean, across Latin America, and even touched some hearts in America. So, the child murders represent the biggest mistake Batista, the Mafia, and the United States ever made on the island of Cuba. One such murder, in particular, reshaped Cuba, South Florida, and America.  

      Celia Sanchez, a 99-pound doctor's daughter from the little eastern Cuban town of Media Luna, was a minor player in the anti-Batista underground in 1952. And then she and her father Manuel began to hear that little peasant girls were being kidnapped and taken to the plush casino/hotels to be lures for rich pedophiles.  At the start of 1953 Celia determined that Maria Ochoa, a ten-year-old peasant girl she loved, had been legally kidnapped and raped to death in a casino/hotel. That seminal event transformed the doctor's daughter from her  minor role to becoming the most important player in the Cuban Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba.

Frank Pais

      Frank Pais, the young school teacher, was by far the most important male in the anti-Batista underground.

 Frank Pais funeral march in Santiago de Cuba

      But Frank Pais as well as his baby brother Jesus were captured and gruesomely murdered by Batista's police in Santiago de Cuba. 

Celia Sanchez

Pedro Alvarez Tabio

     The Murder of Frank Pais later prompted this salient quotation from the great Cuban historian Pedro Alvarez Tabio: "If Batista had managed to kill Celia Sanchez anytime between 1953 and 1957 there would have been no viable Cuban Revolution, and no revolution for Fidel and Che to join."  That's because, over and above the macho men of the revolution, no one matched the overall determination, intelligence, courage, organizational ability, and recruiting skills (of rebels and supplies) of the doctor's daughter from Media Luna. American history registers the fact that the murders of four little girls in a Birmingham church did more to defeat the racist cause of their killers than anything else. American history can also register the fact that the murder of peasant children in Batista's Cuba, especially ten-year-old Maria Ochoa, did more to defeat the cause of Batista, the Mafia, and the United States on the island of Cuba than anything else. It also remains the underlying cause for the resulting emergence of the first dictatorship on U. S. soil.

William Soler Pediatric Hospital in Cuba

      The three Cuban children in the above photo, standing in front of their doctors, have received life-saving liver transplants at the William Soler Pediatric Hospital in Cuba.

      These two female Cuban doctors at the William Soler Pediatric Hospital in Cuba are working hard to save the life of that Cuban baby in the bassinet.  One thing that hurts their effort is the U. S. Congress's Helms-Burton Bill, which unbiased Cuban experts such as Ann Louise Bardach will tell you was written not by the two right-wing congressmen for whom it is named but by the Batistiano dictators in Miami, who jetted up to D. C. to wildly celebrate its passing. Via the dictates of the Helms-Burton Bill, which every democracy-loving American should be ashamed of, the U. S. has fined American companies and foreign companies for such things as selling baby aspirin or needed hospital instruments to Cuba; Cuban diplomats in countries like Mexico and Norway have been kicked out of hotels because those hotels were partially owned by U. S. companies that are forced to comply with the Helms-Burton Bill; this summer England's biggest warship sailed into Havana Harbor on a good-will mission that thrilled the Cuban people but, because of the Helms-Burton Bill, that British warship, while in the area, was not permitted to pay a good-will mission to a U. S. port because it had stopped over in Havana; the executives of a Canadian company, as well as their spouses and children, are not allowed in the U. S. because that company does business with Cuba, etc., etc.  The Helms-Burton Bill is designed solely to appease the ancient revenge motives of a handful of anti-Castro Cuban exiles while it punishes the rest of the people all around the world, including that Cuban baby in the above photo that those Cuban doctors are trying to save.

      And, oh yes...the William Soler Pediatric Hospital in Cuba is named for little Willie Soler, who was murdered, along with his three schoolmates, in Batista's Cuba. As depicted in many books, including Georgie Anne Geyer's seminal Castro biography, the four little bodies were left in an abandoned warehouse as a warning for the adults in that community not to resist the Batista/Mafia dictatorship. Willie's mother and 500 other women famously and bravely conducted anti-Batista marches in both Havana and Santiago de Cuba. They are the ones who ignited and coalesced the Cuban Revolution. Because of his courageous mother, little Willie Soler today has a major hospital in Cuba named after him. And it does outstanding work, despite the quintessence of evil otherwise known as the Helms-Burton Bill.   

     The nearby cities of Miami and Havana have been the fiercely competitive capitals of the two well-defined Banana Republic dictatorships, South Florida and Cuba, since January of 1959. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines dictatorship as: "A form of government in which absolute power is concentrated in a dictator or a small clique."  It defines a Banana Republic as: A small dependent country, usually in the tropics; especially one run despotically."  Note: I define South Florida as the area from St. Petersburg in the north to Key West in the south, with Miami as its capital; the rest of Florida, with Tallahassee as its capital, remains a part of the democratic United States of America although even that was highly questionable during the eight years Batistiano-aligned Jeb Bush was Florida's governor and George W. Bush was America's president.

 

     Banana Republic dictatorships once dominated the Caribbean and Latin America but by the mid-1980s governments that actually could be defined as democracies came into vogue. Thus, in the fading days of 2011 the two that best conform to the aforementioned definitions of a Banana Republic dictatorship are South Florida and Cuba. Any halfway serious aficionado of U. S. - Cuban relations could easily provide another thousand examples on another hundred pages of why South Florida, with Miami as its capital, is a classic Banana Republic dictatorship. However, if I did that I would have to forgo my other three pastimes -- riding my ATV, reading David McCullough's historical biographies, and devouring anything pertaining to  baseball even in wintertime.  So, this aficionado will absolutely prove that Miami/South Florida is an epic Banana Republic dictatorship via the use of just three words: "Cubana Flight 455."

Cubana Flight 455 (actual photo)

     The fate of Cubana Flight 455, coupled with its historic prelude and ongoing aftermath, is actually (all alone) proof- positive that South Florida, with Miami as its capital, is a Banana Republic dictatorship by anyone's definition -- including mine, yours, and...Merriam-Webster's. Therefore, the next posting will be entitled "Cubana Flight 500".  Obfuscations, both the cowardly and self-serving ones -- such as confining Cubana Flight 500 to the dustbins of history -- do not serve the U. S. democracy well. Facts and transparency do.  

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

Note: This particular essay on Ana Margarita Martinez was first posted on Cubaninsider on November 2nd, 2011. Yet, for some reason, over a thousand people in one DAY dialed it up on February 20th, 2021!!! Soooo...here is a replay.

Ana Margarita Martinez

     Born in Havana, Ana Margarita Martinez flowered into a beautiful woman...IN MIAMI! 

 Ana Margarita Martinez had a beautiful wedding...in Miami.

Juan Pablo Roque

Juan Pablo Roque became Ana Margarita's new husband. 

Juan Pablo Roque

     Juan Pablo Roque, a former pilot in the Cuban Air Force and a dear friend of Fidel Castro, was married to Ana Margarita Martinez for seven years in Miami. But like a lot of men, doggone it, Juan cheated on Ana...not with other women but with phone calls back to Havana, sometimes to Fidel himself. You see, Juan was a spy for Cuba in the very heart of anti-Fidel country -- Miami!  His beautiful Cuban-exile wife, Ana, helped him fit into the  Miami community, tight as a Rawlings baseball glove fits one's hand.

     And Juan Pablo Roque was a real good spy. The above photo shows him after he had become friends with Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the U. S. congresswoman from Miami who (for God's sake!) happens to be the most anti-Fidel person on the planet! Ileana, of course, had something in common with Juan and Ana -- they were all born in Havana but gained fame in Miami. (Carl Hiaasen, the famous Miami Herald columnist and best-selling author, swears not everyone in Miami was born in Havana so I'll take his word for it but Ana, Ileana, and Juan were). Juan's job in Miami, in addition to being married to the beautiful Ana, was to keep Cuba informed of the undertakings of Brothers to the Rescue, Jose Basulto's non-profit operation that flew airplanes over the waters between Florida and Cuba, presumably to rescue endangered would-be Cuban defectors bound for Florida.

Jose Basulto

     In the U. S. Jose Basulto and Brothers have been heralded as humanitarian wonders. In Cuba (and elsewhere) Basulto is considered a prime anti-Cuban terrorist who still brags about CIA-backed sabotage missions to Cuba even prior to the April-1961 Bay of Pigs attack. In any case, when the Clinton administration was set to normalize relations with Cuba, Basulto's planes not only flew into Cuban waters but over Havana itself, dropping leaflets, etc. and scaring citizens. Aware that he had no problem from U. S authorities, Basulto even took media people on some of his flights. Cuba begged the U. S. and then the U. N. to stop the flights, to no avail. (The U. S. allows Batistianos to make all its rules relating to Cuba and the U. S. has a veto in the U.N.). Brothers representatives used the Miami media to taunt Cuba, saying it had neither the courage nor the means to do anything about the overflights and, in any case, would be too afraid of U. S. retaliation if it dared to harm them. Hearing all that himself, and realizing Cuba did in fact plan to do something on its own after the U. S. and the U. N. ignored its pleas, Juan  flew back to Havana, leaving Ana in Miami.

      Two days after Juan arrived back in Havana, Fidel (as he admitted to Dan Rather and others) ordered the young Perez-Perez brothers to take two MIG jets into the skies to meet a trio of Brothers planes flying toward Cuba, with Basulto flying the lead plane. Two of the Brothers' planes were shot down, killing the four occupants. Basulto's plane returned safely to Miami. As Fidel has stated he knew it would, the provocation worked perfectly for the Batistianos and against Cuba because the downing of the Brothers' planes quickly altered President Clinton's plans 360 degrees -- from normalization to signing the Helms-Burton Bill, which to this day remains the most anti-Cuban and anti-America's-best-friends (because it punishes them too) portion of the infamous U. S. embargo against Cuba, which has been in effect since 1962. The U. S., using that bill, routinely fines international banks hundreds of millions of dollars for doing any business with Cuba, and the banks pay up because they must continue to deal with the world's economic giant. Norway is still livid at the U. S. for forcing a Cuban delegation, officially invited to Norway, to be evicted from its hotel in Oslo because the hotel was partially owned by U. S. interests. A heated editorial in the Oslo main newspaper strongly advised the U. S. to "keep your imperialist bullying out of our democratic country and try bullying a big boy like China with your genocide against little Cuba." Elected officials in Norway have been a lot harsher although some pro-American elected officials in Norway have wondered aloud (with a parliamentary statement) how in the world "a country as great and strong as the U. S. can allow a few exiles to harm their former country and the rest of the world at the same time." The Helms-Burton Bill was reportedly written by history's all-time most powerful anti-Fidel Cuban-exile Jorge Mas Canosa.  (For details on that subject you should check the prolific writings of brilliant experts such as Ann Louise Bardach, Peter Kornbluh, and Wayne S. Smith). But Helms-Burton is still in effect, supposedly with a provision that it can never be legislatively changed,  angering everybody (yes, as far away as Norway and beyond) except the most belligerent Cuban exiles as evidenced by last month's vote in the UN by all the world's nations. But, hey, let's forget politics and get back to our intriguing love story....

     The historic episode, the shoot-down of the two Brothers' planes, instantly made a celebrity out of Ana Margarita Martinez in Miami and Juan Pablo Roque in Havana. An AP reporter stationed in Havana asked Juan what he missed most about Miami. He had a quick two-word reply, and it wasn't Ana Margarita! Juan replied (true story), "MY JEEP!!" As befits a cheater like Juan, the scorned little woman got to keep his prized jeep and the photo above shows Ana with that very jeep, the love of Juan's life. But, like any jilted woman born in Havana and raised in Miami, Ana didn't stop there...no way! She wrote one book about her celebrity and is now writing a second one. She, of course, has an agent who is also busy shopping her story around Hollywood. But the main payoff for Ana involves one of the most undemocratic nuances of the U. S. embargo against Cuba: The inclusion of Cuba on the short U. S. list of Nations That Sponsor Terrorism. The U. S. government, the majority of Americans, and the majority of people around the world don't think Cuba, the well-known victim of countless terror attacks emanating from Florida, should be on any list as a sponsor of terror. Juan as well as the famed Cuban Five (imprisoned for decades in the U. S.) were in Miami to try to prevent such terror attacks as the downing of the child-laded Cuban airliner in Oct.-1976 that killed all 73 aboard) and, in fact, they provided their information first-off to the U. S. FBI.  However, a small cabal of the most vehement anti-Fidel Cuban exiles makes all the U. S. rules relating to Cuba, so that's why (yes, it's the only reason) Cuba is on America's list of the four nations that sponsor terror. (The Batistiano-aligned George W. Bush administration removed real terrorist sponsors like (the late) Gaddafi's Libya while it greatly strengthened the penalties against Cuba simply to appease Miami). Having Cuba on the Terror list means anyone can sue Cuba for absolutely anything in U. S. courtrooms, including those in Miami, and Cuba is never even represented in such lucrative farces. The families of the downed Brothers' pilots received hundreds of millions of dollars in that fashion. The families of Cubans killed in the Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba have similarly received millions of dollars.  (The families of the 34 Japanese killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor have not been allowed to sue in U. S. courts, of course, because no ousted Japanese dictatorship has ever reconstituted itself on U. S. soil). The Cuban government doesn't pay the money but the U. S. government, thanks to things like the Helms-Burton Bill, has to support the verdicts so it uses frozen Cuban assets, such as the money Cuba is due for A T & T-taxed phone calls between the two nations, the same type money that Canada and Mexico routinely receive.  And the U. S. government forces banks that have Cuban money to turn it over to those anti-Cuban verdicts. (Even international banks comply because those banks must continue dealing with the U. S., the world's dominant financial power). Thus, both Jose Basulto and Ana Margarita Martinez knew a good thing -- a Miami courtroom -- when they saw it. After the families sued and actually received countless millions, Basulto sued and, guess what? He won big! (Uh, remember, Basulto was well represented but Cuba was not represented at all).  So, of course, Ana sued, accusing Cuba (not Juan) of rape. She, of course, won -- $7.175 million in personal damages and $20 million in punitive damages. If you add that up, Ana won $27.175 million. I assume it's the first time in history that a country has been successfully sued for raping a woman but perhaps it has happened in some other similar Banana Republic courtrooms that I am not aware of.  Anyway, because so many plaintiffs successfully preceded Ana, Cuba's frozen assets have been depleted several times but with such things as telephone calls to and from Cuba those assets are still accruing, as every lawyer and every Cuban American in Miami well knows. So Ana's $27.175 million is getting there; she has even been awarded -- uh, this is true -- three Cuban airplanes that somehow ended up in South Florida. And, uh, Ana's lawyers in 2011 have notified all of the new U. S. airlines the Obama administration now allows to fly to and from Cuba that they must pay a percentage of each ticket to...Ana! Now, before I put this U. S. - Cuban reality story to bed, glance, if you will, back up at the above photo. It shows Ana Margarita Martinez with Juan Pablo Roque's fondest memory of Miami -- and it's his beloved jeep, not Ana!  That jeep continues to make me feel sorry for Juan.

     And glance once again at the beautiful and happy Ana. Any woman who has had a divorce settlement in which her husband was never represented and his country was never represented would smile like that, don't you think?  "Only in America," you say. Yes true, but don't forget this caveat. "Only in America since January of 1959 when the ousted Batista dictatorship in Cuba was reconstituted in Miami." Prior to that, on U. S. democratic soil, both sides were represented in court proceedings. But, let's don't dwell on Banana Republic politics...because I can't get over what a beautiful smile Ana has. What was Juan thinking when he said the thing he missed most in Miami was his Jeep? His Jeep! Are you telling me he didn't miss ...that smile?

     And one more thing {pardon my loquaciousness, but U. S. - Cuban stories are hard to put down, especially when they are true}. Remember I said that Ana's agents right now are negotiating a lucrative movie contract about her life? I'll let you decide who you think should play Juan, Ileana, Fidel, and Jose but I've made up my mind that the only Hollywood actress beautiful enough, Latino enough, talented enough, and audacious enough to play Ana is...we need a drumroll here...Michelle Rodriguez! So let's gets it done: Michelle playing Ana!!

Michelle Rodriguez starring in "The Country That Raped Me!"

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